The success of reductionism as a method in the natural sciences has heavily influenced modern theology, much of which attempts to reduce theology to other disciplines. However, the past few decades in science have shown the limitations of reductionism and the importance of emergence. The properties of complex systems with many constituents cannot be understood solely in terms of the constituent components and their interactions. I illustrate emergent properties and concepts with specific examples from geometry, condensed matter physics, chemistry and molecular biology. Emergence leads to a stratification of reality which affirms that ontology determines epistemology. To show the significance of emergence for the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences parallels are drawn with the theology of Karl Barth. The approach here is distinctly different from most writing on emergence and theology which embraces ‘strong’ emergence (which most scientists consider speculative), an immanent God and does not engage with orthodox Christian theology. Aspects of Barth's theology which are particularly relevant include his view that theology is an autonomous discipline which is not reducible to anthropology or history, the irreducible character of revelation, and the emphasis that ontology determines epistemology.

The attempt to bring radical orthodoxy (and in particular, the work of John Milbank) into conversation with Barth is hampered by the movement's dismissal of him as ‘neo-orthodox’, a thinker who rejected liberalism only to embrace revelatory positivism. If Barth were a positivist, he might be guilty of alienating human history, language, and culture from their divine source: ‘the secular’ would then be autonomous. But he does nothing of the kind – certainly not in his mature theology, probably not even in his earlier work. Radical orthodoxy's reading of Barth may reflect the influence of D. M. MacKinnon, who tended to highlight the prophetic and crisis elements in Barth's thought. The radically orthodox are more accurate when they cite ecclesial mediation as the real source of contention. While the stress on mediation can have disastrous results, dissolving Christ's identity into that of the church, this need not happen; indeed, one can argue that Barth's Christology demands a stronger account of church and sacraments than he himself supplied. The deeper issue may be what radical orthodoxy means by its stress on human poesis. Is the movement really an ecclesial theology, taking its stand within the historic church? Or is it just another form of liberalism, seeking to re-invent the church in default of authentic performance? If the latter, then theology has indeed become ‘tragically too important’, occluding sheer celebration of the divine gift.

The aim of this paper is to place Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion (2006) within a particular literary genre and, by so doing, to account for certain features of its written style, to identify its structuring claims and to offer an explanation for the popularity it has enjoyed with a broad readership. By offering a description of this kind, I hope to avoid engaging in the polemics which the book both offers and has elicited; the argument is situated at another level. My proposal may seem a surprising one: Dawkins' work comes within a spectrum that includes in its modern forms both science fiction and fantasy literature, a spectrum that uses the products of science to think with, in order to explore human dilemmas. In a word, this is a modern theodicy. I shall begin by sketching out the notion of thinking with science, before turning to characteristic stylistic features of Dawkins' work, and then examining the core claims of the book in the perspective outlined. I shall offer some concluding remarks, but there is little to be said about the author's argument with respect to religion or faith; his topic is a pretext for another kind of exercise.

I argue that Lindbeck's notion of religion as a cultural-linguistic system may be profitably considered in the light of contemporary socio-linguistic concerns orientated towards the critical analysis of real-world language usage. Examples drawn from observation are used to show how, by combining Lindbeck's approach with Critical Discourse Analysis (Critical Postliberalism), extrasystemic features of religion and religious language can be perceived which link with a basic (R1–R2) dialectic. The latter can be correlated not only with the observable product of socio-theological grammars in believing communities today, but also with salient features of the gospels. Regional and other culturally related variations appear within limits to be accommodated by the model.

This article examines Karl Barth's conception of the interpersonal relation of male and female and demonstrates that, although Barth superimposes the concept of order within the Trinity onto the specific interpersonal relation of male and female, there is provision within his anthropology concerning interpersonal relations in general (i.e. interpersonal relations which are irrespective of sexual distinctions) to correct this error. I focus on Barth's exegesis of the creation narratives in Church Dogmatics III/1 and his discussion of the interpersonal relation of male and female in Church Dogmatics III/4. Then, because of Barth's principle of analogia relationis, I will briefly examine his doctrine of the Trinity in Church Dogmatics I/1. Whereas the role of christology in Barth's anthropology is frequently highlighted, there is often little regard for the trinitarian grounding of Barth's anthropology, especially with regard to the interpersonal relation of male and female. Finally, I will look at Barth's discussion of interpersonal relations in general in Church Dogmatics III/2 where he delineates a principle of the ‘priority of the other’, which serves to redeem his anthropological statements on the humanity of male and female. I contend that the recognition of the imago Dei in the interpersonal relation of male and female, sustained by the priority of the other, is a better way to achieve the personhood of both sexes than Barth's proposed static relational order.

‘I Acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins’ ‘There is one body and one Spirit, … one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph. 4.4 f). What precisely is here the significance of the word ‘one’ ? It would clearly be inadequate to see this unity simply as a matter of Church order—though it may yet be more significant than we have allowed that, in spite of everything, divided Christendom still today recognises a single baptism. We should be nearer the heart of the matter to say that baptism is one because it makes one. Just as it is ‘because there is one bread’ that ‘we, who are many, are one body’ (I Cor. 10.17), so it is baptism which in the first place creates this unity: ‘In one Spirit were we all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free’ (I Cor. 12.13); ‘for as many of you as were baptised into Christ … are all one man in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3.27 f).

Yet there are other elements in the NT doctrine of baptism which suggest that even this does not exhaust the meaning of the phrase. To be baptised ‘into Christ’ is not merely to find a new and given unity among ourselves. It is to be ‘baptised into his death’ (Rom. 6.3), to be ‘circumcised … in the circumcision of Christ’ (Col. 2.11).

In his important book The Shape of Christology, John Mclntyre argues that revelation cannot provide an adequate foundation for the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ. He contests Karl Barth's derivation of this doctrine from revelation, and he concludes that Barth and other neo-orthodox theologians place far too much emphasis upon revelation, which is a ‘second-order model’ in early Christianity. As an alternative, Mclntyre contends that a viable doctrine of the divinity of Christ must be based upon redemption, not revelation.

To deal with NT eschatology in the time available to me, I should have either to be a vastly more competent NT scholar and theologian than I am or else to be prepared to state my own views dogmatically and treat differing views in a cavalier fashion, a procedure I regard as unscholarly and unacceptable. So what I amoffering is something much more modest —just some thoughts on the subject.

The following speculations do not pretend to state a complete doctrine of the Trinity, though they do state decisive parts of one. The first section is an account of what is, in my view, the function of a Trinity-doctrine, and will to some extent repeat work also published elsewhere. The second section is an interpretation of the trinitarian word ‘hypostasis’, that tries to display the conceptual revolution made by the traditional trinitarian assertion of ‘three hypostases of God’. The third considers the oneness of God, by analysing a famous argument of Gregory of Nyssa. And the fourth draws some further conclusions.

There was a widespread assumption in the 1980s that liberation theology had come of age. The early passionate manifestos of those such as Hugo Assmann had been replaced by a deluge of substantial theological works which entered the theological debate bearing the wounds of oppression and injustice in Latin America, and also the clear marks of the European academy. Liberation theology remained highly controversial, but it had to be taken seriously. It suggested a new way of doing theology which was at one and the same time a recovery of older understandings of the nature of theology and rooted in Latin American reality. It plundered and turned on their original possessors the weapons of post-Enlightenment and post-Vatican II theologising, and it was viewed with deep suspicion by most of the authorities in church and state. The movement found resonances and allies in many countries of the Third World, and spread from systematics into biblical studies, ethics and pastoral theology.

Michael Heyd has described the late seventeenth and early eighteen centuries as an era of gradual development from Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment at the Academy of Geneva. One of the most important facets of this change was the eventual triumph of reason over revelation and the inevitable elimination by the mid-eighteenth century of many of the essential doctrines of the faith such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Deism and atheism, which were becoming more and more feared at the Academy, posed the greatest threats to Reformed thought. Those theologians who considered themselves to be orthodox Protestants and yet enlightened to the use of reason to defend Christianity, attempted to protect the faith against the unique challenges of the times. Their extensive use of reason was a marked departure from the traditional Reformed approach to Apologetics and radically transformed the very nature of Reformed Protestantism. It is the purpose of this paper to show that the specific challenges of this era provided the theological faculty at the Academy of Geneva, and especially Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, the leader of the so-called enlightened orthodox party, with the predisposition to employ a rationalistic approach to natural theology.

This passage has aroused much debate about the possibility that Paul is here using Greek rather than Hebrew concepts. Some, like W. L. Knox, have contended that in order to appeal to Hellenistic hearers, the apostle, after his alleged failure at Athens, realised that he must move away from Hebrew categories. (Cf the chapter ‘The Failure of Eschatology’ in St Paul and the Church of the Gentiles.) Others maintain that Paul's language and concepts in this passage can all be explained from his Hebrew background; e.g. W. D. Davies in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, ch. 10).

In choosing the title for these reflections, I have attempted to note not only a transition in the occupant of the Chair of New Testament Language, Literature & Theology in the University of Edinburgh, but also the historic period in which this transition takes place, in the closing years of one millennium, approaching the threshold of a new one. In an effort to engage the interests of a wide circle of readers in various scholarly specialities, I have also chosen to discuss (though only in very limited depth) several major questions, each of which could occupy us for much longer than space here permits. I hope at least to underline their importance, and to sketch a rationale for the positions I shall advocate. I cannot hope that this sketch will persuade anyone not already inclined to my views, but I can perhaps indicate that they are not without reason. If a thorough treatment is not possible here, I shall at least endeavour to be clear, and this may better stimulate the reflections of others.

The parallel between Augustine's preoccupation with language and the ‘linguistic turn’ of the last century has made him a valuable figure in recent discussions on hermeneutics and meaning. Still, he has yet to be brought into serious conversation with contemporary narrative hermeneutics. In this essay, I contend that narrative hermeneutics provides a lens through which we can appreciate the important role narrative plays in Augustine's hermeneutics and, in particular, how it shapes his account of meaning. Rather than casting his perception of meaning as a static reality that lies completely beyond the text, recognising the place of narrative in his thought allows us to appreciate the dynamic and personal aspects of meaning which it produces.

2014 is the quincentenary of the birth of John Knox and the article is part of an attempt to contextualise him and assess his impact. In the autumn of 1552 Knox preached a ferocious sermon at Windsor in the presence of the young King Edward VI. The sermon threatened to derail the careful compromise of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI and provoked a sharp reply from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer to the Privy Council. The so-called Black Rubric (arguably produced by Cranmer) which clarified the intention of the posture of the recipient at communion was added to the Second Prayer Book. Though Cranmer's withering response might have been taken to have demolished Knox's peculiar insistence that the Reformed communion should mirror the posture of the disciples at the Last Supper, the issue reappeared a generation later when James VI and I attempted to require recipients to kneel to receive communion in the Articles of Perth of 1618. The Knox–Cranmer dispute had a rerun in the conflicting pamphlets of David Calderwood and John Forbes of Corse. In theological terms, John Forbes has the better arguments, but by that stage aspects of a style and tone of Scottish worship had become customary and prevail to this day. It is those aspects of table fellowship which form Knox's continuing legacy.

The practices, habits and convictions that once allowed the inhabitants of Christendom to determine what they could reasonably do and say together to foster a just and equitable common life have slowly been displaced over the past few centuries by new configurations which have sought to maintain an inherited faith in an underlying purpose to human life while disassociating themselves from the God who had been the beginning and end of that faith. In the end, however, these new configurations are incapable of sustained deliberations about the basic conditions of our humanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology provides important clues into what it takes to make and keep human life human in such a world. The first part of this essay examines Bonhoeffer's conception of the last things, the things before the last, and what binds them together. He argues that the things before the last do not possess a separate, autonomous existence, and that the positing of such a breach has had disastrous effects on human beings and the world they inhabit. The second part looks at Bonhoeffer's account of the divine mandates as the conceptual basis for coping with a world that has taken leave of God. Though this account of the mandates has much to commend it, it is hindered by problematic habits of interpretation that leave it vacillating between incommensurable positions. Bonhoeffer's incomplete insights are thus subsumed within Augustine's understanding of the two orders of human society set forth in City of God.