The over-arching unity which characterises that section of the OT from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings has long been recognised as the work of a mind (or minds) permeated by the Dc outlook. The result of this from the historiographical point of view has been that ancient records and traditions of Israel's past are controlled and presented theologically to produce a specific historical scheme, a Heilsgeschichte. Two main procedures are selection and evaluation, both subordinated to the leitmotif of the Dc ideal. Here I want to suggest that within the overall selective process which has produced the Dc History we can discern another principle of selectivity, an inner line within the broad band of narrative.

Some academic subject matters have a quaintly old-fashioned ring-‘moral sciences’ for example, or ‘natural philosophy’. ‘Practical theology’ has a similar odd sound today. To the theological outsider is must sound remarkably like a contradiction in terms, whilst to the professional theologian it may carry undertones of an unscholarly pragmatism or a tendency towards liberal theology. Yet perhaps the juxtaposition of these two terms is an important one. It may, by its oddity, encourage us to ask the question, ‘Is practical theology possible?’ This would be a question similar to the familiar one about the possibility of metaphysics. It is asking for a formal definition of the subject matter which will meet adequate criteria of meaning, consistency and relationship to other disciplines whose status is not in doubt. In this paper I shall attempt some answers to this question of possibility.

It is no simple matter to deal with this subject. In the first place, it is not a favourite theme of Reformed theology. In addition, there are a thousand variations of the ordination liturgy, whose comparative study is still in its infancy. Finally, a kind of mutation was produced during the eighteenth century which compromised the ‘catholic’ aspect of the Reformed Church and which made of her a Church of ‘protestant’ type (to use a term which must be precisely defined).