bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Confession ‘Jesus is God’ in the New Testament
Authors: Wainwright A. W.
Published: February 2009

In a chapter of his book Glaube und Verstehen, recently translated into English under the title Essays Philosophical and Theological, Professor Rudolf Bultmann has discussed, by no means favourably, the Christological Confession of the World Council of Churches. The words of the Confession are: ‘The World Council of Churches is composed of Churches which acknowledge Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.’ Bultmann directs his attention chiefly to the confession that Jesus is God. In the New Testament he finds only one verse in which Jesus is un-doubtedly called God. That is John 20.28, in which Thomas addresses Jesus as ‘My Lord and my God!’ In contrast with this single example, there is in Bultmaann's opinion a great amount of evidence that the writers of the New Testament believed that Jesus was subordinate to His Father.
The Theatre of Parousia
Authors: Smalley Stephen
Published: February 2009

The problem before us has about it features that are fashionable, if not familiar. When we sing,

Saviour, take the power and glory:

Claim the kingdom for thine own,

precisely what do we expect to happen? Dr Robinson, the present Bishop of Woolwich, insists that we must not only suspect the dominical origin of this part of New Testament eschatology (Jesus and His Coming, 1957, chapters 2 and 3), but also re-focus the total concept of ‘coming’ itself. In his broadcast addresses, Christ Comes In (1960), Dr Robinson has drawn our attention away from a consideration of the Advent message as related to ‘a single moment at the end of time’ (p. 25), towards a theology in which every moment is surrounded ‘with all the seriousness of the Last Day’ (p. 26).
Exposition of Isaiah Chapter One Verses One to Nine
Authors: Jones Douglas R.
Published: February 2009

The book of the prophet Isaiah opens with a superscription in the manner of other prophetic collections. The modern reader may be pardoned if he makes a mental note of the information and passes on quickly to the oracles that follow. The superscription associates the book with the name of the prophet Isaiah whose father Amoz, though the subject of later and probably unreliable Talmudic tradition, is otherwise unknown. The oracles are firmly dated in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Chapter 6 shows that the opening date must be the year of Uzziah's death, variously determined by scholars between 748 and 734 B.C. The last date may be that of the death of Hezekiah, say 697 B.C. On any reckoning, the prophetic ministry of Isaiah was a long one, and it covered a series of vivid and pivotal events—the crisis created by the aggression of Syria and Ephraim in 734–732 B.C. (see chapters 7–9.6), the fall of Samaria and of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C., Hezekiah's attempt at reform, the dangerous crises of 705–701 B.C. when the southern kingdom all but shared the fate of the north at the hands of Assyria, and a number of other events and situations, either allusive and hidden from us, or patiently to be inferred from such oracles as have been transmitted. The eighth century was also a period of economic transition with all the consequences of change in conflict, insecurity and moral and spiritual turmoil.
Karl Barth's Use of Analogy in his Church Dogmatics
Authors: Lee Jung Young
Published: February 2009

Since Barth has not developed any systematic treatise on the doctrine of analogy, what I hope to say in this paper is rather implicit in his Church Dogmatics, especially the volumes I/1, II/1, III/1, III/2, IV/1 and IV/3.
Validity: A Reappraisal
Authors: Woodhouse H. F.
Published: February 2009

Some years ago I published an article on this topic where more details can be found on what I may call analytic aspects concerning validity.page 1 But in the intervening years the attitude of many has indicated a willingness to consider change on this matter. Amongst Anglicans there seem fewer ministerial fundamentalists. Also a Roman Catholic has pointed out that in 1896 when Anglican orders were declared invalid Roman Catholic theologians were divided amongst themselves and today a leading Roman Catholic has said that he would like to see the matter reviewed.page 2 Indeed Roman references to ‘ecclesial communities’ and to penitence for their share in the divisions of the Church may be a hopeful sign and ease the way for a review of their attitude to validity and claim to be the one and only true church.page 3
‘Yahweh is a Man of Wars’
Authors: Craigie P. C.
Published: February 2009

The declaration that ‘Yahweh is a Man of Wars’page 1 poses a problem for the modern reader of the Old Testament. The direct connexion between God and war seems to be alien to the spirit of the New Testament. And today, when the horrors of war are so constantly in the news, this epithet for God seems to be all the more abhorrent. The epithet was quoted at the beginning of an article in an earlier volume of this Journal, A. Gelston's ‘The Wars of Israel’.page 2 The problem becomes most acute in the question of the wars of conquest, for there we can trace two aspects of Yahweh's activity. On the one hand, Yahweh uses war as a means of judgment on the sinful Canaanitespage 3; on the other hand, He uses war as a means to an end, namely the fulfilment of the patriarchal and Covenant promises.page 4 Although Gelston mentions this double aspect of the wars of conquest (p. 326), his conclusions only satisfy the former of the two aspects (p. 331). Of his five summary points, two are applicable to this particular case. The first is that ‘when Yahweh is identified with Israel's cause, the motive is usually the execution of judgment on Yahweh's enemies’, and secondly he declares that ‘Yahweh alone is ultimately sovereign in human history, and his cause is always just’.
A Sidelight on the ‘Son of Man’
Authors: Gelston A.
Published: February 2009

The term ‘Son of Man’ is one of the enigmas of the Gospels. G. Vermes has re-examined the Aramaic background of the phrase in Appendix E of the third edition of M. BlacK's Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. Even if his argument that barnāsh (ā) is in some passages a mere circumlocution for ‘I’ is not wholly convincing,page 2 he has demonstrated beyond doubt that the phrase was not in New Testament times a title with a clear and recognised meaning, whether messianic or other. The phrase in itself merely signifies ‘man’, whether mankind in general, or a particular man. Only the context can determine its meaning more precisely. Apart from Act 7.56 it is used virtually exclusively in the New Testament by Jesus, and the question of the crowd in John 12.34—‘who is this Son of Man?’ —shows clearly that the expression was not immediately intelligible to the first century,page 3 and that we are not at liberty to dismiss it as no more than an elaborate way of saying ‘man’ or ‘I’. This is the justification of the immense activity that has gone into the exploration of the previous history of the expression, and to which this article is a small contribution.page 4
The Authority of the Old Testament
Authors: Johnstone William
Published: February 2009

The S.G.M. Press has published within the past decade several important studies on the place of the Old Testament within the Christian Bible and on how it is to be interpreted. Now John Bright has produced a volume (The Authority of the Old Testament, S.C.M. Press, 1967, pp. 272, 40s.), containing his own review of the questions involved—the enduring authority possessed by the Old Testament, and the appropriate method of interpreting it. Any book to which the name of John Bright is attached is an 'important' one. He is the author of a standard History of Israel, and as such, as well as in his other works particularly his Commentaries, he has shown that he is a master of organising a mass of complex material, of being fair to scholarship with which he is in little sympathy, and of being in command of such adequate expression that it is difficult to better him. All this makes it the more important to evaluate critically his present volume. The book discloses a pleasing symmetry of construction, and, as expected, a persuasive and well-expressed argument. The doubt in my mind is whether it is, conceptually, broadly enough based.
The Nature of Confessional Authority
Authors: Ferguson G. R.
Published: February 2009

In a series of studies for the E.A.C.C. writers from the Asian Churches applied themselves to the question ‘Confessing the Faith in Asia Today’. One feature common to their concern was the need to distinguish sharply between a confessing church and a confessional church. In their missionary situation the second term was treated with suspicion and mistrust as an expression which characterised a church that was inflexible in its attitudes and was therefore unable to enter into a living dialogue of faith with its indigenous situation so that the Gospel could be meaningfully expressed. This sharp contrast is understandable since the Asian churches have not been notable for the ways in which the Gospel has become indigenous to their cultural situation. It has, in the past, tended to be an imposition on a new situation, of a relevant Gospel couched in alien terms with more than a suggestion that the terms in which the Gospel was expressed was to be identified with the reality of the Good News. As a result a cultural hiatus has ensued which has vitiated a great deal of the cutting edge of the Gospel.
Introduction
Authors: J. H.  , A. I. C. H.
Published: February 2009

Even the most careful and ingenious readers of this Journal will have found no hint of support for the suggestion that New Year is a festival in the Christian Calendar; nor is this thirtieth New Year in the Journal's life itself sufficient reason for extraordinary prefatory comment. This inadequate note is occasioned by events in the lives of the editors who began the Scottish Journal of Theology—began it with vigour and dynamism, speedily and shrewdly developing and establishing its position, and carrying it forward, now, into its thirtieth volume.
Can God be Crucified? A Discussion of J. Moltmann
Authors: Attfield D. G.
Published: February 2009

A Central theme in J. Moltmann's The Crucified God is that since Jesus was God and Jesus was crucified, God may be called the crucified God. In other words God himself may be said to have suffered and died on calvary. The purpose of this article is to discuss the philosophical problems raised by Moltmann's striking assertion. The difficulties it raises will be considered and Moltmann's solution will be criticised as unsatisfactory. We shall then suggest a possible solution via the notions of a double-role christology and a particular view of divine infinity.
An Approach to II Corinthians 5. 1–10
Authors: Lillie William
Published: February 2009

It is not my intention in this paper to attempt a fresh exegesis or interpretation of a passage which in recent years has been much studied by New Testament scholars, but rather to draw attention to two unavoidable limitations in human thinking, shared by Paul and ourselves, which, I believe, go some way to explain the commentators' difficulties in dealing with ‘the unmanageable dimensions of the Christian verities’ found here. Paul makes some attempt to overcome these limitations by the use of a series of metaphors, apparently not always consistent with one another in strict logic, and we shall consider these individually in the third part of our study.
Liberation Theology: An Emerging School
Authors: Hellwig Monika K. H.
Published: February 2009

Liberation Theology, a term that may still be quite new to many readers, represents a movement in theology that began to shape itself clearly in Latin America in the year 1970. Five international, but predominantly Latin American, conferences of theologians and biblical scholars in that year established the basic vocabulary, the key questions, the general direction of inquiry, and some agreed assumptions concerning method. These conferences, like the authors who subsequently emerged as leading spokesmen, were ecumenical but with a strong concentration of Roman Catholic scholars and churchmen.
Dogmatic Thoughts on Imitation of Christ
Authors: Moiser Jeremy
Published: February 2009

The following pages were prompted by what would appear to be a theologically faulty but none the less common line of reasoning. I have heard clergy and laity alike justifying a wide variety of theories by appealing to the example of Christ: Christ did or did not do so-and-so, and it is therefore incumbent on us to do or not do likewise. For example, we hear that because Christ the High Priest was a man, all the Church's ministers must be male, or that because Christ the High Priest was celibate, all priests today must be celibate. Now it may well be, for solid and unimpeachable theological reasons, that priests should be both male and celibate—that is not in discussion here. But what is perfectly clear (or I hope will be) is that imitation of Christ cannot, without further theological qualification, be adduced as a reason. Again, a particular concept of prayer as a personal and intimate dialogue with an unseen but ever-present God is sometimes justified by the statement that it is verified in Christ's own life of prayer. There are, however, serious difficulties in the way of this argument, not usually adverted to. Again, the concept of ‘Nazareth’ as used by religious families stemming from Charles de Foucauld is not always applied with obvious theological clarity. It is used to justify a spectrum of virtues said to be appropriate to the Christian who wishes to imitate Christ particularly closely, from adoration of the exposed Blessed Sacrament and retreat silence in seclusion from the world to ‘humble manual work’ and ‘quiet acceptance of ill-treatment’.
Righteousness and Salvation
Authors: Kuyper Lester J.
Published: February 2009

‘A Twentieth-Century reader encountering the word righteousness in Semitic texts must always be careful to adjust his thought and not to place this term in the categories to which our word righteousness has accustomed us.’ These cautionary words may well be given for any study of Old Testament terms but they are especially appropriate for the study of righteousness. We are accustomed to associate righteousness with some kind of impartial and impersonal dispensing of reward and blame by which the moral rectitude of society is maintained. Righteousness in the Old Testament does have something of our modern concept of justice but it cannot be restricted to that for we will find to our surprise that other concepts have important significance in our understanding of righteousness. As we shall see, righteousness shines forth in a spectrum of meaning that cannot be reduced to one line of thought. It behooves the student of the Old Testament, to free himself from any kind of bondage, whether it be an adherence to prevailing scholastic categories of thought or a reaction against them.
The Office of Christ in Predestination
Authors: Reid J. K. S.
Published: February 2009

The title is suggested by Saint Paul's phrase (Ephesians 1.4) “according as he hath chosen us in him,” that is in Christ. The object of this essay is to point out the meagre use made of the phrase and of the idea it conveys by the classic doctrine of Predestination, and to show the deplorable consequences that follow.

I. Calvin

It would of course be absurd to suggest that Calvin totally neglects the thought that Predestination is in Christ. Rather this is a presupposition in all he has to say about it, at least in this sense, that, challenged whether he held Predestination to be in Christ, he would unhesitatingly have affirmed that it was. But it is the fate of many presuppositions to fall into the background, if not into forgetfulness, and to exercise less influence than they should do. It is the view of the present writer that the Calvinist theology failed to draw fully upon the implications of the presupposition that Predestination is in Christ.

Two questions are well asked at this point: What is the relation of those elected to Christ? and: What is Christ's part in their election?

(i) Here the text which has already been quoted is cited by Calvin: We are in Christo electi, and we are in Christo adoptati (Inst.3.22.1). And in 3.22.2, the elect are said to be again “chosen in Christ.”
The Exposition Of Holy Scripture
Authors: Hendry G. S.
Published: February 2009

There is an old custom which is to be observed in all proper churches: at the beginning of public worship the Bible is solemnly carried in and laid upon the pulpit—and then the minister follows. This is the right order of precedence; for the minister, as his name indicates, is but the servant, minister verbi divini; and it is fitting that the servant should follow the master. Further, to make his servitude more evident, the minister wears a livery. It is true, he may be a master of his servile craft, he may be called a doctor, and he may take it upon himself to wear the appropriate badges of proficiency. But his position remains essentially that of a servant whose office it is to attend upon his master, to make way for him, to do his behests.

This little bit of familiar ceremony enshrines essential truth, and it may well form the starting-point of our consideration of the scope and function of the ministry of the Word of God.
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament
Authors: Johnston G.
Published: February 2009

When the atomic bomb was dropped at Bikini Atoll in operation Grossroads, water on the surface of the sea rushed out from the centre of the waterspout at a speed greater than sound. Many of us will find this an apt symbol of a world that seems to be rushing headlong to disaster because men are in danger of putting the creative energies of the Lord God to evil uses; physical energy in such weapons; biological energy in the depersonalising of women and workers and citizens; and what we can only call spiritual energy in the fields of culture and political societies. The question is how we are to be enabled to reverse this process; and here the doctrine of the Spirit as holy, transcendent power ought to be relevant. It has been rightly suggested that this may be indeed “the back of the whole contribution of Christian thought to the cultural problem of our time. ” One outstanding difficulty in the way of an apologetic statement of our faith is the bias provoked at least among some sections by the scientific outlook. Indeed F. W. Dillistone goes so far as to write (The Holy Spirit in the Life of to-day p. 105) the scientist “is tireless in his search for ‘truth, ’ but again it is ‘truth’ which is contained within his own system. He insists, in other words, that ‘truth’ which cannot be apprehended by scientific methods has no real claim to the name but belongs to the realm of phantasy or wishful thinking.
The Doctrine of Grace in the Old Testament
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

There is no one word for grace in the Old Testament as there is in the New, nor are the precise lineaments of the New Testament thought manifest, but the substance of the doctrine is there. In fact there is no language that expresses so profoundly and so tenderly the unaccountable love of God as the Hebrew of the Old Testament. This is not thought of abstractly but in intensely personal terms as the active love of One who is essentially the living and loving God of Israel. The dominant thought throughout is the amazing choice of Israel by God as grounded only in His free and unlimited love and as creating a community in fellowship with God who bestows Himself upon them as Father and Saviour for ever.
The Problem of Communication
Authors: Neill Bishop Stephen C.
Published: February 2009

FOR a considerable time the services of most missionaries of the larger British Societies have been engaged in institutional and administrative work, and comparatively few of them have had wide experience as evangelists among simple people. The work of direct contact with non-Christians has either been left to indigenous evangelists who tend not to be able to stand far enough back from their work to give a reasoned account of it, or to the missionaries of small pioneer Societies, a majority of whom, though admirable and successful evangelists, lack deep theological knowledge, and are not able to establish a rationale of the work which they themselves have been carrying out. The situation is very different with continental Societies. It has been known for some time that a number of very able and theologically well-trained Dutch and German missionaries have been serving as evangelists among some of the most primitive peoples in the world, and that their results have been such as to raise many important questions of method, which are of interest to all those concerned with the Christian missionary enterprise. Unfortunately, almost all their works have been written in Dutch or German, and are therefore much less widely accessible in the Christian world than could be desired.

The book under review is a very good specimen of the type of missionary study produced by these continental scholars.
The Private Life of God
Authors: Levack John G.
Published: February 2009

I Can remember the deep sense of mystery that possessed me when as a child I was told that only about one-eighth of an iceberg appears above water. It was perhaps one's first contact with the concept of the ‘assessable unknown’. In later years, in experiments in displacement and specific gravity in the physics laboratory, one learned how the conclusion had been arrived at—learned, indeed, how to assess the unknown for oneself. But increasingly one became aware that the process had its limitations: that while there were certain ‘unknowns’ which could be so thoroughly or so accurately assessed that they scarcely continued to merit the title ‘unknown’, there were others where the mystery remained. In some cases the assumption was justified that one's knowledge would increase as one grew older: or, on a more general world-view, it was warrantable to suppose that the sum total of human knowledge of any particular phenomenon would increase with the passing of time and the continuance of human research, until the day arrived when the phenomenon in question became, by general consensus, more ‘known’ than ‘unknown’.
Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Scriptural?
Authors: Crawford R. G.
Published: February 2009

One of the big questions which agitated the minds of theologians and laymen alike in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was whether or not the doctrine of the Trinity was scriptural. The controversy raged throughout the United Kingdom and extended to the shores of America where the eminent preacher William Ellery Channing embraced the Unitarian cause.
The Ministry—A Renewed Quest
Authors: Nicholls William
Published: February 2009

The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order, meeting at Montreal in July 1963, recommended the renewal of the study of the Ministry, within a new programme of theological study to be initiated by the Faith and Order Commission. As was noted at Montreal, the Ministry had not been the subject of Faith and Order study for twenty-five years. There were good reasons for this. While the Ministry continued to be the thorniest of the practical problems facing union negotiators, it was widely agreed that theologically it had failed and would continue to fail to yield to a head-on treatment. Only in the light of the doctrine of the Church, considered in its christological and eschatological dimensions, would the Ministry appear in a form that could draw Christians together in church union. So, without altogether losing sight of the hope that something helpful could be said about the Ministry, Faith and Order turned, first to the doctrine of the Church, and then, in the period after Lund, to a study of Christ and the Church. Now the time has come to return to the Ministry, in the light of the work done at these deeper levels of Christian doctrine.
Passover and Eucharist in the Fourth Gospel
Authors: Howard J. K.
Published: February 2009

The events of the Exodus, in which the Passover occupied a central and dominant place, were one of the most deeply rooted of all Israel's traditions. The Passover itself lay at the very heart of the covenant concept and forms the basis of the Heilsgeschichte which records the redemptive acts of God for His people Israel. In later Judaism it became overlaid with eschatological ideas, especially those associated with a Messianic deliverance for the people of God, as God's saving act in the past became the prefigurement of an even greater saving act in the future. The Passover night was thus a night of joy for all Israel, the night on which Israel's future redemption, effected through the Messiah, would be revealed. The early Christians, however, believed that this Messianic deliverance had already appeared in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and consequently, in Preiss' expression,‘the totality of the events of the Exodus centering on the Passover’ together with its associated ideas occupied a dominant position in Christian soteriological thought in the New Testament period, especially as Jesus Himself had instituted the eucharist in a distinctly Paschal setting. We may trace, as has been done in recent years, the idea of the Exodus complex of events running as a constant theme through the New Testament writings, and Jesus is pictured both as a second Moses leading His people forth from a bondage far greater than the slavery of a human despot, from the thraldom of sin and death, and as the Antitype of the very Passover sacrifice itself, through which the redemption of the New Israel was effected.
New Church Constitutions and Diakonia
Authors: Cranfield C. E. B.
Published: February 2009

In the course of his extremely valuable and stimulating study, ‘Diakonia: Today's Task’, Dr Hans Christoph von Hase draws attention to the explicit reference to the Church's diaconal responsibility contained in the 1948 Constitution of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, Article 15 of which declares:
The Evangelische Kirche in Germany and member churches are called to proclaim Christ's love in word and deed. This love obliges all members of the Church to undertake service and takes form in a special way in the Diaconate of the Church. In accordance with this the Church's diaconalmissionary activities are part of its very being and life.
Calvin and the Priesthood of all Believers
Authors: Crawford John R.
Published: February 2009

A Mong those elements of Christian doctrine which surged anew to the forefront of Christian thinking during the early sixteenth century was that biblical idea which, in more modern times, we have come to call the ‘priesthood of all believers’. Luther used the doctrine almost as a battle-axe, to hew away at the pretensions of the Roman hierarchy and sacramental system. Almost invariably, it is Luther's name which we find linked to this doctrine in studies of the Reformation period. However, any serious study of the idea of the priesthood of God's people would do well to include an examination of the way in which John Calvin dealt with it, and indeed, the way in which the idea found certain expressions within his system of ecclesiastical organisation. It is our purpose here to see what Calvin taught in relationship to this biblical idea, and what elements of the life of the Genevan church may be considered to be, at least in part, an expression of the idea.
Natural theology and the Scottish philosophy in the thought of Thomas Chalmers
Authors: Rice Daniel F.
Published: February 2009

It was the observation of Princeton's James McCosh that ‘the reconciliation between the philosophy and the religion of Scotland was effected by Thomas Chalmers’. That Chalmers’ roots run deep in the soil prepared by the philosophy of Common Sense is indisputable. The Reid-Beattie-Stewart tradition in philosophy provided the backdrop against which the formation and development of Chalmers’ theology was framed. The important questions, however, are how Chalmers appropriated this philosophical tradition, for what ends he employed it, and to what extent it informed the content of his theology. It is certainly the case that Chalmers embraced Reid's repudiation of Locke's theory of ideas on both moral and religious grounds. The ‘constancy of nature’ whose rational and empirical demonstrability David Hume had called into question was crucial for Chalmers, and he attempted to reinstate it with the aid of every intellectual weapon the Scottish philosophers could provide. Furthermore, Chalmers accepted much of the programmatic work of the Common Sense philosophers in their efforts to ground morality and the ‘moral sense’ on a priori laws constitutive of the mind itself.
The fundamental shape of Old Testament ethics
Authors: Fletcher Verne H.
Published: February 2009

One of the more promising recent developments in Christian ethics is the attempt to re-think its starting point and its basis in the light of the advances in biblical studies which are recovering for the church the specificity of the biblical perspective. It is true that this concern to take the biblical perspective seriously must go hand in hand with another of the central themes of current ethical thinking, namely, the concern to pay close attention to the data of the concrete situation. Unfortunately, ‘situation ethics’, while commendable in its refusal of legalism and its openness to the givenness of the situation, is frequently lacking in any specifically Christian content, that is, content to which the biblical perspective has made at least some formative contribution. In this regard, the difficult problem is this: how do we appropriate the biblical perspective in such a way that it may illumine the present concrete situation and give shape to ethical decision? Not much progress has been made on the solution of this problem. Although in this article we are only working at one end of the spectrum, namely, one aspect of the biblical basis of Christian ethics, nevertheless we see this as part of the total problem of bridging the gap, for in fact this cannot be accomplished without the re-conceptualisation of ‘biblical ethics’ now taking place.
Lonergan's View on Theology: An Outline
Authors: Reiser William E.
Published: February 2009

Although it is premature to comment on what Lonergan has to say about theology because his work on theological method has not been completed, still enough material is available to suggest a basic scheme in terms of which his view of theology can be traced. As this writer sees it, there are two central ideas upon which Lonergan's thinking develops. First, the subject, and here we must consider the subject as subject and the notion of horizon; second time around we should discuss the subject as theologian and the theologian's horizon. Secondly, we should treat Lonergan's conception of science, how theology arises among the sciences, and the relation of the sciences to one another and to theology. We should also turn to the relation Lonergan sees between theology and modern culture. But Lonergan attaches great importance to the methodology used to arrive at an understanding of the subject and wants to disclose what should be going on when theologians are engaged in theology; and so we must begin by examining what the so-called ‘transcendental method’ is and conclude by suggesting what theological method is.
The Image of God in Adam and the Restoration of Man in Jesus Christ: A Study in Calvin
Authors: Prins Richard
Published: February 2009

‘The image of God in Adam and the restoration of man in Jesus Christ’ is a formulary title, preserving in so far as possible both the manner in which Calvin discusses the image and the progression of this paper. The contrasts of ‘image’ to ‘restoration’, ‘Adam’ to ‘man’, and the latent contrast of ‘Adam’ to ‘Christ’ are therefore purposeful ones, for they are the contrasts in which the structure and movement of Calvin's thought on the image of God can be seen most clearly. They are also the product of a patient and occasionally frustrating reduction of the hill country of Calvin's prose into a passable road. Not every facet of the image according to Calvin is brought into play. In fact, many have been weeded out as too narrowly confined to a particular context, too superfluous, or even too general or ambiguous to be of help in delineating the core of this part of his theology and the tensions within it. Thus, for example, while Calvin often speaks about a restoration of God's image in man, this phrase is meaningless in itself. Then, once we find that Calvin's understanding of this phrase is split into two opposing emphases, there is no benefit in returning to the general expression, and so it is not employed in our discussion of man's restoration. It is also true that the second half of the title indicates an abandonment of the image for a more embracing statement of all that our renewal involves.
T. F. Torrange'S Theological Science: A Reaction
Authors: Langford Thomas A.
Published: February 2009

Torrance's book is remarkable for its aggressive, full- blooded thought and style. Such an approach is typical of this theologian, but the centrality of the issues with which he deals and the importance of the stance he assumes makes his boldness a veritable confrontation. Utilising the basic theological beginning points of the Reform tradition (and writing in a style remarkably similar to that of Karl Barth), Torrance critically appraises the present task of theology.
Is Practical Theology Possible?
Authors: Campbell Alastair V.
Published: February 2009

Some academic subject matters have a quaintly old-fashioned ring-‘moral sciences’ for example, or ‘natural philosophy’. ‘Practical theology’ has a similar odd sound today. To the theological outsider is must sound remarkably like a contradiction in terms, whilst to the professional theologian it may carry undertones of an unscholarly pragmatism or a tendency towards liberal theology. Yet perhaps the juxtaposition of these two terms is an important one. It may, by its oddity, encourage us to ask the question, ‘Is practical theology possible?’ This would be a question similar to the familiar one about the possibility of metaphysics. It is asking for a formal definition of the subject matter which will meet adequate criteria of meaning, consistency and relationship to other disciplines whose status is not in doubt. In this paper I shall attempt some answers to this question of possibility.
The Certainty of faith and Tillich's concept of the analogia imaginis
Authors: Palmer Michael
Published: February 2009

Paul Tillich's rejection of any attempt to substantiate faith and christological doctrine by extracting from the gospels a biographical picture of Jesus is well known. The reasons he gives in the second volume of Systematic Theology are by no means unusual and certainly not intended to be original. So, for example, we find a basic agreement with Bultmann that, in view of the kerygmatic nature of the gospels, it is illicit to make the liberal Protestant distinction between the man Jesus and Jesus the Christ, in order to confine attention to the allegedly recoverable ‘Jesus of history’. Tillich develops this argument in terms of the inseparability of the ‘fact’ of Jesus and his ‘reception’ as the Christ within the event ‘Jesus as the Christ’, and maintains accordingly that biblical criticism cannot effectually undermine Christology because the empirical truth of Jesus cannot be distinguished apart from the faithful appropriation of that fact, in which the recipient is quite as important as the fact itself.
Criteria for theological models
Authors: Glenn Alfred A.
Published: February 2009

Various disciplines, despite their intrinsic differences, have in common the use of models to provide understanding. A model is a verbal or physical example upon which there can be general agreement whereby people can be led to understand something which before was unclear or perplexing. Lord Kelvin regarded the mechanical-replica model, as a scale model of a ship, as thesine qua nonfor understanding in the physical sciences.
A look within the Deuteronomic history
Authors: Williams W. H.
Published: February 2009

The over-arching unity which characterises that section of the OT from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings has long been recognised as the work of a mind (or minds) permeated by the Dc outlook. The result of this from the historiographical point of view has been that ancient records and traditions of Israel's past are controlled and presented theologically to produce a specific historical scheme, a Heilsgeschichte. Two main procedures are selection and evaluation, both subordinated to the leitmotif of the Dc ideal. Here I want to suggest that within the overall selective process which has produced the Dc History we can discern another principle of selectivity, an inner line within the broad band of narrative.
The Christian Witness to the Jews. A Biblical Perspective for the Church Today
Authors: Cook James I.
Published: February 2009

This article concentrates on the double foci of its sub-title which may be described as biblical and ecclesiastical, or historical and contemporary. It does not intend to offer a plan for the evangelisation of the Jews, but rather a perspective from which the Christian church may rethink an issue which has been with it from its inception.
Trinity and Eschatology: The Historical being of God in Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg
Authors: Olson Roger
Published: February 2009

Whether or not one may wish to call it a renaissance in the doctrine of the Trinity, there has been a notable resurgence of interest in trinitarian thinking in recent theology. Some of the most suggestive contributions have been made by two theologians whose works are generally regarded as ‘eschatologically’ oriented. In a volume recently published in English asThe Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Jürgen Moltmann attempts to develop a comprehensive doctrine of the trinitarian being of God taking up and expanding themes already set forth in such earlier works asThe Crucified God, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, and several journal articles dealing with the ‘trinitarian history of God’. Throughout these works Moltmann was concerned to demonstrate the openness of the being of God for man and history and toward the future. The trinitarian differentiation and unity of God, he argued in various ways, is to be closely identified with the events of salvation history, especially the cross of Jesus. In his most recent book, he attempts to systematise this approach to the doctrine of God through a ‘salvation historical’ and ‘social’ doctrine of the Trinity. This work represents a major contribution to trinitarian thought and is both complex and wide-ranging in its treatment of the subject. It will be our concern here simply to investigate some of the major themes related to the problem of God's relationship to history, that is, God's ‘historicality’.
Effective Preaching: A Cluster of Conditions
Authors: Miller J. Stewart
Published: February 2009

It has often been alleged that the liturgically-minded incline to indifference toward preaching and it must be confessed that Christian history has demonstrated that this is a plaint not wholly without foundation. The church has had its enthusiasts whose ardour for correctness in worship both in general character and in minute detail has left them somewhat short of concern for what has traditionally been deemed a high point in the Reformed cultus, the preaching of the Word. There has been a school of thought — now virtually it is to be hoped extinct — which was apt to exalt ‘worship’ above ‘mere preaching’. It developed partly no doubt in welcome reaction to another school of thought equally reprehensible in its lack of balance which relegated all of the service that preceded the sermon to the category of ‘preliminaries’. Any polarisation of worship and preaching, however, must be deprecated, for every part of the Christian cult is ‘worship’, and the sermon is an integral part of the cult. ‘The Word of God’, says the Roman Catholic scholar, Ambrosius Verheul, ‘read in the Epistle and Gospel must become a real message from God to us, men of the present, in the concrete circumstances of the world in which we live. Therefore Bible-reading demands an explanation. The Bible-reading evokes preaching, the homily, connecting with the content of what has been read.’
The Significance of the Ascension of Jesus Christ in the New Testament
Authors: Donne B. K.
Published: February 2009

The theme of the Ascension of Jesus Christ is one of the most JL important in the New Testament, yet during the present century, very little theological attention has been given to it. Most of the published work has been in the form of articles in theological journals and commentaries, though J. G. Davies' Bampton Lectures entitled He Ascended into Heaven, published in 1958, were devoted to the subject, and later, there appeared, also in English, U. Simon's The Ascent to Heaven in 1961. Even H. B. Swete's The Ascended Christ, which first appeared in 1910 and was subsequently published in several editions until 1916, expresses the hope that the work might awaken a response to a renewed sense of the importance of this great Christian festival. His earlier writing, The Apostles' Creed in 1894, contains a chapter on the Ascension which was a spirited reply to the German scholar Harnack, who asserted that the Ascension had no separate place in the primitive tradition, and whose views considerably influenced the thought of New Testament scholarship for many years to come. This article seeks to make an assessment of what the present writer considers to be a subject of the utmost importance, both in regard to its theological significance in the New Testament, and in its relevance for contemporary Christian experience. The Scriptures declare that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, buried, and raised again the third day.
On Being Human
Authors: Houston J.
Published: February 2009

Many people, and not only in 1984, the year specified by Orwell, have expressed thoughts somewhat along the following lines: that in modern society people are being dehumanised, depersonalised, mechanised; that relations among persons are too often impersonal, alienated, objective; that all this is to be deplored, and that institutions and ways of doing things must be so devised as to undo damage already done, or at least so devised as not to do more of this damage, by depersonalising people. Many particular instances have been given as examples of the dehumanisation which is complained of, but we are seldom given any more general account, let alone a definition of dehumanisation, depersonalisation, etc. I am not here assuming the fallacy attributed to Socrates that you do not know at all what a thing is, unless you have defined it adequately. After all many people know at least something of what a teaspoon is, what water is, what friendship is, without being able to offer acceptable definitions of these things. So my point is not that all previous discussions have been useless or hopelessly unclear, but I do say that if we can provide a somewhat general statement or statements about the concept of dehumanisation, that will greatly help us in practical discussion about ways of encouraging fully human relationships; or, more positively put, if we have before us some general account of what humanisation is, we can better see how it might come about.
Apollos, Hebrews, and Corinth: Bishop Montefiore's Theory Examined
Authors: Hurst L. D.
Published: February 2009

Wide circulation has been given by H. W. Montefiore to a theory, first proposed by H. Appel and later taken up by F. Lo Bue, that the background of Hebrews is to be found in the involvement of Apollos in the cross currents of the Corinthian church. The argument, particularly as formulated by Montefiore, has been generally well-received by scholars and will undoubtedly continue to fascinate readers of his popular commentary. To the present, however, no attempt has been made to subject the hypothesis to any form of searching analysis. This neglect has been unfortunate, since, while prima facie attractive, the foundational assumptions of the theory are questionable. We shall therefore attempt a brief analysis of the argument in the interest of stimulating further discussion.
The Ethics of Life and Death
Authors: Haldane John J.
Published: February 2009

Moral Philosophy begins with moral intuitions and then, by arguments, either confirms or refutes them. There was a time, not so very long ago, when it was not thought to be so. For, until recently it was the orthodoxy that philosophers qua philosophers ought not to concern themselves with actual moral problems, but should instead only analyse and produce theories of the language of ethics.2 Those bad days are gone, and a mark of their passing is the frequent involvement of philosophers in the public debate of social and moral issues.
The Bible and Sexuality
Authors: Goldingay John
Published: February 2009

What does it mean to be a man over against a woman, a woman over against a man? The Bible offers various paradigms and insights, and I do not attempt here to analyse all of them, but rather to reflect on a number of key passages which I have found illuminating in the context of contemporary questions.
The Legacy of Karl Barth (1886–1986)
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

I Believe that the far-reaching significance of Karl Barth for the universal Church in the twentieth century may best be indicated by relating it to that of St Athanasius in the fourth century.
Man in the Image of God: The Disagreement Between Barth and Brunner Reconsidered
Authors: O'Donovan Joan E.
Published: February 2009

The task of understanding the uniqueness of human being which underlies the obligations obtaining among men in distinction from all other creatures, is a perennial task of Christian theology. The one complete and final revelation of God in Jesus Christ has planted this task firmly and unalterably at the centre of theological reflection rather than at its periphery. In our generation the search for theological clarity on this matter receives heightened urgency from the pervasive assault on dignity of human being coming from recent developments in the modern sciences and technologies. This assault is conducted simultaneously in the theoretical and practical realms, armed by the increasing coalescence of the two realms in advanced scientific method.1 Today the most consequential knowledge of human life is produced by the most exact, intricate, and complex forms of manipulation and control. In the enthralling feats of biochemical technology the coming–into–being of individual human life is now the object of experimental making.2 Whetheror not our mastery of the reproductive process will ever lay bare the mystery of human generation, it certainly throws open to an unprecedented degree the question of what human being is, and by what its uniqueness is constituted.
The New Calvinism: A Sheep in Wolves' Clothing
Authors: Basinger David
Published: February 2009

Traditionally, Calvinists (those in the Reformed tradition) have placed a great deal of emphasis on their belief that

(1)God has total control over all earthly affairs.