In the previous article, (New Blackfriars October 1980) I spoke of the radical questionableness of the universe and suggested that it seems anomalous to ask “How come?” about individual events or things or whole classes of things and yet refuse to ask this question about the whole world. The belief that such a question is unaskable is based, firstly, on the fact that we have no answer to it, and, secondly, on the fact that the language in which it is asked is exploratory; we are using words in ways that are stretched beyond their familiar use. I suggested that both these things are characteristic of the creative growing points of our understanding whether in science or in the arts. To assert the existence of God is not to state a fact within an established intellectual system but to claim the need for exploration; it is to claim that there is an unanswered question about the universe: the question “How come the whole thing instead of nothing?”

By “creation” we mean the dependence of all that is, in so far as it is. We do not know what it is that it depends on, we do not know the nature of God. There is, as I suggested, a great gap between creation and making or causing in our familiar sense. Other causes bring things about in a “world without them”, (X is brought about in a world with an X-shaped gap in it). What is caused comes about in a world in which it is in some way potential, a world, for example, containing what can be made into it, but there is nothing within which resides the possibility of the whole world before.it is created. Creation is a matter of the existence of the world over against nothing at all.

Can it really be the case, as Hugo Meynell makes out in his meditation on Karl Rahner’s Grundkurs des Glaubens (New Blackfriars February 1980), that “the best living Catholic theologian” (p. 77) neither believes the doctrine of the resurrection in a recognisably traditional sense (p. 87) nor distinguishes the doctrine of purgatory from the belief in reincarnation which characterizes some Eastern religions (p. 88) — to cite but two charges in Dr Meynell’s arraignment? Can it really be the case that, in his ripe old age (for he is 76 this year), as he delivers what is plainly conceived as his theological testament, and prepares to die in the serenity of that faith which has never wavered since his proudly old-fashioned Swabian Catholic upbringing, and throughout his life-long grounding in the Spiritual Exercises (“I think that the spirituality of Ignatius himself, which one learned through the practice of prayer and religious formation, was more significant for me than all learned philosophy and theology inside and outside the order”), Karl Rahner’s Christology is not significantly different from that of a Nestorian or a Liberal Protestant (p. 87), and his idea of eternal life little different from that of (horrendous to relate) Professor D. Z. Phillips?

Well, in the epidemic of reactionary intransigence that is affecting so many of the best educated and the most formidably intelligent Catholics at the present time, no doubt such suspicions of Rahner’s orthodoxy may occasion little surprise and may even pass without notice. But Dr Meynell’s published work, for fifteen years and more, bears witness to his great knowledge of, and imaginative sympathy with, modem theological movements, as well as to his unremitting fidelity to Catholic doctrine in its most classical formulations.

The young couple, both teachers, one at a Catholic school in the city, did not know that the National Pastoral Congress would be taking place that week-end in Liverpool until they agreed three or four days before to put me up. On the Saturday afternoon thousands of people were left outside when the gates were locked at Anfield long before the kick-off: that Liverpool FC retained the First Division championship obviously stirred far more hearts far more deeply, Catholic ones no doubt included, than the NPC’s deliberations ever had any chance of doing. With all such qualifications duly noted, however, the Congress was nonetheless the most important event in the history of the Catholic Church in England and Wales since the restoration of diocesan bishops in 1850. On the Sunday afternoon the Liverpool Orange Lodge held a march, with several bands and plenty of Union Jacks, so they at least had an idea of what was going on.

The Congress, in effect, took the form of seven three-day conferences of about 300 people each, dispersed at centres all round the suburbs of Liverpool. The Congress gathered in plenary session only at the beginning and the end, for the inaugural Act of Reconciliation and Renewal in the Cathedral on the Friday evening, and then again on the Tuesday morning, first in the Philharmonic Hall, simply to receive the reports and resolutions of the seven conferences, and finally for the concluding celebration of the Eucharist, again in the Cathedral.

Because every single nation talks about national security, it is necessary to point out that the national security this article is concerned with is that particular kind of philosophy which at present is the basis of the justification of most Latin American military dictatorships.

In so far as these Generals and ‘Colonels’ are concerned, national security is simply the national expression of what they see as the permanent and irreconcilable conflict between capitalism (act. ually : neo-classical capitalism) and Marxism (actually: the Russian interpretation of it). So here we have our ‘black and white’. No grey can be allowed in. The military governments in South America which have, each in their own way, adopted the doctrine of ‘national security’ are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. There are other regimes which are more crudely dictatorial in the sense that they are simply based on family ambition. The most glaring example is Nicaragua where until recently President Somoza tried to maintain his position in the face of world-wide protest.

There is a number of substantive issues that divide Catholic opinion today, and which have been brought to the fore by the forthright statements of Pope John Paul II – clerical celibacy, for example, and the ordination of women. But the all-important, primary, basic issue that has to be discussed and fought about in the Church today is not a substantive one but, in a sense, a procedural one: how, where and by whom should such substantive issues be decided? The all-important question, in other words, is the question of authority: what is the nature of authority in the Church of God, and where does it reside? At a profounder level you could say it is a question of ecclesiology: what is the nature of the Church? Here I shall only touch on that question by implication.

On the subject of authority there are, as there have been for centuries, two rival points of view, two conflicting parties in the Catholic Church. In the middle ages there were the papalists against the conciliarists; in the 19th century the names, and to a slight extent the precise issues at stake had changed, and there were the Roman ultramontanes (direct heirs of the medieval papalists) against the cisalpines and the gallicans.

In my view to assert that God exists is to claim the right and need to carry on an activity, to be engaged in research, and I think this throws light on what we are doing if we try to prove the existence of God. To prove the existence of God is to prove that some questions still need asking, that the world poses these questions for us.

To prove the existence of God, then, would be rather like proving the validity of science — I don’t mean science as a body of established facts set out in textbooks or journals, but science as an intellectual activity, the activity of research currently going on; and not just routine research which consists in looking for the answers to clearly formulated questions by means of clearly established techniques, but the research which is the growing point of science, the venture into the unknown.

It is perfectly possible to deny the validity of this. It is perfectly possible to say we now have science; (we didn’t have it in the eighth century, let us say, but we have it now). It is just there; from now on it is all really just a matter of tidying up a few details. Now of course all the really great advances in science have come by questioning just that; by questioning, let us say, whether the Newtonian world is really the last word, by digging down and asking questions of what everybody has come to take for granted. But you could imagine quite easily a society which discouraged such radical questioning.

The title of this paper would appear to suggest that it belongs to a fairly familiar area of discussion in the philosophy of religion – the discussion of ‘religious language’ – to which the late Bishop of Durham, Dr Ramsey, made many notable contributions. The appearance is somewhat misleading. Of come the present paper must clearly be concerned with religious language; but the centre of its concern is not religious language in general but in particular the language which it is the business of the Christian theologian to interpret, in the first place Biblical language, and in the second place the language of interpretation itself, theological language. Even this formulation – religious language in general, bibliqal and theological language in particular – might be misleading if it were taken to imply simple inclusion. It may turn out that the apparently broader, more fundamental discussion of religious language relies in fact on assumptions which are open to criticism deriving from the apparently narrower and secondary discussion of biblical and theological language.

The theology and practice of the Eucharist is undoubtedly at the heart of the ecumenical task. The discussions on intercommunion and eucharistic hospitality have become the focus of nearly every ecumenical dialogue and of many ecumenical gatherings. Nevertheless I do not want to discuss this issue again here. For I am convinced that there will be no serious answer to the problem as long as we do not agree on some basic ecclesiological principles.

I want to deal with one of these basic principles. It is very strange indeed that so few theologians or churchmen have written on the link between Eucharist, Baptism and Church taken all together. Usually one studies the relation of Baptism with Church, of Eucharist with Church, of Baptism with Eucharist, but without putting together the result of these three analyses. I shall try to do it here. It will lead us to the very basic question of the distinction between the oneness (unicitas) and the Unity (Unitas) of the visible Church.

Perhaps I’d better make two preliminary remarks. One is that, inevitably, I am speaking out of tradition which is quite clearly marked in a confessional sense, that is to say quite definitely in the Roman Catholic tradition, and so some of the problems which vex me may be peculiarly Roman Catholic problems. I mention that because certainly I shall not only be looking at thought that has been located in our Roman Catholic continuum, yet at the same time there is no doubt that for various reasons (in the way I have been philosophically brought up, and so on) this particular tradition will be exerting pressures, even of an unconscious kind, on me.

The second preliminary remark is of a rather different kind. I understand that I am supposed to open this discussion — that is to say to talk for twenty minutes or half an hour, but not more than that, so I think I can allow myself a certain amount of freedom. I would like to raise questions, rather than get answers.

So, two preliminary remarks. One to protect myself against seeming over-confessionally characterised, on the other hand I want to protect myself against being thought too questioning altogether.

The title has been quite definitely chosen as “Thinking about Jesus Christ”. I mean that title fairly strictly, because I wouldn’t like the title to be “Jesus Christ”. Obviously, thinking about Jesus Christ can’t ignore the object of the thinking! But I would like to stand back a bit from actually thinking about Jesus Christ, and think about thinking about Jesus Christ, because at the moment it seems to be a most difficult area.