Among the reforms needed for a relevant Christian theology today is a capacity for discovery. One of the chief powers of modern science is its ability to discover hidden areas of reality and bring them to our understanding. Science by its success in continually finding new levels and dimensions in nature testifies regularly that life is interesting and dynamic. The example of science has yet to be followed in theology which may explain why the layman today does not really expect much from theologians except the trite clichés of the past.

In a well-known essay on ‘The Two Types of the Philosophy of Religion’, Paul Tillich distinguishes between the ontological and the cosmological approaches in our philosophical understanding of God, and aligns himself with the former. The ontological approach may be historically associated with Augustine and Anselm's ontological argument, as contrasted with Thomas Aquinas and the cosmological argument, but the decisive difference from Tillich's perspective is whether God is treated as a being, an instance of being exemplifying the fundamental metaphysical categories, or beyond being, a radical and necessary exception to these principles. Championing the ontological approach, Tillich declares: ‘The being of God cannot be understood as the existence of a being alongside others or above others. If God is a being, he is subject to the categories of finitude, especially to space and substance. Even if he is called the “highest being” in the sense of the “most perfect” and the “most powerful” being, this situation is not changed. When applied to God, superlatives become diminutives’ (ST I, 235). In response, proponents of the cosmological approach may agree with Alfred North Whitehead: ‘God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification.’

The words of the old Gospel hymn give us a succinct statement of the theory of Substitutionary Atonement. Jesus brings us to God by what he does, or suffers, as our substitute, in our place. Sinful man's obligations under the law are met by Jesus on his behalf. Because Jesus bore my punishment I do not have to bear it; because he paid my debt I do not have to pay it; because he died the criminal's death which I deserved I do not have to die it.

In a short but pithy article entitled ‘Christ's uniqueness’, which appeared recently in an issue of the publication ‘Reform’, Professor John Hick outlines very compactly one of his latest presentations against the traditional Christian acceptance of Jesus' theological pre-eminence. My paper is not intended to present a full-blown argument either in defence or criticism of ‘the uniqueness of Christ’ (Except where another sense is clear, I use ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’ throughout as they are commonly used, viz. as proper names referring to one and the same person). More directly, its aim is to point out what appear to be serious objections to a view that is gaining increasing support from thinkers who study the inter-relations between the world religions at various levels; and which for the committed Christian raises fundamental issues any seraiousminded believer, scholar or layman, must eventually face. Professor Hick repeats and summarises here a position he discusses at length elsewhere, and perhaps it is fitting that the stance we shall now examine will be made in the context of a presentation of one of its leading exponents.

Traditionally Romans 8.26 has been a text to which at least some Pentecostals have appealed as scriptural support for the practice of speaking in tongues. However, this interpretation has by no means found favour with all commentators: Adolf Schlatter explicitly denies it, arguing that (a) the powerlessness that is described here is not an affliction peculiar to a few individuals but is the mark of all Christian prayer, whereas speaking with tongues is considered by Paul to be a gift given to certain individuals only, (b) it is a gift of thanksgiving and of singing of God's secrets, not of groaning, and (c) it is not ‘unspeakable’, for some interpreted it.2 Rather, he argues, the groaning here is wordless, but yet intercessory. Many commentators share Schlatter's view that Paul's language here does not fit the phenomenon of glossolalia: so Dodd refers to an ‘inarticulate aspiration’ that expresses itself in ‘sighs that are beyond words’, and Barrett explicitly prefers to see here a reference to an immediate communion between the ‘Spirit (-filled worshipper) and God’ which needs no spoken word.