The Expository Times

http://ext.sagepub.com The Message of the Epistles: Ephesians

C.H. Dodd The Expository Times 1933; 45; 60 DOI: 10.1177/001452463304500203 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ext.sagepub.com

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60
of that inner circle of the Apostles was intended, not only as a witness but as a spiritual help and support, and in each case, not only in Gethsemane. And so it may have been here on the Holy Mount; and though the flesh was here also too weak to watch and pray all through the night (Lk 932), they did not wholly fail their Master, but, as they prayed, were fellow-workers with Him in making the great decision by which He stedfastly set His face to the Cross, and in the glory which followed. Jn i i2b - EY(U EL~,I,C i~ avd ~Tams, the words Kai ;~ itJ are omitted with Cyprian 310, the Sinaitic Syriac, one Old Latin, and one of the Palestinian Lcctionaries. The saying is so familiar, and has for all of us such solemn and sacred associations, that it is difficult to appreciate any variation : but it may be worth while to make an effort at detachment, and to listen in to the scene as if for the first time ; and then it may appear how much greater and grander the single statement is by itself, and that thus it may have been passed on in the Christian tradition side by side with the longcr form. We should then have also at the same time a fresh examples of the way in which the aged disciple would add to, and blend with, the Il2asters actual words, the simple Truth they

suggest, and that long years of meditation and

had proved. If so, the Papyrus would here the whole historic Word, though only in part the genuine S. John. This last found Gospel affords some valuable assurances, and answers some important questions, but it suggests and asks as many more. As Dr. Kenyon says at the close of his lecture : here for the moment the story which I have been trying to put together of fifty years of textual criticism comes to an end ; but it is not an end which gives the winding up of the story. On the contrary, as I have tried to show, it leaves several large marks of interrogation to which the attention of scholars is directed. It is very regrettable that the textual criticism of the New Testament does not appear to appeal to the younger generation of scholars so strongly as it did to their predecessors in the nineteenth century.... Yet it is a fascinating subject and one in which much good work remains to be done. It is to be hoped that the discovery of the Chester BcattyPapyri, with its mass of new material, may do something to revive interest in a subject of such profound importance as the authentic texts of the original documents of our Christian

experience
give
us

religion.

The Message of the Epistles.

Ephesians.
BY C. H.

DODD, M.A., D.D., RYLANDS

PROFESSOR
OF

OF

BIBLICAL CRITICISM

AND

EXEGESIS

IN THE

UNIVERSITY

MANCHESTER.
The theme is the glory of Christ in the Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery, in which the unity of a new humanity is revealed as a sign of thc ultimate unity of all things in Him. This theme runs through the whole Epistle, which begins with adoration of the eternal purpose of God, and ends with practical counsels for Christians who are called to live within that purpose through all the struggles and temptations of this present world. It falls into two parts, chs. 1-3 and chs. 4-6. The division corresponds to that which is to be observed in other Epistles, between a mainly doctrinal and a mainly practical section. In Galatians and Colossians the first part is largely a controversial exposition of certain points of Christian doctrine,

IT is not necessary to discuss here the critical questions of the true destination and authorship of the writing known as the Epistle to the Ephesians, neither of which can be regarded as beyond controversy. Bwhoever were the readers for whom it was first designed, its message is for the Church at large ; and whether Paul wrote it or not, it represents the mature development of Pauls way of thinking about the Christian religion.
1

The

authorship giving, and

present writer inclines to accept the Pauline of Ephesians, though not without mis-

he is disposed towards the widely accepted view that it was of the nature of a general or circular epistle, for reasons which he has set forth in the

Abingdon Commentary.

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61
errors which the Apostle it contains a comRomans In wishes to correct. account of Pauls philosophy and reasoned prehensive of the Christian religion. In Ephesians there is no The first polemic and little reasoned exposition. a declaration of the gospel as a revealed is part of mystery-an open secret-set in a framework thanksgiving and prayer. Almost all the New Testament Epistles begin with thanksgiving and prayer. It was common usage at the time so to begin a letter, but the New Testament writers have consecrated a mere piece of good manners to higher uses. In this Epistle the opening thanksgiving (i3-14) has become a sustained, devout contemplation of the mysteries of the Divine purpose, returning in adoration and praise to God for all the wealth of his grace. The writer reviews the spiritual blessings under which Christians stand (13); they are ordained to be holy and blameless (v.4); they are sons of God (v.5) ; they are redeemed, their sins are forgiven (v.~); they know the mystery of Gods will (v.9). All these spiritual blessings are contemplated, not as anything achieved by men, or even primarily as

having

in view

particular

and

experience conflicting

or distinctions to be enjoyed by them, evidences of a Divine purpose which, so to speak, takes the salvation of men in its stride, as it moves towards the great consummation- to sum up all things in Christ (v.I). God is the beginning and the end; all proceeds from the counsel of his will (v.11), and all tends towards the praise of the glory of his grace (v.e.12). The passage piles up, verse upon verse, words which express the freedom and absoluteness of the Divine will. It is the language of the theology of predestination. More properly, it is the language of the fundamental religious conviction that there is nothing of any power or worth, in man or in his world (or out of it),except what is the work of God and the expression of His will, and this is absolute in power and worth. We may (we must) theologize about this conviction, but its primary expression is in terms, not of argumentative theology, but of adoration- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who chose us fore-ordained us according to his free choice ... to the praise of his glory. The gospel is on one side the gospel of your salvation (v.13), but primarily it is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God

privileges
but
as

on earth (19. l0).1 The world of our is a world of contradictions, a world of forces and cross-currents. Such is not the world of Gods ultimate design. God is not It is a God of disorder, but of peace (i CO 14 33). His purpose finally to reconcile all powers in the universe to Himself through Christ (Col 120). As the Church is now one in Christ its Head, so the whole universe is in Gods purpose to be one (in the same sense) in Christ the Lord of all. By faith we see all things returning to perfection through Him from whom they took their origin. What we know of Christ is a clue to what we do not know regarding the destiny of the universe. The thanksgiving concludes by bringing home to the readers of the Epistle their own share, by present experience, in the glorious purpose of God. They heard the word, they believed it, and they received the Divine Spirit (I13). This experience is not a direct experience of all that God designs. It is a promise and a pledge (V%,.13. ia)~ to be made good when and as God wills. Meanwhile, do they even know what it is that they possess ? It is possible to have a genuine Christian experience, based on simple faith, with only the most rudimentary understanding of all that is implicit in it. No man, indeed, can hope to get to the bottom of it all, and only God who gave the gift can enlarge our apprehension of what it contains. Thus, as the language in which Gods purpose is declared was fittingly the language of praise, so the aspirations of His people are fittingly expressed in the language of prayer-prayer for wisdom and enlightenment, that they may know the hope into which they have been called (I15-18). That means, not knowledge of themselves, their experience or their achievement, but knowledge of God, His power (I19), and His love (24). Thus prayer leads to a fresh declaration of what God has done, which in turn passes into prayer again (3i. 1). The passage at which we have now arrived

things

...

...

(I Ti ill).

The final issue of Gods glorious purpose lies beyond man and his world. The climax of spiritual blessings is that God has made known to us His will to sum up all things in Christ, things in heaven,

1 The 20 1 things in heaven are clearly (as in Col ) the principalities and powers of 1 21 3 12 10 and 6 33 Col ), 8 (cf. Ro , 15 identical with the στoιχεîα or 2 elemental spirits of Gal 4 , Col 22°. They are 9 thought of as spiritual beings of superhuman power, possessing a relative independence in the universe as at present constituted, and at least potentially hostile to mans salvation and the purpose of God. They include the spiritual forces of wickedness of . 12 6 They represent in mythological form mans consciousness of factors in the universe over which he has and can have no control, but with which he has to reckon (like luck or the laws of nature, or economic

determinism ).

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62

pith of the thought of the gospcl, the Pauline gospel in its mature form, not argued step by step or polemically defended, but set forth in three great declara(y9-31g) Epistle.
tions :
contains the Here is the
the power of God is revealed in Christ ~M-23~ ~ the love of God saves man through Christ (21-1); the unity of mankind is established in Christ (211-22B. Knowledge of these things is involved in /knowing what is the hope of our

significant of all, he felt, was the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in the Church (Ro IS7-13) . No doubt as a Jew he was intensely, almost morbidly, aware of the depth of the division between his own people and the rest of the world. But if the Jew was bitterly conscious of that division, so was the Gentile. For the typical Roman the Jew was one
who cherished hostile odium adversus omnes, and he reciprocated it. The feeling between them was that worst kind of hatred which is inspired by mutual contempt. If this Epistle is by Paul, it may well have been written in or about the very year (A.D. 66) in which the piled-up enmity of many generations broke into open war-one of the most atrocious wars in ancient history. But within the Christian Church at that very time Jew and Gentile could live in amity, sharing together the gifts that each could bring into the common stock. God had

faith rests upon the power of God. Its great enemy is a suspicion that evil, which we know to be so strong, will be too strong for us. But if we look away from ourselves to Christ, we know that God is stronger than all the forces of evil. The spiritual forces of wickedness, which for us are an ever-present reality (612), are for Him broken forces, lying beneath His feet (120-22) . And - all that is in Christ (His fulness ) is present also (potentially) in the Church, which is His Body (123). Thus faith goes serenely on its way, sure that whatever we are in ourselves, in Christ (in His Body) we are more than conquerors. But how comes it that we, foolish, weak, and sinful men, have any part in Christ ? It is certainly not due to any virtue that we possess. It is no good conscience that gives us confidence against the power of evil. We are what we are solely by faith in God. Then is faith in itself a virtue or an achievement ? No; even that is not of ourselves : it is the gift of God (28). Thus our standing in Christ (and the hope of our calling) is in the most absolute sense a matter of grace. God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ when we were dead in trespasses (2 4. 5). The men we are in Christ (as members of His Body) are as truly and absolutely a new creation of God (21) as was the first man. Any good deeds we may do as Christs members are the work of God and not of ourselves, for He made provision beforehand that we should walk in them (zio). So we come back to the thought of the Body of Christ, constituted of men raised from the dead and made anew by the creative power of God. In some ways the most remarkable fact about this Body as an actual historical institution is that it holds in unity men who might naturally be expected to have least in common. That characteristic of the Church was always for Paul significant of its divine character (cf. Gal 328, Col 311). A Body in which Jew and Greek, bond and free, civilized man and barbarian, could be members one of another must surely be the handiwork of God. Most

calling. First, then,

slain the enmity in Christ (216). The symbol of the division between Jew and Gentile Paul found in the Law, in so far as it was a system of commandments contained in ordinances (alb). As developed by the stricter Pharisees the Law was a massive bulwark of Jewish nationalism. In observing its provisions the Jew was by every act asserting his separateness from all other peoples. It was in fact his adherence to this peculiar code of behaviour that made him an alien in the civilized world of the time. For him, however, it represented the absolute will of God, and those who did not acknowledge it were without God in the world (212). Now the death of Jesus was the direct result of a collision with the Law: and Paul saw in it a crisis in which the Law asserted its power-and condemned itself. The Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, was accursed from the Law with Christ upon whom its curse fell (Gal 310-14). Thus the Cross of Christ annulled the law of commandments contained in ordinances (215). Hence within the Christian community that middle wall of partition could no longer exist (214), and the way was open for the reconciliation of these two warring sections of the human race. That, however, is only to state the matter negatively. Positively, the important fact is that when a man is in Christ he is neither Jew nor Gentile, but a t new man (z15). As Jew or Gentile, he is dead ; as a Christian he is Gods handiwork (zl). The binding link is not lateral, but vertical. It unites Jew and Gentile not primarily with one another, but with God, and therefore with one another. On this basis a society can be built up which is in its very nature a unity, as God Himself is one. Having regard to some of the most pressing

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63

problems
most has to

of

our

time,

we

may

perhaps

reconciliasay to us. How are we to secure tion among men of different nations, races, and classes, who dislike, suspect, and despise one another ? How are we to build up, out of them, One method is a real community of mankind ? and accommodation compromise. that of mutual English, French and German, Chinese and Japanese aims and may agree, while holding to their separate that concessions mutual they ideals, to make such That can live together without coming to blows. is a useful method, but at best it can only keep the civilized world from falling to pieces while we seek for something more thoroughgoing. Real unity comes only when we are willing to be governed by new aims and ideals which are no longer divisive, but large enough to be common to us all. That is not a matter of national diplomacy, but of the spiritual orientation of individuals and groups. Our whole moral life is built up, as the psychologists say, of sentiments. The sentiment of nation, race, or class, so far as it includes hostility and suspicion towards others, must be disintegrated and replaced by the sentiment for humanity, if we are to become effective members of a world-community. This disintegration and replacement of sentiments is, psychologically speaking, a death and re-birth of the self. The most radical death and rebirth is that of which our Epistle speaks, and nothing short of it will in the long run secure the unity of mankind. The great truth which the Epistle announces is that a real understanding of what Christ has done shows such a new creation to be always possible, because it is the will of God, and His love has provided the way for it. That any section of the Christian Church should lend itself to that intensification of national and racial prejudice which we are witnessing all over the world to-day, would be unthinkable if its members had any conception of the divine ideal of the Church as set forth in the Epistle to the Ephesians-if we knew the hope of our

immediately pertinent thing

see here the that this Epistle

that has passed through the mind meanwhile. But the writer is still possessed by the strangeness and wonder of this miracle, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, fellow-members of the Body, fellow-partakers of the promise (36), and he pauses in the midst of his prayer to dwell once more upon the mystery which was hidden from the ages in God, and is now revealed (35- 9). The Church itself, with its miraculous reconciliation of hostile factors, is a sign to the warring powers of the universe (31o}--a sign of Gods manifold wisdom and of His purpose to sum up all things in

Christ.
at last the prayer reaches its completion and of this nothing need be said, except that (3 14-21), it lifts the whole matter out of the realm of reflection and argument into pure aspiration towards knowledge of the love of God which is beyond all knowledge. In knowing the love of God we shall be possessed of all that God is. For this we pray, but God can do more than all our prayers can ask, and prayer in the end returns to sheer adoration. The effect of the whole Epistle so far has becn to lead the readers into a mood of devout and im-

And

so

passioned contemplation, dominated by prayer and praise, in which their present experience as Christian people unfolds itself as a moment in the eternal purpose of God. The objects of His love, they
have in His manifold wisdom been made mcmbers of the Body of Christ, and so sharers in a destiny whose full significance lies beyond the horizon of the aspiring mind. But they havc to live their lives in a yet imperfect world, and their own imperfection is only made more obvious by the contemplation of that which God designs. So the writer directs their attention to the task which the gift of God lays upon them. He has said enough of the hope of their calling ; he now begs them to live worthily of the calling. The second half of the Epistle is an exhortation in that sense. It keeps closely to the lines of the thought of the first half, translating its religious convictions into ethical precepts. We begin with the idea of unity itself. The Church is a Body which in its very nature is one (44-e), for its members have the one God for their Father (cf. 15 314), Christ as their one Lord (cf. i~~), and by one Spirit they have access to God (cf. 218) . They have a common faith and hope, and by the common sacrament of baptism they have entered upon their new life. It remains for them to preserve the unity of the Spirit (they have not to create it), and so to realize the unity of the Body. This demands the elementary virtues of

calling.

We return to the text of the Epistle. At the of ch. 3 the writer, having in mind the truths of the gospel which he has just declared with impassioned emphasis, begins afresh- For this reason, I ... But the sentence is never finished. What was he going to say ? Clearly he meant to proceed as in 314_ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father. The prayer of 116, which merged in the declaration of the power and love of God and the unity of mankind in the Church, is to be resumed, its content made the richer by all

beginning

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64

humility, gentleness, patience, and tolerance (4 2), without which no group of imperfect people in an imperfect world can ever live in unity with one another. Such virtues are secure only if they arc founded in love ; and Christian people, who are what they are because God has loved them, and whose final prayer is that they may know the love of God which passes knowledge, are at least in touch with the source of love. How love can shape the concrete behaviour of Christian people will be
set forth later.

Within the one body there is differentiation of and individual members are equipped for their functions by the grace of God given in varying measure (4~). His gifts of grace have been mediated to men through Christs incarnation and exaltation (4e-lo). In particular, God has ordained and equipped a ministry in its varying grades of apostle, prophet, preacher, pastor, and teacher (411). This ministry performs an essential function in the1 Church. It is there to train the laity for service and so to promote the building up of Christs Body (412). Its function will remain until the entire membership has fully attained the unity which is now implicit in the faith, until, that is to say, all Christian people know Christ fully, and the whole Church has grown into the full stature of the divine humanity revealed in Him (413). Meanwhile, the ministry is there to secure that Christian people are not like children at the mercy of chance currents of thought or of popular fallacies (4 14). To think truly as well as to love the brethren is necessary to the health of the Church. While truth and love together direct the life of Christians, the Church will grow into its full unity and perfection through the individual contribution of each member

function,

is after all only a promise and a pledge), should at least be a visibly growing unity. In our own time the unity of the Church is scarcely visible at all. If the Church is meant to be a sign to a divided world (310) of Gods power to bring peace out of disorder, it is a very dim and problematical sign except to the eye of faith. If we as Christians are at all seriously concerned about the urgent problem of the unity of mankind, we surely cannot be indifferent to our own unhappy divisions. We are not, in fact, in a condition in which the whole Body, fitted and framed together by that which each joint supplies, according to the due working of each individual part, brings about the growth of the Body, and builds itself up in love. And because we are not, the Church is a sadly ineffective witness to unity and peace in a distracted world. Once again, therefore, the Epistle speaks pertinently to our own situation. An honest consideration of what is here said, regarding the common foundations of our Church life, the gifts of God available for us, and the conditions under which they may be fruitfully used, should lead us to sincere repentance and to serious efforts towards the visible unity of Christs divided

experience

Body.
A Church which is growing healthily according to this view of it will display an unmistakable development of Christian character in its members. Negatively, this will mean discarding the sinful practices which belong to unredeemed human nature (417-22). Positively, it will mean cultivating those virtues which are implicit in the new humanity, created on Gods plan in righteousness and true piety (423. 24~ cf. 21). This leads to a summary sketch of Christian ethics. It is to be observed how in this sketch the ideas and even the language of the first part of the Epistle are echoed over and over again-membership in the Body (4 25. 28 521), unity (525-sa), life in Christ and His lordship of the Body (58. 10. 17. 22. 23 61- 5-9- 10), love (4 3252. 25), the Spirit (430 518 (17. 18), the Christian hope and promise (4 30 55), victory over the powers of evil (613). Ethical conduct is not something added on to religious experience ; it is the visible sign and consequence of such

(4 15. 16).
All this is thoroughly realistic and practical. The writer has seen and communicated to his readers a lofty vision of the Church as it is in the Divine purpose, but he is under no illusion about the Church as it actually exists. It is very far from perfect, and its unity is always liable to be broken by the faults and stupidities of Christians. (Paul had had bitter experience of that !) He is deeply concerned that his readers shall lay to heart the primary importance of unity in the Body, and that such unity, though no one can expect it to be perfect here and now (for the whole Christian
1 The clause πρò&sfgr; τóν &kap a;αταρτσμδν των α&gam a;&iacgr;ων ε&iacgr;&sfgr; ερ&gam a;oν δια&kap a;oνια&sfgr; is best taken as a single whole, the words εí&sfgr; ερ&gam a;oν δια&kap a;oνíα&sfgr; defining the end of the &kap a;αταρτσμó&sfgr;. The work of &kap a;αταρτισμó&sfgr; belongs to the ministry, and the α&gam a;ιoι, who are its objects, render the δια&kap a;oνια.

experience.
Because of what the gospel is, Christians, being members of one Body, must be frank and sincere in their dealings with one another (4 25). If they lose their temper momentarily, they must not cherish anger, for that is a sin against the Body (4~. 2?). In the economic field, the desire to supply the needs of other members of the Body will both eliminate the motive to dishonest gain and inspire

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65
hard work at
converse

When Christians should be building up the Body. Rotten talk is an affront to the Spirit whereby the Body is created and maintained (4~- ~). Bitterness, rancour and malice are excluded by the obligation to be kind, compassionate and forgiving, Sensuality of every as Christ is to us (431_52). kind is incompatible with the destiny of Christians as heirs of the kingdom of Christ and of God : in Christ they have come out into the light, and all that is shameful and furtive belongs to the bad past (5s-14). They must be alert to make the most of every opportunity, and intelligent in discerning what Gods will is for the particular situation (5~~). Over-indulgence in wine is forbidden. The intoxication of the Spirit brings that true exaltation of the emotions which drunkenness shamefully simulates 1 (518), and if emotion seeks outlet in song, there is music which has a spiritual quality and is a form of worship (519). Finally, the principle which must govern all social relations among Christians is that of mutual subordination, springing out of the subordination of all to Christ (5 21).2 The Christian may be a member of various social groups, and in particular of the family or household, which is indeed the natural unit of society. The household here considered is naturally the typical household of GraecoRoman society, in which the framework is supplied by the relations of husband and wife, parents and children, master and slaves. The New Testament scarcely notices industrial slavery as such (it was of diminishing importance in the first century). The domestic slavery of which it speaks was an integral part of the family life of the time. The slave was as much a member of the familia (otrcos) as the child. The principle of mutual subordination is intended to be applied to all these domestic relations, although it is not fully worked out (for in what follows the wife is subject to the husband, the child to the parent, and the slave to the master, in a way which is not reciprocal). Yet it has at least gone so far that the independent claims of the wife, the child, and the slave, over against the predominant partners in each case, are more
an

honest

job (428).

together, they

adequately recognized than they were in current ethics (522-69). It is in regard to marriage and the relations of
husband and wife that the treatment is most original and significant (522-as). The Epistle is concerned all through with the theme of unity, as the divine ideal for man and the universe. The most perfect unity known to natural human experience is marriage, a unity both physical and spiritual. The writer sees in it an analogue (or more than an analogue) of the most sacred unity of Christ and the Church. He has already compared
that

unity

to the

organic unity

of

body.

Thus

Christ is to the Church as a man is to his own body. A third term is now added to the comparison. As Christ is to the Church, so is husband to wife. Husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the Church-as a man loves and cherishes his own body, for Christ loves the members of His Body (5288). The love of Christ is a self-sacrificing love, and a love which has always in view the highest good of its objects. Such should be the love of husband for wife (5 25-27). The Church dedicates itself in loving submission to Christ. Such should be the love of wife for husband (622 -24). The Scripture declares that man and wife are one flesh (531 , quoting Gn 223. 24), and so Christ and the Church form one spiritual being (cf. i Co 61~). Thus the natural is taken up into the spiritual. Marriage becomes the sacrament of divine love (5 32) . This teaching at once sets up the highest ideal for marriage, and invokes the experience of wedded love to illuminate the mystery of the love of God in Christ and the unity which it
creates. The treatment of the relations of parent and child is slighter, but we note the demand that fathers should not exasperate their children, as implying a recognition of the personality of the child to which it would be difficult to find a parallel in ancient In regard to slavery, the point is made ethics that master and slave alike are slaves of Christ. The slave who renders his services as to Christ

(64).

There is

probably an

allusion to

intoxication, which in paganism was quite commonly regarded as a form of possession by the Divine. 2 V. 21 begins a new paragraph. The participle &uacgr;πoτασσóμενoι is to be construed (in accordance with a recognized Hellenistic usage) as an imperative, and
is the
one

religious

or

ritual

(whose service is perfect freedom) is so far a free and responsible personality (6r,-8); and the master who acknowledges Christ as his own Master will not affront the rights of personality in his slave (69).
But here the sketch of social
a mere

relationships

remains

outline.

principal verb of the sentence: Be to another in reverence for Christ. This maxim is then exemplified in what follows.

subject
general

The survey of Christian ethics is now complete far as it goes. It is no systematic or reasoned treatment of the subject. It does no more than exemplify the way in which the Christian faith moulds character and conduct in some of the
so

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66

permanent or recurrent situations of life. Its precepts have full cogency only for those who
of what it means to be within the and for them it is less a code of behaviour than a suggestive stimulus to work out for themselves what it is to be a Christian in such a world as this. It remains to remind the readers that the Christian life is always a struggle. Christ has indeed put the powers of evil under His feet, but

know

Body

something of Christ,

for the Christian they are still active enemies to be encountered. The conflicts in which he is involved are part of the process through which the universe is being brought into the unity and peace of the kingdom of God (611. 112). He must therefore fight like a good soldier of Jesus Christ; and he knows where to find weapons for the battle

(6is-ie~.
With
a

request for prayer and

brief

personal

note and

greeting

the

Epistle

closes

(619-24 ).

Literature.
A TEXT-BOOK IN APOLOGETICS.

The Christian Belief in God (Hodder & Stoughton ; x6s. net) completes what Principal Alfred E. Garvie calls his magnum opus. In 1925 he published as a contribution to dogmatics his Christian Doctrine of the Godhead, and in 193o as a contribution to ethics his Christian Ideal for Human Society. Now appears a contribution to apologetics, and he would ask us to regard the three volumes as forming a Systematic or Constructive Theology. In thcm he has gathered together the study, reflection, and teaching of the last thirty years in connexion with Hackney and New College, in the &dquo;University of London. We-may allow the claim that the three volumes cover the ground of Systematic Theology, the present volume to be taken first, and the other two in the order of their publication. We may also allow that the three volumes make useful textbooks. But it can hardly be said, and Dr. Garvie would not make the claim, that they compose a

and briefly as being concerned with the relation of religion and reason. The positions reached by Dr. Garvie in the first part are : (i) man is everywhere religious, and needs religion for the completion of his personality; (2) religion is a relation to an object, other than the world and man, which may be variously described as the numinous, the superhuman, the supernatural, the divine ; (3) religion has evolved towards the conception of divine unity, of which pantheism, deism, and monotheism are variant

conceptions.

standpoint is one of philosophical realism, affirming that man is aware and apprehensive of reality, but that, in the comprehension and explanation of reality, awareness, apprehension, or intuition is completed by reason. In thus recognizing the ontological function of reason and the ultimately rational nature of reality
In the second

part the

formal

systematic unity.

How has Dr. Garvie conceived the task of apologetics ? In view of two tendencies to be avoided by the Christian theologian-the isolation of Christianity from other religions, and the isolation of religion from other human functions-he deals in the first, the historical, part of his volume with the relation of Christianity to other religions, and in the second, the philosophical part, with the relation of religion to other human functions. Inasmuch as reason is the term generally employed to describe the organ of the ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Holiness, he would describe his book simply

the realism here adopted is also idealism. From this philosophical position Dr. Garvie seeks confirmation in the other activities of human personality of the affirmation of religion that God is. The discussions, which are largely historical, range over a wide field. In the first part, dealing with the history of religious belief, chapters on the origin and development of religion lead up to a useful chapter on the Values of Religion, in which a comparative estimate of religions is essayed. In the second part, there is a certain rehabilitation of the traditional theistic proofs, and chapters on ~Esthetics, Mystics, Theodicy, and Theism follow upon chapters treating of Ontology, Cosmology, and Teleology. Dr. Garvie is so anxious to be comprehensive,

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