264 - The Remaking of Christian Doctrine

The Remaking of Christian Doctrine
By Maurice Wiles
Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1978 150 pp. $5.95.

One of the most pervasive convictions in modern theology is that historic Christian beliefs can be translated into new forms without altering their substantial contents. Transformation of Christian doctrine has been widely acclaimed as not only possible, but necessary, throughout the course of Christian history. Though careful thinkers would regard it as naive not to anticipate the possibility of distorting the "essence" of the gospel through such effort, it has not generally been

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doubted that reinterpretation, if pursued with sufficient clarity and rigor, can enrich the Christian community in every generation.

One of the more interesting and widely discussed, recent examples of such a hermeneutic in practice was the "demythologizing" controversy. The debate centered upon whether or not too much of the essence of the gospel had been eroded in the attempt to extract it from the mythological forms in which it originally was expressed, but no serious participant in the discussion entertained the possibility that one could not in some way represent the essential content of faith and theology in new forms.

Given the breadth of consensus on this larger methodological issue, the recent work of Maurice Wiles and his colleagues claims serious attention. Wiles may be best known for his contribution to the recent and mildly notorious volume, The Myth of God Incarnate, edited by John Hick Wiles' essay in that volume is the best contribution to the "incarnation without mythology" musings. Both the quality of his thinking and the position he holds in British theological circles warrant a hearing for his ideas. Maurice Wiles is a widely acclaimed historian of Christian doctrine, holds the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and chairs the Doctrinal Commission of the Church of England.

The Remaking of Christian Doctrine represents lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge in 1973, with an additional essay on the resurrection of the body. Wiles makes several significant claims in his lectures, most notably: the re-presentation of Christian belief in new forms cannot be achieved without altering the substantial content of those beliefs, such "remaking" of doctrine is essential to the contemporary transmission of the gospel, and the history of Christian doctrine itself has been a constant remaking process of precisely this sort. The purpose of these lectures is not to argue these theses from an historical point of view, but rather to apply them to contemporary reinterpretation of the central trinitarian doctrines God, the person and work of Christ, grace, and the Holy Spirit Wiles is the most "revisionist" in his Christology, the most traditional in his understanding of the doctrine of God, and the most stimulating in his treatment of the resurrection.

In the final analysis, Wiles will need to go further than he does toward remaking the doctrine of God. I do not believe, for example, that contemporary experience requires reference to a transcendent creator and sustainer of the whole of things Rather, it calls seriously into question any and all such conceptualizations of the "whole." What is required is an understanding of a God within this more limited domain of experienceable possibility.

However, the treatment of Christology in this volume. as in The Myth of God Incarnate, represents especially provocative suggestions about the future shape of Christian doctrine, once the "remaking" proposal is carried through to the fullest Wiles' lectures are carefully reasoned and consequently require close attention, but they are well worth the effort. His reassessment of what the decision for a "resurrection"

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rather than an "immortality" eschatology can and cannot accomplish is itself worth the price of the book.

Leroy T. Howe
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas