This article develops an account of doctrine that seeks to reconceive the nature of doctrinal reference within the context of human transformation. It sets out from Augustine's advice to the preacher of the doctrine of predestination, discovering three layers of doctrinal interpretation, rooted in and geared towards transformation. Augustine's advice is applied generally to suggest that the role of doctrine is to ward off general classification in respect of God, making way for redemptive encounter with God. These insights generate a new perspective on the question of doctrinal reference that rules out both straightforward reference to God and straightforward denial of such reference. The article concludes by suggesting that one way through the resultant linguistic minefield would be to speak of ‘hyper-reference’ to God, with the intention of evoking the ‘more than’ of God.

Although Rowan Williams is widely recognised as one of today's leading theologians, comparatively little attention has been paid to his scriptural hermeneutic, and much of what has been written has been critical of the role scripture plays in his theology. This article explores Williams’ biblical hermeneutic in light of the criticism of John Webster in particular. It is argued that for Williams a good reading of scripture must be at once critical, analogical, and christological. While this last characteristic is often overlooked by his critics, Williams’ emphasis on the risen Christ's ongoing presence in the church, and on the specifically cruciform nature of that presence, is determinative for his hermeneutic.

Like many Western churches, the Church of Scotland has been divided in recent years over the ordination of gay clergy in committed relationships, and, more generally, over the status of homosexuality for Christian ethics. Yet there has been no academic research undertaken which situates the debate within the wider context of Scottish theology. This failure has resulted in theological and ecclesial impasse, which this paper seeks to remedy through a diagnostic analysis of division over homosexuality, drawing upon the analytic tools developed by R. G. Collingwood. While this article has as its focus the Church of Scotland, its method and conclusions will be relevant to other Protestant denominations, especially Reformed churches such as the Presbyterian Church (USA).

This paper argues that in Jesus Christ ‘real humanity’ is revealed as a gift of the patient God, who gives time and space to creatures. While Karl Barth's work in Church Dogmatics §30.3 focuses on God's patience as a mode of his redeeming presence, §44.3 opens up towards, but leaves undeveloped, a providential mode of patience, in which God constitutes his people by choosing them and giving them all they require to hear his Word and respond in obedience. Recognising God's patience in these distinct modes allows biblical instances of divine–human dialogue to be heard in new and compelling ways. For example, it allows Genesis 18:16–33 to be understood as foregrounding Abraham's joyful responsibility to engage with God, making that event, in all its contingency, the description of who Abraham is as real man. In this way, a complete theological anthropology has at its heart God's own perfection of patience.

This article engages Robert W. Jenson on the question of the relation between the immanent Trinity and the person Jesus of Nazareth and proposes a restatement of the doctrine of God that takes into account his concerns. I note that many of the criticisms levelled against Jenson are contradictory and offer instead a rearticulation of Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of God, refracted through the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, as a more viable mode of engaging Jenson's ideas. In particular, I suggest an analogia temporalis rooted in the divine processions to account for the relationship between time and eternity, thereby showing how Thomas's theology can both accommodate and benefit from many of Jenson's insights, while also avoiding the more serious charges levelled against him.

This paper considers Dietrich Bonhoeffer's understanding of the theological dimension of the concept of Christian community and in particular his conviction that believers must avoid the confusion that follows when ‘community romanticism’ (Gemeinschaftsromantik) is equated with the community of saints (Gemeinschaft der Heiligen). Bonhoeffer insisted that the task of building Christian community was one of crafting a space in which Jesus stands between believers, protecting them from the ‘damage of sheerly human immediacy’.1 Without Jesus' mediating presence he believed, everything could go badly wrong.