Abstract

A response to Bonhoeffer's demand that Christianity be reinterpreted for a world come of age, this study of the language of the Gospel and of traditional Christology not only draws on Flew, Hare, Ramsey, and Braithwaite, but bases the linguistic analysis on the results of recent existentialist theological investigations. Thus, besides providing an excellent review of much contemporary religious thought, the author will interest philosophers with his demonstration of the way in which English and Continental methods can be used in conjunction. His main conclusions are that the Gospel must be understood as giving a particular historical perspective to the believer, rather than as making quasi-cognitive statements about a "three-storied-universe," and that Christ should be seen as the one free person whose freedom was so powerfully "contagious" that it can set free the hearer of the Gospel. Whether his attempt will satisfy everyone is very doubtful, but this is surely a pioneering work in the effort, now visibly gaining momentum, to explain traditional belief to modern man.--J. J.