The problem of the Pain of God is for me a perennial one, for wherever in the Anglican Communion God calls me to minister (with few exceptions) I have been and shall be called upon to assent to the proposition that God is ‘without body, parts or passions’ (Article I of the XXXIX Articles of Religion). My difficulty is simply that, although I am content to admit that God is incorporeus et impartibilis without any qualifications at all, I cannot admit that He is impassibilis without making so many qualifications that the admission almost dies of them. I suspect furthermore that those who are obliged to give general assent to the Westminster Confession of Faith may have a similar difficulty with Chapter II, Section I, which contains the same proposition. The scriptural warrant for it is said to be found in Acts 14.15, where Paul and Barnabas cry to the people of Lystra, ‘Men, why are you doing this? We also are men, of like nature with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.’ In its context, I understand this verse to imply that God, unlike Zeus and Hermes, is neither fickle nor whimsical, but constant and free to achieve His purpose. As the Greek Fathers would say, He is both autokinetos and tautokinetos.

In this paper I propose to show how certain parts of Emil Brunner's ethical theory are related to one another and to answer some possible criticisms of these portions of his theory. In particular I wish to examine what Brunner has to say about how moral decisions ought to be made. Because of the nature of my topic I shall refer mainly to Brunner's The Divine Imperative (tr. Olive Wyon, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1947).

Enquiry into the precise meaning and historical use of theological terms is not in fashion in these days, as is amusingly pointed out in a recent issue of Time magazine.1 Under the heading, ‘Right you are if you say you are’, there appears a dialogue, from which I quote:

What is the ultimate seat of authority to which Christian theology makes its appeal?' Dr Whale in posing this question says that answers fall into three great and distinctive types. ‘The first type emphasises the authority of the Church’ while ‘the second type emphasises the sole authority of the Bible’ and ‘the third type may be loosely described as mystical—its constitutive principle is the “Inner Light”'.1

In 1611, Robert Leighton was born into the era of the Church of Scotland's 1610 Accommodation between the Presbyterian and Episcopalian systems of church government. The Episcopalian Bishop of Dunblane and Archbishop of Glasgow between the ages of fifty and sixty, was the same man as had been the Presbyterian Parish Minister at Newbattle between the ages of thirty and forty. Leighton's especial significance is that he represents in his own person the very kind of accommodation which the signatories of the Joint Report on Anglican-Presbyterian Relations (1957) were aiming at, and which is an ecumenical possibility which will obviously continue to be explored.

The aim of this paper is to contribute, if possible, a little towards the understanding of the Book of Ecclesiastes, or The Preacher, and to illuminate something of the contemporary significance of its contents. The paper is prompted too by a feeling of dissatisfaction at the negativity with which much of modern writing on Ecclesiastes is tinged, and by the conviction that if Koheleth, the Preacher, is once granted a sympathy of interpretation, and the forcefulness and novelty of his expression are recognised, his message can be seen to be apposite and telling.1