William James catalogued an amazing diversity of religious experiences. Yet even the pluralistic James was able to find a nucleus, consisting of an uneasiness and its solution, ‘1. The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand. 2. The solution is a sense that we are saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers.’ But by stressing the moral factor, James seems to exclude those who stress rather the sense of mystery stemming from man's theoretical limitations. Einstein, for example, writes: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious side of life. It is the deep feeling which is at the cradle of all true art and science. In this sense, and only in this sense, I count myself amongst the most deeply religious people.’ For Einstein as for Pascal (Pensées, Fr. 267): ‘The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.’ Thus I propose the following revision of James' conception of the nucleus of the religious experience: (1) uneasy awareness of the limitations of man's moral or theoretical powers, especially when reality is restricted to sense data and natural objects; (2) awe-full awareness of a further reality—beyond or behind or within; (3) conviction that participation with this further reality is of supreme importance.

One of the issues in the current controversy concerning demythologising is whether or not our concept of God is itself mythological. Before this can be resolved, however, we have to sort out what we mean by ‘myth’ and compare this with other possible ways of describing divine activity. Likewise, if we are to decide whether or not all religious uses of language are ‘symbolical’ we have to clarify our conception of symbols. Such clarification is hampered by the almost indiscriminate mention of parables, models, myths, symbols, analogues and allegories which we find in philosophy today. In this paper, I shall list some distinctions of meaning amongst these terms which seem worth keeping in mind. My concern in doing so is not to provide an exhaustive list but to suggest how the distinctions affect our justification of linguistic usage in religion.

Modernisation, whatever else it involves, is always a moral and a religious problem. If it has sometimes been hailed as an exhilarating challenge to create new values and meanings it has also often been feared as a threat to an existing pattern of values and meanings. In either case the personal and social forces called into play have been powerful.

The history of doctrine is an important field of study. So also is the study of doctrine itself. Like the two natures of Christ they ought neither to be confused nor separated. ‘The unassumed is the unhealed’ is a phrase justly famed in doctrinal history. It is a question worth asking whether it merits a position of similar importance in the study of doctrine itself.

To a student audience seduced by the claims of a ‘secular Christianity’, Professor Gordon Rupp once urged the combined loyalties of ‘worldmanship’ and ‘other-worldmanship’. The Muslim world shows little friendship to secularist ideologies which explicitly reject the eschatological dimension, but Muslims are increasingly involved in secularising processes; many of these are ‘Islamised’, if they are compatible with Islamic social or political ideals, and the stigma of bid‘ah, innovation, is thereby avoided. A Lebanese author, Muhammad Darwazah, in his Dustūr al-Qur’ ānī, Cairo 1956, advocated a ‘Qur'ānic Constitution’ for the modern world since the Qur'ān’s world-view is both in-worldly and other-worldly:

‘Islam is a religion of the world (dīn al-dunyā), of government, society, morals and order, to the same extent as it is a religion of faith and belief and the next world (dīn al-ākhirah).’

Anselm's two ‘ontological’ arguments rest upon three fundamental assertions:

(1) The idea of God is the idea of a being than which nothing more perfect is conceivable.

(2) Whatever exists in the understanding and outside the understanding is more perfect than whatever exists in the understanding alone. (Prosologion 2)

(3) Whatever cannot be conceived not to exist is more perfect than whatever can be conceived not to exist. (Proslogion 3)

Although the basic ideas of the ontological argument can be found in Aristotle and Philo Judaeus (cf. AD pp. 141 ff.), the argument received its classical formulation in Anselm's Proslogion and his Reply to the objections raised by Gaunilo. During the succeeding nine centuries the argument has had a chequered career. It was supported by some scholastic theologians but rejected by Aquinas. Descartes and Leibniz offered their own versions of the proof but Kant's refutation of the argument has generally been accepted as conclusive during the past century and a half. Nevertheless, interest in the proof has never completely disappeared—perhaps provoked by Aquinas' suggestion that the proof may be valid for God even though it cannot be valid for us because of the inadequacy of our knowledge of God. Recently there has been a revival of interest in the ontological argument. J. N. Findlay put the argument into reverse to show the necessary non-existence of God in an article in 1948 (Can God's existence be disproved?) but in later writings he has suggested that the argument may have positive significance. In 1960 Norman Malcolm published a paper in which he distinguished two basically different forms of the ontological argument in the Proslogion and defended the possible validity of the second of them.

Here is an argument for the existence of the most perfect being:

1. There is a concept of a greatest conceivable being (most perfect being, being than which none greater can be conceived, etc.—hereafter I shall sometimes use ‘G.C.B.’ to represent this notion).

2. This being cannot be conceived of only, as then it would lack existence and so not be the greatest conceivable.

Anselm presented his ontological argument in three main forms. In Proslogion II he argued that the very concept of God implies his actual existence. In Reply to Gaunilo (I)—the argument from aseity—he argued that the conception of God as an eternal existent rules out his conception as a merely possible existent. In Proslogion III he argued that the concept of God implies his actual existence as logically necessary. Each of these arguments has its traditional refutation. Against Proslogion II it is argued that the analytic use of ‘exists’ conceptually and descriptively is logically distinct from its synthetic use as an empirical judgement. Against the argument from aseity the same point is made about ‘exists eternally’, and against the detail of his argument it is said that the second premise is not a proposition with a single implication, but a disjunction. Against Proslogion III it is argued that ‘logically necessary existence’ is a meaningless notion. This paper is designed to show that Anselm's arguments may be refuted without recourse to these traditional criticisms; that each of his arguments contains at least one further error, of equal if not more importance, which has passed unnoticed. If this appears to be bringing yet further coals to Newcastle, the revival of the argument by Hartshorne and Malcolm, and the supposed ‘ontological disproof’ by Findlay, may indicate our need of further fuel.

‘Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.’—Hume, Treatise, I, iv, 7.

Several years have elapsed since Professor Malcolm's astonishing revival of St Anselm's ontological argument (s). The first shock-wave of criticism has likewise passed, having been absorbed by now into the bound volumes of the periodical literature. This note is not intended to add much weight to the common conclusion of that impressive body of criticism, for, though interesting and important logical issues remain to be discussed in connection with the ontological argument, there can be little doubt that it fails as a demonstration of God's existence. Nevertheless, there is one move made by Malcolm in his determined defence of Anselm which may have had unfortunate repercussions far beyond the reaches of philosophical theology. Perhaps a discussion of this one step in the argument will help to dispel some erroneous impressions.