Theology in Greece today is the outcome of a long and complex historical process in which many different, and even contradictory, trends and theological proclivities have converged and continue to converge, thereby defining its shape and agenda. The present article tries to provide, in four sections, both a descriptive and critical account of this complex and fascinating history.

Among these trends, a decisive role is attributed in the first section of the paper to the so-called ‘generation of the 1960s’ (including among others pre-eminent Greek theologians such as Metropolitan of Pergamon John D. Zizioulas, Christos Yannaras, Nikos Nissiotis, Fr John Romanides, Panagiotis Nellas), a Greek theological movement for renewal inspired mainly by the theology of the Russian diaspora and the call to ‘return to the Fathers’, which was instrumental in shaping contemporary Orthodox theology both in Greece and outside the Greek-speaking world.

In the second section are given the reactions to and criticism of the ‘theology of 1960s’. There were strong disputes and rejection on the one hand by conservative Greek academic and ecclesiastical circles, and on the other hand from the opposite progressive side (mainly the professors of the Theology School of Thessaloniki University during the 1990s), which accused this theological movement of conservatism and anti-Westernism.

The emergence of the agenda initiated by the new theological generation (of 2000) is discussed in the main and longer (third) section. This new theological agenda and its principal characteristics come from points of disagreement with the theologians of the generation of the 1960s, and from a renewed and more inclusive understanding of Orthodox theology which goes beyond the problématique, the language and the agenda of the 1960s. Among the topics raised and discussed by the new trends of Greek theology are: the rediscovery of eschatology and its dynamic interpretation, ecclesiological issues, such as the centrality of the episcopal office, and the critique of the dominant place of monasticism in the life of the church, the movement of liturgical renewal, the revalorisation of mission, the rediscovery of ethics and the dilemma of ethics versus ontology, the renewed interest in political theology, the overcoming of anti-Westernism and of the West–East divide as a central interpretative key, a more constructive relationship between Orthodoxy and modernity, the critical approach of the ‘return to the Fathers’ movement, the reconsideration of the devaluation of biblical studies, the emergence of an Orthodox feminist theology and the debate on women's ordination, the radical critique of religious nationalism, and the devolution into Byzantinism and ecclesiastical culturalism.

In the fourth section the article names the settings and institutions that are hosting the new theological trends in Greek Orthodoxy, mainly mentioning the leading Greek Orthodox theological quarterly Synaxi, the official scholarly journal of the Church of Greece, Theologia, the Biblical Foundation of Artos Zoes and its Bulletin of Biblical Studies and, finally, the Volos Academy for Theological Studies. An overall group vision and esprit de corps which could integrate the individual efforts and provide an identity, clearly missing from the above-mentioned picture, are demanded from the two theological schools of Athens and Thessaloniki.

The article concludes by briefly reviewing the conservative and fundamentalist reactions towards this new theological agenda, and by highlighting the urgent need for contemporary Greek theology to face the new, dynamic and particularly challenging global context, and to continue to reflect and to act towards Christian unity, as well as move to reconciliation between Christian East and West, Eastern and Western Europe.

Whether or not one may wish to call it a renaissance in the doctrine of the Trinity, there has been a notable resurgence of interest in trinitarian thinking in recent theology. Some of the most suggestive contributions have been made by two theologians whose works are generally regarded as ‘eschatologically’ oriented. In a volume recently published in English as The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Jürgen Moltmann attempts to develop a comprehensive doctrine of the trinitarian being of God taking up and expanding themes already set forth in such earlier works as The Crucified God, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, and several journal articles dealing with the ‘trinitarian history of God’. Throughout these works Moltmann was concerned to demonstrate the openness of the being of God for man and history and toward the future. The trinitarian differentiation and unity of God, he argued in various ways, is to be closely identified with the events of salvation history, especially the cross of Jesus. In his most recent book, he attempts to systematise this approach to the doctrine of God through a ‘salvation historical’ and ‘social’ doctrine of the Trinity. This work represents a major contribution to trinitarian thought and is both complex and wide-ranging in its treatment of the subject. It will be our concern here simply to investigate some of the major themes related to the problem of God's relationship to history, that is, God's ‘historicality’.

It was the observation of Princeton's James McCosh that ‘the reconciliation between the philosophy and the religion of Scotland was effected by Thomas Chalmers’. That Chalmers’ roots run deep in the soil prepared by the philosophy of Common Sense is indisputable. The Reid-Beattie-Stewart tradition in philosophy provided the backdrop against which the formation and development of Chalmers’ theology was framed. The important questions, however, are how Chalmers appropriated this philosophical tradition, for what ends he employed it, and to what extent it informed the content of his theology. It is certainly the case that Chalmers embraced Reid's repudiation of Locke's theory of ideas on both moral and religious grounds. The ‘constancy of nature’ whose rational and empirical demonstrability David Hume had called into question was crucial for Chalmers, and he attempted to reinstate it with the aid of every intellectual weapon the Scottish philosophers could provide. Furthermore, Chalmers accepted much of the programmatic work of the Common Sense philosophers in their efforts to ground morality and the ‘moral sense’ on a priori laws constitutive of the mind itself.

Paul and Acts suggest that after Easter Peter lived in Jerusalem and had special responsibility for the mission to Palestine. 1 Clement mentions his two-plus labours (cf. Acts 3–4, 5, 12), but not Rome and not martyrdom. It places him second of seven chronologically ordered victims of jealousy between AD 40 and 70. Asc. Is. 4:2–3 is about Nero redivivus, not the historical Nero, and has nothing to do with Peter. By AD 100 legends were forming about his sojourn in Rome (1 Peter) and his martyrdom (John 21). He probably died in his bed in Jerusalem about AD 55.

The thinker who approaches the problem of evil theoretically will conceive of the issue differently from one who approaches it practically. He will also differ on what would constitute a satisfactory ‘solution’. One looks for a logical coherence in theism, the other for consolation and the elimination of evil. The theoretical approach, it is argued, actually subverts the thinker morally and religiously. In the face of intractable evil, a theological suggestion that evil is a dark mystery is also rejected in favour of a more practical and constructive approach. It requires an active resistance to evil and then finds consolation in the consequent unity with the Holy Will that opposes all evil.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, no. 11

Central to Barth's doctrine of election is the notion that Jesus Christ is the subject of election. This implies that Jesus Christ existed from all eternity. I discuss four possible interpretations of this proposition. I analyse these interpretations both in terms of their internal consistency and in terms of their consistency with Barth's overall proposal. Three of the four interpretations, defended by Emil Brunner, Cornelius Berkouwer, John Colwell and Bruce McCormack, I find wanting. With the fourth interpretation I lay my own cards on the table and argue that part of the problem lies in Barth's formulation itself. The context of Barth's saying that ‘Christ is the subject of election’ suggests that for Barth, Jesus Christ is not so much identical not with a subject, but with an act: the divine reaching out to that what is not God. This act establishes the act and object of election.

The eucharist or holy communion or mass or Lord's supper is probably the ritual most participated in and most discussed in human history. It is the principal act of worship of the majority of the billion and a half or so Christians in the world today and has some importance for most of the minority. Simply as an inquiry about what happens around the world at present my title would clearly be an impossible question to answer with anything approaching thoroughness. But that might seem an odd way to take it. In theology the question usually leads in to discussing real presence, eucharistic sacrifice, valid ministry and so on. Those are of course important, but I am reluctant to forget about inquiry into actual practice. I will not be able to contribute much on the subject, but it is a significant part of the imaginative context of this paper. So I will start by trying to begin to do justice to it. That will be the springboard for an attempt in Part 2 to redescribe the Eucharist in relation to some New Testament statements, without pretending that the intervening thousands of years that have generated all that diversity have not occurred. The main concerns there will be imperatives, especially the imperative of death, and Jesus as an agent of incorporation, a critical concept being that of non-identical repetition. Part 3 will take up some of the suggestions of Part 2 in order to develop one aspect of the Eucharist and transformation: what might some characteristics of a ‘eucharistic self’ be? The conclusion will then try to summarise the answer that has emerged to the title question.

In Book IV of Calvin's Institutes, the ‘external means …by which God invites us into the society of Christ and holds us therein’ consists chiefly in ‘the true church, with which as mother of all the godly we must keep unity’. Like Luther, Calvin could speak of mater ecclesia with an unembarrassed reference to the visible, historical community of God's people. The rhetoric of ‘mother church’ did not long remain a part of Protestant sensibility. The Reformation principle of ‘Christ alone’ has often tended to undermine strong claims for the church; conversely, the critique of institutions has played a key role in the shaping of Protestant identity, at times seeming to be the very point of the Reformation. The distinction assumes classic form in Friedrich Schleiermacher's The Christian Faith. Protestant Christianity, Schleiermacher writes, ‘makes the individual's relation to the church dependent on his relation to Christ’, whereas Catholicism ‘makes the individual's relation to Christ dependent on his relation to the church’. This intuition would seem to be confirmed by recent ecumenical dialogue, which has fastened on the church's role in salvation as the most likely candidate for a ‘basic difference’ between Catholicism and Protestantism. At the same time, important voices on both sides have been asking whether such a sharp distinction can or should be sustained.

Students of the New Testament will be familiar with the influential hypothesis from the first half of this century usually known as the Gnostic redeemer myth. This was the thesis, associated particularly with the name of R. Bultmann, that already in the pre-Christian period there was a widely held belief in a divine figure who came down from heaven and assumed human form in order to redeem the souls of men trapped within human bodies. They will also be aware that while Bultmann's thesis has come under heavy attack and is not widely held today, there are those who still attempt to argue for it, though usually in a substantially modified form. My purpose in this paper is to draw attention to one of the side-effects of this whole debate, an important side-effect which has not been given the attention it deserves. For it is my belief that the quest of the Gnostic redeemer myth within pre-Christian traditions, and the debate thereby stirred up, have together confused the history of Christology' beginings, particularly in the key issue of Christ's relation with God. Although principally concerned with soteriology, the discussion roused by the hypothesis of the Gnostic redeemer myth has raised the question of Christianity's thelogy (in the narrower sense of that term). In other words, it forces students of Christian origins to ask whether Christianity began as a departure from Jewish monotheism, whether Christianity was in fact a monotheistic faith from the beginning.

In 2001, on behalf of two Christian couples, a Christian adoption agency in the United States arranged an open embryo adoption. In addition to ethically analyzing this specific case, this paper situates the case politically and medically and distinguishes a number of general moral considerations relevant for reflection on this case. The paper concludes that while the choice to adopt embryos is morally appropriate and even praiseworthy in some circumstances, troubling features in this specific case rendered this particular adoption morally problematic.

John Mcleod Campbell died one hundred years ago in J February 1872, and hence it is fitting that at this time we consider the contribution and insight of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) of our Scottish theologians—whose voice we need to hear again today.

‘The image of God in Adam and the restoration of man in Jesus Christ’ is a formulary title, preserving in so far as possible both the manner in which Calvin discusses the image and the progression of this paper. The contrasts of ‘image’ to ‘restoration’, ‘Adam’ to ‘man’, and the latent contrast of ‘Adam’ to ‘Christ’ are therefore purposeful ones, for they are the contrasts in which the structure and movement of Calvin's thought on the image of God can be seen most clearly. They are also the product of a patient and occasionally frustrating reduction of the hill country of Calvin's prose into a passable road. Not every facet of the image according to Calvin is brought into play. In fact, many have been weeded out as too narrowly confined to a particular context, too superfluous, or even too general or ambiguous to be of help in delineating the core of this part of his theology and the tensions within it. Thus, for example, while Calvin often speaks about a restoration of God's image in man, this phrase is meaningless in itself. Then, once we find that Calvin's understanding of this phrase is split into two opposing emphases, there is no benefit in returning to the general expression, and so it is not employed in our discussion of man's restoration. It is also true that the second half of the title indicates an abandonment of the image for a more embracing statement of all that our renewal involves.

We live in a culture marked, as few others have been, by persistent and deep-seated scepticism about the existence and knowability of God. Not only is the intellectual leadership of our times for the most part atheist or agnostic, but theology itself, certainly since the time of Kant, has been in fundamental disarray about the question, as witness, for example, the recent preoccupation with the question of revelation. In this paper I want to suggest, first, that the problem does not begin with Kant, because at least one of the causes of Western atheism is a theological tradition which encourages thought in the essential unknowability of God. Here, a distinction must be drawn. In one sense, of course, the doctrine of the unknowability of God is essential to theology. But to hold it in such a way as to suggest or teach that the unknowable God can in noway make himself known — so that there can be no theological ontology at all — is to offer the kind of hostages to fortune which so much Western theology has done. Can it really be a historical accident that it is here rather than anywhere else that atheism has found so fertile a soil?

In recent study of the nature of NT interpretation, considerable attention in certain circles has been given to the possibility that there is one metaphor that is particularly appropriate for articulating what NT interpretation involves. It is the metaphor of performance. The purpose of this paper is to describe and develop this proposal and to give an assessment of it. To my knowledge, this is a task in biblical hermeneutics that has only just begun. If we ask why this is so, one possible answer lies in the fact that the proposal comes in the main from systematic and patristic theologians and therefore from outside the guild of biblical scholars. The consequence is that our customary division of labour inhibits us from attending with sufficient care to what our neighbours are saying even when it bears directly on our own work.

It was a fundamental principle of the great Athanasius that to approach God through the on and call him Father is amore devout and accurate way of knowing him than to approach him only through his works by tracing them back to him as their uncreated Source. To know the Father through his Incarnate Son who is of one and the same being as God is to know him strictly in accordance with what he is in his own being and nature as Father and Son, and as Holy Spirit, which is the godly and the theologically precise way. On the other hand, to seek knowledge of God from what he has created out of nothing would be to operate only from the infinite distance of thecreature to the Creator, where we can think and speak of God only in vague, imprecise and negative terms, for what God has created out of nothing does not tell us anything about who God is or what he is like in his own being. It is through God alone that we may know God in accordance Cross with his nature. We may know God in truth only as we are given access to him as Father through Jesus Christ his Incarnate Son and in his one Spirit, an access opened to us as we are brought near to God and are reconciled to him through the Cross (Ephesians 2.14–18).

The purpose of this article is to appraise the Christological suggestion offered by the late D. M. Baillie in God Was In Christ (1948), to the effect that the Incarnation was the supreme instance of ‘the paradox of grace’. I propose, first, to define, from the standpoint of credal orthodoxy, the central task of Christology; second, to remind the reader of the features of Baillie's thought in this field; third, to offer a criticism of his theory in the light of the desideratum noted in the first section; and fourth, by distinguishing two different aspects of the problem of the Incarnation, to suggest wherein lies the positive value of D. M. Baillie's contribution.

In debate with Roman Catholics and Lutherans about the physical presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements, Calvin argued that, since Christ had ascended into heaven (i.e. the spiritual realm or kingdom of God), we must not look for him on the table but ‘lift up our hearts’ to heaven and seek him there. The idea is well known to Calvin scholars, but it still raises many questions. Can Calvin mean that our souls are literally raised up to heaven? Are we supposed to experience some sort of heavenly elevation? And, if this notion is so strange to us, even those of us in Calvinist circles, how was it so readily available to Calvin and his readers? To answer these questions, we shall examine the texts more closely and inquire into their patristic background.

The facet of his thought commonly referred to as the doctrine of the two kingdoms has provoked some of the most intractable confusion and bitter controversy in post-war continental Luther scholarship, and the ripples of this debate which reached these shores have all too often amounted to a litany of sweeping statements which have done nothing to enhance the Reformer's reputation in England. Yet even before Hitler's war Luther had endured a century of disfavour among the leading academic and ecclesiastical circles on this side of the Channel. So marked was British — more particularly, English — distaste for Luther in the opening years of this century that the American church historian Preserved Smith devoted an article to the subject in 1917, listing Anglo-Catholicism, rationalism, socialism and — since 1914 — visceral hostility to all things German as four factors which had conspired to tarnish the Reformer's image in the minds of the English of that time. Fifteen years later the celebrated Modernist H. D. A. Major was to lament that, ‘Today Martin Luther, the greatest protagonist of the Reformation, is viewed as a vulgar, violent and mistaken man as hostile to humanist culture as he was to social democracy.’ The European conflict of the next decade provided the cue for the most damaging slur of all on the Reformer's memory, so that when in 1945 a third-rate pamphleteer denigrated Luther as ‘Hitler's spiritual ancestor’ his thesis had already been expressed by Archbishop William Temple, who had died the previous year.

Blaise Pascal once pointed out in connection with mathematical demonstration that it is impossible to operate only with explicit propositions or definitions, for whenever we seek to define the meaning of something in precise terms we have to make use of other terms which for this purpose must themselves remain undefined. Michael Polanyi has shown that this applies no less to all acts of knowledge whether in everyday life or in rigorous scientific inquiry, for any formal account of what we know rests upon a base of informal undefined knowledge, from which it cannot be cut off without becoming empty and useless. This means that a complete formalisation of knowledge in explicit terms is impossible. A cognate reason for this is to be discerned in the fact that in objective knowledge the realities we seek to know inevitably break through any frame of concepts and statements which we use to describe them even though they are developed under the constraint of those realities. Concepts and statements of this kind do not have their truth in themselves but in the realities to which they refer. Hence if we are to do justice to the integrity and nature of the objects of our knowledge we must discriminate them from our knowing of them, and let them confer relativity upon our concepts and statements about them. Thus in all authentic knowledge we have to take into account an informal undefined knowledge grounded in the inherent intelligibility of what we know and must constantly find appropriate ways of letting it exercise a regulative force in all our explicit formulations of it.

Salient features of Thomas F. Torrance's theological anthropology are presented in order to recommend that he be read as not only a scientific theologian, but also a theologian of culture. It will be shown that Torrance understands the imago Dei to imply a cluster of relations and dynamics that suggest the human person is essentially a socio-cultural being, created in a particular way in order to fulfil a particular task. An interpretative proposal is then made suggesting that this feature of his anthropological thought may be usefully applied in order to understand more fully the goals and objectives of his theological and scientific work.