bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Universalism—Is it Heretical?
Authors: Robinson J. A. T.
Published: February 2009

The description of the doctrine of universal salvation by Brunner in his recent Dogmatik (1, 363) as a “ menacing heresy, endangering the Biblical faith ”, raises acutely a problem that has divided theologians since the days of Origen. Though formally condemned as heresy by the fifth ecumenical council, the doctrine has frequently found advocates of disconcerting eminence in the ranks of theology. It is impossible to ignore, for instance, a concensus of contemporary names such as Nicolas Berdyaev, William Temple, John Baillie, C. H. Dodd, Charles Raven and Herbert Farmer, all of whom have come out more or less openly in its favour. Nor can they all be labelled, and dismissed, as liberals. Is Brunner right, therefore, in saying that a doctrine of universal restoration is wholly incompatible with a truly Biblical theology?
Baptism in the Church
Authors: Manson T. W.
Published: February 2009

The new and sustained interest in the doctrine of the Church, which is one of the outstanding characteristics of theological study in our day, has lately taken a turn which seems to hold the promise of fresh and fruitful developments. There has been any amount of discussion in the past about the Church's faith as worked out in controversy and expressed in creeds and confessions; about the Church's organisation and the functions and status of her ministers; about the Church's code of conduct or ethical ideals. In these discussions it has not always been remembered that the Church is a worshipping community. True, there was a branch of study called liturgiology; but few students were attracted to it. To most people it seemed to be at best a harmless kind of antiquarianism remote from the main business of theology and the real life of the Church. Its exponents tended to be looked upon—often, it must be confessed, not without justification—as diligent pickers-up of unconsidered trifles. All that is changing. It is realised that the corporate worship of the Christian community in all its aspects is an essential and distinctive part of its life; and that it is one of the main tasks of Christian theology to know and interpret Christian worship.
Ecumenical Hopes and Fears
Authors: Cunningham Gilbert F.
Published: February 2009

The last issue of the Scottish Journal of Theology opens with a series of four articles on Amsterdam which provide much matter for thought and discussion. Professor Haire's summary of the implications is an excellent one, though all too short, for space does not permit him to develop some of the interesting points raised, which one feels he could do most competently. Bishop Warner's article has a special attraction in that it expresses the Anglican view from the inside; moreover, he makes interesting references to the attitude of laymen towards the Ecumenical Movement, and the following pages are an attempt to deal with some aspects of reunion where the lay and clerical outlooks may tend to diverge.
A Study of Micah 6.1–8
Authors: Anderson G. W.
Published: February 2009

It has often been remarked that the last verse of this passage is an epitome of the teaching of the three great eighth century prophets: the appeal of Amos for justice; Hosea's unfolding of the meaning of hesedh; Isaiah's summons to the life of humble faith and obedience, which was the outcome of his vision of the holy and living God of Israel. Nowhere is the prophetic message more concisely and powerfully expressed. There are about these words a dignity and comprehensiveness which may easilytempt the modern reader to isolate them from what precedes, and so to miss the ground and the significance of the prophetic appeal. As George Adam Smith wrote many years ago: “Usually it is only the last of the verses upon which the admiration of the reader is bestowed: What doth the Lord require of thee, O man, but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God? But in truth the rest of the passage differeth not in glory; the wonder of it lies no more in its peroration than in its argument as a whole.”1 The observation is salutary. We have not adequately interpreted these words (v. 8) when we see in them simply an ethical counterblast to a religion whose requirements were exclusively cultic and formal, or when we think of them as merely enunciating an austere but unattainable moral standard, as law without gospel. Nor ought they to be dismissed as an impressive testimony to a faith which we have outgrown.
The Millennial Hope in the Early Church
Authors: Bietenhard Hans
Published: February 2009

The first post-Apostolic3Chiliast known to us isPapias of Hierapolis. From the oral tradition of presbyters who saw the disciple John he adduces a saying of Jesus referring to the miraculous fruitfulness of corn and wine during the millennium. There is an exact parallel to this tradition—perhaps its source— in Syr. Baruch 29.5: ‘The earth also will yield its fruit 10,000 fold, and on one vine there will be 1000 branches, and each branch will produce 1000 clusters, and each cluster will produce 1000 grapes, and each grape will produce a cor of wine.’ In this context we cannot discuss the priority and interdependence of the two traditions. We can only maintain that there existed in the Early Church a saying of Jesus which the presbyters and authorities cited by Papias referred at once to the millennium. We may also notice how closely the Christian and Judaistic traditions approximated and even merged into each other at this point. This is true even in the case of theEpistle of Barnabas, which is normally so anti-Jewish. Speaking of the Sabbath which was instituted at creation, Barn. 15.3–9 argues that the Genesis narrative points prophetically to the final consummation. God created the world in six days, and He will bring it to its consummation in 6000 years, for one day is with the Lord as a 1000 years (Ps. 90.4; Barn. 15.4)4‘And God rested the seventh day’ means for Barnabas that when His Son comes He will destroy the age (kaipóy) of the lawless one (i.e. the Antichrist, cf. Isa. 11.4; 2 Thess. 2.8), judge the ungodly, and refashion the sun and the moon and the stars.
The Miracles of the Loaves and the Gentiles in St. Mark's Gospel
Authors: Boobyer G. H.
Published: February 2009

In their homiletical expositions of the Scriptures, the patristic writers freely employed symbolical methods. Origen, for instance, understood the two miracles with which we are concerned here to signify the giving of the Word of God to the Gentiles; whilst Augustine held that the feeding of the five thousand symbolised that salvation was for the Jews, and that of the four thousand its offering to the Gentiles. Many modern scholars say that Augustine's exegesis would, in this respect, have been Mark's view of these two miracles.
Kierkegaard and Existentialism
Authors: Thomas J. Heywood
Published: February 2009

It is usual to regard Kierkegaard as the father of the con-temporary existentialist movement and to say that he is the first of a long line of existentialists. Thus Ruggiero says of existentialism:

Its origins are very distant and very near, very distant in the solitary torment of one religious soul, the Danish writer, Søren Kierkegaard, in whom the passionate reaction against Hegelianism assumed, round about a century ago, contorted and passionate forms which were yet not without greatness and authentic power.
The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order
Authors: Rodger Patrick C.
Published: February 2009

Eleven years after the third World Conference on Faith and Order at Lund, the fourth in the series (and, some have suggested, the last) was held in July 1963, at McGill University, Montreal, by invitation of the Canadian Council of Churches and with the active and welcoming participation of a Montreal Arrangements Committee. 498 persons attended the conference. 240 of these were delegates of the churches, 18 youth delegates, and 46 advisers invited by the W.C.C. There were 15 observers from non-member churches, including 5 from Roman Catholic Church, 3 from the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod), and 1 from the Serbian Orthodox Church. There were 65 official guests, the great majority of whom had been invited through the good offices of the Canadian Council of Churches and the N.C.C.C.U.S.A. In all, 138 member and non-member churches of the W.C.C. were represented. Nor should we forget to mention in this list the 32 interpreters and translators who gave us their usual splendid service, and the 21 stewards who came at their own expense and who by their energetic work made the whole proceedings possible. It is well known that from the ranks of the youth delegates and stewards of one conference comes the chairman of the next conference but one, so that we should feel happy that the younger generation was so well represented at Montreal.
The Ritschlian School the Essence of Christianity and Karl Barth
Authors: Deegan D. L.
Published: February 2009

William Hamilton has recently called our attention to the significance of the idea of the ‘essence of Christianity’ associated with the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ‘… It is not at all clear’, writes Hamilton, ‘that the phrase itself does not still have some real usefulness. It is interesting that in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's final papers we have a projected outline for a little book that was to have been calledThe Essence of Christianity.’ Our aim in this essay is a reassessment of the significance of Ritschl, Harnack and Troeltsch as these sought to illumine from their own theological perspectives the essence of Christianity. We place Harnack and Troeltsch in the ‘Ritschlian School’ in the sense that both acknowledged Ritschl as their teacher and in spite of divergencies from him in their respective theologies nevertheless continued to note their indebtedness to him. We shall show that the effort to define the essence of Christianity is intimately associated in the work of each of these theologians with the search for right theological method.
The Nature of Truth
Authors: De Kretser B.
Published: February 2009

The consideration of this problem is important for at least two reasons. In many countries there are reports of an increasing decline in public morals and of growing dishonesty and corruption in the life of the body politic. This is taking place at a time when the established religious systems are being subjected to the pressure of pseudo-scientific secularism on the one hand and the claims of modern alternative faiths on the other. Clearly the two developments are interconnected. Yet, to judge from the burden of many public utterances of responsible leaders, including the now important and significant ‘Moral Re-armament’ Group, the close dependence of moral truth and the truth about the character of reality is not realised. Most people are content to mutter the usual platitudes—‘Honesty is the best policy’, ‘Do please try to be good and speak the truth’. But the problem of truth is more complicated than our naīve moralists would have us believe.
Nomos: The Biblical Significance of Law
Authors: Wilson R.McL.
Published: February 2009

In the days of Jesus and of Paul the Jewish religion had become to all intents and purposes a religion of the Law, a religion of which the central feature was the observance of the statutes, the commandments, and the judgments once delivered to the people by the agency of Moses. The Law had indeed so far replaced the Temple at the heart of the Jewish faith that that faith was able to continue and endure, as a religion centred in the Law, even when the Temple had been destroyed. It was the Law that differentiated the Jew from his Gentile neighbours, and the Law was his pride and his glory. Yet it is against the Law that Paul delivers one of the most emphatic and sustained attacks in the entire corpus of his letters.
St. Mark 4.1–34
Authors: Cranfield C.E.B.
Published: February 2009

The structure of this section, which is one of the two large blocks of teaching in Mark (the other being chapter 13), may be indicated as follows:

That this is a composite section is fairly obvious. In v. 1 Jesus is sitting in a boat and in v. 36 he is apparently still in the boat, but vv. 10–20 presuppose a different scene. As things stand it is not clear to whom the teaching in vv. 21–32 was addressed. Are we to conclude from its relation to vv. 10–20 that it was addressed to the disciples alone, or are we to conclude from its relation to vv. 33 f. that it was addressed to the multitude? It seems likely that we have to do here with a number of originally independent pieces of tradition which have been brought together in several stages to form an artificial unity. Vv. 10–20 disturb the unity of scene of a grouping of parables and sayings which is probably itself artificial. But vv. 10–20 themselves are not originally a unit. Vv. 11–20 give a double answer to the disciples' question in v. 10. V. 13 (with the singular ‘this parable’) presupposes a question about the meaning of the particular parable and would follow on v. 10 quite smoothly. It is true that the plural ‘the parables’ in v. 10 might suggest a more general question, but it need not; and one wonders whether it represents a correction made in order to make the insertion of vv. 11 f. easier.
ST. Anselm—A Revaluation
Authors: Walker C. R.
Published: February 2009

What is to be thought of St. Anselm? That question is likely to recur with the approaching completion of the new and definitive edition of Anselm's works by the Scottish firm of Nelson. This paper attempts to give a limited answer by a fresh consideration of Anselm's character, with special reference to his Meditations and Prayers.

Anselm is generally acknowledged to be one of the great thinkers of medieval Christendom. His powers as a meta-physician are amply displayed in his Monologion and Proslogion, while his Cur Deus Homo marks one of the milestones in the Church's progressive apprehension of the mystery of the Atonement. So powerful indeed is the impact of these treatises that Anselm has been compared with St. Augustine. Augustinus redivivus is a proud title; but Anselm has been thought worthy to bear it.
The problem of realism in R. Niebuhr's christology
Authors: Lochman J. M.
Published: February 2009

When the Swedish theologian George Hammar in his study of Reinhold Niebuhr tried to formulate concisely the standpoint of this religious thinker, he did so in the very words he used in the title ‘Christian Realism’.1 He thus employed a term which is used elsewhere to characterise Niebuhr's theological thinking and which is a favourite with Niebuhr himself. This term, of course, is used so often in current theological discussions and with so many different associations, as to have become rather ambiguous and vague. The use of it here does not aspire to anything more than to indicate roughly the theology which tries to show its disagreement with ethical idealism in ‘Christian practice’ and with idealistic religious philosophy in ‘Christian theory’;. Both ethical and metaphysical idealism belong as a rule to the outfit of the modernistic, liberal philosophy of religion (where in some form or other it is proclaimed as a fitting and saving interpretation of Christianity for the modern man), but so-called Christian realism is opposed to a substantial part of the heritage of liberal theology. It is from this perspective then that the work of Reinhold Niebuhr is to be judged, as is agreed by the majority of his biographers and as follows from his own formulations of his programme.
The Church and Time
Authors: Dillistone F. W.
Published: February 2009

Two main views of the relation of the Church to Time are being propagated at the present time. The first I shall designate the Ontological, the second the Eschatological; the first is characteristic of Catholic thought, the second of Reformed: the first dwells upon the ideas of timelessness and eternity, the second upon the ideas of time's arrow and the End. There is, as we shall see later, the possibility of recognising that each view has a certain validity and of attempting to work out a fruitful relationship between them. But for the moment we shall concentrate our attention upon each in turn.
The Preacher and the Critic
Authors: Lillie William
Published: February 2009

Dr R. E. McIntyre in his recent Warrack lectures tells of a minister, who made the boast, ‘I am an evangelist, thank God, and not a theologian’. The writer of this article can make a similar claim without the thanksgiving, ‘I am a preacher, and not a Biblical critic’. The learned men of Biblical Criticism have, however, set for us preachers a problem in Christian ethics. The findings of Biblical Criticism being what they are, can we go on preaching in the way that we have been doing? Most of us in our preaching imply, if we do not explicitly state, that the words attributed to our Lord in the New Testament are translations of words that Jesus actually uttered during His life on earth. Indeed, we try to bring out every possible meaning of these words in the light both of the circumstances in which they are said to have been uttered and in the light of the whole religious heritage of the Jews which Jesus shared. There is a similar problem in preaching from any part of Scripture, but, in this article, I shall confine myself for the most part to sayings attributed to our Lord Himself. One reason for doing so is the very practical one that I have found a rich mine of examples in Dr T. W. Manson's recently reprinted work, The Sayings of Jesus; another reason is that whatever we discover to be right method in the case of the sayings attributed to our Lord is likely, with necessary changes, to be right method in the case of the rest of the Scripture records.
Martin Kähler: Kerygma and Gospel History
Authors: Deegan Daniel L.
Published: February 2009

Martin Kähler lived at the turn of the century when the impact of the methods of historical criticism was being felt acutely by theologians. What can one say about the authority of the Bible for the believer in the light of critical historiography? What can one say about the relation of history and faith if that faith is living faith which is awakened in response to the testimony of Scripture, especially to the apostolic preaching of the Lord's resurrection? Can one say that there is a ground for such faith in results derived from the picture of the so-called ‘historical Jesus’ in the Gospels? It is in the area of questions like these that Kähler has been acknowledged by Tillich, Barth, and Bultmann as a pioneer. Whereas only a few theologians were directly influenced by Kähler's systematic theological work, many regarded his critical position as a harbinger of the future. Barth pays tribute to Kähler for insisting at a time when it cost something to say so that the real historical Christ is the biblical Christ attested by the New Testament as the risen and exalted One. In the course of our essay we shall have occasion to note the positive affinity which exists between Kähler's position and that of Barth. Cullmann has indicated the significance of Kähler for the rise of Form Criticism with its insistence that the Gospels are by nature the Church's witness to its faith as embodied in its preaching.
The Bishop-in-Presbytery: An Australian Reaction
Authors: Peter J. F.
Published: February 2009

The proposals contained in the Report entitled ‘Relations Between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches’ are sufficiently far-reaching to command wide attention. And this is what, in some quarters, they have attracted—though one suspects that the attention given them has not always been born of knowledge, or of an interest quite devoid of mercenary considerations. In essence, the proposals call for a modification of Church polities to provide for ‘Bishops’ in Presbyterian Churches and for ‘Elders’ in Anglican Churches; and it is the effect of such a modification, as it relates to Presbyterian Churches, and to the Presbyterian Church of Australia in particular, that is the subject of these comments.
Biblical Theology and Preaching
Authors: Miller Donald G.
Published: February 2009

Biblical theology is difficult, if not impossible, to define. In broadest terms, however, we may say that it is the conviction that the central concern of the Church is with the Word of God in the Bible.
Analogical Thinking in Theology
Authors: Taylor W. S.
Published: February 2009

Karl barth's emphasis on the Analogia Fidei, and the revival of interest in the Analogia Entis, both point up our contemporary concern about the place of analogical thinking in theology. A number of developments outside the field of theology proper also contribute to this concern about analogical thinking. A brief consideration of some of these developments may help to clarify one aspect of the significance of the Analogia Fidei.
Kierkegaard on Sin
Authors: Hamilton Kenneth
Published: February 2009

In the nineteen-thirties, when Søren Kierkegaard was beginning to become internationally known and his ideas were being eagerly discussed, Theodor Haecker noted that of all those who had reason to take up the task of interpretation the theologians were the least active. Today, in spite of the wealth of Kierkegaardian studies available, the situation is not so very different. The great Christian writer is still more commonly thought of as the pioneer of existentialism than as a skilled exponent of Christianity, and the bearing of his teaching upon doctrinal issues is seldom mentioned. It is true that he said that Christianity was not a doctrine, and that he wrote no formal theology. Insisting that his role was that of a layman, the most he claimed was that some of his writings were specifically ‘for edification’. At the same time, he strenuously opposed the opinion that Christian belief could stand without a very definite content, pointing out that the inwardness demanded of the individual presupposed knowledge of the ‘objectively dogmatic’: in faith the how could not be separated from the what.
The Wars of Israel
Authors: Gelston A.
Published: February 2009

Experience shows that the numerous passages in the Old Testament treating of war, and particularly those which represent Yahweh as bringing about and rejoicing in the destruction of Israel's enemies, present an immediate obstacle to the minds of many people. This contributes to an attitude, disquietingly common among worshippers, that most of the Old Testament is no longer suitable for use in Christian worship; and itself reflects the widespread but mistaken notion that, if any claim is made for the authority of the Bible as a whole, each and any part of it may be taken at its face value, and immediately related to Christian doctrine or practice. In contrast to this, it can hardly be over-emphasised that the Old Testament as a whole, and any part of it in particular, must be interpreted in the light of its historical context.
The Church And Tradition In The Pre-Nicene Fathers
Authors: Hanson R.P.C.
Published: February 2009

There is an old tradition which can be traced back to the Middle Ages that the moon is made of green cheese. If we are to take as authentic all the traditions in all the old inns of England to the effect that Queen Elizabeth I slept a night in them, then we shall have to envisage that queen as spending most of her reign in bed. In other words, the word tradition is today used very loosely and vaguely, and there is such a thing as unreliable tradition as well as authentic tradition. These facts apply to tradition in the early Church as well as to other sorts of tradition. Indeed, we are sometimes tempted to ask whether there was such a thing as a consistent tradition of doctrine in the early Christian centuries, for some evidence suggests that there was not, or at any rate that ‘the tradition of the Church’, is not an easy phenomenon to identify in the early centuries. Justin Martyr, for instance, says that all orthodox Christians believe in a literal Kingdom of Christ which is to last on this earth in a restored Jerusalem for a thousand years. Origen says that it was part of the Apostles' teaching that accounts of such a Kingdom should be allegorised. Which of them is reproducing the tradition of the Church? Or (as seems to me most likely) are they both either exaggerating or mistaken and is neither reproducing it? Again, both Clement of Alexandria and Origen claim that the necessity of allegorising the Scriptures is part of the rule of faith.
Bible and Biblical Theology in the Early Reformation
Authors: Van Den Brink J. N. Bakhuizen
Published: February 2009

The Reformation gave back the Bible to the people, that is to say the Bible in the vulgar tongue. We may enter now into some of the theological problems implied in this important historical event, by revealing the well-known circumstances of the first religious disputation held at Zürich on 29th January 1523. Zwingli's first thesis was that those who do not recognise the Gospel but by the authority of the Church, err and insult God. The same conviction is repeated in quite the same words and with still greater completeness in the Scots Confession, art. 19. Some months before the disputation, Zwingli had sent his treatise Von Klarheit und Gewissheit des Wortes Gottes, to the Black Friars of Oetenbach. For three years already he had himself been preaching daily in Our Lady's Münster in the capital. In his correspondence with the vicar of Constanz, who seriously disapproved of Zwingli's activity, he published his Apologeticus Archeteles, 1522, in which he said: ‘to this treasure, I mean the certitude of God's Word, our heart should be directed’, and in his second answer to the objections of the vicar he ventured to give the assurance that ‘the people will always surrender themselves with the simplicity of a dove to the sole Gospel, and in proportion as it is the less stained by the dust of human traditions, the people will be the more susceptible to the celestial doctrine in which they take their refuge with all confidence as to a holy anchor’.
Validity
Authors: Woodhouse H. F.
Published: February 2009

For the ministerial fundamentalist the yardstick is the ministry. … There is no doubt that this is the crucial issue in reunion today. So Canon Fison wrote ten years ago and the same might be written in the same context today.

This yardstick is bound up with validity and so some attempt to consider its meaning may help; but first we shall define the word and then mention some relevant discussions. ‘That is valid which, by virtue of satisfying certain conditions laid down by competent authority, is actually entitled to everything to which it appears or claims to have a title.’ Much argument has centred on the exclusive claims made for episcopacy in The Apostolic Ministry, though, after the introduction, there is only one reference in the index of that work to validity. The late Bishop Rawlinson dealt with ‘validity’ in Problems of Reunion; he used certain arguments Canon Quick had outlined in his contribution to The Ministry and the Sacraments and also in The Christian Sacraments. Historical considerations on the topic have been ably summarised by Professor S. L. Greenslade in his Schism in the Early Church. Useful contributions have been made more recently by Dr A. L. Peck in Anglicanism and Episcopacy. All these writers are Anglicans.
Some Reflections on the Dialogue of Justin Martyr with Trypho
Authors: Schneider H. P.
Published: February 2009

There are almost as many problems connected with the study of the Dialogue as of the Synoptic Gospels. This is hardly surprising when one considers how comparatively little attention the Dialogue has received, and that in size it is comparable to the four Gospels. Among the main issues to be considered are, the aim and authenticity of the Dialogue, the mutilation of its text, the OT text which is used, and the interpretation of the OT, which is the chief interest of the present writer.
The Servant Lord and his Servant People
Authors: Mudge Lewis S.
Published: February 2009

The ‘themes’ of church conferences are often no more than umbrellas which, if they conveniently gather together the business to be discussed, also tend to shelter the discussions too effectively from sunlight and storms. Fortunately, the more cloying slogans are generally short-lived, and therefore harmless. Truth will out in the long run even if it does not appear at a given ecumenical meeting. On the other hand, if a conference theme does express a biblical truth uncommonly well, the fact that the meeting is soon over may render that insight quite prematurely out of fashion. Perhaps it is no service to a really good idea for it to be made the watchword of an international conference. Yet there is the possibility that time, place and thinking may coalesce in such a way that the insights of a congress may become a permanent gain for Christian thought.
A Reconsideration of the Diaconate
Authors: Ross J. M.
Published: February 2009

The Report on ‘Relations between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches’ has given rise to much discussion of the Episcopate; but it may not be unprofitable if some study were to be given, in the churches of both traditions, to the true nature of the diaconate, especially as the Report invites the Anglican churches to consider setting apart lay persons for some measure of pastoral responsibility for their fellow-Christians, ‘possibly through a reform of the diaconate’.
Prolegomena to a Christian Ethic
Authors: Macmurray John
Published: February 2009

It has been for many years a hope of mine that I might find the time to formulate, in a systematic fashion, the ethical teaching of the New Testament, and particularly of the Gospels. This would be a major undertaking, and what I write now falls far short of this. But it is not unrelated to it; for it arises from repeated, if unsystematic, reflection upon the conditions of fulfilling such a project. Certain problems have presented themselves for solution which I cannot solve. Certain possible conclusions, between which a choice must be made, compete with one another for acceptance. Certain valuations which seem to differentiate the teaching of the Gospels from other ethical attitudes have focused themselves in my attention, without achieving systematic relation to one another. It is something of all this that I have in mind to express; no firm conclusion, certainly, but rather certain prolegomena to any conclusion which may eventually become possible.
The Authority of the Bible
Authors: Macphail J. R. ,   Others
Published: February 2009

The Primacy of the Church. Christianity is often called the religion of the Book: this is because it is based on things that happened in history. Jesus did not leave behind Him, so far as we know, a single written word. We hear of His writing only once, and then it was on the dust of the floor of the temple (John 8.6). What He did leave was a community—the eleven faithful Apostles, the ministering women, His mother and brothers—about 120 persons in all (Acts 1.15), who met daily for worship because they loved Jesus and believed that God had raised Him from among the dead. When they had to fill the place of the traitor Judas, Peter said: ‘Of the men therefore which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received up from us, of these must one become a witness with us of his resurrection’ (Acts 1.2 if). And Matthias was chosen, with all possible care. Six weeks later the company was wonderfully strengthened and increased by the outpouring of the Spirit, and the Church began to spread from Jerusalem to ‘all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth’ (Acts 1.8).
Gnosis and Revelation in the Bible and in Contemporary Thought
Authors: Richardson Alan
Published: February 2009

The nineteenth-century revolution in historical method and its application to the study of the Bible rendered necessary a complete re-statement of the doctrine of revelation. No longer was it possible to hold a doctrine of revelation as given in propositional form at the dictation of the Holy Spirit. The object of this paper is to ask what is the biblical conception of revelation and how it can best be expressed and understood in the light of modern thought. We will begin with a very brief and necessarily inadequate summary of what the Bible means by ‘revelation’.
On the Anniversaries of Mozart, Kierkegaard and Barth
Authors: Cochrane Arthur C.
Published: February 2009

Perhaps an astrologer would claim that due to some remarkable astral influence the year 1955–6 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on 27th January 1956; the centenary of the death of Sören Kierkegaard on 11th November 1955, and the seventieth birthday of Karl Barth on 10th May 1956. The three dates are being suitably observed by music-lovers and scholars the world over. But something more than a disposition of the stars links their names together. For if, as we believe, Kierkegaard and Barth, like Luther and Calvin in the sixteenth century, represent the end of an epoch and the dawn of a new era, then according to both men, Mozart is the herald of a new age. Though Mozart lived in the eighteenth century, he actually represented the end of the Age of Absolutism in which he lived and which lingered on in idealism and contemporary existentialism. At the same time he marked the beginning of a new day in which men would begin, not with expressions of their own consciousness, but with grateful praise to the Creator who has revealed Himself totheir consciousness. In Mozart's music Kierkegaard believed he had heard a No to the past: to man who is the measure of all things. Barth, on the other hand, believes he has heard a Yes to the goodness of God's creatures. Not that Mozart himself was a sort of Hegelian synthesis.
The First Sacrament: Baptism
Authors: Vogel Heinrich
Published: February 2009

We confess Holy Baptism as the act of grace of our Lord and Saviour fesus Christ, by which, on the command and promise of His Word, we are sealed in a second birth to eternal life as sons and heirs of His eternal Kingdom and members of His holy Church, in order that by the Holy Spirit, in His Word and faith, we may be daily baptised into His death and raised with Him.
A Roman Catholic Interpretation of Karl Barth
Authors: Miegge Giovanni
Published: February 2009

I do not think that I am doing an injustice to anyone in writing that the book that Balthasar has devoted to Karl Barth constitutes the largest, most unprejudiced and most intelligent attempt that has hitherto been made to set forth clearly the thought of the master of Basel, by identifying his deep-lying connexions with modern Protestant theology, and by setting forth with precision his opposition in regard to Catholicism. One should not lose sight of the fact that Father Balthasar writes as a Roman Catholic theologian. One can easily imagine that a Roman Catholic is sensitive, more than we Protestants, to a determinate intellectual atmosphere, a certain family likeness, which is beyond doubt common to all modern Protestant theologians and which distinguishes the lot of them from the tradition of scholastic ontological thought; and it is a situation that we may enjoy when, although in the realm of Protestantism Barthians and Liberals have for a quarter of a century been exchanging fierce blows in a duel which each imagines to be to the death, a sensitive and cultured theologian can come from the other side with a smile of kindly irony and say: ‘And yet at root you are all very much alike: you are all moderns.’ Balthasar is one of a small group of Roman theologians who have taken upon themselves as their life's mission the study of the theological positions of Protestantism, in order to put the discussion between Catholicism and Protestantism on a serious footing.
Anglicanism and the Ministry
Authors: Bromiley G. W.
Published: February 2009

‘Wherefore the apostles, following the rule, doctrine, and commandment of our Saviour Christ, their master, ordained in his kingdom and congregation two officers: one called, after the Greek word, bishop, in English an overseer: which same was called priest after the Greek, elder in English, because of his age, discretion, and sadness… Another officer they chose, and called him deacon after the Greek, a minister in English, to minister the alms of the people unto the poor and needy.’ This is rather a different doctrine of the apostolic succession from that which we normally associate nowadays with Anglican teaching. Its exponent was of course condemned by the traditionalist hierarchy of his day and finally came to a heretic's death. But a generation later the doctrine of Tyndale had become the commonly accepted teaching of the leaders of his Church, and it could be held without any sense of disloyalty to the newly reformed articles and liturgy.
Karl Barth
Authors: Torrance Thomas F.
Published: February 2009

Karl Barth died in the early hours of 10 December 1968, God's greatest gift to theological science in the whole of the modern era. Albert Einstein once wrote of Isaac Newton: ‘To think of him is to think of his work. For such a man can be understood only by thinking of him as a scene on which the struggle for eternal truth took place.’ That is surely the way in which we must remember Karl Barth, for in him there took place a profound struggle for the eternal Word of God in which the whole framework of the Church's understanding of God from ancient to modern times was subjected to critical and constructive inquiry in the search for a unified and comprehensive basis in the Grace of God for all theology. He has no need of praise from us, for the work he was given to accomplish will endure to bless the world for many centuries to come. If Karl Barth has left behind no school of ‘Barthians’, it is because he belongs to the whole universe of theology in a way that no mere leader of a new movement of thought ever could.
Christian Ethics and the Being of God
Authors: Ward Keith
Published: February 2009

I. Is there anything distinctive about Christian ethics? Many recent writers have claimed that there is, but have at the same time denied that this distinctiveness depends upon the truth of any factual assertions about the being of God. Some have gone even further, and claimed that the Christian faith is nothing but commitment to a distinctive ethic—of concern for others, or ‘agapism’—and does not involve any belief about the existence of supernatural beings.
Hume on Evil
Authors: Wolfe Julian
Published: February 2009

My aim in this paper is to explore the question of David Hume's position on the theological problem of evil. I want to determine whether Hume was of the opinion that God and evil are logically incompatible. The argument will proceed by an examination of Parts x and xi of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and a discussion of two current views of Hume's view on this matter. These are the positions of William Capitan and Nelson Pike.
Towards A Theology of the Old Testament
Authors: Porteous Norman W.
Published: February 2009

During the past quarter of a century the problem of Old Testament Theology has been the subject of discussion by a succession of well-known scholars (such as Rudolf Kittel, Marti, Gressmann, W. Staerk, Steuernagel, Eissfeldt, Eichrodt and Weiser) and still the debate shows no signs of coming to an end. In fact at the present time there are very deep cleavages of opinion among students of the Bible and among theologians, the consequent confusion of thought in the minds of many people leading to grave embarrassment. The question at issue is related to, though not identical with, the question as to what one has a right to expect of an Old Testament commentator. In this connection I need scarcely remind you that during the few years immediately before the War, more particularly in Germany and Switzerland, there was a tremendous amount of writing and discussion about the true nature of Biblical exegesis. The circumstances of the time, which included a violent attack delivered from certain directions upon the Old Testament, sufficiently explain why all this high debate should have taken place just then. The debate goes on and a solution is not yet in sight.

In all this, most serious theological issues are involved in so far as the present theological confusion means that many people, who are interested in the Old Testament and wish to make use of it for personal edification or in religious instruction, are sincerely perplexed by the results of Old Testament scholarship and so are inclined to set them on one side and get on with the business in hand in their own way.
The Apostolic Ministry
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

The Apostolic Ministry is a volume of outstanding importance, as Professor Burleigh points out in his review, not only because of its wealth of learning but because in many respects it represents a change of front on the part of Anglicans in the realisation that it is ultimately upon theological grounds that a true conception of the ministry must rest. At the same time it cannot but be of extreme interest to the Reformed Churches in that it approaches their view that the ministry is creative of the Church. Nevertheless the precise interpretation given to that doctrine in these pages throws out a real challenge to the Reformed Churches which must be taken seriously, particularly as it has been thrown out in view of the widespread movement for re-union. I have no hesitation, therefore, in adding to the excellent review above a further discussion particularly of the more theological issues raised.

At the very outset something must be said about the methods employed by the various scholars who contribute to this book. It is refreshing to find here the combination of biblical and historical research with dogmatic construction or reconstruction. That is a method of investigation which I, for one, welcome, as being a great advance even upon the impartial scholarly method of men like Lightfoot, Hort, and Swete, and I find myself in definite agreement with them against many of their predecessors in this field in their insistence that, apart from a doctrine of the ministry, no real progress can be made through the criss-cross tradition of Church history on this subject.
The Theology of Baptism
Authors: Heron John
Published: February 2009

In the Bible we find Baptism suddenly appearing for the first time in that action of John the Baptist which, according to one way of reading Mark I.I, was ‘the beginning of the Gospel’. The Evangelists speak of Baptism not as a strange rite invented by John, but as something so familiar that it requires neither detailed description nor careful explanation.

To readers of the present day, however, the sudden appearance of Baptism at the beginning of the New Testament is a source of bewilderment which can easily lead to the kind of false interpretation of Scripture that underlies the Baptist movement et hoc genus omne.

It is therefore necessary to try to discover all we can as to the origin and significance of this strange rite.

The New Testament uses two cognate nouns: βάπτισμα and βαπτισμóς. βάπτισμα is found only in the New Testament and in Christian writers, and in the New Testament is used only of Baptism, whether it be John's Baptism or Christian Baptism. βαπτισμóς is used in the New Testament meaning a special form of ‘washing’. It occurs only at Mark 7.4, Heb. 6.2 and 9.10. In all these cases the reference is to ritual washings either of persons or of things. It is never used of Baptism in the New Testament, though Josephus, the only profane author to use the word, applies it to John's Baptism (Ant. xvii.v.2).
The Reformation of Worship
Authors: Read D. H. C.
Published: February 2009

There are signs in nearly all the Christian communions of the Western world today of restlessness and dissatisfaction with our inherited patterns of public worship. This is indicated by the numerous experiments that are being made and by the movements for liturgical reform that are active in many denominations. A great variety of motives lies behind these movements for reform; but in general it might be said that we are conscious of living in a world that has changed more fundamentally in the last fifty years than in any remotely comparable period of the past, and feel that these changes, while not affecting the essence of Christian worship, must surely be reflected in its forms. This is felt by convinced and instructed Christians who have a vision of what worship might be as the expression of our highest and holiest activity and are disappointed at its meagre realisation in the normal practice of their church: it is felt even more by the semi-convinced who are genuinely seeking to know and experience more of what we mean by worship, and who find our services unilluminating and uninspiring. It is certainly not ill-will, and may not even be indifference, that keeps multitudes of potential worshippers from entering our churches. The blight that seems to afflict public worship in our day might be characterised in one word—irrelevance.

Now the charge of irrelevance is not to be disposed of by a series of sermons on the relevance of the Christian faith and of Christian worship.
Nature
Authors: Evdokimov Paul
Published: February 2009

The biblical narrative describes the progressive course of creation ending with man. Man appears as its culmination, as a centre on which all the planes of the world converge, a ‘microcosm’. But, ‘created in the image of God’ he is also, according to the Fathers, a ‘microtheos’. This central position of man explains the normative subjection of nature to man as to its cosmic logos, as to one of its multiple hypostases. Man ‘cultivates’ nature, gives a name to creatures and things, ‘humanises’ them. His direct relation with the Creator is constitutive of his being.
Critical Empiricism in the Theology of Albrecht Ritschl
Authors: Deegan Daniel L.
Published: February 2009

In his own time and thereafter Albrecht Ritschl's criticism of metaphysics was much debated. He insisted that his basic criticism was directed against those varieties of metaphysics which adopted a priori and deductive methods as a basis for our inquiry concerning God and His relationship to the world. Yet he recognised the significance of philosophy in his effort to vindicate an appropriate theological method. In this essay we shall show that his method of attempting to elucidate the characteristic features of theological discourse is primarily that of a critical empiricism which recognises the reality and activities of the Christian community as the proper locus for identifying the area within which theological discourse is meaningfully carried on.
Divine Forgiveness in the Psalms
Authors: McKeating Henry
Published: February 2009

The Psalter is in some sense a microcosm of the whole Old Testament. On many topics the ideas found in the whole are expressed in condensed fashion in the part. So it is with the topic of divine forgiveness. Much, though not all, of what other Old Testament writers have to say on this subject is said also by the psalmists.
The Teaching of John Owen concerning the Lord's Supper
Authors: Mayor Stephen
Published: February 2009

John Owen was the main exponent of the classic Independency of the mid-seventeenth century. He was no mere sectary, the very antithesis of the fanatic; a highly intelligent and highly educated man; and a voluntary, not a compulsory, Nonconformist. From a writer as systematic and as magisterial as Owen it should be possible to gain some light on the meaning of the Lord's Supper for his generation of Dissenters.