bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Eberhard Jüngel: God as the Mystery of the World. On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute Between Theism and Atheism
Authors: Webster J. B.
Published: February 2009

Eberhard jüngel'S reputation as a severely professional systematic and philosophical theologian is beginning to drift across to the English speaking world. His Gott ah Geheimnis der Welt, which first appeared in 1976 and whose third edition is here translated by Darrell L. Guder, is a curious book. It is perhaps best read not so much as a single argument but as a series of studies which at important points overlap or converge. It is a remarkably wide-ranging book: indeed, so wideranging that the argument becomes frustratingly difficult to get hold of in its entirety. Jü ngel writes illuminatingly about a variety of philosophical and theological traditions, and does so in order to advance some large-scale proposals about how a contemporary Christian doctrine of God ought to be pursued. And yet at the end of the book, even the reader who has put in the demanding work of mastering Jüngel's complex argument is left with an odd feeling of dissatisfaction, as if the book somehow lacks a recognisable, sustained treatment of its central theme.
The critic and the visionary
Authors: Young F.
Published: February 2009

The first Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology was H. G. Wood. The subject of his Inaugural Lecture given in 1940 was The function of a Department of Theology in a modern University. Appropriately enough he took up the views of John Henry, Cardinal Newman, the one Birmingham theologian whose work is on the way to becoming classic. In the present climate, Newman's book The Idea of a University is worth looking at again. As he showed over a hundred years ago, purely utilitarian values cannot produce good education. Nor can a general acquaintance with a bit of everything. Specialisation and in-depth study is the only way to learn how to think rather than pick up information jackdaw-like. Scholarly grappling with the great minds of the past, the so-called ‘irrelevant’ and ‘ivory-tower’ occupation of those who inhabit an Arts Faculty, is essential for the formation of minds. ‘To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, eloquent expression’ – this Newman regarded as ‘an object as intelligible as the cultivation of virtue’.1 Society needs minds and not just technicians, and in an institution which is concerned with truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, theology is indispensable to the universality which a University should embrace.
The filioque – opportunity for debate?
Authors: Warson Gordon
Published: February 2009

The current discussion of the proposal from the World Council of Churches that ‘all churches should revert to the original text of the Nicene Creed as the normative formulation’ and thus excise the filioque, presents churches with a unique opportunity for extensive re-examination of fundamental theology.
Two Dogmas Revisited: Edward Irving's Christology
Authors: Gunton Colin
Published: February 2009

Two dogmas continue to die hard, despite attempts to destroy them, and it may be that they have good reason for refusing to go away. The first is that what has come to be known as ‘christology from above’ tends to produce a docetic conception of the person of Christ, or at least one in which the humanity of Jesus receives so little emphasis that it becomes little better than a cipher. If an eternal being or hypostasis – to put the matter in the almost tritheistic language that is sometimes used – takes to himself a body, can the resulting being be truly human? Does not the eternal origin inevitably call the tune, undermining the genuineness of the human actions?
Frames of Reference for the Resurrection
Authors: Harvey Nicholas Peter
Published: February 2009

Jesus' discourse at the Last Supper at least in its Johannine form is a thorough-going preparation of the eleven for their imminent bereavement. A preparation not in the sense that they are expected at once to understand all that is to happen to Jesus and to themselves because of him, but in the sense of a frame of reference to clarify their minds and sustain their hearts in the coming crisis. He communicates a perspective which will spring to life for them in the light of subsequent events, the assumption being that it is only through future happenings that the truth of his words at the Supper will come home.
Jesus of Nazareth in a Nuclear Age
Authors: Downing F. Gerald
Published: February 2009

It has always been possible for members of Christian communities to find ways to avoid the force of teachings ascribed to Jesus and to his first followers, short of open repudiation. These days we have some new devices. We can stress the gulf of nineteen centuries separating us, (and our historical reconstructions are so insecure). We can point to our nuclear age as creating a gulf even between us and our parents or grandparents: the ‘godlike’ power a small number of us have to end most or all life on our planet can seem to put everything into a quite new perspective. And we can combine these arguments with enhanced versions of old ones, confining our Christian concern to an ever narrower private and religious sphere, perhaps shaping our public character, but making no specific demands on the expanding areas mapped as autonomously social, political and economic. Then we can go back to the New Testament and ‘read’ Jesus and his first followers in the light of our chosen restrictions.
Tillich's Contribution to a World Theology
Authors: Thomas J. Heywood
Published: February 2009

Paul Johannes Tillich was born a hundred years ago as is well-known. That he lived into the 1960s is equally wellknown and even what I and some others said of him in the mid and late sixties might be known. However, history moves on and we with it so that it is a different matter that is considered if one asks what his legacy is and what his significance is in the second half of this decade. That is what I want to do here and I want to highlight the legacy by asking whether he elucidates for us the concept of a world theology.
Anselm and The Faithfulness of God
Authors: Schmiechen Peter M.
Published: February 2009

Since the time of Abelard's criticism of the Cur Deus Homo? in the name of the love of God, Anselm has been the continual object of attack. To his opponents he is the symbol of legalism and a divine justice so void of mercy that it borders on vengeance. In our time, even the charge of Pelagianism has been introduced, as Gustaf Aulén has attempted to draw a line of orthodoxy from Paul through Irenaeus to Luther, thereby excluding nearly everyone else from the so-called orthodox classical theory of atonement.1 In spite of this continuous attack, many have persistently upheld Anselm's position because they see in his approach to the atonement a point of view that is essential to the Christian faith.
The Mythology of Death in the Old Testament
Authors: Burns John Barclay
Published: February 2009

It is now some seventy-five years since the problem of myth in the Old Testament tradition was first formulated in any detail by Gunkel. He drew attention to mythological elements in the tradition of Israel which could not be explained merely in terms of fortuitous parallelism with other myths of the ancient orient. He saw that much of this mythology could be traced to Babylonian and Assyrian sources; but he set out to examine how the myth had come into the Old Testament and how it had been made to conform to the thought and understanding of Israel. He dealt with such various themes as the Creation, the Flood, Rahab and Leviathan and tehōm He noted how mythological figures, such as the Dragon in the Sea were linked to historical persons and events, e.g. the hubris of the sea-dragon is the hubris of Pharaoh and Egypt in Ezekiel 29 and 32.
The Relation of Justification and Ethics in the Pauline Epistles
Authors: Bottorff J. F.
Published: February 2009

The aim of this essay is to come to an understanding of how Paul relates ethics to justification; but to begin with Paul's epistles themselves often lead one into categories of thought, especially in relation to ethics, that are used rather unconsciously and which presuppose at least certain types of answers. Any theologian who deludes himself into believing that he may begin studying a topic purely on the basis of the Greek text is almost surely doomed to repetition of past theological mistakes. Rather than ignore the influences and prejudices which operate in his thought patterns, the serious theologian must take cognisance of them as cornerstones for constructive thinking or reject them as too confining for fruitful thought. It is for this very reason that we must begin by looking at two representative thinkers of Catholic and Protestant theology in the field of ethics so that we may be aware of the traditional categories of thought that pervade the language and much of modern thought in ethics.
Phenomenology as Apologetics
Authors: Donovan Peter
Published: February 2009

Some classics of pre-war British theology appeared in Nisbet's Library of Constructive Theology. The aim of writers in that series was, in the words of editors W. R. Matthews and H. Wheeler Robinson, ‘to lay stress on the value and validity of religious experience and to develop their theology on the basis of the religious consciousness’. Such an empirical approach ensures for the theological product a high content of the kind of material fundamental to modern Phenomenology of Religion; that is, the description and interpretation of experiences, behaviour, and other phenomena of life taken by the religious believer as manifestations of divine reality and activity. A re-reading from a phenomenological point of view, then, can discover new significance in those writings which, though less than a generation old, are all too easily felt to be obsolescent in the light of more recent theological fashions.
Karl Barth and Political Theology
Authors: Butler Gerald A.
Published: February 2009

In recent years, the phrase ‘political theology’ has become fairly common in theological discourse. Political theology has been used to describe not only the work of theologians who admit to having or seeking to develop a political theology but also to describe the work of some theologians who have not explicitly stated that they are engaged in doing political theology. It is in this context that descriptions of Karl Barth as a political theologian or one who does political theology are becoming common place. The purpose of this article is to test the appropriateness of ascribing a political theology to Karl Barth.
The Hardness of Heart according to Biblical Perspective
Authors: Kuyper Lester J.
Published: February 2009

The Scriptures have served the believing community as guide for faith and conduct. Long after the prominent personalities such as Abraham, Moses, and David of the Old Testament and Jesus, Paul, and John of the New Testament had lived, spoken, and written, many people of later times and of different cultures have embraced these Scriptures with deep devotion and gratitude.
Three Identities of One Action
Authors: Jenson Robert W.
Published: February 2009

The following speculations do not pretend to state a complete doctrine of the Trinity, though they do state decisive parts of one. The first section is an account of what is, in my view, the function of a Trinity-doctrine, and will to some extent repeat work also published elsewhere. The second section is an interpretation of the trinitarian word ‘hypostasis’, that tries to display the conceptual revolution made by the traditional trinitarian assertion of ‘three hypostases of God’. The third considers the oneness of God, by analysing a famous argument of Gregory of Nyssa. And the fourth draws some further conclusions.
Is an Asian Theology Possible?
Authors: Veitch J. A.
Published: February 2009

At the outset it is important to define the way in which some important terminology will be used in the arguments that follow:
Theology in Asia is the theological reflection of Asian based or Asian oriented thinkers, for whom being in Asia does not determine the form or style of their theological activity.
Christian Faith as Personal Knowledge
Authors: Osborn Robert T.
Published: February 2009

Since Barth's attack on ‘religion’ and religious ‘experience’ as the point of focus for Christian theology, it has just not been the thing to do to turn to it as such for theological direction. In a similar vein, Dietrich Bonhoeffer has reminded us that to be a Christian is not to be ‘religious’ but to be only a man. Barth objected to an experiential focus for fear that the sovereignty of God would be compromised by confusing his word and works with their manifestations in experience. Bonhoeffer and, following him, modern secular, radical theology objects to this religious focus because it compromises the integrity of the secular self-understanding of the modern mündig man. Nevertheless, Barth recognised that theology has no beginning point other than the communal experience of faith—hence, ‘church’ dogmatics. The contention of this paper is that Michael Polanyi's analysis of scientific knowledge offers a model for understanding the experience and knowledge of faith that is faithful both to the experience of faith and to the modern secular, scientific experience.1 Therefore, following an exposition of Polanyi's epistemology, I will seek to demonstrate that it is a most helpful hermeneutic for the understanding of Christian experience as described by Paul, especially in the early chapters of 1 Corinthians.
The Humanity of Man in Karl Barth's Thought
Authors: McLean Stuart D.
Published: February 2009

One purpose of this article is to explicate what Karl Barth means by the man-to-man relationship, or, in his terms, ‘humanity’, and to discuss the variety of forms involved in this basic dynamic-form. Another purpose is to make the reader aware of the way dialectical-dialogical thought functions in describing the relationship between God and man, and man and man.
Sacramental Causality in Aquinas and Rahner: Some Critical Thoughts
Authors: Tappeiner Daniel A.
Published: February 2009

The sacramental principle in its simplest form is the belief in the transmission of spiritual power through material means. If the sacramental principle is going to be upheld it is not enough to be content with a certain ‘congruity’ between the saving revelation of God in salvation history as it culminates in the incarnation and the use of material rites in the economy of realised redemption. The sacramental principle involves the crucial assertion that sacraments are ‘means’ in a ‘causal’ sense, for the transmission of spiritual power through material elements. This asserts ontological efficacy for the sacraments. It is this assertion of genuinely ‘causal’ efficacy for the sacraments, however it is explained, which ultimately divides all who are actually sacramentalists from all non-sacramentalists.
Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood
Authors: Zizioulas J. D.
Published: February 2009

Theology, unlike other disciplines dealing with man, is faced with a fundamental methodological problem in its attempt to understand the human being. This problem is due to the Christian view of the Fall. Whatever we may wish to mean by the Fall, the fact remains that there is something which can be called ‘sin’, and which gives rise to the question: is man that which we know and experience as ‘man’? If we answer the question in the affirmative, then we are bound to imply that sin is not an anthropological problem and redemption from sin does not essentially alter our view of man; in fact if we follow up the consequence of this position, we are bound to say that unfallen man or man restored by redemption is not properly speaking ‘man’ but something of a super-man. If, on the other hand, we do not approach man from the angle of his actual sinful situation, how can we approach him? Is there another angle from which to look at man except from that of what weactuallysee as man?
Gore and Theological Synthesis
Authors: Avis P. D. L.
Published: February 2009

While Gore continued to exert a profound influence on Anglican theology until very recent times, regarded in an ecumenical perspective he may well seem a rather parochial figure. It is my belief, however, that Gore's work offers a useful and relevant object-lesson in theological construction. He is often portrayed as an inflexible dogmatist. He had the Tractarian instinct for dogma, but he was no mere dogmatist. One's first impression, it is true, is of a monolithic figure. His presence has been described as ‘numinous’; his thought appears as a massive and imposing unity. But a closer examination of his writings reveals a synthesis in which disparate elements were held together by sheer prophetic force of mind. Although Gore has received quite a lot of discussion, treatments of his life and thought have not always adequately recognised the elements of paradox in them both. In fact this lies very near the surface and left his friends frustrated and his critics exasperated.
Finding the Life of a Text: Notes on the Explication of Scripture
Authors: Wood Charles M.
Published: February 2009

Some form of our familiar distinction between letter and spirit in the interpretation of a text is surely older than written language itself. Whenever understanding becomes problematic—and this includes not only instances when an utterance is opaque or ambiguous, but also those frequent instances in which the obvious meaning of an utterance is not its intended meaning—this distinction may come into play as a way of attacking the problem. We find the distinction useful in our ordinary conversation with one another, when we are trying to decide how to take what someone has just said to us: ‘I know what he said, but how did he mean it? What was the spirit of what he said?’ In irony, sarcasm, understatement, allusion, and other devices of our common speech, there is often considerable divergence between the letter and the spirit of the utterance, or between what is said and what is meant. These distinctions were not invented by hermeneuticians trying to rationalise the devious interpretations to which canonical literatures are sometimes subjected. They have grown up with our language.
Thomas' Proofs as Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Towards a Trinitarian Analogia
Authors: Kuykendall George
Published: February 2009

Thomas Aquinas argued that, while revelation alone can supply knowledge of the divine nature, unaided human reason can infer the divine existence from the world's existence. His proofs of God's existence are, in principle, extensions and elaborations of the patristic natural theologies. The Fathers believed that Neoplatonic and Hellenistic speculations about the eternal One, the arche of the cosmos, constituted a ‘natural’ knowledge of God the Father and his creation. God's selfrevelation in the incarnation was placed in the context of this natural theology. Augustine's version of natural theology both summed up the patristic achievement for the West and laid the foundation for Western medieval exploration of the natural knowledge of God. Like Augustine, Thomas believed one could reason naturally from the sensible world to God's existence; unlike him, Thomas reasoned with Aristotle and not Plato. Thomas' ordering of the natural and revealed knowledge of God repeats, then, the patristic sequence: first one proves that God is the first Cause of the world, and then one reasons from revelation about God's redemptive and reconciling relation to the world.
Jonathan Edwards on the Problem of Faith and History
Authors: Piper John
Published: February 2009

The rebirth of interest in the thought and life of Jonathan Edwards is fully justified, for he was truly one of the greatest philosopher-theologians that America has ever produced. One question of contemporary significance that to my knowledge has not been put to this unique thinker is the question of ‘faith and history’. In other words, the question how Edwards conceived the ground of faith as it relates to historical knowledge has not been raised in the growing body of secondary literature. I would like to put this question to Jonathan Edwards and unfold his answer as he develops it in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.
Apologist From The World of Science: John Polkinghorne Frs
Authors: Avis Paul
Published: February 2009

JohnPolkinghorne FRS (b.1930), the Cambridge Professor of Mathematical Physics turned Anglican parson enjoys unrivalled opportunities as an apologist for the Christian faith to those with a general scientific education. Without reading a word of his writings, many Christians will be encouraged to know that a distinguished professional scientist is so firmly persuaded of the truth of the Christian faith as to resign a prestigious professional position and embrace the far from prestigious calling of a Christian minister in the secular environment of today. Some who embark on his books may not understand all the scientific allusions, but they will be impressed by his testimony that orthodox Christian belief can exist in harmony with the scientific worldview and vocation.
Schleiermacher as Innovator and Inheritor; God, Dependence, and Election
Authors: Root Michael
Published: February 2009

Every parent is also a child. This truism of kinship is not as obvious as it might seem. A very young nephew of mine once insisted I could not be his grandmother's son because I was not a son but an uncle. He had not grasped the possibility that I could be both.
Eucharistic Sacrifice — An Insoluble Liturgical Problem?
Authors: Stevenson Kenneth W.
Published: February 2009

It is a well-known fact that many a modern eucharistic prayer shows signs of handling the relationship between Supper and Calvary with due care, even with some creative ambiguity. For some, indeed, the very concept of offering is fraught with problems which can only be faced in liturgical formulae by having recourse to paradox. The bread and wine are on the table, but they are neither ‘offered’ sacrificially, nor are they ‘held back’ from the good purposes of God. The act of memorial is neither a re-enactment of Calvary nor is it an insignificant feature of the Church's life, as if all the eucharistic community did was to bask in the sunshine of Christ's single offering, and that is that. Yet many modern prayers are the direct result of creative movements such as liturgical research, patristic theology, and the rapprochment between the Churches that has been so much part of twentieth-century history.
Barth on Persons in Relationship: A Case for Further Reflection?
Authors: Miell David K.
Published: February 2009

In III, 2 of theChurch Dogmatics, Barth develops the analogy of relations revealed in Jesus Christ to obtain between three levels or ‘planes’ of persons in relationship. These are (i) within the Triune God as the eternal relation between the Father and the Son; (ii) between God and man as the free election by God that man should be his covenant partner; (iii) between human persons as the basic form of humanity. The single factor which constitutes this analogy, the one thing which is similar in spite of all the great dissimilarity between God and man, the indestructibleimago Dei, is the concept of personal relationship, the dyad, the I-Thou encounter. This theme of personal relationship is central not only in its location within the Church Dogmatics but perhaps throughout Barth's theology.
The ‘Sensus Literalis’: A Hermeneutical Key to Biblical Exegesis
Authors: Scalise Charles J.
Published: February 2009

The concept of the sensus literalis is a continuing theme in the history of biblical exegesis. This paper attempts to trace the development of this theme, its changing nature and definition, in the work of selected major theologians and exegetes from the ancient through the Reformation periods.2 The survey demonstrates that the sensus literalis provides a hermeneutical key for describing and evaluating exegetical method and biblical interpretation in the Christian tradition.
Ronald Gregor Smith, Critical Faith and the Practice of Religion
Authors: Williams John A.
Published: February 2009

September 1988 saw the twentieth anniversary of the untimely death of Ronald Gregor Smith, one of the most creative and most neglected theologians of the post-war years in Britain. Although associated with the ‘secular theology’ of the sixties, Smith transcended the faddishness of much of this trend with his quest for a theology which could do justice to the existential reality of faith as a mode of being, an orientation of life operative within a secular context. This article seeks to indicate the value of Smith's work to contemporary debates about the nature of Christian believing, and in particular to the possibility of faith taking on a critical and reflective form within the congregation.
Returning from ‘The Far Country’: Theses for a Contemporary Trinitarian Theology
Authors: Lacugna C. M. , McDonnell K.
Published: February 2009

There is a general malaise concerning trinitarian theology, which usually is attributed to its speculative complexity, or what we are calling in these pages, ‘the far country’. The abstractness of trinitarian theology is partly funded by an overlysharp distinction between the ‘economic’ and the ‘immanent’ trinity, or between God's activity in salvation history, and God's self-relatedness. The marginal position of trinitarian theology is also a direct result of the development of Western trinitarian doctrine apart from its proper home in liturgy and the language of praise. Despite this, there is evidence that the museum days of trinitarian theology are rapidly coming to an end.
Jesus and the Subversive Family
Authors: Ellis Ieuan
Published: February 2009

Ernest Renan, in his Vie de Jésus, over a century ago, put out a startling theory that family relationships meant little to Christ. In his pursuit of an absolute form of righteousness and truth, the family with its petty loyalties was a hindrance to Jesus. He rebelled against parental authority, even as a child. As a man, he was harsh to his relatives; nor did they love him. But that left him free to follow his ideal, and create a new unity with his disciples. ‘Jesus, like all men exclusively possessed by one idea, came to think lightly of the ties of blood. The bond of thought is the only one recognized by natures such as his’.
Paul and Jesus: The Problem of Continuity
Authors: Wedderburn A. J. M.
Published: February 2009

The question of the relationship between Paul and Jesus has exercised scholars for the past century and a half, although J. Blank has argued that it is only since the beginning of this century that we can really speak of the scholarly treatment of the questions of ‘Paul and Jesus’ or ‘Jesus and Paul’.
The Moral Theory of the Atonement: An Historical and Theological Critique
Authors: McGrath Alister
Published: February 2009

In 1892, Hastings Rashdall delivered a University Sermon at Oxford entitled ‘Abelard's Doctrine of the Atonement’. In this sermon, he outlines with increasing enthusiasm what he considered to be ‘as noble and perspicuous a statement as can even yet be found of the faith which is still the life of Christendom’. The central theme of his sermon is that in the twelfth century figure of Peter Abailard can be found a theory of the Atonement which meets the demands of an age shaped in the spirit of Darwinism and historical criticism. What Rashdall understands by the ‘Abelardian doctrine of the Atonement’ is expounded at much greater length in his 1915 Bampton Lectures, The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology.
Re-conceiving the Trinity as the Mystery of Salvation
Authors: LaCugna C. M.
Published: February 2009

We began by wondering what it might mean to speak of the immanent and economic threefoldness of God. Rahner's axiom provided leverage on the problem by showing that trinitarian theology is meant above all to be a truth about the mystery of salvation. That is, it is a way of both narrating and conceiving the God whosavesand theGodwho saves.

The correspondence between these two emphases presented a hermeneutical problem at two methodological levels, and so the second step was to examine the meaning of the copula in Rahner's axiom in order to decide how we might (a) link up our narrative of God's history with us with God's inner history, and, having answered that, how we might (b) link up our speculation about God's ‘inner’ life with the divine reality. We replied in the case of (a) that the axiom legislates speaking of God by drafting an equivalence between the temporal history of God-with-us and the eternal history of God, andvice versa: the economic trinityisthe immanent trinity, andvice versa. In the case of (b) and building on the answer to (a), we proposed an understanding of the trinity as a theological model. The model (trinity of relations) is related to the ‘modeled’ (God-in-relation) both heuristically and ontologically. The theological model of trinity therefore must incorporate imagistic as well as discursive, indirect as well as direct modes of discourse.

Finally, we indicated some of the theological and methodological consequences of understanding God as being the ‘God for us’, and of re-conceiving the doctrine of the trinity to be a theological model of salvation.
Principles of Theological Education in Germany
Authors: Lütcke Karl-Heinrich
Published: February 2009

In 1520 Luther wrote To the Christian Nobility urging 27 proposals for the reformation of the Church. One of these called for the reform of the universities. Taking up the humanist principle of returning to ancient sources, its aim was to encourage the intensive study of Scripture. Four years later Luther developed this proposal when he wrote To the Councillors of all German Towns, That they should Establish and Maintain Christian Schools. Luther started from the rediscovery of the Gospel; his concern was that this precious experience might be lost again, and that the ‘thunderstorm of God's Word’ might move away. Appropriate forms of education therefore needed to be developed both for young people and for the clergy, in order that the rediscovered Gospel might be preserved: ‘Whoever can grip and hold must grip tight and hold fast.’
The Ethical Use of the Old Testament in Luther and Calvin: A Comparison
Authors: Wright David
Published: February 2009

‘The Holy Scriptures teach ethics, or the theory of duties, far better than any Ciceros or Aristotles’, claimed Luther, comparing the Bible with the standard ethical handbooks of antiquity, both Latin (Cicero's De Officiis) and Greek (Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics). Luther had in fact lectured on Aristotle's Ethics in 1508/9, a few years before he received the degree of ‘Doctor in Biblia’. It was as a Professor of Bible, mainly of the OT, that Luther earned his living for over thirty years, and Calvin too expended a large proportion of his efforts as preacher, commentator and lecturer on the OT. Comparisons of their use of the OT have tended to concentrate on the law and to a lesser extent on Christological (Christocentric) hermeneutics. This essay will endeavour to cast the net more widely and to broach the question of the law as it arises within a broader context.
Article Review: Was Calvin a Calvinist?
Authors: Bell M. Charles
Published: February 2009

In a previous issue of SJT Paul Helm reviewed the work of R. T. Kendall in which Kendall ‘contends that Calvinism in general and particularly English Calvinism down to 1649 shows a marked departure from the teaching of John Calvin’. Mr Helm concluded that Kendall's thesis ‘does not stand up to serious scrutiny’. More recently, Mr Helm has underscored his rejection of Kendall's thesis with the publication of his monograph, Calvin and the Calvinists. A major point of contention concerns Kendall's assertion that Calvin teaches a doctrine of unlimited atonement. Mr Helm also takes exception to the implications for faith and assurance which Kendall draws from this view of the atonement. In his refutation of Kendall's work Mr Helm begins with a presentation of what he believes to be Calvin's own position. After a survey of quotations, primarily from the Institute, he concludes that,

in Calvin's teaching the work of Christ, from incarnation to heavenly intercession, is one work, focused on the death of Christ which expiated sin by satisfying divine justice. Christ's death brings salvation to the elect, for in dying Christ intended only the salvation of the elect (p. 22).
Indian Christian Theology—The Humanity of Christ and the New Humanity
Authors: Whaling Frank
Published: February 2009

Indian Christian theology has developed in a number of different directions. As we analyse those directions we can detect two main patterns of advance. On the one hand, there is the concern with inwardness and spirituality, the interiority of the Gospel; on the other hand, there is a concern for the outward world and its future as the venue of the new creation brought into being by Christ. Both these concerns have been mirrored in modern Hinduism as it has sought to transmit to modern India the deep spirituality of classical Indian religion and also to reinterpret Hindu doctrines in the light of the context of modern India. Śri Rāmakrishna represents the first concern within modern Hinduism, and Gāndhi represents the other. Indian Christian theology has developed within a culture wherein a concern for the inwardness of one's own spiritual life and a concern for the outward development of the nation were both living issues. In ‘contextualising’ the Gospel in India, Indian Christians have naturally been influenced by both these concerns. Indian Christians have made a contribution to total Christian theology in the areas of inwardness and spirituality. Our particular concern now is to see what they have to say to us on the subject of the humanity of Christ and the new humanity that he has made possible.
The New Jerusalem in Matthew 5.14
Authors: Campbell K. M.
Published: February 2009

The picture of the hilltop city in Mt. 5.14b is an image within an image. It is one of those pictures employed by Jesus which is almost too familiar to us; its meaning appears on the surface to be perfectly simple and obvious, so that although frequently cited in support of various arguments, it is rarely subjected to scholarly scrutiny. It will be argued here that, far from being a casual illustration or simple cliché, it in fact constitutes a profoundly theological statement on the part of Jesus.
Rudolf Bultmann's View of Christian Ethics
Authors: Roberts Robert
Published: February 2009

Bultmann characterises Christian ethics as an ethics of ‘obedience’. By this he means to keep in the forefront the existentialist conception of man as an encountering being, one whose authentic, as well as inauthentic life is constituted by his response to the demands (and also the blessings) proffered him in the Now of his concrete situation. Since every concrete Now demands decision concerning his self-understanding, man is always confronted with an absolute either/or: to ‘obey’ or not.
The Motives and Scope of Historical Inquiry about Jesus
Authors: Cairns David
Published: February 2009

The relation of the Gospel to historical inquiry is one of the most important and difficult problems confronting modern theology—and, indeed, the Christian faith. Both terms need closer definition, and this must now be given.
Polarity and Reductionism
Authors: Avis P. D. L.
Published: February 2009

In this article I shall try to argue that to accept polarities in theology is a discipline imposed by the subject matter itself, and that attempts to break out of the received polarities are likely, if not certain, to end in reductionism. The relation of paradox to polarity demands far more thorough treatment than I have been able to give it here. For example, the question as to whether all polarities are inherently paradoxical is one that I have not discussed. Neither have I made it a part of my case to contend for the paradoxical nature of Christian doctrine. I am inclined to think, however, that once we perceive creation itself to be paradoxical—in that God causes to be that which is not he, which seems to involve a self-limitation or even ‘kenosis’ of deity—we will be predisposed to accept the paradoxes of the Incarnation, justification (simul iustus et peccator), and eschatology (already and not yet). But I have used the word polarity in a broad sense which I hope will become clear as the argument proceeds. I eventually make some critical comments about ‘liberation theology’ and Professor Wiles'sThe Remaking of Christian Doctrine. But I begin by trying to advance the argument on a broad front.
The Concept of Story and Theological Discourse
Authors: Jones Hugh
Published: February 2009

Biblical scholars and theologians have sometimes suggested that the concept of story or narration may be used to avoid or even resolve certain long-standing problems in theology. The context of such a suggestion appears to be not only the gradual filtering of ideas from the social sciences into theological awareness but also a much improved understanding of the nature and transmission of the biblical traditions. For instance, literary criticism had tried to tell the story of the making of the Bible as a story of writing and editing. With its analytic interest, form criticism penetrated deeper, concentrating on the crucial role of oral tradition and on the power of communities to shape certain forms. Depending on these prior analytical activities, tradition criticism (or ‘redaction criticism’ in New Testament studies) felt free to seek larger unities in the material before it. That is, whereas form criticism's interest lay in describing separately the variety of ‘;scenes’ that later took their respective places in the story, tradition criticism concentrated on telling the whole story of the making of the Bible.2
Lost and Found: Athanasius' Doctrine of Predestination
Authors: Clarke F. Stuart
Published: February 2009

The traditional account of the history of the doctrine of predestination runs somewhat as follows: After the close of the apostolic era, Christians took little interest in the doctrine for the next three centuries. It was again brought into prominence during the early fifth century by Augustine, who was led, partly in reaction to Pelagianism, to formulate the doctrine in an extreme form. This produced a further reaction from a group of theologians led by Cassian, who regarded themselves as orthodox and as opponents of Pelagius, but who rejected the extreme Augustinian doctrine. It is generally considered that from a strictly logical point of view, there is more to be said for Augustine's doctrine, but that as he stated it it was found repugnant by many Christians. So Cassian and his followers are owed a certain debt for preventing the church from being saddled with the logical excesses of the greatest of the Latin fathers.1 All later statements, however, cannot but be Augustinian, Cassianite, or mediating positions between the two.
Of Metaphors and Analogies: Legal Language and Covenant Theology
Authors: Lyall Francis
Published: February 2009

For some years I have been interested in exploring the use made of legal language by Paul and other New Testament writers. Recently, however, I have been reading a fair amount of Covenant Theology, and have become increasingly aware of the problems that arise from the application of ‘covenant’ terminology and related metaphors. Accordingly, in this article I want first to consider the general nature and function of metaphors and analogies as I see their role in the transmission of the truths of Christianity, and then to apply these generalities to the field of Covenant Theology. It seems to me that much discussion in that field comes down to argument about the content of the metaphoric language involved, and that some of the argument arises from an improper approach to metaphor. However, as I am aware that my reading has been limited and patchy, and that, as a lawyer, I am intruding into another discipline, I will refrain from attempting the scholarly citation of precise examples from theological writing, in the hope that ideas from my discipline will not be dismissed merely on grounds of error of example.
Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Science of Theology
Authors: Avis P. D. L.
Published: February 2009

The problem of establishing theology as a rigorously objective intellectual discipline or science whilst at the same time recognising that we cannot speak of God, theology's transcendent and infinite object, directly or univocally has given rise to various attempts to guarantee theological integrity. As the first to acknowledge and attempt to grapple with the problem of theological procedure in the modern world of thought, Friedrich Schleiermacher has a more than merely historical importance: together with some half a dozen other titanic figures of Christain history he continues to overshadow our theological endeavours today.1
Theology and Education: A Research Perspective
Authors: Francis Leslie
Published: February 2009

Historically the churches have played a major role in the area of education. This role has received expression both in theoretical and in practical terms. The theologian has taken an important part both in the determining of perspectives in educational philosophy and in the actual provision of schools and the training of teachers.
Analysing a Biblical Text: Some Important Linguistic Distinctions
Authors: Poythress Vern S.
Published: February 2009

Sometimes exegetes differ from one another not so much because they have seen different data but because they are in fact looking for different types of ‘meaning’. For this reason, it is useful to classify different types of analysis of a text, and different types of ‘meaning’ resulting from such analysis.

The need for such classification has increased with the progress of biblical scholarship. Biblical exegetes and theologians have long had to deal with questions like ‘What is the meaning of this word of Scripture?’ and ‘What is the meaning of this verse, paragraph, section, or book?’ The intrinsic difficulties of recovering meaning from dead languages and sometimes unfamiliar cultural settings are often challenge enough. But, as increasing refinement and exactitude are sought, another kind of difficulty can arise, namely a difficulty with kinds of ‘meaning’. Is it indeed true that there is always only one meaning which isthemeaning of a text? Is this the case even in poetic passages that may suggest or allude to new perspectives and comparisons without explicitly teaching them?1Moreover, supposing that someone has arrived at ‘the meaning’ of a text, how is he to communicate this to someone else? In a commentary? In a sermon? In a form like Kittel'sTheological Dictionary of the New Testament? Or perhaps even in the form of a painting or a new social and political organisation?
The Last Enemy
Authors: Gibson J. C. L.
Published: February 2009

The aim of this paper is to outline the thinking of the Canaanite peoples on the subject of death and to compare it with their near neighbour Israel's in the Old Testament. My chief source for the former is the mythological tablets from Ras Shamra (anciently Ugarit), the quoted extracts being taken from the translation in the second edition (for which I was responsible) of Sir Godfrey Driver's Canaanite Myths and Legends. For the Old Testament side of the equation I have mainly followed the survey in the opening chapters of Professor Martin-Achard's book From Death to Life, though I do not necessarily agree with all his interpretations. I have also profited, particularly in my concluding remarks, from rereading after a gap of many years Gustaf Aulén's well-known work of historical theology Christus Victor. Other studies which I found helpful are listed in the select bibliography at the end of the paper.
Conversion in Origen
Authors: Smith John Clark
Published: February 2009

In the ancient world, the concept of conversion was a motive for many great works. One might consider Plato's dialogueThe Republicas an expression of hope and salvation for man, with the basic intention to guide man to a clearer vision of God. Later Philo, Clement of Alexandria and other early Christan writers were concerned with the question how man would be reunited with the divine. In his presentation of the text and translation of Plotinus' works, A. H. Armstrong states that the primary object of all of Plotinus' activity as a teacher and thinker was to bring his own soul and the souls of others by way of intellect to union with the One.
Analysing a Biblical Text: What are we After?
Authors: Poythress Vern S.
Published: February 2009

When an exegete approaches a biblical text, he wants to find out ‘what it means’. Butwhichmeaning is he after? Is he interested only in what the speaker (or author) intended? Or is he interested also in the speech product (which may not fully succeed in embodying the speaker's intention)? Is he interested in what the audience thought of the discourse? And which of these meanings (if any) is the appropriate starting point for a modern sermon?
The Concept of Subordination in Barth's Special Ethics
Authors: McKelway A. J.
Published: February 2009

Of the many difficult formulations in Karl Barth's ‘Special Ethics’, none seems less amenable to acceptable interpretation than his conception of the relation of male and female. I do not refer to Barth's insistence that Man, created as male and female, maintain both the unity and distinction required for true co-humanity. I refer, rather, to his puzzling (even if textually supported) assertion that this co-humanity is ordered by God in such a way that the woman is ‘sub-ordinate’ to the man without inferiority or disadvantage. Putting aside the exegetical issues involved, I will try to show that Barth's redefinition of the concept of sub-ordination gains coherence when understood as an ‘ordering’ of human life by a revealed order of creation, which in turn is an expression of the divine life itself. I will argue that the analogy Barth draws between the order of the Trinity and sexual relationship is authorized by his doctrine of creation, by his view of Christ as theanalogia relationis, and by what I believe to be his application of the doctrine ofperichoresisto anthropology. And finally, I want to suggest that, while some of Barth's language may have to be set aside, the arguments described here inform the presuppositions and method of an ethic more relevant for moral discrimination than has commonly been supposed.
The Trinity and the Structure of Religious Life: An Indian Contribution to Wider Christian Theology
Authors: Whaling Frank
Published: February 2009

Indian Christian theology has begun to make a significant contribution to total Christian theology in a number of ways. One of these ways is to look at the doctrine of the Trinity again not merely in terms of the Godhead itself but also in terms of the religious life resulting from the fact that Christians think of God in terms of a Trinity.
The Shaking of the Seven Hills
Authors: Avis P. D. L.
Published: February 2009

The doctrine of justification, for Luther the articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiae, was for the authors of the report Doctrine in the Church of England (1938) not worth mentioning. Here, however, the members of the Archbishops' Commission on Christian Doctrine were not representative of the Anglican tradition as a whole which has not been remiss in attending to the matter of justification. The doctrine presents a challenge to the Anglican attempt to find a via media and there are pronounced oscillations of emphasis in the Anglican tradition on this question, represented by Bishop Bull and J. H. Newman on the right and Hooker and F. D. Maurice on the left. Newman's Lectures on Justification provoked further efforts to find a synthesis and led, by the end of the nineteenth century, to a restatement of the doctrine of justification within Anglican theology, which though in certain respects catholic in form, was definitely evangelical in spirit.