Church and Scripture: meaning and judgment
How do literary form, the rule of faith and the Church’s judgment shape the reading of Scripture?
Questions worth exploring
Research Topics
Begin with a question. Read the historical witnesses, follow their context, and compare how Christians have understood them.
Find a question
41 research topics, arranged by subject.
Scripture and tradition
Unwritten apostolic tradition: worship and transmission
What can unwritten practices tell us about apostolic tradition and its transmission?
Development: continuity and change
When does a clearer explanation preserve the faith, and when does it alter what was received?
Old Testament canon: lists, categories and reception
Compare early book lists, reading categories and later confessions before drawing conclusions from their totals.
New Testament: early lists and disputed books
Read Eusebius and Athanasius on books received, disputed or read for instruction.
Church, councils and authority
Roman primacy: honor and jurisdiction
What did Rome’s early standing mean, and how does it relate to later claims of universal jurisdiction?
When is a council ecumenical? Recognition and reception
How do Christians recognize an ecumenical council, and what part does reception play?
Constantinople: New Rome, rank and jurisdiction
Compare the canons granting New Rome precedence with Leo’s objections and their disputed reception.
Synodality, collegiality and primacy
Read historical rules of episcopal consent alongside later accounts of synods and primacy.
Can a council have authority over a pope?
What do Constance and Lateran V establish about councils, emergencies and papal authority?
Apostolic succession: office, faith and communion
How do episcopal office, faithful teaching and communion belong together in apostolic succession?
Episcopal appeals: review, retrial and final authority
Distinguish review and retrial of a bishop’s case from later claims of final judicial authority.
Honorius: condemnation and infallibility
Read Honorius’s letters and conciliar condemnation alongside later claims about papal infallibility.
The Three Chapters and Constantinople II
Constantinople II’s condemnation, Vigilius’s correction, and the claim of continuity with Chalcedon.
The councils of 869 and 879
Compare the condemnation of Photios’s supporters in 869–870 with the transmitted reconciliation of 879–880, and distinguish that settlement from later Catholic and Orthodox council lists.
God and Christ
Nicaea: why use homoousios?
Why did Nicaea use a word outside Scripture to confess the Son’s relation to the Father?
Holy Spirit: divine, not a creature
Follow the arguments for the Spirit’s divine life and worship, while distinguishing the persons of the Trinity.
Chalcedon: two natures without two persons
Read Chalcedon’s confession alongside the language and concerns of Christians who disputed its reception.
Christ: why a human mind?
Why does Gregory of Nazianzus insist that Christ assumed a human mind as well as a human body?
Christ: two natural wills without division
How can Christ’s human will be fully real without dividing him into two persons?
Theotokos as a Christological title
What does calling Mary “Mother of God” say about the identity of her Son?
The Spirit's procession: the Filioque question
Distinguish the Spirit’s eternal origin from the separate question of adding words to the Creed.
Ransom, sacrifice, satisfaction and victory
Gregory, Aquinas and named Catholic and Orthodox readings on the meaning of Christ’s saving death.
Christ’s descent to Hades: proclamation and liberation
John of Damascus and Aquinas on proclamation, liberation and the differing effects of Christ’s descent.
Grace, salvation and the life to come
Grace: where does the first good will begin?
Compare Augustine and Cassian on the first movement of faith, divine help and human willing.
After death: purification and suffrages
Read Augustine on purification and prayer for the dead, then consider later Catholic and Orthodox accounts.
Resurrection: the embodied person
What remains the same when the body is raised, and what does its transformation mean?
Adam: inherited sin, death and personal fault
Compare Augustine and Chrysostom on Romans 5, inherited sin, mortality and personal responsibility.
Predestination, foreknowledge and freedom
John of Damascus, Aquinas and Dositheus on foreknowledge, grace, free response and reprobation.
Prayer, saints and worship
Icons: veneration and divine worship
Consider the Incarnation, the relation of image to prototype, and the distinction between honour and worship.
Saints, intercession and the living
How do prayer for the departed and the communion of saints relate to asking saints to intercede?
Mary, sin and preservation through grace
Read Augustine and John of Damascus alongside later accounts of Mary’s holiness and grace.
Relics, honour and divine worship
Why honour the remains of saints, and how do Christians distinguish that honour from divine worship?
Paschal observance and common celebration
Why did Christians dispute the date of Pascha, and what would common celebration require?
Sacraments and reconciliation
Baptism: regeneration and participation
Explore early teaching about baptism, forgiveness, new birth and participation in Christ.
Eucharistic change: presence, signs and participation
Compare accounts of Christ’s presence, sacramental change and participation in communion.
Infant baptism: urgency, understanding and pastoral delay
Compare Cyprian’s counsel on newborn baptism with Gregory’s advice about danger, understanding and delay.
Restoration of the lapsed: discipline, mercy and communion
How did the early Church reconcile Christians who had fallen away under persecution?
Baptism outside communion: reception and reconciliation
Compare historical approaches to baptism, reception and reconciliation across divided communities.
Eucharistic sacrifice and intercession
Explore the Eucharist as sacrifice and thanksgiving, with prayer for the living and the departed.
Confession, absolution and penitential healing
Trullo’s pastoral medicine and Trent’s judicial absolution, with Catholic and Orthodox accounts of repentance.