Divine Action is Constitutive of Theology: William Abraham,John Webster,and Theological Theology

Abstract

This article puts forward the view that divine action is constitutive of Christian theology. More precisely, it claims that what makes a theologian’s work theological is her commitment to a narrative composed by God’s actions to create, redeem, sustain and perfect creatures. It begins with a systematic summary of William Abraham’s four-volume Divine Agency and Divine Action. Two objections are then put to it, one regarding the breadth of the concept ‘action’ and another regarding its ability to facilitate a complete theological method. It then argues that these objections can be overcome when partnered with John Webster’s ‘theological theology’ approach, as it supplies the crucial concept of an ‘economy’ of divine action. A final section presents a ‘Websterian/Abrahamic’ approach, with the result that divine action is no longer relegated to discussions of special divine providence but is the defining feature of all theological work.