By his well-known method of correlation, Paul Tillich sought a formal pattern by which he could combine his philosophical interests and theological concerns in a joint effort to achieve a systematic theology. In formulating this correlation, Tillich is very careful to assign the substantive, constructive role to theology, leaving philosophy with the task of articulating those fundamental questions concerning the ground of our being arising out of our existential situation. In particular, Tillich argues that philosophy cannot say anything positive concerning the existence and nature of God.

In a series of studies for the E.A.C.C. writers from the Asian Churches applied themselves to the question ‘Confessing the Faith in Asia Today’. One feature common to their concern was the need to distinguish sharply between a confessing church and a confessional church. In their missionary situation the second term was treated with suspicion and mistrust as an expression which characterised a church that was inflexible in its attitudes and was therefore unable to enter into a living dialogue of faith with its indigenous situation so that the Gospel could be meaningfully expressed. This sharp contrast is understandable since the Asian churches have not been notable for the ways in which the Gospel has become indigenous to their cultural situation. It has, in the past, tended to be an imposition on a new situation, of a relevant Gospel couched in alien terms with more than a suggestion that the terms in which the Gospel was expressed was to be identified with the reality of the Good News. As a result a cultural hiatus has ensued which has vitiated a great deal of the cutting edge of the Gospel.

At the moment, and for some years now, there has been a great deal of discussion about the nature and function of the university. Such discussion naturally involves some consideration of the sorts of things which should be taught in universities, and of how they should be taught. What I particularly want to consider is the place, if any, of Theology in a university context; but I think one must begin with the more general topic of the nature of a university. Only in such a way can one arrive at some criterion of what sorts of disciplines one wants in such institutions. I am, of course, hardly in a position to come to definitive, much less adequate, conclusions, about this subject; but I can at least canvass a few opinions, and try to assess their relative merits, and see how they might provide for the study of theology in some form.

In 1642, there was published in London A Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord's Supper, by Ralph Cudworth (1617–88), the Cambridge Platonist. It was with Cudworth that the phrase ‘a feast upon a sacrifice’ originated. Moreover, through his distinction as a scholar, the concept which lay behind the phrase gained acceptance with other theologians, and the phrase itself is to be found in use not only in England, but also in Scotland long after Cudworth's demise.

With the Reformation, its increasing preoccupation with the Bible and its insistence that it be made available to all, came a growing interest in how such literature was to be interpreted, which is to say, Christianity became vitally concerned with exegesis. In spite of the ‘democratisation’ of Bible and religion, the difficulties in making an ancient Semitic literature speak in contemporary accents were surely not underestimated by Luther and Calvin both of whom made solid contributions to biblical exegesis. In his ‘Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen’ (8th September 1530), Luther referred to the lone task of interpretation and the need for patience,1 a theme which he elaborated in his Vorreden zur Heiligen Schrift. To understand Vergil's Bucolics and Georgics, one should have a five-year experience as a shepherd or farmer; at least twenty years' occupation in politics is needed to fathom Cicero's letters and a fortiori, no one can claim to have digested the Scriptures unless he has led congregations with the prophets for a hundred years—in other words a lifetime of existential experience with the Bible is insufficient. These comments led in turn to his famous affirmation, in Saxon German within a Latin text: ‘Wir sein pettier—Hoc est verum!’2 Statements of this kind should preclude once for all the notion that the reformers underestimated the difficulty of exegesis in view of their promotion of the ‘priesthood of all believers’.

The epistle of James is one of the most Jewish of the New Testament letters, even though it is written in excellent Greek. It is traditionally ascribed to James, the brother of our Lord, and there is no adequate reason for rejecting that view. It must, therefore, have been written before James died in A.D. 62. Various authors give dates between A.D. 40 and 60, and as it was commonly dated in the forties of the first century it was claimed to be the first book of the New Testament to be written. More recently, this claim has been challenged by examination of the epistle to the Galatians.