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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
The philosopher John Macmurray's specifically theological intent, contribution, and method stand strangely neglected. In the past decade theologians have argued that his philosophic work might suggest a new natural theology. Such is the case in appreciative comments by John A. T. Robinson and Thomas A. Langford. Both focus on the primacy that Macmurray accords the ‘personal’, and the bearing that this might have on an apologetic for the ‘religious dimension of life’. That Macmurray, however, might be more adequately interpreted as theologian than as philosopher only, that his philosophy itself might legitimately be considered the development of a theological position, and that finally his work might point the way toward reorientation of the relationship between theology and other human sciences will be argued in this article.
page 449 note 1 Robinson, John A. T., Honest to God, (London: SCM Press, 1963), pp. 51–2, 61, 119.Google Scholar
page 449 note 2 Langford, Thomas A., ‘The Natural Theology of John Macmurray’, Canadian Journal of Theology, XII 1: (1966), p. 9.Google Scholar
page 449 note 3 ibid.
page 449 note 4 Gilson, Étienne, ‘Historical Research and the Future of Scholasticism’, in A Gilson Reader, Pegis, Anton C., ed., (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), p. 156.Google Scholar
page 450 note 1 Cf. Langford, op. cit., where he objects to Macmurray's restriction of ‘religion’ to the personal sphere. It is doubtful whether Langford would find the definition so limiting had he placed it in the context of Macmurray's descriptive analysis of Hebrew and Christian Community in his earlier works, for the whole range of social expression and communion are implied when Macmurray speaks of persons in relation, along with the Personal Agent, whose intention they are.
page 450 note 2 Macmurray, John, Reason and Emotion (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1936), p. 194Google Scholar; cf. Langford, op. cit., p. 9.
page 450 note 3 Macmurray, , Creative Society: A Study of the Relation of Christianity to Communism (New York: Association Press, 1936), p. 12.Google Scholar
page 450 note 4 ibid.
page 451 note 1 Macmurray, , Search for Reality in Religion (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1965), pp. 22–3.Google Scholar
page 451 note 2 ibid., pp. 12–14, 25.
page 451 note 3 ibid., pp. 25–6.
page 451 note 4 Macmurray, , The Clue to History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939), p. 17.Google Scholar
page 451 note 5 Macmurray, , The Self As Agent (London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1957), p. 179.Google Scholar
page 452 note 1 Macmurray, , The Clue to History, p. 17.Google Scholar
page 453 note 1 ibid., p. 31.
page 454 note 1 Macmurray, , The Clue to History, pp. 33–4.Google Scholar
page 454 note 2 ibid., p. 38.
page 454 note 3 Macmurray, , Creative Society, p. 58.Google Scholar
page 455 note 1 ibid., pp. 58–9.
page 455 note 2 ibid., pp. 60–3.
page 455 note 3 ibid., pp. 73–4.
page 456 note 1 Macmurray, , The Clue to History, p. 50.Google Scholar
page 456 note 2 ibid., pp. 88–9.
page 457 note 1 Macmurray, , Creative Society, pp. 101–3.Google Scholar
page 457 note 2 ibid., p. 105.
page 458 note 1 Macmurray, , Creative Society, pp. 82–3.Google Scholar
page 458 note 2 ibid., pp. 84–5.
page 458 note 3 Macmurray, , Persons in Relation (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 165.Google Scholar
page 459 note 1 Macmurray, , The Clue to History, p. 122.Google Scholar
page 459 note 2 Macmurray, , Search for Reality in Religion, p. 21.Google Scholar
page 459 note 3 Macmurray, , The Clue to History, p. 122.Google Scholar
page 459 note 4 ibid., p. 147.
page 460 note 1 Macmurray, , The Clue to History, p. 147.Google Scholar
page 460 note 2 Macmurray, , The Self As Agent, p. 101.Google Scholar
page 460 note 3 Langford, op. cit., p. 9.
page 460 note 4 Macmurray, , The Self As Agent, p. 83.Google Scholar
page 461 note 1 Macmurray, , Persons in Relation, p. 48.Google Scholar
page 461 note 2 ibid., pp. 44–63.
page 463 note 1 Langford, op. cit., p. 18. Note that Macmurray explains what he means by a focus on practical as opposed to theoretical intention when he talks of the Copernican revolution he proposes in going from the self as subject to the self as agent. Cf. The Self As Agent, pp. 85–6.
