In his inquiries into the New Testament conception of the Church, Karl Ludwig Schmidt propounded the thesis: Ecclesiology is Christology—a thesis which is certainly not new, but which is by no means self-evident in the context of Protestant theology. At the outset I should like to say that I do not want my thesis to be understood in the sense of this equation, for the following reasons:

1. The terms in which the New Testament speaks of the Church are very manifold, and they are by no means merely Christological. Beside Christological designations of the Church—such as —there are also pneumatological designations such as ‘temple of the Holy Ghost’, and theological such as . Thus ecclesiology taken as a whole must be expounded and developed in a trinitarian way; and in this we should not forget that in the primitive Confessions the articles concerning the Church are directly connected with the articles on the Holy Ghost. This suggests that, within a trinitarian context, one should expound the doctrine of the Church as the opus proprium of the Holy Ghost.

That the distinctively ‘Protestant’ understanding of biblical authority can be grasped only by seeing it against its medieval background, may appear to be a truism. But the affirmation is necessary, if for no other reason, at least because the relationship of Protestantism to Catholicism has too often been interpreted as one of simple opposition in every respect. In part, however, the Reformers' understanding of biblical authority arises directly out of scholasticism, not by conscious opposition, but by unquestioning acceptance. The differentia of Protestantism cannot be defined simply by appeal to the so-called ‘formal’ and ‘material’ principles, unless the twin principles be themselves carefully defined. There was nothing new in the mere fact that the Reformers resorted to the Bible for verification of their theological convictions, nor even in their affirmation of the necessity of grace for salvation. The medieval Church had a rigorous doctrine of biblical inspiration, and it found grace as indispensable for justification as did the Reformers themselves.

No doubt the earliest disciples took their view of inspiration and authority from Judaism. To begin with, their Scriptures were the Jewish Scriptures, and they themselves were all Jews. But it was natural enough that the Jewish doctrine of ‘verbal inspiration’ should persist even after the Church had become predominantly Gentile. The authority of Scripture is made to rest upon a theory of inspiration: the words of Scripture are binding because, in the last analysis, they are the Words of God.

The age-old device of using a text is an extremely useful one. A text summarises—or should summarise—what the preacher has to say; and, even if, as is often the case, the congregation forget the contents of the sermon almost straight away, there is just a chance that they will remember the text. As an eighteenth-century divine wisely observed in advising young clergymen, ‘Propose one point in one discourse, and stick to it; a hearer never carries away more than one impression.’The text and the one point of this paper is evident from the title: ‘The philosophy of religion, the banner of a sect.’

With the death of Whitehead and Berdyaev the field of philosophical theology has been left all but empty of first rate creative thinkers. Tillich stands nearly alone as undeniably a primary source of constructive philosophical theology. Such forefront leaders of modern Christian thought as Barth, Brunner Aulén and Nygren seem somewhat bound by traditional Christian formulations.

The controversy which has this forbidding name arose as a result of Bultmann's essay «New Testament and Mythology’. The essay appears to have evoked a very loud and fierce criticism in Germany and has become the bone of contention among its theologians. This controversy has spread to America where Bultmann's friend Professor Paul Tillich has put before the theological public not only the issue involved in the debate but also his own unhesitating support of Bultmann's programme. It has also come to us in Britain through the publication of Professor Henderson's Myth in the New Testament, and the ‘documents in the case’ in the volume Kerygma and Myth. First let us see what it is that Bultmann has to say.

Perhaps the most important advance in Old Testament studies in recent years has been the rediscovery of and the new emphasis on tradition. Older studies commonly implied that the biblical material, the sources, were essentially to be seen as literary products, that is as books or documents written at a certain date and edited and annotated through subsequent written additions. This did not explicitly deny that before they were written down the stories or laws had existed in a preliterary form; but such was the emphasis on study of the written material and the discernment of written sources that the pre-literary stage was considerably neglected. Biblical criticism was predominantly literary criticism. More modern studies have not for the most part abandoned such literary criticism, nor is it ever likely to be fully abandoned; but more and more emphasis has been laid, in Old Testament and in New Testament work alike, on the living tradition which preceded or accompanied the literary transmission.

The following is intended as a contribution to the current J. demythologising controversy. I hope it will either bring some clarification or else add profitably to the prevailing confusion.

I write as a man of faith to men of faith. That is to say, I am not here concerned with whether the Christian faith is true or how much of it ‘we can accept’. That is a question which must be discussed in quite another way and in quite another context. I shall assume that we accept it in the same way as Carlyle accepted the universe, only more so, for Christ is Lord of the Universe. I am concerned rather with the way in which the symbols in which we express our belief behave.

IT is an interesting commentary upon the place of theology in our Western culture and society to observe how many of the phrases we normally associate with it carry overtones of conflict and argument. ‘Science and religion’, ‘faith and reason’, ‘reason and revelation’, ‘history and the Gospels’, ‘proof and belief’—not all of them antithetic to one another, but all of them areas within which there has been in the last century in all cases and much longer in some, much violent discussion. So the picture has been built up of theology as contained within a ring of frontiers, across which it seeks to parley with those on the other side, to exchange meanings, to transfer information, if only to the extent of saying what each thought of the other.On one of these frontiers theology had a long conversation with science as to the understanding of the Genesis story of Creation in the light of evolutionary theories, or of the Christology of the two natures and the one Person in the light of modern psychological views of the unity of personality; across another frontier, with the historians as to what constituted the historically credible or possible and as to whether theological presuppositions distorted historical narrative; across another frontier with the sociologists, as to whether human responsibility could still be affirmed in the midst of the vast tissue of modern economic, social and political pressures; again with the moralists, over the reconciliation of grace and freedom and the imperative of morality with the indicative of faith; while time would fail to tell of the Gideons, the Baraks and the Samsons, who have broken swords with philosophers over the veridical nature of religious knowledge, over the proofs of Divine existence and the nature of Revelation.

The Church and science have often enough been or at least appeared to be in conflict with each other, though it might be truer to say that it is Churchmen and scientists who have found themselves in opposition. Who has been to blame? In such strife it is rare that the fault can be attributed to only one side, and it may be that a more accurate delineation of the nature and purpose of the Church on the one hand and of the scope and function of science on the other might resolve the causes of the conflict.

In the Acts of the Apostles there are ten accounts of individuals or groups of people being baptised. In six of them there is either a statement that the candidate for Baptism believed or a reference to belief in what immediately precedes the account of the Baptism. In the other four cases as well, Baptism was obviously preceded by a response of faith on the part of the candidate; the crowd at Pentecost had been told to repent and receive the Word; Saul of Tarsus had just had a most dramatic experience of conscious conversion; Lydia's heart had been opened to give heed to St. Paul's message; and one form of the story of the Ethiopian eunuch describes Philip as demanding belief as a condition of Baptism, and the eunuch as confessing his belief; if this be a later addition, it provides even stronger evidence that in the practice of the early Church the response, of conscious faith preceded Baptism.

Of all great theologians Karl Barth lends himself perhaps least of all to any attempt at reconciliation on a superficial level, to a reconciliation which would obscure the basic differences between his position and that of his opponents. And yet, his work exerts a compulsion on his readers to rethink their positions in its light. It does this even more by the echoes it seems so often to contain of the judgment under which all human thinking stands, than by the challenge of its clarity and its authentically Christocentric character. The ‘confessional conversation’ to which his work cannot but give rise must proceed piecemeal, by patient and painstaking discussion of Christian theology topic by topic. I want to examine one particular topic of theological discussion in this paper: that of the nature and structure of theological thinking itself. I shall try to outline and to compare two of the most highly developed and consciously thought-out accounts of what theological thinking consists in: the accounts given by Barth, and by St. Thomas Aquinas. Fundamental though this question is, it is well to remind ourselves at the outset of its restricted canvas. For whatever convergence we may discover in the two accounts of what theological thinking is, there may be endless scope for divergence concerning some of the topics relevant to these accounts. I may instance those of the Bible, faith, revelation—all of them concepts central to our inquiry, yet concepts on which agreement can scarcely be taken for granted.

‘Shall two walk together except they be agreed?‘ may well been a widespread question asked on both sides of the Border when the appointment of a joint Committee of Representatives, nominated respectively by the Archbishop of Canterbury and by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, to consider means of establishing closer relations between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches was announced. The Report entitled ‘Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches’ offers a provisional answer to this question, by affording evidence of a surprising degree of mutual rapprochement and by setting forth the bases for further action. Perhaps this measure of agreement is more surprising than ought to have been the case; for the history of the two national, established Churches of England and Scotland indicates how near they have been to each other in polity in the past; and how fortuitous were the circumstances which drove them apart. ‘This is the ideal which springs to light in the last months of 1558’ wrote F. W. Maitland of the relationship of the two nations at the accession of Elizabeth I, ‘deliverance from the toils of foreign potentates; amity between two sister nations; union in a pure religion.’ A Scottish contemporary, William Maitland indeed wrote to William Cecil in England, that ‘earnest embracing of religion will join us straitly together’. It was a consummation then devoutly to be wished; and no less still to be desired in the reign of Elizabeth II after the lapse of four centuries.

The title given to this paper makes clear what it sets out to do. The ‘mission of the Church’ is the work which the Church is meant to carry out, and the inclusion of the epithet ‘redemptive’ indicates that what is in mind is the Church's mission in relation to the world (she has also her Godward mission of offering worship). The aim, then, is to indicate the principles by which the Church must be guided as she seeks to fulfil her manward vocation, which is one of bringing men to redemption; and I propose to draw out these principles by following three lines, which I call the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary, because I believe that they should always be thought of in that order, though I do not think it possible for any of them to exist without the others. The mission of the Church, primarily, is to bring men into confrontation with God; secondarily, it is to bring men into the fellowship of the Church; tertiarily, it is to redeem society as a whole.

The term may have and convey a clear Greek concept from its derivation pros-elthein to come near. The Hebrew is not quite so simple, for though the term Gër is generally used, when it came to legislation it was found that there were different categories to be taken into consideration. There were the Ezraḥim, the natives, or free tribesmen, there were the Toshabhim, temporary residents, and there were the slaves, and all these were the concern of the community. The common word Gër, it should be noted, had a connotation for the Hebrew that meant very much more than a proselyte. It came very near the word ’ibhri, Hebrew, one from the other side, a foreigner. The Hebrew never forgot that he was himself a Gër, in Egypt, and afterwards in the various countries of his exile. Another Greek word, Diaspora, came to be used in this connexion, but in reality Gër was still the most suitable term.

‘Kerygma’ is probably the most popular catch-word of contemporary Anglo-Saxon biblical theology. It purports to sum up what the NT has to say in a single word; it is taken over gratefully by systematicians and preachers as the longawaited ‘conclusion’ of the NT critics; it is a point from which other elements can be judged and pronounced more or less Christian.

There are many idealists who have no conviction of sin. They are not immoral; indeed they are quite aware of the difference between good and evil, and in certain cases they are anxious to do what is good in their own lives, and in national and community life. They are conscious also of faults both in themselves and in their surroundings, and certainly do not think that everything is perfect. They lack, however, conviction of sin. They interpret the faults which they see as imperfections which are to be explained by the fact that the ideal or the good can be only partly achieved because of circumstances. They have no sense of guilt. Rather than speak of human sin, they speak of human frailty and of the recalcitrance which exists in human nature and which prevents more than the partial realisation of the ideal.

In a chapter of his book Glaube und Verstehen, recently translated into English under the title Essays Philosophical and Theological, Professor Rudolf Bultmann has discussed, by no means favourably, the Christological Confession of the World Council of Churches. The words of the Confession are: ‘The World Council of Churches is composed of Churches which acknowledge Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.’ Bultmann directs his attention chiefly to the confession that Jesus is God. In the New Testament he finds only one verse in which Jesus is un-doubtedly called God. That is John 20.28, in which Thomas addresses Jesus as ‘My Lord and my God!’ In contrast with this single example, there is in Bultmaann's opinion a great amount of evidence that the writers of the New Testament believed that Jesus was subordinate to His Father.

Armitage Robinson said about Ephesians, ‘The truth of the corporate life which was revealed to [Paul] was never more needed than it is today. Our failure to understand his life and message has been largely due to our acquiescence in disunion.’ The Church ought to show people how to live together: it often teaches them how to quarrel.

The Church of England in the sixteenth century cast off allegiance to the Papacy and underwent (more especially in the critical years 1549, 1552, and 1559) a considerable measure of doctrinal purification and reformation. The Reformation was in England, however, carried out on conservative lines, and the main dogmas of the Faith, as set forth in the traditional Creeds, were accepted and handed on without question. One of the XXXIX Articles (Article VIII) lays it down that ‘The three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius’ Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.'

Theological discussions are not infrequently stultified because terms used in them are interpreted in different senses by the parties involved. This paper is offered as an attempt to clarify one such ambiguous term, that of priesthood, by an examination of the relevant New Testament passages. We must obviously begin with the priesthood of our Lord and much of our discussion of this point will centre upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, the only NT book which calls our Lord a priest. Here a preliminary warning is necessary against the danger of assuming that when you know what a thing means in the Old Testament you also know its meaning in the New Testament. It is quite true, of course, that you cannot know the latter without discovering the former, but that does not mean it is the same as the latter. Moberly has expressed the point well.