Arianism started as a movement in the third century AD - maintaining that Jesus was less divine than God. Traditionally regarded as the archetypal Christian heresy, it was condemned in the famous Nicene Creed and apparently squashed by the early church. Less well known is the fact that fifteen centuries later, Arianism was alive and well, championed by Isaac Newton and other scientists of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Maurice Wiles asks how and why Arianism endured.

"In The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, I attempted a critical discussion of some of the central facets of traditional Christian doctrine. To some Christians that aim in itself seemed suspect. But many scholars who had no complaints to raise about the general aim were unhappy about the outcome. It appeared to them to be "negative" or "unconstructive", failing to do justice to the living character of Christian faith. However, that book had a limited role in that respect. I spoke of the need for further work to be done. But the problem of how that further work is to be done, how to spell out more fully and more richly the experienced content of Christian belief, is an acute one. In particular, how can the critical theologian show the relation of his critical studies and the faith as it is believed and practised, and do so responsibly in an age where we are so aware of the varieties both of imagery and of forms of faith. The answer has seemed to me to write more personally about Christian faith, as I apprehend it, than I would naturally have chosen to do. I have tried not merely to describe that faith, but to give some account of the grounds for my holding it. Despite the more personal approach, the book is still intended as a contribution to theology rather than as a piece of directly religious writing. Whether the result embodies that more "positive" or "constructive" approach that some of my critics have desiderated, I must leave to others to judge."

Does God act in the world? Does he affect what happens to us in the varied experiences of our daily life? If so, in what ways and by what means? In an age when so many of the particular cases in which communities or individuals find themselves led to speak of God's acting prove to be cases which appear to others both morally and spiritually unacceptable, we need to give thought to the deeper underlying issue. Can God be said to act in the world at all? Does God even exist? The nature of God's action is clearly of the utmost importance for Christians, because they claim that God does act in the world and has acted specifically in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But how does his action here relate to his action elsewhere? How do we discern it? These questions lead Professor Wiles to discuss the nature of creation, the origin of evil, providence in public and private history and finally God's action in Christ and in us. Concerned to give a consistent overall interpretation, he provides answers which at the same time question much current Christian thinking.

Does God act in the world? Does he affect what happens to us in the varied experiences of our daily life? If so, in what ways and by what means? In an age when so many of the particular cases in which communities or individuals find themselves led to speak of God's acting prove to be cases which appear to others both morally and spiritually unacceptable, we need to give thought to the deeper underlying issue. Can God be said to act in the world at all? Does God even exist? The nature of God's action is clearly of the utmost importance for Christians, because they claim that God does act in the world and has acted specifically in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But how does his action here relate to his action elsewhere? How do we discern it? These questions lead Professor Wiles to discuss the nature of creation, the origin of evil, providence in public and private history and finally God's action in Christ and in us. Concerned to give a consistent overall interpretation, he provides answers which at the same time question much current Christian thinking.

Maurice Wiles shows that it doesn't require a vast tome to present a penetrating challenge to traditional doctrinal positions . . . The great merit of this important study is that it both highlights the need for massive rethinking of the self-understanding of the Christian faith and challenges those who engage in such rethinking to pay strict attention to what the evidence demands. Doctrine done this way may replace some of the richness of imaginative speculation with a welcome "freedom from certain inevitably fruitless and frustrating lines of enquiry". This book is important. It deserves to be read carefully and its challenge profoundly considered' (David Pailin in The Expository Times). `This largely non-technical and text-free book is distinguished by its author's intellectual power (manifest in the rigour and brevity of every page) and by his courageous seriousness in tackling the greatest themes open to a theologian - on the person and work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the eternal hope, the nature of doctrine itself. He is relentlessly honest in relying on his experience, study and thought. Before our eyes he is driven to faith and to agnosticism - and back again' (David L. Edwards in the Church Times).

This book is a lucid examination of the relation between faith and reason in light of the varied forms assumed by Christianity in the past as well as in the present. The backdrop for the examination is change--change in theology, church life, and society itself--and the purpose of the examination is to recall the Christian community to its true function as a unifying force in the world. In an effort to enlighten our future, Wiles shows how the concept of God as Spirit points toward a way of understanding God that does substantial justice both to the main insights of traditional faith and to the critical challenges of contemporary reflection.Faith and the Mystery of God delineates an intimately personal view of Christian faith along with grounds for holding it. Thus it is intended to help people affirm their belief in God in the modern world--in the face of all odds.

Sets thinking and preaching about atonement in new directions.

In this book noted Oxford theologian Wiles (What is Theology?) provides a clear and accessible introduction to Christian belief. Rather than simply stating and explaining the doctrinal tenets of Christian faith, however, Wiles sets forth what seem to him appropriate responses to basic questions about Christian belief that perplex Christians and non-Christians alike. Instead of providing a technical overview of Christian doctrine, he offers a short section within each chapter printed in bold type that discuss some of the issues that are important for reasonably assessing the truth claims of Christianity. Wiles free-flowing argument is not broken up with footnotes, although a bibliography at the end of the book provides suggestions for further reading for anyone interested in pursuing in more detail any of the book s topics. An index of biblical references is also included. Maurice Wiles is Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Oxford University. He is the author of many books, including Christian Theology and Interreligious Dialogue. For: General audiences; clergy; seminarians>

The purpose of this book is to bring within a single volume a representative selection of extracts from the writings of the Early Christian fathers, covering the main areas of Christian thought. The extracts, for the most part newly translated by the editors, are arranged by topic under the following headings: God, Trinity, Christ, Holy Spirit, Sin and Grace, Tradition and Scripture, Church, Sacraments, Christian Living, Church and Society, and Final Goal. Care has been taken to reflect the full range of writing on these themes - exposition and commentary, homily, epistle and polemic - and the extracts are of sufficient length to show the distinctive flavour of each individual writer. Annotation has been kept to a minimum, but each main section has a short introduction which places the extracts in their particular context within the development of Christian thought.

A paperback edition of this well-known study. Since its first publication in 1967 this book has aroused a lively debate among theologians and practicising clergy. The author had since returned to the discussion (The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, SCM Press 1974) and has stressed the contemporary need to define and develop Christian doctrine. In the earlier work Professor Wiles asks how the early Church fathers' doctrinal affirmations - expressed for example in the Nicene Creed and Chalcedonian Definition - remain valid today when the framework of the fathers' learning and discourse has disappeared. Doctrine was necessary, he argues, to answer objections to Christianity in a largely non-Christian world, to tackle the problem of heresy and to satisfy the desire of Christians to express their faith more deeply. He also considers the sources of doctrinal reasoning - Scripture, the practice of worship and the nature of salvation. These sources are still vital to any development of Christian doctrine today and the author concludes his study with a call for 'the continuation of the same task of interpreting the Church's Scriptures, her worship and her experience of salvation'.