The aim of this article is to provide an historical description of an important piece of Victorian theology, and subsequently to suggest a new context, or rather a new content for a familiar theme. Firstly, it will consider in what sense Newman may be called a ‘natural theologian’; secondly, it will give an account of the notion of the illative sense within the developing pattern of Newman's thought; finally, it will suggest that, by a unilateral concentration on moral experience — the ‘voice of conscience’ — Newman failed to do justice to the full significance of his own argumentation. The point of the illative sense is not that it helps us to identify any one experiential content, or area of reflection, which might lead us to theistic belief, but that it provides an overall context in which a variety of experiential strata and argumentative strategies may be displayed. Newman was, perhaps, too dominated by an autobiographical sense in the realm of fundamental belief in God to identify and correct the individualism which in dogmatic theology proper he would have avoided. Our theistic materials do not lie simply within our own breasts, but in an inter-rogation, Gadamer-like, of the entire theistic tradition as that is mediated to us by the classic texts of our predecessors.

In my work as a theologian educating future pastors and teachers, I am concerned that too many of my students make no greater claim of Christ than that he was a ‘spirit person’, and construe his work as some variation on personal spiritual mentoring. Such reductionistic tendencies in understanding the person and work of Christ clearly owe more to certain iconoclastic voices in academia and current cultural sensibilities than they do classic Christian understandings of God and redemption. Whatever their source, such minimalist views can only weaken the Church's ministry. Fortunately, two other trends may supply helpful resources for a response. First, interest in the doctrine of the Trinity has re-emerged, across the theological spectrum. Similarly, new discussions have emerged around the doctrine of the atonement, such as the explicit feminist critiques of vicarious substitution theories or the promotion of prophetic/political models typical of members of the Jesus Seminar or responses to these and other issues. I propose to address this Christological reductionism by combining these two trends, adopting aspects of some new approaches while critiquing others. In so doing, I am motivated less by the desire to produce theological innovation than to demonstrate the theological integrity and pastoral value of several classic Christian traditions. Specifically, I will offer a constructive theological proposal connecting the Trinity with the rubrics of prophet, priest and king to explain Christ's diverse atoning work.

The Reformed churches have frequently regarded the Reformation in ways that are contradictory but without seeing the contradictions. On the one hand the Reformation is assumed to be the common and binding heritage of Fundamentalists, the various Presbyterian churches throughout the world, the Southern Baptists, the Taizé Community, even the avant garde of the Second Vatican Council and BonhoefFer's ‘Protestants without a Reformation’. ‘Justification by faith’, ‘the priesthood of all believers’, ‘the Bible alone’ and often ‘no Bishops’ are catchwords, said to be common to all, and somehow entailing each other.

This is a very serious subject. Perhaps we are afraid to speak about it because of the controversies that once raged between pietism and the orthodoxy of Protestant scholasticism, controversies that have not yet been settled. Let us not forget, however, that even scholasticism spoke of conversion. There is a hymn by Paul Gerhard which runs:

The need for conversion is never forgotten. The only difference between orthodoxy and pietism in this respect concerns the manner in which this need can be met. The claim that is made upon us radically alters our whole life: conversion means a complete reversal. We know from personal experience as well as from the experience of others the feeling of apprehension when someone tries to ‘convert’ us. We may want to avoid a certain house or a particular group of people because we feel: ‘They want to convert me.’ Perhaps that feeling is caused by misunderstanding, for turning to God is joy—that is a fact that is often overlooked when we speak of conversion. But the challenge remains: Be converted.

From the time of its publication, Barth's commentary on Romans has been regarded by many as the very paradigm of theological dualism. ‘If I have a system,’ the author announces, ‘it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called the “infinite qualitative difference between time and eternity” … ’1 That distinction is succeeded by a series of others – revelation versus reason, the Gospel of God versus the ways of humankind, faith versus religion, etc. – which have the effect of ruling out of court every conceivable form of human initiative. One is left to wonder whether Barth's God serves any other function than that of a cypher for the repudiation of all that is finite or mortal.

Early in 1632 we find Samuel Rutherford writing in these words to his friend Lady Kenmure:

It is the crooked love of some harlots, that they love bracelets earrings and rings better than the lover that sendeth them; God will not be so loved; for that were to behave as harlots and not as the chaste spouse, to abate from our love when these things are pulled away. Our love to Him should begin on earth as it shall be in heaven; for the bride taketh not by a thousand degrees so much delight in her wedding garment, as she doth in her bridegroom; so we in the life to come, howbeit clothed with glory as with a robe, shall not be so much affected with the glory that goeth about us, as with the bridegroom's joyful face and presence.

Unless it is to resemble a voice without a speaker, Christology must pre-suppose a backing in Theism; and any talk of Revelation must assume some conviction, to be more or less rationally defended, of the existence of the God who speaks. Such a Theism, admittedly, can by no means be erected from the bricks of the discursive reason alone; for reason is often, if not always, simply the finding of reasons for what one cannot help but believe by a sort of insight, intuition–or even inspiration. Yet reason, together with the language in which it is bound up, is the common factor which we all share with each other; so that if Theism is to be given a hearing, it must be able publicly to commend itself by the displaying of some reasons, even if (as is the case) those reasons fall short of proof. Such at any rate is my excuse for what follows.

Romans 8.26f. has no parallel in the NT. A. J. M. Wedderburn writes,

Today it is still puzzling, troublesome, divisive; for some it is the essence of the Christian faith, to others it is incomprehensible and repellent.

This statement sums up adequately the position of most NT scholars on Rom. 8.26f. Its strangeness derives from three basic ideas. First, this is the only passage in which it is asserted that the Christian does not know how to pray as he ought. This is an exception to what is otherwise said of prayer in the NT. Second, this is the only passage in biblical writings where the Holy Spirit is described explicitly as an intercessor. Third, the passage appears disjointed from its context. The guiding thought in vv. 18–25 is suffering but in v. 26, Paul talks about prayer. Can these themes be related in a single unit?

The root ts-d-q found in the Old Testament has always presented its interpreters with a challenge. It is the root from which modern versions usually offer us the word ‘righteous’. Actually two problems arise over it, for from this root we have both a verb and a noun. So we must discover in the case of the noun, what the feminine form tsedaqah actually means and how it differs from its masculine counterpart, tsedeq, if at all; and, in the case of the verb, what tsedeq means in the Qal as well as in the Hiphil, as hitsdiq.

I. The origins of Deuteronomy: what are the clues?

II. Theological interpretation of an OT book: a response to Gordon McConville's Deuteronomy

III. A response from Gordon McConville

Stanley Hauerwas likes to be regarded as a theologian. He writes about ethics, and ethics is commonly thought to be about decisions. But he believes that the fundamental decision is God's decision to be in relationship with his creation and his people. He believes that out of the Christian narrative come particular habits and practices that shape the lives of Christians in a distinctive way. He believes that Christians proclaim the sovereignty of God and the imitation of Christ by the practice of peaceable engagement with the world. These convictions earn his ethics the epithets of theological, narrative, and nonviolent.

John Milbank is one of the most recent and arguably most radical proponents of an understanding of nature as graced. This article critically examines Milbank's understanding of nature and grace, specifically as elaborated within his reading of Thomas Aquinas. In the first part I will outline Aquinas's most direct discussions of nature and grace in the Summa Theologica, drawing attention to several central, albeit subtle, distinctions that these contain. In the second and third parts, I will examine Milbank's reading of Aquinas in Truth in Aquinas, and examine whether it adequately reflects and negotiates Aquinas's distinctions. On this basis I will argue Milbank's reading, while drawing attention to some important and often neglected areas of Aquinas's thought, ultimately remains limited.

Early in March 1617, King James followed what he himself described as a ‘salmon-like instinct’ and made his first (and last) return visit to his native Scotland since his departure fourteen years previously on the death of Queen Elizabeth. The occasion was the fiftieth anniversary of his coronation, at the age of fifteen months, as James VI of the northern kingdom. Among the events in Edinburgh to celebrate the visit was the Whitsun eucharist in the Chapel Royal at Holyrood Palace. The sermon was delivered by the King's favourite preacher, Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Ely.

St Paul and the tradition which follows in his wake have often fallen victim to the circumstances and ideologies of their interpreters: used as ambassadors for patriarchy by some and rejected as misogynistic by others. This article reviews some of the contentious passages in 1 and 2 Timothy and concludes that they both challenge the mores of their environment and resonate with other (deutero-)Pauline teachings. To ensure that such claims do not fall prey to circularity in their arguments, a methodology is developed and applied in which claims of resonance are not predicated on the content of other writings.

The late John Webster advocated both for a theological theology and a robust recovery of God's intrinsic perfection. This article examines how both occupations are related in Webster's thought by setting forth six statements summarising his doctrine of God and his theological approach to it. According to Webster, the doctrine of God is theological to the extent it upholds the principle of solus Deus in theology's formal and material consideration of God's perfection. Only thus does theology articulate the crucial distinction between and yet correspondence of God's antecedent perfection and God's intimate presence with us.