Via Media: An Essay in Theological Synthesis

Via Media: An Essay in Theological Synthesis

The central theme of Via Media is that, on each of the cardinal points of Christian faith, orthodoxy consists in holding together two notions which, though not in fact incompatible, at first sight appear to be so. It is by enquiring in each case how this apparent irreconcilability is to be removed that a real understanding of the doctrine is achieved. The theme is illustrated by a lucid discussion of the four fundamental doctrines of Creation, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Grace. In the course of this there emerges the further conclusion that these four doctrines are by no means unrelated to one another, but are closely bound together in an organic unity. This Angelico Press reprint of the work originally published in 1956 includes a new foreword by Andrew Davison, Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. Eric Lionel Mascall was Professor of Historical Theology at King's College London, and the Church of England's leading Thomist theologian. A member of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, he also taught at Lincoln Theological College and Oxford, before retiring to the parish of St Mary's, Bourne Street, London.