Claims about ‘the meaning of life’ have tended to be made and discussed in conjunction with bold metaphysical and theological affirmations. For life to have meaning, there must (it is assumed) be a comprehensive divine plan to give it meaning, or there must be an intelligible cosmic process with a ‘telos’ that a man needs to know if his life is to be meaningfully orientated. Or, it is thought to be a condition of the meaningfulness of life, that values should be ultimately ‘conserved’ in some way, that no evil should be unredeemable and irrational. And it may be claimed that if death were to end our experience, meaninglessness would triumph.

Various attempts have been made in recent years to present Christianity in such a way that no use is made of the traditional dichotomy between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’. Braithwaite, Hare, and van Buren, for instance, appear to have no use for the dichotomy; and I think that, without too much distortion, one can say the same of Bultmann, Tillich, and Robinson. I am not, however, concerned in this paper with the work of any one thinker as such, but rather with a general climate of opinion. What I want to do is to examine the grounds on which it might be argued that belief in the supernatural is discredited. The issue seems to me of special importance at the present time, since, if these grounds are inadequate, programmes of reform under the general heading ‘Christianity without the supernatural’lose much of their point; if, on the other hand, the grounds are compelling, then reform of some kind is forced upon us whatever the accompanying difficulties.

A rough circumscription of our area of study will be achieved when I say that by images I mean the kind of thing about which Ian Crombie and Austin Farrer have written in Faith and Logic and Farrer also in The Glass of Vision. In the latter work Farrer cites as examples of religious images the Kingdom of God, the Son of Man, the Israel of God and the ‘infinitely complex and fertile image of sacrifice and communion, of expiation and covenant’. Farrer's images are essentially verbal pictures whose function is to interpret and elucidate revelatory events. He writes:

The great images interpreted the events of Christ's ministry, death and resurrection, and the events interpreted the images; the interplay of the two is revelation. Certainly the events without the images would be no revelation at all, and the images without the events would remain shadows on the clouds. The events by themselves are not revelation, for they do not by themselves reveal the divine work which is accomplished in them: the martyrdom of a virtuous Rabbi and his miraculous return are not of themselves the redemption of the world.

The word mysticism serves to draw attention to certain similarities in religious experience in both Western and Eastern religion, and it is difficult to find a really satisfactory substitute. What is important is that we should not suppose it to be a simple term, but should recognise that it has many variations. There are varieties of mysticism, recognisable by a certain family resemblance, and it is probably safer therefore to use the word with some qualifying adjective, e.g. Christian mysticism, Jewish mysticism, and so on.

A considerable part of mystical literature deals with, or reports on, experiences that are of a cognitive and not merely of an emotive nature. Information is alleged to have been received not only from higher spheres but also about these higher spheres. Detailed, and at times highly complex, theories are put forward regarding the nature and evolution of the cosmos, the essence of man and his place and function in the scheme of things. The writings of many mystics reveal mysteries that have been infused from above, or apprehended ‘from below’ by the development and use of special spiritual or mental organs. What all these higher insights have in common in spite of their great diversity, is their discursive, objective and detailed, elaborate character. Mysticism of this type is a kind of supernal science. It is distinct from ordinary science as regards its origin and its emotional charge, but it is similar to science in terms of its formal structure. The Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah is, I think, an instructive example of this discursive tendency, for the literary output of the kabbalists very largely substitutes a theosophical dialectic for the traditional legal dialectic of the Talmudic rabbis. In the case of the kabbalists this tendency was indebted to the medieval identification of mysticism and prophecy: like prophecy, every illumination by the Holy Spirit was supposed to be a matter of ‘clear and distinct’ contents. But, of course, not every form of cognitive mysticism is related to doctrines of prophecy. Cognitive mysticism can be found everywhere, in the revelation of gnostic mysteries as well as in the quest of modern ‘spiritual’ sciences, such as theosophy and anthroposophy, for hidden and occult truths.

In this article I propose to discuss some recent theological contributions to the problem of the historicity of the Gospels, and I wish to suggest that philosophical issues may ultimately be relevant to its solution.

(5) ἆρ' ∈ἰ kaì ⋯γ ∈´νητον (282 a 25) … πρòς τò ɸθαρτόν, ⋯ϕ' ᾧΘ (283 a 3). Aristotle claims so far to have proved that the eternal is incorruptible and that it is ungenerated. He has still to prove the converse of each of these propositions, namely, that whatever is incorruptible is eternal and that whatever is ungenerated is eternal also. After putting the thesis in question form he gives a further definition of ⋯γ∈´νητος and ἄɸθαρτος in the parenthesis of 282 a 27–30. Unfortunately in both cases he uses the assertoric form of the definiens, although in chapter 11 he had used a modal form in the relevant passages (cf. kυρίως 280 b 32 and 282 a 27); but this confusion does not seem to affect the immediate trend of the argument. He then (282 a 30—b 1) shows that his thesis follows necessarily from the convertibility of ⋯γ∈´νητος and ἄɸθαρτος. The additional premiss that is necessary in order to secure this inference, namely, that that which is both ungenerated and incorruptible is eternal, is clear from the definition of the terms. It is also clear from the convertibility of ɸθαρτóς and γ∈ νητóς, which itself is entailed by the supposed convertibility of their contradictories. This last inference seems too trivial to deserve a mention, but Aristotle devotes 282 b 2–5 to proving it. Then, having demonstrated to his satisfaction that the convertibility of ἄɸθαρτος and ⋯γ∈´νητος necessarily implies the eternity of both the incorruptible and the ungenerated, he adds, for good measure, that if the terms are not convertible the implication is no longer necessary (282 b 5–7).

The Irish poet W. B. Yeats once wrote, with great sapience and perception:

Nor dread, nor hope attend

A dying animal;

A man awaits his end

Dreading and hoping all.

That death has ever been a problem to man is attested as far back as we can trace our species in the archaeological record—indeed, it seems to have been a problem even for that immediate precursor of homo sapiens, the so-called Neanderthal Man; for he buried his dead.

Two successive theologians at Westminster College, Cambridge, John Oman and Herbert H. Farmer, represented a distinctive theological development which extended over fifty years of the present century. Oman with his original mind was the inaugurator; Farmer was the disciple who followed with great devotion, but who also exhibited independence and attempted to bring his teacher's insight into creative relation with later theological emphases, especially with the renewed interest in Christology.