I have chosen this title for two reasons: first, to indicate that this essay will focus primarily on issues of religious epistemology; and, second, to acknowledge with gratitude my indebtedness to the work of that brilliant but frequently neglected Scottish theologian and churchman of the first half of this century, the late Principal John Baillie of New College, Edinburgh.

In Theology of Hope Jürgen Moltmann made the now wellknown claim that, ‘From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology… The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set’ (TH 16). In his second major work, The Crucified God, he claims that ‘Theologia crucis is not a single chapter in theology, but the key signature for all Christian theology’ (CG 72). Superficially, therefore, it might seem that The Crucified God is a fresh start in Moltmann's theology, substituting the cross for eschatology as the unifying theme in theology. In reality this is not the case. Moltmann's theology in The Crucified God remains eschatologically structured, while already in Theology of Hope he claimed that Christian theology must be an eschatologia crucis (TH 160, cf. HP 147f., CG 5) founded on the resurrection of the crucified Christ. ‘Theology of hope is at its hard core theology of the cross’ (EH 57). Conversely, the theology of the cross is the ‘reverse side’ of the theology of hope, giving it ‘a more profound dimension’ (CG 5). For the form of the future of Christ in this world is the cross of Christ and the sufferings of Christians: only this emphasis can save Christian hope from escapism or naive utopianism (cf. M 44, EH 57f 72). The two works therefore display an essentially continuous theological development.

Mr Samuel Johnson said, I believe, that no question of precedence could arise between a flea and a louse. If we asked the average educated Westerner a similar question about theology and philosophy (at least of the old type), he would very probably, though perhaps more politely, give a similar answer; the question of precedence between theology and philosophy has become quite irrelevant, except perhaps to a small, archaic and esoteric clique still entrenched in the traditionalism of the older universities, who taught and wrote about theology and metaphysics. Having been jealous and contending queens these subjects have become Cinderellas.

The task of interpreting the Bible has two main phases— the understanding of the text and the transformation or making relevant of its meaning for modern readers. The steady decline of monolithic religious structures and the growth of pluralism in modern society have produced multivariant forms of intellectual activity embracing the Bible as part of their subject matter. Thus the Bible is embedded in the given of European culture and functions as part of the hermeneutical processes of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and secular traditions. The quest for understanding may be common to all the traditions but the task of transformation can take one of two forms. From within the religious tradition transformation is the attempt to reinterpret the text so as to make it meaningful in contemporary terms but always controlled by the tradition. This form may simply be termed transformation from within or controlled transformation. The alternative form is transformation without limits or control. In this form fidelity to a tradition is not paramount and the real concern is to see how far the material may be transformed so as to constitute an independent entity itself.

Even the most careful and ingenious readers of this Journal will have found no hint of support for the suggestion that New Year is a festival in the Christian Calendar; nor is this thirtieth New Year in the Journal's life itself sufficient reason for extraordinary prefatory comment. This inadequate note is occasioned by events in the lives of the editors who began the Scottish Journal of Theology—began it with vigour and dynamism, speedily and shrewdly developing and establishing its position, and carrying it forward, now, into its thirtieth volume.

The following pages were prompted by what would appear to be a theologically faulty but none the less common line of reasoning. I have heard clergy and laity alike justifying a wide variety of theories by appealing to the example of Christ: Christ did or did not do so-and-so, and it is therefore incumbent on us to do or not do likewise. For example, we hear that because Christ the High Priest was a man, all the Church's ministers must be male, or that because Christ the High Priest was celibate, all priests today must be celibate. Now it may well be, for solid and unimpeachable theological reasons, that priests should be both male and celibate—that is not in discussion here. But what is perfectly clear (or I hope will be) is that imitation of Christ cannot, without further theological qualification, be adduced as a reason. Again, a particular concept of prayer as a personal and intimate dialogue with an unseen but ever-present God is sometimes justified by the statement that it is verified in Christ's own life of prayer. There are, however, serious difficulties in the way of this argument, not usually adverted to. Again, the concept of ‘Nazareth’ as used by religious families stemming from Charles de Foucauld is not always applied with obvious theological clarity. It is used to justify a spectrum of virtues said to be appropriate to the Christian who wishes to imitate Christ particularly closely, from adoration of the exposed Blessed Sacrament and retreat silence in seclusion from the world to ‘humble manual work’ and ‘quiet acceptance of ill-treatment’.

An understanding of the nature of theology of education, as of any other field of applied or practical theology, will spring from some previous understanding of the nature and functions of theology itself. But here the theorist in the interdisciplinary field is in something of a dilemma. If he fails to make it clear that theology of education rests upon an interpretation of the nature of theology, his treatment will tend to be superficial. He will be exploring the theological implications of education, but he will not have shown himself aware of the implications for theology of the methods he uses in his exploration. Since his aim is to elucidate implications for theology, he must turn his scrutiny inwards towards himself as theologian, as well as outwards towards education. On the other hand, in setting forth the understanding of theology which informs his work in applied theology, he makes his work more controversial, since there will be other understandings of theology, and other understandings of applied theology will flow from these to relativise his own methodology. Or it may be thought that the interdisciplinary field necessarily rests upon this and only this understanding of theology, and then those whose understanding of theology differs will conclude that the whole interdisciplinary enterprise is misconceived. A relatively under-developed interdisciplinary field such as theology of education is particularly susceptible to this misunderstanding.

This paper focuses attention upon the twenty-ninth chapter 1 of De Trinitate, a third-century theological treatise. Its author, Novatian, was a prominent member of the Roman College of Presbyters. However, his position did not engender feelings of loyalty sufficient to prevent his taking a surprising course of action when Cornelius became the Bishop of Rome in A.D. 251: he had himself consecrated to the same position. This step was a major factor in his being excommunicated in the same year. Subsequently, his personal status among the orthodox declined sharply, and very soon thereafter the records fall silent about him. However, in spite of this he continues to have a place among the theologians of the Church—a place which has been won for him almost single-handedly by De Trinitate. The book appeared in the A.D. 240s, being in fact the first major theological work to be written in Latin in Rome. Novatian produced it while still an eminent, well-respected member of the Roman church. As the title suggests, De Trinitate is about the Trinity, but Novatian by no means devotes equal space to all three members. His discussion of the Holy Spirit seems rather truncated when compared to the treatment afforded to the Father and Son, with virtually everything which is said about the Spirit appearing in chapter 29. Yet it is this chapter which will occupy our attention in this paper, because it appears to contain material which may provide hints about the religious experience of the Roman church in the mid-third century.

The second letter of Peter follows the usual sequence of proclamation and exhortation. But it is also typical when it betrays a melancholy realisation of the gap between hope and reality. First, there comes the proclamation of salvation. ‘He has bestowed on us the great and precious things he promised, so that through these you who have fled a world corrupted by lust, might become sharers of the divine nature.’ (1.4) Yet, evidently this initial conversion by no means gives irreversible thrust and momentum. Thus an exhortation to keep working must be added. ‘Be solicitous to make your call and election permanent.’ (1.10) Finally, beyond the exhortation, there is need to confront the discouraging reality reflected in the mockery of the sceptics. ‘They will ask: Where is that promised coming of his? Our forefathers have been laid to rest, but everything stays just as it was when the world was created.’(3.4)

John Calvin was a prolific writer of letters. He carried on an increasingly large correspondence from his early life as an obscure student of law in Orleans (1528), to his last days of international renown as master theologian, patriarch and oracle of Protestantism (d. 1564). With the incessant demands on his time as preacher, professor, author, statesman, and pastor—not to mention his poor health and personal trials—one is amazed at the sheer amount of letters he wrote.

Much of the recent debate about religion has concerned itself either with the bare existence of God or with the fact of Jesus Christ, and has not directly brought into the discussion the question of providence and the allied topic of prayer. It is as if the whole area were so problematic that thought has tended to polarise around these two points, God in heaven and Jesus of Nazareth in history, and as a result has virtually by-passed this subject, although one would have thought that it lay very close to the living core of religion. Yet this neglect is not without precedent in the past. It is worth recalling that Immanuel Kant, although he was profoundly critical of the traditional ways in which the existence of God had been proved and the foundation of religion laid, none the less believed himself that there is a legitimate foundation for religious belief in man's consciousness of value, in his awareness of what Kant called the categorical imperative; and this more practical, this less severely theoretical approach to the reality of religion, may well be regarded as an important pointer towards the truth. None the less the fact remains that Kant himself held that ‘the purpose of prayer can only be to induce in us a moral disposition. … To wish to converse with God is absurd: we cannot talk to one we cannot intuit; and as we cannot intuit God, but can only believe in him, we cannot converse with him.’

It is, of course, no secret that theology is a tissue of many things in interrelation. Begin at any point in it, and you will quickly be led to all the others—or at least the need for all the others. Eschatology requires one to talk about judgment and reconciliation, and they require talking about covenant, but discussion of the covenant requires finding the circumstances or context of the covenant, fallen creatures; and ‘fallen creatures’ brings one to talk about the creature, and in turn to treat his context, creation; and any elucidation of creation requires discussion of the action of God. So it may be seen that each notion demands another as an immediate context, and others as an ultimate context.

If the charismatic movement has its avid proponents, it also has its ardent opponents. These two tend to form polar extremes. In the conflict that emerges on various issues often the truth seems to lie not so much at either pole as where the Greek philosopher Aristotle sought it, in the golden mean between two extremes.

‘A Twentieth-Century reader encountering the word righteousness in Semitic texts must always be careful to adjust his thought and not to place this term in the categories to which our word righteousness has accustomed us.’ These cautionary words may well be given for any study of Old Testament terms but they are especially appropriate for the study of righteousness. We are accustomed to associate righteousness with some kind of impartial and impersonal dispensing of reward and blame by which the moral rectitude of society is maintained. Righteousness in the Old Testament does have something of our modern concept of justice but it cannot be restricted to that for we will find to our surprise that other concepts have important significance in our understanding of righteousness. As we shall see, righteousness shines forth in a spectrum of meaning that cannot be reduced to one line of thought. It behooves the student of the Old Testament, to free himself from any kind of bondage, whether it be an adherence to prevailing scholastic categories of thought or a reaction against them.

Liberation Theology, a term that may still be quite new to many readers, represents a movement in theology that began to shape itself clearly in Latin America in the year 1970. Five international, but predominantly Latin American, conferences of theologians and biblical scholars in that year established the basic vocabulary, the key questions, the general direction of inquiry, and some agreed assumptions concerning method. These conferences, like the authors who subsequently emerged as leading spokesmen, were ecumenical but with a strong concentration of Roman Catholic scholars and churchmen.

This paper will use some of Bonhoeffer's writings as the basis for an examination of the concept of transcendence within the context of religious belief. The intention of the paper is to present an account of the nature of transcendence in ethical terms. The conclusions will include an assessment of the significance of this for the discussion of the relation between religion and morality.

It would be difficult not to agree with the judgment of Barth himself concerning his Anselm book; that, although of all his books he had written it with the greatest love, in America and Europe it was of all his books the least read. This is somewhat surprising, considering what is thought by most commentators to be the decisive influence of this book on the formulation of Barth's dogmatic method from 1931 onward. That is after the critical turn which Barth made subsequent to the publication of his first systematic attempt, Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf. This paper attempts to assess how Barth understood Anselm's theological programme and in what respects this understanding evinces a characteristic systematic weakness in Barth's own theological project.

Two questions dominate much of Reformation theology: ‘How can I find a gracious God?’ and ‘Where can I find the true church?’ For Luther, the answer to both questions was given very simply in the gospel of justification. In speaking of a gracious God the gospel brought the church into being. The gospel alone, when believed, constituted the church. Other Reformers attempted to develop a more comprehensive and coherent doctrine of the marks of a true church. In this article I attempt to trace the evolution of the doctrine of the notae ecclesiae to the point where it had become so unwieldly that Hooker and Field abandoned it, and, replacing an intensive ecclesiology by an extensive one, set reformed ecclesiology on a new footing.

For centuries, the identity of the unclean skin conditions described in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus has been accepted as that of the disease we know today as leprosy or Hansen's disease. These conditions are denoted there by the Hebrew term ṣārā'ath, which means by derivation ‘a stroke’, and by usage ‘an unclean skin disease’. This word has frequently been translated simply as ‘leprosy’, and it is used with this meaning in modern Hebrew. However, it has become increasingly uncertain in recent times that the identification of ṣārā'ath with modern leprosy is a valid one, and this identification is now widely questioned.

All intellectual activity implies some presuppositions. Thoughts can only be formulated in words and these words have been formed by the previous thought of the community whose language they are. Even the most radical scepticism can only be formulated in terms of presuppositions which are-for the moment—unquestioned. (See Michael Polanyi: Personal Knowledge, chap. 9, ‘The Critique of Doubt’, pp. 269–98.)