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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
In his contribution to the volume Essays in Christology for Karl Barth, Professor D. M. Mackinnon wrote as follows: To acknowledge the supremacy of the Christology is to confess that finality belongs somehow to that which is particular and contingent, to that which has definite date and place, to that which is described by statements that are not ‘truths of reason’, or, in more modern language, ‘necessary propositions’. Further, it is to involve the confession of faith inextricably with the deliverances of flickering human perception and observation; indeed, the paradoxical and bewildering character of this involvement is clearly recognised in the New Testament itself, where, for instance, in the Fourth Gospel, the reader meets highly sophisticated discussion of the relations of seeing and believing. If he is a philosopher, as perhaps some of those for whom the author intended his book may have been, he will recognise a certain familiarity in the often tense and emotionally charged dialogue: he may even find in it, not simply echoes of the Platonists, but curious anticipations of what men of profoundly sceptical and critical intellect like Kant and Hume were later to write on the limitations of human sensibility, imagination and understanding.
page 319 note 1 Essays in Christology for Karl Barth, ed. Parker, T. H. L., p. 274fGoogle Scholar.
page 319 note 2 ibid., p. 293.
page 320 note 1 St. John (I.C.C.), pp. xc-xciii.
page 321 note 1 Das Evangelium des Johannes, notes on 3.11–15.
page 321 note 2 ibid., p. 103: ‘Er redet in alien Variationen von nichts anderem als davon, dass der Vater ihn gesandt hat, dass er gekommen ist, dass er wieder gehen wird, erhöht werden muss.’ p. 116: ‘… es zeigt sich, dass der Zeugende und der Bezeugte hier identisch sind!’
page 322 note 1 cf. Stauffer, E., Jesus and His Story, pp. 142–159Google Scholar.
page 322 note 2 Encouraged by D. M. Baillie to find in human experience an analogy to the incarnation, we might compare Paul's reluctance to make claims for himself, 2 Cor. 11.
page 323 note 1 The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, p. 366. Cf. his exposition of the whole passage.
page 323 note 2 6.68: 
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8.51: 
page 324 note 1 Out of the mass of literature, one may allude to W. Manson, Jesus the Messiah; Cullmann, O., The Christology of the New Testament (E.T. pp. 275ff)Google Scholar; Jeremias, J., ‘Abba’ in Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1954, p. 213fGoogle Scholar. What we have termed the ‘indirect impact’ has been trenchantly presented in G. Bornkamm's Jesus of Nazareth.
page 324 note 2 I still find the arguments of P. Gardner-Smith, St. John and the Synoptic Gospels, compelling, that ‘John’ did not know our Synoptic Gospels. Nevertheless, the general line of argument taken in the text implies that he assumed a great deal of knowledge about Jesus from other sources on the part of his readers. Cf. Higgins, A. J. B., The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel, esp. pp. 12ffGoogle Scholar.
page 325 note 1 Homiletical attempts to read a moral into the story based on the words ‘Sin no more’ (5.14) are not very convincing. The story is actually about ‘working’ on the Sabbath as a sign of the divine presence in Jesus.
page 325 note 2 The descent of the dove at Jesus' baptism is similarly removed from the realm of public evidence, because it is made known only through the report of John the Baptist.
page 325 note 3 op. cit., p. 329.
page 326 note 1 Scott, E. F., The Fourth Gospel, p. 199Google Scholar.
page 326 note 2 cf. Matthew 16.17 and the δέδoται of Mark 6.11.
page 326 note 3 I may refer to my article, ‘The Seal and the First Instalment’, The Indian Journal of Theology, vol. ix, 1960, p. 108Google Scholar.
page 326 note 4 Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT, ad loc. Cf. Howard, W. F., Christianity according to St. John, p. 185Google Scholar.
page 326 note 5 The Gospel of Truth (ed. Grobel, K.), p. 166ff (Coptic Text, p. 36, lines 10ff)Google Scholar.
page 326 note 6 van Unnik, W. C., in The Jung Codex (ed. Cross, F. L.), p. 104Google Scholar.
page 327 note 1 cf. the cautionary essay by Barrett, C. K., ‘The Theological Vocabulary of the Fourth Gospel and of the Gospel of Truth’, in Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (ed. Klassen, W. and Snyder, G. F.)Google Scholar.
page 327 note 2 Ostendit (sc. Deus) eum et distinxit hoc ipso miraculo v. 14, totoque testimonio suo, fide audientium (v.29) vicissim obsignando, cf. iii 33.' Bengel, Gnomon, ad vi.27.
page 328 note 1 cf. 4.19ff 7.40ff.
page 329 note 1 Manson, T. W., The Sayings of Jesus, p. 67Google Scholar.
page 329 note 2 op.cit., p. 142f.
page 329 note 3 cf. Hoskyns, E. C., The Fourth Gospel (1940), vol. I, p. 198fGoogle Scholar.
page 330 note 1 P. Munz in his recent Problems of Religious Knowledge appears to be drawing a similar distinction as the basis of his philosophic account of the religious world view. He comes very close to what we mean by ‘sign-value’ in what he terms the ‘symbol picture’ of the world—though in the course of his argument the latter concept appears to be stretched to cover a good many disparate things.
page 331 note 1 
page 333 note 1 Compare the place of this in Gospel writing and reading as analysed by J. M. Robinson, The Problem of History in Mark and A New Quest of the Historical Jesus.
page 333 note 2 The passage from the Gospel of Truth referred to above suggests that this metaphor of anointing may be again a reference to the ‘seal of truth’ of John 6.27.
page 335 note 1 cf. Ayer, A. J., Language Truth and Logic, chap, viGoogle Scholar; Flew and MacIntyre (edd.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology; B. Mitchell (ed.), Faith and Logic; M. B. Foster, Mystery and Philosophy; A. MacIntyre, ‘The Logical Status of Religious Beliefs’ in Metaphysical Beliefs (ed. MacIntyre); I. T. Ramsey, Religious Language; W. S. Hook (ed.), Religious Experience and Truth; F. Ferré Language, Logic and God.
page 335 note 2 One remains aware, of course, that this raises acutely the problem of the historical Jesus, and the relation of the latter to the post-resurrection faith of the Church.
page 335 note 3 cf. MacIntyre, A.: ‘Theism is in no sense a conclusion to an argument, an inference from evidence’. Metaphysical Beliefs, p. 184Google Scholar.
page 336 note 1 The reading, μoνoγενὴς Θεóς, is accepted by G. D. Kilpatrick in the BFBS Text (2nd edn. 1958). For the argument of this section cf. (published since this article was written) P. M. van Buren, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel, p. 146f. One wonders, however, whether the Gospel record really ‘forces us to silence’ before the question of ‘God’.
page 336 note 2 With MacIntyre, loc. cit.
page 337 note 1 Language and Christian Belief, p. 30f.
