Modern Theology: An Exchange

Extract

Dr Jenson rightly noted at the beginning of his review that the book was not a survey of contemporary theology in general. But I do not think he should have gone on assuming, against all the evidence provided by the book itself, that it was intended to be such. Perhaps the original title I suggested to the publisher, Problems in Modern Theology, would have been less misleading to him. He observed that I had hardly said anything about contemporary Roman Catholic theologians, and that I had left out a great many important Protestants; he might further have observed that a large part of the book (Chapters 2, 3 and 9), deal very little with ‘theologians’ in the usual sense of the world.

He might also have adverted to my own clear statement on page 9 as to what the book was about. I recognized that the chapters did not represent a single sustained argument; but I claimed that they were united by a single purpose: ‘to point out a number of fundamental and mutually related mistakes—philosophical, historical and practical—by which it seems to me that much contemporary theology is vitiated’ (italics restricted to the present context). Two claims are involved in this: (a) that there is a cluster of related propositions and arguments propounded by some influential modern theologians; (b) that these are erroneous. The first claim laid on me the task of accurate exposition of some of the work of some of the theologians influential at the present time.