bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘Conveying Theological Perspectives in a Secular Culture’
Authors: Picken Stuart D. B.
Published: February 2009

The problems facing theology in the setting of secular. society have been widely discussed to the point, almost, of commercial exploitation, particularly by the now eclipsed radical theology of the late 1960s. The rather hollow sounding panegyrics which celebrated God's demise can hardly be said to have carried the task of theology very far forward. Indeed, they have rendered small service to Christian thought, and even less to the church of Jesus Christ, catholic and apostolic.
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Athanasius
Authors: Campbell Theodore C.
Published: February 2009

Athanasius of Alexandria (298?–373) was a key figure in the in the life and theology of the fourth-century Church. In most of the contemporary controversies and events his force of personality made an indelible mark on developments and influenced their direction and movement to a remarkable degree. Although known most widely for his defense of the communion of being of the Son incarnate in Jesus with the Father, he was no less important in the incipient controversies concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit. At a decisive hour of the Church's life, Athanasius not only secured her faith in the one Godhead of Father and Son; he delineated the lines upon which her pneumatological doctrine was to develop. With his characteristic single-mindedness, and by constant reiteration of certain propositions, Athanasius laid down the general lines of the future development of the doctrine, thus making the question of the divinity of the Holy Spirit as fundamental a part of the Church's consciousness as the doctrine of the Son's full divinity had become through his disputes with the Arians.
The Rehabilitation of Truth in Theology
Authors: Palma Robert J.
Published: February 2009

In introducing hisDynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich speaks of ‘faith’ as one of those terms in religious language ‘which need healing before they can be used for the healing of men’. ‘Truth’ is another term that is in need of healing. Of course, it must be said that the critical reforming and refining of terms and their senses should be a perennial theological task. It can be said that we have witnessed in the twentieth century a cornucopia of linguistic analysis. However, much of this analysis has been less than productive, a fact due in part to highly restricted notions of meaning and verification. A deficiency in analysis is evident in what J. L. Austin has to say about ‘truth’:
The Spirit of Inquiry and the Reflected Self: Theological Anthropology and the Sociology of Knowledge
Authors: Jones Hugh
Published: February 2009

The general aim of an anthropology may be said to be the determination of man's characteristics in his environment. In social anthropology, however, the trend has been to emphasise the environment at the expense of man. The present article argues that a similar tendency prevails in theology's typical description of man as a ‘hearer’ of the Word of God and finds illuminating parallels in Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge. The failure of these two authors to maintain a true dialectic between individual creativity and the formative influences of society appears in connection with their view of human inquiry. By developing George Kelly's model of man as an inquiring scientist, the article attempts to show that a theological anthropology is bound to take the empirical fact of the theologian's own spirit of inquiry into account and also that it must develop a theory of its own activity which overcomes conceptually the tendency to lose sight of man the inquirer in favour of divine grace or human social structures.
Regnum Dei Deus Est
Authors: Chilton Bruce D.
Published: February 2009

‘The kingdom of God’ is central in the proclamation of Jesus, the reality to which his preaching points and which the parables are designed to explicate; the student of the New Testament must understand this concept if he is to appreciate dominical theology and the ecclesial theology which developed from it. Since Albert Schweitzer's well-known study, it has been taken as a matter of course that Jesus' kingdom concept was ‘apocalyptic’. Yet just this assumption has necessitated crucial qualifications. To take two notable examples of this, Rudolf Bultmann asserted that Jesus rejected ‘the whole content of apocalyptic speculation’, and Norman Perrin went a step or two further by saying that ‘the difference between Jesus and ancient Jewish apocalyptic is much greater than Bultmann will allow’. At this point, the term ‘apocalyptic’, as applied to Jesus' preaching, is practically evacuated of content. On purely logical grounds, the propriety of its continued usage in this connexion is seriously to be questioned.
The Call to Discipleship: Reflections on Bonhoeffer's Theme 50 Years on
Authors: McFadyen A. I.
Published: February 2009

InThe Cost of Discipleship Bonhoeffer reflects on the nature and consequences of being called by Christ. He presents the call as bringing the individual into an immediate relationship with Christ, which effects a reconstitution of the individual. This reconstitution is not, however, a solitary and exclusive form of individuality, but a new way of being in all one's relationships, a new form of punctuation operated between oneself and others, God and reality as a whole, as all one's relations are mediated, and one's individuality therefore constituted, by Christ, (pp.84, 87, 145) The disciple is excentrically constituted. Following Christ means moving towards the reality of God, others and the world.
Church and Israel in the Deuteropauline Letters
Authors: Rese Martin
Published: February 2009

As introduction to the topic may serve two remarks, one about the meaning and importance of the expression ‘Deuteropauline Letters’, and one about the historical and theological background of the question of the relationship between church and Israel.
Augustine, the Trinity and the Theological Crisis of the West
Authors: Gunton Colin
Published: February 2009

We live in a culture marked, as few others have been, by persistent and deep-seated scepticism about the existence and knowability of God. Not only is the intellectual leadership of our times for the most part atheist or agnostic, but theology itself, certainly since the time of Kant, has been in fundamental disarray about the question, as witness, for example, the recent preoccupation with the question of revelation. In this paper I want to suggest, first, that the problem does not begin with Kant, because at least one of the causes of Western atheism is a theological tradition which encourages thought in the essential unknowability of God. Here, a distinction must be drawn. In one sense, of course, the doctrine of the unknowability of God is essential to theology. But to hold it in such a way as to suggest or teach that the unknowable God can in noway make himself known — so that there can be no theological ontology at all — is to offer the kind of hostages to fortune which so much Western theology has done. Can it really be a historical accident that it is here rather than anywhere else that atheism has found so fertile a soil?
Did Paul Advocate Separation from the Synagogue? A Reaction to Francis Watson: Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach
Authors: Campbell W. S.
Published: February 2009

A Major watershed in the interpretation of Paul is generally acknowledged as having emerged with the publication of E. P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism (SCM, 1977). His attack on the misrepresentation of Judaism contained in much of this century's scholarship (particularly the Lutheran) has received widespread support. Scholars are now beginning to produce Pauline studies in the post-Sanders mould. H. Räisänen is one such, and the present study by Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach (CUP, 1986), follows in like vein. Sanders' thesis is essentially that Paul opposes Judaism not because of any inherent errors such as ‘self-righteousness’ or ‘legalism’, but simply because it is not Christianity. Watson's study attempts to give a historical and sociological grounding for this viewpoint (p. 67).
Can God Save Anyone He Will?
Authors: Walls Jerry L.
Published: February 2009

It is a traditional belief of Christianity that God is Sovereign or omnipotent. It seems to follow from this that God can do anything. And if he can do anything he can save anyone; and if he can save anyone, he can save everyone.
Revelation, Redemption, and the Divinity of Jesus Christ
Authors: Waldrop Charles T.
Published: February 2009

In his important book The Shape of Christology, John Mclntyre argues that revelation cannot provide an adequate foundation for the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ. He contests Karl Barth's derivation of this doctrine from revelation, and he concludes that Barth and other neo-orthodox theologians place far too much emphasis upon revelation, which is a ‘second-order model’ in early Christianity. As an alternative, Mclntyre contends that a viable doctrine of the divinity of Christ must be based upon redemption, not revelation.
Typology and the Christian Use of the Old Testament
Authors: Baker David L.
Published: February 2009

It is necessary first of all to consider what is meant by the word ‘typology’. There is a world of difference between the use of τ⋯πoς (‘type’) in the Bible and many of the fanciful interpretations which were called ‘types’ in the early Church, or between the use of typology in modern biblical scholarship and in modern church life. Two main conceptions of typology are to be found today. Recently a number of biblical scholars, notably Gerhard von Rad, have used the term to describe the interpretation of history involved in the ‘promise-fulfilment’ approach to the relationship between the Testaments. Alongside this there are those who perpetuate fanciful kinds of biblical interpretation closely related to allegory and symbolism, referring to them as typology. The place of typology in the Christian use of the Old Testament depends entirely therefore on what is meant by the word.
The Quest for African Christian Theologies
Authors: Fasholé-Luke Edward W.
Published: February 2009

In 1965, Prof. Bolaji Idowu, President of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, castigated African Christians for being content with imported western theologies which were imperfectly understood and meaningless in the African context. He also lamented the fact that after almost two hundred years of Christian experience in Africa, African Christians have neglected the fundamental task of relating the Gospel message to political, social, and cultural milieux of African peoples. Africans must, Idowu claimed, produce indigenous theologies which will satisfy the deepest, emotional and spiritual needs of Africans.1 When Idowu wrote in 1965, expressions like ‘African Theology’, ‘African Christian Theology’, ‘Theologia Africana’, were hardly, if ever used, though some attempts were made to relate the Gospel message to the diverse social, political, and cultural situations in Africa. In the political sphere, violent winds of change were blowing throughout the continent; the rapid growth of Independent churches was an indication that some African Christians were, at least, dissatisfied with the imported theologies, Church structures, patterns of ministry and liturgical forms, which had been introduced by western Christian missionaries into Africa.
The Gospel Truth as Re-enactment
Authors: Navone John
Published: February 2009

The world of the fine arts provides paradigms for explaining the role of the imagination in the development of new theologies and the communication of the Christ-event. Although there is but one definite script for a play or an opera, plays and operas admit of widely diverse representations because the script and its characters are imagined differently. For example: Amanda Wingfield, the mother in The Glass Menagerie, has been represented as a rather high-strung woman in one production, and as a serene and gracious lady in another. The script had remained the same in both productions; however, the spirit of Amanda Wingfield had changed because the directors of these productions had not imagined her in the same way. The written script is static, definite, one; the enacted representations, on the other hand, allow for the dynamics of change, diversity, and imagination.1
Jesus Christ and the Christian Understanding of Society
Authors: Mayor S. H.
Published: February 2009

If we are attempting to set out an ideal of society which is deserving of the name of Christian we must have some idea of what is meant by Christianity. I propose that Christianity is to be identified with Jesus Christ.
In Defence of the Identification: Scripture as Word of God
Authors: Gorringe Timothy
Published: February 2009

In The Bible in the Modern World Professor Barr points out that recent discussion has largely lost interest in the description of the Bible as the ‘Word of God’. He suggests three reasons for this:
Kant's Moral Proof of the Existence of God
Authors: Byrne Peter
Published: February 2009

During his lifetime Kant offered a number of versions of his moral proof of the existence of God, but the classic statement of his argument is normally taken to be that found in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason. It is to this argument that the phrase ‘Kant's moral proof’ is normally taken to refer.
Theology of Mystical Experience
Authors: Moltmann Jürgen
Published: February 2009

Mystical Theology aims to be a ‘wisdom of experience’, not a ‘wisdom of doctrine’.1 It is not as theology that it is mystical, but in the fact that it brings mystical experience to expression in words. Mystical experience, however, cannot be communicated in doctrinal propositions. So the ‘theology of mystical experience’ always tells only of the way, the journey, the transition to that unutterable and incommunicable experience of God. So far as its doctrinal content is concerned, the theology of the mystics has up to the present seldom appeared particularly impressive. By tracing the history of ideas, one can easily enough recognise the augustinian, the neoplatonic and the gnostic motifs, and track them back to their roots. With this approach, however, one is not on the same path as the mystical theologians. It is therefore more appropriate to ask what experiences they were seeking to express with the help of those images and ideas. In order to share in their experience, it makes sense to join with them on the same journey, whether with Bernard of Clairvaux on the ‘ladder of love’, with Bonaventura on the ‘pilgrimage of the soul to God’, with Thomas à Kempis on the road of the Imitatio Christi or with Thomas Merton on the ‘seven-storey mountain’.
The Political Christ: Some Reflections on Mr Cupitt's Thesis
Authors: Gunton Colin
Published: February 2009

Not far below the surface of most modern theological dispute lies the question of the interrelationship of theology and culture. How shall those who take their intellectual orientation from the Christian Gospel understand their position in relation to the intellectual currents that represent the spirit of the age? Should the stance be that of Tertullian, Eusebius, or Augustine; Kierkegaard, Barth, or Tillich; or of some variation and combination of these and others? One of the many ramifications of this complex area of inquiry concerns the relationship of the Christian community to the institutions of the society and the world in which it carries on its life, as is well illustrated by recent controversy over the aims and methods of the W.C.C. Programme to Combat Racism. Here, of course, are obvious, if highly complex, moral and practical issues. But underlying them is a further theoretical and theological question: What is Christianity? In this paper, I should like to suggest that both the theological and the ethical problems can be illuminated by an examination of the interrelationship between conceptions of the person of Christ and the church's understanding of its relation to earthly rulers.
Profession of Faith and Admission to Communion in the Light of I Corinthians II and other Passages
Authors: Pritchard Norman M.
Published: February 2009

This paper is offered as a preliminary contribution to the debate on the admission of children to Holy Communion. It attempts to examine the basis for the practice, current in many churches, of requiring some Profession of Faith or Confirmation as an essential precondition to participation in the sacrament. Accepting the need for theology to be based on responsible exegesis, the paper sets out to examine the passage 1 Cor. 11.27ff to which current practice has traditionally been traced. The paper then (section II) widens the discussion and advances the hypothesis that the communion services in the early church may not have been restricted to believers only: 1 Cor. 14.23 shows that it was possible for unbelievers to be present at worship, but without mention of the Lord's Supper. And so the hypothesis that worship normally comprised ‘word’ and ‘sacrament’ in the early church is tested on linguistic grounds from 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Cor. 14, to show the possibility of unbelievers' being present when the sacrament was celebrated. The implications of 1 Cor. 16.22 are then explored and the view advanced that it was not impossible for unbelievers to share in the sacrament—the Anathema in that verse being intended to warn participants (including unbelieving participants) in the sacrament to approach the Lord's Supper thoughtfully and carefully.
‘My Brother Esau is an Hairy Man’: An Encounter between the Comedian and the Preacher
Authors: Garrett Graeme
Published: February 2009

Humour is a serious business. The immediate aim of the comedian may be simply to entertain. But if he is successful in his art, his achievement goes far beyond this limited purpose. As much as the scientist or the novelist, the humorist holds the mirror up to man and reflects, often in sharpest focus, aspects of man's condition in and relationship to the world which otherwise might pass unnoticed. Man, after all, is the only animal which laughs, just as he is the only animal which conducts experiments or tells stories. This simple and undeniable fact surely reveals something about the kind of being man is and the kind of world he inhabits. The world is not only a realm of physical order whose regularity man-the-scientist may observe and chart; nor is it only a great theatre where the drama of human history unfolds in which man-the-actor plays and (modestly) directs his part. The world is also comical, and man-the-humorist perceives and participates in its comic structures.
The Politicisation of Christianity
Authors: Gill Robin
Published: February 2009

The 1978 Reith Lectures have already proved themselves to be remarkable. It was remarkable in the first place that a clergyman should have been invited to give the lectures at all (they are published as Christianity and the World Order, by Edward Norman, OUP, 105 pp., £1·50). It was remarkable that, whilst telling his listeners that the West is becoming increasingly secular, Norman should nonetheless have devoted them almost entirely to an internal critique of the churches. And it was remarkable that he should have provoked over twice as much personal correspondence from the public as did John Robinson at the time of Honest to God. In the circumstances it may seem less remarkable that a number of distinguished academics have already brought out a powerful critique of the lectures (published as Christian Faith and Political Hopes: A Reply to E. R. Norman, edited by Haddon Willmer, Epworth, 155 pp., £1·75).
Vocation and the People of God
Authors: Nicol Iain G.
Published: February 2009

The Christian ethic is now one among a plurality of vocational patterns. It can no longer be made legally binding, nor can it easily be employed as an instrument of social pressure. More and more, the Christian life is viewed as a way which one deliberately chooses. Fewer accept it on the recommendation of their parents or as a matter of social convention.
The Ambiguous Revolution: Kant on the Nature of Faith
Authors: Wiebe Don
Published: February 2009

Kant, it has been said, brought a ‘Copernican Revolution’ to religion and theology no less so than he did to physics. According to Karl Barth, for example, Kant's theology diverges radically from tradition. While rejecting the traditional proofs as foundation for a knowledge of God (his existence, etc.) as wholly inadequate, he, nevertheless, remained a theist. Unwilling to believe in God in the absence of good reasons for doing so, however, he offered an alternative justification for such belief. Religious belief, he insists, is based on practical considerations rather than on theoretical ones. Kant, therefore, did not consider it as necessarily irrational to hold a thing as true even though it be a theoretically insufficient holding to be true. According to him it is simply that in such a case the belief that ‘something’ is true does not constitute knowledge. And it is this displacement of knowledge in the religious sphere by faith that essentially constitutes the revolutionary change in theology.

Contrary to this generally accepted view of Kant's thought, I shall in this paper argue the essentially unrevolutionary character of his understanding of theology. There is, I shall maintain, a basic continuity in Kant's thoughts on religion with the theologies of the past. The faith of which Kant speaks, I shall attempt to show, is a cognitive faith—a source of beliefs that can quite legitimately, even if only in a weak sense, be referred to as religious knowledge. His theology, therefore, is, like the theology of his predecessors, ultimately an inferential knowledge of the divine.
On God's Ontic and Noetic Absoluteness: A Critique of Barth
Authors: Brown Robert
Published: February 2009

Karl Barth's formidable attack on all forms of natural theology is one of the major events in twentieth-century religious thought. He anathematized every effort by unaided reason to conceive adequately of the nature of God or to demonstrate God's existence. To him all are disguised attempts to ‘domesticate’ God in the circumscribed and self-serving world of human interests. Those theologians who are dissatisfied with this dimension of Barth's thought sometimes criticize it, but more often find it easier just to ignore him and go their own ways. Those philosophers who are interested in provoking a confrontation with Barth find it difficult to penetrate the confessional circle and establish a point of contact which the defenders of Barth's prohibition of natural theology would themselves be constrained to acknowledge.

My contention is that there is such a point of contact open to theological and philosophical critique, one which previous critics have overlooked. The argument is organized around five theses. They are:

1. The foundation of Barth's position on God's knowability lies inChurch DogmaticsII, 1. Here he declares that God's noetic absoluteness derives from his ontic absoluteness (pp. 310f). To the critical eye this spurious derivation appears to be anon sequiturrather than an acceptable statement of logical entailment or of metaphysical or theological necessity.

2. Barth fails to support the derivation with convincing exegetical arguments of the sort required to override its conceptual weakness. This is a rather surprising circumstance for one who strives to rest his entire theology on revelation.
‘Time’ As A New Apologetic
Authors: Mole John
Published: February 2009

While the antithesis between theology and philosophy has never perhaps been as sharply pointed as it is today, in one direction at least it may be considered that research in both disciplines is running along parallel lines. In the study of time there is a common ground of interest. This is observable in such essays as The Fulness of Time, In the end God, Christus und die Zeit and in the current interest in eschatology. In philosophy, particularly in twentieth century France from Bergson to Berdyaev, there is a growing ‘respect’ for time—and an increasing awareness of its moral significance. In the belief that this subject affords a common vocabulary we make the following suggestion as a new topic in apologetic conversation. We shall first describe the new conception of time which is emerging, then note its relevance to one aspect of theology, the Fall, and finally suggest the apologetic significance.
The Origins of Baptism
Authors: Torrance Thomas F.
Published: February 2009

It is by no means an easy matter to trace the precise origins of the rite of Christian Baptism, both because there is a vast amount of material relevant to it, and because the New Testament does not seem to offer any one clear line for consideration. It takes all this for granted and speaks of Baptism quite naturally and without any difficulty of communication, and without any need for explanation. The derivation of the rite and the actions involved are everywhere presumed as familiar. That makes it all the more difficult for us, for we have to examine minutely the many allusions, hints and images employed in the New Testament writings, and in particular the references and citations (often very incomplete) from the Old Testament, in order to place ourselves as completely as possible in the position of the New Testament writers, and then from their Sitz im Denken as well as Sitz im Leben, seek to unravel their presuppositions and interpret their meaning.
The Justification of a Sinner Before God
Authors: Preus R.
Published: February 2009

During the history of the Lutheran Church the doctrine ofjustification has been spoken of commonly and rather loosely as the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae. This was certainly the conviction of Luther, as many of his statements testify.The purpose of this study is to examine the teaching of JohnAndrew Quenstedt, the most prominent and able representative of the later seventeenth-century Lutheran orthodoxy, on this doctrine and to learn how closely the dogmatics of his time approximates the emphasis and terminology of Luther. Quenstedt is the ‘book-keeper’—one might say the Aquinas—of Lutheran scholasticism, and he quite accurately sums up the theology of the entire century. It might be said by way of introduction that modern Lutheranism owes much to the dogmaticiansof the age of orthodoxy for the manner in which it deals with this doctrine; and for this reason I feel justified inpresenting an article of this nature.1 I propose merely to summarise Quenstedt's treatment of the doctrine of justification, and to offer comments when I deem them necessary.2 I believe that the reader will find that Quenstedt's presentation is quite well balanced and that it gives the impression of being consistently drawn from Scripture. At least it is obvious that this is Quenstedt's persuasion as he develops the doctrine.
Necessary Being
Authors: Hick John H.
Published: February 2009

Necessary being' is one of the terms by means of which Christian thought has sought to define the difference between God and man. The notion of necessary being, applied to God and withheld from man, indicates that God and man differ not merely in the characteristics which they possess but more fundamentally, in their modes of being, or in the fact that they exist in different senses of the word ‘exist’.

That such a distinction, however it may be best expressed, is essential to the Christian concept of God is agreed virtually on all hands. Paul Tillich in our own day emphasises the distinction to the extent of using different terms to refer to the reality of God and of man respectively. Human beings and other created things exist; God, on the other hand, does not exist, but is Being-itself. This is the most recent way of formulating a discrimination which has been classically expressed in the history of Christian thought by the idea of the necessary being of God in contrast to the contingent being of man and of the whole created order. There are, however, two importantly different concepts which may be, and which have been, expressed by the phrase ‘necessary being’. ‘Necessity’, in a philosophical context, usually means logical necessity, and gives rise in theology to the concept of a being such that it is logically impossible that this being should not exist. But this is not the only kind of necessity referred to in philosophical literature.
The Problem of the Gospel According to Matthew
Authors: Hebert Gabriel
Published: February 2009

For whom, and with what special purpose, was St. Matthew's Gospel written? The thesis of this paper is, that it was written after the Fall of Jerusalem by a Jewish Christian for the Great Church, which by then was predominantly Gentile, with the special purpose of bringing to Gentile Christians the moral and spiritual teaching which Jerusalem had preserved and which they sorely needed.

One problem of Matthew is this: that the Evangelist, while reproducing with great care the testimony of the sources which he accepts as authoritative (namely, Mark, Q,, and M which contained the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem over which St. James had presided), does not attempt to reconcile them. As we shall see, it is hard to think that if our Lord said that ‘till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished’ (5.18), He could also have said ‘It is not that which enters the mouth that makes a man unclean, but that which comes out of his mouth is what makes him unclean’ (15.11, cf. Mark 7.15), since this saying repeals the whole of Leviticus 11, on unclean foods. Again, if He commanded His disciples to do and observe all that was laid down by the Scribes who sat on Moses' seat (23.1–3), how could He have so trenchantly criticised the Tradition of the elders as leading in actual cases to breach of the Fifth Commandment (15.1–9, cf. Mark 7.5–13)?
Hermeneutics According To F. D. E. Schleiermacher
Authors: Torrance Thomas F.
Published: February 2009

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born on the 2Ist day of November 1768, and died on the 12th day of February 1834. It is altogether fitting that as we honour the birth of this great man by dedicating to his memory this number of the Scottish Journal of Theology, we should consider that aspect of his thought which has continued to influence us in the twentieth century so powerfully.
Interpretation and Understanding in Schleiermacher's Theology: Some Critical Questions
Authors: Torrance James B.
Published: February 2009

One of the fascinating features of theology in our day is the revival of interest in Schleiermacher in the same century which has witnessed the most radical questioning of both his method and point of view.
Reflections on the Moral Teaching of the Prophets
Authors: Jasper F. N.
Published: February 2009

In his great book The Idea of the Holy, R. Otto analysed what he regarded as the ‘a priori’ category of holiness. Holiness properly belongs, he argues, to the sphere of religion. The word ‘is, indeed, applied by transference to another sphere—that of ethics—but it is not itself derived from this … if the ethical element was present at all at any rate it was not original and never constituted the whole meaning of the word’. As Israelite religion develops, the ethical element gains prominence ‘The venerable religion of Moses marks the beginning of a process which from that point onwards proceeds with ever-increasing momentum, by which the numinous is throughout rationalised and moralised, i.e. charged with ethical import, until it becomes the “holy” in the fullest sense of the word. The culmination of the process is found in the Prophets and in the Gospels.’
Justification: Barth, trent, and küng
Authors: McGrath A. E.
Published: February 2009

The first assembly of the World Council of Churches recognised that the aspect of the Roman Catholic-Protestant division which constituted ‘our deepest difference’ was the question of justification. The appearance in 1957 of a work by a then unknown Roman Catholic scholar, claiming that ‘it is undeniable that there is a fundamental agreement between Karl Barth's position and that of the Catholic Church seen in its totality' was therefore the occasion as much for surprise as for pleasure. ‘How one would like to believe it!’ remarked Barth. Küng's study marks a major step toward ecumenical discussion on the issue of justification; however, that discussion must be continued. The present study is a small contribution toward that discussion.
Footpaths and Signposts to African Christian Theologies
Authors: Fasholé-Luke Edward W.
Published: February 2009

Christianity in Africa is increasing by geometric progression, despite the prognosis of western missionaries based upon the supposed lack of maturity of African Christians, and the gloomy forecasts of some African nationalists, that since Christianity and colonialism came to Africa as Siamese twins, the exodus of the latter will inevitably lead to the demise of the former. African Christianity, in spite of its essentially alien character in many parts of the continent, has shown a remarkable resilience; and perhaps, like her Lord, when African Christianity seems utterly weak and powerless, then we must celebrate with ecstasy the Festival of the Resurrection.
Mathematics, Physics and Religion: A Need for Candor and Rigor
Authors: Norris Frederick W.
Published: February 2009

In Western culture, religion and the sciences often have found themselves to be more and more at odds since the period of the Enlightenment. The change which that era brought to the Christian community could be illustrated as follows. The analogy is perhaps a bit overdrawn, but it does indicate how important the historical shifts were. During the earliest phase of Christian belief, Christianity had to compete with other religions as one fruit-bearing tree within a varied orchard. When the Christian religion became established and dominant in the Middle Ages it tended to cause other trees to wither and die because of its enormous and on occasion darkening size. During the Reformation a radical pruning took place which gave life not only to the Protestant branch but also a new vitality to the Roman Catholic branch. What the Enlightenment represented was the first pervasive suggestion that most fruit trees — perhaps even the orchard — were unnecessary. One could find individual precursors of such attempts as well as a number of people during the Enlightenment who found various religions satisfying. But at no time in the history of Christianity had a large segment of the intellectual culture been so fascinated with the idea that religion in most all of its forms might be useless.
Two Consciousnesses: The Modern Version of Chalcedon
Authors: Hanson A. T.
Published: February 2009

This article was sparked off by reading Gerald O'Collins' admirable book Interpreting Jesus (Chapman, London 1983), in which he sets out for the benefit of Roman Catholics an account of Jesus which should both measure up to what traditional christology says about him and take account of modern biblical criticism. Towards the end, following the lead of Karl Rahner, he opts for a doctrine of two consciousnesses in the incarnate Word, a divine and a human: ‘his real human consciousness (which he had individually as a man) was neither replaced nor interfered with by his divine consciousness (which as Logos he shared/shares with the Father). Since consciousness is on the side of nature and not of person, Chalcedon's doctrine supports this kind of distinction between Christ's human and divine consciousness’ (p. 190). A little later on the same page he adds: ‘through the incarnation the eternal Son became humanly conscious of himself in his relationship to his Father. He now perceived his divine “I” or self in a human way. Thus in this unique case a human consciousness was able to “seize” a divine Self, albeit in a human way.’
The Eldership in the Reformed Church
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

The institution of the office of elder in the Reformed Church in the sixteenth century was an innovation in the traditional structure of the western Catholic Church and the canonical pattern of its ministry. There were precedents for something like this in the Waldensian and Bohemian (later Moravian) Communities in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and there still are features corresponding to it in the leadership of congregational life in Greek Orthodox Churches arising out of the overlap between the worshipping congregation and the cultural community. In the Reformed Church itself the eldership came to be more closely associated with the ministry of Word and Sacrament which has had the effect of linking together ‘clerical’ and ‘lay’ service within the corporate priesthood of the Church and in the operation of its ‘sacral courts’ at synodal, presbyteral and consistorial levels. The eldership has certainly been a source of inner cohesion and stability in the life of Reformed Churches, leaving upon them characteristics of particular significance in the ecumenical fellowship of Churches.
The Soul in Plato, Platonism, and Calvin
Authors: Partee Charles
Published: February 2009

One might say that, by and large, the French are interested in John Calvin as a Christian humanist, the Germans in Calvin as a Christian theologian, and the Dutch in Calvin as a Christian philosopher. Of course, in some sense, Calvin is all these; therefore the precise relation in Calvin between scriptural theology and Platonic humanism will continue to be discussed. Concerning the doctrine of soul, Roy W. Battenhouse in an influential article entitled ‘The Doctrine of Man in Calvin and in Renaissance Platonism’ suggests that there are important resemblances between Calvin and Renaissance Platonism in the treatment of human nature. He claims that ‘both the Neoplatonists and Calvin base their thinking about man on the premise of a dualism between soul and body’, which reveals ‘Calvin's fundamental Platonism’. Although Battenhouse calls his study ‘frankly exploratory and tentative’ and uses such phrases as ‘may have been’ and ‘seems to have’ and ‘it can be argued’, the evidence demonstrates to him ‘that Calvin's socalled biblical theology is not quite so biblical as its nuggets of quotation would like to impress upon us’. Jean Boisset, while insisting that Calvin's thought is basically biblical, also finds similarities between Calvin and Plato in the doctrine of soul, and Heinrich Quistorp thinks that the question remains whether in fact Calvin does not develop a doctrine of soul which is more philosophical than theological. Quistorp thinks that Luther was more aware of the contrast between biblical anthropology and philosophical dualism than Calvin was.
God's People and the Remnant
Authors: Campbell J. C.
Published: February 2009

The conception of the Remnant is a distinctive element in the national consciousness of Israel. It gives expression to the radical faith of that people in their national destiny. From a purely secular point of view it may be regarded as an idea of great survival value, contributing to the spiritual toughness of Israel. Such rationalisations are within limits illuminating and legitimate. When we turn to the particular Biblical witness to the Remnant we find that it divides into two main tendencies. In the optimistic message of the so-called false prophets it was an ingredient in the eschatology of weal which served to soothe the hearts and uplift the hopes of patriotic Israelites. It was a popular belief similar to that faith in the British capacity for muddling through, which at times appears in our own people. On the other hand in the preaching of the canonical prophets the popular conception of the Remnant was subjected to rough and critical treatment and received a fresh content. Our concern is to bring out this new content given to the conception by the Prophets and to determine the meaning and importance of the Remnant for the doctrine of the Church.
“Kyrios” As Designation for the Oral Tradition Concerning Jesus (ParadosisandKyrios)
Authors: Cullmann Oscar
Published: February 2009

The work of the form-critics on the Gospel has directed our A attention more than ever before to the historical development of the material of the tradition, which took place before the fixing of our Gospels in writing. Collections of single or several words of Jesus, and narratives about Jesus, were establishing themselves already in the early Church, and were passed on by it. How far this tradition was already in part written down, or, as with the oldest Jewish traditions, was only orally transmitted, is not a question of importance for us here, but in any case it could never be solved with certainty. That is also true, as M. Dibelius has rightly stressed, of the much quoted “Q source”. It is indeed very probable that already before the composition of our Gospels, there were smaller writings, above all collections of words of Jesus, but it is in no way possible to define or demarcate them more exactly. On principle, this whole stream of tradition, whether it is transmitted in written or oral fashion, in so far as it is not yet channelled in our Gospels, can and must be handled as a unit. When in the title we speak of an “oral” tradition concerning Jesus, we mean simply the tradition concerning Jesus which existed before the Gospels. Similarly, in the Jewish tradition of the Old Testament law, the interpretations of the law were at first orally handed down from Rabbi to pupil, and then later written, but neither the fact of this taking place, nor the time when it took place, are of any fundamental importance for this Jewish tradition.
A Study in New Testament Communication
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

It is often claimed that the problem of communicating the Gospel is the major practical problem facing the Church to-day, as it may also be the major theological problem. This concern is a very healthy sign, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are apt to be so concerned with devising new methods of evangelism as to forget the one factor of supreme importance: the burden of the Gospel itself, that is, to forget that the Gospel is not simply the message of divine love, but the actual way in which God communicates Himself to us in history. No technique that forgets that the Gospel has already been made supremely relevant to sinful humanity in the Incarnation and death of Jesus Christ will ever avail for the communication of the Gospel. This is therefore an attempt to probe into what the New Testament has to say to us about this, and into the way in which, as a matter of fact, the New Testament actually communicates the Gospel to us.
The Real Church
Authors: Barth Karl
Published: February 2009

The word “Church” has in our day again become more J. significant and more powerful. In 1926 Otto Dibelius, then General Superintendent and now Bishop of Berlin, published a book under the title The Church's Century. By that was meant our twentieth century. The author was surely right in maintaining that the Church has been more talked about during the three decades since the First World War, which we have behind us, than in the whole of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries put together. Who would have dreamt about 1910, when the writings of Hermann Kutter were at their height, that this could happen? Perhaps this has something to do with the almost complete collapse of the political, economic and cultural shape of the old Europe, which began with the First World War and with which the question is closely related: whether it may not once again be given to the Church to save this old Europe, perhaps in a new form, as she helped to found it? In this respect the Roman Catholic Church seems to be in very good spirits and to raise many open and secret expectations. Her greatly improved position and her vigorous pushing forward in certain places is also a sign that the word “Church”, even outside of her particular folds, has again come to the forefront of Christian consciousness and theological discussion. For it is undoubtedly part of her strength that she knows much better than anyone else how to give the impression that one is dealing with the Real Church when dealing with her. During the great crisis 1933–45, however, it was nevertheless true that there was in the Evangelical Churches, first in Germany, then in Holland and Norway, as well as in other countries, “demonstration of the Spirit and of power”. This was neither to be overestimated nor underestimated, but was really rather unexpected everywhere. From it more than one inside and outside of this Church could see that the dissolution of the Evangelical Church was not as far advanced as one might on occasion have previously supposed. From a totally different side the idea is thus once again forced upon us that for nearly a quarter of a century we have had an ecumenical movement in which the weak Churches are encouraged to have more confidence in their own affairs through contact with really, or allegedly stronger, and in any case more self-conscious Churches. And finally it may well be that the abandonment by evangelical theology, at least in certain quarters, of the traditional liberalism and individualism of the eighteenth and nineteenth century fathers has helped to bring about a new understanding for the communio sanctorum and to turn the thoughts of many in this direction, in spite of the diverse way in which it brought about this change.
Conversion
Authors: Neill Bishop Stephen C.
Published: February 2009

The duty of the Church to evangelise is now a commonplace of all ecumenical discussion. The moment, however, that we go beyond vague generalisation, it becomes apparent that there are within the Church widely divergent ideas as to what evangelism is, and as to how it ought to be carried out. This has proved in many places an insuperable obstacle to common planning and action.
The Suffering Servant: Current Scandinavian Discussions
Authors: North Christopher R.
Published: February 2009

In my book The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah I gave some account of current Scandinavian discussions on the problem. My treatment of them had to be sketchy, otherwise the work as a whole would have been out of focus. Besides, I had not then access to all the literature. It now seems opportune to deal with these latest discussions in more detail.
Love in the Church: A Study of First Corinthians, Chapter 13
Authors: Barr Allan
Published: February 2009

The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians loses some of its force through our familiarity with it. It is one of the bestknown passages of the Bible, and many a man who has little interest in the Church, and less patience with Pauline theology, will accept it as a literary classic and warmly express his admiration of it. No one who is responsive to elevated thought or sensitive to beauty of language will deny it its right to a place in an anthology of literary excellence, whether it be regarded as eloquent prose or as lyrical poetry, whether it be read in the original Greek or in the mellifluous music of our English version. But the custom of abstracting it from its setting and treating it as a poem or hymn, self-complete and selfilluminating, brings great disadvantages.