Welsh Journals

directions to develop this potential. Father Puller devotes his sixth chapter or lecture to this theme. He founds his vision on the consecration prayer from St John chapter seventeen. But the dimension within which Christian unity may be achieved is an universal one, as in the passage quoted from Isaiah 11 v 9: "the earth shall be full of the know- ledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." This insight is slightly later thus developed: Its [that is, a visible unity] recognition will not depend on the world's accepting the private theory of one particular body of Christians. Roman Catholics may choose to imagine that they are the only people who really believe in Christ through the word of the apostles, and that, as they are visibly united, the first of the two objects mentioned by our Lord on Saint John 17 vv 20 and 21, has been attained in them. But it is evident that such a very partial realization of unity is no adequate fulfilment of our Lord's intention. What the world sees at present is a disunited Christendom; what our Lord desired was a completely united Christendom; and until that is attained, the promise implied in His great prayer remains unfulfilled. The reunion of the churches is thus likely to result from dynamic missionary expansion; and the Churches of North and South India, for instance, seem partly to justify Father Puller's vision. None the less, this account of the problem might seem to pre-suppose a very static view of Christian doctrine. Is there no possibility of development? Indeed Roman Catholic scholars had begun to develop just this line of argument in criticism of such a position as that here adopted by Father Puller. Of considerable interest, therefore, in Father Puller's full treatment of this issue in Appendix M as appended to chapter 12. Here he distinguishes three spheres within which development might be possible. With regard to matters of discipline, and of theological science, development of a proper nature is natural and to be accepted. But, in regard to obligatory doctrine, there can be no development. Such an analysis seems very fair, and would be generally acceptable. The difficulty then, as now, is where one draws the exact line of demarcation between the various spheres. One could suppose a situation wherein all, or many, Christian churches voluntarily agreed to accept the primacy of the see of Rome. Would this class as a matter of discipline, or as an improper breach of obligatory doctrine? Likewise, within which territory 1 So far all this has led to little formal progress: consider, for instance, the rejection by the democratic institutions of the Church of England of successive attempts to achieve re-union with the English Methodists.