How can we decide if in fact Judah Halevi, Pascal, and Martin Buber were right when they asserted that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the Philosophers? First we must clarify what they were asserting. What they meant was that the purported entity which the Biblical-Judaic-Christian-Moslem tradition identifies as “God” is not the same entity as the purported entity which the Jewish-Moslem-Christian traditions of philosophy identify as “God.” Presupposed in this assertion is that it is possible to say some things about each entity and on the basis of what is said about each it can be determined that they are not the same entity. It should be noted that if we claim that either entity is in every respect unknowable, there would be no way to make the assertion in question. Also it should be noted that the assertion in question does not entail that either or both entities exist. “A unicorn is not a centaur” entails some knowledge of both but it does not entail that either exists. The same is the case with the claim that Zeus is not Marduk.

The phrase “religious unification” in its title does not mean that this paper is about ecumenism or that it is a plea for religious unity. It is not intended as a contribution to piety or to religious education, but to theological clarification. That is, I use the word “unification” in its intellectual sense, not in a practical or political sense.

The new morality like every other new thing in this fast-moving time seems to have declined in notoriety and disciples with age. But there are still good reasons for recognizing and exploring a new morality in contemporary Christian ethics. These reasons will only become clear later, but they can be set down now by way of introducing the analysis that follows.

Among the surviving books of the Sibylline Oracles, Book 7 has aroused particular interest because of its allegedly Jewish-Christian and Gnostic character. A. Rzach has described the author of Book 7 as “ein durch die Gnosis beeinflusster, vielleicht aus dem Judentume … hervorgegangener Christ.” J. Geffcken regards the book as a product of Jewish Christianity with traces of Gnostic influence. And A. Kurfess, in an article which bids fair to become the standard introduction for English-speaking students of the Sibyllines, calls it “purely Christian,” while also indicating the presence of “gnosticizing views.”. Given the lack of sustained interest in these writings during recent years, I think it not unimportant to examine the adequacy of these labels and to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support them.

Augustine's attack on skepticism in the Contra Academicos is, it seems to me, both interesting and important. Its interest lies in the fact that the argument developed by Augustine is rather more sophisticated than most commentators seem willing to admit. It is important because it places the moral and epistemological features of skepticism in a new and revealing light, and in so doing offers, I think, a plausible refutation of skeptical doctrine. If I am correct, then the study of Augustine's reasoning is of more than purely historical interest: it is worth studying for its own timeless philosophical content.

The literary career of H. G. Wells began in the reign of Victoria and extended beyond World War II. For some three decades down into the 1930's his ideas on the human situation and the probable future of mankind were as much a part of the popular mind as those of anyone else writing in English. In the last decade of his life, however, there was a sharp decline of interest in Wells which brought him to almost total eclipse by his death in 1946. He had reflected important facets of the mind of an age, and that age had passed. Even at the height of his fame, as we can see clearly now, he was not in the first rank of literary figures and was much less sensitive to what was happening in the West than Eliot or Conrad or even Aldous Huxley.