Showing papers in "Theology in 1972"

The Breaking of the Bread

Abstract: `Then they that received his word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need. And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did all take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved.'

New Gods and Old

Abstract: In a published article, Harvey Cox summarizes conceptions of God in the work of modern authors, and raises the question of how far these conceptions are related to that of traditional theism. John Robinson, he says, at the end of Exploration into God, \"suggests that a form of'panentheism' may be needed to replace our current theistic conception of Christianity. Panentheism is not pantheism. It does not identify God with the universe, but sees him in all things.\" LeslieDewart takes traditional theology to task for assuming that God is a being, and hence that there arises at all the question of his existence. For Dewart, \"if God does not come into being, then he is not a being, and if he is not a being, then he doesnot exist\" ; we should thus talk rather ofthe\"reality\" or \"presence\" of God than of his \"existence\". \"Gerhardt Ebeling, in his small book God and Word, insists that God is a reality of a verbal kind which surges in all directions in inexhaustible multiplicity\", laying hold of man at the point of his verbal responsibility. For a Catholic theologian like Bernard Lonergan, one discusses the reality of God in terms of the horizon ofhuman perception (sic). For those theologians who follow the tradition of Whitehead, God is nearly identified with the natural cosmic process. For Jiirgen Moltmann, God is \"the basis of the open future, which alone makes man free and responsible\". Cox concludes: \"Can any of these new defmitions of God be accommodated to traditional theism? We do not know the answer to that question yet.\"! It seemsto me that the answer is not far to seek, if we set about looking for it in the right way. I shall try to provide a sketch of the answer in the remainder of this article. The clue is given in T. Daquin's Student's Handbook of Theology, which states of God that he acts in every operation of nature or of will.2 The author means by this, I think, that God acts in and through every event whatever, whether that event is one ofinanimate nature or human history. Of course, Christians believe of \"God\" so described that he will bring into being a new world-order in which the evils and miseriesof the present one will be done away with, and that he has given a sign of this his ultimate purpose in the life, work and words ofJesus Christ. Plainly, \"God\" as so described is in everything else that exists or acts in that he acts in and through it; the Student's Handbook accordingly distinguishes in effect between the Primary Agent, whose actions constitute the whole gamut ofnature and history, and secondary agents, who owe their existence and their power to act to the Primary Agent, and each of which operates over its own small range of space and time. This conception of God as Primary Agent seems to consort very well with Dr Robinson's \"panentheism\", and is certainly not \"pantheism\"; since