In this wide-ranging book, Rowan Williams argues that what we say about Jesus Christ is key to understanding what Christian belief says about creator and creation overall.Through detailed discussion of texts from the earliest centuries to the present day, we are shown some of the various and subtle ways in which Christians have discovered in their reflections on Christ the possibility of a deeply affirmative approach to creation, and a set of radical insights in ethics and politics as well.Throughout his life, Rowan Williams has been deeply influenced by thinkers of the Eastern Christian tradition as well as Catholic and Anglican writers. This book draws on insights from Eastern Christianity, from the Western Middle Ages and from Reformed thinkers, from Calvin to Bonhoeffer - as well as considering theological insights sparked by philosophers like Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.Christ the Heart of Creation concerns fundamental issues for Christian belief and Williams tackles them head-on: he writes with pellucid clarity and shows his gift for putting across what are inevitably complex ideas to a wide audience.

AcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroduction: Beginning the Middle (Ages): Aquinas's Christological Vision1 Jesus Christ: Infinite Act and Finite Embodiment2 Summarizing a Tradition: The Christology of Thomas Aquinas3 The Unity of Christ4 Transforming Humanity: Christ as the Ground of CommunionPART ONE1.1 Formulating the Question: From Paul to Augustine1 New Testament Origins: History, Faith and Narrative2 From Paul to Nicaea: The Logos and the Flesh3 Towards Chalcedon4 A Latin Voice: Augustine on the Unity of Christ1.2 Refining the Vocabulary: The Contribution of Early Byzantine Theology1 Chalcedon and its Aftermath2 Terminological Developments: Leontius of Byzantium and Leontius of Jerusalem3 Maximus the Confessor: Christology and the Reconciled Cosmos4 A Byzantine Synthesis: John of Damascus5 The Story So FarPART TWO2.2 Loss and Recovery: Calvin and the Re-formation of Christology1 Dismantling Aquinas: The Later Medieval Discussion2 The Catholic Calvin: A Theological Tradition Renewed3 A New Diversity: The Varieties of Protestant Christology2.2 Christ, Creation and Community: Christology in the Shadow of Antichrist1 Barth, Bonhoeffer and the Legacy of Protestant Orthodoxy2 Bonhoeffer's Christology Lectures3 Christology, Ethics and Politics: Discourses of TransformationConclusion: Christ, the Heart of Creation; The Tension in Metaphysics and TheologyAppendix: Concluding (Unethological?) Postscript: Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard and ChalcedonIndex