One might say that, by and large, the French are interested in John Calvin as a Christian humanist, the Germans in Calvin as a Christian theologian, and the Dutch in Calvin as a Christian philosopher. Of course, in some sense, Calvin is all these; therefore the precise relation in Calvin between scriptural theology and Platonic humanism will continue to be discussed. Concerning the doctrine of soul, Roy W. Battenhouse in an influential article entitled ‘The Doctrine of Man in Calvin and in Renaissance Platonism’ suggests that there are important resemblances between Calvin and Renaissance Platonism in the treatment of human nature. He claims that ‘both the Neoplatonists and Calvin base their thinking about man on the premise of a dualism between soul and body’, which reveals ‘Calvin's fundamental Platonism’. Although Battenhouse calls his study ‘frankly exploratory and tentative’ and uses such phrases as ‘may have been’ and ‘seems to have’ and ‘it can be argued’, the evidence demonstrates to him ‘that Calvin's socalled biblical theology is not quite so biblical as its nuggets of quotation would like to impress upon us’. Jean Boisset, while insisting that Calvin's thought is basically biblical, also finds similarities between Calvin and Plato in the doctrine of soul, and Heinrich Quistorp thinks that the question remains whether in fact Calvin does not develop a doctrine of soul which is more philosophical than theological. Quistorp thinks that Luther was more aware of the contrast between biblical anthropology and philosophical dualism than Calvin was.

The problem of creation, which has largely disappeared from contemporary scientific discourse, was central to the scientific revolution. What modern scientists recognise as the only relevant relation – that between the knower and the known, man and nature — was understood three centuries ago as secondary to God's relation to the created order and his relation to created minds. For most early modern natural philosophers, both the manner in which and the degree to which the universe could be understood depended on how God had acted in creating it, how he continued to act in sustaining it, and how he had made the human mind — profound theological questions indeed. Over the centuries Christian thinkers, though reaching a consensus on the reality and goodness of the creation, have differed widely on the precise nature of created minds and the created order. The spectrum of views manifests an underlying dialectic between God's unconstrained will, which utterly transcends human comprehension, and God's orderly intellect, which serves as the model for the human mind. Often this has been expressed in terms of the distinction between God's absolute power to do whateverases and God's ordinary power to uphold the creation in an orderly and faithful manner. Individual thinkers typically acknowledge that God has both will and reason, both absolute and ordinary power, but usually emphasize one over the other.

Von Balthasar's study The Theology of Karl Barth has long been regarded as a seminal work for the interpretation and reception of Barth. Recently its influence has been challenged by Bruce McCormack, who argues that the von Balthasar thesis of a conversion from dialectic to analogy occasioned by Barth's study of Anselm is inadequate. This paper seeks to show not just that there is more to von Balthasar's interpretation than McCormack allows, but also that von Balthasar's study of Barth had a profound influence on his own theological development. In particular, it argues that through his critical engagement with Barth's argument for the analogy of faith against the analogy of being, von Balthasar reassessed the importance of analogy for all theology. In turn, this had a formative impact on his own great trilogy, The Glory of the Lord, Theodrama and Theologic, all of which was based on a christological reading of the analogy of being. Thus, while McCormack may be right on Barth, he is wrong on von Balthasar on Barth.

To answer in the affirmative Barth's question ‘Is theology a science? is to acknowledge both that such a question has a history and that the predicate ‘scientific’ is a contested one. T. F. Torrance in Theological Science and subsequent publications, seeks to proceed with a minimalist conception of science, as a study whose methods are directed by ‘faithfulness to object’. Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method and subsequent publications, contends that such a minimalism amounts to an admission that there is no such thing as ‘the scientific method’, and that therefore the predicate ‘scientific’ lacks coherence and substance. According to Feyerabend, philosophers like Michael Polanyi (an important influence upon Torrance) are simply not bold enough to see their work through to the radical conclusions which it demands and he provides. For Feyerabend, science's reference to qualities such as ‘objectivity’ and ‘rationality’ are simply a smoke-screen for decisively influential vested interests of power and wealth – it is these which ultimately determine what we mean by science, and these which therefore must be unmasked in the cause of humanism. However, in the course of this dialogue we reveal that Feyerabend is too careless a thinker, given to rushing prematurely and too willingly to unwarranted and simplistic dichotomies. Thus Torrance's notion of the ‘scientific’ emerges intact, but not without Feyerabend's stimulating challenge raising important questions, not least to theology as a science. For here, above all, ‘human’ factors are likely unduly to influence scientific knowledge. Thus Feyerabend also points to areas where Torrance's project needs further development and closer scrutiny.

The moral pluralism that characterises contemporary living can largely be attributed to the education that differentiates modern life from previous generations. During the industrial revolution in Britain in the nineteenth century John Henry Newman (1801–1890) was very sensitive to the importance of a more educated society, especially with regard to the development of religious faith and morals in an increasingly secular and sceptical age. Although his dedication to the advancement of knowledge remained throughout his life, his career commitment to formal learning began as an Anglican when he became a tutor at Oriel College, Oxford in 1826. In a sense his academic calling reached its zenith in 1852 as rector of the Catholic university at Dublin when he had the opportunity to express his view of liberal education by writing his university discourses.

The thesis of this paper is that conclusions reached in studying 2 Corinthians may profoundly affect the way Romans is read and interpreted — indeed, a number of difficulties in grasping the nub of Paul's argument may be resolved if we come to Romans with the insight into Paul's thinking that 2 Corinthians provides. The argument depends upon the findings reported in the author's joint work with David Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (SPCK 1987): for convenience the most relevant of these will be outlined first.

I Am grateful to Mr Peter Byrne (‘John Hick's Philosophy of World Religions’, S.J.T., Vol. 35, 289–301) for highlighting some of the central issues for a philosophy of religious pluralism. He starts from the now widespread realisation that it is not a morally or religiously acceptable view that salvation depends upon being a member of the Christian minority within the human race. A more realistic view must be pluralistic, seeing the great religious traditions as different ways of conceiving and experiencing the one ultimate divine Reality, and correspondingly different ways of responding to that Reality. These ways owe their differences to the modes of thinking, perceiving and feeling which have developed within the different patterns of human existence embodied in the various cultures of the earth. Thus, on the one hand the religions are responses to a single ultimate transcendent Reality, whilst on the other hand their several communal consciousnesses of that Reality, formed from different human perspectives, are widely different. To understand this mixture of commonality and difference I have suggested that we should make use of a basic distinction which occurs in some form within each of the great traditions. In Christian terms it is the distinction between God in himself, in his eternal self-existent being, independently of creation, and God-for-us or God as revealed to us. In more universal language it is the distinction between the Real (Sat, al-Haq) an sich and the Real as humanly experienced and thought.

Christianity is essentially a historical religion. It is not primarily a system of beliefs, nor is it just a perfect code of morality. Christianity is first of all a vigorous appeal to history, a witness of faith to certain particular events or facts of history. For these events were truly eventful, and these historical moments or “instants” were utterly momentous. For, by faith, we identify and acknowledge them as “mighty deeds” of God, as His intimate interventions into the course of human destiny. Already under the Old Dispensation the Living God has established His Covenant with the Chosen People, Israel, and has admitted her, the only nation of the earth, into a fellowship with Him. The God of the Old Testament did not communicate to men abstract metaphysical ideas about Himself, but He met man and challenged him in the midst of his daily existence, “amid toil and tribulation”. The Old Testament was truly a Covenant, a sacred fellowship, not primarily the Law and the doctrine. True, it was but a provisional fellowship, a shadow and a figure of the Good Things to come. It was a Covenant of hope and expectation, a Covenant of prophecy and promise. The consummation was ahead. Yet, it was a real Covenant indeed. And in due course it was fulfilled and thereby superseded; perfected and accomplished, and thereby abrogated.

Language for God is not equivalent to the kinds of naming we use in ordinary speech. We say that what ‘we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet,’ and we recognize that ordinary names for creatures are subject to human custom, choice, and change. According to biblical religion, on the other hand, only God can name God. Distinctive Christian experiences and beliefs are expressed through distinctive language about God, and the changes in that language proposed by feminist theologians do not merely add a few unfamiliar words for God, as some would like to think, but in fact introduce beliefs about God that differ radically from those inherent in Christian faith, understanding, and Scripture. Briefly stated, that is the argument this essay will systematically expand.

In the foregoing number of this Journal Dr. J. A. T. Robinson has done us the service of raising once again the question of universalism in a way that both merits admiration and challenges discussion. Rarely has the case for universalism been stated so adroitly and so persuasively, but when even that statement rests upon deep inconsistencies one has less hesitation in turning away from the formidable authorities which he cites to the voice of the Catholic Church which throughout all ages has consistently judged universalism as a heresy for faith and a menace to the Gospel. Without doubt however there is a great truth here and that must be disentangled from the dangerous untruth.

In 1965, Prof. Bolaji Idowu, President of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, castigated African Christians for being content with imported western theologies which were imperfectly understood and meaningless in the African context. He also lamented the fact that after almost two hundred years of Christian experience in Africa, African Christians have neglected the fundamental task of relating the Gospel message to political, social, and cultural milieux of African peoples. Africans must, Idowu claimed, produce indigenous theologies which will satisfy the deepest, emotional and spiritual needs of Africans.1 When Idowu wrote in 1965, expressions like ‘African Theology’, ‘African Christian Theology’, ‘Theologia Africana’, were hardly, if ever used, though some attempts were made to relate the Gospel message to the diverse social, political, and cultural situations in Africa. In the political sphere, violent winds of change were blowing throughout the continent; the rapid growth of Independent churches was an indication that some African Christians were, at least, dissatisfied with the imported theologies, Church structures, patterns of ministry and liturgical forms, which had been introduced by western Christian missionaries into Africa.

There is no one word for grace in the Old Testament as there is in the New, nor are the precise lineaments of the New Testament thought manifest, but the substance of the doctrine is there. In fact there is no language that expresses so profoundly and so tenderly the unaccountable love of God as the Hebrew of the Old Testament. This is not thought of abstractly but in intensely personal terms as the active love of One who is essentially the living and loving God of Israel. The dominant thought throughout is the amazing choice of Israel by God as grounded only in His free and unlimited love and as creating a community in fellowship with God who bestows Himself upon them as Father and Saviour for ever.

Jürgen Moltmann's first major work, Theology of Hope, first published in 1964, is arguably one of the truly great theological works of the last few decades, and indisputably one of the most influential. Though Moltmann's own theology has developed considerably in many subsequent works since Theology of Hope, it remains one of his greatest achievements, rivalled only by his second major work, The Crucified God. These two books, which constitute the core of Moltmann's early theology, have, it seems to me, a concentrated power of argument, focused on their central integrating ideas, which is lacking in the more diffuse structure and argument of the later works, significant though these are in their own way. The two early books also have a certain polemical extremeness, which, by contrast with the more balanced and rounded quality of the later works, gives them the sort of impact which one also finds in the passionate extremism of the early Luther or the dialectical rhetoric of the early Barth. The comparison is appropriate, not only because the influence of these two predecessors on Moltmann's work is very evident, but also because, in adopting something of their dialectical and prophetic style of theology, Moltmann had a parallel purpose: that of redirecting theological work. If, having accomplished this, Moltmann has subsequently become more and more like the older Barth of the Church Dogmatics, this is understandable and brings both advantages and disadvantages with it.

This article is a study of Pavel Florensky's philosophy of symbol in the context of his discovery of Palamism in the 1910s, when Florensky started to speak of symbol using Palamite language. It proposes a fundamental difference between Florensky's and Palamas’ teachings on symbol: Palamas views a natural symbol as the energy of an essence, while for Florensky symbol is the essence itself, the energy of which synergises with the energies of other essence. In this context the prehistory of the concept of synergy in Florensky is studied, leading to the identification of a further difference in the ontologies of Florensky and Palamas: while Florensky's ‘essence-energy’ has the property of necessary correlation with the ‘other’, following the tendencies of the philosophy of that epoch, in Palamas ‘energy’ does not presuppose any necessary correlation with the ‘other’. The author connects this difference in ontologies between the two thinkers with their respective teachings on symbol.

Since Augustine, western medieval thinkers have largely identified ‘simplicity’ as the most fundamental feature of the divine nature. Although the western tradition of thinking about God has often been regarded as relatively continuous, I will demonstrate in this paper that a separate line of thought developed amongst early thirteenth-century Franciscan thinkers. This new tradition stressed God's immensity or infinity. In doing so, I will argue, it instigated a fundamental shift in the way of conceiving the nature of God that holds profound promise for reconciling factions in systematic theology today, particularly between classical theists and panentheists.

In this article I argue that the effects of sin for our cognition of God primarily consist in a lack of knowledge by acquaintance of God and the relevant ensuing propositional knowledge. In the course of my argument, I make several conceptual distinctions and offer analyses of 1 Cor 13:9–12 and Rom 1:18–23. As it turns out, we have ample reason to think that sin has had and still has profound consequences for our cognition of God, but there is no reason to think that sin has taken away all knowledge of God or that sin has resulted in a loss of specific cognitive faculties which are orientated towards knowledge of God.