Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born on the 2Ist day of November 1768, and died on the 12th day of February 1834. It is altogether fitting that as we honour the birth of this great man by dedicating to his memory this number of the Scottish Journal of Theology, we should consider that aspect of his thought which has continued to influence us in the twentieth century so powerfully.

Study of St. Paul among reforming theologians raised high shopes for definitive dogmatic decrees of an ecumenical council which would incorporate the new biblical insights. Cardinal Pole addressed an irenic plea to members of the Council, that they must begin the reform with themselves. One can read into Pole's philippic all the dreams of the Cardinal reformers, marshalled again after the bitter frustrations of 1541 and 1546 at Ratisbon. Pole's homily helps to penetrate the climate of opinion on the eve of the oft-postponed reforming council. There is still only a partial and imperfect understanding of Pole's role at Trent.

In the introduction to his helpful edition of selected writings from Ernst Bloch, Hans Heinz Holz recognises that Christian theologians feel themselves drawn towards Bloch's philosophy, and have in fact ‘appropriated it (and obviously also his person, as the Festschrift for his eightieth birthday shows)’. The theologians in question are principally Jürgen Moltmann, J. B. Metz, W.-D. Marsch and Gerhard Sauter. Of these Moltmann and Metz were among the contributors to the Festschrift, Ernst Bloch Zu ehren. These theologians, Holz complains, by their ‘inadequate reception’ and ‘incorrect interpretation’ of Bloch's Marxist thought have ‘falsified’ his intention. In this article I want to consider that verdict, putting three questions. What is the particular form of Marxism that Bloch sets before us? How have these theologians found his thought relevant and helpful? In their use of Bloch do they in fact incorrectly interpret and falsify his intention? I am not concerned here to ask whether the account of Christianity put before us by Moltmann and the others is acceptable or not.

For some time the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches has been concerned with the problem of the relation between creation and redemption. To that important problem this article speaks by submitting an introductory outline of the history of interpretations of the relation between creation and redemption.

One of the fascinating features of theology in our day is the revival of interest in Schleiermacher in the same century which has witnessed the most radical questioning of both his method and point of view.

The mainspring of Bonhoeffer's theology is his vision of Christ and the resulting Christology. The Cost of Discipleshipseems to me to suffer from a defective Christology. The purpose of this article is to provide evidence for this contention.

The logical consequences of divine sovereignty for human freedom have been disputed for so long that one might doubt whether anything new remains to be said on the matter. Recent debate on the related topic of ‘Brain and Will’ has however brought up a logical point which would seem to apply equally in the theological context and which throws fresh doubt on the coherence of the traditional antithesis between predestination and human freedom. My object in this paper is to outline the argument and bring home some of its implications.

A Mong those elements of Christian doctrine which surged anew to the forefront of Christian thinking during the early sixteenth century was that biblical idea which, in more modern times, we have come to call the ‘priesthood of all believers’. Luther used the doctrine almost as a battle-axe, to hew away at the pretensions of the Roman hierarchy and sacramental system. Almost invariably, it is Luther's name which we find linked to this doctrine in studies of the Reformation period. However, any serious study of the idea of the priesthood of God's people would do well to include an examination of the way in which John Calvin dealt with it, and indeed, the way in which the idea found certain expressions within his system of ecclesiastical organisation. It is our purpose here to see what Calvin taught in relationship to this biblical idea, and what elements of the life of the Genevan church may be considered to be, at least in part, an expression of the idea.

In July 1930 Bonhoeffer wrote in the preface to the published version of his doctoral dissertation: ‘The more theologians have considered the significance of the sociological category for theology, the more clearly the social intention of all the basic Christian concepts has emerged. Ideas such as “person”, “primal state”, “sin” and “revelation” are fully understandable only in relation to sociality.’ Two recently published works, a translation of Bonhoeffer's 1933 Christology lectures and John A. Phillips' study of Bonhoeffer's theology, give occasion for examining the meaning of this statement and its importance in understanding Bonhoeffer's thought.

Paul Tillich's third volume of his Systematic Theology was never reviewed by Time magazine. Previously the publication of such a major volume was a front-cover event. The correspondent who interviewed me about the importance of the volume informed me that Time had asked five theologians in Chicago, New York and Boston respectively for an appraisal and found general agreement that Tillich's writings, except possibly for his occasional writings, especially his sermons, ‘would not last’. The astonished reporter confessed that some of these theologians had stressed that Tillich's theology was not Christian and that some had even suggested it was definitely a form of Hinduism. Having been one of the earliest of Tillich's critics I now threw whatever weight I could command into stressing the positive aspects of his thinking and the significance of his eventual contribution, but, as it turned out in this case, in vain.

Bicentennials are celebrated, it would seem, because the person or institution in question has considerable contemporary significance. At least this is the case with Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, the bicentennial of whose birth in Breslau is celebrated in 1968. Accordingly, one of the appropriate commemorations of Schleiermacher's birth would be an attempt to state some aspect of his contemporary significance. This paper, written about the study of Schleiermacher's thought and predicated upon a conviction which I believe I have learned from Schleiermacher, is intended as just such a tribute which, in effect, proclaims, ‘The man lives!’

I would like to draw attention to certain influential misrepresentations of the views of Martin Buber and others relating to the notion of an encounter between God and man.

One of the most stirring moments of the World Conference on Church and Society held in Geneva in 1966 was during the third plenary session on 14th July. For that evening the subject was ‘The Challenge and Relevance of Theology to the Social Revolutions of our Time’. It had been chosen with some hesitation by the preparatory Committee; for although the relevance of the subjects on the first and second evenings—the technological and social revolutions of our time—was clear to all the delegates, the importance of a ‘theological revolution’ seemed simply incommensurable in comparison with the others. However, this evening proved to be a real challenge to the Conference (and also in its repercussions on the social-theological thinking in the ecumenical movement) and its influence on the discussions afterwards was lasting and varied. The ‘theology of revolution’ presented itself as an extremely burning issue for ecumenism.

Six centuries ago, in 1368, a man who had been dead only nine years was canonised by the orthodox church and raised to the dignity of Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, and of Cyril as a defender of orthodoxy. The sexcentenary of his death, 1959, saw the publication of three volumes—the first being one of the ‘Mâitres Spirituels’ series, the second an introduction to the study of St. Gregory, and the third and most important a critical edition of St. Gregory's major work: Treatise in defence of the Holy Solitaries. All three were the work of Jean Meyendorf who can rightly claim to have been the first scholar to have offered a full-dress sympathetic study to the west of a neglected and much misunderstood theologian. Unfortunately Meyendorf's work is spoilt by his inability to understand the reformed tradition. Nevertheless he has countered or at least challenged a settled assumption of western theology that the great christological debates saw the end of any lively thinking and dogmatic development in the Eastern Church. Harnack in his History of Dogma Vol. IV was only repeating what was already a long received opinion when he said that from the codification of dogma by John of Damascus those dogmas ‘had become a sacred inheritance from the classic antiquity of the Church but they had as it were fallen to the ground. The worship of images, mysticism and scholasticism ruled the Church’ (p. 352).But even Harnack gives at least a passing nod to St. Gregory when he admits that ‘no doubt another rather important dispute agitated the Church in the fourteenth century–the Hesychastic controversy–but’, he adds, ‘dogma, and to some extent the Church, remained ultimately unaffected’ (p.353).

The purpose of this study is firstly to examine the principles behind Calvin's exegesis of the messianic elements in the Psalms, and then to consider briefly how far in the light of recent studies in Israelite sacral kingship we can apply them to our own understanding today. At the outset, however, it is necessary to defend the adjective ‘messianic’ in regard to Calvin's exegesis of the Psalms. It has been objected, particularly by Mowinckel at the beginning of his He that Cometh, that the term ‘Messiah’ can only rightly be used for a royal eschatological figure in the literature of later Judaism. As, according to Mowinckel, the royal figure in the Psalms is in no strict sense an eschatological one, the adjective ‘messianic’ cannot be strictly applied to it. It is not our intention here to combat this judgment of Mowinckel on exegetical grounds, but to point out that his criticism is not valid for what Calvin was seeking to do in his commentary.

The year 1968 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher. During these two centuries his impact has been felt all over the theological world and earned him the title of ‘father of modern theology’.

For more than sixty years theological thinking has been influenced by developments in modern psychology, as even a cursory examination of the theological literature of the past half century will indicate. The movement has been largely one way: a borrowing of methods and concepts from psychology by the theologian. Now this situation is changing. There are signs of the beginning of a two-way movement, with psychology learning something from theology as well as contributing to theology. We may be at the beginning of a significant period of creative dialogue between the two.

In recent discussions philosophers have come to some measure JLof agreement as to what they mean by ‘punishment’, although they admit that there can be no sharp line delimiting the use of the term.1 A standard case of punishment (I) must involve the suffering of some unpleasantness by its victim, (2) must be for an offence against rules either legal or moral, (3) must be of a supposed or an actual offender, (4) must be administered by personal beings other than the offender, and (5) must be imposed by the authority upholding the system of rules against which the offence has been committed. We note from this account that punishment so defined necessarily involves suffering. For this reason punishment requires to be justified, for the deliberate infliction of pain is something that Christians would normally refuse to do to others, and something which may be regarded as unjust to its victim, if St. Paul's statement is universally true, ‘I can will what is right, but I cannot do it’ (Rom. 7.18). There may be other ways of dealing with wrongdoers like the Russian correctional colonies intended to provide a largely painless curative treatment for criminals or the approved schools without any corporal punishment desired by a recent Home Secretary, but unless some suffering is involved these are not methods of punishment.

There is a hackneyed story which tells how a man who was offered a drink replied thus: ‘No, thank you. I won't have a drink, for three reasons. First, because I am a teetotaller. Second, because I've given it up for Lent. Third, because I've already had two.’ Such forms of argument are familiar in courts of law, even outside Ireland. The defendant pleads that he wasn't there when the blow was struck, but at home watching television; or alternatively that it was actually Jones, and not he himself, who did it, as he saw with his own eyes; or alternatively that the fellow deserved it anyway.