bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Law-Observant Mission to Gentiles: The Background of Galatians
Authors: Martyn Louis
Published: February 2009

That the early church was intensely and passionately evangelistic is clear to every reader of the documents that make up the New Testament. Equally clear, or so it would seem, is the scholarly consensus that when Christian evangelists took the step of reaching beyond the borders of the Jewish people, they did so without requiring observance of the Jewish law. The work of these evangelists, in turn, is said to have sparked a reaction on the part of firmly observant Jewish Christians, who, seeing the growth of the Gentile mission, sought to require observance of the Law by its converts. Struggles ensued, and the outcome, to put the matter briefly, was victory for the mission to the Gentiles, for the Law-free theology characteristic of that mission, and for the churches produced by it.
Protestantism, Modernity and Justification by Faith
Authors: Villa-Vicencio C.
Published: February 2009

Not all people deal with the crucial existential questions of modernity in a religious manner. Yet, contrary to enlightenment predictions, religion continues to be a prominent reality in the latter part of twentieth-century western society. It is the purpose of this essay to identify the distinctive nature of the contemporary Protestant brand of this religiosity.
Evangelicals and Evolution: Henry Drummond, Herbert Spencer, and the Naturalisation of the Spiritual World
Authors: Moore James R.
Published: February 2009

On 6 September 1939 the ‘S.S. President Harding’ churned slowly across the North Atlantic on the last of its summer runs. Joseph Needham passed the time aboard as he had often done while awaiting the completion of a distillation or an incubation in the Cambridge Biochemical Laboratory: by preparing a book for press. Now, however, he sat forebodingly, awaiting a graver distillation from the waters, an incubus in the skies, as he put the finishing touches on the introductory essay for a new edition of a book entitledNatural Law in the Spiritual World. The author of this book was Henry Drummond, a Scottish evangelical worker who died in 1897. Needham, born three years later, was a Marxist embryologist and a practising Anglo-Catholic. Near the end of the essay Needham stressed what he took to be Drummond's belief that ‘much of the content of traditional Christian theology — “the laws of the spiritual world” — arise directly from what had preceded it in the highly organised realm of the psychological’.
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman …
Authors: Sell Alan
Published: February 2009

This essay could have been entitled„ ‘A Methodist, A Presbyterian and a Congregationalist’; ‘An Arminian, A Calvinist and a Liberal’; or ‘A Systematiser, An Apologist and a Prophet’. For the men who concern us are William Burt Pope (1822–1903), Robert Watts (1820–95) and Andrew Martin Fairbairn (1838–1912). They were all highly respected by their denominations in their day, and each was entrusted with the task of ministerial training. Watts was Professor of Theology at the Presbyterian College, Belfast from 1866–95; Pope was Theological Tutor at Didsbury Methodist College from 1867–86, when ill-health forced his resignation; and Fairbairn, who left Scotland and the Evangelical Union in 1877 to become Principal of Airedale Independent College was in 1886 installed as the first Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. All but forgotten by their own, an investigation of their work will nevertheless reward us with a fascinating glimpse of the influences at work upon nineteenth-century theology; it will throw into relief their diverse and temperamentally different reactions which are the more interesting because of their relative closeness as nonconformists; and it may serve to remind us that some of the philosophico-theological issues which beset contemporary theology have their roots, if not their final solutions, in the period represented by our triumvirate.
The Eucharistic Prayer: An Examination of Recent Research
Authors: O'Doherty Richard
Published: February 2009

This paper has many aims. It proposes, first of all, to cover some of the research that has gone into the Eucharistic Prayer, especially its genesis in Roman Catholic circles. It has been a topic of interest for most of this century, but particularly so in the last twenty years. It aims to discuss the spirituality of the Prayer and its relationship to practical piety and to show the relationship between the Liturgy of the Word, the Gospel tradition, and the Eucharistic Prayer as our response to the Word of God. Lastly, this paper aims to uncover something of the theological richness of this Prayer and at the same time to show its roots in the human condition. In covering this research the paper also aims at pinpointing its constituent elements. Liturgically speaking, the Eucharistic Prayer is central: it represents the Christian response to his God at his most central and sacred moment. It is a topic with a long history. It was discussed particularly at the Reformation and in the Reformed circles was one of the casualties of the older tradition. It is a topic, the study of which has produced some conclusions. There has been a rather widespread reform of the Eucharistic Prayer in many churches. This is especially clear in the renewal of the Roman Catholic tradition and in the proposals of the Anglican Series Three.
Martin Luther and the Eucharist
Authors: Stephenson John
Published: February 2009

Several years before the mode of Christ's eucharistic presence became a controverted issue which would presently provoke a lasting schism among the Churches of the Reformation, Luther could unaffectedly propound the traditional dogma of the bodily presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar as a necessary consequence of the evangelical quest for the sensus grammaticus of the words of institution. The same exegetical method which led to his reappropriation of the doctrine of the justification of the sinner ‘by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith’ obliged him to confess that ‘the bread is the body of Christ’. Already here, in the mordantly anti-Roman treatise On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther has laid his finger on the model in terms of which he will understand the real presence to the end of his days: the consecrated host is the body of Christ, just as the assumed humanity of jesus Christ is the Son of God. The displacement of the scholastic theory of transubstantiation by the model of the incarnate person illustrates the Reformer's allegiance to the Chalcedonian Definition: ‘Luther is really replacing Aristotelian categories by those derived from Chalcedonian christology, to which he remained faithful: “unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably”.’ While the doctrine of the real presence moved from the periphery to the centre of Luther's theology and piety as the 1520s wore on, his conception of the modality of the eucharistic presence remained constant throughout.
Luther and Contemporary Preaching: Narrative and Anthropology
Authors: Lischer Richard
Published: February 2009

Exhaustive studies of Martin Luther's preaching are few, and for good reason. The persistence of his scribes has resulted in a corpus of more than 2,000 sermons — and a tangle of questions concerning their authenticity and integrity. His theological program was such that in matters of content he did not maintain a rigid distinction between treatise and sermon. Everything we have from Luther ‘preaches’. Complicating the picture are the various postils, which are usually identified as ‘sermons’. The postils were not intended to do more than set a standard for others; yet they probably were delivered verbatim from some pulpits, and in The German Mass Luther says they should be!
Liturgy as Paradise and as Parousia
Authors: Swanston H. F. G.
Published: February 2009

The paradigm for Christians' descriptions of their liturgy occurs at 1 Cor. 11:

The Lord Jesus on the night that he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said. ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
Learning to Become Persons — a Theological Approach to Educational Aims
Authors: Thatcher Adrian
Published: February 2009

Christian theology, because of its concern with ‘all things’, is sometimes able to provide salvific insights into academic areas far removed from theological syllabuses. In this article I take one such example and show how theology can make a rich contribution to the understanding of another discipline. The example is education.
A New Testament Church Today?
Authors: Wedderburn A. J. M.
Published: February 2009

Nor are we any longer able to be sure that the evidence of Scripture gives us direct guidance on how we should order our lives or organise our Church in the strange new world, so different from that of the New Testament and from that of Reformation Scotland, into which we have been thrown.’ (The Committee of Forty)

‘It may seem surprising that the question of the correct way to order the church has to be dealt with again and again. Is it really not possible to answer this question once and for all? Is it inconceivable that one could discover definite rules to order our lives at all times? Can the New Testament, the sole plumbline and norm for the church's life according to the unanimous conviction of the Reformers, not supply us with such rules which would be universally valid and permanent?’ (Eduard Lohse)

This surprise to which Lohse refers is perhaps the greater when one considers the confidence with which the Westminster divines felt themselves able to attach scriptural proof texts to their ordinances in their formulation of ‘The Form of Presbyterial Church-Government’, but both the Committee of Forty seeking to find a suitable form of church life for the Church of Scotland today and the Landesbischof of Hannover addressing the synod of his church in Braunschweig as they gathered to discuss a new church order felt that things had changed.
Apocalypse as a Secular Enterprise
Authors: Schall James V.
Published: February 2009

At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since the nations first came into existence.
The Christology of the Fourth Gospel
Authors: Mealand David L.
Published: February 2009

It is clear from John 20.31 that Christology is the central concern of the author of the Fourth Gospel, and this article is an attempt to survey some of the main features of the Christology of the fourth evangelist. When classical Christology was being formulated in the period of the creeds and the great councils the Fourth Gospel played an important, indeed a major role in the debates. If our understanding of that Gospel has now changed and developed, and if classical Christology is constantly being re-examined, those factors only underline the importance of a constant return to and re-evaluation of the original sources in general and the Fourth Gospel in particular.
Grace and causation
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: February 2009

The debate beween the defenders of free will and of free grace in Christian theology is an age-old one. Those who have argued that human salvation is by God's grace alone seem quite opposed to those who argue that God's grace requires the unaided cooperation of the human will if it is to be successful.

In such a situation the prospect of establishing a mediating position becomes attractive. This is what J. R. Lucas has recently attempted.2 Moreover, his proposal has the added interest and attraction of insisting that mistakes on both sides have been philosophical, mistakes about the nature of causality. According to Mr Lucas the Augustinian has mistaken causal importance for causal sufficiency. Pelagius was correct about the part played by free will in salvation, but wrong in attaching as much importance to that fact as he does, while Augustine is correct in the importance to be attached to God's grace, but wrong in thinking that emphasis on God's grace logically excludes human free will.
Indwelling, Intersubjectivity and God
Authors: Shutte Augustine
Published: February 2009

I Suspect that at its close this article will be judged to have fallen between two stools, that of the theologian and that of the philosopher. Not being in a position to remedy the defects of either quarter makes me the keener to communicate to others something that has recently struck me and given me pause for thought, namely an apparent parallel between a certain aspect of contemporary philosophy and another of traditional theology. It is to these that the expressions ‘intersubjectivity’ and ‘indwelling’ in my title refer. It is my hope that an examination of the parallel between them will prove fruitful for the contemporary pursuit of the perennial occupation of fides quaerens intellectum.
Relativism and Absolutism in Bultmann's Demythologising Hermeneutic
Authors: Runzo Joseph
Published: February 2009

… the reliability of the kerygmatic tradition must not be questioned, for otherwise the eschatological event to which the kerygma testifies would be implicated in the relativity of all historical knowledge.
Max Weber and Ancient Judaism
Authors: Rodd Cyril S.
Published: February 2009

Anyone who attempts to assess Max Weber's study of ancient Judaism must adopt two stances, those of the Old Testament specialist and of the sociologist, and I shall use these two view-points to provide the main structure of this article. I hope, nevertheless, to avoid becoming completely schizophrenic by drawing the two interpretations together in a final section. I should also make it clear that the discussion is based mainly upon those essays which were translated by Gerth and Martindale as Ancient Judaism, although these by no means exhaust the studies which Weber made of Hebrew religion.
Reflections On Thirty Years of Biblical Study
Authors: Davies W. D.
Published: February 2009

For three decades I have lived in the United States. After the war-torn forties, there came the smug fifties, when Americans saw opportunities and the British difficulties; then the searing sixties, which, along with much that was very salutary, brought the tragic suffering of Vietnam and the horrendous human wreckage of the drug culture; followed by the sobering seventies and now the unpredictable eighties. It is tempting to ask how the developments in biblical and theological studies are related to the social, political and economic changes which those decades saw. But I must confine myself to my discipline.
Wittgenstein and Christian Truth Claims
Authors: Olmsted Richard
Published: February 2009

In some unpublished lectures on communication written in 1847, Kierkegaard contends that Christian communication requires some direct discourse. This did not mean that he had abandoned his long-standing insistence that Christianity is a project for existence. The information conveyed in that discourse is not intended to assuage intellectual curiosity and to supplement our general desire for knowledge. Rather, it intends a change in people's lives. Thus, he further asserts that this direct discourse is preliminary and must be followed by indirect discourse. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard is saying that some truth claims about matters of fact are indispensable; some propositions that convey information, which might from a logical standpoint be either objectively true or false, are necessary in genuine Christian communication.
The Place of Christian Studies in Religious Education Today
Authors: McIntyre John
Published: February 2009

One of the established conjuring tricks of a discussion of this sort is to flatter your audience by pretending that they fully understand the meaning of your central concepts. This way, you exonerate yourself from explaining them, and perhaps thereby conduct the rest of the inquiry in a dark cloud of unknowing. Therefore, to change the figure, in order not to be pulling mythical rabbits from hitherto concealed hats, I propose to put my rabbits on the table ab initio and to reveal my sleeves as empty of all but my arms, by setting before you in a fit of generosity, if not also of madness, a definition. It is a definition of religious education, one from which I shall endeavour to extract what I have to say on the theme. Here it is:
Poetry, Prophecy, Hermeneutic: Recent Studies in Isaiah
Authors: Auld A. Graeme
Published: February 2009

There is seldom a lack of new studies of Isaiah. In this article I want to mention some aspects of a few recently published studies which direct our attention in different ways to thebookof Isaiah, rather than to Isaiah of Jerusalem (or the so-called ‘second Isaiah’) as an individual with an historical role. Not that I am not concerned with the historical Isaiah of Jerusalem: in fact the concern is greater than the following reviews might suggest. Positively I am insisting that our quest for him must start from thebookof Isaiah in all its variety and complexity, and not from its few familiar and congenially informative prose sections. Then the more negative suggestion that Isaiah may not have been a ‘prophet’ (at least in the sense that tradition came to regard him) is an attempt to clear the ground for a better point of view.
The Teaching of Church History
Authors: Halliday R. T.
Published: February 2009

What does the Church expect of her historians? What kind of person does one imagine when one speaks of a teacher of Church History? Is it too much of a caricature to say that one expects him to be a venerable scholar, steeped in learning, meticulous and perhaps a trifle pedantic, inclined to be sceptical about the motives of men in the ecclesiastical crises of the past, and above all characterised by an academic detachment which can clearly do more good in a library writing books than in a parish in the cure of souls?
Justification
Authors: Torrance T. F.
Published: February 2009

In his debate with the Jesuit, James Tyrie, John Knox claimed that the controversy of the Reformers with the Roman Church was the same as that of St. Paul with the Judaisers of Galatia, in which the Gospel of Grace was at stake, ‘for it concerneth the chief head of justification’, as Knox expressed it. 2 On the other hand, when we examine the writings of Knox we do not find that ‘justification’, as a term at any rate, plays a prominent part, while the expression ‘justification by faith’ is hardly ever found—for when he did speak of justification he preferred to be more concrete and to use an expression like ‘justification through the blood of Christ’.
The Integrity of Faith
Authors: Gessert Robert A.
Published: February 2009

Though at first it seems quite simple and straightforward and though he devotes hundreds of pages to its exposition, Calvin's idea of law is subtle and elusive. He, like Luther, stresses the Protestant principle of justification by grace alone, but not a few interpreters have seen him as the severest of legalists who finally relegates grace to the position of being merely a means to works righteousness. It is undoubtedly pretentious to try to put law in its ‘true’ meaning and context in Calvin's schema. This paper must therefore be regarded as simply an exploratory effort in that direction.

Since Calvin was himself a competent student of the secular law, a fruitful method for investigating this problem would be to inquire into the character of the legal studies that formed such an important part of his background. How did he regard the Roman Law which had been shaping European civilisation for several centuries? To what extent was he influenced by Greek versions of the Natural Law which had been so important to Thomas Aquinas? In the English language we make the word ‘law’ (like ‘love’) carry, somewhat promiscuously, nuances of meaning that the more analytical languages of Latin and Greek distinguish. The tools of Philology and History may be necessary for a definitive examination of Calvin's concept of law.
Christian Baptism
Authors: Piper Otto
Published: February 2009

Christian Baptism is rooted in the Baptism of John. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the excavation of Qumran have clearly shown that the Baptism practised by the Primitive Church had little in common with the daily washings of the Jewish sects. Our Baptism is an eschatological event. The foundational significance of the Baptist's ceremony performed in the Jordan river is emphasised by the fact that in all the four Gospels it is described as the beginning of Jesus' messianic ministry. The Gospel of John also informs us that Jesus shared in the Baptist's mission (John 3.22), even though He obviously left the actual ministration to His Disciples (John 4.2). Thus the Baptism which Jesus Himself commanded (Matt. 28.19–20), was the continuation of the eschatological ceremony started by the Baptist, though enriched by the reference to the messianic work of Jesus. The unique character of John's Baptism lies in the Word of God by which he is commanded to call Israel to repentance, to baptise them and to proclaim to them that his work is to usher in the establishment of God's final rule (the ‘Kingdom’) in this world. By accepting Baptism the Jewish people will be able to escape the final Judgment of God. The connexion in which the Word of God here stands with the eschatological events makes particularly plain what it means when God reveals Himself.
Architecture and Liturgy
Authors: Stevenson F. R.
Published: February 2009

The word liturgy in the New Testament seems to express a thing already complete in itself, not requiring association with architecture. The minister, the people, the bread and the wine, are the essential association of living souls and earthly elements. The Christian temple built in three days is an edifice not made with hands. The Christian worshipping, fulfilling the duty of liturgy, is a person not of this world and only in this world for a time. He treads this earth lightly, looking for the appearing of His Lord to build a new earth, and introduce a state of things where human dimensions of length, breadth and height become something else and infinitely greater, associated with the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The New Testament uses the word liturgy in the context of expectation of this development which can only be described in language seeming to exclude the thought that a building fit to house this Christian worship can be made with hands. The word church never means the house itself. It means the people, the living stones out of which the temple not made with hands is built. Thus what we call the apostolic age would not have thought it an affectation, when recently an Anglican presbyter, introducing from his church on Saturday evening television a programme for the next day to consist of the liturgy for that day, said, ‘This building is not the church, but the Church meets here.’
The Christian Conception of Love
Authors: Lillie William
Published: February 2009

All Christian love has its source and exemplar in the love of God. ‘Beloved,’ wrote St. John, ‘if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’, or again, ‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.’ St. Paul was equally clear; it is God's love which ‘has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’, and it is the love of Christ (which is, of course, the love of God revealed in Christ) that constrains us to live no longer for ourselves—the usual way in which our human love is evidenced. Dietrich Bonhoeffer echoed this from his German prison, ‘No one knows what love is except in the self-revelation of God… It is only the concrete action and suffering of Jesus Christ which will make it possible to understand what love is.’ So we must begin with the love of God; and yet our understanding of God's love comes to us through the experience of human love. It was with a picture of an earthly father, surrounded by the human things of home and field, calves and kids, robes and rings, sons and servants, that Jesus made His most vivid portrait of the love of God; and it was not only in dying on Calvary, but also in living in human fellowship with Peter and John, Martha and Mary that Jesus Himself exhibited the Father's love to men.
Hebrews 13.20-21
Authors: Cranfield C. E. B.
Published: February 2009

These two verses, though formally (since God is not directly addressed but referred to in the third person) a wish or ‘prayer-wish’, are really tantamount to a prayer. The structure of the sentence may be indicated as follows: (i) God is named (‘the God of peace’); (ii) an adjectival clause follows (as very often in collects); (iii) the first part of verse 21 expresses the substance of the petition; (iv) the whole is concluded by a doxology. A most perceptive and stimulating commentary on these verses is afforded by Philip Doddridge's paraphrase, ‘Father of peace, and God of love’, to which we shall refer from time to time.
The Finality of Christ and Humanity
Authors: Fraser John W.
Published: February 2009

What is meant by the finality of Jesus Christ for men? This is raised by consideration of a Study Pamphlet, ‘The Finality of Jesus Christ in the Age of Universal History’, issued by the Division of Studies, World Council of Churches. On page I of this Study Pamphlet we are told that ‘Jesus is at the end of the human journey’, and also that ‘He has revealed the ultimate truth to men, has shown in full, final and sufficient measure to them the nature of God and the truth concerning life’. The emphasis is on what we would normally call ‘the final coming’, and on what is shown of God in Jesus. ‘Because He has already appeared we know our final destination’, i.e. we know whom to expect to meet. The stress will then lie on what the Church, who knows Him, does until the end, serving men for Him. The New Testament emphasis does not lie on what we do, but on what He did. The New Testament emphasis does not lie on the end, but on an act of redemption and reconciliation effected by God in Jesus Christ, a thing done once and for all. ‘Through Him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross’ (Col. 1.20). Because He has done this Christ reigns over all and the end is assured. ‘Nothing can separate us from His love‘ (Rom. 8.39).
Discernment Situations: Some Philosophical Difficulties
Authors: Hudson W. D.
Published: February 2009

The concept of a discernment situation has assumed a key J. position in much recent philosophical theology. To take examples: Professor I. T. Ramsey's account of religious language is determined throughout by it; Professor P. van Buren's attempt to state the secular meaning of the Gospel hinges upon the claim that such a situation occurred on Easter; and Dr A. Richardson's oft-repeated asseveration that Christian theology is a matter of the interpretation of history resolves itself into the claim that there have been such situations. The basic argument is that members of our race at certain moments in the past have discerned, and we and our contemporaries at certain moments of present existence may discern, the activity or purpose of God. Connected with this discernment, it is further contended, there is—or ought to be—a response of commitment. Israel, for instance, at the Exodus discerned that they were God's chosen people and responded in the Sinai covenant. The disciples, at the Resurrection, discerned that Christ was, in some sense, victor and committed themselves to him. The important point for philosophical theology is the claim that the occurrence of discernment-commitment situations constitutes an empirical grounding for religious belief and thus provides good reason for an affirmative answer to the troublesome question: how do we know that religious language refers to objective reality? We must look more closely into this.
The Incarnation and Crucifixion in Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship
Authors: Walker Hamish
Published: February 2009

The mainspring of Bonhoeffer's theology is his vision of Christ and the resulting Christology. The Cost of Discipleshipseems to me to suffer from a defective Christology. The purpose of this article is to provide evidence for this contention.
Sociality and Church in Bonhoeffer's 1933 Christology
Authors: Green Clifford
Published: February 2009

In July 1930 Bonhoeffer wrote in the preface to the published version of his doctoral dissertation: ‘The more theologians have considered the significance of the sociological category for theology, the more clearly the social intention of all the basic Christian concepts has emerged. Ideas such as “person”, “primal state”, “sin” and “revelation” are fully understandable only in relation to sociality.’ Two recently published works, a translation of Bonhoeffer's 1933 Christology lectures and John A. Phillips' study of Bonhoeffer's theology, give occasion for examining the meaning of this statement and its importance in understanding Bonhoeffer's thought.
‘Exodus’ and ‘Liberation’ as Theological Metaphors: A Critical Case-study of the Use of Allegory and Misunderstood Analogies in Ethics
Authors: Sauter Gerhard
Published: February 2009

In December 1977, Israeli politicians and journalists were allowed once again, after so long, to visit the Egyptian pyramids. It was during this visit that a saying of their Prime Minister Menachem Begin went around: ‘Just think! Your forefathers built these marvellous works!’ What memories does this reminder call forth? Does it express Israel's unyielding self-assurance, which not only runs across the traces of its own history all over the Near Middle East, but also calls them to the attention of others? Should the representatives of Modern Egypt perhaps be told that they stand in a different sort of continuity with the great dynasties on the Nile from the Jews? Or does Begin's reminder also revive the ineradicable knowledge of Israel's helplessness, which in the grey dawn of its history drove its fathers to the granaries of Egypt and made them there dependent upon their providers, until the time came when Yahweh led them ‘out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage’ (Exod. 20:2)?
Humanity with Spirit
Authors: Newman Paul W.
Published: February 2009

In the Christian literature about spirit one of the decisive questions that influences the interpretation of spirit at many points is whether all spirit is conceived to be divine or whether there are basically two kinds of spirit, human and divine. In Buber's understanding the spirit of love exists in the sphere ‘between’ and is participated in by humans rather than being produced by human will alone. Buber would thus come into the class of persons advocating that there is basically One Spirit.1 Human spirit is seen to be in some way a response to or a sharing in the reality of the One Spirit. Paul Tillich, one of the greatest Christian students of Spirit, is somewhat unclear as to whether there are basically one or two kinds of spirit. On the one hand, he consistently uses two terms, ‘human spirit’ and ‘Spiritual Presence’, by which he means divine Spirit.2 The use of these two terms would seem to indicate two kinds of spirit. Tillich describes at length these two kinds of spirit and speaks of their relationship as that of ‘mutual immanence’.3 On the other hand, in his view of reality in the broadest perspective all spirit is an ontological reality that has its source in the trinitarian life of God.4 This suggests that there is only one Spirit after all.
How many Gods had Ruth?
Authors: Hunter Alastair
Published: February 2009

In the first chapter of the book of Ruth there is an interesting exchange between Naomi and her daughters-in-law. Having successfully persuaded Orpah to return to ‘her mother's house’, Naomi turns to Ruth with the words, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ But Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.’1
The Suffering and the Repentance of God
Authors: Kuyper Lester J.
Published: February 2009

Much research in biblical studies today concerns itself with hermeneutics, in which biblical scholars attempt to establish principles of interpretation which will do justice to the meaning of the Bible. The need for hermeneutics is apparent for the understanding of any literature and especially of the Scripture since an understanding of the Bible involves the interpreter's subjective element of faith. The Bible in contrast to much literature asks the reader for his interest, his faith, and his commitment to God. Consequently subjective notions and arbitrary fancies frequently play a part in determining what the interpretation should be. Before the reader has been properly disciplined in understanding the language of other peoples living in ancient times, he has set up his own rules of interpretation which satisfy his own predilections but hardly the message of the inspired writer.
Continental Patterns and the Reformation in England and Scotland
Authors: Yule George
Published: February 2009

The Reformed churches have frequently regarded the Reformation in ways that are contradictory but without seeing the contradictions. On the one hand the Reformation is assumed to be the common and binding heritage of Fundamentalists, the various Presbyterian churches throughout the world, the Southern Baptists, the Taizé Community, even theavant gardeof the Second Vatican Council and BonhoefFer's ‘Protestants without a Reformation’. ‘Justification by faith’, ‘the priesthood of all believers’, ‘the Bible alone’ and often ‘no Bishops’ are catchwords, said to be common to all, and somehow entailing each other.
On Some of the Problems in the Interpretation of Romans 5.12
Authors: Cranfield C. E. B.
Published: February 2009

The first problem which confronts us is that of the relation of this verse and of the whole section 5.12–21 to what has preceded.
A Seventeenth-Century Reformed Liturgy of Penance and Reconciliation
Authors: Spinks Bryan D.
Published: February 2009

In the Babylonian Captivity, 1520, Luther launched an attack on the number of ordinances which the medieval Western Church labelled ‘sacraments’. According to Luther, only three were worthy of the title sacrament: baptism, the bread, and penance. Although critical of the prevailing penitential system, Luther not only defended the sacramental status of penance, but also the practice of auricular confession:

As to the current practice of private confession, I am heartily in favor of it, even though it cannot be proved from the Scriptures. It is useful, even necessary, and I would not have it abolished.
Universalism and Morals
Authors: Jones Herbert Gresford
Published: February 2009

The acids of Universalism are biting deeply into our national life: and we are indebted to the Scottish Journal of Theology for this timely discussion. It was that good Scot, Alexander Whyte, who observed that “if fear slays its tens, presumption slays its thousands”. Nothing can be more natural than the hope that all may end happily in some future state of existence. But such a philosophy calls for some surer foundation than that of human opinion however ably presented. And there seems to be something alarming, to us at least who own allegiance to Christ as God, in the presumption that, to entertain this hope, we may lightly disregard His most solemn warnings as to the decisiveness of this present life. Were the ancient Greeks wrong in believing that presumption (hubris as they called it) was the prelude to disaster? Unquestionably Universalism has cost us dear in many ways. It is with its effects in the sphere of morals that this article is concerned.
The Norm of the Christian Life in the Synoptic Gospels
Authors: Manson W.
Published: February 2009

In the New Testament there is only one principle or standard of Christian knowledge, character and life—Jesus Christ Himself. All other norms of religious insight, belief and practice are superseded in Him, or if they continue to be valid, it is because they have been taken up into Him, amended, reenacted and completed. In this sense the New Testament on what is really its first page asserts: “No one has at any time seen God; the divine One, the only Son, who is on the Father's breast, has made known the mystery.” All eyes in the New Testament are turned, therefore, towards the Christ who as the Living Word stands above the written word, as Head of the Church stands above the Church, and as Lord of history stands above history. Written word and Church are there, and exist in a relation of mutuality or interdependence; both of them are in subordination to Him who is their informing principle of authority. But this general recognition that Christ is the norm of life, character and thought for His people hardly prepares us for the singular fulness and diversity of the schematic formulations by the aid of which, in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, the dependence of Christian life on Jesus is expressed and enforced. Some of these formulations are so sharply defined and featured that a brief reference may be made to them before we pass further on.
“Hope” ('ΕΛПΙ′Σ, 'ΕΛПΙ′ΖΩ) in the New Testament
Authors: Barr Allan
Published: February 2009

The limitations of a study of ideas upon a purely verbal basis are at once apparent in the case of Christian hope. Hope is conspicuous in many passages of the New Testament where the word itself does not occur. It is a sufficient indication of this fact that the word “hope” does not occur anywhere in the book of Revelation. For a complete investigation of the idea one would, therefore, have to examine not only the passages specially concerned with “hope” but every exhortation, every prayer and in fact every future tense in every book of the New Testament. If, however, we recognise the limitations of our study we may expect to find in the passages where the word itself appears a sufficient if not complete illumination of the characteristics of Christian hope, which is central as it is all-pervasive in New Testament thought.
Devotional Literature
Authors: Walker C. R.
Published: February 2009

In one of the “Ghost Stories of an Antiquary” by Montagu James, there is a pathetic tale of the sacristan of a certain cathedral near the Pyrenees, whose life was made miserable through the unwelcome presence of a ghostly figure which was liable to appear while the sacristan was engaged in his lawful duties, and to fill his mind with apprehension. Almost the only time the poor sacristan was free from the menace was when he was ringing the great cathedral bell, but especially in the evening, when he rang the Angelus. “He heaved a sigh of relief”, writes the author, “for it was time to ring the Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell, Bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak and swung her voice up among the pines and down to the valleys loud with mountain streams, calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon the little town, and the sacristan went out of the church.”
A Study of Sin and Salvation in Terms of C. G. Jung's Psychology
Authors: Smith J. W. D.
Published: February 2009

Psychology offers a particularly subtle and dangerous challenge to religious belief. The theologian and the psychologist are both interested in the facts of man's spiritual nature, but the difference in their approach to these facts inevitably arouses tension between them. The psychologist's approach is purely empirical and he uses descriptive terms which ignore the cosmic significance of the experiences which he describes. But the experiences of the Christian believer are vitally affected by his beliefs about them. Christian doctrine is not the result of later reflection on experiences which had no intrinsic meaning. Doctrine is an inseparable part of the total Christian experience.
The Modern Paradox of Christ's Lordship
Authors: Czégledy Alexander
Published: February 2009

To proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord over the world is to make a paradoxical statement. First, in the original sense of the word ‘paradox’, His lordship over the world is contrary to doxa, that is, received opinion, reason and experience. His sovereignty seems to the ordinary mind not less paradoxical than His mighty wonder of healing the man of the palsy which called forth the amazed exclamation: ‘We have seen strange things [paradoxa] today.’ We cannot see, neither can we prove the reality of His kingship. This is meant by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. … But now we see not yet all things put under him.’ Then another sense of the word is suggested—though probably to non—Greeks only—by the New Testament meaning of the word doxa, glory—‘paradoxical’ being something that is contrary to glory—not simply devoid of it, but appearing as the very opposite of royal splendour and might, as weakness, helplessness, shame and mortality. Also in this second sense the lordship of Christ is highly paradoxical. The visions of the Apocalypse assign power and glory to the Lamb that was slain. And thirdly, in modern usage, the word ‘paradox’ means an apparently self-contradictory statement in which the truth is expressed by two contradictory but necessary propositions. In this sharpened sense of the paradox one would express the lordship of Christ only in terms of those features which indicate His lowly service, weakness, humiliation and shame.
Some Aspects of the Old Testament Contribution to the Pattern of Christian Ethics
Authors: Davidson Robert
Published: February 2009

In criticising the Protestantism of the Reformation period, F. R. Barry traces part of its weakness to what he calls ‘the still uncritical attitude of the reforming leaders to Scripture’ which ‘elevated the Jewish sacred books to the same level of status and inspiration as that of the Gospels and Epistles’. There is, he claims, ‘little trace in Calvin … that the Scripture to which he appeals as authoritative embraces the Sermon on the Mount’.
Bonhoeffer on Providence in History
Authors: Ballard P. H.
Published: February 2009

Bonhoeffer gave surprisingly little systematic attention to questions of providence and history despite the fact that his lifelong theological concern was to explore the way in which revelation was given form in his world. It was only in the experiences in the Second World War when working in the Abwehr with members of the resistance and subsequently in prison, when he had to face the possibility of a major shift in human consciousness, that he looked at the problem of history and the development of culture and had to relate it to an understanding of providence. Even so circumstances did not allow him to work this out in detail; both the Ethics and Letters and Papers from Prison are evidence of a direction in his thinking, though the way seems to be fairly clearly delineated.
The Peril of Reductionism in Christian Thought
Authors: Sell Alan P. F.
Published: February 2009

It is comforting to one embroiled in the tantalising, and not infrequently exasperating prolegomena to Christian philosophy, to be able to make an assertion which is unlikely to be controverted by anyone familiar with recent theological writing. The assertion is to the effect that two concepts which have been much to the fore of late are ‘communication’ and ‘relevance’. Christians are urged from all sides to find ways of communicating with present-day, secularised, ‘post-Christian’ man, in such a way that he will see the relevance of their gospel. Indeed, the challenge has been put so often that one can readily see the point of Professor J. McIntyre's suspicion that relevance seems to be replacing truth as a criterion of permissible discourse; and one can echo his sigh, ‘Sometimes I think that I would appreciate an address that claimed unashamedly to be “irrelevant”.’ What concerns us is the possibility that certain efforts in the direction of communication and relevance merit the charge of reductionism, that is, the charge that in some way the distinctives of the Christian message are being watered down or undermined. No doubt reductionism may take many forms, but it is that variety of the phenomenon which might be termed ‘logical reductionism’, which more immediately concerns us.
Search heuristics for constraint-aided embodiment design
Authors: Chenouard R. , Granvilliers L. , Sebastian P.
Published: February 2009

Embodiment design (ED) is an early phase of product development. ED problems consist of finding solution principles that satisfy product requirements such as physics behaviors and interactions between components. Constraint satisfaction techniques are useful to solve constraint-based models that are often partial, heterogeneous, and uncertain in ED. This paper proposes new constraint satisfaction techniques to tackle piecewise-defined physics phenomena or skill-based rules and multiple categories of variables arising in design applications. New search heuristics and a global piecewise constraint are introduced in the branch and prune framework. The capabilities of these techniques are illustrated with both academic and real-world problems. Complete models of the latter are presented.
Reusability-based selection of parametric finite element analysis models
Authors: Udoyen Nsikan , Rosen David W.
Published: February 2009

A selection method to support adaptive reuse of parametric finite element analysis (FEA) models is introduced in this paper. Adaptive reuse of engineering artifacts such as FEA models is common in product design, but difficult to automate because of the need to integrate new information. The proposed method factors reusability into selection by evaluating models based on comparative estimates of effort involved in adapting them for reuse to model a query problem. The method is developed for FEA models of component-based designs. FEA modeling of electronic chip packages is used to illustrate the method's usefulness. We conclude with a discussion on the method's advantages and limitations and highlight important issues for further research.
Embodied Conversational Agents
Authors: Krämer Nicole C. , Bente Gary , Eschenburg Felix , Troitzsch Heide
Published: February 2009

It was analyzed whether an embodied conversational agent (ECA) has specific advantages when employed with privacy invading technologies such as a biometric security system. The study compares the effects of an ECA interface with the effects of conventional text-based and voice-based interfaces on user acceptance and usability. An additional variable was whether the biometric system falsely rejected the user twice or whether it directly accepted him/her. Results of the 2 × 3 between-subjects design indicated that, although overall the text interface is rated most positive, voice and ECA yield distinct social effects: They have more advantageous consequences when problems arise – i.e., when the user is rejected repeatedly. The implications for social psychology in terms of applicability of new research methods as well as insights concerning fundamental research are discussed.
Sea‐level rise from glaciers and ice caps: A lower bound
Authors: Bahr David B. , Dyurgerov Mark , Meier Mark F.
Published: February 2009

One of the most easily measured dimensions of a glacier, the accumulation area, is linked to future changes in glacier volume and consequent changes in sea level. Currently observed accumulation areas are too small, forcing glaciers to lose 27% of their volume to attain equilibrium with current climate. As a result, at least 184 ± 33 mm of sea‐level rise are necessitated by mass wastage of the world's mountain glaciers and ice caps even if the climate does not continue to warm. If the climate continues to warm along current trends, a minimum of 373 ± 21 mm of sea‐level rise over the next 100 years is expected from glaciers and ice caps. When compared to recent estimates from all other sources, melt water from glaciers must be considered as a particularly important fraction of the total sea‐level rise expected this century.