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Existe t-il aujourd'hui une maniere d'envisager la Bible qui soit authentiquement theologique et respecte l'integrite des etudes bibliques critiques? Si l'interpretation theologique des ecrits bibliques est comprise comme etant uniquement une interpretation existentialiste critique, la reponse a la question est affirmative. Bien que la reponse a la question soit une affaire avant tout theorique, elle n'en a pas moins de valeur dans la praxis de la theologie et de l'interpretation biblique dans sa forme theologique

L'A. entend degager les problemes qu'affronte la theologie a l'aube du XXI e siecle en insistant sur la praxis, c'est a dire sur la capacite de reflexivite de la theologie a propos de la validite du temoignage chretien. Tous les chretiens partagent une double responsabilite: temoigner du Christ et faire de la theologie. Dans un premier temps, la theologie ne doit pas se reduire a un discours sur Dieu, mais s'elargir a une action sur lui. Ce que la theologie pense, dit et fait de Dieu est en rapport avec le sens qu'il prend

In the preface to this book, its author admits to realizing again, while preparing the lectures on which it is based, that beneath the historian of ideas there lurks in him a Reformed theologian. Thus he explains: "My modus operandi has become historical even though my final designs have never ceased to be systematic" (p. x). Perhaps only those who have had the good fortune to work closely with Brian Gerrish as his colleagues and students will be able fully to appreciate the truth of this selfdisclosure. But I should be surprised if any reader of this book did not sense quite clearly that the historical studies to which it is devoted are indeed designed to serve a systematic end-although I suppose I would be even more surprised if any reader failed to confirm how justly Gerrish can own the view that "history is of no use to the theologian unless it is permitted to follow its own rules, however inconvenient they may prove to be" (p. x). In any event, what I see in this book is just what I have seen in all of Gerrish's work, so far as I have been privileged to know it: historical theological scholarship of the highest integrity that is clearly intended to contribute, and, in this case, certainly, admirably succeeds in contributing, to the systematic task of Christian theology. That this book should be so designed is partly explained by the conditions of its origin. According to the commission for the lectures out of which it grew (the 1977 Zenos Lectures at McCormick Theological Seminary), the lecturer was to "address the contemporary theological scene explicitly out of the Reformed tradition" and to "articulate a fresh perspective on the contribution the Reformed theological community has made, and can make, to the life of the Church and the world" (p. ix). Gerrish's distinctive way of carrying out this assignment, which, as he says, he could only find congenial, evidently accounts not only for the contents of the book but also for the main lines of its argument. Thus, while it does indeed address the contemporary theological scene explicitly out of the Reformed tradition, the five studies it comprises are all of theology in the nineteenth, rather than either the sixteenth or the twentieth, century. In this way, Gerrish argues that it is by studying the century whose theological question, above all, was precisely that of tradition and the modern world that one is enabled to understand both the

The canon within the canon to which all theological assertions must be appropriate is the meaning to be discerned in the earliest layer of Christian witness, and that means the Jesus-kerygma of the apostolic community.

On the conventional account, theology differs from other forms of reflection, including religious studies, for one or both of two reasons: (1) because it has to appeal to special criteria of truth for some if not all of its assertions; and (2) because the theologian has to be a believer who already holds these assertions to be true. But, since by contemporary standards, either of these is also a reason for dismissing theology as illegitimate, the perennial task of achieving an adequate theological self-understanding today is widely supposed to confront a dilemma: one must choose, finally, between a theology that is really different from religious studies only because it also fails to comply with current standards of reflection and a theology that is in full compliance with such standards only because its difference from religious studies is merely verbal and so does not really make a difference, anyhow. The question, consequently, is whether it is possible to provide an account of the difference between theology and religious studies other than the conventional account. One way of arguing for an affirmative answer is to establish the following three claims: (1) that religious studies differ from the study of religion generally in being constituted as such by the question as to the meaning and truth of religion as itself a claim to truth; (2) that this difference remains even in the case of full compliance with contemporary standards of reflection, since it entails neither special criteria of truth for religious assertions nor special qualifications for students of religion; and (3) that, analogously, theology would be different from religious studies, as well as from other forms of reflection, even it it were in full compliance with the same standards of reflection, since the sufficient ground of its difference is the question that constitutes it a distinct field of reflection-namely, the Schubert M. Ogden is Professor of Theology and Director of the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University. This Presidential Address was given at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Francisco, California, on December 30, 1977.

Against the background of the classical Protestant understanding of the sources of religious authority, the essay first indicates the changes called for in this classical understanding by the typical approach and method of liberal Protestantism and then outlines the understanding of the sources of authority required of an adequate Christian theology today. Sustaining this historico-systematic argument is the conviction that there is an essential continuity between the theological position required today and that typically developed by liberal Protestantism. This liberal position is represented as significantly different from the classical position of the Reformers, as well as from Protestant orthodoxy, for two basic reasons: (1) its thoroughgoing historical approach relativizes the classical Protestant claim for the unique authority of Scripture (sola scriptura); and (2) its characteristic method as a systematic theology entails the insistence, directly counter to classical Protestantism, on two ultimate sources of religious authority not only specifically Christian experience of God as decisively revealed in Jesus Christ but also universally human experience of ultimate reality as originally revealed in our existence as such. The issues thus raised by liberal Protestantism can be settled today only by maintaining: (1) that it is not Scripture as such but the earliest stratum of Christian witness the so-called Jesuskerygma of the Synoptic tradition that is the real canon of the Christian community; and (2) that the only sufficient warrant for the truth, as distinct from the Christianness, of theological claims is our universal experience and reason simply as human beings. SCHUBERT M. OGDEN is Professor of Theology in Perkins School of Theology and Director of the Graduate Program in Religion at Southern Methodist University. The present essay was commissioned for the centennial discussions of Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinatti, Ohio, October 1975. Copyright ? 1976 American Academy of Religion This content downloaded from 207.46.13.166 on Thu, 07 Jul 2016 04:14:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 404 SCHUBERT M. OGDEN

degree unlikely. But it is not, for that reason only, equally unreasonable to expect them all to do just this-when expecting is not a matter of describing what people will in fact do but, rather, of prescribing what they ought to do. Certainly one would not, being worldly wise, expect (descriptive) that all those people who happen at the present time to be (Christian) theologians, or atheist humanists, will in fact abandon their convictions as it emerges, either that there is no good reason at all, or that there is quite sufficient reason, for believing in the (Christian) God. But neither the fact that these particular individuals are, in virtue of their present convictions, correctly describable as (Christian) theologians, or as atheist humanists, nor yet the fact that experience discourages optimism about human reasonableness, provides any sort of excuse or justification for these or for any other flesh-and-blood people to refuse to follow the argument wherever it leads. To meet any affirmation of a norm-whether moral or rational-with the question " What do you expect (descriptive)?" is simply, and scandalously, to change the subject. ree unlikely. But it is not, for that reason only, equally nreaso able to ect them all to do just this-when expecting is not a matter of describing at people will in fact do but, rather, of prescribing what they ought to do. tainly one would not, being worldly wise, expect (descriptive) that all se people who happen at the present time to be (Christian) theologians, or eist humanists, will in fact abando their convictions as it emerg s, ith r t there is no good reason at all, or that there is quite s fficient reason, for lieving in the (Christian) God. But neith r the fact that these particul r ividuals are, in virtue of their p esent convictions, correctly describable (Christian) theologians, or as atheist humanists, nor yet the fact that erience discourages optim sm about human reasonable ess, provides any of excuse or justification for these or f any other flesh-and-blood le to refuse to foll w the argument wherev r it leads. To meet any ation of a norm-whether moral or ational-with t e question "What ou expect (descriptive)?" is s mply, and scandalously, to change the and Philosophy

impossible for him to believe. That is undoubtedly one aspect of the controversy and an important one at that. But the basic issue lies elsewhere. It cannot be appreciated until one realises that to some extent, though on a smaller scale, Bultmann is doing something analogous to what St. Thomas Aquinas did in his day and generation. Just as Aquinas worked out a rapprochement between Christianity and Aristotelianism, so Bultmann is at any rate outlining the possibility-and the limits--of a rapprochement between Christianity and existentialism. The basic question at stake in the Entmythologisierung controversy is whether such a rapprochement is either possible or desirable.'

One of the defining characteristics of theology, which it shares with philosophy in contrast to the special sciences, is that it necessarily includes reflection on its own conditions of possibility as a form of understanding. Thus the question of what theology is is itself a theological question, whose answer is subject to the same criteria of adequacy as any other theological statement. For reasons that will presently become clear, the theological understanding of theology peculiarly coincides with the philosophical, with the result that it is applicable in principle not only to Christian theology but also to the theological reflection cognate with any other witness of faith or religion. Moslem theology, for example, may be understood, mutatis mutandis, as the fully reflective understanding of Islam as similarly decisive for human existence.