1. Calvin, Participation, and the Problem of the Gift in Contemporary Thought -- 2. Calvin's Doctrine of Participation: Contexts and Continuities -- 3. The Development of Calvin's Language of 'Participation in Christ' -- 4. Participation in Christ: The Activity of Believers in Prayer and the Sacraments -- 5. Participation and the Law: God's Accommodation to Humanity so that Humanity may be Accommodated to God -- 6. The Promise of Calvin's Theology of Participation.

"A wide range of thinkers agree on one point in their critique of John Calvin's theology: Calvin contrasts a holy God with unworthy sinners, so that God and humanity are systematically opposed in his thought. Redemption is a unilateral gift from God, so that the place of the human qua human is obliterated. In the view of Gift theologians such as John Milbank and Stephen Webb, as well as some Eastern Orthodox and feminist theologians, Calvin makes human participation in the divine unthinkable." "J. Todd Billings engages in this discussion by examining the development, scope, and metaphysics of Calvin's theology of 'participation in Christ'. He argues that Calvin's theology of 'participation' emerges from a soteriology which affirms a differentiated union of God and humanity in creation and redemption. Through Calvin's eclectic appropriation of biblical and catholic sources, he develops a wide-ranging and emphatic doctrine of participation. In prayer, the sacraments, and obedience to the law, believers are incorporated into the Triune life: as believers are made one with Christ by faith, the Father reveals himself as generous by granting them his free pardon, and the Spirit empowers them for lives of active gratitude in the church and the world."--BOOK JACKET.