emotional overtones. But on the intellectual level the theologian found it necessary to reinterpret them, at best, as symbols without ontic content or, at worst, as the figment of the imagination of a primitive age under the influence of an ancient world view.3 Imasogie may be overstating his case, but there is nevertheless considerable substance in what he says. Hiebert has spoken of ‘the flaw of the excluded middle’ which has characterised western evangelicalism and been exported in its theology.