The following speculations do not pretend to state a complete doctrine of the Trinity, though they do state decisive parts of one. The first section is an account of what is, in my view, the function of a Trinity-doctrine, and will to some extent repeat work also published elsewhere. The second section is an interpretation of the trinitarian word ‘hypostasis’, that tries to display the conceptual revolution made by the traditional trinitarian assertion of ‘three hypostases of God’. The third considers the oneness of God, by analysing a famous argument of Gregory of Nyssa. And the fourth draws some further conclusions.

Discussion about the Holy Spirit is at present in a state of almost total confusion. A renewed interest is being shown in the Spirit and in the process the term ‘Holy Spirit’ is tending to become a rag-bag into which are relegated all those aspects of aeligion and life which we are unhappy simply to assign to the working of God. It has become a cover for our deficiencies, so that the Spirit is whatever we like to make it. Phrases are created on analogy with ‘The Spirit of Truth’ to associate with the Spirit whichever particular aspect of life a writer wishes to dignify. Alternatively, in the face of unresolvable complexities the phrase is invoked as a pious aphorism to which there can be no retort—‘Leave it to the Spirit’.

In introducing his Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich speaks of ‘faith’ as one of those terms in religious language ‘which need healing before they can be used for the healing of men’. ‘Truth’ is another term that is in need of healing. Of course, it must be said that the critical reforming and refining of terms and their senses should be a perennial theological task. It can be said that we have witnessed in the twentieth century a cornucopia of linguistic analysis. However, much of this analysis has been less than productive, a fact due in part to highly restricted notions of meaning and verification. A deficiency in analysis is evident in what J. L. Austin has to say about ‘truth’:

Since Barth's attack on ‘religion’ and religious ‘experience’ as the point of focus for Christian theology, it has just not been the thing to do to turn to it as such for theological direction. In a similar vein, Dietrich Bonhoeffer has reminded us that to be a Christian is not to be ‘religious’ but to be only a man. Barth objected to an experiential focus for fear that the sovereignty of God would be compromised by confusing his word and works with their manifestations in experience. Bonhoeffer and, following him, modern secular, radical theology objects to this religious focus because it compromises the integrity of the secular self-understanding of the modern mündig man. Nevertheless, Barth recognised that theology has no beginning point other than the communal experience of faith—hence, ‘church’ dogmatics. The contention of this paper is that Michael Polanyi's analysis of scientific knowledge offers a model for understanding the experience and knowledge of faith that is faithful both to the experience of faith and to the modern secular, scientific experience.1 Therefore, following an exposition of Polanyi's epistemology, I will seek to demonstrate that it is a most helpful hermeneutic for the understanding of Christian experience as described by Paul, especially in the early chapters of 1 Corinthians.

Theology, unlike other disciplines dealing with man, is faced with a fundamental methodological problem in its attempt to understand the human being. This problem is due to the Christian view of the Fall. Whatever we may wish to mean by the Fall, the fact remains that there is something which can be called ‘sin’, and which gives rise to the question: is man that which we know and experience as ‘man’? If we answer the question in the affirmative, then we are bound to imply that sin is not an anthropological problem and redemption from sin does not essentially alter our view of man; in fact if we follow up the consequence of this position, we are bound to say that unfallen man or man restored by redemption is not properly speaking ‘man’ but something of a super-man. If, on the other hand, we do not approach man from the angle of his actual sinful situation, how can we approach him? Is there another angle from which to look at man except from that of what we actually see as man?

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.

One purpose of this article is to explicate what Karl Barth means by the man-to-man relationship, or, in his terms, ‘humanity’, and to discuss the variety of forms involved in this basic dynamic-form. Another purpose is to make the reader aware of the way dialectical-dialogical thought functions in describing the relationship between God and man, and man and man.

Almost all recent discussion in theological hermeneutics has been so abstract that it has had little relevance for the more practical task of the interpretation of biblical texts. This has largely been caused by the prominence in this discussion of proponents of ‘The New Hermeneutic’ who have had a predominantly existential interest in understanding the New Testament, but who represent only one of several alternatives in theological hermeneutics. Moreover, their exegesis has often been unreliable, to put it mildly.1 The chief deficiency of the New Hermeneutic is that it is concerned with the existential situation of the believing Christian, but hardly at all with the understanding and interpretation of texts. It is certainly true that theological hermeneutics can no longer provide a set of rules or principles for the extraction of the correct meaning from the text as was attempted in the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, but hermeneutics can still analyse the process and structure of understanding which takes place in New Testament exegesis and can encourage self-reflection and self-criticism on the part of exegetes themselves. The task which now deserves attention, and which has for so long been neglected, is to relate the work done on the problem of hermeneutics by dogmatic theologians to the specific projects of interpretation carried out by New Testament exegetes. In this article I shall try to do just that by focusing attention on one particular problem.

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.’

Irenaeus is the first systematic theologian of the Christian church. He earned this distinction by organising his exposition of the articles of faith around one central idea: that of Christ as the Second Adam and Perfecter of human nature. Interpreters of his Recapitulation (anakephalaiosis) doctrine routinely note that Christ's work brings two different benefits to the human race. First, humanity is restored to its status before the fall of Adam, thereby abolishing sin and its effects. Second, it is elevated or perfected to a higher form of being than that of the originally created human nature.

The theological literature has been greatly enriched in recent decades by detailed studies of the nature of religious ‘discernment’ or ‘divination’. The works of Rudolf Otto, Mircea Eliade, and Ian Ramsey, in particular, and from various perspectives, have contributed much to our understanding of characteristic situations in which men may intuit or apprehend the immediate presence of deity. This ‘empirical-phenomenological’ approach (to characterise it as broadly as possible) represents a significant departure from the more traditional ‘proofs’ of deity based on logical argument or citations of scripture in that (a) it requires an empirical ‘grounding’ in concrete, historically conditioned situations, and (b) it necessarily leaves the question of truth value open to review and re-evaluation by its appeal to specific acts of personal intuition or discernment. Therefore, in comparison with the traditional ‘proofs’, there is a certain loss of cogency, but, on the other hand, a distinct gain in concreteness and accessibility to the religious imagination of the individual.

For the multitude of men John Calvin's name is but a synonym for the doctrine of predestination. It makes little difference that the notion of a twofold predestination (to heaven, that is, or to hell) was taught and defended as early as the 5th century A.D. by Augustine of Hippo. It matters little, also, that Calvin believed and stressed many other doctrines besides predestination. He is imagined to have so emphasised that doctrine that little room could be left for human initiative and industry, although history demonstrates that his general teaching had precisely the opposite effect on those who came under its influence. No, to many he remains the cold, calculating logician of God's ways.

There is no doubt that John intended his record of the spear thrust which produced blood and water from our Lord's side to be taken as historical fact. The description of the incident is concise and matter of fact. The character of the gospel as a whole makes it ‘unlikely that John is simply manufacturing an event for the sake of its allegorical significance’.1 Finally, it is followed by what amounts to a legal affidavit attesting its truth, which has been called ‘the most solemn protestation of accuracy to be found in the whole work’.2 However, the record has not always been taken as historical fact. It has sometimes been interpreted as primarily symbolical of the sacraments, and occasionally as fiction, or as ‘ecclesiastical redaction’ as by Bultmann.3 This is partly because the incident has been difficult to explain medically. This difficulty arises from the lack of detail in the description of the event, and not from its impossibility. The purpose of this article is to show that the incident is medically possible even though the exact medical diagnosis must remain in doubt because of the lack of precise medical information.

With the appearance in English of some of his most recent essays, it has become apparent that Wolfhart Pannenberg is now focusing his efforts to develop a theological program on the doctrine of God. Pannenberg has attracted considerable attention in recent years by his willingness to depart at several points from the mainstream of modern Protestant theology—especially his separation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, his argument for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, and his overriding concern with future rather than present eschatology. Whether it is possible for Pannenberg to make these departures and still put together a coherent and viable theological program is very much an open question at this point, I believe. But the importance of a satisfactory doctrine of God in his program should be obvious enough: Can Pannenberg give us an account of a God who raised Jesus from the dead and who will bring in his Kingdom without violating the concerns which have weighed so heavily upon theology since the Enlightenment—that God must not act in ways incompatible with what man has discovered about the natural world and with what he believes about his own freedom and responsibility?

The sacramental principle in its simplest form is the belief in the transmission of spiritual power through material means. If the sacramental principle is going to be upheld it is not enough to be content with a certain ‘congruity’ between the saving revelation of God in salvation history as it culminates in the incarnation and the use of material rites in the economy of realised redemption. The sacramental principle involves the crucial assertion that sacraments are ‘means’ in a ‘causal’ sense, for the transmission of spiritual power through material elements. This asserts ontological efficacy for the sacraments. It is this assertion of genuinely ‘causal’ efficacy for the sacraments, however it is explained, which ultimately divides all who are actually sacramentalists from all non-sacramentalists.

While Gore continued to exert a profound influence on Anglican theology until very recent times, regarded in an ecumenical perspective he may well seem a rather parochial figure. It is my belief, however, that Gore's work offers a useful and relevant object-lesson in theological construction. He is often portrayed as an inflexible dogmatist. He had the Tractarian instinct for dogma, but he was no mere dogmatist. One's first impression, it is true, is of a monolithic figure. His presence has been described as ‘numinous’; his thought appears as a massive and imposing unity. But a closer examination of his writings reveals a synthesis in which disparate elements were held together by sheer prophetic force of mind. Although Gore has received quite a lot of discussion, treatments of his life and thought have not always adequately recognised the elements of paradox in them both. In fact this lies very near the surface and left his friends frustrated and his critics exasperated.

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.

At the outset it is important to define the way in which some important terminology will be used in the arguments that follow: Theology in Asia is the theological reflection of Asian based or Asian oriented thinkers, for whom being in Asia does not determine the form or style of their theological activity.

My title, which is stolen from a collection of learned German essays edited by Ernst Käsemann (Das Neue Testament als Kanon, 1970), may sound remote from the concerns of the practical ministry. But the academic question here raised has profound implications for all our understanding, proclamation and practice of the gospel. My exposition will fall into three parts. First I shall make clear what, historically, were the theological motives governing the establishment of a fixed canon of New Testament scripture, and I shall discuss the question of how far the aims of the early Church in this matter may be considered, in the light of modern critical scholarship, to have been achieved. Next I shall show that today also we are faced by problems similar to those which the principle of a New Testament canon was designed to meet, and I shall try to indicate what part the canonical New Testament may still play in helping us to meet them. Thirdly, I shall draw some consequences for worship, preaching, evangelism, ecumenism, and ethics from the principle of a New Testament canon and from the actual content of the canonical New Testament. In conclusion, I shall briefly consider the place of the canonical New Testament in the problem posed by the particularity of Christianity's historical origins and the universality of its claims. Space will obviously forbid anything more than the giving of hints on all these questions.