Contents

PART ONE: THE SOURCE OF REVELATION:
GOD THE FATHER -- pg. 1

Preliminary Methodological Note -- pg. 3

A. Revelation as the Self-Disclosure of God -- pg. 5

I. The Problem of the Concept of Revelation -- pg. 5

II. Negative Delimitations of the Concept of Revelation -- pg. 14

III. The Dialectical Relation between the Self-Disclosure
of God and Reception by the Human Self. Revelation and Subjectivity, Word and Faith -- pg. 21

B. Revelation as a General Pointer to the Question of God. On the Relevance and Validity of Theos in Theology. What Does it Mean to Talk about God? -- pg. 61

IV. The Problem -- pg. 61

V. The Modern Crisis in the Concept of God -- pg. 65

VI. Negative and Positive Aspects of the Idea of God -- pg. 73

VII. The Personality of God -- pg. 102

VIII. A Polemical Conclusion: Transcendentalism in the Question of God -- pg. 116

C. Revelation as a Word which Posits History. God’s Being within Historical Revelation. Preliminary Note: The Creative and Active Word -- pg. 124

IX. The Trinity of God -- pg. 129

X. The Doctrine of the Trinity as a Defensive Formula: A Safeguard against Speculative Ideas of the Divine Unity and Singularity -- pg. 137

XI. The Aim and Mode of the Trinitarian Statement -- pg. 158

XII. Anthropological Perspectives of the Doctrine of the Trinity -- pg. 167

XIII. The Dogmatic Rank of the Doctrine of the Trinity -- pg. 170

XIV. The Word of God as Law and Gospel The Connection with the Problem -- pg. 184

XV. The Distinction between Law and Gospel in its Relevance for the Movement of Salvation History from the Old Testament to the New -- pg. 199

XVI. The Distinction between Law and Gospel in its Relevance for the New Being of the Christian -- pg. 234

XVII. The Law in its Social Dimension. The Problem of Coercion and Autonomy -- pg. 243

PART TWO: THE FORM OF REVELATION: GOD THE SON -- pg. 259

XVIII. Preamble: The Systematic Place and Method of Christology -- pg. 263

XIX. The Horizon of Christology: The Relation between Faith and History -- pg. 274

XX. The Historical and Suprahistorical Aspects of
Christ’s Manifestation -- pg. 290

XXI. The Basic Problem of Expression and the Unavoidability of Paradox -- pg. 307

XXII. The Question of the Person of Christ -- pg. 319

XXIII. The Approach to Christology through the Mighty
Acts of God -- pg. 332

XXIV. The Systematic Principle of Christology: The
Doctrine of the Offices -- pg. 342

XXV. The Offices of Christ in the Schema of Prophecy
and Fulfilment -- pg. 358

XXVII. The Prophetic Office -- pg. 361

XXVII. The Priestly Office -- pg. 366

XXVIII. The Metaphors of the Atonement within the Priestly
Office -- pg. 392

XXIX. Excursus on the Metaphors of the Atonement: The
Virgin Birth and the Descent into Hell -- pg. 407

XXX. The Kingly Office -- pg. 421

XXXI. Postscript on Christology and the Witness of the Spirit -- pg. 453

Indexes -- pg. 457

In this second volume of The Evangelical Faith, Helmut Thielicke takes up the first two articles of the Creed. He relates these to the general theme of revelation by seeing in the Father the origin of revelation and in the Son its form. Included in the treatmwnt of God the Father are valuable discussion of faith and its relation to word, history, and experience, of the place of God in modern thought, of the personhood of God, of the Trinity, and of the word as law and gospel. The approach to Christology is not through the two natures but through the three offices, so that the atonement and the resurrection can be treated as well as the traditional, if less important, christological themes of the virgin birth, the descent, and the ascention. The general approach enables the author to display once again a basic orthodoxy in lively and thoughtful interaction with contemporary theological discussion. When Thielicke describes his theology as evangelical, he obviously does not take the term in the narrower sense which it often bears in the English-speaking world. The duty of the theologian, as he sees it, is not simply to repeat or defend the formulations and interpretations of the past. At the same time Thielicke