In this article1 I have two theological interests and a less direct philosophical one.

The idea that there might be empirical evidence for the existence of God has been largely discredited these days. Even among theists there are many who hold that it is not a fruitful idea and that there is no point in searching for evidence for theistic beliefs. Some who regard themselves as theists go to the extreme of denying that there is any possibility of there being empirical evidence to support a religious world-view since that view implies no factual claim, as it is essentially a commitment to a given set of values and a way of life and not to the existence of any physically real entity. Others are willing to assert that theism implies the belief in some special facts but that these are so far removed from the mundane experiences upon which physical science is based, that the latter could not possibly support such a belief. Yet others merely say that there is no need at all for confirmatory evidence of the kind employed in science since their beliefs are grounded in something much firmer and more immediate, like religious experience.

‘Apologetics’ is hardly a word to be used without apology in the present dispensation. And to speak of anything like a neglected avenue or opportunity in religious apologetics might almost seem as if one were speaking of an opportunity in just such an enterprise as no self-respecting philosopher would nowadays wish even to be associated with. For all of their avoidance of the term, however, the thing designated by the term is something with which not a few philosophers of recent years have been not above dabbling in, albeit usually under other names and other labels. After all, religious language has now come to be recognized as not just a legitimate, but even a fashionable object of philosophic attention. And a concern with religious language has often brought with it a concern with religious attitudes, religious behaviour, religious argumentation — yes, even to the point of occasionally becoming a concern with the very religious realities themselves that religious language, religious attitudes, religious behaviour, and religious argument are presumably all about. True, religious realities in this sense are to today's garden of philosophy pretty much what the tree of knowledge once was to the garden of Eden. In fact, one even suspects that there could be a serpent about somewhere, for cases have been reported of an occasional philosopher Adam or philosopher Eve having yielded to temptation: a consideration of God-talk has been known to lead to cautious admissions that such talk might be cognitively meaningful; a consideration of God-experiences to the admission that such experiences under certain circumstances could be veridical; or, even more rarely, a consideration of proofs for God's existence to the gingerly admission that at least some of these proofs might just possibly be valid. Needless to say, though, such a yielding to temptation on the part of some few contemporary philosophers, while it may not have led to any manifest sewing together of fig-leaves, has certainly brought with it the danger, if not always the reality, of a supercilious expulsion from the glorious Eden of contemporary professional philosophy.

In Christian tradition there have been three broadly different ways in which eternity (however conceived)1 has been connected with time We find (I) a moral view: eternal life is the ‘due reward’, the ‘prize’ owed to certain states of consciousness and types of behaviour which have occurred in this life; (2) a voluntarist theory: eternal life is the unowed and thus gratuitous gift given subsequent to the occurrence of certain conscious states and behaviour patterns; and (3) the ‘ontological’ approach: eternal life is the final, culminating phase or development of those conscious states and patterns of action. All three of these views co-exist in Christian literature from the New Testament era on.

Professor H. P. Owen has remarked that Newman's A Grammar of Assent, which ‘is the fruit of a great mind's reflection over many years, has not received (in this country at any rate) the attention it deserves ’1 However, the year in which these words were written (1969) saw the publication of three lengthy discussions in English of the Grammar, and more studies have appeared since then.2 Owen's general appreciation has been echoed but the prevailing tone has been critical. In this article I shall attempt to reply to some of the more significant of the objections that have been made.

As I shall be taking issue with Michael Durrant for the bulk of this paper, it is appropriate, as well as a good way to start, to register my endorsement of his arguments in chapter 4 of The Logical Status of Godl for the conclusion that sentences about God are typically used to express propositions, and that acts of thanksgiving and petition to God presuppose that some such propositions are true. The present paper is therefore a continuation of Mr Durrant's attempt to locate the status of the term ‘God’ in propositions expressed by sentences of the form ‘God is F’.

Predominant branches of historic Christianity have traditionally held to each of two doctrines about God: that he is incorporeal and that he is omnipresent. And in the minds of many people, these two doctrines do not simply represent two independent characteristics or attributes of God, but rather they are closely related. A.H.Strong, a conservative theologian active during the early years of this century, writes, ‘God’s omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal.’1 More recently, Dr Harold Kuhn put forward a view which similarly links the two notions.2 When we recite the Apostles’ Creed and affirm our belief in ‘God the Father Almighty’ we are, according to Kuhn, also implying our belief in an incorporeal God, for any imputation of a body to him would appear to entail spatial limitation, since it is thought that only a bodiless being could be omnipresent.