The phrase ‘a theology of nature’ is an abbreviation for ‘a theological account of natural happenings’—happenings which are properly investigated in the first instance by appropriate ‘natural sciences’. A Christian theology of nature seeks to provide a systematic appreciation of the physical universe, its items and occurrences, from a Christian theological point of view. If it is to rank as a serious contribution to human wisdom, it must be a disciplined effort to understand in appropriate terms the object of interest. One version of the discipline would be to produce an extension of the natural sciences, to cover topics—God, freedom, immortality—which fall outside their scope by a ‘metaphysical’ science which links these topics to the subject-matter of natural sciences in a theoretical account of ‘being as such’. This would have the effect of reintroducing ‘Natural Theology’, reshaped and revitalised, into the fabric of Christian systematic theology. This project is not being advocated in this article. It is mentioned solely in order to distinguish the present topic, a ‘theology of nature’, from what is traditionally known as ‘natural theology’. The purpose of this article is to explore afresh the structure of Christian intellectual response to the wonder of the world, as it is now being analysed by science, with particular attention to the ‘evolutionary’ aspect of things, appreciation of which has radically affected modern sensibility.

The faith of the Old Testament has its origin in the fundamental fact that God encountered Israel in the midst of history. The preamble of the decalogue mentions it: ‘I am Yahweh thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ From this beginning Israel knows that her God encountered her not in a reaction but in a free divine action in history. Through this action He laid hold upon Israel, called her and made her His people. At a later time this previous deed of God came to be designated by the term ‘election of Israel’. The powerful word-event of Old Testament Prophecy made plain once more this structure of God's action: Yahweh, the God who addresses Israel in and through history by the word of His messengers and who is not only reacting against Israel's sin but acting by His free grace, proves to be the God who stands by the independence of His election.

The fact of the Incarnation is one of the central affirmations of the Christian Faith. To deny that ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ is to deny what is essential to Christianity. The mode of the Incarnation, however, has been held to be less essential to our Christian Faith than the fact. Nevertheless in the creeds and confessions of the Christian Church the fact of the Incarnation is almost invariably set forth in terms of the mode. For example, the clause qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine is the first intimation of the fact of the Incarnation in the Apostles' Creed.

In the theology of Karl Barth the fact of the life, death and J. resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely the central point in our knowledge of God and His ways, a central point which might, however, be merely one, the greatest one, in a series of ways whereby we might know God and learn to speak about God. The Incarnation is for Barth the one and only revelation of God to men. In page after page he stresses that man by his unaided efforts can never know God. It is not only that man's reason is inadequate to read of God in the works of His hands, but by the fact of the Fall man has, ‘made himself quite impossible in relation to the redemptive Grace of God; and in so doing has made himself quite impossible in his created being as man, who has cut the ground from under his feet, who has lost his whole raison d'être‘ (p. 10). For such a man the knowledge of God has become quite out of the question, an utter impossibility, which can only again become possible in the quite incomprehensible ‘yet and never the less’ of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ alone.

The spurious word Confessionalism is employed to describe a church's adherence to a particular tradition of doctrine and order, and the elements in that tradition which hold a group or family of churches together in a common sharing of life, worship and fellowship. The confession of faith as such is very much a Reformation phenomenon and the various particular Confessions of Faith in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries played a large part in creating the families of churches to which we are now accustomed within Protestantism. It is by the Augsburg Confession (1530) that Lutheran church tradition is denned; the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) stamped the Continental Reformed Churches with their own particular character; the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) were for many long years and are still officially the defining document for the Anglican Communion; and it is largely the existence of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) which has made it possible to identify Presbyterianism as a family of churches at least within the Anglo-Saxon world. It is true that the relation of even the English-speaking Presbyterian churches to this Confession of Faith has been greatly modified over the years, but it still provides the essential criteria for recognising one of our churches as Reformed and Presbyterian.

One who is engaged in university teaching must often wonder what happens to the discipline of knowledge with which he is concerned, when his pupils begin to make professional use of it. The example of Aristotle may haunt him. Alexander the Great was a distinguished enough pupil. But did the master ever intend that his teaching should be exploited as Alexander exploited it? A universe seems to lie between the search for truth we see in Aristotle, and the practical utilisation of knowledge for the purpose of world hegemony that we see in Alexander. The university teacher who specialises in biblical studies is in a fascinating position, for at least two kinds of pupil take what they have learned from him, and then begin themselves to teach. They are the schoolteacher and the minister or parson. What kind of use do they make of what they have learned? What has happened to the product by the time the process has come to an end?