Theology on Dover Beach

From the Preface by Nicholas Lash: The risk is that a collection such as this will lack the unity necessary to make it useful, and readable, as a book. But I selected these particular pieces because, for all the variety of their themes and levels of treatment, they seemed to me to illustrate two enduring preoccupations: an attempt to grapple with problems arising from the historical character of Christian faith and theology, and a conviction that, far from surrendering its critical integrity and (relative) autonomy, Christian theological reflection only attains its own proper rigour and significance if it is continually borne in mind that such reflection is dependent upon, secondary to, Christian faith and practice. I have therefore concentrated on these two issues in the Introduction. If the emphasis in these essays is on questions of method, this is partly because the confusion and uncertainty which many Christians experience today is perhaps less obviously the expression of a crisis of faith than a crisis of culture: we are not sure how to go about the business of connecting our Christianity with other aspects of our life and experience; we are not sure what would count, and on what grounds, as appropriate ways of giving linguistic and conceptual expression to our faith. And these are therefore essays, essais, attempts, contributions to a discussion. In a situation such as ours, there is an inherent implausibility in the idea that any one man - be he theologian, philosopher, economist, or politician - can come up with answers, with solutions to our common problems.