Honest to God has been the theological sensation of the decade, at least so far as the English-speaking world is concerned. The Honest to God Debate is the sequel and can appropriately be considered along with the former book. It consists of an introductory chapter by Rev. David Edwards, which is a sympathetic account of the contemporary radical movement in theology, of which the Bishop of Woolwich has become the most celebrated exponent, followed by a brief chapter by the Vicar of Leeds on reactions in the Church of England, the Church most immediately involved. Third, there is a series of readers' letters on Honest to God, edited by David Edwards, which is a striking indication of the contemporary state of confusion among laymen concerning the verities of the faith. The main body of the latter book consists of twenty-three reviews of Honest to God, by all sorts of men, Christian clergy and laity of all varieties and atheists, in many countries. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these are those by Rudolf Bultmann, the great German scholar and exegete to whom Dr Robinson is so conscious of his debt, and Father Herbert McCabe, O.P., the longest review to be printed. I must pay a tribute to the latter review, in spite of the apparent unfamiliarity of the categories in which it is expressed. Even though I am Protestant and Reformed, I found, on closer analysis, that Father McCabe had, with very few exceptions (notably his inevitably greater ethical rigorism), said exactly what should have been said about the book.

Karl barth's emphasis on the Analogia Fidei, and the revival of interest in the Analogia Entis, both point up our contemporary concern about the place of analogical thinking in theology. A number of developments outside the field of theology proper also contribute to this concern about analogical thinking. A brief consideration of some of these developments may help to clarify one aspect of the significance of the Analogia Fidei.

In the nineteen-thirties, when Søren Kierkegaard was beginning to become internationally known and his ideas were being eagerly discussed, Theodor Haecker noted that of all those who had reason to take up the task of interpretation the theologians were the least active. Today, in spite of the wealth of Kierkegaardian studies available, the situation is not so very different. The great Christian writer is still more commonly thought of as the pioneer of existentialism than as a skilled exponent of Christianity, and the bearing of his teaching upon doctrinal issues is seldom mentioned. It is true that he said that Christianity was not a doctrine, and that he wrote no formal theology. Insisting that his role was that of a layman, the most he claimed was that some of his writings were specifically ‘for edification’. At the same time, he strenuously opposed the opinion that Christian belief could stand without a very definite content, pointing out that the inwardness demanded of the individual presupposed knowledge of the ‘objectively dogmatic’: in faith the how could not be separated from the what.

D. M. Baillie's God was in Christ is now published as a paperback, and this is a pointer to the widespread nature of its appeal. No modern book in English on Christology has been more readable or given a greater sense of honesty of thought or ecumenicity of spirit. It has appeared to many to throw new light on the wonder of the Incarnation, and on the human and Divine in the life of our Lord. Its Christology, however, has also been already the subject of criticism in this journal where Professor J. H. Hick, of Princeton, in March 1958 suggested that Baillie's solution is really a form of adoptionism, the Man Christ Jesus being the Man in whom the most perfect presence of God to Man and the most perfect response of Man to God is manifested. I agree with Professor Hick that much of what Donald Baillie says does appear to point to a form of adoptionism, but I would maintain that there is another strain in Baillie's writings which is not simply a form of predestinarian compulsion as Hick suggests, but is an attempt to say what the traditional orthodoxy said when it spoke about a Divine nature in Christ. The aim of this article is to show that this real tension is to be found in Baillie's writing, and that for this reason his solution of the paradox of grace does not turn out to be nearly so complete a solution as he thinks.

There is a greater amount of evidence than is generally realised that in old Israel there was a cult of the dead. The archaeological evidence is less than one would expect. There is a certain amount of evidence from the second millennium B.C.—ornaments and jars, small cups and suchlike, found for instance at Gezer—but we have very little material from the time of the Israelite occupation. It is true that according to I Samuel 28.3 Saul is said to have ‘put away all those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land’, and that there is a law against them in Exodus 22.18 (‘thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live’). It is not, however, until Deuteronomy 18.11 that we get the stern prohibition of the cult of the dead in every form, and there is every reason to believe that it was on the basis of this prohibition that King Josiah acted when he put away ‘them that had familiar spirits, and the wizards’, 2 Kings 23.24. This was not an isolated action of his, but was part of a general reform in which he got rid also of the teraphim (which may have been connected with the cult of ancestors) and idols generally. There is no record of any king of Judah dealing with necromancers before King Josiah.

Experience shows that the numerous passages in the Old Testament treating of war, and particularly those which represent Yahweh as bringing about and rejoicing in the destruction of Israel's enemies, present an immediate obstacle to the minds of many people. This contributes to an attitude, disquietingly common among worshippers, that most of the Old Testament is no longer suitable for use in Christian worship; and itself reflects the widespread but mistaken notion that, if any claim is made for the authority of the Bible as a whole, each and any part of it may be taken at its face value, and immediately related to Christian doctrine or practice. In contrast to this, it can hardly be over-emphasised that the Old Testament as a whole, and any part of it in particular, must be interpreted in the light of its historical context.

Two questions are usually asked concerning the historical J. value of the Lazarus narrative. One question is whether or not Lazarus rose from the dead. This will be answered by arguments concerning the possibility of miracles, but John is not concerned to indulge in such arguments. The other question is about the place of this event in the course of Jesus' ministry. If the synoptic tradition is taken as the norm, the historical value of the Lazarus story seems threatened. We appear to be forced to choose between the cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11.8) and the raising of Lazarus (John 11.47–53) as the direct cause of the final plot to kill Jesus. There is, however, no certainty that one event alone caused the final decision against Jesus; both Mark and John are aware of other attempts and plots (Mark 3.6, John 7.32).