Scottish Theology Research Articles

Emptiness and Presence in a Non-substantialist Formulation of Trinitarian Doctrine

AbstractThis paper examines the ideas of emptiness (śūnyatā) and presence (svabhāva) in the discourses of Indian Madhyamika thinkers in comparison with the work of prominent Kyoto School philosopher and key figure in Buddhist-Christian dialogue, Masao Abe (1915–2006). Madhyamika’s negative dialectic and Abe’s oeuvre are applied to the trinitarian theology of Scottish theologian and churchman Thomas Forsyth Torrance (1913–2007), even as Torrance’s oeuvre is allowed to recast and illuminate notions of emptiness in light of the trinitarian faith. In this movement of ideas, the dynamic interpretations and reinterpretations of the doctrine of emptiness by Indian thinkers are brought to bear on Abe’s thought and, in turn, on Torrance’s trinitarian theology. In this way, the metaphysical basis of trinitarian doctrine is drawn into sharper focus even as an emptiness-based, non-substantialist, onto-relational theology of the Trinity emerges as a potentially viable account of the nature of the triune Godhead.

Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology 1560–1775, by Aaron Clay Denlinger (ed.)

Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology 1560–1775, by Aaron Clay Denlinger (ed.)

Aaron Clay Denlinger (ed.), Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology 1560–1775 (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 304. $130.00/£70.00.

Aaron Clay Denlinger (ed.), Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology 1560–1775 (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 304. $130.00/£70.00.

A tradition in crisis: understanding and repairing division over homosexuality in the Church of Scotland

AbstractLike many Western churches, the Church of Scotland has been divided in recent years over the ordination of gay clergy in committed relationships, and, more generally, over the status of homosexuality for Christian ethics. Yet there has been no academic research undertaken which situates the debate within the wider context of Scottish theology. This failure has resulted in theological and ecclesial impasse, which this paper seeks to remedy through a diagnostic analysis of division over homosexuality, drawing upon the analytic tools developed by R. G. Collingwood. While this article has as its focus the Church of Scotland, its method and conclusions will be relevant to other Protestant denominations, especially Reformed churches such as the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Book Review: Scottish Reformed Orthodoxy: Aaron Clay Denlinger (ed.), Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology 1560-1775

Book Review: Scottish Reformed Orthodoxy: Aaron Clay Denlinger (ed.), Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology 1560-1775

Swimming with the Reformed Tide: John Forbes of Corse (1593–1648) on Double Predestination and Particular Redemption

The 1640 General Assembly of the Kirk, dominated by Covenanters, was keen to discover something amiss in the doctrine of the Episcopalian John Forbes of Corse. Ultimately they were forced to admit his orthodoxy, even while deposing him for his refusal to subscribe the National Covenant. Modern scholars have succeeded where Forbes's contemporary antagonists failed, representing Forbes as the champion of a party that was, to one degree or another, out of step with the Calvinist orthodoxy of the day. This article examines Forbes's theology at points where his disagreement with contemporary reformed thought has been claimed, and draws implications from its findings for our knowledge and understanding of seventeenth-century Scottish theology more broadly.

Continental cross-currents: the influence of Germany on Scottish theology

An intellectual commerce of theological ideas, thinkers and movements has characterised the relationship between Germany and Scotland since the Middle Ages. These are briefly surveyed – with occasional reference to Europe more widely – from medieval scholasticism through the Reformation and the Enlightenment to the present day. Links with Germany have been fostered not only through literary connections but also through numerous personal and institutional contacts. These resulted in sustained and multifarious influences which situate the theological traditions of Scotland in close proximity to developments in Germany, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Scotland and the Netherlands: Reformed Crosscurrents

The strong links established between theologians in Scotland and the Netherlands are evident at the time of the Reformation and throughout the 17th century. Yet by the late 19th century, these Reformed links are much less evident. The reasons for this decline are largely attributable to the dominance of German theology and the tendency of Scottish theologians to study under Ritschl, Herrmann, Barth and Bultmann. More recent trends, however, might suggest ways in which Scottish and Dutch theologians can now reconnect.

Robert Rollock on covenant and sacrament

This contribution presents two, less-well-known texts from the Latin corpus of the Scottish theologian, Robert Rollock (d.1599). Rollock significantly informed the evolution of thinking on the divine covenants by virtue of his relatively unprecedented, mature doctrine of a pre-Fall ‘covenant of works’ between God and humankind. Historians of Reformed theology have long recognized Rollock’s importance in this regard, but their familiarity with his doctrine has stemmed almost entirely from Tractatus de vocatione efficaci(1597). The Scot advanced his covenant doctrine in other, earlier texts, including a brief catechism on the covenants (1596) and a series of short tracts published with his Romans commentary (1593). The tracts are particularly noteworthy since, given the popularity of Rollock’s biblical commentaries in his day, these texts were very likely read more widely than his later catechism or Tractatus; they likely served as the principal vehicle through which his covenantal ideas were disseminated. Two tracts, De foedere Dei and De sacramento, are offered here in English translation, thus affording readers access to Rollock’s earliest covenantal ideas, influential in Reformed thought.

Resistance and Romans 13 in Samuel Rutherford's Lex, Rex

AbstractThe many conflicts around the reformation of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drew the problem of political resistance to the forefront of European political thought. Thinkers in all of the various religious camps considered scripture to be politically normative. Consequently, both pro- and anti-resistance thinkers from a variety of traditions had to engage with Romans 13:1–7, Paul's apparently definitive pronouncement in favour of obedience and, therefore, against resistance. The opponents of resistance could cite Romans 13 with fairly little explanation, but the resisters and revolutionaries faced the challenge of working with the text to draw different political conclusions from it without violating the ‘literal’ sense that they almost universally held to be authoritative. Some even aimed to bring Paul forward as a staunch supporter of the sort of violent political resistance they advocated.Lex, Rex, the political tract of seventeenth-century Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661), represents a particularly comprehensive early modern justification for violent resistance against a political sovereign. Rutherford was a member of the party of the radical covenanters, who vehemently opposed the church reforms of Charles I and, when hostilities began, fervently supported the war against the king. This article explores the series of arguments, distinctions and theological moves that Rutherford employs to incorporate Romans 13 as a central supporting text for his pro-resistance argument. Among these are: the distinction between God's immediate institution of governmental power and the constitution of particular governments mediately through the people, the positing of a conditional covenant agreed upon at the constitution of any government, the scholastic distinction between voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi in the divine will, and the distinction between the royal office in abstracto and its concrete occupant. Using these and other arguments and distinctions, Rutherford constructs a conceptual apparatus that is able, to a great extent, to appropriate Paul's exhortation to obedience in the service of a justification of resistance. In so doing, Rutherford illustrates some of the array of theological and philosophical resources that early modern resistance theorists could marshal in support of their cause, while still maintaining their fundamental theological commitments.

The Deissmann Ostraca after 75 Years in Sydney

This paper has two main parts. It begins with the first detailed account of how a collection of 87 Greek ostraca (i.e. inscribed pottery fragments), once belonging to the German theologian Gustav Adolf Deissmann, a leading Greek philologist, came to Sydney. The collection was destined to go elsewhere – were it not for the serendipitous convergence of Deissmann’s forced retirement under the Nazis, a much travelled German Egyptologist, an ailing Scottish theology professor, and the staunchly Presbyterian director of the Bank of New South Wales. The second part introduces the collection as a whole, before focusing more specifically on four selected exemplars. Two, whose writings have faded away almost completely since coming to Sydney, and two (representing the majority) which remain in good condition. Remarkably, most of the Deissmann ostraca have not yet been analysed comprehensively from a socio-historical perspective. Despite Paul Meyer’s philological publication of the collection in 1916, many questions remain either unasked or unanswered, leaving the potential for further research and study.

Walking the Tightrope: The Missiology of Tom Allan for Today

This article considers the contribution of Tom Allan, a minister, evangelist and theologian of particular public prominence in Scotland and beyond in the period from 1946 to 1964, to contemporary questions of new expressions of church. It examines Allan's concept of "missionary parishes" of constant witness and service and relates this radical missiology, centred on the "apostolate of the laity," to diverse sources in Scottish and European theology. The article argues that Allan united the need for Gospel proclamation with contextualization to the lives of ordinary people, and with social and political action alongside the urban underclass. It is concluded that Allan's work speaks to the present as it reflects necessary elements of postmodern missiological thinking in its key aspects, offers an appraisal of the "emerging church" conversation in re-asserting a role for the institutional Church in mission, and bridges evangelical/ecumenical polarisation.

John Napier and the mathematics of the ‘middle future’ apocalypse

AbstractThis article explores the notion of ‘middle future’ apocalypticism through the work of the late sixteenth-century Scottish theologian and the discoverer of logarithms, John Napier. Middle future apocalypticism envisaged the end of the world, not in the immediate or far distant future but (rather like modern environmental apocalypticism) within the next 100–200 years. It enabled the understanding of the present in apocalyptic terms, and set out the requisite conditions, tasks and obligations – social, political and personal – essential for bringing to reality those events which were necessary precursors of the coming of Christ. John Napier's 1593A Plaine Discovery of the whole Reuelation of Saint Iohnwas the first Scottish work on the book of Revelation. Though later to be derided by historians of mathematics and science, in its time, it was highly influential, not only in Scotland and England but also in Protestant communities on the Continent. I explore the complex mathematics which Napier brings to bear and suggest that the middle future apocalypticism of Napier, as demonstrated in the carefully articulated mathematics of history in this work, is both socially conservative and socially active. Living in the seventh age, as Napier believed he did, did not entail either ‘downing tools’ and passively awaiting the end, nor actively hastening the end by radical social upheaval. But it did mean in the here and now fighting the Antichrist of Rome, bringing in Reformed religion and spreading the true Gospel.

Puritan or enlightened? John Erskine and the transition of Scottish Evangelical theology

John Erskine was an eighteenth-century Scottish Evangelical who shared many of the theological beliefs of the Puritans while appropriating the techniques of the Enlightenment. He was thoroughly Calvinistic in affirming the total depravity of mankind, a denial of works and freewill in salvation, divine election and imputed righteousness. But, his method of preaching was more congenial to the Enlightenment since he abandoned the metaphysical speculations of the Puritans in favour of a simple, but clear message from the pulpit. He believed that the success of the Evangelical Revival depended on its leaders adopting these measures, so he became a leading propagator of books in order to enlighten his correspondents and assist them in making the gospel message more attractive in the current age.

Preaching as a Communicative Event: A Discourse Analysis of Sermons by Robert Rollock (1555-1599)

In 1999, Mary Morrissey called for interdisciplinary collaboration in research into early modern sermons, based on a common interest in sermons as discourse. Interdisciplinarity, however, can develop only on the basis of a systematic analysis of sermons as communicative events. All discourse is situationally embedded; analysis seeks to establish how the linguistic makeup of a sermon is related to the preacher's objective of communicating in a way that was situated, appropriate, and meaningful to the hearers. It thus helps to explicate the relationship between the sermon as text and its social, historical, literary, and theological settings. This article presents a methodology for such analysis, using a simple framework that embodies both language and communication. Sermons by the Scottish theologian, Robert Rollock, form the corpus of the analysis. It identifies clear patterning of linguistic forms and communicative acts, which are then examined in the light of the preacher's theological, hermeneutical, and pastoral concerns.

The Influence of Macmurray on Scottish Theology

The Influence of Macmurray on Scottish Theology

Conquest and English Legal Identity in Renaissance Ireland

Like the Spanish administrators of the American territories, English administrators of Ireland attempted to impose their own native legal system on the Irish inhabitants. Nonetheless, important differences existed between the two kingdoms' legal approaches to their respective colonial contexts. Because Spanish jurisprudence was allied with universalist Catholic doctrine and was officially based on Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis (the ancient Roman legal code which had close affinities to natural law discourse), Spanish administrators expected New World inhabitants to accept what they considered to be the values that were inherent in Spanish law.1 In contrast English common law had its roots not in natural law but in the peculiar customs of the English people. Thus, while the Spanish were able to claim that they were replacing unnatural Indian customs with a legal system rooted in universal natural law, the English were attempting to reform what they considered to be the unnatural practices of the Irish by imposing a legal system defined by its insularity and its peculiar affinity with English institutions.2 In this essay I show that Renaissance ethnographies on Ireland by such English administrators of Ireland as Edmund Spenser, Sir John Davies, and Fynes Moryson are fractured by a conflict between a commitment to natural-law theory, which had its origin in continental writings, and a corresponding commitment to the native English tradition of common law. I examine how works by Spenser, Davies, and Moryson dealt with this conflict within their collective project of articulating a legal justification and strategy for the pacification of Ireland.Despite reports throughout Europe of Spanish-perpetrated cruelty throughout the Americas, the idea that war or conquest could be just or even charitable when prosecuted against oppression originated within the Catholic tradition of scholastic just-war theory.3 Many of the sixteenth-century writers who were writing about war and conquest in legal or ethical terms were Spanish or continental theologians who had attempted to evaluate Spanish imperial policy in the New World. On the one side were such figures as the Scottish theologian John Major and Spanish historian Juan Gines de Sepulveda, both of whom had justified Spanish conquest and treatment of the Indians using arguments based on the foundation of natural law.4 On the other side were those who had, on similar terms, voiced criticisms of the which Spanish forces were inflicting on the Indians. Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolome de las Casas were certainly the most notable Spanish writers who favored more ethical treatment of New World inhabitants.5 Other prominent defenders of Indian rights were Domingo de Soto and Melchor Cano.6 Whether directly or through intermediaries, the ideas of many of these writers permeated the ideological fabric of England.Sir Fulke Greville's famous statement about Sir Philip Sidney's goal of fostering alliances with New World inhabitants in order to overthrow the Spanish authorities included an awareness of the inhuman cruelties of the Spanish forces, an awareness that probably originated in the English translation of Las Casas 's Brevissima relation de la destrucyion de las Indias (1552).7 Beyond this significant text, however, there were others. One important book that captured the ideas of the early Spanish debates on the ethics and justice of the New World conquests was Antonio de Guevara's Relax de principes (1529), a work twice translated into English during the sixteenth century.8 The third book of the Relax de principes, which treats the princely virtues of justice, peace, and magnificence, contains several sections that together constitute a polemic against violent imperialism and unjust conquest. In one notable episode Guevara employs the example of ancient Roman imperialism to produce a veiled critique of the injustices which Spain had committed against New World polities. …

Le christianisme dans le Journal encyclopédique entre 1756 et 1785

Between 1756 and 1786, the Journal encyclopédique questioned the legiti¬ macy of Christianity's claim to universal empire. It doubted whether the study of Christianity could become religious science, and whether it was capable of providing an acceptable knowledge concerning nature, humanity and its history. In physics (A.G. de Forbin), history (dom Poncet, Pontoppidan, Bayer, Struchmeyer, Salchi) or rhetoric (Formey, Sigaud, Ducontant, Barruel, Para du Phanjas), either learning was not encouraged by faith, or faith would lose its rigour in contact with knowledge. Considering that the Church had not adapted itself to demands for a 'kinder5 justice, or accepted the autonomy of the secular power, the journal called on it to integrate the new fashionable charity seen in the sermons of Le Couturier, Girardot, Formey, Baer, Surian or Maury. It detached Christianity from its singular spirituality and extracted its moral elements which were useful for society, following Scottish theologians like Fordyce or Blair ; it thus substituted an evangelical Christianity for a misanthropic and tragic religion.

Dr T. F. Torrance and Scottish Theology: a Review Article

A modern Scottish Calvinist assesses T. F. Torranceʼs recent review of Scottish theology. While appreciative of Torranceʼs personal contribution to theology, this article takes issue with the thesis that Westminster Calvinism represented a betrayal of both Calvin and the earlier Scottish theologians. It focuses particularly on such issues as predestination, limited atonement, assurance and the free offer of the gospel. It also evaluates the claim that such ideas as incarnational redemption and Christʼs assumption of a fallen nature are supported by the older Scottish Reformed tradition. Finally, it examines Torranceʼs strictures on Scottish Calvinismʼs doctrine of God.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Marcia L. Colish Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition 400–1400Adriann H. BrederoBernard of Clairvaux: Between Cult and HistoryJohn Howe Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh‐Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and his PatronsMichael T. Clanchy Abelard: A Medieval LifeVicente Castell Maiques, ed. Proceso Sobre la Ordenación de la Iglesia Valentina, 1238–1246, Vols I and IIMa. Milagros Cárcel Ortí and José Vicente Boscá Codina, eds Visitas Pastorales de Valencia: Siglos XIV–XVVicent Luïs Simó Santonja, ed. Les Corts Valencianes: 1240–1645Jan Veenstra: Magic and Divination at the Courts of Burgundy and France Text and Context of Laurens Pignon’s Contre les devineurs (1411)Marilyn Oliva The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England. Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350–1540Abraham Friesen Erasmus, the Anabaptists, and the Great CommissionMark W. Konnert Civic Agendas and Religious Passion: Châlons‐sur‐Marne During the French Wars of Religion, 1560–1594David Coffey Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel RutherfordThomas F. Torrance Scottish Theology: From John Knox to John McLeod CampbellGeoffrey R. Treloar Lightfoot the Historian: The Nature and Role of History in the Life and Thought of J. B. Lightfoot (1828–1889) as Churchman and ScholarJonathan Sarna, ed. Minority Faiths and the American Protestant MainstreamMichael Glazer and Thomas J. Shelley, eds The Encyclopedia of American Catholic HistoryBryan F. Le Beau Jonathan Dickinson and the Formative Years of American PresbyterianismBret E. Carroll Spiritualism in Antebellum AmericaJoel A. Carpenter Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American FundamentalismJames T. Fisher Dr America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927–1961Timothy E. Fulop and Albert J. Raboteau, eds African‐American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and CultureTracy Elaine K’Meyer Interracialism and Christian Community in the Postwar South: The Story of Koinonia FarmDana L. Robert American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and PracticeJohn Garrett Where Nets Were Cast: Christianity in Oceania Since World War IIJamsheed K. Choksy Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Sub‐alterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian SocietyDennis Hirota No Abode: The Record of IppenAngelo Zito Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth‐Century ChinaLiz Wilson Charming Cadavers: Horrific Configurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic LiteratureGeoffrey A. Oddie (ed.) Religious Traditions in South Asia: Interaction and Change