We were on our honeymoon. Theological questions were not high on our agenda as we toured Ireland. We drove innocently into Sneem, a village on the ring of Kerry, identified as the ‘tidy town of Ireland’ in 1988. It was certainly that. The houses that surrounded the central square were as immaculate as they were colorful.

In 1971 John Rawls remarked that ‘During much of modern moral philosophy the predominant systematic theory has been some form of utilitarianism.’ Although utilitarianism is no longer the dominant school of moral philosophy, it continues to flourish, generating new defenses and reformulations. Yet with the notable exception of Joseph Fletcher, there have been very few Christian ethicistswho have been prepared to declare themselves to be utilitarians or consequentialists.

When people meet each other for the first time, they often ask questions about each other's profession. In my case, it requires some courage to reply frankly to such questions. Those who are not put off by my admission that I am a philosopher of religion and ask me for my special field of interest, almost invariably betray horror at my answer that I concentrate on the suffering of God. Divine passibility may be theologically en vogue, it is simply not done to be concerned with such a topic day in, day out for several years. It is not only that for many people some kind of taboo seems to be imposed upon abstract thinking; people's aversion is too strong to be based on this alone. The heart of the matter seems to be that to many people prolonged reflection upon the suffering of God seems to be positively morbid; they would not trust their children with a man engaged in it! It is not my intention entirely to remove these misgivings here, but I do hope that my reflections at least will not reinforce them. I will focus on three issues: (1) the alleged importance of divine passibility for the project of theodicy; (2) the importance of divine passibility for our coping with suffering and (3) the relevance of the assertion of divine passibility in the light of the general sense of purposelessness that is characteristic for Western society in our time. This means that I will approach divine passibility from the backgrounds that motivate my interest in it, thus hoping to be able to convey something of the inspiration that prompted me to carry on with this seemingly morbid topic during the past few years.

‘Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Saviour’ is a verse which has long held a fascination for theologians. Aquinas, Luther, Brunner, and Barth all speak of a deus absconditus. They all, especially Barth, stress that the main characteristic of God is that he reveals himself. His hiddenness is, therefore, only a means to that end. Faith is necessary before anyone can gain knowledge of God. So Ulrich Simon in his commentary on Second Isaiah, a commentary with a markedly Barthian flavour, takes Isaiah 45:15 as the voice of the nations as they experience what he calls ‘Messianic action’. He writes:

The call of Samuel in the temple at Shiloh (1 Sam. 3) is probably one of the better known stories of the Old Testament. There is an obvious imaginative appeal about the mysterious voice of God coming to a child who is unable to understand what is happening and yet who becomes able to hear the word of God for himself. But although the story has received frequent commentary in recent Old Testament scholarship, and has even had a monograph devoted to it by R. Gnuse, the most memorable part of the story, God's repeated calling to Samuel and Samuel's running to Eli, has received relatively little attention. This paper will try to remedy that omission.

From time to time controversy breaks out within Kierkegaardian scholarship as to the nature of Kierkegaard's concept of God. This controversy is invariably centred on Kierkegaard's claim that there exists ‘an infinite qualitative difference’ between God and humankind. The utter transcendence of God that this phrase expresses and the fact that Kierkegaard employs categories drawn from Greek philosophy to express the nature of God's transcendence have led such scholars as E. L. Allen, Richard Kroner, and Malcolm L. Diamond, to contend that Kierkegaard's understanding of God is not motivated by Christian principles but is merely a Christianization of an Aristotelian concept of God, a contention which would seem to be supported by Kierkegaard's frequent descriptions of God in terms of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover. On the other hand, such scholars as T. H. Croxall, Paul Sponheim, Niels Thulstrup, and Mark Taylor have rejected this argument and claim that Kierkegaard's concept of God is motivated by Christian principles. Unfortunately, none of these latter scholars has put forward a comprehensive defence of this position. In this article it is my intention to rectify this omission and to show that, far from being Aristotelian, Kierkegaard's concept of God is firmly based upon Christian principles.

Women who pray with Paul, ‘I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal 2:20), as surely as we men are ‘imagines Christi’, in the analogous way in which we usually understand this. ‘For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29; cf. 1 Cor 15:49). But how can we affirm this without denying the theological relevance of Jesus' sex and gender identity? Saying that sex and gender is purely contingent and accidental (in the technical, ‘scholastic’ sense) seems, while true, somehow inadequate.

The Christian practice of meeting for worship and receiving token pieces of bread and token sips of wine seems unlikely to have had Jewish precedents. You don't eat in a synagogue; you eat at home. To be sure, specific acts of eating bread and drinking wine are given religious significance in the setting of the Passover meal, but that is not quite the same, although perhaps we might suppose the Christian practice to have evolved from the Jewish meal.

If one may combine hypothesis and anachronism, I reckon that John Calvin would be highly uncomfortable in the pluralist society of the West at the end of the second Christian millennium. Even if we do not find him enunciating in so many words Zwingli's bold axiom that ‘a Christian city is none other than a Christian church’, nevertheless the central thrust of the reform in Geneva is clear – that the whole city be united in the honour and service of God. All children should be baptized, and no open dissent or defiance of the Christian order to which the city was corporately committed should go unchallenged. This, at any rate, is the conventional account of a fundamental platform of the Genevan Reformation, shared in large measure by Zūrich, Strasbourg and other cities, but not by Lutheran territories.

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.

Among recent reconstructions, Wolfhart Pannenberg's systematic theology is one of the most influential attempts to overcome authoritarianism and subjectivism. Without presenting a thorough development of Pannenberg's theology here, I shall discuss the relationship between philosophy and theology by analyzing Pannenberg's critique of Barth's ‘subjectivism’ and ‘authoritarianism’. I argue that by grounding theological knowledge in a version of Heidegger's concept of anticipation, Pannenberg has not escaped his own religious subjectivism. Thus theological meaning inevitably results from a philosophy of existence grounded in an anticipatory grasp (Vorgriff) of the totality of reality which is presumed to refer to the reality of God.

Our concern in this paper will be with the traditional Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth was ‘tempted in all respects as we are, yet without sin.’ (Heb.4:15) In its dogmatic, as opposed to its biblical, version, this claim can be identified in two distinct forms. First there is what we may denote the weaker form, in which it is claimed simply that in actual fact Jesus committed no sin: and second there is the stronger form according to which he was actually and in principle quite incapable of committing sin. Put differently, in terms of the distinctions of scholastic theology, we may either confess of the Incarnate posse non peccare or non posse peccare.

Moltmann derives much of the power of his theology from his willingness to endure the tensions of paradox, a willingness signalled early in his career with the title of his work, The Crucified God. Such paradoxes, however, leave unanswered questions and the need for further explorations. It is the argument of this article that an aspect of Moltmann's theology in particular need of exploration is the area of the status of Christian doctrine and its appropriate development. There is a major tension, we will suggest, between the disavowal of‘doctrine’, ‘dogma’, ‘tradition’ and ‘system’ as helpful concepts, and the strongly doctrinal and systematic content of Moltmann's theology. This tension, we believe, has something to do with the ambivalence in Moltmann's attitude to the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment, to ‘modernity’. We shall try to show that Moltmann operates with a mixture of internal criteria (based on key doctrines) and external criteria (based on perceived human needs) for assessing authenticity in doctrine. Finally, within the dynamic of Moltmann's theology, with what we shall identify as its emphasis on historicality, there are resources for advancing an account of the theological significance of the development of doctrine. We explore these and ask why Moltmann himself has not put them to greater use.

One of the most significant phenomena within the Western Church over the past twenty-five years has been the emergence of feminist theology. Fuelled by the second wave of the modern women's movement, drawing upon the theoretical and critical stances of academic feminism, and inspired by Latin American Liberation Theology, feminist theologians have achieved a remarkable body of work in a relatively short time. They have sought to establish the opportunities and validate the methods by which women, long silenced as theological subjects, may articulate their perspectives and contribute towards the reconstruction of a more ‘inclusive’ theological discipline.

Baptism is a subject which finds considerable attention in the writings of John Calvin. It features more generally in chapter 14 of the 1559 Institute, on Sacraments, and specifically in chapters 15 and 16. It features in the Instruction in Faith and the later Genevan Catechism, and throughout his commentaries both with reference to passages where baptism is explicit, as well as where Calvin believed it to be implicit. Other references occur in sermons and his occasional writings. Yet in contrast with his eucharistic teaching, there have been far fewer studies on his theology of baptism. Amongst the contributions of English speaking scholars, the studies of R. S. Wallace, Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacraments, 1953 and T. F. Torrance's discussion in the 1957 Church of Scotland report on baptism remain invaluable. Both Wallace and Torrance present a systematic survey of the Reformer's baptismal theology as it is found in the 1559 Institute, the commentaries and sermons, pinpointing his important emphases. In an article in 1962 E. Grislis gave a comprehensive summary of the teaching on baptism in the 1559 Institute, drawing attention to a tension between election and instrumentality. More recently still Jill Rait examined the teaching on infant baptism in the 1559 Institute, suggesting that it needs to be understood in the light of three inter-related principles, viz:

The problem which this article addresses comprises representative Christological dualisms, long in the making, which have come to a head in the twentieth century. They include the Jesus of history and Christ of faith dichotomy, Christology from above as opposed to Christology from below, and ontological Christology over against functional Christology. Behind such dualisms are genuine and fundamental dualities whose integration has been severely damaged in modern theology through the compounding of longstanding dualisms in Western Thought with modern critical thought as shaped by rationalism, empiricism, and scepticism. In this essay I wish to show how Michael Polanyi's theories of being and knowing have much to offer in overcoming the above dualisms. The prospect of such was already made evident to me several years ago in the work of Thomas F. Torrance, and more recently in the work of Colin Gunton. My present purpose is not just to repeat what they have already said, but rather to carry this project forward by applying major theories of Polanyi especially to Christological dualisms. While Torrance has made extensive use of Polanyi in addressing dualisms in theology, it is not in such Christological texts as Space, Time and Incarnation or Space, Time and Resurrection, that Polanyi is especially utilized. However, in The Mediation of Christ Polanyi's influence seems implicit where Torrance addresses the dualist, including gnostic, threat to Christology in the early centuries of the Christian church.

The problems surrounding intercessory prayer are manifold and well rehearsed; and few areas of religious observance undergo more of a metamorphosis during the life of a believer. Invocation of God to intervene so that the ‘divine will’ might be done more often than not gives way to a benign acceptance of the status quo and to the hallowing of time in which God is sought in all circumstances. And in this process many unhelpful notions of prayer are laid to rest. Images of God as cosmic messenger, interrupter of the natural order and manipulator of so-called human freedom prove incompatible with the canon of experience, to say nothing of a host of philosophical and theological objections. The resulting interpretations of intercession, however, are often far from convincing, especially when viewed in the light of scripture, which seems to bear witness to a God who, whilst independent from creation, remains intimately involved in its business and, especially, in that of humanity. For instance, there is the impression – stemming, perhaps, from the relative silence of many spiritual writers – that intercession is a ‘lesser’ form of prayer and one which must necessarily be jettisoned in the journey towards God as the soul is dispossessed of all insularity and self-centredness. Then there are the attempts to re-appropriate the language of intercession within a spirituality which is compatible with a modern world view.

I was asked to write a review of your book but have decided to make this into an open letter. I have done so for two reasons. Firstly, there is something rather artificial in writing a review of a book by a person I feel is more than a mere acquaintance and whose work I have read and company I have enjoyed over the years. It is rather deceitful to give the readers of this piece the impression that it is an entirely dispassionate account from someone who is in no way involved with the writer of the book and is thereby unconstrained by the demands of friendship. That will not mean diat I will draw back from reflecting on the things on which I find myself parting company with you but does make clear the context in which I do so. Secondly, in a way, which I hope is consistent with a theme of your book, I want to engage in dialogue rather than the monologue which is the typical genre of the review and hope that you will respond in that precise, systematic way in which you respond so carefully to questions and comments in discussion.

Brevard Childs, reflecting on the significance of Exodus 3 In the history of theology, comments:

In the history of Christian theology most of the major theological problems have entered into the discussion of Exodus 3. In the early and medieval periods the interest focused on the issue of ontology and divine reality; in recent years on revelation as history or history as revelation. The amazing fact is how seminal this one passage continues to be for each new generation.

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.