This article seeks to define one important way in which idealist thought, for which Edward Caird will serve as spokesman, can help us understand Barth's doctrine of the essential Trinity. It is hoped that this will in particular clarify the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and help qualify some recent criticism levelled at Barth's teaching. The treatment falls into two parts, the first expository, the second analytical.

Romans 8.26f. has no parallel in the NT. A. J. M. Wedderburn writes,

Today it is still puzzling, troublesome, divisive; for some it is the essence of the Christian faith, to others it is incomprehensible and repellent.

This statement sums up adequately the position of most NT scholars on Rom. 8.26f. Its strangeness derives from three basic ideas. First, this is the only passage in which it is asserted that the Christian does not know how to pray as he ought. This is an exception to what is otherwise said of prayer in the NT. Second, this is the only passage in biblical writings where the Holy Spirit is described explicitly as an intercessor. Third, the passage appears disjointed from its context. The guiding thought in vv. 18–25 is suffering but in v. 26, Paul talks about prayer. Can these themes be related in a single unit?

What does it mean to be a man over against a woman, a woman over against a man? The Bible offers various paradigms and insights, and I do not attempt here to analyse all of them, but rather to reflect on a number of key passages which I have found illuminating in the context of contemporary questions.

What sort of a thing is a ‘constraint’?

In Chaim Potok's novel My Name is Asher Lev, the young Jewish painter learns the answer after the exhibition of his sensational ‘Brooklyn Crucifixion’:

With increasing contact and knowledge of non-Christian religions and in the light of colonialist missionary endeavours, a number of Christians have recently advocated what I shall call a pluralist approach to non-Christian religions. This pluralist paradigm may be characterised as one which maintains that non-Christian religions can be equally salvific paths to the one God, and that Christianity's claim to be the only way (exclusivism), or the fulfilment of all other religions (inclusivism), should be rejected for good theological, phenomenological, and philosophical reasons. This view is shared by Christians from different denominations, and is best expressed in the works of Professors John Hick, Paul Knitter, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and Mr Alan Race.

Easter 1985 in the Church of England was a strange experience, resounding with the controversy which David Jenkins had begun the previous year during a television interview, after he had been elected Bishop of Durham. The scenario has been widely discussed by the media, by professional theologians, and by ordinary church-folk, north and south of the border. For the writer, it was the first Easter he can remember since being ordained when the resurrection was actually being discussed, not just in Senior Common Rooms, but in pubs. I was even taken to task by someone working in my local wine-store. In some respects, the furore was well summed-up in his attitude: he had long ceased to attend church, but shouldn't church-leaders believe in what they are supposed to believe?