The purpose of this article is to examine the place of reason in Athanasius' theology. We begin by looking at the Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, a single work in two parts, since this is in some ways the most systematic of Athanasius' writings. Having taken our bearings in these early works we shall try and give some indication of how the notion of submission to the Logos is developed in his later writings (mainly the orations against the Arians and the Serapion correspondence). The notion of submission to the Logos we find to be a key in understanding the place of reason in Athanasius' thought.

We live in a day and age when Creeds and Confessions are ‘under fire’ from different quarters. The reasons for this are varied, but undoubtedly one of the main exceptions which is taken to them is that their content cannot be justified in the light of modern biblical scholarship.

The Confession of 1967 in the United Presbyterian Church marks the official end of the four-century Presbyterian venture into covenant theology. Now past that milestone, perhaps we have reached a vantage point where we can turn dispassionately to survey that curious but historic route. Seen from its concept of responsible man, we here argue, that route has been a prolonged detour away from the insights of the Reformers.

The religious traditions in which the members of this Fellow-J. ship stand are at one in asserting that salvation is both needful and available. They are moreover at one in asserting that the prescribing and the provision of salvation take place within history, and that those who apprehend and appropriate it are historical beings.

Within Christianity down through the centuries there has always been a strain of teaching which holds that salvation, so far as it may be known in this life, is experienced in two stages: first the event of becoming a Christian; then, as a later and distinct event, some special and distinctive operation or gift of the Holy Spirit. In the history of Christian thought this disjointedness was first clearly formulated in the Catholic sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. According to A. J. Macdonald, the idea that Confirmation confers the gift of the Spirit was held without question until the time of Wyclif. And today in anglo-catholic tradition, although the episcopal laying on of hands is commonly thought of as bestowing a strengthening gift of the Spirit, some continue to speak as though the Spirit is first received at that time. Indeed, since the question was reopened by F. W. Puller in 1880, it has been regularly argued, often with great weight, though not infrequently with greater ingenuity, that far greater significance (in terms of the Spirit) should be attributed to Confirmation than to Baptism.

The contentions of this essay are three. Our first thesis is that both contemporary philosophical and theological thought stand at an impasse. In philosophy the empiricists emphasise the significance of factual meaning to the exclusion of valuational meaning, while the existentialists stress the importance of valuational meaning to the exclusion of the factual. In theology the conservatives and liberals are united in stressing the historical (Historie) significance of Jesus so as almost to ignore his existential (Geschichte) significance, while the Bultmannians focus on the existential significance of Jesus and minimise the need for factual knowledge.

The question whether or not Fletcher's situationism is truly a Christian ethics has been raised before. Fletcher himself tells us so at the beginning of his book Situation Ethics. According to him the accusation is that he fails to treat situation ethics within a theological framework. Fletcher's answer is that he does so on purpose, since the challenge of situationism does not ultimately depend upon one's theological or non-theological commitments.

At the present time the Church is frequently exhorted to give an ethical lead. Yet what would be the nature of such direction—the dissemination of practical wisdom from the Scriptures, the provision of a blue-print for the realisation of the Kingdom of God on earth, or just emotional encouragement to moral effort? Theological colleges offer courses on ‘Christian Ethics’, and for certain degrees there are papers bearing this title, yet what exactly is the nature of the discipline? Is it any more than the retailing of the moral judgments of distinguished Christians in the past, and information concerning certain important areas of life in regard to which Christians ought to come to some sort of practical decision? Is Christian Ethics a discipline at all, or just an unmapped, and possibly an unmappable, field between dogmatics and practical theology?

The creative tension which exists between the preacher's longing to proclaim an authentic Word from God and the need to acknowledge his own human involvement is reflected characteristically in the young Karl Barth. Writing from the pastorate during the early days of his theological struggles, he confessed that on Sunday mornings the preacher

Bonhoeffer's Ethics demonstrates the depth of his christolJcentric theology. Every theme has at its very heart the action of God in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His work of substitutionary atonement and reconciliation becomes the basis for man's ethical responsibility. From this basic observation, we can see that Bonhoeffer will have nothing to do with a theology or ethics in which man is seeking the answer to the nature of his own being or the foundation of his own action within himself. ‘It is necessary to free oneself from the way of thinking which sets out from human problems and which asks for solutions on this basis. Such thinking is unbiblical. The way of Jesus Christ, and therefore the way of all Christian thinking leads not from the world to God but from God to the world’ (E 356).1 It is the seriousness with which he takes revelation and the inversion of the priorities of ‘liberal’ and ‘existential’ theology which is rigorously applied throughout his Ethics. Even in his Christology the question of ‘who’ Christ is is given priority over ‘what’ Christ did, though the person and work can never be separated.

With what shall I appear before the Lord and bow before the sovereign God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings and year-old calves? Will the Lord want a thousand sheep or ten thousand cattle from the rich valleys? Shall I give my first-born son in payment? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? O Man, He has told you what is good; and what else does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly withyour God

In his posthumously published work, The Responsible Self, H. Niebuhr raises certain objections against the ethics of Karl Barth. Without holding any particular brief for Barth's formulations, I wish to examine those objections with some care, for I believe that one of the crucial points in Barth's thought that is criticised, the relation between Gospel and Law (and the understanding of Law that emerges from it), actually displays a striking congeniality to Niebuhr's own development of the concept of responsibility. The clue to this congeniality lies in seeing that Barth's understanding of the relation of Gospel and Law to man's moral life necessitates the formulation of an act-rather than a rule-deontology. When this important distinction is observed and applied to Barth's position, it results in precisely the same emphasis on response that Niebuhr sets forth in his later ethical thought.

From an ecumenical point of view the theological examination of marriage and its indissolubility is one of the most urgent tasks to be undertaken by the Churches of the Reformation. It has been repeatedly stated by them that as long as the Roman Church makes the validity of so-called mixed marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics depend on the observance of the ‘canonical form’ and refuses to grant freedom to the partners of a mixed marriage in the education of their children the ecumenism of Rome—to say the least of it—will remain suspect. The Instructio Matrimonii Sacramentum of 1966 which for all practical purposes reiterates the legislation laid down by the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1918 shows that in spite of Vatican II the official attitude of the Holy See has remained intransigent. Nevertheless although the Roman Church has arbitrarily erected canonical barriers which interfere with or even (from a Roman Catholic point of view) invalidate the most intimate human relationship, we have no intention of doubting the ecumenical honesty and sincerity of Roman Catholics. It should be remembered that the Instructio is as unsatisfactory to many leading Roman Catholics as it is to the Churches of the Reformation. This can be deduced from the fact that at the First International Synod of Bishops (1967) 31 per cent of its members voted in favour of the removal of the present impediment of mixta religio including the promise to educate the children of a mixed marriage in the Roman Catholic faith.

The criticism that the Uppsala Assembly of the World Council of Churches did not give sufficient attention to theology is justified. But this fact should be set within the perspective of the deep crisis which the theological world as a whole faces today, and which constitutes the contemporary theological situation. What are some of the factors which have contributed to this situation? One may mention three of them.

For many, that might well be the motto of Scottish Religious Education. It is what older people remember of it—Bible stories and the learning of the Scottish psalms. For a great many children, it is still its basis—except that by the time they reach Primary 7 they most certainly have heard it before and have no desire to hear it again. Scottish Religious Education, like much outside Scotland, has been Bible-centred.

The late Professor T. W. Manson once observed that the only sensible examination question on the early Christian centuries would run: ‘Give the heresies in order of merit, with reasons for your preferences.’ Just where the Colossian heresy, which is the theme of this paper, would stand in such an order of merit I should not like to say: though I imagine it might have the vote and preference of not a few, as being akin to certain well-marked trends in theological thought at the present time.

St. Cyprian presided over the church of Carthage in one of the most decisive moments of her history. Persecution by the Roman imperial authorities, mass apostasy, formal schism, and the conflict of authority between bishop and confessors on the one hand, and bishop and clergy on the other, threatened the very existence of his community. He was a passionate believer in the unity of the Church and in the midst of disunity, declared that it was axiomatic, biblically and divinely guaranteed that the Church is visibly indivisible. Moreover, Cyprian has been described as the ‘Father of Western Christianity’, since his teaching belongs to so early a period in the life of the Church, that it has consciously and unconsciously influenced the theological presupposition of Western Christianity.

This study has two aims. The first is to clarify and to assess some major conclusions reached by Ernst Fuchs in his work on the parables of Jesus. The second is to shed some fresh light on the parables themselves, with special reference to their linguistic forms and functions. The method of enquiry is partly determined by two particular issues, and some initial comments may serve to bring these into focus.

Much recent discussion of Luke and his theology has revolved around his interpretation of the eschatological outlook of early Christianity. That he has at this point entered upon a certain amount of redefinition seems clear from his handling of St. Mark's gospel. What is less clear, however, is that his interpretation represents the turning away from eschatology that is sometimes attributed to him and that, because of this, he merits the accusation of having compromised the outlook of the early proclamation. Wilckens defends Luke against such accusations on the grounds that they rest upon a one-sided conception of Paul's theology. It may also be suggested that they can be substantiated only by a failure to appreciate Luke's own outlook and by a determination to force him into the mould of ‘redemptive historya’.

The Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God, 1645, acknowledged by Presbyterian Churches throughout the English-speaking world, emerged at a time of political controversy, when an attempt was made to achieve liturgical uniformity in England and Scotland, and therefore must be understood not only in terms of the theology which it embodies, but also in terms of the social and political revolution of which it was a kind of liturgical manifesto. The immediate context was that of a national struggle for freedom, a revolt from all forms of ‘catholic’ authoritarianism (Charles I, Archbishop Laud, divine right of kings, the papacy, Erastianism, etc.) and a rising suspicion of anything that savoured of imposed form and ritual.