Julian's Theology

Julian’s Theology
In a time period of which the traditional theology of the church was centered around the damning and vengeful nature of God towards sinners, Julian of Norwich carefully contradicts the condemning nature of the doctrine of the church and offers a more forward-looking theology grounded in God’s love. Contrary to the church’s view of an angry God reigning down eternal damnation as punishment for sin, Julian reconstructs the character of God in opposition to the views by explaining the act of the Incarnation not as an economic transaction required in attempts to appease God’s righteous vengeance as argued by Anselm of Canterbury, but rather as an example of the overwhelming mercy, grace, and love of God. Although this revolutionary theology is presented in a highly Orthodox manner, Julian’s positive attitude towards sin seemed to be quite eccentric and perhaps even borderline heretical at the time. Nonetheless, through this motherly perspective of God’s gracious attitude towards human sin, it becomes …show more content…
These Christians experimented with everything from being baptized on their death beds to paying for indulgences in attempts to appease their angry God and avoid an eternity in the fires of hell. In light of these practices, it seems as if these Christians paid more attention to and were more focused on the punishment for sin rather than the extent of God’s forgiveness for such sin. In essence, God’s love became vastly overshadowed by his thirst for righteous punishment in the Medieval Christian culture. However, Julian returned to the compassion and love of God which grounded her hope and served as the basis of her theology. Julian believed that this overflowing fountain of God’s love and His desire for us to be close to Him is at the center of the human experience and even at the center of Creation