If it is the case, as John Macmurray suggests, that ‘any way of life implies a philosophy’, or further, that ‘there is a necessary relation between philosophy and social practice’, then an essential dimension of the task of the philosophical theologian must be to engage with the philosophy inherent in and underlying the social practice manifest in the society in which he or she operates. This would imply that the theologian should work in cooperation and in dialogue with the sociologist. But it is clear from theological literature that this course rarely appeals to the theologian who would rather not risk the charge of being unequally yoked with those inhabiting other domains or of deserting his academic or spiritual ‘kingdom’ in pursuit of what is often seen to be the fashionable or the popular!

Baptism has been placed firmly on the agenda of ecumenical theology by the Lima Report, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. It makes no attempt to resolve the question of baptismal origins, but judiciously summarizes the state of the debate: ‘While the possibility that infant baptism was practised in the apostolic age cannot be excluded, baptism upon personal profession of faith is the most clearly attested pattern in the New Testament documents’. The paucity of recent discussion of the beginnings of infant baptism may suggest that they are deemed insoluble, short of the discovery of new evidence. Theology, at any rate, may neither be able nor need to wait until historians of primitive Christianity reach a consensus. The possibility that infant baptism was practised relatively early, perhaps even in the New Testament Churches themselves, was no deterrent to Karl Barth's regarding it as theologically indefensible. Nevertheless, he could not ignore what he called ‘the brute fact of a baptismal practice which has become the rule in churches in all countries and in almost all confessions’, and he ventured his own explanation of the triumph of infant baptism and of the New Testament passages to which its advocates customarily appeal. His sharp critique of the tradition provoked a greater stir on the continent of Europe than in the English-speaking world. A fresh look at the historical question is certainly overdue, although its starting-point is bound to be the celebrated exchange between Joachim Jeremias and Kurt Aland of two decades ago. Ecumenical discussion, and in some Churches, ecumenical reality, call on both paedobaptists and credobaptists to examine the others' Practice with a new seriousness. In such a context the beginnings of the dominant tradition cannot healthily be left unscrutinised or treated as inscrutable.

When we speak of sexual love, we imply an entire host of meanings, moods and activities. It is not my intention to analyse the distinct concepts of affection (στoργ⋯), friendship (φιλ⋯α), love (⋯γ⋯πη) and eros. When one speaks of these, one usually finds a prepared audience — that is to say, one that is in some way prejudiced. Rather, what I would like to look at briefly is that vital force of love within human nature.

Presumably it is not necessary here to offer a potted history of discussions of ‘cultural relativity’ and supposed ‘culture gaps’ … we can press the story back through Professor Dennis Nineham, (and other contributors to The Myth of God Incarnate,) to T. S. Kuhn and to suggestions from Alasdair Maclntyre, and others such as Peter Winch claiming the support of Ludwig Wittgenstein. We can go. back beyond them to Rudolph Bultmann, as does Professor Joseph Runzo in his ‘Relativism and Absolutism in Bultmann's demythologising Hermeneutic’ recently in this journal. We can go back even further to Albert Schweitzer (‘Jesus as a concrete historical personality remains a stranger to our time’) and then behind him to the Enlightenment — or at least to its immediate heirs' assessment of it.

In this paper the relationship between power and powerlessness in the Gospel of Mark is discussed — a theme which, though touched upon, has not been developed at any length nor traced throughout the Gospel. Yet to explore the dynamic that exists between power and powerlessness within the structure of the Gospel is essential for understanding Mark as a theologian and a story-teller. This is because in the first place, the notion of power is central to the image of ‘kingdom’ as it is generally understood — power, indeed, as a political conception, though this is often obscured by the tendency, even in modern exegesis, to interpret Mark in exclusively spiritual terms. Mark's Gospel is filled with the signs of this power and their impact on all aspects of human life cannot be underestimated. In the second place, the idea of powerlessness arises out of the recognition (now widely accepted) that at the centre of Mark's story lies a theologia cruets, a theology of Jesus' suffering and death which is not far from the Pauline kerygma of the crucified Christ (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.18ff.)

The claim in recent years of a radical disjunction between the theologies of Calvin and the Calvinists has frequently come to focus on the seminal influence of Calvin's successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza. Scholars who have suggested Beza as the main culprit behind an increasing trend in sixteenth century Reformed theology to a rationalistic, scholastic, predestinarian rigidity include Ernst Bizer, Walter Kickel, Basil Hall, Brian G. Armstrong, Johannes Dantine, Edward A. Dowey Jun., John W. Beardslee III, and R. T. Kendall. Indeed, in order to appreciate Beza's significance we are compelled to see him in comparison with his great predecessor.

A. The divine-human situation.

God is the only being who, if he exists, must be present at all times and in all places.

2. Therefore, it must at least be possible to detect the presence of God at any time and in any place.

3. However, proof for God's existence lies with each individual, since ‘to prove’ means to be capable of becoming aware of God's presence.

4. Not everyone at every time and place is aware of God's existence. But the divine nature must be such as to be ever-existent. That is, it is both capable of making its presence known and at the same time capable of having its presence unrecognized.

5. God, then, can relate to each intelligent soul in a different way. Thus, he is subject to being described in a variety of ways.

6. The non-uniformity of our experience of God indicates that human beings are capable of sensing God's presence but seldom in a uniform way.

7. The time and place, the intellectual and cultural climate, the vitality or laxity of existing religious modes, all have a large role in determining how many human beings become aware of God's presence and accept that as proof.

8. With regard to proving the ever-presence of God, the initiative and the control have been placed largely in human hands. Given God's presence at all times and at all places, and the great variety of ways we have of sensing and responding, the responsibility for determining God's existence is ours.

Jon Sobrino has suggested that those who stand in the intellectual tradition of the Enlightenment tend to interpret suffering and disaster as ‘crises of meaning’, by which we seek to explain and accommodate alienating experiences within preconceived models of reality. Our question is how evil may be understood. But that search for meaning is a luxury denied those who can barely hold to existence itself. Theirs is a ‘crisis of reality’; and their question is less how to understand evil than how to withstand it, to overcome suffering or at least survive it. ‘The interpretative models become relevant [only] to the extent that they arise out of the experienced reality and aim at eliminating the wretched state of the real world’.

How divine sovereignty and human freedom are to be related is a question of importance to the believer. It is something about which St Paul has several things to say: but while his contributions may be necessary for Christian faith, they are not sufficient for the understanding which faith seeks. We also need the help of philosophical reflection. That at least is the burden of this paper. It begins with Paul's assumptions about freedom in order to reject a harsh view of sovereignty. Then, after sketching three ways of reconciling freedom and sovereignty, we examine Paul's concept of God's sovereignty in Romans 9–11 in order to conclude that there is only one kind of compatibilism which holds promise for faith and understanding.

To reconcile the early chapters of the book of Genesis with the findings of science has been the self-appointed task of Christian apologists for generations. Indeed in our own day the much publicized manoeuvres of a militant creationist movement reveal just how vibrant the debate remains in some quarters about how to relate the book of Nature to the book of Scripture. Over the years numerous harmonizing strategies have been advanced and, once hatched, they have, like organisms, evolved and adapted to the intellectual climate in which they have found themselves. Among these, the gap theory (postulating a lengthy period of time between Genesis 1 verse 1 and 1 verse 2 into which the whole gamut of geological history can be squeezed), the day-age theory (interpreting the creative days as geological epochs), and the ‘days of revelation’ theory (seeing the Genesis week as successive days of divine disclosure) might be specified as concordist schemes whose fortunes have changed with the passing of time. For ideas, it is clear, no less than individuals, can enjoy social legitimation or suffer from the lack of it.

It is surprising that more British scholars have not investigated the theology of Q. Those scholars who have done so are mainly German, with a few other continentals and some Americans. The hypothesis I wish to maintain is that Q has a consistently futurist eschatology. Those verses which apparently uphold a realized eschatology are to be explained as compatible, without contradiction, with the overall futurist eschatology that pervades Q.

In an earlier article in the Scottish Journal of Theology I have argued that Athanasius did not deny Christ's fear. A question which then naturally arises is, did Athanasius recognise Christ's courage? This question is made all the more pointed given G. C. Stead's view that Athanasius ‘is noticeably reticent about ascribing to [Christ] any positive constancy: the Lord “undergoes” (ὑπoμ⋯νει) the brutalities of the passion, but is not credited with ὑπoμoν⋯, still less with ⋯νδρε⋯α'. These conclusions drawn from the two inaugurals and the controversial works of Athanasius do, however, seem to require some qualification.

Christianity, as everyone knows, is a historical religion — historical because belief in Christianity involves belief in various claims about what happened in the past. This seems simple enough, but it really is not. For the more that one thinks about it, the more complex this ‘historical’ aspect of Christianity becomes. One's faith in Christianity involves beliefs about the man Jesus, to be sure; yet how can one's beliefs about the past save anyone? Does God judge people on the basis of the opinions that they hold, and only choose for his kingdom those who hold correct opinions about the historical Jesus? If that were the case, one would expect tremendous interest in historical research on the life of Jesus; people would be desperate to find out all that they could know.

One of the most pressing tasks for the Christian theologian at the present time is the construction of a theology of the religions which can adequately account for the continuing diversity of religious belief and practice, and which offers a distinctively Christian approach to religious pluralism. In the last few decades this topic has increasingly commanded the attention of prominent writers (e.g. P. Tillich, W. Pannenberg, J. Moltmann). Not only has it become the subject of numerous monographs and articles, but it seems to have established itself as an indispensable theme within any comprehensive (systematic) presentation of the Christian Faith.

‘Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. “For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection under him”, it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all.”

In his Cur Deus Homo Anselm of Canterbury immediately tells the reader the question he is seeking to answer. The first chapter of the first book is entitled: ‘The central problem governing the entire work’ [Questio de qua totum opuspendet 47.4 (49)]. In the first speech of this chapter, the problem is succinctly stated:

I mean the following problem: For what reason and on the basis of what necessity [qua scilicet ratione vel necessitate] did God become a man and by His death restore life to the world (as we believe and confess), seeing that He could have accomplished this restoration either by means of some other persons (whether angelic or human) or else by merely willing it? [48.2–5 (49)].

I say, that a power, possessed of infallibility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of human affairs, for smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of the aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy intellect …

In reaction to the claim by some scholars that sōma in the NT, especially in Paul, has a ‘holistic’ meaning, according to which the term refers to the whole person under some aspect, and not the physical body, or form, R. H. Gundry has argued for a return to a wholly physical understanding of sōma. Gundry argues that the presence of anthropological dualism in the NT speaks against the holistic understanding of soma. He adduces a number of passages in support of his contention that there is anthropological dualism in the NT and concludes by saying that the ultimate source of anthropological dualism in the NT is the OT, and not Greek thought.

A common assumption about the 19th century is that it was a complacent age, and that by and large theologians, though not quite sure of the exact terms of adjustment, had an overall confidence in the compatibility of faith and culture. Yet that same century is also notable for producing two of the most significant theological treatments of human sinfulness; the treatise of Julius Müller which is marked by its systematic comprehensiveness, and the more occasional writings of Soren Kierkegaard with all their fecund suggestiveness for the future. It is perhaps remarkable that our own century which has witnessed far more overt human evil has produced hardly anything comparable, apart possibly from Vol. 1 of Reinhold Niebuhr's Nature & Destiny of Man.

How does one properly account for the rise of theological ferment in the Third World, when so much of the theological activity in that region is so closely related to what happens (or fails to happen) in the First World? To what extent can the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, or the programs of the World Council of Churches, or the initiatives of the Mission Boards in North America, be given credit for the emergence of Third World theologies? Or how do we explain the paradox that in spite of two decades in the growth and development of local theologies in the Third World, much of the way in which Third World churches conduct their business and their worship still fails to reflect such developments? Who sets the priorities for theology in the Third World? What is the procedure for its validation and official acceptance? When does the local church know that it is safe to shift from the received tradition to the new tradition? All these are questions of farreaching significance, for they bear on the very heart of authentic Christianity as it is proclaimed and practised in the Third World. Third World Christians must determine for themselves when and how they will theologize in their own language, in which they were born (Acts 2.8). Third World theologians have stepped out in front and have taken some initiatives for themselves, and among themselves.