This article touches on several themes grouped around the idea of pluralism. First, I give some examples of it and justify them. Second, I assert that it must have some limits, and third, I suggest criteria to determine these limits. Here I am somewhat tentative because I am opening up areas, a line of approach which is fresh, at least in part. For this reason it is wise not to be dogmatic. I hope others will ponder my ideas and where they stand examination classify, deepen and apply them. I believe my own and others' efforts in these directions will be worth while.

In December 1977, Israeli politicians and journalists were allowed once again, after so long, to visit the Egyptian pyramids. It was during this visit that a saying of their Prime Minister Menachem Begin went around: ‘Just think! Your forefathers built these marvellous works!’ What memories does this reminder call forth? Does it express Israel's unyielding self-assurance, which not only runs across the traces of its own history all over the Near Middle East, but also calls them to the attention of others? Should the representatives of Modern Egypt perhaps be told that they stand in a different sort of continuity with the great dynasties on the Nile from the Jews? Or does Begin's reminder also revive the ineradicable knowledge of Israel's helplessness, which in the grey dawn of its history drove its fathers to the granaries of Egypt and made them there dependent upon their providers, until the time came when Yahweh led them ‘out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage’ (Exod. 20:2)?

Christian theists have not normally wished to deny either of the following tenets:

T1: God creates human agents such that they are free with respect to certain actions and, therefore, morally responsible for them.

T2: God is an omniscient, wholly good being who is omnipotent in the sense that he has (sovereign, providential) control over all existent states of affairs.

Why this is so is quite obvious. If T1 is denied, it is difficult to make sense of the standard Christian belief that God can justifiably discipline human agents when they perform actions which violate his commands — i.e., it is difficult to make sense of the basic Christian concepts of sin and punishment. T2 is equally important. If it is denied, it is difficult to make sense of such standard Christian beliefs as (1) God is in control of the significant aspects of our lives, (2) God will bring about his desired goals regardless of the action of human agents, and (3) God is capable of responding in a positive manner to any petitionary prayer that is in keeping with his will.

The word ‘theology’ can be and is used in a number of different ways. It has developed a variety of meanings, such that the use of this same word to allude to different concepts sometimes leads to confusion. In this paper I intend to look at the development of the word ‘theology’ without necessarily resolving the question of what theology is by reference to any one of the past meanings as a determining norm for a new quest. However, in the course of this analysis, certain suggestions will be made that may help to indicate directions for theology in our time.

‘A Gospel is not a biography.’ The remark has often been made but rarely fully explained or defended. As I understand it, two related propositions are at issue, and they both merit examination:

1. ‘A Gospel is not a biography because it is a distinct and different literary form.’

Christianity in Africa is increasing by geometric progression, despite the prognosis of western missionaries based upon the supposed lack of maturity of African Christians, and the gloomy forecasts of some African nationalists, that since Christianity and colonialism came to Africa as Siamese twins, the exodus of the latter will inevitably lead to the demise of the former. African Christianity, in spite of its essentially alien character in many parts of the continent, has shown a remarkable resilience; and perhaps, like her Lord, when African Christianity seems utterly weak and powerless, then we must celebrate with ecstasy the Festival of the Resurrection.

By widespread agreement the Didache is a riddle and an enigma, as to its chronological and geographical setting, its primitive character in matters of church order and theology, or its artificiality as a romantic contrivance or forgery. It is unlikely that the problem will be solved merely by reviewing the arguments yet again. But it may be possible to shed new light by concentrating on the tradition to which the Didache itself suggests that it belongs. An investigation of this tradition may also indicate a relationship between the Didache and St. Matthew's Gospel which is of mutual advantage in exegesis.

The nature of Christian upbringing today needs to be redefined. There can no longer be an easy identification of Christian development with general education. Religious education within the state school systems of modern, pluralist democracies cannot be regarded as intending to nurture Christian faith. But how can Christian nurture be distinguished from good education on the one hand and indoctrination on the other?

‘It would be quite wrong to take the individual human being as in any way providing a satisfactory analogue’ (sc. of God the Holy Trinity) — J. Macquarrie. To anyone in the Augustinian tradition this is a hard saying. The search for the analogy of God in the human soul (what it is proposed to call ‘the psychological analogy’) dominated the theology of Augustine of Hippo. Though he failed to find a developed analogy which fully satisfied either himself or his successors, he never abandoned the quest, attributing his comparative failure to the limitations of the human mind.

In the Christian literature about spirit one of the decisive questions that influences the interpretation of spirit at many points is whether all spirit is conceived to be divine or whether there are basically two kinds of spirit, human and divine. In Buber's understanding the spirit of love exists in the sphere ‘between’ and is participated in by humans rather than being produced by human will alone. Buber would thus come into the class of persons advocating that there is basically One Spirit.1 Human spirit is seen to be in some way a response to or a sharing in the reality of the One Spirit. Paul Tillich, one of the greatest Christian students of Spirit, is somewhat unclear as to whether there are basically one or two kinds of spirit. On the one hand, he consistently uses two terms, ‘human spirit’ and ‘Spiritual Presence’, by which he means divine Spirit.2 The use of these two terms would seem to indicate two kinds of spirit. Tillich describes at length these two kinds of spirit and speaks of their relationship as that of ‘mutual immanence’.3 On the other hand, in his view of reality in the broadest perspective all spirit is an ontological reality that has its source in the trinitarian life of God.4 This suggests that there is only one Spirit after all.

In 1950 a fine article appeared in SJT concerning hope in the NT. In it Allan Barr drew attention to several key aspects of hope, one of which was headed ‘The Patience of Hope’. I should like to develop this theme which was touched upon only briefly. As Barr indicated, the two terms are associated at times in the NT. In fact, in the Pauline epistles they occur in the same verse on six occasions, while in one further case they appear in consecutive verses (Rom. 5:4; 8:25; 12:12; 15:4; 1 Cor. 13:7; 1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:6,7). These form the basis of this investigation. Nowhere else in the NT are they associated so closely.

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of Scripture in Augustine's theology with a view to bringing a renewed perspective to the question of scriptural authority in Augustine and possibly for us today. Although not to be viewed as an original contribution to patristic scholarship, this review is also given as a possible aid to those who are meeting Augustine's view of Scripture for the first time or who are desirous of renewing a forgotten acquaintance.

The first assembly of the World Council of Churches recognised that the aspect of the Roman Catholic-Protestant division which constituted ‘our deepest difference’ was the question of justification. The appearance in 1957 of a work by a then unknown Roman Catholic scholar, claiming that ‘it is undeniable that there is a fundamental agreement between Karl Barth's position and that of the Catholic Church seen in its totality' was therefore the occasion as much for surprise as for pleasure. ‘How one would like to believe it!’ remarked Barth. Küng's study marks a major step toward ecumenical discussion on the issue of justification; however, that discussion must be continued. The present study is a small contribution toward that discussion.

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.

Does ἐγώ in Rom. 7:14–25 refer to the Christian? This question, pivotal for understanding Paul's view of both man and the nature of the Christian life, has been debated throughout the history of the Christian Church. The Greek fathers generally answered ‘no’. Augustine, in his struggle against Pelagius, however, answered ‘yes’. The mediaeval Church, Luther, Calvin, and Calvinistic theology agreed. A swing of the pendulum back to the ‘pre-Christian’ view began with Pietism, and, at least on the continent, was made virtually complete with the publication of Werner Georg Kümmel's Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus in 1929. Thus in 1964 the Dutch scholar W. K. Grossouw could say ‘ … among modern exegetes an occasional one still takes up an exceptional position and understands Rom. 7:(14)–25 of the Christian existence …’ A notable more recent continental exception, though, has been the Swedish scholar Anders Nygren. A considerable number of British scholars, too, hold to the ‘Christian’ position. Notable examples would include C. E. B. Cranfield, John Murray, F. F. Bruce, C. K. Barrett, J. I. Packer, and J. D. G. Dunn.

One of the most significant words of the Bible is the word ‘covenant’. We read about God making a covenant with Abraham, renewing that covenant at Sinai, about David making a covenant with Jonathan, and again with the elders at Hebron when he became king. Jeremiah speaks of a day when God will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and in the New Testament, Jesus is presented to us as the Mediator of the New Covenant: ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.’

In the first chapter of the book of Ruth there is an interesting exchange between Naomi and her daughters-in-law. Having successfully persuaded Orpah to return to ‘her mother's house’, Naomi turns to Ruth with the words, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ But Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.’1

The Christian community or as it is more commonly termed ‘the Church’ is usually thought of as coming into existence after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The purpose of this essay is to argue that, at least for Luke, the Church comes into existence during the ministry of Jesus. In Luke's presentation of the disciples and in his discussion on discipleship it is his intent to set before his readers a model Christian community. The disciples in the third Gospel are not meant to prefigure the Church nor to represent the Church in embryo: they are the Church, albeit in idealised form. This conclusion is based on a study of the way Luke uses and adapts traditions about the disciples in his Gospel. But before we turn to this evidence three possible objections to our thesis must be considered.

Since 1961 Hans Urs von Balthasar has been publishing a multi-volume study with the somewhat unusual title Herrlichkeit: Eine theologische Ästhetik. Although thus far only a brief section of volume one has been translated into English, a French translation has been appearing shortly after the publication of each German volume, titled La gloire el la croix: Les aspects esthétiques de la révélation. In the second volume of Herrlichkeit, which is devoted to the manner in which a theological esthetic has been achieved in the life and thought of certain distinctive Christians, Balthasar devotes a long chapter to St. Anselm. Although Balthasar has referred to Anselm often elsewhere in his many writings, this chapter contains his most sustained analysis of Anselm. It will lie at the center of my consideration of Anselm's doctrine of the atonement in the present paper. Where appropriate, I will also consider what Balthasar has said elsewhere about Anselm, particularly to show the influence of Anselm's theory on Balthasar's own thought. My goals are twofold, to summarise Balthasar's understanding of Anselm, and to show how Balthasar uses Anselm's thought in his own trinitarian speculation on the atonement.

In a much publicised address to the 1979 National Conference of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), Dr Allan Boesak, a theologian of the black Dutch Reformed Mission Church, challenged the Church in South Africa to engage in acts of civil disobedience against apartheid laws:

The church must initiate and support meaningful pressure on the system as a non-violent way of bringing about change. The church must initiate and support programs of civil disobedience on a massive scale, and challenge especially white Christians on this issue. It no longer suffices to make statements condemning unjust laws as if nothing has happened. The time has come for the black church to tell the Government and its people: We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. So we will teach our people what it means to obey God rather than man in South Africa.