Although it is premature to comment on what Lonergan has to say about theology because his work on theological method has not been completed, still enough material is available to suggest a basic scheme in terms of which his view of theology can be traced. As this writer sees it, there are two central ideas upon which Lonergan's thinking develops. First, the subject, and here we must consider the subject as subject and the notion of horizon; second time around we should discuss the subject as theologian and the theologian's horizon. Secondly, we should treat Lonergan's conception of science, how theology arises among the sciences, and the relation of the sciences to one another and to theology. We should also turn to the relation Lonergan sees between theology and modern culture. But Lonergan attaches great importance to the methodology used to arrive at an understanding of the subject and wants to disclose what should be going on when theologians are engaged in theology; and so we must begin by examining what the so-called ‘transcendental method’ is and conclude by suggesting what theological method is.

When in the nineteen-twenties and thirties the first Agreed Syllabuses of Religious Education were being devised, the main drive behind their formulation was theology. There was of course some recognition given to the need to adapt materials for the various ages of the pupils, but the main inspiration was theological not psychological. The hesitancy created by biblical criticism was giving way to a new confidence that the idea of God's progressive revelation of himself was the key to understanding the Bible. The new syllabuses were organised around this belief; God had spoken, and the task of Religious Education was to convey to pupils the drama of the divine unfolding, in the history of Israel, in the person of Jesus Christ, and on through the history of his people, the church.

‘The image of God in Adam and the restoration of man in Jesus Christ’ is a formulary title, preserving in so far as possible both the manner in which Calvin discusses the image and the progression of this paper. The contrasts of ‘image’ to ‘restoration’, ‘Adam’ to ‘man’, and the latent contrast of ‘Adam’ to ‘Christ’ are therefore purposeful ones, for they are the contrasts in which the structure and movement of Calvin's thought on the image of God can be seen most clearly. They are also the product of a patient and occasionally frustrating reduction of the hill country of Calvin's prose into a passable road. Not every facet of the image according to Calvin is brought into play. In fact, many have been weeded out as too narrowly confined to a particular context, too superfluous, or even too general or ambiguous to be of help in delineating the core of this part of his theology and the tensions within it. Thus, for example, while Calvin often speaks about a restoration of God's image in man, this phrase is meaningless in itself. Then, once we find that Calvin's understanding of this phrase is split into two opposing emphases, there is no benefit in returning to the general expression, and so it is not employed in our discussion of man's restoration. It is also true that the second half of the title indicates an abandonment of the image for a more embracing statement of all that our renewal involves.

Generally speaking the Christian catholic tradition has been more uniformly well disposed than protestantism towards the idea of the imitatio Christi. In protestantism there is a perceptible nervousness about using the term at all. This has been particularly the case since the time of Luther. His final antipathy to the ideal became the orthodox protestant tradition on the matter. Luther was critical of the ideal of the imitatio Christi, partly because he was repelled by the excesses of some of the sects where it was being interpreted in a crudely liberal way (e.g. among the Anabaptists) and partly because he became convinced that the ‘imitation’ of Christ conflicted with the essence of the Christian gospel as he had come to interpret it. He found himself unable to reconcile the presuppositions of the practice of the imitation of Christ with his doctrine of justification by faith. The imitation of Christ he believed must inevitably involve a denial of grace and conceal an incipient doctrine of works.

Luther did, however, leave a more positive legacy to Christian thinking about the imitatio Christi. This was his distinction between imitatio and conformitas. Imitatio he disliked because he thought it suggested some human moral endeavour to emulate Christ undertaken apart from the work of the Spirit in grace. He preferred to speak of conformitas to Christ: the Christian life as a process of conformation to Christ through the work of the Creator Spirit.

‘There is one note indispensable to a Positive Gospel, and indeed supreme; it is the note of Authority.’ So wrote P. T. Forsyth in 1904 (‘The Need for a Positive Gospel’, London Quarterly Review, vol. CI, p. 81). It was a theme which dominated his thought and found a place in all his writing. He insisted that the question of authority was the basic religious question, and that the church of his time lacked power for the lack of an adequate answer to it. As far as he was concerned the answer was, in principle at least, clear, and he never tired of giving it. For the Christian authority came from experience of redemption through Jesus Christ.

It is no simple matter to deal with this subject. In the first place, it is not a favourite theme of Reformed theology. In addition, there are a thousand variations of the ordination liturgy, whose comparative study is still in its infancy. Finally, a kind of mutation was produced during the eighteenth century which compromised the ‘catholic’ aspect of the Reformed Church and which made of her a Church of ‘protestant’ type (to use a term which must be precisely defined).