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The main strand of American religious thought has drawn together the work of various figures who have interpreted the nation's religious experience, practice, and behavior in the light of some sort of transcendent reference. Roman Catholic theology in its most formal sense was not really free to do this until the middle of the twentieth century. But earlier Catholicism also included various popular figures and publicists-one thinks of Father Isaac Hecker or Orestes Brownsonwho in informal ways made their contribution. Jewish thought has been consistently circumstantial, incorporating frequent references to the meaning ofJudaism in America. In the course of the 196os many theologians in the black community informed their contemporaries about the long lineage of reflection on the value of their peoples' experience in the new world. The strand has been most consistently visible at the point of juncture between certain styles of Protestant thought and the representation of a

T HE CONTEMPORARY Christian community is characterized by the ever-growing awareness that, although its faith may be one, its theological expressions are many. A major factor in the development of this theological pluralism has been the emergence of multiple philosophies within the Catholic tradition. Contemporary Catholic theology diverges in a very noticeable way from its centuries-old tendency to work from a single philosophical framework, scholasticism. The reason for today's philosophical pluralism is, in the last analysis, due to the multiple ways human existence can be experienced. As Rahner suggests, it arises

By one of the ironies of history, it was the godless Orthodox seminarist Stalin who made present-day Poland into one of the most Roman Catholic countries in Europe, and indeed in the world. . In the inter-war Polish Republic (19 I 8I 939) at least a third' of the population were of other denominations. This was a source of complicated relations and conflicts. The Yalta and Potsdam agreements, plus the ~nni­ hilation by the Nazi occupiers of the million Polish Jews, left inside the frontiers of the new People's Polish Republic less than 800,000 citizens belonging to non~Roman Catholic Churches. Thus, at least formally, present-day Poland's population consists of 97 per cent Catholics, or more than 32 million souls. In 1971, the atheist Society for the Propagation of Secular Culture numbered 3 I 6,000 members, who were recently described by one of its leaders, Dr. Wieslaw Myslek, as having purely formal links with this Society (Party members of any standing have to make this gesture). The Roman Catholic Church in Poland is a thriving organization. In 1972 it had 6,437 parishes with 13,518 churches and chapels. Its clergy consists of 18,300 priests, 7,000 more than on the eve of the war (but since then the membership of the Church has grown from approximately 25 million to 32 million). The Primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, two more cardinals and 67 bishops constitute the Episcopacy, whose authority is rarely questioned inside or outside the Church. The Church maintains 47 higher seminars with more than 4,000 alumni. They are financed by voluntary donations from believers, and from funds collected among Poles living abroad (some ten million, the majority in North America). The government provides funds for the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw, where 800 students complete their higher theological studies. The Academy, created in the Stalinist period, was intended to produce a new type of priest, who could at one and the same time perform his traditional pastoral functions and intellectually accomodate himself and his flock to the materialist secular power. The results until now have deeply disappointed the initiators of the Academy. The 50-year-old Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) is a unique

One of the most conspicuous modem tendencies in theology is the widespread discrediting of the Chalcedonian Christology by Protestant theologians. Says Professor Loofs: "There is hardly a single learned theologian-I know of none in Germany-who defends the orthodox Christology in its unaltered form."' It is true that this Christology still finds formal expression in treatises which reproduce traditional doctrine, and that it has vigorous defenders. But the distinct trend of christological interpretation during the past century has been away from the formulations which passed into the great creeds of the church, and which had for centuries been accepted as final. The Christ of these creeds is no longer considered identical with the historical Jesus. Catholic theology would look upon such a movement as apostasy. Indeed, the late Professor Charles A. Briggs declared that the nature of Christ is defined with absolute correctness by the Nicene and Chalcedonian creeds, and that no one may rightfully claim to be an interpreter of Christian doctrine who questions the finality of the teaching of these creeds, so far as substance of doctrine is concerned.2 Professor Benjamin W. Warfield is likewise unequivocal in his insistence on the complete adequacy of the Chalcedonian Christology.3 Says he: "The significance of this revolt becomes at once apparent, when we reflect that the doctrine of the Two Natures is only another way of stating the

The role of Scripture as norm is growing significantly in Catholic theological work. But with that growth the problems of its relation to other norms become clearer and more urgent as the agenda for systematic theology.

One of the striking aspects of Roman Catholic theology today is the discussion of a new, fundamental source for theological reflection. In addition to Scripture, tradition in its historical and dogmatic aspects, and philosophy, human experience itself has become an explicit source in Catholic theology.' The reasons for the emergence of experience are many and complex, but singularly notable among the historical, cultural, and theological causes is the work of theologian Karl Rahner. Rahner has played a significant role in leading Catholic thought into its present open context in which the relevance of human experience to theology has become crucial. For he has focused on experience in his developemnt of an original theological method, a method which he calls theological anthropology. It is this method which provides the coherence and continuity in Rahner's thought, despite its continuing development, lack of systematic expression, and the apparently sharp discontinuities between the "early" and the "later" Rahner.

PROTESTANT ANB Catholic theologians today are seeking a more thorough knowledge of each other's thought in an effort to work together toward a more adequate understanding of the revelation given in Christ. At the same time they seek to delimit more clearly the areas of disagreement that separate them. One of these areas is the doctrine concerning the primal revelation and the natural knowledge of God. In this area the Catholic theologian finds a special interest in the position represented by Emil Brunner of Zurich; for Brunner over a period of years has consistently defended a mediate position between that of the earlier Karl Barth and Catholic theology. Moreover, the Catholic theologian can learn much from a study of a position which is at the same time so near and yet so far from his own. Emil Brunner's doctrine concerning the original revelation in creation has been formulated and polished in controversy with Karl Barth that received its impetus in 1934 from Brunner's Natur und Gnade and Barth's response: Nein! Antwort an Emil Brunner. In 1937, at the conclusion of Der Mensch im Widerspruch, Brunner felt that "the opposition between Barth and me consists mainly in two points: that I, in opposition to Barth, but in harmony with the Scriptures and the Reformers, maintain that God even now is manifest in His creation, and secondly, that I do not view the human existence of man as a bagatelle, but as a theologically relevant fact, which can only be understood from the idea of the image of God." In 1941 Brunner charged that the source of Barth's denial of this biblical and traditional doctrine of a primal revelation in creation lay in his failure to distinguish the principium cognoscendi from the principium essendi, "because he thinks that the recognition of a revelation in creation must have as its consequence the recognition of a natural knowledge of God." This 1 Der Mensch im Widerspruck (Zurich, 1937) p. 541. 2 Offenbarung und Vernunft (Zurich, 1941) p. 80.

O OTHER issue has so thoroughly disquieted modern Protestant theology as the problem of the interrelationship between kerygma and history. When the gale of historical-critical research with its historically, i. e. no longer metaphysically, oriented understanding of the totality of man's existence had blown even into the hallowed halls of the church, the foundations quaked and a tremor swept through the ranks. Official Roman Catholic theology at least until recently sought to protect the edifice by closing the windows and supporting the walls, not realizing that the wind outside was the same air that had to be breathed inside. And the majority of Protestant theologians reacted no differently. In the beginning only a handful recovered from the shock. Then more and more, though never everyone, increasingly recognized the task of reconstructing theology in the face of a world "come of age," yet without abandoning the genuineness of faith.' Kerygma and history had to be interrelated in such a way that nature was not underrated on account of grace, nor grace on account of nature. In varying degrees of either intellectual audacity or timidity or any combination thereof, solutions have been offered in the last 300 years and particularly in the last century, which range from the most unrestrained liberalism to the most rigid conservatism, from the dehistoricizing of the kerygma to the dekerygmatizing of history. In our time the discussion has centered upon the kerygma-theology of Rudolf Bultmann, which seems to express paradigmatically the problem described above and to offer a solution which, if not workable itself, has at least stimulated a host of positive and negative responses. The preoccupation with Bultmann's program of demythologizing appears the more fruitful as his place within the history of theology exemplifies the two components constituting the task of contemporary theology. He stands at the point of intersection of two major traditions, the historical-critical school of the nineteenth century (an offspring of theological liberalism) and the movement reacting directly against it, the so-called dialectical theology originating in the early 1920's.2 Since Karl Barth's theology is similarly situated at this point of intersection, it might be useful to analyze briefly the influence of this heritage upon both, to determine agreements and divergencies, and finally to indicate a theological position which avoids possible dangers on both sides, yet simultaneously allows history as well as kerygma to come fully into its own. We confine our discussion to the events of the Cross and, particularly, of the Resurrection, because here the problem concentrates and crystallizes itself.

IN 1964, W. Marxsen published a short essay which triggered an intense discussion among German Protestants concerning the understanding of the Resurrection faith. Marxsen's essay soon influenced Catholic theology, and the discussion spread to German Catholic circles. In these circumstances the German bishops wrote a letter "to all who are commissioned by the Church to preach the faith," dated Sept. 22, 1967. The letter rejected an extreme interpretation of the Resurrection and stated: "The confession of the Resurrection of Jesus as a real event (wirkliches Ereignis) necessarily belongs to the Christian faith and cannot be understood as a time-conditioned interpretation of an inner-historical, inner-worldly or inner-human experience, which can at other times be expressed differently. " The letter of the bishops did not mention any theologian by name. It did not even say that any theologian expressly taught what it rejected. Rather, in a time of confusion, the letter set a limit beyond which the discussion of German Catholics could not go. It did not seek to end all discussion of the meaning of the Resurrection faith. What then have the theologians been saying?

Perhaps an analysis of trends in Roman Catholic theology serves best to remind us that increasingly the problems of ecclesiology, humanness, and meaning transcend ProtestantCatholic categories, and that in reflecting upon these matters we have much to learn from our Roman Catholic counterparts.

Catholic writers on Scholastic Theology do not hesitate to admit that no work contributing new and valuable additions to this science has been published since the days of Bellarmin, Suarez, and Lugo. The collapse of scholastic philosophy after the fifteenth century could not fail to affect also scholastic theology, which in losing all contact with the new scientific progress lost also its strong appeal to speculative minds. Moreover, the Church, instructed by the events of the Reformation, had become so suspicious of novelties that any attempt to introduce new additions to the traditional teaching of theology was more likely to bring a thinker into the hands of the Inquisition than to lead towards a cardinal's hat.