bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Children, Church and Kingdom
Authors: Stockton Ian
Published: February 2009

A church which is almost exclusively adult in its make-up and style may well be seen to be lacking in catholicity, and failing in its proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps a church may be bereft of children through no fault of its members, but more likely it will have been made clear to children and teenagers, perhaps in unspoken ways, that children are an inconvenience, a disturbance, destructive of concentration and peace of mind, their unseemly noises being not unlike the shouts of those infants in the Jerusalem Temple, whose praise to God the Pharisees sought to silence. Children, by their openness, by their spontaneity, by their freshness of thought, and by their emotions being near to the surface, can, if allowed to express themselves in church, be both a sign of hope and a threat to the ‘status quo’, a challenge to tram-like thinking and spiritual rigidity. ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the Kingdom of God’ (Mark 10.14).
Sin and Sinlessness in I John
Authors: Swadling Harry C.
Published: February 2009

Perhaps the most striking feature of 1 Jn. is the teaching which it contains on sin. On the one hand there is the attitude taken by the author in 1:8ff- the Christian ought not to sin, but in fact does. He cannot claim to be sinless without lying. Nevertheless, if they confess their sins, Christians are consistently being forgiven through Christ. On the other hand there is the teaching in chapter three that the Christian does not sin and indeed cannot sin. This teaching is recapitulated in chapter five. The purpose of this article is to show that, far from being inconsistent, the writer of 1 Jn. is perfectly orthodox in his doctrine of sin and is, in fact, writing in a way completely appropriate to the circumstances.
The Philosophy of World Religions
Authors: Hick John
Published: February 2009

I Am grateful to Mr Peter Byrne (‘John Hick's Philosophy of World Religions’, S.J.T., Vol. 35, 289–301) for highlighting some of the central issues for a philosophy of religious pluralism. He starts from the now widespread realisation that it is not a morally or religiously acceptable view that salvation depends upon being a member of the Christian minority within the human race. A more realistic view must be pluralistic, seeing the great religious traditions as different ways of conceiving and experiencing the one ultimate divine Reality, and correspondingly different ways of responding to that Reality. These ways owe their differences to the modes of thinking, perceiving and feeling which have developed within the different patterns of human existence embodied in the various cultures of the earth. Thus, on the one hand the religions are responses to a single ultimate transcendent Reality, whilst on the other hand their several communal consciousnesses of that Reality, formed from different human perspectives, are widely different. To understand this mixture of commonality and difference I have suggested that we should make use of a basic distinction which occurs in some form within each of the great traditions. In Christian terms it is the distinction between God in himself, in his eternal self-existent being, independently of creation, and God-for-us or God as revealed to us. In more universal language it is the distinction between the Real (Sat, al-Haq) an sich and the Real as humanly experienced and thought.
Third World Theological Priorities
Authors: Davis Kortright
Published: February 2009

How does one properly account for the rise of theological ferment in the Third World, when so much of the theological activity in that region is so closely related to what happens (or fails to happen) in the First World? To what extent can the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, or the programs of the World Council of Churches, or the initiatives of the Mission Boards in North America, be given credit for the emergence of Third World theologies? Or how do we explain the paradox that in spite of two decades in the growth and development of local theologies in the Third World, much of the way in which Third World churches conduct their business and their worship still fails to reflect such developments? Who sets the priorities for theology in the Third World? What is the procedure for its validation and official acceptance? When does the local church know that it is safe to shift from the received tradition to the new tradition? All these are questions of farreaching significance, for they bear on the very heart of authentic Christianity as it is proclaimed and practised in the Third World. Third World Christians must determine for themselves when and how they will theologize in their own language, in which they were born (Acts 2.8). Third World theologians have stepped out in front and have taken some initiatives for themselves, and among themselves.
The Most Urgent Call to the Kirk: The Celebration of Christ in the Liturgy of Word and Sacrament
Authors: Cant H. William M.
Published: February 2009

It is the year 1117 and the place is the little Church in the Orcadian Island of Egilsay. It is Easter and the Service is in progress. The people have heard the Epistle and Gospel, and now they are bringing their gifts to the old priest. The bread and wine is the sign of the giving of themselves; in an Orcadian writer's words: ‘With these they offer God everything that is theirs — their bunions, their jars of oil, bright hearthstones, the long nights they lie awake listening to the sea on the rocks when the fishermen are out’. Says the priest, ‘Will it be, perhaps, that one or two of these same earthy people will be quickened, that the green shoot and the golden stalk will soar out of their brutishness, fit ones for the threshing floors of purgatory? Doubtless. All of them, I pray. For this we were born. … Once more I have done it. What seems to be impossible has happened. The Body and the Blood of Our Lord lie on the altar before me. It is accomplished. The church is drowned in a terrible and beautiful silence. … God is come among us. Our little gifts of bread and wine he returns to us loaded with blessing and beauty and peace and love and glory illimitable. Ecce Agnus Dei. Himself he gives to us. … And so now when I bless the people of Egilsay at the end of the Mass, I bless him in particular whose face is as bright and as doomed as a stone with spring sunlight on it that the builders will soon gather into a new wall.
The Incarnation as the Hermeneutical Criterion for Liberation and Reconciliation
Authors: Speidell Todd Saliba
Published: February 2009

The theology of liberation poses social, hermeneutical, and theological issues when it asks, ‘Who is Jesus Christ for us today?’ The social question of human and political liberation is a matter in which theology cannot remain indifferent, though theology qua theology is not simply social analysis. The hermeneutical question of the influence of social context and ideology on biblical interpretation casts suspicion on methodological naïvety, though theology qua theology is not simply epistemology. Without ceasing to confront the social and hermeneutical aspects of theologizing, liberation theology unavoidably poses the Christological question, ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’
Justice and Justification: Semantic and Juristic Aspects of the Christian Doctrine of Justification
Authors: McGrath A. E.
Published: February 2009

The theological situation today demands both arestatementand areinstatementof the Christian doctrine of reconciliation. The essential prerequisite of any attempt to interpret, reinterpret or restate that doctrine is a due appreciation of the historical origins and subsequent development of the concept. It is clearly futile to develop or defend theories of reconciliation which originally rest upon some manifestly incorrect interpretation of a Hebrew root, or which represent a comparatively recent distortion of an older and more considered doctrine, or which represent a theological response to a particularZeitgeistwhich no longer pertains today. Of the several concepts employed in the Christian articulation of the reconciliation effected between God and his world through Jesus Christ, the most important is that ofjustification.
The Idea of Design: The Vicissitudes of a Key Concept in the Princeton Response to Darwin
Authors: Livingstone David N.
Published: February 2009

‘We have thus arrived at the answer to our question, What is Darwinism?’ wrote Charles Hodge in 1874;‘It is Atheism.’ As is commonly the fate of great men, Hodge's conclusion has frequently been reduced to mere crusade slogan, more often reported than examined, more often repeated than explained. It is for this reason, then, together with Hodge's formative role in the construction of modern conservative evangelicalism, that I want to turn in the first part of this esssay to his response to Darwin's theory of evolution. Moreover, with the recent emergence of a vociferous and uncompromising ‘scientific creationist’ movement claiming the imprimatur of theological orthodoxy, a reassessment of the reaction to Darwin by the powerful ‘Old School’ Princetonians in its broader intellectual context is, I think, both timely and instructive. And Hodge's central position in that tradition makes reflection on his response to the question a logical place to begin.
On African Theology
Authors: Hastings Adrian
Published: February 2009

Edward Schillebeeckx in The Understanding of Faith (1974, 154) defined or described theology as ‘the critical self-consciousness of Christian praxis in the world and the church’. Others may prefer another definition, but it can be agreed that Christian theology is not revelation and it is not church doctrine; both of these while inevitably formulated within time yet lay claim to, and acquire, a certain degree of timelessness which is neither possible nor desirable for ‘theology’. Theology rather requires a continuous contemporaneity. It is a ‘critical self consciousness’ — an extended intelligent response of men of faith both to the word of God and to their own world. At times it may appear to concentrate more upon that word, as found in the Scriptures, while interpreting and applying it aptly and acutely in the light of contemporary culture; at other times theology will appear to concentrate more upon the contemporary world, or upon some part of it decisively significant for this theologian or the group of christians of which he or she forms part, interpreting it and judging it in the light of scripture. Behind appearances theology, to be true to itself, has always to do both.
The Burial of God: Rupture and Resumption as the Story of Salvation
Authors: Lewis Alan E.
Published: February 2009

Jon Sobrino has suggested that those who stand in the intellectual tradition of the Enlightenment tend to interpret suffering and disaster as ‘crises of meaning’, by which we seek to explain and accommodate alienating experiences within preconceived models of reality. Our question is how evil may be understood. But that search for meaning is a luxury denied those who can barely hold to existence itself. Theirs is a ‘crisis of reality’; and their question is less how to understand evil than how to withstand it, to overcome suffering or at least survive it. ‘The interpretative models become relevant [only] to the extent that they arise out of the experienced reality and aim at eliminating the wretched state of the real world’.
The Courage of Christ in the Theology of Athanasius
Authors: Pettersen A.
Published: February 2009

In an earlier article in the Scottish Journal of Theology I have argued that Athanasius did not deny Christ's fear. A question which then naturally arises is, did Athanasius recognise Christ's courage? This question is made all the more pointed given G. C. Stead's view that Athanasius ‘is noticeably reticent about ascribing to [Christ] any positive constancy: the Lord “undergoes” (ὑπoμ⋯νει) the brutalities of the passion, but is not credited with ὑπoμoν⋯, still less with ⋯νδρε⋯α'. These conclusions drawn from the two inaugurals and the controversial works of Athanasius do, however, seem to require some qualification.
The Self-Relation, Narcissism and the Gospel of Grace
Authors: Torrance Alan J.
Published: February 2009

If it is the case, as John Macmurray suggests, that ‘any way of life implies a philosophy’, or further, that ‘there is a necessary relation between philosophy and social practice’, then an essential dimension of the task of the philosophical theologian must be to engage with the philosophy inherent in and underlying the social practice manifest in the society in which he or she operates. This would imply that the theologian should work in cooperation and in dialogue with the sociologist. But it is clear from theological literature that this course rarely appeals to the theologian who would rather not risk the charge of being unequally yoked with those inhabiting other domains or of deserting his academic or spiritual ‘kingdom’ in pursuit of what is often seen to be the fashionable or the popular!
I Cor. 15. 24–28 and The Future of Jesus Christ
Authors: Jansen J. F.
Published: February 2009

‘Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. “For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection under him”, it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”
Holy Materialism: An Examination of Lüthi's Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Bibel
Authors: Read David H. C.
Published: February 2009

A Danish friend remarked to me recently that he wished that preachers would stop attacking materialism. I found myself in complete agreement with his thesis that the current pulpit fashion of denouncing the materialism of the age is both muddleheaded and ill-timed. In the first place, it is highly questionable whether the present generation is more “materialist” (using the word in its worst sense) than, let us say, the Victorian era. What is more important, the phrase “materialism of the modern man ” o n the lips of Churchmen begs more than one question. In what sense is the Christian abstracted from the human material situation? And what is the remedy for materialism supposed to be? An abstract “ spiritualism ”? A flight from the concrete situation in which we all have to earn a living? If the answer is that by “ materialism ” the Church to-day means an obsession with things with a consequent neglect of spiritual values, we do well to ask whether that is indeed the problem of the modern world, or whether it is not more true that the real battlefield is the sphere of these spiritual values, the ideologies in whose name things are controlled.

Walter Ltithi's recent booklet,Die Soziale Frage im Lichte der Bibel, is a realistic effort to bring an informed and Reformed insight to bear on the sociological questions of to-day.
The Reformed Ministry in the Contemporary Church
Authors: Citron Bernhard
Published: February 2009

The Reformed Minister in the contemporary Church is concerned about his Ministry because he realises that without a doctrine of the Church's ministry, there can't be a true doctrine of the Church. The revived interest in the theology of the Church, has therefore led to a renewed interest in the Reformed doctrine of the Ministry. Among many excellent ministers in Canada and in the United States and among seriously-minded Divinity students in a Southern Presbyterian Seminary, I have frequently noticed uncertainty with regard to the doctrinal basis of the pastoral calling. The Scottish minister has a traditional regard for his vocation which is still shared by the vast majority of the Church people. But he too might sometimes wonder where the Minister really stands, not only in the tradition and practice but in the doctrine of the Church.
The Shepherd-Ruler Concept in the OT and its Application in the NT
Authors: Thomson J. G. S. S.
Published: February 2009

It was inevitable, amongst a pastoral community such as the Hebrews, that the vocabulary and occupational habits of the shepherd should colour their language and help to formulate their way of looking at life. This was particularly true in the sphere of religion. The rich imagery of the pastoral life of Palestine has been one of the creative elements in the language and religious thought—forms of the OT, especially where Israel's relationships with Jahweh were concerned. Undoubtedly the OT conception of God, of divine providence, and of man's relations with God owe much of their profound insight and simple dignity to the metaphors current among the shepherds who lived among the Judaean hills and on the plains of Samaria.
Some Comments on Tillich's Doctrine of Creation
Authors: Thomas J. Heywood
Published: February 2009

The doctrine of Creation has occupied theologians very much in recent years and in this Paul Tillich has not been an exception.
Darkness, Christ, and the Church in the Fourth Gospel
Authors: Via Dan O.
Published: February 2009

The Fourth Gospel, like Mark and Luke, makes no mention of the word ecclesia; but does John, nevertheless, have a doctrine of the Church which he develops with other terms; and if so, how does he conceive it + Schlatter held that John had no parallel to the richly developed Pauline teaching on the Church. E. F. Scott, however, has shown that one of the important purposes of the Fourth Gospel was to seek for the true nature of the Church instituted by Jesus. According to Scott John thought of the Church as both a spiritual, mystical community and an outward institution. John's interest in the Church has been confirmed by more recent interpreters such as R. Newton Flew and R. H. Strachan, and C. K. Barrett believes that John more clearly than any other Gospel shows an awareness of the existence of the Church. Bultmann also recognises this concern of the Fourth Gospel but stresses that it has no designation at all for ‘Church’ in the singular number. The Church is a collection of gathered individuals whose unity is primarily the unity of each individual with Christ. The purpose of this paper will be to show from an interpretation of relevant passages that John conceives of the Church as a unity in a more organic sense than a collection of individuals, and the attempt will also be made to show that John's analysis of man's existential predicament implies the need for an organic community.
‘The Supernatural’ in Reformed Theology
Authors: Blaikie R. J.
Published: February 2009

Enquiry into the precise meaning and historical use of theological terms is not in fashion in these days, as is amusingly pointed out in a recent issue of Time magazine.1 Under the heading, ‘Right you are if you say you are’, there appears a dialogue, from which I quote:
Responsible Man in Reformed Theology: Calvin Versus the Westminster Confession
Authors: Rolston Holmes
Published: February 2009

The Confession of 1967 in the United Presbyterian Church marks the official end of the four-century Presbyterian venture into covenant theology. Now past that milestone, perhaps we have reached a vantage point where we can turn dispassionately to survey that curious but historic route. Seen from its concept of responsible man, we here argue, that route has been a prolonged detour away from the insights of the Reformers.
The Theology of Preaching: A Search for the Authentic
Authors: Woodfin Yandall
Published: February 2009

The creative tension which exists between the preacher's longing to proclaim an authentic Word from God and the need to acknowledge his own human involvement is reflected characteristically in the young Karl Barth. Writing from the pastorate during the early days of his theological struggles, he confessed that on Sunday mornings the preacher
Tradition and Expectation in Ancient Israel
Authors: Barr James
Published: February 2009

Perhaps the most important advance in Old Testament studies in recent years has been the rediscovery of and the new emphasis on tradition. Older studies commonly implied that the biblical material, the sources, were essentially to be seen as literary products, that is as books or documents written at a certain date and edited and annotated through subsequent written additions. This did not explicitly deny that before they were written down the stories or laws had existed in a preliterary form; but such was the emphasis on study of the written material and the discernment of written sources that the pre-literary stage was considerably neglected. Biblical criticism was predominantly literary criticism. More modern studies have not for the most part abandoned such literary criticism, nor is it ever likely to be fully abandoned; but more and more emphasis has been laid, in Old Testament and in New Testament work alike, on the living tradition which preceded or accompanied the literary transmission.
Faith and Baptism
Authors: Lillie William
Published: February 2009

In the Acts of the Apostles there are ten accounts of individuals or groups of people being baptised. In six of them there is either a statement that the candidate for Baptism believed or a reference to belief in what immediately precedes the account of the Baptism. In the other four cases as well, Baptism was obviously preceded by a response of faith on the part of the candidate; the crowd at Pentecost had been told to repent and receive the Word; Saul of Tarsus had just had a most dramatic experience of conscious conversion; Lydia's heart had been opened to give heed to St. Paul's message; and one form of the story of the Ethiopian eunuch describes Philip as demanding belief as a condition of Baptism, and the eunuch as confessing his belief; if this be a later addition, it provides even stronger evidence that in the practice of the early Church the response, of conscious faith preceded Baptism.
Three Critical Issues in Tillich's Philosophical Theology
Authors: Ferré Nels
Published: February 2009

With the death of Whitehead and Berdyaev the field of philosophical theology has been left all but empty of first rate creative thinkers. Tillich stands nearly alone as undeniably a primary source of constructive philosophical theology. Such forefront leaders of modern Christian thought as Barth, Brunner Aulén and Nygren seem somewhat bound by traditional Christian formulations.
Theological Thinking
Authors: Markus R. A.
Published: February 2009

Of all great theologians Karl Barth lends himself perhaps least of all to any attempt at reconciliation on a superficial level, to a reconciliation which would obscure the basic differences between his position and that of his opponents. And yet, his work exerts a compulsion on his readers to rethink their positions in its light. It does this even more by the echoes it seems so often to contain of the judgment under which all human thinking stands, than by the challenge of its clarity and its authentically Christocentric character. The ‘confessional conversation’ to which his work cannot but give rise must proceed piecemeal, by patient and painstaking discussion of Christian theology topic by topic. I want to examine one particular topic of theological discussion in this paper: that of the nature and structure of theological thinking itself. I shall try to outline and to compare two of the most highly developed and consciously thought-out accounts of what theological thinking consists in: the accounts given by Barth, and by St. Thomas Aquinas. Fundamental though this question is, it is well to remind ourselves at the outset of its restricted canvas. For whatever convergence we may discover in the two accounts of what theological thinking is, there may be endless scope for divergence concerning some of the topics relevant to these accounts. I may instance those of the Bible, faith, revelation—all of them concepts central to our inquiry, yet concepts on which agreement can scarcely be taken for granted.
Time, Eternity and Contemporaneity with Christ
Authors: Gualtieri Antonio R.
Published: February 2009

What concept of time is required to make sense of statements like ‘Jesus is the Eternal Contemporary’ or ‘There is a real presence of Christ in the sacramental action’?
The Symbolic Theology of Paul Tillich
Authors: McDonald H. D.
Published: February 2009

It is almost a truism to assert that religious language is symbolic,' declares Paul Tillich in an article entitled ‘Existential Analysis and Religious Symbols’.1 His whole theology is from first to last dominated by the ideas both of existential analysis and religious symbol. Tillich rejects out of hand the notion of God as literally a personal and spiritual Being who literally enters into personal and spiritual relationships with human beings. He seeks, therefore, to transform the content of historical Christian dogmatics into an array of symbols and contends that the whole theological enterprise is to seek and set forth the meaning of these symbols. ‘Theology as such’, states Tillich, ‘has neither the task nor the power to confirm or to negate religious symbols. Its task is to interpret them according to theological principles and methods.’2
Is ‘Miracle’ an Intelligible Notion?
Authors: Miller John Franklin
Published: February 2009

That Christians must believe in miracles is indubitable, for their religion substantially rests upon the miracle of the resurrection. However there have been a number of criticisms of miracles as both unintelligible and unreasonable. This paper will attempt to answer these criticisms and to show that the notion of ‘miracle’ is intelligible and that to believe in miracles is reasonable.1 To do this, the following four criticisms must be answered in some way:

(1) The very concept of ‘miracle’ is a self-contradictory or in some other way incoherent notion.

(2) The empirical evidence given for miracles has always been inadequate to substantiate a rational belief.

(3) Judging from past experience, one can always rule out even the possibility of miracles.

(4) A miracle can never be shown incapable of a natural and scientific explanation, at least in principle.
New Directions in Biblical Exegesis
Authors: Kessler Martin
Published: February 2009

With the Reformation, its increasing preoccupation with the Bible and its insistence that it be made available to all, came a growing interest in how such literature was to be interpreted, which is to say, Christianity became vitally concerned with exegesis. In spite of the ‘democratisation’ of Bible and religion, the difficulties in making an ancient Semitic literature speak in contemporary accents were surely not underestimated by Luther and Calvin both of whom made solid contributions to biblical exegesis. In his ‘Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen’ (8th September 1530), Luther referred to the lone task of interpretation and the need for patience,1a theme which he elaborated in hisVorreden zur Heiligen Schrift. To understand Vergil'sBucolicsandGeorgics, one should have a five-year experience as a shepherd or farmer; at least twenty years' occupation in politics is needed to fathom Cicero's letters anda fortiori, no one can claim to have digested the Scriptures unless he has led congregations with the prophets for a hundred years—in other words a lifetime of existential experience with the Bible is insufficient. These comments led in turn to his famous affirmation, in Saxon German within a Latin text: ‘Wir sein pettier—Hoc est verum!’2Statements of this kind should preclude once for all the notion that the reformers underestimated the difficulty of exegesis in view of their promotion of the ‘priesthood of all believers’.
Romans 8.26—towards a theology of glossolalia?
Authors: Wedderburn A. J. M.
Published: February 2009

Traditionally Romans 8.26 has been a text to which at least some Pentecostals have appealed as scriptural support for the practice of speaking in tongues. However, this interpretation has by no means found favour with all commentators: Adolf Schlatter explicitly denies it, arguing that (a) the powerlessness that is described here is not an affliction peculiar to a few individuals but is the mark of all Christian prayer, whereas speaking with tongues is considered by Paul to be a gift given to certain individuals only, (b) it is a gift of thanksgiving and of singing of God's secrets, not of groaning, and (c) it is not ‘unspeakable’, for some interpreted it.2 Rather, he argues, the groaning here is wordless, but yet intercessory. Many commentators share Schlatter's view that Paul's language here does not fit the phenomenon of glossolalia: so Dodd refers to an ‘inarticulate aspiration’ that expresses itself in ‘sighs that are beyond words’, and Barrett explicitly prefers to see here a reference to an immediate communion between the ‘Spirit (-filled worshipper) and God’ which needs no spoken word.
Towards a Contemporary Theology of the Holy Spirit
Authors: Carr Wesley
Published: February 2009

Discussion about the Holy Spirit is at present in a state of almost total confusion. A renewed interest is being shown in the Spirit and in the process the term ‘Holy Spirit’ is tending to become a rag-bag into which are relegated all those aspects of aeligion and life which we are unhappy simply to assign to the working of God. It has become a cover for our deficiencies, so that the Spirit is whatever we like to make it. Phrases are created on analogy with ‘The Spirit of Truth’ to associate with the Spirit whichever particular aspect of life a writer wishes to dignify. Alternatively, in the face of unresolvable complexities the phrase is invoked as a pious aphorism to which there can be no retort—‘Leave it to the Spirit’.
Is Providence Credible Today?
Authors: Robinson Norman H. G.
Published: February 2009

Much of the recent debate about religion has concerned itself either with the bare existence of God or with the fact of Jesus Christ, and has not directly brought into the discussion the question of providence and the allied topic of prayer. It is as if the whole area were so problematic that thought has tended to polarise around these two points, God in heaven and Jesus of Nazareth in history, and as a result has virtually by-passed this subject, although one would have thought that it lay very close to the living core of religion. Yet this neglect is not without precedent in the past. It is worth recalling that Immanuel Kant, although he was profoundly critical of the traditional ways in which the existence of God had been proved and the foundation of religion laid, none the less believed himself that there is a legitimate foundation for religious belief in man's consciousness of value, in his awareness of what Kant called the categorical imperative; and this more practical, this less severely theoretical approach to the reality of religion, may well be regarded as an important pointer towards the truth. None the less the fact remains that Kant himself held that ‘the purpose of prayer can only be to induce in us a moral disposition. … To wish to converse with God is absurd: we cannot talk to one we cannot intuit; and as we cannot intuit God, but can only believe in him, we cannot converse with him.’
‘The True Church’ in Reformation Theology
Authors: Avis P. D. L.
Published: February 2009

Two questions dominate much of Reformation theology: ‘How can I find a gracious God?’ and ‘Where can I find the true church?’ For Luther, the answer to both questions was given very simply in the gospel of justification. In speaking of a gracious God the gospel brought the church into being. The gospel alone, when believed, constituted the church. Other Reformers attempted to develop a more comprehensive and coherent doctrine of the marks of a true church. In this article I attempt to trace the evolution of the doctrine of thenotae ecclesiaeto the point where it had become so unwieldly that Hooker and Field abandoned it, and, replacing an intensive ecclesiology by an extensive one, set reformed ecclesiology on a new footing.
The Fabric of Paul Tillich's Theology
Authors: Ferré Nels F. S.
Published: February 2009

Paul Tillich's third volume of his Systematic Theology was never reviewed by Time magazine. Previously the publication of such a major volume was a front-cover event. The correspondent who interviewed me about the importance of the volume informed me that Time had asked five theologians in Chicago, New York and Boston respectively for an appraisal and found general agreement that Tillich's writings, except possibly for his occasional writings, especially his sermons, ‘would not last’. The astonished reporter confessed that some of these theologians had stressed that Tillich's theology was not Christian and that some had even suggested it was definitely a form of Hinduism. Having been one of the earliest of Tillich's critics I now threw whatever weight I could command into stressing the positive aspects of his thinking and the significance of his eventual contribution, but, as it turned out in this case, in vain.
The Meaning of the Terms ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ in the Fourth Gospel and in Paul
Authors: Thomas Richard W.
Published: February 2009

The twin themes of life and death are far more moving than the vast impersonalities of time and space. All four of these concepts represent primary categories in the sphere of philosophical thought. The former two, however, have an intensely personal quality about them. Funerals and births remind us that such realities cannot be ignored. For those who have the means to measure it, time can become a signpost pointing to the approach of death.
The Attack On Christendom in Marx and Kierkegaard
Authors: Forrester Duncan B.
Published: February 2009

Our discussion must start from Hegel, because Hegel set the terms of the debate and his shade has haunted the whole controversy we are to consider. His definitions of Christianity and of philosophy were at the heart of the ensuing encounter. Not that Hegel's analysis was accepted: some, like Feuerbach and Marx, modified Hegel more or less drastically while all the time assuming that in essentials, and sometimes in spite of himself, Hegel was right; others, like Kierkegaard, rejected Hegel's whole conception of what Christianity was about and yet still saw the question of what was to be done with the legacy of Hegel as a central issue of the age. And so it is impossible for us to grasp the structure of a still continuing discussion without seeing the pervasive influence of its starting-point.
The historian, the miraculous and post-Newtonian man
Authors: Sider Ronald J.
Published: February 2009

Must Christians today choose between the risen Jesus and electricity? Must we make a painful choice between modernity and miracles? Ernst Troeltsch, Rudolf Bultmann and Paul van Buren, to name only a few, all believe that the influence of modern science forces such a choice. Van Buren, for instance, simply assumes that ‘the idea of the empirical intervention of a supernatural “God” in the world of men has been ruled out by the influence of modern science on our thinking“.
The theological method of Karl Barth
Authors: Crawford Robert
Published: February 2009

The death of Karl Barth on the 10th December 1968 removed from the theological scene one of the greatest thinkers of the Church. Professor T. F. Torrance in an appreciation of him says that he was ‘God's greatest gift to theological science in the whole of the modern era’.
Gospel law and freedom in the theological ethics of Karl Barth
Authors: Rae Simon H.
Published: February 2009

In 1914 Karl Barth made a decisive break with his liberal theological past in circumstances that demonstrated the very close relationship between ethics and dogmatics that was to remain a feature of his theological work:
The Revolt against Creeds and Confessions of Faith
Authors: Crawford R. G.
Published: February 2009

Our present century has seen an increasing opposition to creeds and doctrinal statements of faith. Perhaps the most significant was that of Dr W. R. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul's in his little book The Thirty-Nine Articles (1961). There he summarised his arguments for setting aside the Articles, which he had previously put forward in the columns of The Times, and which had led to much correspondence. Many feared such a proposal could lead to the disruption and disestablishment of the Church of England, and thought it better to let sleeping Articles lie. In America an attempt at a compromise was reached by the publication in 1965 of a booklet containing creeds and confessions of historic worth together with a new confession of faith.
The Hegelian Christology of Paul Tillich
Authors: Cameron Bruce J. R.
Published: February 2009

Paul Tillich's philosophical theology is a gift which promises to enrich us if we ride with it for some time before dismounting to look into its mouth. Once we peer down its throat to investigate how loosely the existentialist fillings cover the cavities of the idealistic teeth only the background of that ride prevents us from picking holes that would give too distorted a view of the whole. Meaningful wholes are prevented from becoming mere holes in a hole. Such a background is assumed here, as are the inevitable limitations implied by this assumption. Even with all the fillings removed, Tillich's thought is too vibrant with life to be fitted artificially into a mould cast by any of the idealistic predecessors who significantly influenced him. A balanced picture of some of the major nineteenth-century theological influences on Tillich would have to include, besides the ontological idealism of Hegel, the experiential idealism of Schleiermacher and Herrmann, and the existential idealism of Schelling. Complementing the influence of idealism, both the negative influence of scientific historical research and the kerygmatic–existentialist influence of Kahler and Kierkegaard penetrate to the roots of Tillich's thought. Even so, Tillich's systematic theology reflects decisively the glory and the limitation of Hegel's comprehensive ontological philosophy. By focussing on this we are able to move beyond the many general remarks that have been made by critics concerning the Hegelian influence, or the lack of it, in Tillich's thought to a more detailed analysis and a clearer picture of some of the similarities and differences.
Creation and Scientific Explanation
Authors: Carvin Walter P.
Published: February 2009

Those who oppose the use of the biblical account of creation in classes in science often do so in the spirit with which the great formalist, Hilbert, sundered pure and applied mathematics. One day he was asked to substitute in a class at a nearby technical school for his colleague, Felix Klein, where Klein used his intuitive approach to mathematics to obtain practical applications. Hilbert said to the engineers, ‘I understand that there are those.who feel there is some conflict between pure and applied mathematics. But this cannot be. Sie haben nichts mit einander zu tun.’
Whitehead's Notion of the Person and the Saving of the Past
Authors: Curran Rosemary T.
Published: February 2009

Isaac B. Singer's great short story ‘Gimpel the Fool’ is a tale of redemption. It embodies in its delightfully exaggerated characters a central notion of process thought — that a human person is a coming together of his/her past in a way that is always open to a new future. The story reminds us that human interdependence is so profound that by our actions we can not only transform the meaning of our own past and future, but we may also radically affect the meaning of the past and the possibilities for the future of those closest to us.
Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde: A Case Study in the Relation of Religion to Romanticism
Authors: Pattison George
Published: February 2009

In 1799 a small book called Lucinde was published in Berlin. Written by the brilliant young literary critic Friedrich Schlegel it celebrated his (adulterous) affair with Dorothea Veit, daughter of the eminent Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Though not widely read and still less widely understood the book provoked a considerable, and largely hostile, reaction among the reading public. It became to its generation what Lady Chatterley's Lover was to a more recent age: the quintessential embodiment of an obscene book. The author's mother gave utterance to the popular consensus when she wrote that ‘through his novel Fritz has shown himself to me as one who has no religion and no good principles’.
‘Constraints’ and the Jesus of History
Authors: Wright N. T.
Published: February 2009

What sort of a thing is a ‘constraint’?

In Chaim Potok's novelMy Name is Asher Lev, the young Jewish painter learns the answer after the exhibition of his sensational ‘Brooklyn Crucifixion’:
Evolution by Blind Chance
Authors: Britton Barrie
Published: February 2009

Ever since Charles Darwin first published his revolutionary book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, there has been considerable disagreement among Christians concerning both the truth of evolutionary theory and its possible reconciliation with the Bible. Some Christians have taken the so-called ‘fundamentalist creationist’ position believing in a literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis. Others have adopted so-called ‘theistic evolutionist’ views accepting to various different degrees Darwinian ideas about origins. One point however on which most Christians (and indeed non-Christians) are agreed, is that an evolutionary process based on blind chance must necessarily conflict with all possible theistic world views and stands irreconcilable with the biblical text. It is this assertion which in this essay I hope to refute, as based on misunderstanding of the meaning of blind chance, of the mechanism of evolution and of the involvement of God in the universe.
Walking Humbly: Micah 6.8 Revisited
Authors: Dawes S.
Published: February 2009

The importance of this well-known verse has been frequently noted. It is cited as a high point in the literature of Israel, as a classic summary of the teaching of the eighth century prophets and as a statement of great lasting and theological value. In Jewish tradition it is used as one of the memorable summaries of the whole Law. It does contain, however, uncertainties of meaning and interpretation. In form it is a priestly or prophetic torah, giving an answer to the worshipper's question in vv. 6–7, What has a sinner to do to be restored to a right relationship with God, and then how is that relationship to be sustained? With a general statement like this questions of date and authorship are minor matters.
Theology in an Eschatological Matrix
Authors: Williams Arthur H.
Published: February 2009

The relation between faith and history has been troublesome for Christians and Jews for centuries. It is the problem of the relation of the Exodus, the cross and the empty tomb to us today. The seriousness of the matter is shown in the description of Christian faith as a ‘pious fraud’. Karl Barth has popularized the problem as ‘… Lessing's question concerning the relationship between the contingent truths of history and the necessary truths of reason (Der Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft, 1777). “This, this is the gaping and wide chasm which I cannot cross, however often and seriously I have attempted the leap. If anyone can help me over, let him do so: I implore and entreat him. He deserves from me a divine reward.”’ However, Barth also pinpoints the problem in the final analysis as a particular form of the problem of time.
The Book of Job and the Cure of Souls
Authors: Gibson J. C. L.
Published: February 2009

Though his example is warmly commended in the Epistle of James (5.11), Christian piety has never been altogether comfortable with the Job whose sterling patience in adversity is set forth in the book's first two chapters. The man who is there shown suffering bravely the loss of property and family and the onset of disease of a kind that in these distant days had the sentence of death written over it, yet steadfastly refuses to blame God for such disasters, is certainly admired. But his dauntless sentiments of 1.21, The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord, and of 2.10, What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? — the latter in response to his wife who, unable to put up with his agonies any longer, calls on him to curse God and be done with it all — are just too hard to take. A hymn made out of a similarly passive sounding Old Testament text like My times are in thy hand (Ps. 31.15) is one thing. But Job's insistence on implicating God directly in the tragedies that may befall a good man is quite another thing. I doubt, therefore, whether these texts from Job chapters 1 and 2 figure much in the pastoral care of the sick and the bereaved in the modern Church, though in sturdier ages it seems that they did.
Kant and Man's Coming of Age
Authors: Picken Stuart D. B.
Published: February 2009

The purpose of this argument is to demonstrate the relevance of at least one aspect of the philosophy of Kant to the contemporary form of the theological task. While the term ‘world come of age‘ originates in Bonhoeffer, and the problem it represents is styled by Professor Gregor Smith ‘the Great Revolution‘, it will be shown that this problem was first recognised by Kant, and that these contemporary discussions implicitly depend upon the position achieved by the Critical Philosophy.
A System of Classical Atheism
Authors: Holland J. A. B.
Published: February 2009

Some years ago, the editor of the Scottish Journal of Theology asked me to review what was, to me, an interesting and important book which amounted to a systematic attack on the existence of God, at any rate on the validity of the traditional theistic proofs of classical and modern systematic theology. In addition, such other bases of belief in God as authority revelation, historical event, and religious experience were treated, with the aim of showing that they cannot substitute for a failed philosophical theism. However, some mental block prevented me from completing the review proper. The root of the matter was that, in my Bachelor of Arts degree at Sydney University, my philosophical course had involved a system of atheism which I have recognised ever since to be more rigorous and cogent than any others, and I am not alone in this feeling. In particular, I felt that Professor Flew was in a stronger position than most philosophers of the prevailing modern British schools, but that this was because he approximated more than most to what I had learnt at Sydney, and that a still further approximation would tighten his case still more. The professor in question, the late John Anderson, was a Clydesider whose family background was the familiar Leftwing agnosticism and whose training was Absolute Idealism; in his later development, he reacted against both these elements, but his agnosticism hardened into a positive atheism.
The Contribution of McLeod Campbell to Scottish Thelogy
Authors: Torrance James B.
Published: February 2009

John Mcleod Campbell died one hundred years ago in J February 1872, and hence it is fitting that at this time we consider the contribution and insight of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) of our Scottish theologians—whose voice we need to hear again today.
Speech about the Trinity: with special reference to Novatian, Hilary and Calvin
Authors: Harman Allan M.
Published: February 2009

The question of the relation of language to being in general, and of theological language to the divine being in particular, is no new question. It was one which confronted the early Church Fathers in a very pressing fashion when they came to deal with the theological formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Heretical teaching caused them to wrestle with the problems and to discuss what is involved in the use of human language to set forth divine realities. At a time when the problem of theological language is very much in the forefront in present day discussions, it is immensely helpful to turn to the Fathers and to see how they dealt with these questions and to endeavour to learn from them.