bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pannenberg's Doctrine of God
Authors: Burhenn Herbert
Published: February 2009

With the appearance in English of some of his most recent essays, it has become apparent that Wolfhart Pannenberg is now focusing his efforts to develop a theological program on the doctrine of God. Pannenberg has attracted considerable attention in recent years by his willingness to depart at several points from the mainstream of modern Protestant theology—especially his separation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, his argument for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, and his overriding concern with future rather than present eschatology. Whether it is possible for Pannenberg to make these departures and still put together a coherent and viable theological program is very much an open question at this point, I believe. But the importance of a satisfactory doctrine of God in his program should be obvious enough: Can Pannenberg give us an account of a God who raised Jesus from the dead and who will bring in his Kingdom without violating the concerns which have weighed so heavily upon theology since the Enlightenment—that God must not act in ways incompatible with what man has discovered about the natural world and with what he believes about his own freedom and responsibility?
The New Testament as Canon
Authors: Wainwright Geoffrey
Published: February 2009

My title, which is stolen from a collection of learned German essays edited by Ernst Käsemann (Das Neue Testament als Kanon, 1970), may sound remote from the concerns of the practical ministry. But the academic question here raised has profound implications for all our understanding, proclamation and practice of the gospel. My exposition will fall into three parts. First I shall make clear what, historically, were the theological motives governing the establishment of a fixed canon of New Testament scripture, and I shall discuss the question of how far the aims of the early Church in this matter may be considered, in the light of modern critical scholarship, to have been achieved. Next I shall show that today also we are faced by problems similar to those which the principle of a New Testament canon was designed to meet, and I shall try to indicate what part the canonical New Testament may still play in helping us to meet them. Thirdly, I shall draw some consequences for worship, preaching, evangelism, ecumenism, and ethics from the principle of a New Testament canon and from the actual content of the canonical New Testament. In conclusion, I shall briefly consider the place of the canonical New Testament in the problem posed by the particularity of Christianity's historical origins and the universality of its claims. Space will obviously forbid anything more than the giving of hints on all these questions.
Novatian's De Trinitate, 29: Evidence of the Charismatic?
Authors: Kydd Ronald
Published: February 2009

This paper focuses attention upon the twenty-ninth chapter 1 of De Trinitate, a third-century theological treatise. Its author, Novatian, was a prominent member of the Roman College of Presbyters. However, his position did not engender feelings of loyalty sufficient to prevent his taking a surprising course of action when Cornelius became the Bishop of Rome in A.D. 251: he had himself consecrated to the same position. This step was a major factor in his being excommunicated in the same year. Subsequently, his personal status among the orthodox declined sharply, and very soon thereafter the records fall silent about him. However, in spite of this he continues to have a place among the theologians of the Church—a place which has been won for him almost single-handedly by De Trinitate. The book appeared in the A.D. 240s, being in fact the first major theological work to be written in Latin in Rome. Novatian produced it while still an eminent, well-respected member of the Roman church. As the title suggests, De Trinitate is about the Trinity, but Novatian by no means devotes equal space to all three members. His discussion of the Holy Spirit seems rather truncated when compared to the treatment afforded to the Father and Son, with virtually everything which is said about the Spirit appearing in chapter 29. Yet it is this chapter which will occupy our attention in this paper, because it appears to contain material which may provide hints about the religious experience of the Roman church in the mid-third century.
Simplifying the Righteousness of God: A Critique of J. C. O'Neill's Romans
Authors: Watson Nigel M.
Published: February 2009

J. C. O'Neill is already well known for his strikingly original studies of various books of the New Testament, and his latest work, a commentary on Romans, is no exception. It is immediately obvious that this is a commentary with a difference, a commentary which argues a thesis, viz., ‘that the words of the epistle handed down to us were not written by one man, were not written at one time, were not written to one audience’. On the contrary, he suggests, Paul's original letter has been subjected to two sorts of corruption, each of which has added new material to the text. First, glosses have been copied into the text by mistake in later years. Second, interpolations have been added by later editors, usually from old traditions, in order to supplement the epistle and make it more suitable for general use (p. 14). Some of the interpolations which O'Neill claims to identify are of considerable length. For example, 10.16–11.32 is attributed in its entirety to a theologian of the second century. Indeed, out of chapters 9–14, containing 148 verses in the form of the letter that we know, O'Neill assigns only twenty-one verses to Paul.
The Christian Understanding of Truth
Authors: Mackinnon D. M.
Published: February 2009

At first sight the above title may suggest a gross presumption. For surely what is true is true, and there is an end of it. How can there be such a thing as an “understanding of truth,” let alone a Christian understanding of truth? And yet there have been such things as “theories of truth,” attempts to analyse the notion, ending perhaps as analysis so often does in the paradox of tautology, “truth is truth,” yet useful and illuminating as far as they go. But if we grant that truth-theory forms an admissible chapter in the philosophy of logic, can we talk of such a thing as a Christian understanding of truth? After all truth remains truth. And if we speak of an understanding of truth, and then predicate Christian of it, are we using the word understanding in such a way that theory is substitutable for it? There is a suggestion in the word understanding of a certain condescension towards what is understood, a pigeon-holing, as if we would like to say: “Yes, now we have got truth nicely docketed.” Whereas perhaps a “theory of truth” does no more than help us to dissolve some puzzle or puzzles connected with the notion.

So any attempt to defend the concept of a Christian understanding of truth must begin by some account of the sort of jobs truth-theories have tried to do, and then explain the kind of connection that obtains between such theories and what we call an “ understanding of truth.”
Salvation and Cosmology: The Setting of the Epistle to the Colossians
Authors: Barbour R. S.
Published: February 2009

In examining the great themes of the Epistle to the Colossians we must ask both what they meant in that ancient world of Asia Minor, so cultured and so superstitious, for which the Epistle was written and what they mean for us today. We must sketch in the background of the Epistle in general terms; then we must turn to the text itself, and finally attempt to expound its meaning in terms comprehensible today. Sometimes it may be permissible to take a glance at the background and seek some lines along which to interpret it before we turn to the text itself. That is the object of this paper.
Was Calvin a Biblical Literalist?
Authors: Prust Richard G.
Published: February 2009

One of the most controversial issues dividing Calvin scholars has to do with Calvin's understanding of God as the author of Scripture. Specifically the issue is this: did Calvin believe that the Scriptures were verbally inspired in such a way that they can be identified without qualification with God's Word and therefore held to be infallible?
Being, Process, And Action In Modern Philosophy And Theology
Authors: Blaikie R. J.
Published: February 2009

One of the most general trends in the modern academic world has been a turning away from the static categories of the past towards new thought-forms that are more dynamic. In philosophy and theology this has involved a revulsion against the category of‘being’ (in spite of such important exceptions as Paul Tillich's emphasis on the nature of God as ‘Being Itself’), and against belief in the sufficiency of the ‘static’ traditional logic which has usually been used in conjunction with it. Thus we find today that (apart from Existentialism, the inadequacies of which I have criticised elsewhere) there are three dynamic alternatives competing for the allegiance of philosophical thinkers in the Western world.
Objective and Subjective: an assessment of R. C. Moberly's Atonement and Personality
Authors: Brown C. G.
Published: February 2009

In his study of the development of Anglican theology in the years 1889–1939 Archbishop Ramsey observes that R. C. Moberly's Atonement and Personality ‘stands apart with a certain loneliness alike in achievement and in failure. To read it is still a searching experience. It belongs to the literature of spirituality no less than to the literature of dogmatics.’ So interesting a judgment suggests that Moberly's study is one of those books which deserve periodic re-assessment and it is the purpose of this article to attempt such a re-assessment, albeit in a brief and modest manner.
Mysterium fidei and the later Calvin
Authors: Meyer John R.
Published: February 2009

Contemporary scholarship in Calvin studies has generally concluded in agreement that Calvin's various religious teachings present no strictly systematic or exclusivistic pattern of presentation when his written corpus is viewed as a whole. This has been found equally true when one analyses his explication of the Lord's Supper no matter what period or portion of such thought is delimited.
Professor Hick and the Universe of Faiths
Authors: Forrester Duncan B.
Published: February 2009

In recent essays Professor John Hick has argued that serious theological consideration of the relationship of Christianity and other world faiths has become in the present generation for the first time unavoidable; that this must lead to a revolution in theological thought so radical that it can be spoken of as ‘Copernican’; and that the consequent reshaping of Christian doctrine, for which he has made a number of suggestions, cannot but change in deeply significant and quite unprecedented ways the traditional teaching of the Church. In this paper I wish to raise some questions about this ‘Copernican Revolution’, the exact nature of which is not made as clear as we might expect, as a theological response to the present situation, asking whether it is helpful in inter-religious dialogue and acceptable as an account of Christianity, of other living faiths, and of the relation between them.
The Sociological Study of the New Testament: Promise and Peril of a New Discipline
Authors: Best Thomas F.
Published: February 2009

There was once a man who, upon asking about Presbyterianism, was handed the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Having read it, he replied: ‘This is all very well; I now understand the official beliefs of Presbyterians. But I am after not just beliefs, but the reality of everyday life: what is it like to be a Presbyterian? How does one distinctively feel about himself and the world, and to what practical consequences does this lead?’
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Saving Event and as ‘Object” of Historical Research
Authors: Staudinger Hugo
Published: February 2009

In November 1981 I was asked to speak as a historian to the Karl- Heim-Gesellschaft in Schloss Craheim in Germany on ‘The Resurrection of Jesus Christ’, and specifically to consider the question of the Resurrection both as an act of salvation and as a matter which admits of historical research. This request placed me in a dilemma as I was faced with the task of making not only historical but also theological statements based on the Easter texts in the Synoptic Gospels. The occasion seemed to me, however, to be a suitable opportunity to say something about the types of historical questioning and about the customary methods used in our branch of scholarship, and thereby to show the difficulties in applying such questionings and methods to texts which as ‘Word of God’ proclaim acts of salvation. The following paper is therefore concerned with the legitimate aims and limits of historical research, and is also designed to show the application of historical method to the Scriptures. The paper is substantially that which was delivered to the Karl-Heim-Gesellschaft, and may serve as a reminder that, when theologians claim to speak as historians, they cannot ignore the customary methods used in historical scholarship. The procedure is briefly this.
‘The Substance of the Faith’ A Clarification of the Concept in the Church of Scotland
Authors: Torrance Thomas F.
Published: February 2009

In determining the meaning of the expression ‘the substance of the Faith’, it seems right to go back to the act of the Scottish Parliament in 1690 which ratified the Westminster Confession of Faith ‘as the publick and avowed Confession of this Church, containing the summe and substance of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches.’ There the WCF was regarded as containing the sum and substance of some thirty Reformed Confessions, including the Scots Confession, the First and Second Helvetic Confessions. These confessions expressly acknowledged the ancient Catholic Creeds and Conciliar Statements of the Church, the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Formulations of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and the so-called ‘Athanasian Creed’, and embodied all their main statements as essential articles of belief. This was true of the WCF which, as James Denney once pointed out, ‘contains everything that is in the Nicene Creed’ (Jesus and the Gospel, p. 39If). That is to say, there was no move away from what the Athanasian Creed and the Second Helvetic Confession called ‘the Catholic Faith’, although the basic articles of faith handed down through the Creeds were set within a confessional frame of distinctively Reformed character. It was inevitable, therefore, that a distinction was made between what Samuel Rutherford called (Due Right Presbyteries, p. 13) ‘a confession dejure, what everyman ought to believe, as the Nicene Creed, and the Creed of Athanasius’, and a wider summation of teaching common to ‘true Reformed Protestant religion’.
The Ambiguity of Kantian Faith
Authors: Luik J. C.
Published: February 2009

In a recent article in this journal, Professor Wiebe has attempted to discard the traditional thesis about the relationship between faith and reason in Kant's critical philosophy and substitute a decidedly novel and superficially attractive interpretation. While traditional readings of Kant's theology have taken his denial of knowledge in order to make room for faith at more or less face value and have thus attributed to him a rather different sort of theology, Professor Wiebe rejects this polarity of knowledge and faith. Kant's faith, according to Wiebe, is a ‘cognitive faith — a source of belief that can quite legitimately, even if only in a weak sense, be referred to as religious knowledge’. This claim in turn rests upon the assertion that the traditional distinction between belief and knowledge is untenable, that ‘… “knowledge” and “justified belief” are indistinguishable’. Wiebe would thus recast Kant's claim of denying knowledge to make room for faith to denying theoretical knowledge to make room for practical knowledge. Kantian faith then, ‘is not outside the realm of reason, but is rather one aspect of reason, as is knowledge’. It is in this sense that there is ‘a basic continuity in Kant's thoughts on religion with the theologies of the past’
The sisyphean task of biblical transformation
Authors: Carroll R. P.
Published: February 2009

The task of interpreting the Bible has two main phases— the understanding of the text and the transformation or making relevant of its meaning for modern readers. The steady decline of monolithic religious structures and the growth of pluralism in modern society have produced multivariant forms of intellectual activity embracing the Bible as part of their subject matter. Thus the Bible is embedded in the given of European culture and functions as part of the hermeneutical processes of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and secular traditions. The quest for understanding may be common to all the traditions but the task of transformation can take one of two forms. From within the religious tradition transformation is the attempt to reinterpret the text so as to make it meaningful in contemporary terms but always controlled by the tradition. This form may simply be termed transformation from within or controlled transformation. The alternative form is transformation without limits or control. In this form fidelity to a tradition is not paramount and the real concern is to see how far the material may be transformed so as to constitute an independent entity itself.
Catholic and Apostolic
Authors: Denyer Nicholas
Published: February 2009

Whatever else Christianity may be, the agapeistic way of life, a personal relationship with Jesus, or whatever, it is also a matter of holding certain things to be true. Of recent times that has been denied by some whose job it is to think about these things. For there are theologians who, though apparently convinced by logical positivism that the traditional formulations of Christian belief do not express truths, wish nevertheless to retain the name of Christian. Positivism however in any case never had much more than fashion to recommend it; and it was already ceasing to be fashionable among philosophers as it started to be fashionable among theologians. To conjoin furthermore an acceptance of positivism with a wish to be called Christian strikes me at least as mere perversity.
The Vicarious Repentance of Christ in the Theology of John McLeod Campbell and R. C. Moberly
Authors: Kettler Christian D.
Published: February 2009

The name of John McLeod Campbell (1800–1872) is well-known among historians of Scottish church history. A pastor who spent most of his life in Glasgow, Campbell is remembered best for his deposition from the Church of Scotland in 1831 because of the preaching of unlimited atonement and of assurance as belonging to the essence of faith. Among historians of doctrine, Campbell's notoriety stems from his later work, The Nature of the Atonement. The book aroused controversy from the moment of its publication. Among the highly original themes set forth by Campbell, one continues to stand out as the most perplexing and controversial: Campbell's teaching on Christ as providing a ‘perfect response’, a ‘perfect repentance’, a ‘perfect sorrow’ and a ‘perfect contrition’ before the judgment of the Father on the sins of humanity.
Toward A Metaphysic of Community
Authors: Kirkpatrick Frank G.
Published: February 2009

At the heart of both feminist and Christian-Marxist liberation theology is a concern for community or personal relationship. ‘In the beginning is the relation’, claims Isabel Carter Heyward in her book The Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relation. God and humanity, she argues, need to be understood in radically new categories, many of which arise out of women's experience of relation, as ‘relational and co-operative, rather than as monistic (synonymous) or dualistic (antithetical) … The experience of relation is fundamental and constitutive of human being.’
Theology after Hiroshima
Authors: Bauckham R.
Published: February 2009

The year after Hiroshima the American theologian Henry Wieman wrote, ‘The bomb that fell on Hiroshima cut history in two like a knife. Before and after are two different worlds. That cut is more abrupt, decisive and revolutionary than the cut made by the star over Bethlehem. It may not be more creative of human good than the star, but it is more swiftly transformative of human existence than anything else that has ever happened.’ One might not expect many Christian theologians to agree too readily to such a statement of the significance of Hiroshima, but it illustrates the challenge which Hiroshima and its implications constitute for Christian theology. Hiroshima revealed a radically new possibility in human history: the possibility that human beings themselves might put an end to human history. Jonathan Schell, whose brilliant book The Fate of the Earth contains the most extensive attempt so far to think through the implications of the radical novelty of the human situation since the invention of nuclear weapons, wrote that by inventing the capacity for self-extinction as a species, ‘we have caused a basic change in the circumstances in which life was given us, which is to say that we have altered the human condition’.
Karl Barth on the Trinity: A Family Resemblance
Authors: Bradshaw Timothy
Published: February 2009

This article seeks to define one important way in which idealist thought, for which Edward Caird will serve as spokesman, can help us understand Barth's doctrine of the essential Trinity. It is hoped that this will in particular clarify the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and help qualify some recent criticism levelled at Barth's teaching. The treatment falls into two parts, the first expository, the second analytical.
The Pluralist Paradigm in the Christian Theology of Religions
Authors: D'Costa Gavin
Published: February 2009

With increasing contact and knowledge of non-Christian religions and in the light of colonialist missionary endeavours, a number of Christians have recently advocated what I shall call a pluralist approach to non-Christian religions. This pluralist paradigm may be characterised as one which maintains that non-Christian religions can be equally salvific paths to the one God, and that Christianity's claim to be the only way (exclusivism), or the fulfilment of all other religions (inclusivism), should be rejected for good theological, phenomenological, and philosophical reasons. This view is shared by Christians from different denominations, and is best expressed in the works of Professors John Hick, Paul Knitter, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and Mr Alan Race.
Lex Orandi and Lex Credendi — Strange Bed-Fellows?: Some Reflections on Worship and Doctrine
Authors: Stevenson Kenneth W.
Published: February 2009

Easter 1985 in the Church of England was a strange experience, resounding with the controversy which David Jenkins had begun the previous year during a television interview, after he had been elected Bishop of Durham. The scenario has been widely discussed by the media, by professional theologians, and by ordinary church-folk, north and south of the border. For the writer, it was the first Easter he can remember since being ordained when the resurrection was actually being discussed, not just in Senior Common Rooms, but in pubs. I was even taken to task by someone working in my local wine-store. In some respects, the furore was well summed-up in his attitude: he had long ceased to attend church, but shouldn't church-leaders believe in what they are supposed to believe?
Theology and the Basis of Human Rights
Authors: Henley John A.
Published: February 2009

In the age of the Enlightenment men were inclined, despite their great confidence in human reason, to invoke the deity in support of ‘the rights of man and of the citizen’1whereas theologians are nowadays somewhat hesitant in suggesting a possible theological basis for human rights.2Whatever this may indicate about a more aggressive secularism and a more modest theology and church during much of the twentieth century, it will be the contention of this paper that those who drafted eighteenth century statements and declarations of human rights were closer to the truth about their basis. In support of this contention I shall argue, first, that the doubt which some philosophers have expressed about finding a sure foundation for human rights is quite justified and, second, that the purpose for which some theologians have recently offered a theological basis has therefore been unduly limited. Finally, however, and rather ironically, I shall demonstrate that the bases suggested by these theologians are far too grandiose and all embracing and that what is required is the quite specific teaching of eschatology, the theory of Christian hope.
Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

It was a fundamental principle of the great Athanasius that to approach God through the on and call him Father is amore devout and accurate way of knowing him than to approach him only through his works by tracing them back to him as their uncreated Source. To know the Father through his Incarnate Son who is of one and the same being as God is to know him strictly in accordance with what he is in his own being and nature as Father and Son, and as Holy Spirit, which is the godly and the theologically precise way. On the other hand, to seek knowledge of God from what he has created out of nothing would be to operate only from the infinite distance of thecreature to the Creator, where we can think and speak of God only in vague, imprecise and negative terms, for what God has created out of nothing does not tell us anything about who God is or what he is like in his own being. It is through God alone that we may know God in accordance Cross with his nature. We may know God in truth only as we are given access to him as Father through Jesus Christ his Incarnate Son and in his one Spirit, an access opened to us as we are brought near to God and are reconciled to him through the Cross (Ephesians 2.14–18).
Phusikos Kai Theologikos Logos, St Paul and Athenagoras at Athens
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

In the early Christian treatise Peri tes anastaseos ton nekron, written in the last quarter of the second century, Athenagoras of Athens drew a distinction between two kinds of theological discourse or argument (logos), ‘on behalf of the truth’ (huper tes aletheias) and ‘concerning the truth’ (peri tes aletheias), in which he clearly had in mind St Paul's missionary address to the Athenians on Mars' Hill. Owing to its nature discourse concerning the truth is of primary importance for it provides necessary knowledge of the actual subject-matter, while discourse on behalf of the truth is of secondary importance for it does not establish the truth but is useful in opening the way for it by removing the undergrowth of false and hostile opinion. It is in this light that Athenagoras' two extant works are to be appreciated, Presbeia ton Christianon which is admittedly of an apologetic nature, and Peri tes anastaseos ton nekron in which he offered a reasoned account of the truth of the resurrection.
A Narnian Theory of the Atonement
Authors: Taliaferro Charles
Published: February 2009

In the first instalment of a seven volume series, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis offers us an extraordinary tale involving four children who enter a magical land, Narnia, a myriad of talking animals, a Christ-like lion named Asian and a satanic creature known simply as the Witch (although she claims the title of Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands). At the heart of the story is a drama of salvation, or at least saving deliverance. One of the children, Edmund, is held captive by the Witch and will be released only on the condition of Asian's taking Edmund's place. Asian is the ransom for Edmund. In rough outline, Asian's ransoming Edmund and his subsequent resurrection fits the classic ransom theory of the atonement, a theory which can hardly boast of enormous contemporary appeal. I do not think its unpopularity is altogether deserved. Versions of the theory may be found in many patristic writers including Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, St Ambrose, St Jerome, and Origen. I wish here to defend a modified ransom theory against six of the classic objections which have contributed to its neglect. As C. S. Lewis, the father of Narnia, has presented a rich story of a ransom drama which is more familiar (and sometimes more fun to read) than the Nicene and Prenicene fathers, I will use The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to set forth a bold, unsophisticated ransom theory.
‘A Sense of Awe in the Presence of the Ineffable’: I Cor. 2.11–12 in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century
Authors: Haykin M. G. A.
Published: February 2009

In the opening chapter of hisThe Work of the Holy Ghost in Our SalvationThomas Goodwin, the seventeenth-century Calvinist Independent, makes some general observations on the description of the Spirit as found in John 14–16. Among them is the following comment á propos of John 15.26 and I Cor. 2.11–12:
St John, The Trinity, and The Language of the Spirit
Authors: Wilson M. P.
Published: February 2009

It would be dishonest not to begin with Austin Farrer, for what follows has grown out of a long-held admiration for that sadly neglected writer. Throughout his life, Farrer was concerned with the role played in our lives by imagination, inspiration and creativity. He saw that creation was shot through with the imprint of its Maker, and in the classical Christian tradition understood the shaping of all life in the material world to be the work of the Holy Spirit. At all levels of creation, inspiration, creativity and spiritual indwelling are the hallmarks of God's activity. For Farrer, natural religion and divine revelation are but two sides of the same coin. The key to all is the point at which they coincide most clearly, namely Jesus. Of Farrer's Christology I have written elsewhere. Such technical discussions are not our present business. Our task is to take the supreme Christian claim about the nature of God, namely the scandalous doctrine of the Trinity, and through the words of St John (whose influence on Farrer's understanding of Jesus was central) try to describe a practical understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit which employs the doctrine of the Trinity as the key-stone of Christian theology and experience.
H. R. Mackintosh's Contribution to Christology and Soteriology in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Redman Roland R.
Published: February 2009

Hugh Ross Mackintosh (1870–1936) was Professor of Systematic Theology at New College, Edinburgh, for 32 years until his sudden death on 8th June 1936. Regarded as one of the foremost theologians of his day, he was awarded honorary degrees from Oxford and Marburg, and left profound impressions on the countless students from Scotland and around the world who came to hear his lectures. Mackintosh was a formidable scholar; it was said that he had read every important theological book published in Britain and Germany, and he skilfully translated Ritschl's Justification and Reconciliation and Schleiermacher's The Christian Faith. He possessed a discerning eye and a gift for lucid exposition which made him an authoritative interpreter and commentator. A keen student of philosophy, Mackintosh studied its relationship to theology closely; much of his early work dealt with the neo-Kantian epistemology of Herman Lotze that formed the philosophical basis for Ritschlian theology.
Reconstructing and Deconstructing the Quest of the Historical Jesus
Authors: Fowl Stephen
Published: February 2009

Those scholars who have assiduously ignored the quest for the historical Jesus because it was unintelligible, incoherent or just uninteresting must now take notice. With the publication of Jesus and Judaism [SCM, 1985] E. P. Sanders has taken a bold (though not unprecedented) and programmatic step towards making historical Jesus study intelligible, coherent and interesting. My aim here is to explore the program represented by Sanders' work and then to show how this work may actually lead to the demise of the quest of the historical Jesus.
John Owen and Trinitarian Agency
Authors: Spence Alan
Published: February 2009

As a faithful young Puritan minister John Owen used to visit his people in the parish of Fordham teaching both adults and children the basic doctrines of Protestantism from two catechisms which he himself composed. In the larger one it is asked: Do we know God as he is? The answer is: No; his glorious being is not of us, in this life, to be comprehended. The same concern is apparent at the end of the section on the Trinity. Question: Can we conceive these things as they are in themselves? Answer: Neither we nor yet the angels of heaven are able to dive into these secrets, as they are internally in God; but in respect of the outward dispensation of themselves to us by creation, redemption, and sanctification, a knowledge may be obtained of these things, saving and heavenly.
Two Myths: Corporate Personality and Language/Mentality Determinism
Authors: Porter Stanley E.
Published: February 2009

Certain myths are often perpetuated in a discipline, myths which upon later reflection are seen to be what they in fact are: unhelpful, deceptive or simply wrong. Often these myths are perpetuated in spite of good evidence to the contrary. This tendency is not unique to Biblical studies but is a pattern that is found in a range of disciplines. Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, addresses this tendency in the so-called hard sciences. He does not use the term myth but rather speaks of the presuppositions of normal science, the scientific paradigm which controls the scientific community of a given time. But as is so often the case, growing evidence mounts that the model is unsatisfactory, that it fails in significant ways to explain evidence which is increasingly seen to be important. The evidence mounts, until a paradigm shift occurs, when the significant or major practitioners of a discipline realise that a new model must be invoked to explain the data at hand.
John Cotton and the Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638: A Profile of Experiential Individualism in American Puritanism
Authors: Jinkins Michael
Published: February 2009

There is much going on in the modern religious scene, particularly in America under the name of ‘Evangelical Christianity’, that seems strange to those of us whose Church experience is shaped more emphatically by an Old-World Presbyterian, Anglican or Lutheran theological orientation. The emphasis upon the individual and the individual's personal ‘saving’ experience sounds strange to ears more attuned to social responsibility and the development of the Christian character in the nurture of the Church community. Where does this emphasis on the individual and his or her personal experience come from? And how did it come to be so much a part of American Church life? Both of these questions could introduce ponderous volumes of social, historical and theological research. But, generally speaking, this tendency to reduce the religious life to an experience of salvation can be traced to the era in the history of dogma which gave rise to Reformed Scholasticism. On the American continent, this approach to Christian faith was promoted by the early Puritan settlers in the context of their own theological concern to maintain a particular manifestation of the nature-grace dichotomy which stressed the legal duly of the individual Christian, and to gain a sense of assurance of election, however elusive that sense might be. While it is well beyond the limitations of this brief essay to trace the development of the Puritan theological orientation, this study will examine one incident in the life of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to profile the development of this Puritan inclination toward experiential individualism which, in various forms, still endures.
The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Theology of T. F. Torrance: Sharing in the Son's Communion with the Father in the Spirit
Authors: Kruger C. Baxter
Published: February 2009

The late Professor H. R. Mackintosh wrote: ‘All religious knowledge of God, wherever existing, comes by revelation; otherwise we should be committed to the incredible position that man can know God without His willing to be known.’1 This statement brings to light the obvious point that revelation and knowledge of God are of the same piece. Revelation and knowledge of God necessarily belong to one another. It would be as ‘incredible’ for a work on ‘knowledge of God’ to fail to discuss revelation at some point or in some way as it would be for a work on ‘atonement’ to fail to discuss reconciliation. It is not incredible, however, to find an absence of a discussion of atonement or reconciliation, soteriology or union with Christ in works on ‘knowledge of God’. Revelation and ‘knowledge of God’ are for the most part separated from works on atonement and reconciliation. The outstanding characteristic of Professor T. F. Torrance's doctrine of the knowledge of God is that it does not separate revelation and reconciliation. These two are held together in God's work in Israel and in the Person and work of Christ and consequently in our knowing God. As a result, soteriology and epistemology, salvation and knowledge of God are inseparable in Torrance's theology. As our Lord himself said,‘… this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.’2 Among other things this means that Torrance's doctrine of the knowledge of God does not stand as an isolated doctrine at the beginning of his thought cut off from the rest of his theology.
Karl Barth on Christ's Resurrection
Authors: Gerald O'Collins S. J.
Published: February 2009

Recent decades have seen a flood of books and articles dealing with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At no time since the second and third centuries has the central affirmation of Christian faith won so much attention from theologians and exegetes. This renewed interest in the resurrection was pioneered by Karl Barth (1886–1968), whose Epistle to the Romans in its second edition of 1922 marks thereal beginning of twentiethcentury theology. To prevent this investigation of Barth's view of Christ's resurrection from becoming confused and confusing, it seems advisable to make use of a distinction between the earlier and the later Barth. His Anselm study (Fides Quaerens Intellectum) of 1931 forms the turning point. It would be inaccurate to maintain that Barth's later theology represents a total break with his work in the 1920's, but it is incontestable that certain important shifts take place.
Last Thoughts of Karl Barth
Authors: Hartwell Herbert
Published: February 2009

At a first glance the title of this paper may seem presumpituous. For only God knows the last thoughts of anyone who has passed away. The title, however, should be understood in the more restricted sense of the last published thoughts of Karl Barth. We are greatly indebted to Eberhard Busch, Barth's faithful assistant during the last years of Barth's life, for having made available to us these last thoughts in a small volume, entitled Letzte Zeugnisse. According to the Editor they were intended for publication and had been produced after the last grave crisis in Barth's health in August 1968 and before his death on the 10th December of the same year. Hence they had been produced within the last few months of Barth's life, whereas the writings and talks of Barth collected in Fragments Grave and Gay had taken place during the years 1962 to 1967. Letzte Zeugnisse also includes a most helpful Epilogue by the Editor in which he explains the circumstances in which those last testimonies had come into existence and reflects on the latter. Eberhard Busch, described by Barth as ‘truly an ideal assistant!’, had contributed the essay ‘Der Weg der Theologie in Anfechtung und Hoffnung’ to ΠAPPHΣIA (pp. 50ff), the Festschrift edited by him together with the Professors Jürgen Fangmeier and Max Geiger on the occasion of Barth's eightieth birthday (10th May 1966), and had also compiled the Bibliography in that volume (pp. 709–23), comprising Barth's writings from 1956 till January 1966 as well as other bibliographical material and thereby continuing Charlotte von Kirschbaum's initial Bibliography which rendered nearly all of Barth's writings up to the end of 1955.
Tillich and the Space-Time Conflicts
Authors: Morrison Roy D.
Published: February 2009

Through more than forty years of his career, Paul Tillich painstakingly developed a vision of an ontological conflict between space and time. In developing this vision, Tillich proceeds from an existential and phenomenological perspective. An entire doctrine of reality is presupposed and time is conceived of as temporality and is ontologically identified with the primordial ‘depth’ or inner infinity of all being and reality. Such time is in some sense subjective, intuitively known, and immediately given.
Eliphaz the Temanite: Portrait of A Hebrew Philosopher
Authors: Gibson J. C. L.
Published: February 2009

The thinkers of old Israel, whether Psalmists, historians or teachers of Wisdom, were supremely serene and confident men. Their world was established, and could not be moved (1 Sam. 2.8; Ps. 93.1); God's favour and victory were with his people (Deut. 33.26f); his covenant was benign and Israel's king reigned in Zion (Ps. 72.17f; 133); and everyone but the fool knew his proper place and was content, and life's rewards seemed fair and consistent (1 Kings 4.25; Prov. 10.14–15; 12.9; 13.14–16; 14.1, 30 etc.). Evil and tragedy were present, but they were not allowed to pose any ultimate problem, since they were known to be firmly under God's control and part and parcel of the divine economy (Gen. 45.5; 2 Sam. 17.14; Ps. 30.6 (Engl. 5); 73.16–17). Under the double impact of Assyrian imperial advance and of internal social disintegration in the eighth and seventh centuries, this optimistic Weltanschauung was rudely shattered. The prophetic movement, hitherto nonconformist and not highly regarded by those who mattered, came into its own, sounding ever more loudly sour and pessimistic notes that had rarely been heard in Israel before (Amos 5.18f; Mic. 6.1–2; Isa. 5.18f; Zeph. 2.15; Jer. 6.16f; 8.8f etc.). It deeply affected the historians who were responsible for the Deuteronomistic writings,2 but of more direct concern to us, it had a pervasive influence on the Wisdom tradition as well.3 This can be traced in an increasing emphasis upon the need for humble submission to God's will in the face of life's enigmas.
The Sonship of the Historical Jesus in Christology
Authors: Bauckham Richard
Published: February 2009

The church's Christological confession of the uniqueness of J. Christ's relation to God has always been understood to include the historical Jesus. In theory, at least, this is a point at which faith must be vulnerable to historical investigation. To what extent can Jesus' unique relation to God be affirmed on historical grounds? While the church is not limited to believing about Jesus only what he explicitly believed about himself, a certain correspondence is necessary for the credibility of Christology. If there were no evidence that Jesus understood his relation to God to be in any way distinctive it would be difficult to maintain that he was in fact uniquely related to God. Both doctrine and history suggest that the most profitable line of enquiry into this question will concern Jesus' consciousness ofsonship. It is a line of enquiry which may in its turn elucidate some of the problems of Christology.
Genesis 2: 4b–3: A Mythological Paradigm of Sexual Equality or of the Religious History of Pre-Exilic Israel?
Authors: Gardner Anne E.
Published: February 2009

An investigation of the second story of creation and the Fall in the light of their exegesis by Phyllis Trible. The strengths and weaknesses of Trible's approach are considered and an evaluation of Genesis 2–3 as a paradigm of Ancient Israel's social and religious history is offered.
Liberation Theology and the Thought of William Temple: A Discussion of Possibilities
Authors: Campbell J. L.
Published: February 2009

Liberation Theology provides a framework of principles through which we can understand God's action in the world. To say that God liberates humanity from enslavement is a way of highlighting one aspect of what it means to say that he loves and cares for us. We, for our part, have to bridge the gap between the theological framework and action. We do this through ethical and political reflection. We recognize God at work liberating humanity, and we respond to that recognition by wanting to share in the work. But, we still have to decide what this particular liberation means, and what are the best, or least evil, ways of attaining it within a particular historical set of circumstances.
Theology: A Social System. Models for a Systematic Theology
Authors: Gill Robin
Published: February 2009

What happens to systematic theology if it relies in the first instance on methods derived from the sociology of knowledge? This is the question that I will be trying to answer in this study. More specifically, I will be attempting to advance an understanding of theology as a social system and seeking ways it may be related to present-day Western society.
Humankind in Christ and Christ in Humankind: Salvation as Participation in Our Substitute in the Theology of John Calvin
Authors: Hart Trevor
Published: February 2009

The act of God in bringing salvation to the human race and summoning individuals into a community to serve him is due solely to the mercy and grace of God, mediated and manifested through Jesus Christ in his ministry, atoning death and rising again.1 This statement of belief, taken from the recently published ARCIC II document Salvation and the Church, is one to which Christians of most denominations could probably subscribe. Yet the very existence of the document is testimony to the fact that within the Christian Church there have been widely differing interpretations of the precise nature of salvation and its implications for humankind. At the time of the Reformation disagreement as to the theological import of terms such as ‘grace’, ‘justification’ and ‘sanctification’ was a major cause of division between Rome and the Protestant churches. Were they primarily to be given an objective or subjective, an extrinsic or intrinsic reference in relation to the believer? ARCIC II demonstrates that these are still live issues at the interface of ecumenical dialogue today, and must be resolved if real moves are to be made in the direction of Christian unity.
Some Reflections on the Subject of the Virgin Birth
Authors: Cranfield C. E. B.
Published: February 2009

The affirmation that Jesus Christ ‘was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary’ is beset by many problems and difficulties, and to deny or try to ignore their existence is bad theological scholarship. But it is also bad theological scholarship — though this is sometimes in danger of being overlooked —to refuse to consider seriously and with as open a mind as possible any evidence or any rational argument, whether historical or theological, which can be adduced as in any way supporting this affirmation of the Apostles' Creed. It seems to me that neither those who accept the historicity of the Virgin Birth nor those who reject it have a monopoly of prejudice. I cannot here attempt anything like a full or systematic discussion of this difficult and controversial subject. The best I can do is to set down briefly and as clearly as I can a few reflections as a very modest contribution to the on-going debate.