In both Theo-Drama IV and Mysterium Paschale, Balthasar suggests that the descensus existentially separates the divine hypostases of Father and Son. He also repeatedly argues that his position is faithful to the Great Tradition. While there has been much debate about Balthasar's view of the descensus, this debate has focused mostly on the issues of universalism and penal substitution, leaving the issue of trinitarian relations either to the side or without an analysis of its historical precedent. This article attempts to address this lacuna by asking whether Balthasar's view of the descensus is in fact supported by the Great Tradition, with a specific focus on second-century texts. After surveying the apostolic fathers, second-century Jewish and Christian traditions (e.g. the New Testament apocrypha), second-century apologists and Melito's Peri Pascha, the article concludes that Balthasar's position does not find historical support in the second century. His view may be in line with the Great Tradition elsewhere, but it is not grounded in this seminal century of Christian doctrinal reflection.

Contemporary analyses of Anselm's objective description of Christ's atonement have often resulted in a trend of interpretation that tends to ignore the relevance of this model to a development and understanding of a western doctrine of Christian sanctification. Through the examination of some overlooked insights offered in Cur Deus homo and their integration with other spiritual writings in Anselm's corpus, the present article attempts to redirect current scholarship towards a more holistic engagement with Anselm's doctrine of atonement, out of which an original doctrine of Christian perfection can be outlined.

Glossolalia is a phenomenon that has perplexed biblical scholars for generations. This paper challenges the majority view that glossolalia in the New Testament refers to ecstatic utterances and argues that the only independent New Testament testimony of the phenomenon is found in 1 Corinthians.

Jonathan Edwards had some strange ideas. He was an idealist like Berkeley. He denied that the world persists through time, claiming that it is continuously created out of nothing by God moment-by-moment. He also denied creaturely causal action in his doctrine of occasionalism. Moreover, he thought that the world is the necessary output of the essential creativity of the deity, embracing the idea that this is the best possible world. Often these views are not reported in popular accounts of his work, though they are widely known in the scholarly community. But is his position theologically orthodox? This article argues that he is faced with an Edwardsian Dilemma: Either he must admit that his theology proper implies that God is not metaphysically simple, or he must embrace pantheism. Neither horn seems particularly attractive. Of the two, the second seems less appealing than the first. Nevertheless, it looks as if the logic of his position presses in this direction. His idealism and Neoplatonic conception of God's necessary emanation of the world imply panentheism. When coupled with his doctrine of divine simplicity, it looks as if his position could be pressed in a pantheist direction. However, if he opts for the first horn, he must deny the doctrine of divine simplicity, which he endorses in a range of works. If God is simple, then it looks as if all his ideas imply one another and the divine essence. Yet the world is an emanation of divine ideas, which Edwards believes God constantly ‘communicates’. Suppose with Edwards that the world is an ordered series of divine ideas. Then it looks as if they must imply each other and the divine nature as well, given divine simplicity. Clearly this is intolerable, as far as orthodoxy goes. One option is for the Edwardsian to revise divine simplicity, so that God is merely a metaphysical simple like a soul. Then he may have distinct states and properties. However, in addition to this revision one would need to amend Edwards’ occasionalism because it provides an apparently insuperable problem of evil for his metaphysics. Thus, revising the first horn involves more than a little tinkering with the deep structures of Edwards’ thought. However, I argue that this is what the Edwardsian must do if she wants to hold onto a broadly orthodox Edwardsian view on these matters.

The problem before us has about it features that are fashionable, if not familiar. When we sing,

Saviour, take the power and glory:

Claim the kingdom for thine own,

precisely what do we expect to happen? Dr Robinson, the present Bishop of Woolwich, insists that we must not only suspect the dominical origin of this part of New Testament eschatology (Jesus and His Coming, 1957, chapters 2 and 3), but also re-focus the total concept of ‘coming’ itself. In his broadcast addresses, Christ Comes In (1960), Dr Robinson has drawn our attention away from a consideration of the Advent message as related to ‘a single moment at the end of time’ (p. 25), towards a theology in which every moment is surrounded ‘with all the seriousness of the Last Day’ (p. 26).

The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians loses some of its force through our familiarity with it. It is one of the bestknown passages of the Bible, and many a man who has little interest in the Church, and less patience with Pauline theology, will accept it as a literary classic and warmly express his admiration of it. No one who is responsive to elevated thought or sensitive to beauty of language will deny it its right to a place in an anthology of literary excellence, whether it be regarded as eloquent prose or as lyrical poetry, whether it be read in the original Greek or in the mellifluous music of our English version. But the custom of abstracting it from its setting and treating it as a poem or hymn, self-complete and selfilluminating, brings great disadvantages.

It seems worth considering whether in the Emmaus story we have the missing account of Jesus' special Appearance to Simon Peter, which Mark foreshadows before his Gospel breaks off and which Paul recalled in the earliest list of Resurrection Appearances of all (‘He was seen of Cephas’).

Word and sacrament belong together in the Christian life. It has been one of the achievements of the renewal of Christendom in the present century to overcome the deepseated sense of opposition between them. This opposition can be traced to the polarisation of theological emphases in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The divine activity in performance of the sacraments was stressed to such a degree that they appeared to be almost magical acts, encouraging a superstitious approach on the part of the people. The Protestant reaction placed all the emphasis on the word of God, appealing to the heart and the mind. There could be no operation of the grace of God in the soul except through the opening of the heart to God, through personal assent to his word and through the commitment of faith. Now it is recognised that sacramental acts have a social function in the organic life of the church, that they preach to the people through symbols and actions, so that they require (and also evoke) the proper dispositions for receiving the grace of God, and that the inclusion of scripture readings and a homily in the course of sacramental services produces a fruitful interaction between them. This recovery of the balance between word and sacrament has proved beneficial for the life of the church. It has also marked a return to the perspective of the New Testament.

The revival treatises represent one of the most fruitful and provocative portions of the Jonathan Edwards corpus. The purpose of the treatises, considered as a whole, was (1) to provide a cogent account of the revivals which cropped up in New England in 1734–35 and agin in 1740–1743; (2) to defend the revivals to those, like Charles Chauncy, who objected to their emotional excesses or were skeptical of their validity; and (3) to encourage to moderation and humility those who were taking part in the revivals. In the course of accomplishing these objectives Edwards presents a morphology of the conversion experience, provides a basic description of his anthropology/psychology and gives an indication of the pneumatological side of his doctrine of God. We will consider each of these streams of thought briefly in terms of how they relate to Edwards' soteriology.

In The Pillar and Ground of the Truth Pavel Florensky presents an account of hell, or ‘Gehenna’, that synthesises two seemingly irreconcilable claims: that God will save all people, and that some people will reject God forever. In insisting that both claims are true, and by recasting standard categories of final judgement, purgation and human identity, Florensky produces a novel contribution in contemporary debates about hell and universalism. I begin by surveying his account, then address two key interpretive questions raised by his critics, and conclude by situating his account within modern western conversations.

Within the recently published volumes, Knowing Creation and Christ and the Created Order, several authors argue that the theological category of creation can help contemporary society overcome the modern, and ecologically harmful, bifurcation between nature and culture. This paper supplements this important argument by showing how theological panpsychism, an ontology inspired by current debates within analytic philosophy of mind, can help theologians articulate a metaphysically robust and trinitarian doctrine of creation.

This article argues that, unlike some exegetes (e.g. Francis Moloney), Thomas Torrance correctly interpreted Mark 16:19–20 in support of a theology of the ascended Christ's continuing prophetic activity. In the ministry of the Word, Christ remains present and at work witnessing to himself. This prophetic office, associated with and not to be separated from his kingly and priestly functions, is not to be played down. He is the primary agent forever actively involved in Christian proclamation.

I thank the editor for the opportunity to respond to two forceful conservative critics of my position. As everyone knows, this is a controversy that threatens to split churches and divide society. Yet there is also hope for a way forward.

Adolf von Harnack, perhaps the most influential theologian of the twentieth century, helped the Kaiser to draft his Call to the German People of 6 August 1914, and almost certainly knew that the Kaiser, the Chancellor, and the German army planned to precipitate war that month. Despite that knowledge, Harnack always maintained that Russia and France launched the war. He drew a sharp distinction between private morality and state morality, and asserted that law played no part in either. One and the same spirit rules in history and in us. The dangers of love without law.

Abstract

The essay explores the relationship between Christian faith, ethical thought and political action. It examines two views of the matter. First, the autonomy thesis, advanced by writers such as Edward Norman in his Reith Lectures and elsewhere, which claims that Christianity in general is independent of political concerns, and that Church leaders in particular have no business engaging in political debate, or using their teaching authority to commend or condemn the actions of governments. Second, the commitment thesis, here derived from writings of Kenneth Leech, which maintains that fidelity to the biblical revelation involves an explicit commitment to Christian humanism, and thereby to practical opposition to capitalism and support for radical socialism.