title

:

Christian Theology Vol. 2 / : An Eschatological Approach

author

:

Finger, Thomas N.

publisher

:

Herald Press

isbn10 | asin

:

0836134958

print isbn13

:

9780836134957

ebook isbn13

:

9780585246802

language

:

English

subject

Theology, Doctrinal, Eschatology.

publication date

:

1989

lcc

:

BT75.2.F55 1989eb

ddc

:

230

subject

:

Theology, Doctrinal, Eschatology.

Page 3

Christian Theology

An Eschatological Approach:

Volume II

Thomas N. Finger

HERALD PRESS

Scottdale, Pennsylvania

Waterloo, Ontario

Page 4

Disclaimer:

This book is part of a volume set. netLibrary may or may not have all the companion volumes in eBook format.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

(Revised for volume 2)

Finger, Thomas N.

Christian theology.

Vol. 1: Reprint. Originally published: Nashville :

T. Nelson, © 1985-

Includes bibliographies and indexes.

1. Theology, Doctrinal. 2. Eschatology.  I.  Title.

BT75.2.F55   1987    230    87-14823

ISBN 0-8361-3453-2 (v. 1)

ISBN 0-8361-3495-8 (v. 2 : alk. paper)

ä

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Quotations from Principles of Christian Theology, 2d ed., by John Macquarrie are reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Company. Copyright © 1972 John Macquarrie.

Scripture quotations are from the author's translation or from the Revised

Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952, © 1971, 1973.

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY, Volume II

Copyright © 1989 by Thomas N. Finger

Published by Herald Press, Scottdale, PA 15683

Published simultaneously in Canada by Herald Press,

Waterloo, Ont. N2L 6H7. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-14823

International Standard Book Number: 0-8361-3495-8

Printed in the United States of America

05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Page 5

To two good friends

who also happen to be biblical scholars

and who have encouraged me in producing this two-volume work:

To William L. Lane

who long ago inspired me to begin it;

To Willard M. Swartley

who recently strengthened me to finish it.

Page 7

Contents

Introduction to Volume II

11

1

Traditional Approaches to Anthropology

15

I. Traditional Roman Catholic Anthropology

17

II. Lutheran Anthropology

22

III. Reformed Anthropology

28

IV. Summary

34

2

Contemporary Approaches to Anthropology

37

I. Contemporary Catholic Anthropology

39

II. The Anthropology of Liberation Theologies

49

III. The Influence of Psychotherapy

56

IV. "Pessimism" in Contemporary Anthropology

58

V. Summary

63

3

The Foundation of Anthropology

65

I. Is a Christological Anthropology Impossible?

68

II. A Christological Anthropology Is Possible

72

III. Agape and Social Relationships

79

IV. Summary

88

4

Obedience, Servanthood, and Stewardship

91

I. Obedience

93

II. Servanthood

96

III. The Imago Dei

102

IV. Jesus' Humanity in Relationship to His Deity

112

5

Body, Soul, and Will

115

I. Flesh and Body

116

II. Soul, Conscience, Reason, and Heart

121

III. Will, Spirit, and Freedom

128

Page 8

6

Sin

139

I. Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives on Sin

140

II. Sin as Opposition to Christ

146

III. The Vocabulary and General Phenomena of Sin

154

IV. Conclusions

159

7

Justification

165

I. The Debate over Justification

166

II. "Righteousness" and "Faith" in Scripture

174

III. Conclusions

190

8

Personal Sanctification

197

I. The Way of Salvation

199

II. The Dynamics of Sanctification

211

9

Approaches to Ecclesiology

225

I. The Church and Contemporary Democratic Presuppositions

226

II. The Traditional Roman Catholic View of the Church

228

III. The Reformation View of the Church

234

IV. The Believer's Church Perspective

236

V. Basic Ecclesial Communities

240

VI. Summary

244

10

The Commission of the Church

247

I. Worship, Fellowship, and Mission

248

II. Ecclesiological Affirmations

261

III. Summary

268

11

The Church's Mission in the World

271

I. Models of the Church-World Relationship

273

II. The Church as an Alternative Model

284

12

Mission Amid Other Religions and Worldviews

297

I. Approaches to the World Religions

298

II. Christian Truth and Other Truths

308

13

The Worship of the Church

321

I. Some Elements of Worship

322

II. Preaching

329

III. Sacraments

331

IV. Conclusions

348

Page 9

14

The Structure of the Church

353

I. Models of Church Structure

354

II. Outlines of Church Structure

366

15

The Spirit and the Son

379

I. The Trinity: An Authentic Christian Teaching?

380

II. The Holy Spirit

382

III. The Son

389

16

Creation

407

I. Salvation History and Creation

408

II. Creation and Science

418

III. Affirmations about Creation

426

17

The Trinity

433

I. The Historical Trinitarian Relationships

434

II. The Eternal Trinity

440

III. The Meaning of the Trinity

450

18

The Person of Jesus Christ

457

I. The Issue, Past and Present

458

II. The Divine Person of Jesus Christ

466

III. The Virginal Conception of Jesus Christ

471

IV. Summary

478

19

The Attributes of God

481

I. Preliminary Considerations

482

II. Attributes of Personhood

485

III. Attributes of Ultimacy

498

Scripture Index

509

Author Index

530

Subject Index

538

Page 11

Introduction to Volume II

In Volume I we returned several times full circlebetter, full spiralto the point from which we set out. As we moved from one topic to another we penetrated with increasing depth the proclamation and the hope of the earliest Christians. Of course, since all theological topics are interrelated, we could have begun with any one of them. But our special concern has been to do theological reflection as the intellectual dimension of the church's worship, fellowship, and mission. Accordingly, we sought to begin from a standpoint vividly in touch with the proclamation and the life of the earliest Christians. This we found in the early "kerygma" and the lifestyle which accompanied it (Vol. I, pp. 36-40, 120-125). The kerygma unites the personal dimension of faith, so emphasized in current western religion, with the cosmic dimension. This has implications for those massive economic, political, and ecological challenges which all peoples face. The kerygma is grounded in and points toward "objective" acts of God, yet it arouses intense "subjective" hope.

If we live and think from this perspective, we recover the early Christians' intense awareness of living in the new age. For us, as for them, the powers of evil and death have been decisively defeated. We eagerly await Jesus' return to consummate this victory. And so we begin to live in the present power of the new life, behaving as if oppression, poverty, despair, disease, and death were not the last word. This dynamic joy in Jesus' resurrection and this keen anticipation of his return lead us to struggle against those declining but active powers which choke and suppress the new life.

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Yet when we act out of this boundless joy and hope, we inevitably find, as did the early Christians, that these declining powers still exercise appallingly vast dominion. We experience delay, discouragement, and pain. Jesus' victory and our own hope begin to seem less solid. However, if we, like the early Christians, do not immediately succumb to these disappointmentsif instead we struggle to grasp their meaningsooner or later our eyes will turn toward the past. We will probe more deeply the history of God's faithfulness to Israel: of promise, of struggle and disappointment, but also at length of fulfillment (Vol. I, pp. 273-274). Above all, we will probe the meaning of Jesus' mission: his conflict, suffering, and apparent defeat at the hands of his enemies.

Slowly, we will begin to learn that, until his return, "the power of his resurrection" and "sharing of his sufferings" will be inseparably interlinked.1 Like the early Christians, today's Christians always live in the "already" of God's kingdom and its resurrection life . . . and in the "not yet'' of suffering, discouragement, and opposition.

Of course, in sketching the contours of this awareness, we are not implying that every New Testament Christian apprehended the realities of faith in precisely this way. Even in the early decades, many different types of individuals came to Christ and experienced his reality from many different angles. And today there is at least as much variety in authentic Christian experience. Still, the following pattern recurs repeatedly in the Old and New Testaments: God fulfills certain aspects of the promise; this arouses the joyous sense that the kingdom has fully come; but further experience contradicts this; so the faithful experience struggle and doubt which serve in the end to strengthen their hope. Since New Testament times, fresh impulses of life have often rejuvenated the church. Renewed and highly committed groups have set out to worship, share life, and witness in new ways. Yet this initial joy has driven them into conflict and pain through which many were ultimately strengthened.

Such groups often became "believer's churches"Waldensians, Anabaptists, Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, etc.who formed their own independent communities. Yet similar groupsmonastic movements, pietist conventicles, charismatic fellowshipshave remained within the framework of established denominations. As our ecclesiology will show, the believer's church experience influences our attempt to write theology from the perspective of active Christian communities (cf. Vol. I, Chap. 5). We do not assume that each reader shares such a perspective. Neither do we develop a sectarian theology, applicable only to historic believer's churches. In our day of ecumenical dialogue, groups within

1 Phil. 3:10-14; cf. Rom. 5:1-10, 2 Cor. 4:7-11, 1 Pet. 4:12-14.

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many older denominations manifest the New Age more vibrantly than do many in historic believers' communities. We do not assume certain experiences or denominational commitments of our readers. Rather, we invite all who wish to worship, share life, and reach out to look afresh at the proclamation and experience of the earliest Christians. We will carry on these explorations in dialogue with many traditions.

Throughout Volume I we witnessed the unavoidable interplay of the "objective" foundations and the "subjective" realities of Christian existence. Similarly, we observed that theology has inseparable "kerygmatic" and "contextual" dimensions. However, we placed more weight on the objective and kerygmatic. Under Eschatology, we argued that personal hope is grounded in the reality of the things hoped for, and in what God has already done (Chaps. 69). Similarly, while emphasizing that revelation involves transformative personal encounter, we insisted that this occurs in response to God's otherness, which is also manifested in revelation's historical and propositional dimensions (Chaps. 1013). Finally, while Jesus' work draws us personally into the divine life, his words, deeds, death, and resurrection decisively established God's kingdom and defeated God's enemies before this possibility was opened up (Chaps. 1418). Although we discussed the profound subjective meaning of all these realities, we described it as a response to and an effect of events which occurred (and of others which will occur) in space and time. Moreover, God initiated these events and accomplished them apart from general human consent, and often in sharp conflict with it.

Christian theology, however, must deal in depth not only with God, but also with humanity. Scripture repeatedly describes human experiences, endeavors, and societies. Christians today are deeply immersed in the lives of individuals, groups, and nations. Accordingly, our emphasis on the objective, kerygmatic, and divine in Volume I was not to minimize the subjective, contextual, and human. Instead, we were seeking to place the latter realities in proper perspective. We cannot really understand our world unless we apprehend God's approach and address to it. We cannot really understand humanity unless we perceive the One who alone was wholly and truly human. We cannot understand the church and its social relationships unless we apprehend the Spirit's movement within it. In short, a proper emphasis on the divine does not lead away from humanity, but is the true key to understanding it.

Volume II, then, will often be dealing with the human and contextual side of things. We will begin with Anthropology (the doctrine of human nature). Anthropology asks, first, What does God intend us to be? How do authentic, fulfilled human persons look (Chaps. 35

Page 14

below)? Yet consideration of this soon reveals that we fall far short. Anthropology, accordingly, next turns to the problem of sin (Chap. 6). Wrestling with this tragedy, especially in light of the potentialities which it chokes, leads us to ask further questions. How can we get free from sin? How can we begin to be what God intends?

Such questions will lead our reflections to Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). Salvation is grounded in the divine work which we explored in Volume I (Chaps. 1418). Now Volume II, under the headings of justification (Chap. 7) and sanctification (Chap. 8), will trace the ways in which this salvation affects us.

This discussion, however, cannot be complete apart from considering the church. Christians do not grow into the fulness which God intends merely as individuals, but also within and through relationships with others. Personal sanctification unfolds in the context of the church's worship, fellowship, and mission. We must discuss Soteriology, then, within Ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church).2 Somewhat as we have considered Christ's work (Vol. I, Chaps. 1418) before moving on to his person (Chaps. 1518 below), we will explore the church's activity before discussing its structure. Having outlined the church's commission in general (Chap. 10 below), and its mission in the social order (Chap. 11) and to non-Christian religions and worldviews (Chap. 12), we will turn to its worship (Chap. 13). Only after all this will we turn to its structure (Chap. 14).

As we study anthropology, soteriology, and ecclesiology, it will become increasingly apparent that more than human factors are at work. We will catch ever more frequent glimpses of divine activityespecially of God the Spirit. Having examined as much data as possible about the work of God, we will finally be ready for the summit of the theological enterprise: consideration of God's nature. An initial discussion of the historical activities and relationships of the Spirit and Son (Chap. 15) will lead us to creation, the one divine work not yet considered (Chap. 16). This will prepare us to explore what theology can meaningfully say about the Trinity (Chap. 17); about the Son's person, especially his humanity and deity (Chap. 18); and about the nature and attributes of God in general (Chap. 19).

2 Protestant theology has usually been structured differently. John Calvin, for instance, discussed Christian life comprehensively before he turned to the church, which he then called one of the "external means . . . by which God invites us into the society of Christ and holds us therein. . . . Since . . . in our ignorance and sloth . . . we need outward help to beget and increase faith within us . . . God has also added these aids that he may provide for our weakness" (Institutes of the Christian Religion [Philadelphia: Westmister, 1960], p. 1011).

Page 15

Chapter One

Traditional Approaches to Anthropology

Every creature in the universe is mysterious. But presumably only human beings are mysterious to themselves. From the dawn of history, religions and philosophies have pondered the strange "disproportion" in human nature.1 We are rational beings yet animals. We are capable of noble goodness and shocking evil. We are learned about the surrounding world, yet so ignorant of our real selves.

The riddle and challenge of what it means to be human is as old as humanity itself. In recent centuries, however, this question has become ever more urgent. Our modern world of science, technology, socialism, and democracy has been produced largely by human reason, imagination, and hard work set free from political and ecclesiastical restraints.

However, this liberation of human potential has brought about a paradoxical surprise (Vol. I, Chap. 2). Despite many laudable advances, we find ourselves in bondage to other forces: impersonal, mass societies; glaring international social and economic imbalances; destructive weaponry of awesome proportions. These forces seem to be of our own making. The efforts of recent centuries to humanize life have

1 Paul Ricoeur, Fallible Man (Chicago: Regnery, 1967), pp. 3-25.

Page 16

engendered much dehumanization. The exertions of human freedom have produced much bondage. How can we find rescue from the powers we have enthroned? In the face of the escalating arms race, this question grows to apocalyptic proportions.

Situated in such a context, today's Christians can hardly avoid the urgent issue of humanization: What does it mean to be fully and authentically human amid so many dehumanizing forces? How can one develop human potential on the individual level? in close interpersonal relationships? in the economic, political and ecological spheres?

However, humanization is not only an urgent issue in our modern context; it is also a concern of the biblical kerygma. The kingdom which Jesus brought and the life poured out at his resurrection involve deliverance from all sickness, poverty, oppression, hatred, and despair. They include harmonious, joyful relationships among people and the satisfaction of material needs. To be sure, precisely because Christians believe that this life and the hope of its final victory are real, they will share the afflictions of those who still suffer. They may experience serious deprivations. Many of their needs and potentialities may go unfulfilled. Yet such self-renunciation is valid only when guided by the hope that the kingdom may be more broadly actualized. For God, too, is concerned about true humanization.2

For both contextual and kerygmatic reasons, then, humanization must be central to our anthropology. Yet if we explore this issue's full range, our anthropology will become considerably broader than that of most Protestant systematic theologies. For, as we shall soon see, Protestant systematics have spent far less time discussing humankind's positive potential than its negative actuality. Protestant anthropologiesin contrast to Catholic oneshave focused largely on the origin, dynamics, and penalties of sin. For this reason, we will set our sights on the issues we wish to explore by first outlining traditional Catholic anthropology.

Despite the urgency of humanization, it is advisable to glance backwards before plunging into the present. For modern human issues did not suddenly emerge from a vacuum. Whether people remember it or not, past theologies have significantly shaped the way humankind now understands reality. Furthermore, every Christian's understanding of human nature has been shaped by one or more traditions. We do not approach Scripture or experience wholly without presuppositions, but through "lenses" handed down from the past (Vol. I, Chap. 3). Nor is our generation the first to wrestle with human issues. The insights of

2 See Karl Barth, The Humanity of God (Richmond: Knox, 1960), pp. 37-165; Hans Küng, On Being a Christian (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 251-258.

Page 17

our predecessors can enrich us. Their errors can give us warning.

Volume I frequently presented different theologies according to the kerygmatic/contextual classification. Volume II will more often group them along denominational lines. For churches exist to heal sin and enhance humanization. Accordingly, different approaches to anthropology and soteriology will usually correspond to distinct ecclesial understandings.

I

Traditional Roman Catholic Anthropology

In the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)as in most systematic theologiesanthropology is the third doctrine discussed. Following the doctrines of God and creation, anthropology first treats unfallen human nature. Aquinas's anthropology, however, deals with humanity's positive potentialities far more fully than do most Protestant dogmatics.3 Thenagain like most systemsAquinas turns to human sin and the fall.4 Following this, Thomas begins exploring sanctification. Having considered the roles of the law and of grace,5 he examines at length the development of the "theological" virtues: faith, hope, and love;6 and of the "cardinal" virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage.7

A

Nature and Grace

In Volume I, Chapter 4, we noticed that Aquinas developed a "two-level" theory of reality. Human reason, for example, belongs to and is capable of understanding the lower level, which Thomas called "nature." Nature includes the physical, social, and ethical realms. By considering what the senses perceive, reason is even capable of proving

3 Aquinas discusses God in Part I, Questions 2-43 and Creation in Questions 44-74. Unfallen nature is covered in Part I, Questions 75-102, and in Part II, Section 1, Questions 1-70. Many systematic theologies handle questions of revelation and reason in a prolegomena which precedes the doctrine of God. Aquinas discusses these issues briefly in Part I, QQ 1-14, and in his earlier work, Summa Contra Gentiles (esp. Book I, chaps. 1-14). In Summa Contra Gentiles, anthropology is treated in Book II, chaps. 56-90, and Book III.

4ST, Part II, Section 1, Questions 71-89.

5ST, II, 1, QQ. 90-114

6ST, II, 2, QQ. 1-46

7ST, II, 2, QQ. 47-170.

Page 18

that God exists^8 and of knowing certain divine attributes.9 Certain other truths, however, belong to the upper level beyond reason's range. This is the realm of "grace," which can be known only through revelation. And one can know revelation only by faitha supernatural capacity bestowed by God.

Aquinas conceived the development of human potential within this overall framework. People mature when they develop certain virtues. Everyone has the capacity to develop three intellectual virtues (wisdom, science, and understanding), and four moral, or "cardinal," virtues (prudence, courage, temperance, and justice). One acquires these through the strengthening of habits.10 One acquires wisdom, for instance, through consistent discipline in study. These virtues, whcih exist on the level of nature, were those stressed in Greek philosophy. By affirming that their development is essentially the same in all persons, Thomas was able to incorporate much of Greek moral philosophy (especially that of Aristotle) into his overall theological system.

In addition to these natural virtues, however, there are three supernatural, or "theological" ones (faith, hope, and love). These exist on the level of grace. Humans have no innate capacity for developing these. Only God can bestow them. Nonetheless, bestowal of the theological virtues brings the cardinal virtues to their highest development. For, as Thomas succinctly put it, "Grace does not destroy, but perfects nature."11 For example, wisdom, the highest virtue belonging to the intellect, is brought to its highest perfection by faith, the theological virtue which elevates the rational capacity. Normally, God's elevating and perfecting grace is infused gradually, as one studies, prays, performs good works, and partakes of sacraments. Ideally, the natural process of humanization and the supernatural process of sanctification go hand in hand.

Thomas's major anthropological notions fit neatly within this twolevel schema. What, for instance, is the overall goal of human life? All people strive to attain "the Good." On the natural level, the Good involves earthly happiness: health and harmony between mind and body and in social relationships. Considered from the level of grace, however, all people are destined to strive towards God. In fact, the natural person's pursuit of happiness is a searching and feeling after the ultimate Good: God. Yet this striving can never really be fulfilled

8ST, I, Q 2.

9ST, I, QQ 3-11.

10ST, II, 1, Q. 55.

11ST, I, 1, Q. 1, a. 8.

Page 19

except through grace, which enables people to experience true "happiness": the vision of God's essence, which occurs only after death.

For Thomas, the human soul also contains various interrelated levels. Essentially, the soul is an immaterial substance separable from the body.12 Its primary, higher power is an intellectual one. Nevertheless, the soul also has lower powers of movement, appetite, sensation, and a vegetative power. Through these it is linked closely to the body, which it governs. Aquinas calls the soul "the form of the body." Thomas did not continue the sharp distinction between soul and body characteristic of much Greek philosophy. Rather, influenced by the biblical vision, he worked with subtlety and skill to intertwine them.13

B

Will, Conscience, and Society

Given his view of human activity, Aquinas felt that the will must be free. In only one sense was it determined: the will "must of necessity adhere to the last end, which is happiness. . . . " Human beings, in other words, cannot directly desire misery and evil, but only what they consider (even if mistakenly) to be good. (For instance, individuals become drunk not because they really desire drunkenness with all its negative consequences, but because they think it will make them happy.) In all other respects, however, "we are the masters of our actions by reason of being able to choose . . . not the end, but the means to the end."14 The decisions of daily life must be under our control. "Otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain."15

Thomas argued that the conscience, like the will, is naturally directed toward the good, and ultimately toward God. Following his lead, most Catholic theologians today affirm

the conviction of all peoples that in his heart man can hearken to the good and to the voice of God. . . . His conscience is more than his own good will or witness to the good, for it is not altogether silenced even if the malice of man has all but extinguished the light of reason. It is not merely the voice of the good admonishing him from without. It is the monitor in man's own heart, calling him to God, binding him to the good, even when he seeks to escape from it or evade it.16

12ST, I, Q. 75.

13ST, I, QQ. 78-80.

14ST, I, Q. 82, a. 1.

15ST, I, Q. 83, a. 1; cf. II, 1, Q. 6.

16 Bernard Haering, The Law of Christ (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1966-67), Vol. I, p. 136.

Page 20

Correlative to the notion of conscience is that of natural law. Natural law is engraved on everyone's heart, or conscience,17 from which even the worst sinful habits can never eradicate its basic precepts.18 This law contains the basic moral principles governing humans as physical and social creatures.19 For Thomas, the moral precepts of Old Testament law correspond with those of natural law.20 Thanks to revelation, Israel and the church have these laws in clear, written form. Still, everyone grasps themthough often less clearlythrough conscience.

Since all people know these laws, social life can function entirely on the natural level, apart from the church. And since only the church can guide people to their supernatural end, it should concern itself chiefly with this task. Nevertheless, the order of grace is not irrelevant or opposed to the order of nature, but seeks to transform it. Sociopolitical structures, therefore, are somewhat open to the influence of grace. But since the church will regard sociopolitical structures as given natural orders, it will strive to improve their functioning rather than challenge them.

C

The Imago Dei and Sin

In developing the anthropological teachings above, Aquinas's method of argument is largely deductive. That is, conclusions reached while discussing God and creation become premises from which many anthropological implications are deduced. However, when Thomas focuses on the creation of our race, he refers specifically to Genesis. The notion of the "image of God" (in Latin: imago dei) in humanity stands at the center (cf. Gen. 1:26-30; 9:6). One suspects, however, that Aquinas's philosophical assumptions color his interpretation. For Thomas, "being in God's image refers solely to the mind."21 The imago dei is expressed in those mental activities by which people control their bodies^22 and rule the rest of creation.23

17ST, II, 1, Q. 94, a. 1.

18ST, II, 1, Q. 94, a. 6.

19ST, II, 1, Q. 94, a. 2.

20 Aquinas distinguished these moral precepts from the ceremonial and judicial precepts of Old Testament law.

21ST, I, Q. 93, a. 6.

22ST, I, Q. 93, a. 7.

23ST, I, Q. 96, aa. 1-2.

Page 21

With this notion, Aquinas tried to explain the effects of humanity's fall. In their unfallen state, Eve and Adam were blessed by grace. Thomas called it "original justice." By virtue of this divine gift, their minds were submissive to God, and their bodies to their minds.24 At their fall, however, original justice was entirely withdrawn. The human mind was no longer subject to God, nor was the body to the mind. Aquinas did feel that the fall damaged certain elements of human nature more than others. The will was especially affected, as were the reproductive powers and the sense of touch.25 Thomas insisted, however, that the fall did not destroy any of those capacities, for "the very substance of human nature . . . can neither be taken away or lessened through sin." And although "the natural inclination to virtue . . . can be lessened through sin," it cannot be "entirely taken away."26 Sin's chief effect, then, was to upset the harmony among these elements. While the mind remained essentially undamaged, the body now rebelled against it. And the inclinations within people began warring against each other.27

On the whole, Thomas's two-level model provides a way of conceiving how Christians participate in the process of humanization common to all people, and how they also transcend it. On one level, the church should participate in all processes directed toward building healthy persons and societies. On another level, the church should call everyone to a destiny transcending all societies. This is possible because both the natural person and the one imbued by grace are heading in the same direction.

Sin is conceived not as a force directly opposing God, but as misdirection and imbalance among forces which point toward God. People sin not when they deliberately seek to do evil, but when they pursue goals that they mistakenly suppose to be good. Sin does not destroy the fundamental orientation and components of human nature and society. Rather, it throws them into disharmony. Indeed, for Thomas, evil cannot be a substantial reality. Evil is simply the absence or distortion of what is good.

24ST, I, Q. 95, a. 1.

25ST, II, 1, Q. 83, aa. 3-4.

26ST, II, 1, Q. 85, a. 4.

27 This view of the fall is often expressed by a distincton (which goes back to Irenaeus [135?-202?]) between God's "image" (imago) and God's "likeness" (similitudo). These terms are translations of the Hebrew words tselem and demuth found in Genesis 1:26. When God's "original justice" was withdrawn, humankind wholly lost God's "likeness" (similitudo, demuth) but not God's ''image" (imago, tselem). Although Aquinas made this distinction, it was not central in his description of the fall.

Page 22

II

Lutheran Anthropology

At the roots of the Protestant Reformation lay a different sense of sin and evil. Neither Martin Luther (1483-1546) nor John Calvin (1509-1564) believed that the human willthrough normal processes of moral development and aided by co-operating graceadheres ever more firmly to God and turns ever more resolutely from evil. They perceived the conflict between humanity and God, and the means of overcoming it, far more radically.

Martin Luther saw deeply into human nature. Yet he seldom expressed his thoughts on this themeor on any othersystematically. Luther composed an extraordinary number of sermons and pamphlets on many topics. Yet his frequently perceptive, often polemical, and sometimes verbose remarks often defy synthesis. This is due not only to the various forms in which he expressed them. At its heart, Luther's religious awareness involves paradoxes which defy full rational clarification.28 If it wishes to be enriched by Luther's insights, systematic theology must appreciate rather than eliminate them.

A

Repentance and Faith

We can most helpfully compare Luther's anthropology with Aquinas's by exploring Luther's notion of law. For Thomas, the moral, or natural, law is inscribed on the conscience. It teaches everyone the basic moral and social principles. According to Luther, however, law functions in three different ways. We may call them its prosecuting, pedagogical, and political uses. In the latter two, as we shall see, law operates somewhat as Aquinas said. But its first function is far different.

In its prosecuting function, the law convicts individuals of sin. Luther found this most vividly expressed in Romans 7, which he understood to recount Paul's struggle toward faith. Luther heard this account echoing his own excruciating experiences. According to Romans 7, the law does not arouse one's ability to obey it, and thereby to move gladly toward salvation. Rather, the law arouses a painful awareness of one's deep-seated inability to do so. The more one tries to

28 In our usage, paradox does not mean contradiction, but something which combines various features which at first seem contradictory. A paradox contradicts our normal ways of perceiving and thinking about things. But in itself, its various features are consistent with each other, even if we can never fully explain how this is so (cf. Vol. I, pp. 259-260). However, by affirming that Luther often expressed himself in paradoxes, we do not necessarily preclude that he at times flatly contradicted himself.

Page 23

follow the law, the greater becomes one's failure and frustration. Finally, the law presses one to the desperate exclamation, "Wretched person that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24). Only at this point, being fully convinced of one's inability to achieve salvation through following the law, is one ready to receive salvation through faith.

The gulf between Aquinas and Luther is deep. For the former, the fact that the law commands us is evidence that we can keep itat least sometimes. Our wills are thus free. "Otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain."29 For Luther, the law's commands, considered in light of our responses, are evidence that we cannot keep it. Our wills are bound by sin.30 Moreover, for Luther, the law functions somewhat like a power (like sin, death, and the principalities). The law has "held us captive" (Rom. 7:6). It confronts us as an enemy which Christ's work has destroyed (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14-15; Gal. 4:1-5).31

This difference from Aquinas is also reflected in the Lutheran understanding of God's image. For Aquinas, we remember, the imago dei consists in human reason, which remains essentially undamaged despite sin. Although the fall has sown disharmony among the elements composing human nature, reason still provides a point of contact for hearing and beginning to obey God's commands. The early Lutheran confessions, however, speak of no such imago which remains essentially intact. Humankind has lost all capacity to hear God in a saving way.32

To be sure, Aquinas and Luther do not differ so sharply over the law's content. Luther's account of the law's pedagogical and political uses make this clear. But Luther insists that in its prosecuting function, the law operates quite unlike Aquinas said. We can clarify this by consider-

29ST, I, Q. 83, a. 1.

30 This is a main point in Luther's argument against the Catholic humanist, Erasmus, who affirmed the will's freedom. See Luther's Works, Vol. 33 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), esp. pp. 102-159.

31 See esp. "Lectures on Galatians" (1535) in Luther's Works, Vol. 26 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1963), pp. 276-291; and Gustav Aulèn, Christus Victor (New York: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 103-116.

32 Holsten Fagerberg, A New Look at the Lutheran Confessions, 1529-1537 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1972), pp. 129-134. Some recent Lutheran theologians speak of the imago dei, but tend to understand it as God's continuing call to humanity. Since God has not wholly abandoned us, but still draws people to Godself, some sort of general relationship with humankind still exists. Nonetheless, it is grounded not in any human capacity, but in God's continuing faithfulness and love. (See Thielicke, Vol. I, pp. 152-160.)

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ing Luther's notion of conscience. For Aquinas, conscience directly echoes the moral law, although often in partial and distorted ways. Luther, however, insisted that conscience does not always say the same thing, nor speak from the same point of view. Rather, it switches sides.

Before someone comes to faith, conscience often echoes and amplifies the law's harsh voice. Conscience mercilessly magnifies its demandsnot to encourage sinners to perform them, but to convince them that they cannot. Therefore, to obtain grace, we must "lift up our eyes in spite of sin and call upon God in defiance of conscience."33 And even after we are justified, conscience continues to accuse. Faith, therefore, must continually affirm God's promise of salvation. From this angle, conscience remains an enemy against which faith defends us.

From the Lutheran perspective, conscience is not primarily a structure conveying straightforward (or even obscure) information about God and human nature. Rather, like the law in its prosecuting function, conscience is an actor in the individual's struggle with accusation and forgiveness. In the process, conscience will tell us much about God and ourselvesbut not in such a way that theology can derive from it general anthropological information.

This actor, however, can play several roles. It can also illumine God's commands in a manner which guides and enhances sanctification. Similarly, the lawan accusing power in its prosecuting functioncan guide the Christian walk in its second, or pedagogical function.34 For the justified, the law can provide a helpful, even necessary, guide. Functioning in such a context, the law has

a regulative significance that reminds me of the way in which my given obedienceto which I could never be forced by any lawmay be exercised. It points me to specific areas in which the question of obedience is acute. . . . The law does not make the new man, but it does exercise him and shows him the full range in which his newness is relevant.35

For Lutherans, the key issue is how one uses the law. If we attempt

33 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 374.

34 Actually, Luther himself said little about this second use of the law. So concerned was he to stress that obedience to the law cannot by itself bring salvation that he was reluctant to give any impression that it might. Some recent scholars hold that the usus didacticus comes from later Lutheranism (e.g., Gerhard Ebeling, Word and Faith [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960], pp. 62-78). Others argue that all three actual uses are found in Luther, even if the specific terminology seldom or never is. See Helmut Thielicke, Theological Ethics (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), Vol. I, pp. 126-146.

35 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 134.

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to obey it in order to gain justification, it becomes a hostile, opposing power. But if we are sure of our justification through faith, then we can gratefully accept its guidance as we seek to serve God and neighbor, unburdened by anxiety about our own salvation.

B

Society and Politics

The law also has a third, political use. Readers may be surprised to learn that not only the contents, but even the function of the law, regarded from this perspective, are quite similar to those of Aquinas's natural law.36 Its Lutheran expression, however, is deeply intertwined with the notion of the two kingdoms.

Early in his career, Luther distinguished radically between "the kingdom of God" and "the kindgom of this world." The former consisted only of those justified by faith. The latter included everyone else. It was ruled by the devil. The state with its powersespecially the swordwas needed only in the worldly kingdom. If everyone were a Christian, there would be no need for the state.37 For those in the kingdom of God live very differently from those in the world. These themes sound somewhat like those of the Anabaptists (Vol. I, Chap. 5).

The reforming impetus begun by Luther unleashed a host of social discontents and spawned militant reformers far more radical than he. As peasant revolts threatened to overturn the entire social order, Luther called upon the nobles to save society from anarchy.38 No longer could he call the state and the social structures of this world wholly evil. He began insisting that government has a positive, godly function. It maintains order. This allows the gospel to be preached and prevents chaos from destroying everything. Moreover, Luther increasingly emphasized that Christians are to work out their faith within the structures of the

36 See Paul Althaus, The Ethics of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), pp. 25-35.

37 Luther, "Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed" (originally written in 1523) in Luther's Works, Vol. 45 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1961), pp. 81-130.

38 "Rebellion is not just simple murder; it is like a great fire which attacks and devastates a whole land . . . it makes widows and orphans, and turns everything upside down. . . . Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel" ("Against the Murdering Hordes of Peasants," Luther's Works, Vol. 46 [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967], p. 50). For an account of these events, see Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (Nashville: Abingdon, 1950), pp. 198-221.

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family, of economic relationships, etc.

Accordingly, Luther altered his definitions of the two kingdoms, though sharp distinctions between them remained. Now the first kingdom was usually called "the kingdom of Christ." In the second, often called the "secular" kingdom, God took on a far more active role than before. Yet Luther stressed that God, not Christ, was present there.39

In the first kingdom, Christ exercises government through the gospel of grace, through the lordship which he effects in believers' hearts through the Spirit. This lordship is "a completely personal reality."40 It can never be an order of this world. In this kingdom nothing is done through force and compulsion. Here love reigns. When offenses occur, one turns the other cheek. Forgiveness without limit characterizes all relationships.

In the secular kingdom things are very different. Authorities exercise their rule by regulating outward behavior through impersonal laws. They ensure the maintenance of order by force and compulsion. Offenses bring retribution.41

Luther continued to recognize that the secular kingdom's actual operation is often marked by violence and corruption. Nevertheless, he argued that the law, in its political function, provides all the principles needed to guide any society. In addition, he insisted that all humans, through natural reason, know what these principles are. Even though law and conscience can never bring people into Christ's kingdom, they provide adequate guidance in the worldly kingdom. And even though Christ's kingdom will improve the social behavior of its members, it will not challenge social structures as such.

But how could Luther, having denied law and conscience any positive function in the personal, religious life, restore these functions in social, secular existence? Was he at heart a social conservative who could not face the secular consequences of what he had begun? This question lies beyond our range. For now, we note that Lutheran theologians offer a kerygmatic, rather than a contextual, basis for Luther's position. There are, they argue, two sorts of ethical commands in Scripture.

One type is characterized by Jesus' statements in the sermon on the Mount and the apostles' statements about the "law of Christ." The dis-

39 "Christ does not participate in this secular kingdom. Godand not Christinitiates it. It is therefore certainly God's kingdom but it is not Christ's kingdom. Christ is concerned only with the spiritual kingdom" (Althaus, p. 46).

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., pp. 57-58.

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ciples of Jesus never use force, do not resist evil, do not avenge themselves, but under all circumstances serve one another in love. These statements of the gospel appear to reject completely the state and the activity of the political authorities. But there is a second type of statement. The same Scripture contains the apostolic affirmation of the state and, as in Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:13-14, admonishes us to obey the authorities. In addition there are the statements of the Old Testament which institute and establish the "sword" which, as in Genesis 9:6 or in Exodus 21:14, 21ff., includes the death penalty. . . . Finally, Luther read the Old Testament descriptions of God telling his people to prepare for battle and leading them to war; and he was aware that "all the saints have wielded the sword from the beginning of the world."42

Emphasizing such distinctions, Luther often advocated two kinds of ethics. When one acts specifically as a Christianin the church or on a one-to-one relationship with anyoneone should follow the first kind of teachings. But when one acts as a citizenin social life in generalone should adhere to the second sort of principle.

We will consider these issues as we develop our own anthropology (Chap. 3). For now, we observe that Lutheran theology, which often involves paradox, can support Luther's different evaluations of the law and his two kingdoms doctrine by pointing to two kinds of biblical passages and by letting their apparent contradictions stand.

Luther's complex understanding of law shows that he could not avoid the general issue of humanization. Even had he sought to concentrate exclusively on the personal, religious sphere, his responsibilities as a church leader and the far-reaching problems of his time would have forced him to ask how the individual struggle toward justification relates to humanity's social, economic, and political life. Luther's solution, however, produced a far greater disjunction between the religious and secular spheres than did Thomas Aquinas's.

By denying that saving knowledge of God is available in any generally accessible way, Luther sought to emphasize that one can experience salvation only in a deeply personal manner. Yet while Luther made God's presence more vivid in the personal, religious sphere, he made it less vivid in the social, secular sphere.

Catholic anthropology could not dissociate these spheres so sharply. The operations of grace were so intertwined with those of nature that one would expect religious renewal to engender some degree of social change. Since social orders were somewhat open to the influence of grace, one would expect some social structures to at least be modified. For Luther, however, the structures by which God governs

42 Ibid., pp. 43-44.

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the secular kingdom are more sharply separated from, and less influenced by, those by which Christ governs his religious kingdom.

The Lutheran reformation contributed impetus to the transition from the medieval to the modern world. Over the following centuries, people increasingly regarded the physical and social spheres as distinct from the personal and religious realms. They thought of nature and society as governed by their own distinct, unbreakable laws, whose operation remained unaffected by whatever happened in religious life. Accordingly, religion became more and more of an individual affair, having less and less impact on social realities. These tendencies attained extreme form in Rudolf Bultmann. We have seen how sharply he distinguished the natural and social spheres (the realm of things) from the religious one (the realm of persons). Not surprisingly, Bultmann listed Luther among his predecessors.

Luther has taught us that there are no holy places in the world, that the world as a whole is indeed a profane place. . . . In the same way, the whole of nature and history is profane. . . . It is precisely by faith that the world becomes a profane place and is thus restored to its true place as the sphere of man's action.43

The overall picture, of course, is far more complex. Few Lutheran theologians go as far as Bultmann. Moreover, Luther's reformation remained within the medieval world in many respects.44 Nevertheless, few would deny that Luther was one force behind the emergence of modern secularism, and that this secularism has sought to handle many of the issues of humanization without reference to religion.

III

Reformed Anthropology

The will's utter inability to move toward salvation and the awesome, wholly unmerited wonder of grace were fundamental for both Martin Luther and John Calvin. From the beginning, however, Reformed Christianity expressed its convictions more systematically (Vol. I, Chap. 5). Calvin's logical mind could not rest long with the paradoxes so characteristic of Luther's experiencebetween the accusing and the beneficial functions of conscience and law, between the reign of faith in religion and that of reason in society. Calvinism instinctively tended to forge a more consistent, comprehensive vision of reality.

43Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribners, 1958), pp. 84-85; cf. Vol. I, Chap. 4.

44 This is argued cogently by Ernst Troeltsch. See esp. Protestantism and Progress (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986 [originally published in 1912]).

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Yet for learning how reformed Christianity wrestled with such paradoxes, the anthropological portions of Calvin's Institutes offer little help. The Reformed solutions are rooted, first, in the broader themes of Calvin's theology; second, in the way in which Calvin and his successors wrestled with the social and political issues of their times.

We have mentioned that Protestant anthropologies deal little with humanization. They are primarily concerned with sin. As a religious movement, however, Protestantism had to deal continually with political, sociological, and psychological issues. We have just seen how social crises forced Luther to widen his reflections about law. We shall soon see how Calvinism's response to practical issues enables us to fill out its portrait of humanity. Ernst Troeltsch aptly characterized many of the differences between early Lutherans and Calvinists. "The thinkers of that period concentrated their attention almost entirely upon dogma, and they scarcely perceived that the real heart of the difference lay in the sphere of ethics and social doctrine."45

A

The Imago Dei and Sin

Let us turn first to Calvin's Institutes, where some similarities with and differences from Roman Catholic anthropology become clear. Following the doctrines of God and of creation, Calvin treats "Human Nature as Created, of the Faculties of the Soul, of the Image of God, of Free Will, and of the Original Integrity of Man's Nature."46 He defends the separability of soul from body and argues that "the proper seat of [God's] image is the soul" (p. 186). Understanding and will are the soul's "truly fundamental faculties" (p. 194). Adam was created with free will (pp. 195-196) but by his fall the whole race was plunged into sin (pp. 241-255). Calvin expounds and defends at length the bondage of the will and the utter depravity of human nature (pp. 289-309).

Calvin's treatment of these themes provided the pattern for anthropology in Reformed orthodoxy, which examined them in more precise detail. For instance, Charles Hodge (1797-1878) began his anthropology proper by discussing humanity's basic nature and the origin of the soul.47 Under the former heading, he argued that people

45The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (New York: Macmillan, 1931), Vol. II, p. 624.

46Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960 [originally published in 1559]), p. 183. (The page numbers that follow in the notes are to this work.)

47Systematic Theology (London: Clark, 1960 [originally published in 1874]), pp. 42-77. Hodge prefaced this discussion, however, with an account of the origins of the human race designed to combat evolutionary explanations (pp. 3-41). For an overview of the discussion of this issue in reformed orthodoxy, see

(footnote continued on next page)

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are dichotomous (composed of body and soul), rather than trichotomous (composed of body, soul, and spirit). Hodge refers to Genesis when discussing the imago dei. In his main argument, however, he deduces that since God is a spirit, the essential components of the image are those belonging to spirit: reason, conscience, and will.48

Hodge also speaks of humanity's dominion over the animals,49 and of an "original righteousness" by virtue of which one's "reason was subject to God; his will subject to his reason; his affections and appetites to his will."50 So far, Hodge sounds reminiscent of Aquinas. However, he later turns to a detailed discussion of how sin was imputed and transmitted to Adam's posterity^51 and to the freedom and bondage of the will.52

By considering the external structure of Calvin's and Hodge's anthropologies, we have only begun to glimpse what is distinct (and what is not distinct) about Reformed anthropology. Let us next focus on Calvin's notion of the imago dei. If, since the fall, "only damnable things come forth from man's corrupt nature" (p. 289), what has happened to God's image? Has sin totally destroyed it?

Occasionally Calvin "can speak of an external image of righteousness, or a lifeless image, or an outward semblance"53 which remains in fallen humanity. At other times, while he asserts that humans are totally bereft of the "spiritual" image, he acknowledges that certain "natural gifts" are not wholly destroyed.54 Why does Calvin, while apparently denying that humanity presently possesses the imago dei, yet affirm that we retain it in some sense? Calvin seems to mean that all people "are in the image of God inasmuch as God's gracious purpose remains and cannot be destroyed.''55 In other words, he understands the imago "teleologically and eschatologically." It is humanity's "destiny in God's

(footnote continued from previous page)

Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 220-231.

48 Ibid., pp. 96-97; cf. Heppe, pp. 232-239.

49 Cf. Gen. 1:26-30.

50 Ibid., p. 99; Heppe, pp. 239-250.

51 Ibid., pp. 192-226; Heppe, pp. 331-349.

52 Ibid., pp. 257-309; Heppe, pp. 361-369.

53 Thomas Torrance, Calvin's Doctrine of Man (London: Lutterworth, 1949), p. 94.

54 Ibid., p. 81.

55 Ibid., p. 98.

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gracious intention. It is the original truth of [our] being which is also future."56

Thus Calvin, like Luther, denied that humans possess God's image in Aquinas's senseas a relatively undamaged capacity to hear God. Yet Calvin sometimes used this term to show that God, despite our sin, keeps on calling us. God's image is not something which all humans presently possess, but the goal toward which all are called.

B

Society and Politics

Although this eschatological orientation does not emerge with obvious clarity in Calvin's Institutes, it provides a clue to the distinctiveness of the Reformed perspective. By examining Calvin's broader systematic themes and the practical issues which Calvinists have historically faced, we can sketch more fully the contours of Reformed anthropology.

Calvinism is often described as a system which places all its components under a grand, over-arching theme. While the experience of justification seems to lie at the center of Lutheranism, Calvinists focus above all on the sovereignty and glory of God. Calvinism regards God not so much as a rational being (Aquinas), nor even as a gracious and merciful being (Luther), but more as an inscrutable and invincible will. God's sovereignty and glory is and will be manifested in the accomplishing of the divine purposes, which will succeed despite all resistance. This is why predestination occupied an increasingly prominent position as Reformed theology developed (see Vol. I, Chap. 5). God's purposes are determined primarily neither by reason nor even by love as we know them. To be sure, salvation of the elect reveals the divine love; but the damnation of the reprobate reveals divine justice. And both together reveal the primary thing: God's majestic, irresistible sovereignty.

Thus, where justification of sinners occupies center stage in the Lutheran vision, only a broader goal including all of society and the cosmos can do so for Calvinism. For this reason, although both Luther and Calvin often spoke of the state as a negative bulwark against disorder, Calvin and his successors were less content to leave it at that. Neither could they consign those orders in which Christians livethe family, business, politicswholly to the rule of natural reason. Like Catholics, they felt that these orders and the state must have a more positive, integral role in establishing God's cosmic purposes. In fact,

56 Ibid., p. 61; contemporary Lutherans have understood the imago similarly. (See note 32 above.)

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since they believed that sin had perverted society more deeply than Catholics thought, Calvinists often expected the social impact of grace to be greater.

Since Calvin's God was primarily an irresistible will, shaping and directing things despite their resistance, the will tended to become the foremost human faculty in Reformed anthropology. As long as the will was directed toward sin, the individual could never turn toward Godeven if one's emotions wanted to and one's reason said that one should. Yet once one's will was set freeby "irresistible grace"Calvinists set out to shape and direct this world toward God's kingdom, just as the Will working through their wills was doing.

Some have maintained that Calvinismwhile denying like Lutherans that "works" can achieve salvationprovided a major impetus to that transformation of the world through work carried out by capitalism and industrialism. For only when people began to pursue work for God's sake, not for material rewards, did they begin to invest their profits (capital) in procedures and machines which could do more and better work.57

As Calvinists set about transforming the world, some theologians began expanding on the imago dei. Although classic Reformed definitions, like Catholic ones, had emphasized humankind's intellectual powers more than its dominion over creation, some now stressed that the latter included a "cultural mandate."

Culture is the execution of this divinely-imposed task. In his cultural task man is to take the raw materials of this universe and subdue them, make them serve his purpose and bring them to nobler and higher levels, thus bringing out the possibilities which are hidden in all nature. When thus developed, man is to lay it all at the feet of Him Who is King of man and of nature, in Whose image and for Whom man and all things are created.58

By the late nineteenth century, some could describe this mandate and its mode of operation in detail.

The chief aim of all human effort remains what it was by virtue of our creation and before the fallnamely dominion over nature. And this dominion cannot be acquired except by the exercise of the powers which, by virtue of the ordinances of creation, are innate in nature itself. Accordingly, all Science is only the application to the cosmos of powers of inves-

57 The classic statement of this position is Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner's, 1958 [originally written in 1904-1905]).

58 H. Henry Meeter, Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1939), pp. 79-80.

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tigation and thought, created within us; and Art is nothing but the natural productivity of the potencies in our imagination. When we admit therefore that sin, though arrested by 'common grace,' has caused many modifications of these several expressions of life . . . and will disappear again with the Coming of the Kingdom of glory, we still maintain that the fundamental character of these expressions remains as it was originally. All together they form the life of creation, in accord with the ordinances of creation, and therefore are organically developed.59

Two terms in the above quotation frequently appeared in later Reformed theology's efforts to articulate the significance of what Catholics would call the natural realm. Common grace appeared seldom in Calvin. For Calvin, grace was God's special gift to those elected out of a hopelessly corrupt race. Such grace was hardly something common. Nevertheless, Calvin's comprehensive mind asked why some non-Christian peoples had produced obvious intellectual and moral accomplishments. Since he could not attribute these to human activity, Calvin assigned them to the divine. "Amid this corruption of nature there is some place for God's grace: not such as to cleanse it, but to restrain it inwardly" (p. 292). For Calvin, this grace exercised a predominantly negative function. Yet later Calvinists increasingly applied it to those "natural" forces operating in those cultural tasks where Christians and non-Christians worked together.

The term kingdom was also employed increasingly to designate the goal of God's creative plan. Calvin, like Luther, had defined Christ's kingdom primarily in heavenly, spiritual terms.60 However, he occasionally had acknowledged that Christ's "spiritual government, indeed, is already initiating in us upon earth certain beginnings of the Heavenly kingdom. . . . "61 Conservative Calvinists, like Calvin, continued to expect the complete establishment of "the kingdom of glory" only at Christ's return. Nevertheless, the comprehensive notion of kingdom became a useful way of showing the continuity between the cultural tasks of the present and the time when Christ "will bring out the possibilities in creation, and develop them to such a high level as we have never dared dream."62

Kingdom also implied that salvation carried political implications. Frequently, however, the Institutes had urged Christians to stay out of politics. If Christians are "cruelly tormented by a savage prince," they

59 Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), pp. 144-145.

60 P. 1486.

61 P. 1487. Cf. also Vol. I, Chap. 5.

62 Meeter, p. 86.

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should not seek to change things, but should leave the state's affairs in God's hands.63

At one point, however, Calvin made an exception. In societies where there already are "magistrates of the people, appointed to restrain the willfulness of kings," these must oppose the excesses of the latter. Otherwise, "they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God's ordinance."64 During subsequent centuries, many Calvinists were to quote these words as they opposed political absolutism in the name of democratic revolutions.

The Calvinist vision has often inspired efforts to renew the social and political order. Calvin himself profoundly influenced social affairs in his own Geneva.65 In North America the Puritans sought to construct godly societies almost from scratch. Even after the disestablishment of church and state in the early nineteenth century, Reformed groups continued to influence social affairs by establishing religious societies and supporting political candidates.66 In the late twentieth century, much "evangelical" involvement in society represents a revival of this heritage.67

IV

Summary

Viewed through the lenses of theological tradition, that strange "disproportion" which all serious modern people recognize in human nature becomes increasingly magnified. Modern humanity experiences both a surge toward limitless potential and a premonition of irredeemable tragedy. The haunting presence of both come largely from Christianity. For in theological tradition, humans are created in God's very

63 Pp. 1516-1517.

64 P. 1519.

65 See William Innes, Social Concern in Calvin's Geneva (Allison Park, Pa.: Pickwick, 1983); Andre Bieler, The Social Humanism of John Calvin (Richmond: Knox, 1964); Fred Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary (Richmond: Knox, 1971).

66 For an excellent overview, see Thomas Sanders, Protestant Concepts of Church and State (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1964), pp. 225-280; for the contrast with Lutheranism, see pp. 23-74. See also John McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism (New York: Oxford, 1954); and George Hunt, ed., Calvinism and the Political Order (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965).

67 See Paul Marshall, Thine is the Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984); Richard Mouw, Called to Holy Worldness (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); Stephen Monsma, Pursuing Justice in a Sinful World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984).

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image and destined to eternal fellowship with Godself.68 Yet sin ruptures that relationship, plunging humankind, and with it the creation, into chaos.

Much as modern people puzzle over the depth and character of our flaws, theological tradition has asked, How serious are sin's effects, and what are they like? Is sin essentially misdirection and imbalance? Does it consist in having the right overall goal, but seeking it in the wrong way? Is it a distorted relationship among faculties which are essentially sound? Or, on the other hand, is sin a much deeper blindness and resistance? Is it an inability or unwillingness to apprehend the real truth about ourselves and reality at all?

Theological tradition has also shaped modern questions about the various dimensions of human life. For medieval Catholicism, the spheres of society and personal faith, while different, were deeply intertwined. One's interior and religious life flourished, at least ideally, in the context of daily work and social life. But the profound Lutheran struggle with conscience located the vital issues of existence in the unique depths of each person's heart. And much as modern people argue over social and individual values, theological tradition has asked how the society and religion are related. Is the former the foundation and the latter the summit? Do they mutually strengthen each other? Or, on the other hand, are they different spheres with quite different laws? Will they always be in irresolvable tension? Should one pursue meaning chiefly in one's own existence, with pessimism over the prospects of social improvement?

Theological tradition has also pondered many more specific questions which modern people ask. How, for instance, do we know the truth about ourselves: through reason? conscience? in some more affective way? And what makes humans unique: some spiritual capacity, like a soul? And if so, what is it like? Or is it our wills, which transform the rest of the world through work? And again, if so, how free are our wills?

Though we have explored these questions largely as they emerged in high medieval and Reformation times, they are quite alive today. They shape the way that modern people ask them, as the next chapter will show.

68 To avoid implying that God is essentially masculine (or feminine), Volume II will use Godself rather than God himself (or herself) to speak of God's personal reality. Admittedly, this word may sound strange and even impersonal at first. But like all new terms, it is capable of taking on significant meanings with repeated use. For our rationale, see Chap. 19 below.

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Suggestions for Further Reading

Adam, Karl. The Spirit of Catholicism. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954.

Althaus, Paul. The Ethics of Martin Luther. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972.

Bainton, Roland. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. Nashville: Abingdon, 1950.

Berkouwer, C. G. Man: The Image of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.

Braaten, Carl. Principles of Lutheran Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

Elert, Werner. The Structure of Lutheranism, Vol. 1. St. Louis: Concordia, 1962.

Engel, Mary Potter. John Calvin's Perspectival Anthropology. Atlanta: Scholars, 1988.

Gritsch, Eric, and Jenson, Robert. Lutheranism. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976.

Kuyper, Abraham. Calvinism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931.

Leith, John, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition. Atlanta: Knox, 1977.

Masselink, William. General Revelation and Common Grace. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953.

McNeill, John T. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford, 1951.

Pelikan, Jaroslav, ed. Interpreters of Luther. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968.

Thielicke, Helmut. Theological Ethics, 2 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966-1969.

Torrance, Thomas. Calvin's Doctrine of Man. London: Lutterworth, 1949.

Troeltsch, Ernst. The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1931.

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Chapter Two

Contemporary Approaches to Anthropology

Anthropological concerns have always influenced every dimension of religious life and theology. Even when theologians debate the complexities of the natures and person of Christ, their endeavor is motivated in part by earnest questions concerning human destiny (see Vol. I, Chap. 14). This hardly means that theological assertions are just elaborately disguised wishes, fears, and projections. For, as we argued throughout volume I, our experiences and our selves unfold most authentically in relation to what is other and greater than we. Nonetheless, the more alert we are to the anthropological concerns which influence theological discussioneven where they are not explicitly expressedthe better can our own theologizing aid the church as it confronts today's urgent issues of humanization.

For nearly two centuries now, the anthropological concerns of theology have been increasingly acknowledged. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) prefaced his entire system with an analysis of human self-awareness.1 He then treated each doctrine as an expression of Christian

1The Christian Faith (New York: Harper, 1963 [originally published in 1830]), pp. 5-26; cf. Vol. I, Chaps. 4 and 14.

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religious affections. Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) sought to interpret theological doctrines in terms of the ethical struggle as articulated by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).2 Eventually, nineteenth-century liberal theology drew Karl Barth's (1886-1968) protest. Through its pervasive concern with human experiences and institutions, he said, it had ceased dealing with anything which transcended them. And when Barth's contemporary, Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), began translating traditional theological affirmations by means of the recent existential philosophy, Barth insisted that he was reviving the same trend.3

In the late twentieth century, human reality is far more real to most people than are rumors of the divine. The sciences claim to explain many human mysteries once left to religion. Indeed, if theology looks carefully at human reality, it may risk reducing all theology to anthropologyand perhaps all anthropology to biology or physics. Yet this is a risk we must take. For, as Chapter 1 has shown, theologies of the past have shaped many issues which people face today.

Both our confidence in humanity's extraordinary potential and our deep concern over its destructive power; both our energetic transformation the globe and our pessimism about its lasting valueall have their roots in Christianity's paradoxical understanding of human nature. The irreducible value of the individual and the importance of social groups, the priority of reason and the value of feelings, the freedom of the will and its bondagemodern viewpoints on all these current issues are indebted to the theological past.

Traditional theology's concern with such issues has not been a diversion from its proper task. For that kingdom which has "already" come among us not only involves the fulfillment of God's promises, but also envisions the actualization of humankind's created potential. Not only modern humanity, but also the biblical kerygma, are vitally concerned about true humanization. Accordingly, we can usefully consider several theologians who have reconceptualized anthropology in dialogue with the contemporary scene. Perhaps, as Barth warned, some will prove to have exalted humanity at the expense of God. We will keep this possibility in mind. However, we would be foolish to take up the challenge of anthropology without learning from their efforts.

2The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Clifton, N.J.: Reference Book Publishers, 1966 [originally published in 1874]), pp. 1-26; cf. Vol. I, Chaps. 4 and 14.

3 For Barth's critique of liberal theology, see The Humanity of God (Richmond: Knox, 1960), pp. 11-33.

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I

Contemporary Catholic Anthropology

In searching for a comprehensible contemporary conceptuality, many theologians have turned to existential philosophy. The loneliness and the apparent absurdity of modern existence which it stresses are partly derived from Protestantism's deep sense of sin and of standing alone before God. In Volume I, we observed existentialism's influence on Rudolf Bultmann, particularly as derived from Martin Heidegger. Some Catholic theologians, however, have also been impressed by Heidegger, and have sought to synthesize his insights with those of Thomas Aquinas. In this section we will look at the Roman Catholic, Karl Rahner, who pioneered such a synthesis; and the Anglo-Catholic, John Macquarrie, who articulates it lucidly.4

A

The Infinite Horizon of Being

Like Thomas Aquinas, many modern Catholic theologians begin their reflections on a "natural" level. Through philosophical argumentation, they seek to show that belief in God is credible and to develop some foundational theological concepts. Karl Rahner was concerned about the tendency of empirical philosophy and behavioristic science to reduce human activity to biological and sociological causes. If everything that humans think or do is predetermined by physical drives and social pressures, they can never be open to anything that transcends them.

Rahner responded by asking how such a theory of human nature first arose. It is itself a product of human research and imagination. Humans can reduce their behavior theoretically to interactions among objective forces, and then askoften with considerable anguishwhether this is really all they are. The very fact that they can do this shows that they are more. "In the fact that man raises analytical questions about himself and opens himself to the unlimited horizons of such questioning, he has already transcended himself. . . . In doing this he is affirming himself as more than the sum of such analyzable components."5

4 In the preface to his Principles of Christian Theology, 2d ed. (New York: Scribners, 1977), Macquarrie writes, "Among contemporary theologians, I have found Karl Rahner the most helpful" (p. vii).

5Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1978), p. 29. Rahner's anthropology is most fully developed in his Hearers of the Word (New York: Crossroad, 1969). For a somewhat briefer outline, which draws mostly on this volume, see Gerald McCool, ed., A Rahner Reader (New York: Crossroad, 1975), pp. 1-90.

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Rahner develops his anthropology by investigating more fully the sort of self-awareness just described. The human capacity to ask questions proves to be limitless.

Every goal that he can point to in knowledge and in action is always relativized, is always a provisional step. Every answer is always just the beginning of a new question. Man experiences himself as infinite possibility because in practice and in theory he necessarily places every sought-after result in question. He always situates it in a broader horizon which looms up before him in its vastness.6

As Rahner further unfolds this awareness, it provides an argument for God's existence. For the horizon towards which we direct our questions is infinite. What then could it be? It could hardly be a projection of our consciousness, for this unlimited horizon exists before we begin to think or ask questions at all. Indeed, its infinity is what makes questioning and striving towards new experiences possible in the first place. Moreover, this horizon could hardly be an empty, formless nothingness. ''Nothingness . . . cannot be what draws and moves and sets in motion that reality which man experiences as his real life and not as nothingness."7 We must conclude that

the movement of transcendence is not the subject creating its own unlimited space, . . . it is the infinite horizon of being making itself manifest. Whenever man in his transcendence experiences himself as questioning, as disquieted by the appearance of being, as open to something ineffable, he cannot understand himself as subject in the sense of an absolute subject, but only in the sense of one who receives being, ultimately only in the sense of grace. In this context 'grace' means the freedom of the ground of being which gives itself to man . . . as well as what we call 'grace' in a more strictly theological sense.8

Through philosophical argumentation, then, Rahner concludes that God is the reality experienced (though often inarticulately) by all people whenever they raise questions about themselves and their world and whenever they seek to transform them. Whenever the infinite horizon which stretches before us prompts us to do these things, we are, in effect, being called by God.

Such a call does not deny freedom. On the contrary, it is this

6Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 32.

7 Ibid., p. 33.

8 Ibid., p. 34. For a similar approach, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, What is Man? (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970).

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prompting to think and act creatively which first elicits our free response. In any such decision, one "is explicitly or implicitly set before God, the absolute Good."9 In this way, Rahner affirms the traditional Catholic emphases not only on natural knowledge of God, but also on human freedom, and on all human striving as a dim quest for God.10 But what, more precisely, is this movement of transcendence like?

B

The Polarities of Ex-istence

John Macquarrie describes this striving in categories especially applicable to modern experience. Macquarrie examines the word existence. It is derived from the Greek prefix ek ("out of") and the verb histemi * (to stand). Literally, to "ex-ist" means to "stand out," to be different from one's surroundings. It means to be aware that one is different, and to strive to transcend that environment. To ex-ist is to be capable of transforming oneself and one's circumstances. The challenge of ex-istence consists in grappling with certain tensions, or polarities, essential to being human.11 The first pair are "possibility" and ''facticity."

As possibility, the individual "stands before potentialities for being and for action, . . . responsibly decides among them, and commits himself to some definite policy."12 Facticity, however, means that we are inescapably limited (though not wholly determined) by our heredity and environment. Second, humans struggle with "rationality," our

9Theological Investigations, Vol. I (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961), p. 360; cf. Foundations of Christian Faith, pp. 93-97.

10 For Rahner, reason has its ultimate significance within this overall movement of transcendence. Reasoning about an object perceived through the senses involves recognizing that it belongs to broader, universal categories which we do not perceive. But this awareness of universals depends ultimately on an implicit awareness of the most universal of universals: being. This is the main theme of Spirit in the World (New York: Seabury, 1968). For a brief account, see Hearers of the Word, pp. 31-68.

For Rahner, however, no one facultyreason, will, or consciencereally plays the role of image dei through which humans are uniquely related to God. We are related through our overall nonobjective, intuitive openness to, or transcendence towards, infinite Being, in which each faculty plays only a part.

11Principles of Christian Theology, pp. 60-62. (The following page numbers in the footnotes are to this work.) Macquarrie's anthropological focus, however, does not necessarily lead to the denial that supra-human beings such as angels might exist (pp. 233-237). Cf. Tillich's analysis of existentiality (Systematic Theology [Chicago: University, 1957], Vol. II, pp. 19-96).

12 P. 62.

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"ability to analyze, discriminate, sift, understand, interpret;" and with the "irrationality" of our impulses and our subconscious.

Third, ex-istence moves between the polarities of "responsibility" and "impotence." Whether or not one is responsible can be discerned through conscience. Conscience is not so much the voice of moral principles, as it was for Aquinas, as it is a "synoptic self-understanding, the self's own awareness of how far it measures up to itself . . . how far it is failing or succeeding in bringing to actualization its own potentialities for being."13 Yet while conscience calls us to action, ''the will to obey the summons may be too weak." This is impotence. "We recognize responsibility and even the 'oughtness' of a situation, yet we cannot bring ourselves to do what is demanded. . . . Such impotence seems to make nonsense of the moral life (where 'ought' must imply 'can') and challenges the value of any aspiration."14

Death is the final impotence. It makes the entire struggle of existence absurd.

Fourth, humans inevitably struggle with the polarities of anxiety and hope. We cannot seek to actualize potentialities without the hope that our efforts will finally bear fruit. Yet we are never wholly free from the anxiety that they will not.

Lastly, humanity has "both an individual and a social pole."15 While interdependence is fundamental to being human, "There is a privacy about each existence which cannot be quite penetrated even by the most sympathetic friend or companion, and which more often than not is veiled or perhaps even misunderstood."16

Rather than beginning anthropology with unfallen humanity in far-off Eden, Macquarrie, like Rahner, begins from experiences familiar to his readers. This "new-style natural theology" is designed to describe phenomena in light of which religious assertions can make modern sense.17 For instance, Macquarrie defines sin as imbalance among the polarities. When one emphasizes rationality to the point of denying emotions, or when one lives by impulse without thinking anything through, one sins.18

13 P. 63.

14 P. 64.

15 P. 66.

16 P. 67.

17 Pp. 54-58.

18 Ibid., pp. 69-70. Beginning from obviously recognizable phenomena, Macquarrie deepens his analysis. Under "natural theology" he also describes sin as falling, alienation, and lostness (pp. 71-72). Later, having examined the data of "revealed" Christian theology, he defines sin more profoundly as idolatry and examines its corporate dimensions (pp. 259-267). We will examine

(footnote continued on next page)

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Although this notion of imbalance among faculties which are essentially sound reminds one of Aquinas, Macquarrie seeks to paint sin in dark, Protestant colors. He concludes that many gloomy existentialists "are far nearer to a realistic appraisal of the human condition than those complacent humanists who believe that with more science and education, better social conditions and the like, the ills of humanity can be cured."19

While sin consists in imbalances, the goal of ex-istence is to overcome these and attain authentic selfhood. "An authentic self is a unitary, stable, and relatively abiding structure in which the polarities of existence are held in balance and its potentialities are brought to fulfillment."20 This dynamic interpretation of existence leads Macquarrie to define some components of human nature differently from traditional anthropologies. He rejects the separability of body and soul. For "it is precisely through being embodied that we are in a world and with other selves, and . . . there can be no selfhood apart from a world and other selves."21

Moreover, for Macquarrie the notion of the soul suggests that the core of a person is a "thing," something "inserted or implanted into the body at the beginning of life . . . something ready-made that has only to grow as, let us say, the organs of the body do. . . . What is given at the outset is not a fixed entity but a potentiality for becoming a self."22

Macquarrie prefers to think of the soul not as an entity but, like Aquinas, "as the 'form' of the body . . . as the proper functioning of a bodily existence in the world."23

By speaking of selves as embodied (as involving "facticity"), Macquarrie seeks to acknowledge what science has learned about biological and sociological conditioning. Yet by speaking of the self as a potentiality (as involving possibility), he refuses to reduce persons wholly to these dimensions.

Macquarrie understands the imago dei in much the same way. We must think of it "more in terms of a potentiality for being . . . than in

(footnote continued from previous page)

the relationship between natural and revealed theology more fully in subsection C below.

19 P. 72.

20 P. 74.

21 P. 75.

22 P. 76.

23 P. 74.

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terms of a fixed 'endowment' or 'nature.'"24 This potentiality belongs to the race as well as to the individual. Macquarrie's examination of Genesis 13 reminds us of later Calvinism's cultural mandate:

Man is creative as well as creaturely and . . . is given a share with God in shaping that still unfinished creation in which his life is set. The activities of tending the garden and naming the animals in the creation story are only the beginnings of a long process by which man more and more converts mere nature into a humanized world . . . organized in terms of human needs and activities, and of human science.25

Macquarrie ties this into an even longer cosmic perspective. "Man's unique status in nature arises from the fact that in him the evolutionary process has for the first time (at least, here on earth) become transparent to itself and capable to some extent of self-direction."26

C

Nature and Grace

So far, the basic anthropological realitiesconscience, soul, imago deihave been described in terms so familiar from human experience that one may wonder, Does modern Catholic anthropology deal solely with what Aquinas called nature? Has the transcendent dimension, as Karl Barth feared, been lost? Or is there still room for grace?

According to Karl Rahner, one cannot draw a sharp dividing line between nature and grace. The possibility of salvation confronts us in every free act. For the infinite horizon which makes each decision possible always calls everyone, at least implicitly, to decide, will we understand our lives in light of it? or will we direct our lives towards finite, selfish goals? That is, in each decision humans are confronted with God. Further, Rahner claims, they are confronted with the offer of grace, which he calls the "supernatural existential."27 For in such decisions,

a person who opens himself to his transcendental experience of holy mystery at all has the experience that this mystery is not only an infinitely distant horizon, a remote judgment which judges from a distance . . . it is not only something mysterious which frightens him away and back into the narrow confines of his everyday world.

24 P. 231.

25 P. 230.

26 P. 61.

27Theological Investigations, Vol. I, pp. 297-317.

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But, wherever and however anyone opens oneself to it, whether in a Christian or non-Christian context, whether in a religious or nonreligious way,

he experiences rather that this holy mystery is also a hidden closeness, a forgiving intimacy, his real home, that it is a love which shares itself. . . . It is the person who in the forlornness of his guilt still turns in trust to the mystery of his existence which is quietly present . . . who experiences himself as the one who does not forgive himself, but . . . experiences this forgiveness which he receives as the hidden, forgiving, and liberating love of God.28

Since this offer is made along with every decision, there are no purely "natural" persons who go about their affairs unaffected by grace. Yet Rahner recognizes that grace is not grace if it is bestowed automatically, as a matter of course, along with every event. For grace to be grace, it must be something which God does not owe us, something we can accept or reject. For this reason, theology must still distinguish conceptually between nature and grace. "Nature" will now mean persons and other beings insofar as they are untouched by grace and free to respond to it. And "grace" will mean God's free self-bestowal in every event.

Even though this conceptual distinction is necessary, it does not mean that theology can isolate a "natural person" or a realm of "cardinal" virtues or sociopolitical processes which can be experienced and understood apart from grace. Nature and grace are more nearly complementary dimensions of the same beings and events. In experience they are always intermingled.29

John Macquarrie also cannot sharply separate nature from grace. Although he begins with a natural theology which analyzes polarities intrinsic to ex-istence as such, even this analysis shows that ex-istence is motivated by a longing which only communion with Being (God) can satisfy.30 Macquarrie claims that reason finds fulfillment in revelation,31 while his ethics argue that the "cardinal" virtues find completion in the "theological" ones.32

28Theological Investigations, Vol. IV (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), pp. 166-184; McCool, pp. 185-196.

29Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 131.

30 Pp. 71-73.

31 Pp. 84-103.

32 Pp. 503-512.

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Nevertheless, unlike Aquinas, Macquarrie insists that the higher level of grace does not involve the imparting of new truths or moral capacities. We have already seen that, for Macquarrie, revelation does not involve seeing anything different from what reason sees. Rather, through revelation we see the same things in depth (Vol. I, pp. 186-190). Similarly, the "theological virtues are not, strictly speaking, additional virtues. Rather, they supply an additional dimension to the moral life, so we can see it in a new depth."33

The fluidity between nature and grace is also grounded in Macquarrie's reluctance to speak of a distinct natural realm. Since he conceives humans "as not having a fixed 'nature' but standing in the openness of possibility,"34 any dimensions of life which Aquinas called natural must themselves be open to change and transformation. Macquarrie understands "natural law" in this way. It cannot be "some basic, unchanging corpus of commands and prohibitions."35 It must refer to the general moral awareness that belongs to our fundamental "existentiality."36

However, since that existentiality involves the continuous shaping of ourselves and our environment,

The natural law for man must necessarily grow and expand as man's potentialities and responsibilities are deepened and widened through his gradual fulfillment of God's purpose. Man in his freedom and responsibility has a share of creativity and cooperates with God in the shaping of the world. More and more, man takes over the direction of 'nature.' . . . What might have been against natural law at one time may not still be against it as man, fulfilling his destiny, reshapes his own 'nature.'37

33 P. 510. For example, Macquarrie argues that the distinctly Christian notion of love as agape * fulfills the common experience of love as eros*. Eros* is usually defined as the desire for another person, or for God, in order to satisfy or complete something missing in the self. In contrast, Agape* is giving oneself for another, regardless of the gain or cost. Macquarrie, however, argues that as the desire for completion becomes fulfilled through communion with Being (God), eros* passes into agape*, "and again we have an instance of the so-called 'natural' becoming perfected, or perhaps transformed, by grace. For erotic love . . . manifests itself at its highest in the quest of the creature for God" (p. 349). For a discussion of eros* and agape*, see Chap. 3.

34 P. 505.

35 P. 505.

36 P. 506.

37 Ibid., p. 506; cf. pp. 231-233. In this respect, Macquarrie understands natural law more flexibly than did Aquinas; and far more flexibly than did Luther, for whom the principles governing ethics, economics, and politics provided a largely unquestioned framework within which Christians worked out their lives

(footnote continued on next page)

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D

Sin

So far, modern Catholic anthropology seems congenial to the optimistic, energetic outlook inherited from the Enlightenment. Through transforming ourselves and our environment, we become more fully human. Although people suffer from imbalances among various polarities, conscience and will still guide us in the right directionas traditional Catholicism said. Everyone is in touch with grace.

Does this confirm Protestantism's original complaint that Catholicism was too humanistic? Has recent Catholicism focused so much on humanity that, as Karl Barth feared, it has lost the transcendent God? We cannot begin to answer without considering the current Catholic perspective on sin.

For Karl Rahner, sin consists in an absolute, definitive "No!" to the Horizon which encounters us in every decision. Rahner acknowledges that, given his theory of freedom, such a rejection is self-contradictory. For free decisions are possible only because this Horizon offers itself to us. Thus one cannot reject God without tacitly acknowledging by that very act the reality of the One who makes it possible. Moreover, since this Horizon usually approaches us indirectly, through particular events and persons, one can never be certain that one has finally said "No!" to it. In fact, Rahner is not certain that anyone ever has finally rejected God.38 Nevertheless, he insists that if true individual freedom exists, this radical rejection must be theoretically possible.

But if the nature of individual sin is somewhat unclear, the reality of original sin is not. For Rahner, original sin signifies not an act of an

(footnote continued from previous page)

of faith. Nevertheless, when Macquarrie takes sin into account, he can sound surprisingly like Luther:

Presumably, if human society were not fallen and sinful, there would be no need of the state. However, its laws and the machinery for enforcing them are indispensable in the actual condition of mankind. On the whole, the laws of the state have their roots in the natural law, so that they protect and encourage the pursuit of the good. For this reason, the New Testament clearly teaches obedience to the civil power. . . . For in sinful human society, anarchy is likely to be even more destructive of human well-being than tyranny. (p. 521; cf. p. 522)

38 "The Christian message says nothing about whether in some people or in many people evil has become an absolute reality defining the final end and result of their lives" (Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 103; cf. our Vol. I, p. 148). For Rahner's overall discussion, see Foundations, pp. 90-106.

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historical Adam, but the fact that before one begins to choose, one's situation is already deeply affectedand one's possible choices are shaped and limitedby the sinful decisions of others. This "universal, permanent and ineradicable co-determination of the situation of every individual's freedom by guilt," is original sin.39 Even though Rahner believes that God's grace is still universally operative, he claims that this divine self-communicationwhich he identifies with the "original righteousness" of Catholic traditionhas been somewhat diminished by original sin. The recognition of original sin, then, should temper humanity's efforts to transform reality with a certain historical pessimism. We should cease seeking utopia in history.

For John Macquarrie, individuals experience sin largely through the tensions and imbalances among the polarities of existence. This sin is rooted in their turning away from Being (God) and idolizing particular beings.40. Humans idolize themselves and their own powers (the sin of pride) and also material goods (the sin of indulgence).

Although individuals choose freely to sin, Macquarrie stresses the collective consequences and power of such choices. Sin is "a massive disorientation and perversion of society as a whole."41 Accordingly, once individuals give in to this perversion, sin "becomes a . . . runaway escalation that drags its initiator along, whether he wills it or not."42 That this perversion is in operation before we are born constitutes "original sin." Human existence, then, is tragically disordered, or fallen.

Macquarrie, however, rejects the notion of total depravity that he understands Calvin to have taughtthat the imago dei is totally effaced,43 and that "everything proceeding from the corrupt nature of man [is] damnable."44 Macquarrie finds it obvious that "many things proceeding from the 'natural man' are not in the slightest degree 'damnable.'"45

39 Ibid., p. 110.

40 Pp. 260-261.

41 P. 262.

42Principles of Christian Theology, p. 266. What the New Testament calls "the world, or kosmos, the collective mass of mankind in its solidarity, is answerable to no one, and has a hardness and irresponsibility that one rarely finds in individuals" (p. 262). Though Macquarrie calls such forces demonic, he argues that demonic forces are not independent beings, but are created when humans invest some movement, ideal, etc., with ultimate value (pp. 318-319).

43Ibid., p. 259. Macquarrie quotes the Institutes, p. 246. We have seen, however, that Calvin's view of the imago, especially when linked to his teaching on common grace, is more complex (Chap. 1).

44 Macquarrie, p. 70, quoting the Institutes, p. 289.

45 P. 70.

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Accordingly, the fallen person "does not cease to be human, but he loses the power to fulfill the potentialities of a fully human existence."

Nonetheless, such persons are aware of this disorder and dissatisfied with it. This awareness "is not sin, but the first step away from sin."46 Macquarrie thus insists that not only original sin, but also "original righteousness" still exists, even "if only in the form of longing for release and for fullness of existence."47

II

The Anthropology of Liberation Theologies

Liberation theologies have arisen in social contexts quite different from those that shaped traditional anthropologies. Nonetheless, the highly influential Latin American form has emerged on a largely Catholic continent. Accordingly, we may begin by noticing how it has self-consciously developed some concepts derived from Thomas Aquinas.

A

Nature and Grace

Gustavo Gutierrez outlines several ways in which Latin Americans have viewed the relationship between society and the churchand thus between nature and grace. As long as Catholicism enjoyed unquestioned social dominance, the natural spheres of life were regarded as lacking inherent value. They existed only for the sake of the spiritual life. In such a situation, "participation in temporal tasks has a very precise meaning for the Christian: to work for the direct and immediate benefit of the church."48

As Catholicism gradually lost its dominance, an approach closer to Thomas Aquinas's arose. The "autonomy" of the natural sphere was asserted. Catholics were urged to help construct "the human city would consist above all in the search for a society based upon justice, respect for the rights of others, and human fellowship."49 This emphasis drew many Catholics into the crying social situations of their continent.

46 P. 266.

47Ibid., p. 267; it does not matter, however, whether "one wishes to call this 'natural', or whether one wishes to speak of a 'grace' that is universal and not tied to any special occasion of revelation. . . . "

48A Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1973, 1988), p. 34. (The page references that follow in the notes are to the 1988 revised edition of this work.)

49 P. 35.

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As Vatican II approached, the distinction of two levels (or planes)the secular and the sacredbecame increasingly pronounced. Each plane had its relatively distinct laws and tasks.50 The church was said to have "two missions: evangelization and the inspiration of the temporal sphere."51 Increasingly, then, "the world emerged as autonomous, distinct from the church and having its own ends."52 Accordingly, "the building up of the earthly city" became "an autonomous endeavor."53

The most recent phase arrived with the conviction, shared by Gutierrez, that any distinction between secular and sacred is an abstraction. In words reminiscent of Rahner's "supernatural existential," Gutierrez insists that in daily life there is no plane of nature apart from grace.

In the concrete situation there is but one vocation: communion with God through grace. In reality there is no pure nature and there never has been; there is no one who is not invited to communion with the Lord, no one who is not affected by grace . . . historically and concretely we know humanity only as actually called to meet God.54

Thus, there is only one basic call or vocation for all humankind.

This affirmation of the single vocation to salvation, beyond all distinctions, gives religious value in a completely new way to human action in history, Christian and non-Christian alike. The building of a just society has worth in terms of the kingdom, or in more current phraseology, to participate in the process of liberation is already, in a certain sense, a salvific work.55

Accordingly, people receive grace when they open themselves to others and to the building of society, and reject grace when they do not. Given this new understanding, "the whole problem of salvation made a qualitative leap. . . . persons are saved if they open themselves to God and to others, even if they are not clearly aware that they are

50 This distinction was developed by Yves Congar in A Gospel Priesthood (New York: Herder & Herder, 1967) and Christians Active in the World (New York: Herder & Herder, 1968) and by Jacques Maritain in Integral Humanism (New York: Scribners, 1968).

51 P. 37.

52 P. 37.

53 P. 37.

54 P. 44.

55 P. 46.

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doing so. This is valid for Christians and non-Christians alikefor all people."56

All people "partly accept communion with God" insofar as they are moved by grace to "renounce their selfishness, and seek to create an authentic brotherhood among men. They reject God insofar as they turn away from the building up of this world, do not open themselves to others, and culpably withdraw into themselves (Matt. 25:31-46)."

Gutierrez, then, speaks of only one process of salvation. He refuses to divide it into secular and sacred spheres. Nevertheless, he distinguishes three simultaneously active dimensions, or levels, of this process. They are "political liberation, human liberation throughout history, liberation from sin and admission to communion with God."57 The first level involves "the aspirations of oppressed peoples and social classes, emphasizing the conflictual aspect of the economic, social, and political process. . . . "58 These contemporary struggles are rooted in a deeper historical process. At this second level,

Humankind is seen as assuming conscious responsibility for its own destiny. . . . The unfolding of all the dimensions of humanness is demandedpersons who makes themselves throughout their life and throughout history. The gradual conquest of true freedom leads to the creation of a new humankind and a qualitatively different society.59

Underneath this, however, there is a third level.

Christ the Savior liberates from sin, which is the ultimate root of all disruption of friendship and of all injustice and oppression. Christ makes humankind truly free. . . . He enables us to live in communion with him; and this is the basis for all human fellowship.60

The one process of salvation, then, "finds its deepest sense and its full realization in the saving work of Christ."61

B

Sources for Anthropology

We have outlined Gutierrez's view of humans as open to God's

56 P. 84.

57 P. 103.

58 P. 24.

59 Pp. 24-25.

60 P. 25.

61 P. 25.

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grace, capable of forging their own destiny, and as called to build together a just society. Besides the general Catholic orientation found also in Rahner and Macquarrie, what are the foundations of this anthropology? We may mention three.

As in most theologies, Gutierrez's view of humanity is closely related to his view of creation. However, it is not the Genesis stories, but those of the exodus, that provide his primary foundations. In line with much Old Testament scholarship, Gutierrez argues that Israel's experience of Yahweh's liberation gave rise to the faith that the same creative energy must underlie all that exists (cf. Chap. 16 below). But creation, so conceived, is not a single past event. It is a continuous process. And God invites humanity to join in this work.

Humankind is the crown and center of the work of creation and is called to continue it through its labor (cf. Gen. 1:28). And not only through its labor. The liberation from Egypt, linked to and even coinciding with creation, adds an element of capital importance: the need and the place for human active participation in the building of society.62

Gutierrez stresses not only creation but also eschatology. God calls all humanity towards a future promise. At first, the nature of this promise is not fully clear. It becomes clearer by ''partial fulfillments through liberating historical events, which are in turn new promises marking the road towards total fulfillment."63 In this way, the promise "incessantly projects itself into the future, creating a permanent historical mobility."64 Biblical eschatology, then, shows that those who respond most fully to God's call, and are thus most fully human, are always working and hoping towards a better future for all. Yet they also rejoice in the creative transformation of things in the present.

In addition to these two biblical sources, Gutierrez derives his anthropology from involvement in and observations about the liberation of humans throughout history. Beginning with the scientific revolution, philosophers like Descartes and Kant articulated humanity's growing consciousness of the superiority of its creative powers to the realms of nature and of social tradition. The French revolution "proclaimed the right of all to participate in the direction of the society to which they belong."65 Later, Hegel and Marx spoke of a complex dialectical process through which

62 P. 90.

63 P. 96.

64 P. 92.

65 P. 19.

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humankind constructs itself and attains a real awareness of its own being; it liberates itself in the acquisition of genuine freedom which through work transforms the world and educates the human species. For Hegel, "world history is the progression of the awareness of freedom." . . . Thus human nature gradually takes hold of the reins of its own destiny. It looks ahead and turns towards a society in which it will be free of all alienation and servitude.66

Readers influenced by Reformation Protestantism may feel that such an emphasis overlooks the significance of sin. It seems to deny the bondage and depravity of the will, and to appeal to human pridewhich is at the core of sin. Such readers may suspect that this more philosophical anthropology really underlies Gutierrez's selection of the creation and eschatology themes and the way he interprets them.

C

Sin

Liberation theologies do not overlook sin. Instead, much like other current Catholic theologies, they have shifted the traditional focus. Where most theological traditions emphasize the sins of the individual before God, liberation theologies stress sin's social operations. Fundamentally, sin is "the rupture of the fellowship based on our being off-spring of the Father."67 It is "the absence of fellowship and love in relationships among persons, the breach of friendship with God and with other persons." As such, sin is "the fundamental alienation, the root of a situation of injustice and exploitation."68

So defined, sin is hardly de-emphasized. Much as in Rahner's and Macquarrie's accounts of original sin, it forms a "hamartiosphere" which permeates and corrupts all activities, institutions, and relationships. Therefore, it is also "an interior, personal fracture."69

However, many liberation theologians who describe sin's social operations in detail say little about how it operates within the individual. When they do, sin often appears chiefly as an external force which one must resist. Moreover, some liberation theologians seem to regard

66 P. 19. For a somewhat different anthropological approach by Gutierrez, see Chap. 8 below. For a critical discussion of Gutierrez's anthropology, see Osvaldo Motteso, An Historically Mediated "Pastoral" of Liberation (Emory University: Ph.D. dissertation, 1980), pp. 265-331.

67 P. 153.

68 Pp. 102-103.

69 P. 103.

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pride as sinful only among the oppressor classes. Appeals to the dignity and capabilities of the oppressed are not regarded as appeals to sinful pride. Why is this so?

One of the clearest answers comes from feminist liberation theology. Valerie Saiving has argued that pride is far more often the sin of males than of females. In all traditional societies, the route to becoming a woman is largely a matter of biology and following circumscribed social patterns. For boys, however,

Growing up is not merely a natural process of bodily maturation; it is, instead, a challenge which he must meet, a proof he must furnish by means of performance, achievement, and activity directed toward the external world.70

Faced by the relative indefiniteness of this task and the threat of failure, the maturing male is seized with anxiety. Such anxiety has been heightened in our modern era, shaped as it is by

the rise of capitalism, the industrial revolution, imperialism, the triumphs of science and technology. . . . This modern era can be called the "masculine age par excellence" in the sense that it has emphasized, encouraged, and set free precisely those aspects of human nature which are particularly significant to men. It placed the highest value on external achievement, on the creation of structures of matter and meaning, on self-differentiation, and the separation of man from nature.71

Faced by the anxiety which such emphases bring, males are especially tempted to exaggerated prideto suppose they are better than they are, to deny their shortcomings, to subordinate others to their wills. But while males are tempted to become more than they can, females are often pressured to be less than they can. While men often exaggerate their importance, women often undervalue theirs. Thereby arises a host of sins more common to females, but given little attention by theological tradition. These include

triviality, distractibility, and diffuseness; lack of an organizing center or focus; dependence on others for one's own self-definition; tolerance at the expense of standards of excellence; inability to respect the boundaries of privacy; sentimentality, gossipy sociability, and mistrust of reasonin short, underdevelopment or negation of the self.72

70 "The Human Situation: A Feminine View," in Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds., Womanspirit Rising (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), p. 31.

71 Ibid., p. 35.

72 Ibid., p. 37.

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Tragically, however, the more that the sin of pride is emphasized, the harder can it become for a woman to escape these sins. For if she believes that all desires to focus her life, to become independent, to use her mind, and to like herself are sin, "she will try to strangle those impulses in herself."73 Paradoxically, then, while the emphasis on sin as pride needs most to be heard by males, it has been internalized more deeply by females. This in turn has increased the masculine domination it might, theoretically, have prevented.

One might well extend this analysis to all in oppressed situationsLatin Americans, other third-world groups, black Americans, even some white males. White Western males in general have taken the lead in constructing the modern world, and thus have been most vulnerable to pride. Since they have usually dominated the church and its theology, they have impressed their denunciation of pride upon society in general. This has often had the effect (consciously intended or not) of discouraging the aspirations of less dominant groups. If other groups struggle with temptations like those "feminine" ones which Saiving describes, the liberation theologies' emphasis on grasping the reins of one's destiny becomes understandable as a counterbalance.

D

Observations

For Catholic theology, moral and social life have always been directed toward God. Conscience and will, through which we make ethical and social choices, have been essentially undamaged capacities pointing people toward the divine. However, so long as ethics and society were assigned to a level of nature distinct from a higher one of grace, the relationship was somewhat distant. But when these levels are abolished, so that nature and grace become different dimensions of the same things, social and cultural life become direct ways of meeting and serving God. It is not fair to protest in a superficial way that such views underestimate sin. For even if they downplay individual sin, they stress corporate aspects which tradition has neglected. And if they unduly minimize pride, they highlight sins of passivity which tradition has overlooked.

However, even though such approaches have brought Christian faith closer to secular life, has the distinctiveness of that faith perhaps been blurred? For example, while Gutierrez's descriptions of social dynamics are clear, his accounts of religious dimensions are vague. For

73 Ibid., p. 39. See also Rosemary Ruether, Sexism and God-talk (Boston: Beacon, 1983).

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instance, in speaking of the third, religious "level" of the salvation process, Gutierrez is unclear about how the rupture of fellowship among people is rooted in alienation from God.

When religion becomes so intertwined with social life that its distinctiveness becomes blurred, does it really become more relevant? Or does it lose that decisive, cutting edge which alone can speak relevantly to a needy world? After briefly considering one more way in which faith has become intertwined with the modern outlook, we will close with an approach which challenges these trends.

III

The Influence of Psychotherapy

In the twentieth century, as in others, the assumptions about human nature which really influence the churches have been significantly formed by concerns and disciplines other than theology. Faced with widespread anxiety, despair, and personal maladjustment, churches have borrowed heavily from the burgeoning practice of psychotherapy.74 Since the psychotherapeutic frameworks in which many pastors and Christian counselors actually function have deep implications for concepts of humanization and sin, we must consider them, even if too briefly.

On one hand, psychotherapy has destroyed the notion that reason essentially guides humans and that once they have clearly understood what is good, their wills and emotions will at once move toward it. Ever since Freud, it has been increasingly acknowledged that people are guided largely by unconscious impulses and fears. The reasons and ideals with which we justify our behavior are often rationalizations disguising far different motivations. For some theologians, these discoveries of the persistence of such inclinations confirm traditional Protestantism's pessimistic anthropology.

The actual practice of many pastors and Christian counselors, however, is largely informed by quite a different perspective, like that of Carl Rogers. Rogers finds his patients often driven by impulses and fears which they hide through distortion and rationalization. Moreover, most of them have a deep sense of being evil and unworthy.75 For Rogers, however, this low self-image is the primary problem. "The central core of the difficulty in people . . . is that . . . they despise them-

74 For a detailed survey which indicates that modern pastoral psychology has evolved more from secular psychology than from the theological disciplines, see E. Brooks Holifield, The History of Pastoral Care in America (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983).

75On Being a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 177-178.

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selves, regard themselves as worthless and unlovable."76 Accordingly, the core of therapy lies in coming to regard one's essential drives, desires, and fundamental self as basically good.

Rogers surmises that people come to despise and distrust their basic feelings because these have been criticized in early childhood. Criteria for evaluating our feelings and experiences come from the responses of others. When these responses are negative, one's "feelings, which are the best index of his own valuing process, are denied to awareness, and he is now a man divided, estranged from self."77

Accordingly, the key to therapy is to provide an accepting, supportive environment which encourages patients to express whatever feelings they have. The more that they can express themselves without being criticized, the more they begin to like themselves and to trust their basic responses. In the process, patients will be less and less likely to base their decisions on "oughts" or expectations promoted by other persons or societies. Rogers believes that an individual's desires and perceptions, when allowed to operate freely, will provide self-regulating mechanisms for living.

We do not need to ask who will socialize him, for one of his own deepest needs is for affiliation and communication with others. . . . We do not need to ask who will control his aggressive impulses, for as he becomes more open to all of his impulses, his need to be liked by others and his tendency to give affection will be as strong as his impulses to strike out or to seize for himself.78

Having dealt with disordered individuals for many years, Rogers does not believe that learning to act on one's basic feelings comes easily. "No indeed. Freedom to be oneself is a frighteningly responsible freedom, and an individual moves toward it cautiously, fearfully, and with almost no confidence at first."79 Nevertheless, "responsible personal choice . . . is the most essential element of being a person."80

76 "Reinhold Niebuhr's The Self and the Dramas of History," Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 85 (June, 1958), p. 17.

77 "Concluding Comment," Ibid., p. 27.

78On Being a Person, p. 194. Rogers suggests that if, instead of hiding their real desires and fears behind high-sounding ideals, groups and even nations might seek to express them more honestly, paths could be opened to meaningful negotiations. Americans should "openly advance both our selfish interests, and our sympathetic concern for others, and let these conflicting desires find the balance which is acceptable to us as a people" (p. 180).

79 Ibid., p. 171.

80 "Concluding Comment," p. 26.

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Accordingly, we must encourage people to choose freely and to trust their basic perceptions and emotions on which such choices must be based. In order to trust them, people must love themselves. Rogers, then, concludes,

I could not differ more deeply from the notion that self-love is the fundamental and pervasive 'sin.' Actually it is only the experience of a relationship in which he is loved (something very close, I believe, to the theologians' agape *) that the individual can begin to feel a dawning respect for, acceptance of, and, finally, even a fondness for himself. It is as he can thus begin to sense himself as lovable and worthwhile, in spite of his mistakes, that he can begin to feel love and tenderness for others.81

Like many liberation theologians, Rogers feels that human problems arise because people love themselves not too much, but too little. As in these theologies, growth in self-confidence and self-assertiveness is the solution. Along with current Catholic theology, both approaches share much of that estimate of human nature popular since the Enlightenment: that our innate moral- and self-awareness, when it is not stifled by destructive social forces, is capable of guiding humankind to goodness and truth.

IV

"Pessimism" in Contemporary Anthropology

Viewed from one angle, optimism permeates today's society. The modern world has arisen through faith in humanity's infinite creative possibilities and endless progress. In Western countries, those who strive to make things more efficient, bigger, and better become leaders in industry, politics, and culture. And while third-world countries critique the ways in which Westerners have gained dominance, they too are swept by hopes for what their human powers can accomplish.

In one sense, the anthropologies so far expounded are also optimistic. Not that they overlook the widespread brokenness of modern existence. But in that they regard human conscience and will, despite their frequent malfunctions, as fundamentally directed toward God and what is good. To better the human condition, they advocate the increasingly self-confident exercise of this will.

Viewed from another angle, however, today's society is riddled with pessimism. Our century has witnessed two world wars far more devastating than anything previously imagined. Today, while most Western industries and agencies are oriented toward progress, their

81 "Reinhold Niebuhr's The Self and the Dramas of History," p. 17.

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massive impersonality stifles many who work there. Feeling insignificant and purposeless, many throw themselves into a pursuit of material goods which veils only thinly the apathy and cynicism underneath. And while revolutionary hopes arise in some third-world countries, the burden of poverty, disease, and indebtedness increases in most of them. Hanging over all this, the escalating threat of nuclear annihilation can make all effort toward betterment seem futile.

Not surprisingly, then, our century has given rise to anthropologies that might be called pessimistic. Not necessarily pessimistic about the goodness of individuals as created. But pessimistic about how much human lifeespecially corporate lifewill change in this broken, sinful world.

A

Transcendence and Pride

Reinhold Niebuhr, like the anthropologies just studied, regards the human self as a movement of transcendence. The self is able, as it were, to stand above and apart from its involvement in any given situation. Through reason and conscience it can direct itself toward broader goals and aims. This transcending movement, which can find its true goal and satisfaction only in communion with God, is the imago dei.82 However, unlike the anthropologies just studied, neither this transcending self nor reason nor conscience constitute some essentially unfallen capacity by which the sinful desires or directions of the concrete self can be gradually overcome.

Reason, of course, can envision reality from a perspective wider than the self's immediate desires and needs. But this does not mean that reason moves the self toward nobler goals. Precisely through this broader perspective, reason can more effectively guide one toward selfish ends. Conscience judges the self's actions by reference to some standard of "oughtness." However, rather than criticizing the self's real motives, conscience far more often elaborates noble-sounding rationalizations to justify, and thereby hide, these motives.83 In their

82The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I (New York: Scribners, 1941), pp. 151-166.

83The Self and the Dramas of History (New York: Scribners, 1955). Niebuhr defines the will as "the result of the self's transcendence over the complex of its impulses and desires. The will is in fact the self organized for the attainment of either a short-range or long-range purpose" (p. 12). While Niebuhr regards conscience as involving a general awareness of what is right, "the particular content of the voice of conscience is of course conditioned by all the relativities of history." Like Luther, Niebuhr thinks that conscience can magnify different voices. People may be "mistaken in their interpretation of what life is essentially; and conscience may be, in its very content, a vehicle of sin" (The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, p. 275).

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actual operation, then, fallen reason and conscience cannot really alter the self's fundamental orientation. We can better understand this orientation by examining Niebuhr's view of sin.

According to Niebuhr, human existence is rooted in a tension like that between Macquarrie's "possibility" and "facticity"between the many options open to one as transcendence and one's creaturely finitude. Faced with the indefinite range of possibilities which stretch out before one, an individual experiences anxiety. For one "can do nothing and regard it perfectly done, because higher possibilities are revealed in each achievement."84

At the same time, the limitations and the fragility of one's finitude, which circumscribe and can altogether erase these possibilities, increase the anxiety. Anxiety thus tempts one to find some way of attaining security by transgressing the creaturely limitations which God has set. Anxiety, that is, provides the fundamental temptation or "internal precondition" to sin.

In and of itself, however, anxiety is not sin. For it is a source of transcendence and creativity. If one could embark on self-transcendence secure in God's love, and thus unthreatened by the insecurities of existence, one might not sin. Accordingly, when speaking precisely, Niebuhr defines sin as lack of trust in God, or as unbelief.85

Moreover, sin does not exist except where it has previously been affirmed that God is not to be trusted. Niebuhr finds this to be the meaning of Satan's words to Eve. (Gen. 3:4-5). No matter how far back one goes in history, even before the first human sin, one finds that sin preexists. Like Rahner and Macquarrie, Niebuhr does not interpret this mystery by speaking of an historically primordial Adam or Satan. He simply asserts that, even before humankind sins, "sin posits itself."86

Sin, which is rooted in mistrust, takes two major forms. Anxious people either regard themselves as more than their finite, earth-bound condition allows, and sin through self-love and pride. Or they regard themselves as less than responsible, self-transcending creatures, and, seeking security through "turning inordinately to material good," they sin through sensuality.87

84The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, p. 183. (The following page references in the notes are to this work.) Niebuhr's view is highly indebted to Søren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety (Princeton: University, 1980 [originally published in 1844]).

85 Pp. 183, 251, 252, 289.

86 Pp. 181, 252.

87The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, p. 185. Confer Macquarrie on the sins of pride and indulgence. The definition of sin as "turning inordinately to material good" is from Thomas Aquinas (ST II, 1, Q. 77, a.5).

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In line with the Reformation, Niebuhr regards self-love and pride as more fundamental. Being creatures who are uniquely able to see the whole of reality and move transcendingly toward it, humans can easily imagine themselves to be that whole itself. They become proud and love themselves inordinately. Sensuality, the inordinate desire for material security and goods, arises only because we love ourselves inordinately.88 Niebuhr apparently opposes the claim of much psychotherapy and liberation theology that we can love ourselves too little.

For Niebuhr, sineven though it "posits itself" prior to human choicehas its primary locus neither in the weaknesses of our physical nature, nor in the collective evil of social institutions, but in the will. Niebuhr insists on the Reformation paradox of the bound will. This will is responsible for sin, since it chooses it, but in its present condition, it cannot choose otherwise. This notion seems to contradict all rational understandings of the will. As Macquarrie (following Kant) insisted, the awareness that "I ought" to do something implies that "I can" do it. Otherwise, as Aquinas maintained, "counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain.''89 For Niebuhr, however, the intensity with which "I ought" sometimes presses upon one is evidence that "I cannot." For if my will really were in basic harmony with what I know to be right, I would not sense so sharp a conflict between the two.90

Niebuhr also disputes two of Catholicism's understandings of the fall. Aquinas maintained that "original righteousness," the grace which enables people to develop the theological virtures (faith, hope, and love), was totally lost then. But Niebuhr argues that since human freedom continues to move transcendentally toward God, it is still continually challenged to develop these virtues. "Original righteousness" is

88 P. 232.

89ST I, Q. 83, a. 1 (cf. Chap. 1 above). See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (Indianapolis: Bobb-Merrill, 1956), pp. 137-139.

90 Niebuhr argues that this conflict becomes evident precisely "in the highest reaches of the freedom of the spirit" (p. 258). Precisely when one contemplates the loftiest aims and reviews one's past actions in light of them, one discovers that one's will has always inclined towards evil. In such moments, one discovers that one's will is still free, in the sense of striving towards transcendence, and yet consistently inclined towards evil in its particular choices.

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still presentnot as an accomplishment, but as a challenge to or "requirement" of human freedom.91 In this way, Niebuhr rejects any sharp distinction between nature and grace.

Second, Catholics believe that despite the loss of original righteousness, humanity's essential nature remained uncorrupted. Niebuhr, however, affirms the Reformation insistence that original sin deeply perverted the functioning of every human capacity.92

B

Society and Politics

While Niebuhr insists that sin is primarily individual, "vertical" rebellion against God,93 he is hardly unaware of its social ramifications. When individuals pursue selfish goals, they normally concoct noble-sounding explanations or rationalizations to hide their real motives. Groups do this, too. Nations so often pretend to be preserving and defending ultimate values that "no politically crystallized group has . . . existed without entertaining, or succumbing to, the temptation of making idolatrous claims."94 The pride and demands of social groups can drive individuals to evil actions which they would never consider on their own.95 Sin actualizes itself most horribly in the oppression, discrimination, and warfare inflicted by some groups upon others. In the twentieth century, "the collective will of man, particularly as embodied in the nation, has achieved heights of sinful pretension never before equaled. The nation is god."96

Niebuhr criticizes the Reformers for insufficient awareness of this dimension of the state, and for supposing that some relatively clear "natural law" guides social behavior. Niebuhr does believe that some general awareness of the principles underlying ordered social life exists among fallen humans.97 Yet in their actual application, these principles are usually twisted to favor certain groups. Reason is a perverted guide in social as well as personal life.

In many respects Niebuhr's social perspective is Calvinistic.

91 Pp. 276, 286.

92 P. 277.

93 Pp. 208, 257.

94 P. 210.

95 This is the major theme of Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribners, 1932).

96 P. 218.

97 Pp. 270-271.

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Although aware of the injustice with which political forces operate, he argues that Christians should often support one relatively evil system over worse ones. And although nations will always be self-seeking, we must work toward some international balance among these powers. For despite the sinful limitations of historical life, our continual transcendence toward faith, hope, and love calls us to work for better social structures whenever possible.

V

Summary

The glaring "disproportion" articulated by traditional anthropologiesbetween humankind's God-like possibilities and its destructive capacitiesreemerges on the contemporary scene. Traditional anthropologies pictured this contrast vertically, so to speak. Humankind was "falling" ever further from our heavenly home into earthly concerns. Current theologies, however, visualize humanity's movement in more horizontal terms. Humanity's unique characteristic, the imago dei, is no longer a distinct faculty, such as reason, connecting it directly with God above. Now it is a movement, the surge of transcendence, which directs us through the choices and tasks of historical life toward the futureand thereby toward God. (Insofar as the imago is connected with a faculty, then, this tends to be the will.) Since the human being works toward its destiny through earthly and social tasks, much of its activity can be scientifically explained. But since it is always transcending the limits of all such tasks and explanations, it cannot be wholly captured in scientific categories.

Sin consists largely in social structures and attitudes inherited from the past. They hold this transcendence back and threaten to pervert its future projects. Paradoxically, humans are responsible for, yet bound by, these structures. Many anthropologies locate sin chiefly in the corporate sphere and regard individual will and conscience as directed intrinsically toward good and God. Yet some, like Niebuhr, follow traditional Protestantism and find sin deeply embedded in individuals, too. At the same time, against those who champion the traditional understanding of sin as pride, some define it more as passivity.

Finally, the individual and social poles of existence, often uneasily distanced in traditional anthropology, remain in tension. In the theologies we have examined, humankind, its transcendence, and its sin are understood primarily in corporate terms. Yet the popularity of pastoral psychotherapy and the existential orientation (see Vol. I, Chap. 4) show that individualism is quite alive in church life, even if not in theology.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Anderson, Ray. On Being Human. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

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Browning, Don. Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.

Brunner, Emil. Man in Revolt. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1947.

D'Arcy, Martin. No Absent God: The Relations Between God and the Self. New York: Harper, 1962.

Evans, C. Stephen. Perserving the Person. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity, 1977.

Hollifield, E. Brooks. The History of Pastoral Care in America. Nashville: Abingdon, 1983.

McCann, Dennis. Christian Realism and Liberation Theology. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981.

Macquarrie, John. An Existentialist Theology: A Comparison of Heidegger and Bultmann. New York: Macmillan, 1953.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Nature and Destiny of Man. 2 Vols. New York: Scribners, 1943.

__________. The Self and the Dramas of History. New York: Scribners. 1955.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. What is Man? Philadephia: Fortress, 1970.

Pittinger, W. Norman. The Christian Understanding of Human Nature. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964.

Rahner, Karl. Hearers of the Word. New York: Herder & Herder, 1969.

Ricoeur, Paul. Fallible Man. Chicago: Regnery, 1967.

Rogers, Carl. On Being a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961.

Segundo, Juan. Grace and the Human Condition. Maryknoll. N.Y.: Orbis, 1973.

Skinner, B. F. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1971.

Stagg, Frank. Polarities of Man's Existence in Biblical Perspective. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973.

Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology, Vol. II. Chicago: University, 1957.

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Chapter Three

The Foundation of Anthropology

If theological anthropology is to be faithful to the biblical kerygma, and if it is to guide today's church, it must provide a framework for dealing with the broad issues of humanization. Yet our first two chapters have shown that humanization involves many complex issues. Moreover, churches in the past and present have developed a wide variety of conceptualities and practical strategies for dealing with them. We are impressed by this creativity. But how, confronted by all this diversity, shall we begin charting our own course?

All the anthropologies considered affirm that humans are not what they should be. Even apart from sin, we long and strive to become something better and other than we presently are. But what is the goal, the vision, the norm towards which we strive? Medieval Catholics sought to develop precisely defined virtues within a tightly structured, hierarchical society which found its basic principles clearly expressed in "natural law." But their successors couldand often did!clash bitterly with Calvinists who were building God's kingdom through capitalism and democracy. And both would run afoul of today's liberation-minded Christians, seeking to free humanity from both hierarchy and capitalism.

What accounts for such diversity? Despite the variety of sources employed, an important one has been little used. Past and present

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anthropologies typically give little attention to Scripture. Of course, Protestant anthropologies often stress the Pauline view of sin presented in Romans 7. Liberation theologies sometimes refer to the Exodus and the eschatological promise. However, the only text repeatedly cited by all schools is Genesis 13. Traditional Catholicism elaborated its notion of reason as the "image of God" in reference to it. The same text, however, supported later Calvinism's "cultural mandate." Still later it supported Macquarrie's concept of the imago as potentiality, and humanity as the point where evolution becomes self-conscious.

Can such elaborateand diversenotions really be derived from this passage? Or has the church in many ages really derived much of its understanding of human nature from its cultural context, and read this into Genesis?

Yet if anthropologies have been too dependent on their contexts, what better starting point might we suggest? We have begun theologizing with the biblical kerygma (see Vol. I, Chap. 3). It announced the inbreaking of the New Age, a new dimension of reality. God in an unforeseen way had defeated all forces oppressing humankind. The Spirit of life now dwelt among God's people in a unique and vibrant manner. God called this people to goals transcending the possibilities of the Old Age. Fundamentally, then, an anthropology developed in light of this kerygma would define what it means to be human in light of the new reality at its heart.

Can we describe this point of departure more fully? We recall that the kerygma is grounded in the life, death, resurrection, and expected return of Jesus Christ. Yet Jesus' work is a human as well as a divine one (see Vol. I, Chaps. 14-18). Jesus not only came as divine to deliver us, but also as a human to live perfectly the kind of existence God desires for everyone. In so doing, Jesus actualized potentialities for being human realized by no one else. If we are to begin anthropology with a sketch of fulfilled humanity, Jesus must be our primary source.

Let us contrast this approach with the more customary references to Adam and Eve. How much do we really know about them? Aside from Genesis 15, the Old Testament scarcely mentions them.1 The New Testament gives them significant attention only in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:45-50.2 These passages are indeed important for anthropology. Nevertheless, even here Adam's significance is elaborated only in relation to Christ. For Scripture tells us far more about "the last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45) than the first. Indeed, the very scarcity of data

1 Adam is referred to in Deut. 32:8; 1 Chr. 1:1; and Job 31:33.

2 Eve and/or Adam are also mentioned in Luke 3:38; 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:11-15; and Jude 14.

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about Eve and Adam has allowed divergent anthropologies to be elaborated in their name.

The significance of Jesus' work was integrally related to his fulfillment of God's ancient promise to Israel. Jesus climaxed a long history of human hoping, waiting, doubting, and sinning. This suggests a way of doing anthropology similar to our approach to the doctrine of God. We have argued that according to the kerygma and the entire biblical record, God is known primarily through God's acts (Vol. I, pp. 103-105). Through specific events in which God proved to be loving, merciful, judging, and faithful, Israel and the early church gradually came to understand God's nature. Accordingly, we have begun our Christology from Christ's work ("from below") and will complete our reflections on Christ's personand on the divine nature in generalonly at the end of this volume.

Not only God, however, is revealed through activities. We come to know human persons through experiencing how they act in varied situations. Now the Bible is full of vivid stories of how people of all sorts behave in scores of different circumstances. It presents us with far greater resources for anthropology than does the brief story of Adam and Eve alone. And as narrative theologians have recently stressed, only through such stories do we come to understand God's story, and the human story as well.3

We propose, then, to begin anthropological reflection from the human activity of Jesus Christ, considered as the culmination of the human activities recorded in Scripture. To a significant extent, our anthropology will involve a deeper penetration of much that we discussed under the work of Jesus Christ.4

Moreover, our study of Christ's work has shown that not only do human potentiality and goodness come to fulfillment in him. In opposition to him, human evil and sin reach their heights. Since Jesus' life, death, and resurrection constitute God's decisive conflict with evil, sin is here revealed in its most grotesque colors.

Yet straightforward as such a procedure may seem, many have opposed it. Not only does the history of theological anthropology often neglect or reject this approach; a two-pronged objection can be raised on biblical grounds. Many argue, first, that the New Testament writers themselves, when they tell us how to live or what sin is like, seldom

3 E.g., Michael Goldberg, Theology and Narrative (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982) and George Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology (Atlanta: Knox, 1981).

4 Although anthropology has not often been developed from Christology, thinkers as diverse as Friedrich Schleiermacher and Karl Barth have done this. See Vol. I, Chap. 14.

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mention Jesus' history. Apart from the synoptic Gospels, such people insist, the writers pay little attention to "the Jesus of history." Rather, they focus on "the Christ of faith."5 Second, when Scriptures do tell us how to act, especially in social relationships, they often borrow ethical principles from surrounding cultures. And in so doing, the Bible itself legitimates the normativity which later anthropologies have accorded their own cultural contexts.

Our proposal to do anthropology in light of Christology first seemed to follow smoothlythat is, deductivelyfrom our previous theological conclusions and approach. Almost immediately, however, we met the objection that few biblical writers deal with anthropology this way. Since we have rejected deduction as our primary method, but have insisted that our theological assertions be continually checked by Scripture (see Vol. I, Chap. 3), we must investigate this objection. We will consider its first prong in Sections I and II and its second in Section III below. The issues it raises are so fundamental that we will devote this chapter to establishing our anthropological foundations in dialogue with it. Then, in Chapters 4-6, we will deal more explicitly with the issues raised in Chapters 1 and 2.

I

Is a Christological Anthropology Impossible?

Biblical scholars often argue that the New Testament, apart from the Synoptics, seldom mentions Jesus' teachings or behavior. Many Christian ethicists also find flaws in Jesus' teachings themselves. For both these reasons, these ethicists give Jesus' life and teachings a fairly insignificant role when pondering how Christians should act in the modern world.

Paul Ramsey, for instance, examines Jesus' teachings carefully. Ramsey's interpretation of eschatology influences deeply his evaluation of them. Like many scholars, he sees Jesus' situation charged with eschatological expectation. Most of Jesus' teachings, he says, fall into two groups. The first are those where "the effect -of Jesus' kingdom expectation may be seen mainly in their greater urgency or stepped-up intensity."6 Examples include, "Be not angry, avoid inward lust, decide once and for all time, with singleness of purpose, for some cause. . . . "7

5 Rudolf Bultmann expresses this position in an extreme form. "The message of Jesus is a presupposition for the theology of the New Testament rather than a part of that theology itself" (Theology of the New Testament [New York: Scribners, 1951], Vol. I, p. 3).

6Basic Christian Ethics (Chicago: University, 1950), p. 32. The page numbers in the notes that follow are to this work.

7 P. 33.

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Although eschatological expectation moved Jesus to propound such teachings with urgency, they are general truths applicable to all situations.

The second group of Jesus' teachings, however, includes

those whose very content and meaning, not simply the urgency associated with them, show the effect of Jesus' kingdom expectation. These 'strenuous' teachings comprise all those vivid injunctions, so distinctive of Jesus, to nonresisting, unclaiming love, overflowing good even for an enemy, unlimited forgiveness for every offense, giving to every need, unconditional lending to him who would borrow.8

Ramsey feels that the meaning of this second group "has been so decisively affected by his kingdom expectation that they can be torn from their context only at great peril of complete misunderstanding."9 Basically, Ramsey argues, when Jesus encouraged meekness and forgiveness, he did not mean to commend them as ethical actions which would bring about God's kingdom. Jesus expected God to shortly disrupt the course of things, punish the wicked, and set up a society where the meek actually would inherit the earth.10

Does this mean that no permanent value can be derived from this second kind of teaching? Ramsey argues that this eschatological atmosphere did give rise to one decisive, permanent criterion of Christian ethics. In the face of the inbreaking kingdom, moral decision was stripped of

all prudential considerations, all calculation of what is right in terms of consequences which in this present age normally follow certain lines of action. . . . Preferential loves, even those justifiable in normal times, were supplanted by entirely nonpreferential regard for whomever happened to be standing by, friend or enemy, bullying sergeant or indigent beggar. . . . All that mattered was the single individual a man happened to confront. All that mattered was unhesitating, total love.11

In other words, since those relationships and institutions within which people normally live were about to be dissolved, one no longer needed to worry about how one's decisions would affect them. Because

8 P. 34.

9 P. 35.

10 P. 26.

11 P. 39.

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all neighbors but the one actually present were removed from consideration, the permanent ethical criterion," 'the neighbor,' the neighbor in any man, was decisively discovered."12

In view of all this, what implications do Jesus' teachings carry for contemporary ethics? Negatively, Ramsey argues, we must not seek to apply Jesus' way of total forgiveness, love, and suffering directly to complex issues. For Jesus did not expect such behavior to change things. Only God's imminent judgment of evil would do that.13 Positively, however, the good of "the neighbor" can function as our fundamental ethical criterion. Of course, our world, unlike the one which Jesus anticipated, involves relationships to many neighbors. In making our decisions, we must weigh many conflicting claims. Nonetheless, Jesus has given us the primary value in which to appraise them.14

Ramsey applies this emphasis on the neighbor to the social sphere in a manner reminiscent of Luther's "two kingdoms" (see Chap. 1). Since the needs of my neighbor totally determine my actions, in one-to-one relationships my behavior should come closest to Jesus' "strenuous" ethic. Here it is better to suffer and be abused than to defend one's own advantage. So if someone robs me, for instance, I should normally not seek redress. In society at large, however, one must consider the needs of all one's neighbors. Since one robber can harm a multitude of neighbors, I should normally favor the robber's punishment.

In this way, Ramsey at times draws lines between private and public behavior. Nonetheless, he remains essentially a Calvinist who refuses to surrender the social sphere entirely to secular forces. Love, he insists, must reign as much as possible in public as well as in private. However, one must sometimes employ methods opposed to Jesus' "strenuous" ethic.

What implications does Ramsey's view carry for answering the anthropological issue of what it means to be human? For Ramsey, the norm for human action is neither Jesus' specific teachings nor his actions. It is neither any biblical law nor the laws of secular spheres. It is the needs of the neighbor.

Examined more closely, however, this norm proves to be incomplete. For how shall I determine what my neighbor truly needs? Does my neighbor need civic order as the precondition for all other happiness, as Luther and Calvin thought? Or does my neighbor need freedom for self-development even at the cost of social upheaval, as

12 P. 39.

13 P. 36.

14 Pp. 92-103.

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many liberation theologians suggest? In short, how can I know what is best for my neighbors unless I have some notion of what promotes and what hinders the development of their true potential? That is, unless I have some notion of what their most fundamental human nature is really like? In other words, one cannot really develop a workable ethic without an anthropology.

Ramsey shows why many theologians today will not derive such an anthropology from Jesus. Jesus allegedly misunderstood the character of his eschatological hour. He did not know that human history, with its complex institutions and obligations, would keep on going.15 Accordingly, his ''strenuous" teaching and example are not really applicable to the situations we all face.

In considering this argument, it again becomes clear how important one's interpretation of eschatology is for the whole of theology. Those who argue that Jesus expected ordinary human history to end soon argue that the earliest church expected this too. Accordingly, it saw no reason to bother with ethical matters. So the ethical elements in the New Testament (outside the Synoptics, at least) must have arisen from the "delay of the parousia" (see Vol. I, Chap. 7). In other words, it was only through long waiting for an end that never came that the early church gradually realized that history would go on. Only then did it recognize the necessity for guidelines for behavior in this world.

But not only did Jesus fail to anticipate the continuation of earthly existence; his eschatology also emphasized a sharp conflict between the coming kingdom and the world ruled by Satan. The later New Testament church, however, was not opposing the current scheme of things. It was trying to exist within it. Christian ethics, then, developed largely through "accommodation" with society's institutions and standards.16 Christians, for instance, were later told to obey the government (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17) and to pray for public order (1 Tim. 1:1-2). Children are to obey their parents, wives their husbands, slaves their masters (Eph. 5:22-29; 1 Pet. 2:183:7). Women are to stay in their places (1 Cor. 14:34-35; 1 Tim. 2:9-15). To be sure, this theory concedes that distinctly Christian influences sometimes modified these social codes (Gal. 3:28, etc.). However, the more the parousia was delayed,

15 Reinhold Niebuhr interprets Jesus in the same way (The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. II [New York: Scribners, 1943], pp. 47-52). This gives him one strong reason for insisting that agape * cannot be directly applied to the historical situation.

16 Before the "delay of the parousia" theory became widespread, this position was influentially argued by Ernst Troeltsch in The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (New York: Macmillan, 1931), Vol. I, pp. 23-200.

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the more did Christian behavior conform to socially accepted standards.

This common argument clearly shows one thing. To say that Jesus was mistaken about eschatology is to say that he was mistaken about society. To say that Jesus misunderstood the nature of his eschatological hour is to say that he mistook the social character of his mission. For Jesus clearly called people to a social reality where ordinary relations among races, classes, and sexes were reverseda society where all lived according to limitless giving and forgiving (see Vol. I, Chap. 15). But if such a society is possible only under social and historical conditions far different from those that exist today, then the radicality of Jesus' vision must be significantly modified in light of current "realities."

Viewed in broad historical perspective, however, the insistence that Jesus' strenuous ethics are not socially applicable is hardly peculiar to this recent eschatological theory. Martin Luther supported such a claim with the apparent discrepancy of Jesus' radical commands with other Scriptures, and with given orders of social life. Dispensationalism, in relegating Jesus' strenuous ethics to a coming millennial kingdom, has made a similar claim.17 In most versions, this claim rests at least partially on a claim about Scripture. That is, when the New Testament deals most directly with ethical and social responsibility, it makes little reference to Jesus' lifestyle and teaching. Instead, it bases this responsibility on quite different foundations.

Since Scripture is our norm, we must take this claim seriously. If most New Testament writers do not, in fact, understand human nature primarily in light of Christ, then we will have little support for doing so. In fact, the more that New Testament behavioral norms prove to be derived from other sources, the more justified will be anthropology's tendency to borrow heavily from current philosophies and practices. For theological anthropology will simply be continuing what the New Testament writers began.

II

A Christological Anthropology Is Possible

Outside the Gospels, one can find few specific references to Jesus' history. Christians are not told to imitate the details of his existence. We are not to wear sandals because Christ did, to remain single because he was, nor to live in the country because he was (allegedly) a rural figure. However, Jesus' life pointed toward and climaxed on the

17 See Vol. 1, pp. 108-110. For a more qualified statement of this position, see Robert Saucy, "Contemporary Dispensational Thought," TSF Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 4 (March-April, 1984), pp. 10-11; and "Dispensationalism and the Salvation of the Kingdom," TSF Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 5 (May-June, 1984), pp. 6-7.

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cross. His death was not an accident, a stroke of bad luck, nor merely an isolated, predetermined occurrence. The cross was the consistent result of Jesus' reversed proclamation of God's kingdom, of his persistent living by it, despite the hostility it aroused (see Vol. I, Chap. 15). At the cross, Jesus' conflict with his opposition climaxed. The cross was the severest test of his continuing faithfulness to God and of his love for humanity.

Accordingly, it is possible that when New Testament writers mention the cross (or the death, or the blood^18) of Christ, they are not always referring to a single event as distinct from others. They may often be recalling the life of Jesus also by mentioning that episode which most clearly displayed its significance. And if so, might they be drawing some ethical and anthropological consequences from that life? Let us see.

A

The Way of Agape *

1

According to John

In his first epistle, John writes:

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

(1 John 4:9-11)

Or, as John expresses it in other words, "By this we know love, that He laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 John 3:16-17).

Notice, first, the unusual character of this love. It is not something that humans initiated, nor that we really even know. We know and participate in it only because it was initiated by the Father and Son. Notice, second, that this love was manifested primarily through the Son's death. Its manifestation, however, was not restricted to that event. God's love was manifested throughout the entire sending of the Son. Third, notice that the sending and death of the Son has direct ethical consequences. The love which motivated all this prompts us to meet each others' material needs, and even to die for them.

18 We have noticed that the term blood of Jesus often refers to the specific circumstances of his judicial murder. In such cases it has an essentially historical, rather than a sacrificial, sacramental, or mystical meaning. (See Vol. I, pp. 333-334.)

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Many have supposed that our highest ethical calling is described in the two great commandments. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:37, 39). But valid as these commandments are, they are the greatest of "all the law and the prophets'' (Matt. 22:40). Jesus gives "a new commandment" which surpasses even these: "that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).

The nature of this love is clear from the context of the passage. Jesus speaks these words at the Last Supper. He has just washed his disciples' feet, telling them, "If I . . . have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). This is the same context in which, according to the Synoptics, Jesus states that his true followers will be servants of all, even as "the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:44 and parallels). Or, as Jesus says in John, loving "one another as I have loved you" ultimately means laying down one's life for one's friends (John 15:12-13).

These texts express the same features which we found in 1 John. The love which Jesus reveals is "new" in history. It stands in sharp contrast to the behavior of his followers and to that of humans in general. Second, while this love climaxes on the cross, it has been operative in Jesus' servantlike behavior all along. Third, it is something which his followers are to exercise.

So far, then, we have found several passages where mention of Jesus' death recalls his whole way of life, and where anthropological consequences are drawn from this. Yet the texts examined so far are mostly from John. Is this emphasis peculiar to him? Or do other New Testament writers share it?

2

According to Paul

Paul encourages the church at Philippi to act in unison. "Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:3-4; cf. Gal. 6:2).

To show the source and motivation for such attitudes, Paul cites an early Christian hymn. It tells of One who humbled himself from the beginnings of his earthly existence. This same servant activity persisted "unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:8). Here and in his central christological discussion of Romans 5:12-21, Paul uses the word obedience to summarize Jesus' human work. And obedience is central to that faith, or faithfulness, which is the fundamental attitude undergirding Christian life.19

19 See, e.g., Rom. 1:5; 16:26. Chapter 7 will argue that Paul also understands

(footnote continued on next page)

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In 2 Corinthians 8:9, where the cross is not specifically mentioned, Paul calls the humility and self-giving of Jesus his "poverty." The fact that he became poor so we might become rich has financial and cross-cultural implications. Paul is encouraging Gentile Christians to contribute to needy Jewish Christians. Such sharing will not merely alleviate this particular situation; it will deepen relationships of trust and thanksgiving among two very different ethnic groups (2 Cor. 9:11-14). Here Jesus' own willingness to become poor provides a key to economic and social matters.20

In Paul's later letters, too, the love climaxing at the cross is a key to behavior. "Be imitators of God, as beloved children," he writes, "and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:1-2). Here the key practical implication is forgiveness. The sacrificial love of Christ makes people "kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you" (Eph. 4:32).

Similar attitudes are encouraged in a passage where the cross is central, even if less explicitly. In situations of conflict, "Christ did not please himself . . . as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached thee fell on me'" (Rom. 15:3). Paul's quotation of Psalm 69:9 shows that the cross is the primary conflict situation he has in mind. The implications are that the "'strong' ought to bear with the failings of 'the weak.'" We are "not to please ourselves; let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him" (Rom. 15:1-2). Paul is referring to two factions in the Roman Church. "The strong'' felt that certain religious rituals and regulations were not necessary to Christian living. "The weak" felt that they were.21 Paul's discussion of cooperation among those with differing opinionsprobably due partly to different ethnic backgroundsruns throughout Romans 14. "Welcome one another," he concludes, "as Christ has welcomed you" (Rom. 15:7).

Like John, then, Paul often refers to Jesus' death as the climax of his way of life and draws ethical consequences from it. Here, as in John,

(footnote continued from previous page)

Jesus' work as essentially one of faith, or faithfulness (pistis), much as we will claim in this present chapter that Hebrews does.

20 Although "becoming poor" refers to Jesus' overall self-giving, as does Phil. 2:5-8, commentators usually assume that Paul cannot also be referring to Jesus' earthly poverty as a consequence of this. But this distinction rests largely on the presupposition that Paul was not interested in Jesus' earthly life.

21 For an argument that this ethical issue is not simply tacked on to the Roman letter, but is central to its major themes, see Paul Minear, The Obedience of Faith (Napeville, Ill.: Allenson, 1971).

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these consequences have mainly to do with social relationships, although Paul relates them more directly to issues of forgiveness, economics, and cross-cultural relationships.

3

According to the Rest of the New Testament

The epistle to the Hebrews also regards Jesus' earthly conduct as the norm for human behavior. Hebrews offers strong support for the notion of "recapitulation"that Jesus passed through each stage of life in unbroken communion with God, as all humans are meant to (see Vol. I, Chaps. 16-17). Jesus is the pioneer (archegos *) of our salvation.22 He was consistently "faithful" to God (Heb. 3:2, 6). As did Paul, Hebrews uses obedience to summarize Jesus' faithful human attitude. Like everyone else, Jesus had to learn this obedience. Like the letter's readers, he learned it through suffering (Heb. 5:8-9). Accordingly, when they are tempted to turn aside from their pilgrimage, Jesusespecially in his deathprovides their chief encouragement and example.

Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Heb. 12:1-4)

Climaxing the lengthy recital of heroes of faith in Heb. 11, there can be no doubt that Jesus provides the supreme model of human faithfulness.

For Peter also, Jesus provides "an example, that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21). "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly" (1 Peter 2:23). So when the readers are persecuted, they should "not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless . . . " (1 Peter 3:9). As we shall shortly see, these admonitions are not mere counsels for individuals ostracized by society; they carry significant social implications.23

Finally,24 Revelation presents Jesus, "who loves us and has freed us

22 Heb. 2:10; 12:2; cf. Acts 3:15; 5:31.

23 On a more personal level, the readers can take comfort in the awareness that sufferings can help one overcome sin, for Jesus himself experienced this (1 Pet. 4:1).

24 While James makes no significant reference to the earthly life or death of Christ, commentators have long noticed that this letter often echoes Jesus' teachings. James's hard words against "the rich" resemble the attitude of Jesus far more than they do any "accommodation" to the culture of the day (1:9-11;

(footnote continued on next page)

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from our sins by his blood," as the "faithful witness" (Rev. 1:5; cf. 3:14). His followers are those who keep "the faithfulness of Jesus" (Rev. 14:12) and suffer for "the witness of Jesus" (Rev. 1:2; 12:17; 20:4). Being a witness means maintaining a consistent attitude in the face of an opposition which is often political, and always, at bottom, satanic. This faithful witness can well be sealed by death.25 Through such a death, Christians participate in and concretely actualize Jesus' faithful witness in their own situation. For "they have conquered [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their witness, for they loved not their lives even unto death'' (Rev. 12:11; cf. 14:12).

4

Summary

Outside the gospels, Christians are seldom told to follow Jesus' specific teachings and example. Nevertheless, virtually all New Testament writings encourage them to adopt the attitude and behavior manifested in Jesus' death, which they regard as the supreme actualization of the comportment which dominated his life.26 For the writer to the Hebrews, Jesus fully actualized the obedience and faithfulness which are central to being human. For John, he actualized and manifested that love which is to be the supreme norm of all our actions. So far, we have no reason to suppose that Paul, Peter, and Revelation regarded Jesus' way to the cross as any less normative for human behavior.

Further, our survey has shown there is something unique about this norm. Although Jesus actualized potentialities that his followers are also to develop, they stand in contrast to what people before or apart from him have done. Above all, Jesus' activity and attitude expressed the outflow of love. To apprehend the anthropological significance of Jesus, we need to examine carefully this biblical notion.

B

Eros * and Agape*

The common Greek word for love was eros*. However, it does not appear in the New Testament at all. When the writers of the New Testament wanted to speak of love, they usually employed the little-used

(footnote continued from previous page)

2:1-7; 4:135:6). On Revelation, see Paul Minear, I Saw a New Earth (Washington: Corpus, 1968), pp. 188-196. On our translation of Rev. 14:12, see pp. 338, 343.

25 Rev. 2:13; 6:9; 11:7; 17:6.

26 Also see John Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), pp. 115-134.

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word agape *. Agape*'s "etymology is uncertain and its meaning weak and variable. Often it means no more than 'to be satisfied with something.'"27 Why did they use it?

Eros*, according to the Greek philosophers, was love based upon some need in the lover. The beloved object is desired because he, she, or it has something which pleases, satisfies, ennobles, or completes the lover. Eros* can be extremely intense and beautiful. The lover may exhibit extraordinary devotion to the beloved. For Plato and Aristotle, eros* was the longing for the divine. But however poetic or noble eros* may be, it arises out of some need or lack. The beloved is not really desired for his or her own sake, but because he or she can fulfill that lack.28

John was not the only biblical writer to notice that Jesus' ministry was grounded in a different type of love. Paul also contrasted the love revealed on the cross with the love otherwise active among humans. Perhaps, at its heights, the latter would prompt one to die for someone good (Rom 5:7). But God's love is revealed in that Christ died "while we were yet sinners," while we were God's "enemies"! (Rom 5:8, 10). The Synoptics show that such a love undergirded Jesus' ministry. His great reversal scandalized those who thought they were righteous because he came to call not them, but sinners (Mark 2:17 and parallels). When opposed and even killed, Jesus continued to love his enemies. And he commanded his followers to do likewise because such was God's character.29

To express this different reality, the New Testament writers needed a different word. In contrast to eros*, love of this sort is not based on the inherent value of its object. Those who participate in the attempt to kill God at the cross are loved (see Vol. I, Chap. 17).30 Love of this sort does not arise from a need to fulfill the lover's deficiencies. The terrible agony of Son, Father, and Spirit on Golgotha was hardly a temporary hardship endured in order to gain something for themselves. Although we can believe that its outcome has brought them joy (cf. Luke 15:6-10;

27 TWNT, Vol. I, p. 36.

28 Anders Nygren, Agape* and Eros* (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953), pp. 175-186.

29 Matt. 5:44-45. Ibid., pp. 105-123. "Love for one's neighbor is by nature and from its very origin love for enemies. . . . Where does it show itself more spontaneous and unmotivated than when it is directed to enemies, whose behavior would more reasonably and naturally provoke the precise opposite of love?" (p. 101).

30 For an approach which does not distinguish eros* and agape* so sharply, see Macquarrie (p. 46, note 33, above).

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Heb. 12:2), this was not their main goal. Our joy was. For agape * love is essentially creative. Rather than filling up its own lack of beauty with that of the beloved, it fills its beloved with beauty. Rather than being attracted because of the beloved's goodness, agape* empowers the beloved to become good.31

To be sure, agape* is essentially divine. Humans are able to live by it only insofar as we are taken up into God's agape*. Nevertheless, agape* does not make us something other than human. It is precisely our deepest potentialities for being and becoming human that it energizes. The witness of the entire New Testament is clear. Weand not only Jesusare to live according to this servantlike, self-giving love.

The distinctness of agape* from other forms of love is but one indication that an anthropology with Jesus as its norm may differ significantly from one based on any other source. It shows us the error of the common assumption that Jesus' "strenuous" teachings can provide no real foundations for ethics. For precisely these "vivid injunctions, so distinctive of Jesus, to nonresisting, unclaiming love, overflowing good even for an enemy, unlimited forgiveness for every offense, giving to every need, unconditional lending to him who would borrow"32precisely such actions are the outflow of agape*.

Jesus' distinctive teachings and lifestyle resulted neither from a mistake in eschatological timing, nor from a misunderstanding of social forces. The entire New Testament affirms that, at least in their basic dynamic, they alone show us what true humanization is all about.

III

Agape* and Social Relationships

The objection to deriving anthropology from Christology which we are considering has two prongs. So far, we have dealt with the firstthat, apart from the Gospels, the New Testament seldom presents the

31 Ibid., pp. 67-81. Nygren says that through agape*, "that which in itself has no worth acquires worth. . . . The man who is loved by God has no value in himself; what gives him value is precisely the fact that God loves him" (p. 78). Such statements have been interpreted to mean that agape* involves no feeling for or delight in, "no element of responsiveness to the qualities of the loved one" (John Cobb and David Griffen, Process Theology [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976], p. 46). Though Nygren invites such an interpretation, his point is that no such quality has "value" as the basis (as something which earns God's favor or satisfies God's need) upon which the beloved is loved. God does not love people because they have certain qualities. Yet God surely loves many of their qualities. For a discussion, see Chap. 19 below and Gene Outka, Agape*: An Ethical Analysis (New Haven: Yale, 1972), pp. 153-169, cf. pp. 7-24.

32 Ramsey, pp. 34.

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earthly Jesus as our anthropological norm.

The second prong asserts that the New Testament's ethical teachingschiefly those about social relationshipswere largely borrowed from contemporary culture. Although we have determined that Jesus and his way of agape * form the New Testament's primary anthropological norm, we have not examined all its anthropological teachings. Is it still possible that some of these were largely borrowed from first-century culture? In particular, might the church have restricted Jesus' normativity to personal behavior, as Paul Ramsey and Martin Luther have, but have adopted other norms in dealing with the "secular kingdom"?

Since the issue revolves around what Scripture really says, this section, like the last, must consist largely in investigating particular texts. We will consider the three passages probably most often adduced to support the objection we are considering. Although these texts cannot resolve all important issues, if we find the same general perspective reflected in all three, this will warrant our establishing a general anthropological perspective. And like the previous section, this one will provide data for filling out our approach in coming chapters.

A

Ephesians 5:186:9

Many scholars claim that when Ephesians outlines Christian behavior in detail, it makes use of tables of household duties (Haustafeln) which were common in Graeco-Roman culture. The duties of wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters in Ephesians 5:216:9 are supposed to come from such a list, and to advocate a dominance of the last member of each pair modified little by a Christian perspective.33

Careful observation of the Greek text, however, shows that this section does not really begin at Chapter 5, verse 21, as most translations have it. Instead, Paul encourages his readers to "be filled with the Spirit" in verse 18. Then follows a series of participles clarifying what this involves: addressing one another, singing and making melody (v. 19); giving thanks (v. 20); and finally, "submitting yourselves to one another" (v. 21).

Verse 21 does not begin a new section on social relationships following one on praise and worship. Rather, it continues to amplify what the joy of being filled with the Spirit consists in. To many people, submitting sounds the opposite of singing and giving thanks. But in a community where agape* reigns, and where giving of oneself to others is

33 For a discussion of various approaches to this issue, see Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, Bread Not Stone (Boston: Beacon, 1984), pp. 65-83.

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normally reciprocated, this is not so.

Reciprocal duties are listed in 5:216:9, then, not to enforce the subordination of some groups to others, but to encourage the mutual submission of all to all. To be sure, wives are told to submit to their husbands (5:24). But husbands are not told to rule over their wives. They are to give themselves for their wives, even as did Christ on the cross (5:25). As Markus Barth has pointed out, every exhortation in this passage is grounded in specific references to Christ.34 Slaves, for instance, are told to work willingly "as to the Lord and not to humans" (6:7). They and their work are given an inherent dignity regardless of the oppressive circumstances in which they may labor. Meanwhile, masters are told to treat slaves kindly, for they, too, stand under Christ's authority and judgment (6:9).

Wherever both poles of this mutual submission are stressed, and the orientation of every relationship and form of labor toward Christ is emphasizedin such communities every form of social subordination, including slavery, must eventually be abolished.

These emphases correspond to the themes of the letter. Had any epistle wished to stress the rule of some groups over others, none could have done it more consistently than Ephesians. Ephesians 13 presents Christ as raised "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in that which is to come" (Eph. 1:21). Moreover, Christians "sit with him in heavenly places" (Eph. 2:6). Had any epistle wished to exhort, "As Christ rules, so must you!" Ephesians could certainly have done so. But despite its stress on Jesus' risen lordship, it never makes this a norm for human behavior. Instead, when Ephesians 46 takes up the theme of human behavior, it focuses, as our previous section showed, on his way of life climaxed on the cross (Eph. 4:2; 4:325:2).

Moreover, Ephesians emphasizes the breaking down of barriers between opposed groups (2:11-19) to form a new social unit, the church (1:22-23; 2:20-22; 4:4-16). Seen in cosmic perspective, this new unit is hardly adjusting conservatively to society. Instead, a new reality is being introduced into human history "that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places" (3:10). In the present, the church wages a bitter struggle against these powers, although its only weapons are spiritual (6:10-20).

Ephesians, then, despite its emphasis on Christ's cosmic lordship, holds up Jesus' self-giving behavior alone as the norm for human

34Ephesians (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 652, 756. Barth doubts, therefore, that any Haustafel can be reconstructed from this passage.

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activity. When it deals with relationships among social classes, this standard underlies all its considerations.

Yet perhaps Ephesians is dealing only with such social relationships as exist among church members. Perhaps its witness to "the principalities and powers" occurs only in some spiritual dimension. Is it possible that when the New Testament explicitly considers the relationship of Christians to sociopolitical structures it takes another point of view?

B

1 Peter 2:133:12

Peter directs slaves to "be submissive" to their masters (1 Peter 2:18-20), and wives, to their husbands (3:1-7). He prefaces this by urging everyone, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right" (2:13-14).

Is not Peter here advocating conventional behavior in all matters touching the "secular kingdom"? Can we not catch at least a glimpse of a church whose hope for Christ's return was fading and was therefore adjusting conservatively to society?

The overall context of these remarks shows that neither Peter nor his readers had been affected much by the delay of the parousia. The letter is charged with eschatological expectation. "The end of all things is at hand!"35 Persecution has become severe. Christians are being malignedmuch as was their Lordfor being socially disruptive. Such charges put them on trial before the world. In such a trial, their behavior can become a witness to the truth of what they believe. If Christians can consistently "maintain good conduct among the Gentiles," then, when the Gentiles "speak against you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation" (2:12).

This, then, is the main reason for being "subject to every human institution" (2:13). For "it is God's will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people" (2:15). Christians do not obey the authorities because the authorities are alwaysor even usuallyright. The epistle shows plainly that they are often disastrously wrong! But it is precisely through patient, nonretaliatory conduct in the face of injustice that the agape * of Christ is most clearly manifested. And it is just through such conduct that Christians can most decisively affect the Gentile world and offer it salvation.

When Peter points explicitly to Jesus, then, it is to his exemplary

35 4:7; cf. 1:6-7, 13; 4:17-18; 5:10.

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behavior in social conflict. When society or its structures treat Christians unjustly, they should follow the one of whom it was said, "He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted himself to him who judges justly" (2:22-23).

"Being subject" to political institutions, then, is not passive conformity to their behavioral standards, but one dimension of the uniquely transforming way of agape *. Similarly, the admonition to slaves and wives to be submissive is but one side of a broader corporate behavioral pattern. Much as in Ephesians, Peter's primary admonition is to the entire community to "have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart, and a humble mind."36

Recently, John Elliot has argued that the Petrine communities consisted largely of the "homeless" (esp. 1:1, 17; 2:11). As Asia Minor became increasingly controlled by Roman military and agricultural interests, greater numbers sank into the ranks of the displaced, wandering poor, or into serflike or menial laborer status. For such homeless persons, the gospel offered a new community, a new "household."37 While persecution threatened to disrupt this household, Peter's letter treated the crisis as an opportunity for strengthening its sense of identity and differentiation from the surrounding world. The goal was not to withdraw from society, however, but to witness to it.38

Elliot argues that the "household tables" of 2:183:7 give evidence not of the communities' assimilation to society, but of their distinct household consciousness. When Peter addresses slaves, he uses not the usual Greek word (doulos), but a term meaning "household slave" (oiketes*). He probably addresses the household slaves first because their

36 3:8, cf. 4:8-10, 5:2-5. John H. Yoder calls this attitude "revolutionary subordination" and critiques the common understanding of the household codes on this basis (The Politics of Jesus [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], pp. 163-192).

37 1 Peter 2:5; 4:17. See John Elliot, A Home for the Homeless (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), pp. 21-73. Becoming a household was not merely a secondary consquence of becoming Christian, "because Christianity from the outset envisaged salvation not merely as an individual but primarily as a collective experience which involved the formation of a new and distinctive social structure" (p. 134).

38 Ibid., pp. 112-118. It was this very distinctiveness of the early church which "accounts not only for the tribulations of the movement but also its final triumph" (p. 284). "By claiming to be a new race they aroused the hatred of the masses; by living as members of this third race they won over the masses" (Ernest Colwell, in McNeill, ed., Environmental Factors in Early Christianity, [Chicago: University, 1939], p. 57).

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situation is "paradigmatic for all the members of the household of faith." The community is in the same position relative to pagan society as is a slave to an unjust master. At the same time, "all the members are in a certain sense oiketai . . . servants of one another." That Peter follows this admonition directly with the example of Christ (2:21-25) shows that in God's household, slaves do not occupy the same unimportant positions that they do in society. Rather, they can well be "exemplary members" of the community.39

Peter also connects the opposition of pagan society and its rulers with the opposition of spiritual powers. In this time of persecution, "the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (5:8). Peter also mentions that Jesus, being made alive in the Spirit, "preached to the spirits in prison" (3:19). Despite the obscurities of this passage, these "spirits" are apparently the fallen angels who became gods of ancient civilizations. Whatever the exact results of Jesus' preaching, it shook the foundations of pagan society.40 In its context, this witness of Christ provides a model for the readers' witness before contemporary pagan rulers (3:15-16). This passage appropriately ends with Jesus resurrection, through which he "is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him." This assures the readers that Christ has already conquered the forces behind the opposition they face (3:22).

In 1 Peter, then, Jesus' way provides the model not only for relationships within the church, but for the church's relationship to society. Rather than being a passive retreat from evil, living by agape * under persecution provides a positive witness to society. This witness is not just an individual witness, but is the corporate witness of God's entire "household," where all groups and classes submit to each other (cf. Eph. 3:10). It thereby provides a home for the homeless of the world, and an alternative social model which shows what fully humanized relationships are like.

C

Romans 12:1413:14

Through the centuries, no text has been more central to discus-

39 Ibid., p. 207. Elliot is critical of the tendency "to treat all the New Testament household codes en bloc rather than to inquire concerning a specific function of a code within a specific document" (p. 208).

40 Bo Reicke. The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), pp. 109-111; E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter (London: Macmillan, 1964), pp. 197-202; J. N. D. Kelly, pp. 153-157, 164; Ernest Best, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 142-145.

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sions of church and state than Romans 13:1-7. Here Paul affirms that "the authority" is "God's servant for your good" (Rom. 13:3-4). "Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed" (13:1-2). Here, more emphatically than in 1 Peter 2, the ruler's commands seem so identified with God's that Christians would have to obey them, even if they contradict Jesus' "strenuous" teachings.

Like the two texts discussed above, however, we can grasp the implications of this one only if we understand it within its larger context.41 This text is usually thought to end at 13:7 which instructs readers to give to everyone "what is due (tas opheilas)," whether that be taxes, revenue, respect, or honor. Yet verse 8 introduces something of a criterion for deciding what is truly due. "Owe (opheilete) no one anything, except to love one another; for whoever loves the neighbor has fulfilled the law." Verses 11-14 show that an atmosphere of eschatological urgencyrather than a conservatism rising from the delay of the parousiapervades the chapter.

The entire section beginning with chapter 12 encourages readers, "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (12:2). The key to this outlook, as it was in Ephesians and 1 Peter, is the transformed human relationships existing in the church (12:3-16; cf. 14:115:7). In chapter 12, as in 13:8-11, living by agape * is the key (12:9-10). As in 1 Peter, one is to meet persecution with blessing (12:14) and evil is to be overcome by good (12:17, 20-21). Christians must never avenge themselves, but "leave it to the wrath of God" (12:19).

How can one square Paul's emphasis on behavior so opposed to what usually occurs in political affairs with his insistence on obedience to rulers? Paul's word for "authorities," exousiai (13:1), provides a clue. In every other instance where Paul uses this word in the plural, it means supernatural, demonic "powers."42 Moreover, while Paul tells Christians to leave vengeance "to the wrath of God" (12:19), he calls "the authority (exousia[n]) . . . the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer" (13:3-4).

Now in Volume I, Chapter 17 we argued that, at least until Christ's resurrection, God normally exercised wrath upon sinners by handing

41 For an opposing approach, see Ernst Käsemann, "Principles of Interpretation of Romans 13" in New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), p. 199.

42 1 Cor. 15:24; Eph. 1:21; 3:10; 6:12; Col. 1:16; 2:10, 15. The plural also appears with this meaning in 1 Peter 3:22. (Its meaning is disputed, however, in Titus 3:1, which is similar to Rom. 13:1.) The word for "rulers" in Rom. 13:3 designates supernatural powers in Eph. 2:2 and in 1 Cor 2:6 and 8. (See our discussion below.)

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them over to the dominion of demonic powers. These powers normally operated through the agency of political rulers, although the latter were not strictly identical with them. Is Paul saying that since Christ's resurrection, God still executes civil justice through such powers and their political representatives? For although the New Age has "already" broken into history, the "not yet" of the old age still runs alongside it.

If so, then these "authorities" would be God's "servants" only in the indirect sense that such powers are. Insofar as they maintained basic civil order and executed judgment, they would be carrying out God's will. Yet on a deeper level, insofar as they opposed God's agape * and his saving work, they would still be contrary to it. But if so, Paul would hardly be telling Christians to adopt secular standards of behavior as ethical norms.

Fierce debate has raged as to whether by exousiai Paul means demonic "powers." While its plural uses denote demonic powers, its singular usage means authority or power in general, and can refer to political rulers. The meaning of any use of the term, then, must be determined from its context.43

The demonic understanding of the term is consistent with the whole of Romans and with Paul's theology in general. How does God execute judgment on sin? In his important introductory section on God's wrath, Paul writes that when humanity turned away from God, this wrath operated indirectly. God delivered them over, or gave them up, to the consequences of their actions (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). Throughout Romans 58, Paul argues that humankind from Adam's transgression until Christ has been under the dominion of sin, death, law, and the flesh. Paul concludes this section by celebrating Christ's conquest over every enemy, including "principalities" and "powers" (8:38). These major themes are consistent with the notion that God still executes wrath indirectlythrough political rulers.44

43 Clinton Morrison, The Powers That Be (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960), p. 42. In Luke 12:11, the only use of the plural outside Paul, exousiai means political rulers. Paul uses the word in the singular in 13:3 and 4 (although this form also refers to the demonic in Eph. 2:2). For an excellent discussion of the linguistic and other arguments pro and con, see Morrison, pp. 11-62. For the demonic interpretation, see Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Scribner's, 1956), pp. 55-60, 95-114. For the opposing view, see John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), pp. 252-256.

44 Anders Nygren understands the whole of Romans in this way, although he does not draw the same practical consequences from Romans 13 as we do (Commentary on Romans [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1949], esp. pp. 426-431). For the general eschatological approach to Romans, see Chap. 7 below.

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Some would object, however, that when Paul speaks of powers, he refers only to spiritual realities, not social ones. Yet in 1 Corinthians 2:6-9, the ''rulers of this age" are not only demonic forces, but also the earthly rulers who killed Jesus. Paul also urges the Corinthians not to take disputes among themselves to civil courts. Even though these courts may decide justly on some cases, Christians themselves will someday "judge the world" (1 Cor. 6:2). In a parallel statement, Paul affirms that Christians will also "judge angels" (1 Cor. 6:3). The notion that supernatural beings stand behind earthly magistrates and that the justice of both is quite different from that of Christians undergirds this passage.45 Moreover, Paul's emphatic assertions of Christ's authority over "every" power^46 shows that both spiritual and earthly ones are included.

In brief, objectors to including demonic powers within the meaning of exousiai in Romans 13:1 often assume that "heavenly powers and earthly powers are different and distinct."47 However, we have seen that the intertwining of the two, though it confuses the modern mind, is intrinsic to the "Christus victor" perspective found throughout the New Testament (see Vol. I, Chap. 17).

Romans 13, then, like 1 Peter 2, teaches a somewhat paradoxical relationship between Christians and the state. In neither letter has eschatological intensity really faded. The orders of the Old Age are still regarded as highly provisional. Nevertheless, like pagan governments in Old Testament times, present ones can still promote civic order by punishing evil and rewarding good. Both letters show not that human social life is unalterably inscribed within certain hierarchical patterns, but that God's purposes are actualized through the voluntary submission of Christians to each other and to the state.

By granting the exousiai such functions, God still "orders" the world.48 "Ordering" is a better translation for the words usually trans-

45 Cullmann, pp. 60-70.

46 1 Cor. 15:24; Phil. 2:9-11; Eph. 1:21-22; Col. 1:16, 20.

47 Morrison, p. 45. Many interpreters also assume that 1 Cor. 2:6-9 and 6:1-3 must deal either with human or with supernatural powers. They thus defend one of these options, overlooking the possibility that aspects of both may be involved.

48 In fact, since Christ has already conquered the powers and is presently affecting their actual operations, their potential for doing good can become greater. (On this complex topic, see Chap. 11 below.) Many who interpret the exousiai of Romans 13 as demonic powers argue that they serve Christ in a far more direct sense than we would assert (e.g., Cullmann, Christ and Time [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964], pp. 191-210). Some who object to this interpretation of exousiai do so largely out of disagreement with this apparent implication. (See Morrison, pp. 51-54.)

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lated "instituted," "appointed," or "ordained" by God in Romans 13:1-2. In fact, the same stem underlies the word instructing Christians to "submit" to social institutions and to each other.49

The norm of Christian behavior, however, remains the agape * actualized in Jesus' way to the cross. The behavior of a community ruled by agape* will differ radically from that of other human groups. It will often come in conflict with the practices of society at large and with the state. But since agape* includes the giving of oneself unto death, even in face of injustice, Christians will submit to the state as did Jesus. In Chapter 11, we will see how this approachrather than passively accepting the evils in society and governmentcan most profoundly challenge and change them.

IV

Summary

Although Volume I pointed to Jesus Christ as the norm for anthropology, many have argued that his "strenuous" teachings about forgiving, overflowing, nonviolent love rested on an eschatological mistake. They claim that because one could never practice Jesus' "strenuous" ethics while earthly social institutions continued, Jesus must have expected history shortly to be abolished. And since Jesus and the earliest church were mistaken about the eschaton's coming, their successors gradually filled out the picture of normative human behavior with standards from contemporary culture. Since this occurred within the New Testament itself, one need not base theological anthropology in any era on Jesus. Rather, one can freely incorporate norms from one's own culture.

We have argued that neither Jesus nor the earliest church definitely expected sociohistorical existence to cease.50 The eschaton arrived as Jesus had said. It consisted not in the abolition of history, but in the defeat of all powers oppressing humankind and in the formation of a new community. This new community is indwelt by the Spirit, lives by agape*, and proclaims the kerygma throughout creation. Nowhere

49 See Yoder, pp. 203-204. The root word is tasso*. It is found in the key word for "submit," hupotasso*, found in Eph. 5:21, 22, 24; in 1 Peter 2:13, 18; 3:1, 5; 5:5; and in Romans 13:1 and 5. Romans 13:1-2 says that the authorities "that exist have been instituted (tetagmenai) by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists what God has appointed (diatage*)." See also John Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, pp. 183-184, note 35.

50 Elliot argues this for the readers of 1 Peter (pp. 129-132).

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does the New Testament advocate an anthropological norm for this way of life other than Jesus Christ, or a behavioral standard other than the way of agape * which leads to the cross. Not in Romans nor in 1 Peter nor in Ephesians does this sense of living in the eschaton significantly fade. Precisely in these letters the way of agape* is neither supplemented nor modified, but applied creatively to new social situations.

Having established our foundation for anthropology in a general way, we are now ready to work out its implications for the issues raised in Chapters 1 and 2.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Childs, James. Christian Anthropology and Ethics. Philadephia: Westminster, 1978.

Cullmann, Oscar. The State in the New Testament. New York: Scribners, 1956.

Curran, Charles. Directions in Fundamental Moral Theology. Notre Dame, Ind.: University, 1985.

Elliot, John. A Home for the Homeless. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981.

Furnish, Paul. Theology and Ethics in Paul. Nashville: Abingdon, 1978.

Gustafson, James. Christ and the Moral Life. Chicago: University, 1968.

Hauerwas, Stanley. A Community of Character. Notre Dame, Ind.: University, 1981.

McClendon, Jr., James Wm. Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. I. Nashville: Abingdon, 1987.

Morrison, Clinton. The Powers That Be. Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960.

Nygen, Anders. Agape and Eros. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953.

Ogletree, Thomas. The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics. Philadephia: Fortress, 1983.

Outka, Gene. Agape: An Ethical Analysis. New Haven: Yale, 1972.

Ramsey, Paul. Basic Christian Ethics. Chicago: University, 1950.

Verhey, Allen. The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Yoder, John. The Politics of Jesus. Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1972.

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Chapter Four

Obedience, Servanthood, and Stewardship

The Christian church, and the societies influenced by it, have been haunted by humanity's almost limitless capacities for good and evil. In medieval and Reformation times, humanity's positive calling was visualized as tending upwards, toward heaven, while sin plunged people downward, into earthly concerns, and finally, hell.

Over the last few centuries, however, as industrial and social revolutions have transformed the globe, theological anthropology has increasingly depicted our destiny and dilemma in horizontal terms. Our calling, or transcendence, is now presented as toward the future, through building a more just and humane society. Sin consists largely in those inherited structural evils and attitudes which hold us back. Although modern Catholic and Protestant anthropologies agree increasingly on this horizontal schema, significant differences remain.

Catholics have always assumed that our deepest impulses are oriented toward ethical virtue and social justice. Philosophy (and today, sociology) can describe these processes and their goals. These strivings are either indirectly related to an intrinsic orientation toward God (as in traditional Catholicism) or largely synonymous with it (as in modern times). Sin involves the loss of intimate communion with God (of "original righteousness") and thus obscures the goal toward which we move. Sin results in imbalance among the faculties (Aquinas) or the

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polarities of ex-istence (Macquarrie) involved in our striving. Yet we still strive in the right general direction.

In contrast, Protestants have sought to emphasizeand often to begin anthropology withthe radicality of sin. Sin has so distorted our minds and wills that philosophy and ethics do not necessarily point us toward God, even though they are regarded (perhaps inconsistently) as sufficient to guide daily life. Only in light of God's unforeseen, saving answer to our dilemma can we really begin understanding what we were meant to be.

We agree with several features of each approach. Catholics correctly insist that a vision of our positive potential must logically precede consideration of sin. Only in light of what we are meant to be can we really begin to see how we fall short. If we start from a general sense of divine wrathor law or feelings of guilt or despairwe may become imprisoned in a false sense of guilt, or regard certain redeemable inclinations as hopelessly evil. Catholics also correctly devote much attention to humanization. For this is emphasized not only in the modern context, with its this-worldly orientation, but also by the kerygma of God's kingdom. (And Protestants, we have seen, have had to deal with such issues in depth in their actual church practice.)

Protestants, however, have correctly insisted that if we take the sin's horror and salvation's wonder seriously, we cannot assume that philosophy or sociology can accurately analyze our deepest selves. Our perversion and our potentialities will emerge clearly only in light of revelation.

Where shall we find that positive, revelatory vision of human nature? Chapter 3 argued that this emerges in Jesus Christ, who alone is fully and truly human, regarded as the culmination of the human activities recorded in Scripture. Thus, we will not begin from the general human striving toward God, as do Aquinas, Rahner, Macquarrie, and most liberation theologians. We will not begin with an analysis of conscience and anxiety, as do Luther, Calvin, and Niebuhr.

Starting from Jesus, however, will require a different, largely historical, method. At first glance, this approach might appear incapable of dealing with the many social issues that Chapters 1 and 2 showed to be integral to humanization. For Jesus was, after all, a single individual.

Yet as we follow our method, answers to many questions raised in the preceding ones will emerge in their own way. Humanity's social character will prove to be intertwined with all that we discover. Certain traditional questions about body, soul, reason, conscience, and will, however, will be approached only indirectly by our method. Thus we will adopt a somewhat different approach in Chapter 5 to expand, and also to check, what we will develop in this one. Then, having outlined humanity's positive potential, we will be ready to deal with sin in Chapter 6.

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I

Obedience

Jesus the Messiah fulfilled the promise of the Old Testamentnot only in a divine way, but also as a human person. Jesus executed the tasks which Israel, on behalf of all humankind, had been assigned. The Old Testament is filled with the aspirations, struggles, and deviations of individuals and groups called to carry them out. These human acts provide more varied data for anthropological reflection than does the life of a single man.

However, since their significance becomes clear only in light of their fulfillment, we must take our primary bearings from Jesus. Much of our present chapter will consist of deeper reflection on Jesus' life as presented in Volume I, Chapters 15 and 17, enriched by frequent reference to Israel's history.

A

Jesus' Obedience

Let us ponder again the life of Jesus Christ. If any one characteristic stands out as fundamental, which would it be? We recall that the kingdom of God was the heart of his message. Moreover, Jesus lived wholly according to its reality and invited others to share it. All his human activities were directed toward bringing the fulness of God's reign.

We have also learned this dedication was not simply to a social ideal. For one thing the kingdom of God involves personal and cosmic transformations that transcend the dimensions of any such utopia (Vol. I, pp. 352-353). More fundamentally, however, Jesus' dedication to God's kingdom was rooted in his dedication to God. John, though he seldom speaks of the kingdom, emphasizes this by repeatedly stressing Jesus' utter commitment to God's will.1 This dedication persisted amid increasingly severe opposition. It was most fully actualized and expressed when it met its hardest testwhen Jesus moved deliberately and willingly toward the cross. To be sure, Jesus' cross was distinct from ours in important respects. Yet Chapter 3 showed that the way of the cross is to be that of Jesus' followers, too.

When Paul summarized the essence of Jesus' activityboth as the way to the cross (Phil. 2:8) and as the second Adam (Rom. 5:19)he called it obedience. Hebrews, which insists that Jesus was "like his brethren in every respect" (2:17), emphasizes that "he learned obedience through what he suffered" (5:8). Through these obedient sufferings Jesus attained the "perfection" which fitted him to be "the pioneer of our salvation" (2:10).

1 John 5:19, 30; 6:38; 8:16; 14:31, etc.

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Obedience is closely related to another important attitudethat of faith or faithfulness (pistis). Faith, of course, is the primary way through which humans come into relationship with God. Yet faith consists, in large part, in obedience to God.2 Hebrews calls Jesus not only obedient but faithful (3:2, 6), and indeed, "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith" (12:2). Chapter 7 will show more fully how faithfulness was at the core of Jesus' activity.

Jesus' fully authentic humanity, then, was rooted in obedience, dedication, and faithfulness to God. Yet since this faithfulness was a deeply personal one, Jesus' obedience was an outworking, an overflow, of communion and love. Indeed, in Jesus, humanity first entered into full sym-pathetic participation with the divine life (see Vol. I, Chap. 17). Thus, while his obedience did involve perfect conformity to God's will, it was not merely obedience to a law.

Through his perfect obedience, Jesus fulfilled the task which Yahweh had assigned to Israel. Yahweh repeatedly promised the Israelites that when they obeyed his commandments, Yahweh would grant peace and prosperity, and would dwell in their midst (e.g., Lev. 26:3-13). Moreover, through this obedience, they would become mediators of Yahweh's reality to other nations.3 Israel, then, was called to obedience not only for its own sake, but also because human obedience would play a role in bringing about the promised time. For "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Hab. 2:14; cf. Isa. 11:9).

The Old Testament illumines the character of this walk of obedience, or faithfulness, from many angles. The story of Sarah and Abraham shows how it involves persistence amid circumstances when the promise is apparently not being fulfilled, and which give rise to doubt (see Vol. I, p. 198). The story of Jeremiah shows how obedience can involve persistence in the face of fierce opposition and crushing loneliness. Moses' story shows how the promise can call some to the difficult burdens of leadership. And many psalms express the communion with and praise of God which can arise from the long walk of faithfulness (see, e.g., Pss. 107 and 111).

B

Obedience and Humanization

By insisting that obedience is fundamental to authentic humanity,

2 Acts 6:7; Rom. 1:5; 6:16-17; 16:26; Heb. 5:9; 11:8; 1 Peter 1:2, 22; 4:17; etc.

3 Note, e.g., Exod. 19:5-6: "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

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we seem to have collided head-on with the modern attitude. At least since the Enlightenment, humankind has sought fulfillment precisely through liberation from, not through obedience to, authority. Contemporary anthropologies praise the ability of individuals to shape creativelysometimes in opposition to all authorities and precedentstheir own destiny. Liberation theologies in particular critique Christianity's historic alliances with forces which have stifled humanization. Are we turning back the clock?

As we have defined it, obedience is first a relationship. God graciously initiates and guides the relationship. It is essentially one of spiritual communion and mutual participation in common tasks. The commands addressed to the human partners, then, are descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, they do not prescribe what humans must do in order to enter the relationship and to keep on earning God's companionship. Rather, they describe the behavior of those previously called into the relationship, and who keep on walking toward God's kingdom. Obedience, when understood as response to a personal invitation to partnership in an historic task, is quite different from suppression by an alien, impersonal authority.4

Further, we have seen that the call to obedienceas a call to walk toward the promisedemands courage and involves risk. It calls individuals and groups to differentiate themselves from their surroundings and persist on their path despite opposition. Jesus, who walked in such thorough obedience to God, had an extremely strong sense of identity and purpose. It enabled him to persist despite the misunderstanding and opposition of all humankind.5

When one uses the word obedience today, it is extremely important to specify: obedience to what? If obedience is simply to an impersonal set of rules, to social authorities, or to a superego located "above," it will stifle creativity and lock behavior into rigid patterns. If, however, obedience is to a vision of the future which stands in contrast to present reality, it will attract creativity and innovation. Visions and goals of this sort, as Karl Rahner has noticed, call forth human freedom.

Nevertheless, it is not simply that freedom from all limitations and restraints which has often been lauded in the modern world. It is freedom for a future which, while not defined in every detail, still has a definite shape. Accordingly, the behavior which leads toward it involves

4 The ten commandments begin with the affirmation, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exod. 20:2; Deut. 5:6). On the relationship of promise and law, see Moltmann, Theology of Hope (New York: Harper, 1967), pp. 120-124.

5 E.g., Mark 8:29-33, 9:31-32, 10:32-34, 14:32-42 and pars.; Heb. 12:1-3.

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discipline, limitations, and restraints.

Over against tendencies to attribute almost infinite freedom to humankind, a biblical anthropology must insist, as Reinhold Niebuhr does, that human freedom is finite. It is always freedom to operate within the parameters of our creaturely limitations and the specific character of God's call.

Having attempted to rise above all limitations and authorities, modern humanity has found itself in bondage to forces apparently of its own making. Could this be because authentic human freedom can never assume virtually infinite responsibilities? because, being finite, it will always find its operations directed by goals, values, and forces which it did not fully choose? In any case, contemporary theological anthropology must insist on the paradox that true freedom blossoms only through dependence on Someone greater. That is why authentic freedom is grounded in obedience.

As response to God's call and promise, the human obedience which Jesus fully actualized bears similarities to the notion of self-transcendence common in modern anthropology. However, neither Jesus' history nor the many others in both testaments provide much warrant for regarding people everywhere as continually called and graced by God, as Rahner and Gutierrez affirm. People do not seem generally open toward God's future. Rather, God's future seems to break in and create the space for response or disobedience itself. If humanity's basic structure, apart from such an inbreaking, is open toward God, this openness must have been deeply affected by sin.

II

Servanthood

Although Jesus' fidelity to God's kingdom was rooted in obedience to God, that kingdom had a definite shape. God's kingdom does not simply mean God's "reign" in a general, abstract sense.6 We have seen that it involves the reversal of all oppressive human relationships and the establishing of a new society. Jesus' human activity, then, involved not only a "vertical" relationship with God but "horizontal" relationships to his fellow human beings.

6 In general, modern scholarship interprets Jesus' "kingdom" more abstractly than we do. We agree with certain reasons for this (e.g., to deny that Jesus expected a particular apocalyptic social order to appear immediately). Yet this interpretive trend dilutes the concrete import of Jesus' teachings. For discussion, see George E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 122-148.

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A

Jesus' Servanthood

Oppressive human relationships, we have seen, are rooted in human longings for security, status, and power (which provide channels for demonic activity). But Jesus brought God's kingdom by exposing himself to insecurity, shame, and weakness through living as a servant. In an oppressive world, his servant way brought Jesus to the cross. Like his obedience, his servanthood was supremely tested, actualized, and manifested at the cross. Thus, servant became a title for Jesus among the earliest Christians. And although this title soon dropped out of common use,7 Chapter 3 showed that all Jesus' followers are to adopt his servantlike way of agape *.

As Jesus' obedience was not merely dedication to a cosmic principle, but a relationship of love and trust, so Jesus' servanthood was not merely commitment to a social ideal, but a loving concern for others. We can agree with Karl Barth's assertion that Jesus did not exist primarily for the sake of a cause,

for the control and penetration of nature by culture, or the progressive triumph of spirit over matter, or the higher development of man or the cosmos. For all this, for any interest . . . in . . . intrinsically possible ideals of this kind, we can find no support whatever in the humanity of Jesus. What interests Him, and does so exclusively, is man, other men as such, who need Him and are referred to Him for help and deliverance.8

Nevertheless, though Jesus does not subordinate the value of persons to an abstract social ideal, his concern for others "as such" is hardly unrelated to their social situations. For the dawning kingdom inevitably affects the roots of the social relationships in which we all live.

This means, further, that human nature as actualized by Jesus is not individualistic in character. Jesus' strong sense of identity and purpose do not set him apart from his fellows. On the contrary, his distinct purpose is precisely to serve them. What distinguishes Jesus from his fellows is that he exists for others so much more wholly than they do. What distinguishes Jesus

7 The title pais, which especially recalls Isaiah's servant, appears in Acts 3:13 (which C. H. Dodd locates in the early kerygma), 3:26, and 4:27. Jesus is called doulos, the more common word for servant or slave, in the early hymn of Phil. 2:7. The verb douleuo*, however, is not often used to describe Christian service toward fellow humans. (Cf., however, Gal. 5:13, 1 Cor. 9:19, 2 Cor 4:5.)

8Church Dogmatics, Vol. III, Part 2 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1960), p. 208.

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as a true and natural man, is that in his existence He is referred to man, to other men, His fellows, and this not merely partially, incidentally or subsequently, but originally, exclusively, and totally. When we think of the humanity of Jesus, humanity is to be described unequivocally as fellow humanity. In the light of this man Jesus, man is the cosmic being which exists absolutely for its fellows.

Earlier we questioned whether theology could deal with anthropology's social dimensions by beginning from Jesus. For Jesus was a single individual. In this respect, it might seem preferable to begin with Adam and Eve, who at least were a couple. But our reflections have shown that true personal existence, as actualized in Jesus, consists precisely in orienting one's unique gifts and vocation toward the service of one's fellows.

In this way, Jesus brings to light the deepest grounding of a central anthropological feature of the Old Testament. Old Testament thought did not make the sharp distinction between the individual and the group that modern Western people do. Instead, individuals attained their identity through participation in a group. And groups could be represented by an individual in such a way that the distinctions between them merged.9

This was true of the servant in Isaiah. In some passages, the nation Israel is called Yahweh's servant. (See Isa. 41:8-10; 44:1-2, 21; 45:4; etc.) In others, the servant seems to be a highly unusual individual (see esp. Isa. 52:1353:12). Although the relationships among these texts are complex, they can be broadly summarized by saying that while Israel was called to be God's servant, an individual would carry out this mission in a unique way.

Nevertheless, this individual's mission would not simply be to replace that of the group. For the servant's task involved calling all peoples to Yahweh (Isa. 49:5-6). It would not be completed until a group was formed which would continue it. In light of its New Testament fulfillment, we may say that Jesus' servant mission involved the establishment of a servant community.10 Jesus' servanthood was so entirely directed toward others that it would not be wholly completed apart from their response.

How, more precisely, might theology articulate the relationship between Jesus' actualization of fellow humanity and the participation of others in it? We may express it eschatologically. In Jesus that perfect

9 A classic statement is H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964).

10 T. W. Manson, The Teaching of Jesus (Cambridge: University, 1955), pp. 178-181, 227-232.

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servanthood toward which the Old Testament pointed was fulfilled. In Jesus a human reality wholly oriented toward other humans appeared.

However, that orientation points toward and calls for the response of others in like manner. Only when Jesus' followers unite into a communion of perfected mutual self-giving with him and with each other will the cohumanity fulfilled in Jesus be consummated. Perfected human nature, then, is an eschatological reality.

As ''already" actualized in Jesus, fulfilled humanity is a reality in which many participate in communion with Christ. Yet, as is always true of eschatological fulfillment, the joy and hope engendered by this participation urge us with greater longing toward the full humanization of people from every nation, race, tongue, and tribe. For Jesus' followers, then, the "measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" functions as a goal toward which we grow (Eph. 4:13).

In this way, Jesus fulfills the social visions of the Old Testament. A study of them makes the notion of mutual servanthood and its eschatological orientation more concrete. Such a study shows that Israel was called to these social visions not only for its own sake. For if Israel will observe Yahweh's religious and social commandments, "that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people'" (Deut. 4:6). In other words, the character of Israel's social life would play an integral role in its mediation of Yahweh's reality to all nations.

For example, although slavery existed in Israel, the Old Testament viewed it from a perspective which increasingly tended toward overcoming it. Israel's national existence began with Yahweh's liberation from Egyptian slavery. Remembering that they were once in bondage, slave owners were instructed to treat their slaves kindly, allowing them adequate rest (Deut. 5:14-15). Moreover, since all Israelites were Yahweh's slaves, no Israelite was to permanently enslave another (Lev. 25:39-43; Deut. 15:12-15). Such regulations helped shape the vision of a community where people from all social stations could stand on equal footing before Yahweh, and where division and oppression were eliminated.

Although the Old Testament allowed non-Israelites to be enslaved permanently, the general regulations governing slaves and those enjoining special concern for sojourning foreigners tended toward the overcoming of the entire institution.11 This history, as fulfilled by Jesus' reversed proclamation of God's kingdom, shows that true mutual ser-

11 For an excellent overview, see Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), pp. 192-205.

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vanthood is incompatible, in principle, with slavery.

The relative status of women in ancient Israel was somewhat more ambiguous. As elsewhere in the Near East, Israelite society was patriarchal. Thus most Israelite leaders were men. Yet female prophets, rules, and teachers of wisdom appeared.12 Israelite laws generally gave sons greater privileges than daughters. They granted husbands legal responsibility and authority over their wives. Many such laws, however, safeguarded women from possible abuses of these structures.13 What is the overall significance of these factors which favor women? Do they clearly point toward a coming reversal? Or are they minor exceptions to an enduring patriarchal pattern? This is one issue which anthropology cannot answer without considering Genesis 13. Section III will show how these chapters provide a perspective indispensable for interpreting the data.

In general, the more concretely one apprehends Jesus' kingdom ministry as the fulfillment of the Old Testament's social visions and struggles, the more insight can one gain into the character of the struggle toward true humanization. And all the clearer does it become that the corporate human nature toward which God is working challenges the structures present in all societies. Seen within this historical trajectory, New Testament social teachings appear less and less like codes merely borrowed from pagan society. Their radical reshaping by agape * becomes more apparent (see Chap. 3).

B

Servanthood and Humanization

Despite these implications, our designation of servanthood as fundamental to authentic human nature may raise objections like those aroused by "obedience." For our modern world has arisen through rebellion against all forms of subordination. Liberation theologians protest that Christian admonitions to servanthood have long impeded conscientization. And psychotherapists may feel that they stand in the

12 The prophets were Miriam (Exod. 15:20; Micah 6:4), Deborah (Judg. 4:4), Huldah (2 Kings 22:12-20), and Noadiah (Neh. 6:14); cf. Isa. 8:3; Luke 2:36-38. The rulers, in addition to Deborah (Judg. 45) and Miriam, included Athaliah (2 Kings 11:1-5). Wisdom teachers appear in 2 Sam. 14:2-20 and 20:16-22; cf. Prov. 31:1, 26.

13 E.g., although Hebrew female slaves were not released after six years as were the males, the law concerning them is devoted mainly to their protection (Exod. 21:8-10). Although men could divorce their wives, and we know of no provision for the reverse, the divorce certificate required of the husband was for his ex-wife's protection (Deut. 24:1-4; see also Mary Evans, Women and Men in the Bible [Greenwood, S.C.: Attic, 1983], pp. 24-32).

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way of self-actualization. It may appear that we are saying no matter how harsh or unjust others (or perhaps one's own guilt complex) may be, one should always comply with their wishes; one should neither raise objections nor concern oneself with one's own fulfillment.

In response, we emphasize that servanthood, like obedience, is above all the fruit of a loving relationship. As authentic obedience exists only in response to the One who calls, empowers, and guides, true servanthood is possible only in response to the self-giving of that One to and for us. Servanthood is possible only as mutual servanthoodas service is to the One, and to that One's followers, who also serve us. Authentic servanthood is the giving of oneself. As long as one's deepest self is not loved, affirmed, and nourished, one really has nothing to give.

That is why the call to servanthood cannot be prescriptive. It cannot be a command to suppress contrary feelings and behave altruistically in order to earn God's love even before one's deepest needs have been met. The call to practice servantlike agape * must be preceded by, or intertwined with, one's acceptance of God's own self-giving agape*. And such agape* will transform one's existence at deep levels only in a community where it is given and received. The call to servanthood must involve, in some fundamental way, the call to participate in a servant community. (This is why our anthropology can be completed only under ecclesiology.)

When one speaks of servanthood today, it is important to specify: to whom or to what? If one seeks to practice Jesus' "strenuous" ethics solely in relation to oppressive social structures or to the mandates of a negative self-image, one's behavior will often become legalistic. The repressed hurt and rage will find destructive outlet in other ways. But if servanthood involves mutual service within a community of servants, servanthood will function as an integral dimension of each person's self-actualization.

Where agape* is given and received, behavior becomes spontaneous and creative. The community which practices it begins to contrast significantly with others in its environment. The contemporary emphasis on self-actualization, however, is often apart from and regardless of concern for the needs of others. In contrast to this, a biblical anthropology must insist that true self-actualization occurs only through self-surrender to God and mutual self-giving with others.

We recently affirmed that true freedom develops only within the framework of one's creaturely limitations. Similarly, authentic selfhood develops only within the framework of interpersonal relations. An authentic self is not wholly independent from others, but is free for creative relationships with others. Accordingly, true servanthood may well

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involve the sacrifice of pleasures, achievements, material goods, and perhaps life itself. Contemporary theological anthropology must insist on the paradox that self-actualization develops through service, and even at times through self-denial.

III

The Imago Dei

Most theologians cite Genesis 12and especially its notion of God's "image" in humanityas the biblical basis for quite divergent anthropologies. For Thomas Aquinas, the imago dei referred "solely to the mind." For John Calvin and Charles Hodge, the will was also included. Hodge, however, also mentioned humankind's rule over the lower creation (cf. Gen. 2:15, 20a; 9:1-3), while later Calvinism spoke of a "cultural mandate" through which humanity subdued nature and developed civilization (Chap. 1). Recent theologies have intensified this emphasis on humanity's shaping itself and the world in partnership with God (Chap. 2). Nevertheless, Genesis 12 affords a fairly slim foundation for such detailed anthropologies.

In contrast, we have sought to establish anthropology explicitly on the fundamental features of Jesus' human activity, and on the ways they fulfill the Old Testament calls issued to humanity. We are now ready to employ Genesis 12 quite differently: as one help in crystallizing and amplifying some themes we have already discovered.

A

The Image as Male and Female

Karl Barth has developed some novel and stimulating suggestions concerning the imago dei. Very simply, Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created humanity man in his own image, in the image of God he created it; male and female he created them" (cf. also Gen. 5:12).14 This straightforward language, Barth insists, is the clue to what the imago is all about. To be in the image of God is to be male and female.

At first glance, this may seem simplistic. After all, the animals are also created as female and male (cf. Gen. 6:19). But Barth observes that Genesis 1:27 is preceded by the divine deliberation, "Let us make humankind in our image" (Gen. 1:26). Barth does not regard the plural here merely as an ornamental "plural of majesty," but as an indication

14 The word translated as humanity, adam, means humankind in general in almost all its Old Testament uses. In Genesis 25 it often refers to the first male, Adam. However, prior to 2:22, when the woman is created, it must also mean chiefly humankind, since sexual differentiation has not yet occurred. For a detailed exegesis, see Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, pp. 12-23, 72-105.

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that God is a community of wills working toward a decision. Godself exists in the reciprocity of I and Thouof love, fellowship, and relationship. To be in God's image, therefore, is to be capable of reciprocity and response.

In God's own being and sphere there is . . . a free coexistence and cooperation; an open confrontation and reciprocity. Man is the repetition of this divine form of life; its copy and reflection. He is this first in the fact that he is the counterpart of God, the encounter and discovery in God Himself being copied and imitated in God's relationship to men. But he is it also in the fact that he is himself the counterpart, the coexistence and co-operation in God Himself being repeated in the relation of man to man. Thus the . . . analogy between God and man is simply the existence of the I and the Thou in confrontation. This is first constitutive for God, and then for man created by God. To remove it is tantamount to removing the divine from God as well as the human from man.15

Barth supports this view by a detailed exegesis not only of the creation story of Genesis 1, but also of the one in Genesis 2. Here the creation of humankind as female and male again climaxes the story (2:21-25). But the incompleteness of the male without the female is highlighted. Yahweh searches for a helper for the man, yet all other creatures are wholly inadequate (2:18-20). Only the woman, whom the man recognizes as "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"16 completes the creation of humanity.

To be God's partner . . . man himself needed a partner. . . . If it were only like him, a repetition, a numerical multiplication, his solitariness would not be eliminated, for it would not confront him as another but he would merely recognize himself in it. Again, if it were only different from him, a being of a wholly different order, his solitariness would not be eliminated, for it would confront him . . . not as another which truly belongs to him, but in the way in which the earth or tree of river confronts him. . . . man needs a being like him and yet different from him, so that in it he will recognize himself but not only himself, since it is to him a Thou as truly as he is an I, and he is to it a Thou as truly as it is an I.17

15Church Dogmatics, Vol. III, Part 1 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1958), p. 185. For exploration of this theme with regard to women's liberation theology, see Paul Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975). Barth's argument presupposes the Trinitarian view of God developed in Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 339-560.

16 2:23. See Trible, op. cit.; Evans, pp. 11-21. For an opposed interpretation, see James Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), pp. 31-57.

17 Vol. III, Part 1, p. 290.

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Such considerations from Genesis 13 form the overall perspective from which the role of women in the Old Testament is to be understood. In Hebrew culture a woman left her family at marriage and virtually became, along with a mandatory dowry, her husband's property. Yet according to Genesis 2:24, it was originally the man who was to "leave his father and his mother. . . . " The subjection which women experienced came later, as a result of the fall (3:16). Jesus expressed this general perspective when he said that Israel's divorce laws were concessions to "hardness of heart . . . but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 18:8-9).

Although Barth exhausts many pages exegeting Genesis 1 and 2, his understanding of the imago dei is not grounded wholly on these texts. He notes that Yahweh's relationship to Israel is portrayed in husband-wife terms. The love and faithfulness which God extends toward humankind has its counterpart in love between the sexes. Later, Christ's love for the church (or, otherwise said, the cohumanity intrinsic to his human nature) is depicted with the same imagery.18

Karl Barth insists that the reciprocity of male and female is the only truly fundamental "structural differentiation" which characterizes humankind.19 All other relationships and distinctions among people are less fundamental. In no other relationships are the differences and the possibilities of hostility and estrangement greater, or are the longings for union more intense. People of all kinds are always similar and different, different and similar. This is most clearly and undeniably so in the relationship of women and men.

For Barth, the scope of significant masculine-feminine relationships is wider than marriage. Nevertheless, he assigns a supreme position to the latter.

The encounter between man and woman is fully and properly achieved only where there is the special connection of one man loving this woman and one woman loving this man in free choice and . . . full life-partnership. . . . There takes place here what can only be indicated and prepared in the wider circle, the female becoming to the male, and the male to the female, the other, the fellow man, which man cannot and will not be without. Here all that we have described as humanity has its proper focus, the home from which it must continually go out and to which it must continually return.20

18 Ibid., pp. 315-324.

19 Ibid., Vol. III, Part 2, p. 286.

20 Ibid., p. 288

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We will shortly interact with Barth's view. First we must explore an issue that it raises. If sexuality is relatedness among genuinely different persons, must there not be some important distinctions (other than purely biological ones) between females and males, between feminine and masculine characteristics? The biblical teaching is that, in general, there are.

However, the many differences among individuals show that all persons have some mixture of both characteristics. All females are more or less masculine, and vice versa. Moreover, sin has distorted the functioning of these characteristics in two main ways. First, all social definitions of sexual roles inhibit expression of some genuine characteristics for some people and encourage the perverted expression of other qualities for others. What any society regards as, say, masculine, may be quite different from what God created. Second, even genuine characteristics take on distorted expressions. Perhaps taking initiative is an authentic masculine quality. But it often turns into domination. Perhaps nurturing is genuinely feminine. Yet it often becomes passivity.

These historical and contextual limitations mean that theology cannot define feminine and masculine characteristics absolutely. In fact, in light of the reversals which God's kingdom brings, the church should often encourage people to develop qualities which have previously received less attention. It might encourage many males, even those who genuinely have, say, decisiveness, to develop contrasting qualities. It might encourage those who were previously more passive (often females) to develop initiative.21

B

The Image and Cohumanity

Barth's interpretation corresponds with much that we learned in reflecting on Jesus' humanity. Since Jesus, the fully authentic person, existed entirely for the sake of his fellow humans, human existence must be marked by the mutuality of this relationship, or in what we may call "cohumanity." Further, the biblical history of tensions among races, nations, sexes, and classes shows that while such distinctions provide potential for the deepest divisions within sinful humanity, their harmonious interrelationships in God's kingdom constitute the glory of redeemed humanity.

Yet we question, first, the importance which Barth ascribes to marriage. If marriage is so central to the imago dei, why was Jesus himself, who is the image of God (2 Cor 4:4; Col. 1:15), unmarried? Further, why did his call to the kingdom pull many away from family and even

21 For a fuller discussion, see Chap. 19.

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marital relationships?22 The radicality of God's kingdom is especially clear in its ability to supersede even those fundamental relationships of the biological family, and to form individuals into new kinds of families (see Vol. I, pp. 296-297). Thus, singleness can sometimes be a higher calling than marriage (e.g., Matt. 19:12; 1 Cor 7:6-16).

On the other hand, marriage can provide a vivid image or symbol of cohumanity. In fact, since it is a specific, regular, and significant material expression of this fundamental reality, we may also call it, in a general sense, a sacrament (cf. Chap. 13). It is a relationship which involves the sharing of life's daily details, yet which lasts throughout the years amid innumerable joys and trials. It is nourished through powerful and intimate emotional and physical expressions. Such interrelatedness is surely one of cohumanity's most intense forms. Yet while theology must emphasize the importance of this relationship and deeply appreciate its symbolic value, we have no warrant for assigning an anthropological priority to marriage. Otherwise those for whom the call to God's kingdom supersedes marriage (including Jesus and Paul!) become slightly less able to participate in the imago dei.

Similar questions arise when one equates the image of God with the female/male relationship. Do not other kinds of relationships exist among persons who are significantly like yet significantly unlike? Does not the crucial factor of similarity-in-difference arise in many situations which have relatively little to do with sexuality? Even for Barth, is not the difference-in-relatedness of the "I-Thou" relationship most fundamental?

On the other hand, sexuality has a certain priority in the sense that no human being would exist without it. People may live in communities composed solely of one race or social class. Yet few have existed without being integrally formed from their earliest years by some male/female social unit. In this sense everyone, whether black or white, rich or poor, cultured or uncivilized, proceeds from and is shaped by the female/male duality.

Accordingly, we may call it the most fundamental form of that interrelatedness which characterizes all humanity. Yet since that interrelatedness takes so many forms, and since sexuality is not dominant in many of them, we cannot identify sexuality directly with God's image.

Let us summarize the conceptuality we have been developing. Cohumanity, or interrelatedness, is an integral component of the imago dei. It consists in that difference-in-likeness, or likeness-in-difference, which marks all humans. It indicates that in striving toward authentic selfhood (to use Macquarrie's term), persons must come to grips both

22 See, e.g., Matt. 10:34-37; 20:10-12; Mark 3:31-35; 13:12-13.

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with their irreducible individuality and their inextricable interrelatedness. Female/male relatedness is the most fundamental form in which the cohumanity of imago dei is present. Marriage is a vivid symbol, or sacrament, of this cohumanity.

Through his servanthood, Jesus Christ brought the foundational character of cohumanity fully to light and actualized its positive potential. However, we must distinguish cohumanity, a fundamental structure of human nature, from servanthood, its positive actualization. Cohumanity means that, whether people exercise servanthood or not, existence in relationship with others is not optional.

Whether we recognize it or not, whether we desire it or not, everyone's character, fate, and even individuality are inextricably intertwined with those of others. Even if we seek to flee others, to subjugate them, or to ignore them, our very actions will be profoundly shaped by those whom we seek to avoid. In brief, cohumanity, as an element of the imago dei, is an ineradicable structure of human existence which we may seek to shape, or to actualize, in various ways. Its most positive actualization is through servanthood.23

C

The Image and Dependence

Our reflections on Jesus' ministry and on Yahweh's dealings with Israel and its leaders have shown that dependence on God is as fundamental to human nature as is cohumanity. The Genesis stories emphasize this by stressing that human life began when God breathed into the new earth-creature's nostrils the breath of life" (Gen 2:7). In the Old Testament, breath is not simply an autonomous vital energy. It is that gift of the Creator upon which all living beings wholly depend (e.g., Psalm 104:29-30). Accordingly, the chief function of human breath is to give back praise to God. The outflowing of breath from its Creator and its grateful returning from creatures form the field within which human life is energized and sustained.24

The Old Testament, which commonly uses physical organs to stand for basic human functions, images this dependence in other similar ways. The parts of the face which show the direction in which one's attention is turned, play an important anthropological role. Yahweh's guidance comes especially through the ear, through which people are

23 In the language of Martin Heidegger, John Macquarrie, and Rudolf Bultmann, cohumanity is an "ontological" characteristic, while servanthood is an "ontic" one. See Macquarrie, An Existentialist Theology (New York: Harper, 1965), pp. 29-37.

24 Wolff, pp. 59-60.

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open to the words of God's mouth. The ideal persons are those who, like Isaiah's servant, open their ears to be taught (Isa. 50:4-5). The word addressed to the ear, however, requires the answer of the mouth.

Since it is through appropriate, carefully pondered response to Yahweh's address that "man is for the first time a whole man," the Old Testament contains an extraordinary number of terms to describe the organs and kinds of speech.25 When God asks the human creature to name the animals (Gen. 2:19-20), God is calling humanity to responseability of this sort. When Adam and Eve turn from God, it is through heeding a contrary voice, and through seeking to cover this up with ill-chosen words.

In these ways the Old Testament, as graphically crystallized in Genesis 13, pictures humanity as dependent not simply on some divine principle or law, but on the gracious out-breathing and address of God. God's relationship with humankind is not regulated by some ontological principle instituted at creation, but on God's continually renewed call.

While Jesus brought the foundational character of this dependence to light through his obedience, we must distinguish dependence, as a fundamental structure of human nature, from obedience, its positive actualization. Dependence means that whether people are obedient or not, existence in relationship to God is not optional. Human beings are not essentially independent individuals who may or may not choose to relate to God. Whether one recognizes it or desires it or not, one's character and fate is already shaped by some kind of response to God. Dependence on God, along with cohumanity, is an ineradicable feature of the imago dei.

D

The Image and Oversight of Nature

As Reformed and contemporary anthropologies have stressed, the imago dei of Genesis 12 points not only toward God, nor merely to other humans, but also toward animal, vegetable, and mineral creatures. Humans are to exercise dominion over the lower creation (Gen. 1:26), to name the animals (Gen. 2:19-20), and tend the plants (2:9, 15). These relationships are adversely affected when humankind sins (3:17-19). As creatures formed, like plants and animals, of physical elements (2:7, 9, 19), humankind's nature and destiny are intertwined with the rest of creation.

The essential interdependence of humanity and nature finds repeated expression throughout the Old Testament. To be sure,

25 Ibid., pp. 74-79.

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Genesis' permission to ''have dominion . . . over every living thing" has been used to justify unprincipled exploitation of the natural world, particularly during the nineteenth century.26 Yet theology must allow the actual commands and practices recorded throughout Scripture to interpret this phrase.

Beginning in Genesis, the land of Canaan itself is a component of the promise to Abraham. Yahweh assures Israel of his special divine concern for the land. Their obedience or disobedience will deeply affect what happens to it (Deut. 11:11-17). The Israelites, however, are not absolute owners of this land.27 If they do not let it rest during the sabbatical years, they will be removed so this can happen (Lev. 25:1-7, 26:34-35, 43).

Yet not only bad ecological practices, but also social and religious ones will offend the land, causing it to "vomit out" the violators (Lev. 18:28; 20:22). The Old Testament repeatedly connects righteous living with the blessings of the natural world, while disobedience brings curses like drought, insect plagues, and famine. (See, e.g., Lev. 26 and Deut. 28.) The fate of humans and of the land on which they live are so interwined that when a prophet prophesies against the land (e.g., Ezek. 6:1-4, 36:1-8), one should not dismiss it as a mere figure of speech. In sum, the Old Testament does not justify any sort of "dominion" over nature practiced apart from obedience to God and respect for creation.

We have seen that Jesus' bringing of the kingdom involved a renewal of nature (see Vol. I, Chap. 15). He healed many who suffered from natural causes, for whom he expressed deep compassion. (See Mark 3:3-5; 6:31-37; and John 11:32-36.) We have argued, moreover, that the eschatological transformation anticipated by Jesus involved the continuance, not the destruction, of the created order. His teachings reveal a sensitive eye to natural beauty and a profound perception of God's activity and character through nature (Matt. 6:25-33; 13, etc.).

According to Paul, the eschatological Spirit which transforms human bodies is simultaneously transforming nature (Rom. 8:19-24). Of course, since the New Testament focuses on the universal spread of salvation, and not on the promise of a particular land to a particular people, it contains less explicit reference to nature. Nevertheless, the relationship between humanity and nature remains substantially what it was in the Old Testament.

Since human beings, as the Bible presents them, are always physi-

26 Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, pp. 231-232.

27 Lev. 25:23-24. Since the land is Yahweh's, it cannot be sold permanently. The logic is similar to that which forbids selling Israelites as slaves, since they are God's slaves (25:42).

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cal creatures interdependent with, yet having significant power over, the natural order, we may add to the imago dei a third fundamental component: oversight of nature. Like dependence and cohumanity, this oversight may be actualized in various ways.

Especially in the West, humans have often sought to exploit nature for short-term purposes, heedless of long-term effects on other creatures, including themselves. Indeed, one might use the term oversight to legitimate such activity. We use this word, however, to indicate that however humans relate to the natural world, this will involve a measure of control over it. For humans are actualized, in part, through the shaping of the natural world to realize human purposes.

Oversight, then, like the imago's other fundamental structures, may be actualized negativelythrough exploitation of the creatures entrusted to our careor positively, in line with the overall purposes of the One who entrusts us, and with the good of other creatures in mind. To the positive actualization of the anthropological structure of this oversight, we give the name stewardship.

E

Summary: The Image as a Call

We have called dependence, cohumanity, and oversight structures to show that whatever human beings do, they never cease being marked by these dimensions of the imago dei. Carefully considered, however, each of these structures proves to be a relationship. So far, when we say that a human being is a certain reality, we mean that, whatever humans become, they will always become so within these relationships.

Our investigations confirm in a general way modern anthropology's claim that transcendence is essential to being human. For dependence is not a static position of submission. Humans are created to respond to the dynamic address of God. Cohumanity and oversight of nature involve creative interaction and the shaping of relationships in response to this call. This call indeed draws us forward eschatologically (Gutierrez) through the tasks of earthly existence toward God's goals for all creation.

However, we name this God-ward relationship dependence rather than transcendence to stress that it is not an autonomous human capacity. Rather, it is actualized by God's address alone, as John Calvin showed.28

28 We also recall the common recent Lutheran position that while nothing remains in human nature which may be called the imago dei, the imago persists as God's continuing call (p. 23, note 32 above). Our understanding is somewhat like Emil Brunner's effort to distinguish a formal from a material imago. Brunner argued that humans retain a "formal" capacity for certain relationships, and above all to be addressed by God. Yet we possess no "material" capacity to respond in a saving way (Brunner and Karl Barth, Natural

(footnote continued on next page)

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We also use this term, linking it inseparably with cohumanity and oversight, to emphasize that the freedom which God elicits, challenging though it is, is finite. It operates within the limits set by relationships. If theologians, like Macquarrie, wish to call humans "cocreators," they should emphasize that we are dependent, finite cocreators.

So far we have found no reason to identify the goal of God's call with any psychological or social content, such as Macquarrie's authentic selfhood or Gutierrez's history of liberation. Since Jesus is anthropology's sole norm, his way of agape *expressed socially as the reversed way of God's kingdomalone provides this content. Rahner and Gutierrez are right that people are not called toward two goals, existing on two different levels, but one.

Yet one can hardly call the unique way of agape* "natural," or something that necessarily confronts people in every decision. One could better call it a product of "grace," since it emerged in history only through God's radical coming and defeat of opposing powers. But then grace would stand far more in contradiction to any philosophy or social system of the Old Age than it would provide an enhancement or "elevation'' of it (cf. Chap. 11).

These considerations help us relate our viewpoint to traditional Catholic and Protestant anthropologies. Catholic anthropologies, we remember, stress positive links between humanity and God. They articulate some broad vision of continuity among all aspects of creation and all phases of the divine work. Yet they often find it difficult to stress the real brokenness disfiguring our world. Sin often appears as a "quantitative" loss of certain virtues, as partial misdirection in striving after God, or as structural inhibition of civilizing processes directed toward God. Less often does it appear as tragic separation from and opposition to God.

Protestants, however, often stress the "qualitative" break between God and humanity so sharply that they lose sight of the coherence existing among God's purposes and God's creatures. By insisting on "total depravity" and the bondage of the will, it sometimes seems as if humankind has no relationship at all with God. Yet the difficulty with this emerges when many Protestants restore slowly in their social, political, and psychological practice what they took away in their theological anthropologies.

We can affirm the truth in the Catholic perspective by insisting that

(footnote continued from previous page)

Theology [London: Bles, 1946), pp. 23-25. See also Thomas Finger, Dialectical Theology's View of Reason (Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1974), pp. 292-304.

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no matter how sinful human beings may become, they never fall wholly out of relationship with God. Moreover, since our fundamental dependence upon God is no static principle, but is repeatedly established and renewed by God's call, all humans are in living (existential, if one wishes) relationship with God.

Nevertheless, in line with the Protestant emphasis, we insist that being in relationship with God often does not involve orientation toward the Good. For people can respond in many ways to a call. They may attempt to silence it. They may flee in various directions (perhaps seeking to convince others and even themselves that they are heeding the call). Yet even this suppressing and fleeing are responses. They are a paradoxical confirmation that humankind is always God-related.29

Our understanding of the imago dei can also account for the continuities (stressed by Catholicism) and the discontinuities (stressed by Protestantism) in divine-human and human-human relationships. If one cannot be human without being in relation to God, to humans, and to nature, then no matter how discordant these relationships might be, one will never fall out of them altogether. Therefore, since a certain measure of justice and ecological responsibility is necessary for human life to continue at all, human society will always pursue some aims more or less in accord with God's purposes for earthly civilization. Christians will be able to join some such causes (some more, some less). Yet they can never identify any with God's kingdom.30

IV

Jesus' Humanity in Relationship to His Deity

While all Christian theologies confess Jesus' lordship, this lordship often turns out to be surprisingly meager in anthropological content. Allegiance to Jesus is often restricted to religious or abstract reverence for his deity, while daily life is guided by other norms. In contrast, we have insisted that Jesus is also Lord in his humanity, and on outlining the concrete significance of this for life in this world.

Yet theologies of our kind also have a problem. In emphasizing Christ's humanity, we may obscure his divinity. In insisting that we are to become like him, we may fail to stress that he will always be qualitatively distinct from us. Even worse, in presenting Jesus as an example whom we must follow, we may imply that we can do this "on our

29 For the significance of this affirmation for world religions, see Chap. 12 below.

30 These last suggestions are somewhat provisional, since we will not consider sin in depth until Chap. 6. The issues outlined here will be discussed more fully in Chapter 11.

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own." Various brands of moralistic perfectionism, which virtually advocate salvation by works, have been spawned by religious movements stressing Jesus' humanity.

To avoid these dangers, we close this chapter by noting several key points at which Jesus is different from all of us. These brief remarks form part of that movement of our Christology "from below" which began in Volume I, Chapter 15, and which will climax in Chapters 15-19 of the present Volume.

While the general attitude which Jesus had toward his Father, his fellow humans, and his mission is one which we are to have, the specific content of Jesus' mission was unique to him. Jesus was called to definitively establish God's kingdom. He founded it; we only participate in it. Albrecht Ritschl grounded the deity of Christ on this fact. The kingdom is God's goal and purpose. Jesus fully identified his will with it at the time of its definitive establishment. "Therefore he is that being in the world in whose self-end God makes effective and manifest after an original manner His own self-end . . . in whom, in short, the Word of God is a human person."31

While Ritschl was generally correct, he did not probe the depth of this relationship thoroughly enough. Conceivably, an extraordinary but merely human prophet or visionary could have fully identified her or his will with God's at that historic juncture. The unity between Jesus and God's purpose was more deeply grounded in his unique relationship as Son to his Father (Vol. I, Chap. 17). To be sure, all Christians are now God's children. (See, e.g., Rom. 8:19, 21.) But this is only because Jesus chose to reveal his Father to us (Matt. 11:27). Our relationship to the Father will always be a derivative, gracious participation in that original relationship between Son and Father.

Further, while Jesus' faithfulness fulfilled that obedience to which all humans are called, his overall mission also manifested God's faithfulness. By completing Israel's mission in the face of indifference, misunderstanding, and outright murderous opposition, Jesus also revealed and actualized the agape * and the faithfulness of God (cf. Chap. 7). We have seen that the cross, when interpreted as a sacrifice, expresses the self-giving nature of God (Vol. I, Chap. 17). In other words, the agape* and faithfulness of Jesus were themselves the agape* and faithfulness of God.

Jesus' life of obedience and servanthood, then, while fulfilling God's call to all humans, had their origins in the divine initiative itself. When Jesus came to us, God came. When the kingdom came, so did the

31The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, Vol. III (Clifton, N.J.: Reference Book Publishers, 1966), p. 451. (Cf. Vol. I, pp. 267-269 above.)

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King. This initiative, as we shall more fully see (Chap. 15), lay behind the extraordinary authority with which Jesus acted and taught. No mere human could rightly speak with such authority (Matt. 5:22; 7:29; John 8:58, etc.), exercise it through such acts of power (Matt. 12:28; Luke 4:36; 9:1; etc.), and even forgive sins (Mark 2:5-7; Luke 7:47).

Finally, we recall that Jesus' saving work destroyed the lordship of the powers. Jesus himself now reigns and is worshiped as Lord. If Jesus were a mere man, this would not liberate us for full communion with God. Instead, we would still be under the lordship of a creature. Our allegiance to Christ would be an idolatry separating us from the true God.

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Chapter Five

Body, Soul, and Will

In the biblical perspective, human nature, much like the divine nature, is known primarily through its acts. While few texts directly describe human (or divine) nature, many pages depict the activities of people (and of God) in a wide variety of situations. Chapter 4 has shown that examination of these acts can enable theology to identify several structures, or relationships, characteristic of human nature. (Chapters 15-19 will show the same for the divine.)

Traditional anthropology, however, has concerned itself with the "components" and "faculties" that apparently make up the human creature. Theologians have inquired about the relationships of body, soul, and spirit, about reason and conscience, and about the freedom or bondage of the will. Today, these traditional issues can have surprising relevance. Questions about reason and conscience resurface as queries regarding how we know life's meaning. Questions about the relationship of body and soul reappear as the problem of whether behavior is governed by physical factors or whether humans have capacities which transcend these. Discussions about the will's freedom resurface as the issue of how thoroughly our environment conditions us. Behind both kinds of questions lurks the feeling and the fear that modern people, despite their longing for freedom, may be shaped and trapped by forces much greater than themselves.

Yet if we wish to discuss such issues, our anthropological foundation, Jesus of Nazareth, provides minimal guidance. Jesus said little about these human faculties, and his life yields scant information as to

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how they might cooperate or conflict. For in Jesus, in whom human nature was perfected, they presumably functioned harmoniously. However, this need not mean that such issues are unimportant. For "components" like body, soul, and will, or "faculties" like reason and conscience, seem most important when tensions among them arise. So even though Jesus' life and teachings may give little evidence that human nature involves such factors, discussion of their relationships might be important for the rest of us. Our explorations will help us check and supplement the conclusions we have so far derived from the human dimensions of Jesus' work.

I

Flesh and Body

Do all human thoughts and actions spring wholly from, and are they wholly reducible to, physical processes? If not, what is the character of those activities and aspirations which transcend them?

Thomas Aquinas argued that humans have an immaterial, intellectual soul which is separable from the body. Nevertheless, the soul also has motive, appetitive, sensitive, and vegetative powers. Through these it functions as the "form"the guiding, activating, shaping principlewhich governs the body (see Chap. 1). In modern times, John Macquarrie, while rejecting the notion of the soul as a separable entity, nevertheless insists that humans have the capacity to shape and direct material reality, including their own bodies. Humans are not merely physical creatures, but potentialities for becoming selves. One can never reduce this potentiality, this form, to material factors (see Chap. 2).

How closely or distantly related might these medieval and modern concepts be to the biblical data? Before we answer, two characteristics of biblical language about human nature deserve our attention.1 First, theologians have sought to ascribe as many human activities to as few components as possible (e.g., all religious activities to the spirit and thinking and willing to the soul). But the biblical writers often use a number of terms to describe the whole person. Consider, for instance, Psalm 84, verse 2.

My soul longs, yea faints for the courts of Yahweh,

my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

In this passage, soul, heart, and flesh are not distinguishable components of human nature. Instead, all three terms express that the

1 For what follows, see Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), pp. 7-9.

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whole person is intensely longing for God. Of course, there are a few passages where such terms have a specific anthropological function. Yet since these terms often appear in parallel with each other, each one more often describes the entire person from a particular angle than it does a single component.

Second, Western theology, with its Greek roots, insists that specifically human activities such as thinking and willing spring from mental or spiritual faculties. In contrast, biblical thought often names a part of the body when it wishes to speak of such functions. In Chapter 4, for instance, we noticed that when biblical writers speak of obedience, they often mention hearing and the ear, or of the organs of the mouth by which one responds.

A

Biblical Data

In traditional theology, reason is the chief component of the imago dei. But since reason is more or less the same in everyone, what is it that distinguishes individuals from each other? The answer has usually been: one's body. By virtue of their particular physical characteristics, rational individuals are distinct persons.2 The Old Testament, however, has a single word, basar, for the whole mass of bones, blood, organs, hair, etc., which makes up the animal and human worlds. It has no word for distinguishing a single body from this general mass of flesh.

Accordingly, in Old Testament usage, bodies do not separate one person from another and from the rest of creation. Instead, our bodies place us in solidarity with other persons and with the whole universe. For this reason, one's relatives may be called one's flesh (Gen. 37:27; Neh. 5:5) or one's bone and flesh (Gen. 2:23; 2 Sam. 5:1).

Sometimes basar refers to what we would call the physical body. Often, however, it refers especially to humankind or to human groups from the perspective of their weakness and frailty, and thus to their constant dependence upon God (Job 34:14-15; 2 Chron. 32:8). Further, since in our weakness we often turn from God, basar can also refer to our ethical frailty, although basar here is not directly equated with sin (e.g., Psalm 65:2-3).

In the New Testament, Paul alone developed a somewhat consistent teaching concerning the body. Its cornerstone was Paul's use of

2 Though Thomas Aquinas inherited this essentially Greek view, he modified it to some extent, arguing for the individuality of "intellectual principles" as well as of bodies (ST I, Q. 76, a. 2). Paradoxically, however, modern materialism holds something like the Greek principle in an extreme way. Since there is no such thing as "mind," physical differences must account for all distinctions among individualseven those usually regarded as mental.

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two Greek nounssarx (usually translated flesh) and soma * (usually translated body)to speak of the reality which the Old Testament referred to as basar. Before looking at their important differences, let us first notice how the usage of each parallels that of basar, and how they sometimes overlap.

Sarx (flesh) can simply mean what we think of as physical characteristics (Rom. 2:28, 1 Cor. 15:39), as can soma*.3 Yet one can use both terms to mean the whole person, viewed from a particular vantage point. This shows that neither was regarded as a separable "component." For instance, when Paul says "our flesh had no rest" (2 Cor. 7:5) and ''my spirit (pneuma) could not rest" (2 Cor. 2:13), both times he obviously means "I could not rest," but expresses this from slightly different angles. Similarly, Paul elsewhere writes:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body (soma*). . . . Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God.

(Rom. 6:12-13)

Here to yield one's "body" is a concrete, emphatic way of saying: yield your entire self (cf. Rom. 12:1; 2 Cor. 4:10-12)! Finally, both sarx and soma* often indicate solidarity. Paul calls the Jews his kinsmen "according to the flesh"4 and simply "my flesh" (Rom. 11:14). Slavery (Eph. 6:5) and freedom from slavery (Philem. 16) are social orders "according to the flesh." Sexual union is becoming "one flesh" and "one body" (1 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:29-31). The unity of believers in Christ is often described as union in a "body" (1 Cor. 12:12-31; Rom. 12:4-8). These overlapping uses of sarx and soma* show that they sometimes function in parallel ways. Seldom, if ever, do they denote a specific component or function.

However, when Paul wishes to speak of human frailty and limitations, he uses sarx more frequently than soma* (1 Cor. 15:50; 2 Cor. 1:17; Gal. 4:13). And in speaking of our liability to sin, Paul uses flesh even more often. For sarx involves being subject to "passions" which frequently are contrary to God (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 5:16, 24). Following these, people come under the dominion of forces which oppose God (Eph. 2:2-3). And these "fleshly" passions are not simply biological drives. They include all attempts to exalt what is physical, visible, and measurable over against God. For instance, placing one's total reliance on the law or on Jewish religious customs is living according to the flesh.5 So is confidence in other religious observances (Col. 2:18-23)

3 Or body. See 1 Cor. 15:38; Gal. 6:17.

4 Rom. 9:3; cf. 1:3; 4:1; and 9:5.

5 Rom. 2:28; 7:5-6; Gal. 3:3; 6:13.

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and in human achievement and pedigree (2 Cor. 11:18; Phil. 3:3-7). The results are not only sensual and religious perversions, but conflicts which destroy human unity (1 Cor. 3:3; Gal. 5:19-20). Indeed, so powerful is the activity of sarx that it sometimes appears as a suprapersonal power (Gal. 5:17; Rom. 8:3-8).

On several occasions, Paul apparently uses body in the same way as flesh. He speaks of "the body of sin" (Rom. 6:6) and "the body of death" (Rom. 7:24), and exhorts those walking by the Spirit to put to death the body's deeds (Rom. 8:13). Yet a crucial distinction emerges. In the midst of all this, Paul affirms that "if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you" (Rom 8:11). Where sarx means a way of life, it is utterly negative. Soma *, however, may participate in the new life.

Moreover, the flesh and its passions bind people to patterns of living and powers which oppose God. Yet people can unite with Christ and the Spirit through the body. This contrast is perhaps clearest in 2 Corinthians 6. Paul writes that whoever "joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her" (6:16). Thus Christians must shun such an incorporation, for fundamentally, "The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body" (6:13). For the soma*quite unlike sarxis "a temple of the Holy Spirit" (6:19). And it is through yielding one's body to the Lord that one ''becomes one spirit with him" (6:17).

In Romans 6 and 8, Paul places this whole process in cosmic perspective. To mortify the body's sinful deeds (8:13) is not merely to struggle against individual faults. For through the Spirit who energizes this process, we enter into Christ's sufferings (8:17) and the groaning for liberation which surges throughout all creation (8:22-23). In Romans 6, Paul speaks similarly of the contrast between yielding our bodies (6:12), or our "members," to the lordship of sin and to the lordship of righteousness (6:13-23). Indeed, it is through the allegiance of our bodies that we leave the dominion of sin and the flesh and enter the dominion of righteousness and God's Spirit.

That is why the realm in which this new righteousness is most manifest, the church, is frequently called "the body of Christ." As we shall see, Paul uses this term not as a weak metaphor, but to indicate a real organic unity among believers and their Head (see Chap. 10).

Through the yielding of our bodies, we enter into the mighty current of God's historical working. This will culminate in "the glorious liberty of the children of God" on the day when "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay" (Rom. 8:21). It probably is not

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accidental that Paul also calls this event "the redemption of our body (singular)" (8:23)not "of our bodies" as most translations have it. Similarly, he assures the Philippians that Christ will transform "the body (singular) of our humiliation" (Phil. 3:21). For Paul is not merely envisioning the salvation of individuals, but the corporate glorification of the entire creation.

B

Theological Affirmations

What, then, do the Scriptures say about the human body? The New Testament has two words, and the Old Testament one, to refer to what we think of as the physical, material body. Yet neither clearly denote a separable component. From this data, theology cannot tell whether individuals are really composed of a distinct body and a soul. Instead, the use of soma *, sarx, and basar shows that the Scriptures usually have whole persons in view, and that they view them from various vantage points.

The body is so integral to what a person is that to orient one's body in any direction is to orient one's self in that way. This unity also means that one cannot separate one's physical features, such as one's sexual characteristics, from one's essential self. Sexuality and sexual differences are fundamental to human natureeven if theology cannot define these differences precisely (cf. Chap. 4). However, since Scripture often depicts what we think of as "mental" acts by speaking of bodily organs, body/flesh cannot be purely physical in the sense of modern materialism.

Second, our three biblical words also show that bodies bring creatures together, rather than separate them. On one level, our bodies are channels of what Macquarrie calls facticity. That is, our bodies root us in the physical world and in ethnic and social solidarities which limit and determine us. Yet our bodies also function as channels through which our deeper, voluntary allegiance to other persons and forces is actualized. In fact, through studying basar/soma*/sarx we have returned by another route to what our previous chapter called oversight of nature and cohumanity. These general biblical terms show, independently of our study of Jesus' humanity, that humans always exist in solidarity with creation and with other persons. And even though people seek to actualize these relationships in different ways, they can never fall out of them altogether.

Theologically, then, we will use body not to mean a component of the person, but to speak of whole persons regarded from the standpoint of their solidarity with the natural and human worlds. Such beings can choose only by incorporating themselves into one solidarity or another. Body, that is, will function more like a verb than a noun. It will designate not an inert material thing which might oppose some spiritual

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activity called choosing, but a way of being in the world which intrinsically involves choosing.6

Finally, we have seen that life in the present involves a sharp conflict between two great corporate solidarities. On one side are those who make physical, visible, and measurable reality ultimate, and are thus ruled by the flesh. Yet the body, according to its intrinsic structure, is not necessarily enslaved to the flesh.7 For in the present, the fleshly solidarity is opposed by the body of Christ. However, while individuals appear capable of some authentic choice, that ability consists primarily in deciding between these two solidarities. No private space where the individual is subject to neither seems to exist (cf. Rom. 6:16-19).

Further, since all individual acts are intertwined within the movements of these greater solidarities, there can be no personal ethics separable from a social ethics. This means that personal moral development, whether one recognizes it or not, always contributes to and is shaped by broader ethical and spiritual forces.

So far, our study shows that Christian theology can account for a good measure of biological and sociological conditioning. For the solidarities in which we participate significantly shape what we do and think. Moreover, by insisting that most people are deeply intertwined with the flesh, theology can account for that fatalistic apprehension of massive evil which especially grips modern people. Nonetheless, by defining body as a way of being which intrinsically involves choice, theology avoids reducing human activity entirely to biological or sociological forces.

II

Soul, Conscience, Reason, and Heart

Although basar, sarx, and soma * by themselves show that humans transcend the merely physical realm, they tell us little about the nature

6 Rudolf Bultmann comes to similar conclusions (Theology of the New Testament, Vol. I [New York: Scribners', 1951], pp. 192-203). He concludes, "The characterization of man as soma* implies, then, that man is a being who has a relationship to himself, and that this relationship can be either an appropriate or a perverted one; that he can be at one with himself or at odds. . . . Soma* is in itself neither good nor bad. But only because he is soma* does the possibility exist for him to be good or evilto have a relationship for or against God" (pp. 197-198). On the relationship between such conclusions and Martin Heidegger's notion of "existentalia" see Macquarrie, An Existentialist Theology (New York: Macmillan, 1955), pp. 3-37.

7 "While sarx stands for man, in the solidarity of creation, in his distance from God, soma* stands for man, in the solidarity of creation, as made for God" (John A. T. Robinsion, The Body [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), p. 16.

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of that transcendence. For a more precise characterization of it, we must turn to those biblical terms translated by words for what we think of as mental and spiritual capacities.

A

Biblical Data

1

The Old Testament

The Hebrew word nepesh is often translated as "soul." In the Old Testament, nepesh often designates the organs of the neck and throat. Because eating, drinking, and breathing, which are essential to sustaining life, involve taking in things through these organs, nepesh can refer to the whole person as desiring, longing, or striving for life (Prov. 13:4, 19; 1 Sam. 1:15; Psalm 42:1-2). Nepesh can also mean "the seat and action of other spiritual experiences and emotions," approximating the English meaning of "soul."8 Yet nepesh never denotes "an indestructible core of being, in contrast to the physical life.'' It always refers to "the individual living being who has neither acquired, nor can preserve, life by himself, but who is eager for life, spurred on by vital desire."9

In the Old Testament, however, the word leb(ab) (often translated heart) indicates the core of the person more often than does nepesh. Like nepesh, lebab can mean desire and longing (Psalm 21:2; Prov. 13:12). It can also be used for a variety of emotions, especially courage and fear (2 Sam. 17:10; Isa. 7:2; Ps. 40:12). Today we often oppose heart and head to depict an opposition between feeling and thinking. However, lebab refers at least as often to "everything that we ascribe to the head and brainpower of perception, reason, understanding, insight, consciousness, memory, knowledge, reflection, judgment, sense of direction, discernment."10 To speak to, or in, one's heart means to reflect, to think something over (Gen. 24:45; 1 Sam: 27:1; 1 Kings 12:26-28). The heart is for understanding as the eyes and ears are for seeing and hearing (Prov. 18:15; 1 Kings 4:29-34; Ps. 90:12).

Of course, the heart's activities involve more than comprehending theories and facts. Lebab grasps the deeper significance of what it apprehends. For instance, though the Old Testament developed no precise notion of "conscience," to say that one's "heart smote him" describes what theologians mean by the term.11 In general, the Old Testa-

8 Wolff, p. 17.

9 Ibid., pp. 20, 24. Nepesh can also mean simply "life" (Lev. 24:17-18; Deut. 12:23), although this life always comes from God.

10Ibid., p. 51. Wolff argues that "These things circumscribe the real core meaning of the word" and that it "least of all means the emotions" (p. 55).

11 1 Sam. 24:6; 2 Sam. 24:10. See also note 15 below.

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ment seldom distinguishes between what we call knowing and doing, or between mind and will. That is, the heart does not reflect or theorize about things in a way which is separated from a person's activities and overall life-orientation. Accordingly, if the heart itself is inclined toward evil, the Old Testament knows of no independent activity of reason which can correct it. The only solution is a God-given "new heart" (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26-27; Jer. 31:33).

In summary, nepesh pictures the entire person as sustained by and longing for the life which comes from Yahweh. Lebab refers to the whole person in its feeling, knowing, and volitional functions as oriented toward or away from Yahweh. The portrait is similar to Karl Rahner's notion of transcendence. Nevertheless, the Old Testament gives little warrant for concluding that all people everywhere apprehend Yahweh in fully life-giving ways. As we noticed while discussing the imago dei, Old Testament people encountered God through hearing Yahweh's specific address, and through the particular answer of their mouths and feet.

2

The New Testament

The Greek word psuche * is usually translated soul. Yet like sarx and soma*, psuche* can simply mean the whole person. Every psuche* simply means "everyone" in Acts 2:43; 13:1. All three words can mean the total person from a particular angle. Like nepesh, psuche* often means a person's life in general (Matt. 2:20; Acts 20:24; Rom. 11:3). More precisely, again like nepesh, psuche* can mean "that specifically human state of being alive which adheres in man as a striving, willing, purposing self."12 In addition, like lebab, psuche* can refer to a person's inner deliberations and feelings (Luke 12:19; John 10:24; 2 Pet. 2:8). Here it comes closest to what we think of as soul.

As the true "life" of an individual, psuche* can persist beyond death. Jesus promised that those who lose their psuchai for his sake will gain them for eternity (Mark 8:35-38 and parallels). Nevertheless, his insistence that these psuchai can be lost shows that they are not inherently immortal souls. In fact, psuche* and the related adjective can mean perishable, even carnal, human existence apart from God.13 Psuche*, then, indicates the "life" which God grants humans, particularly in its purposive orientation, and sometimes in its inner thoughts and emotions. But it can become eternal only through continually receiving new life from God (Luke 21:19; James 1:21).

Traditional anthropology, as we know (Chap. 1), claimed that reason and conscience were fundamental faculties of the soul. Through

12 Bultmann, p. 205, emphasizing especially Phil. 1:27. Cf. Wolff, p. 17.

13 1 Cor. 2:14; 15:44-49; James 3:15; Jude 19.

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conscience and reason, all people were supposed to apprehend "natural" principles. Catholics, Calvinists, and even Lutherans have maintained that principles governing social behavior are known in this way. More recently, John Macquarrie describes conscience as an awareness of how one's present personal development measures up to that "authentic selfhood" for which one strives. Does the New Testament support such assertions?

The New Testament does have a specific word for "conscience" (suneidesis *). According to Romans 2:15, conscience bears witness to the law of God written on all hearts. Here we seem to have a faculty which guides everyone toward divine truth and toward humanizationeven apart from revelation. Yet Paul's more detailed discussion in 1 Corinthians demonstrates that the matter is more complex. Here Paul shows that what conscience says often does not accord with true knowledge (1 Cor. 8:1-7) or with what is truly lawful (10:23-29).

When people with "weak" consciences eat food that has been offered to idols, they suppose that they are necessarily participating in the worship of deities opposed to Christ. Of course, those whose consciences are informed by true knowledge know that "an idol has no real existence" (8:4), and that all food really comes from God (10:25-26). Yet Paul instructs them to respect the scruples of ''the weak." It is so important that one's actions accord with what one's conscience says that unenlightened practices must sometimes be allowed.

These and other passages show that what conscience says may often be false.14 For in both Testaments, it is not some innate, undistorted capacity within the individual. Rather, it is formed in response to the claims of religious forces and in obedience to the life which they command.15 Yet Scripture also shows that conscience is central to one's self-identity. Maturing persons can be "wounded" and even "destroyed" (8:11-12) when discord arises between what they do and what conscience, however wrongly formed, says.

Accordingly, the purifying and strengthening of conscience is a major task of Christian growth (1 Tim. 1:5; 3:9; Heb. 9:9, 14). A clear conscience concerning one's actions is crucial even for the mature.16 As

14 The conscience can be corrupt (Titus 1:15), seared (1 Tim. 4:2), or evil (Heb. 10:22, and thereby lead to dead works [Heb. 9:14]). Even Paul, who has robust confidence in the witness of his conscience, insists that not conscience, but God, is the final judge (1 Cor. 4:4-5).

15 The Old Testament developed no concept of conscience because self-knowledge comes only from "the God who speaks and who reveals himself . . . and makes possible responsible action. . . . The I is a single person confronting the God who speaks. Conscience is hearing in the sense of willing adherence" (TWNT, VII, p. 908).

16 Acts 23:1; 24:16; 2 Cor. 5:11; Heb. 13:18; 1 Pet. 3:16. If one disregards one's

(footnote continued on next page)

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it functions for the individual, then, conscience is a kind of self-awareness. It is not so much a distinct faculty as it is the entire person's awareness of the harmony or discord between one's beliefs and one's actions.17 Yet conscience offers no foolproof guide to trutheven about oneself.

While the New Testament has a common term for conscience, no one word for mind or reason is consistently or widely employed. Nevertheless, it has several nouns for knowledge, and many verbs for knowing, thinking, and considering.18 Since the New Testament, like the Old, often alludes to bodily parts when speaking of human functions, words for seeing and hearing must be included on this list.

Taken together, this varied and abundant terminology refutes any anthropology which makes human existence chiefly a matter of feeling or will. Sometimes humans seem to be guided primarily by what we think of as mind (Rom. 1:19-23; 1 Cor. 1:10; Col. 3:10). Yet the words mind or knowledge frequently involve more than intellectual functions (John 10:14-15; Phil. 3:10; Eph. 4:17-23). In general, persons as described in the New Testament are continually urged to ponder, to learn about, to reflect upon the significance of life, and especially of God's saving activity.

However, if one approaches the essence of human nature through terminology, the most comprehensive term in both Testaments turns out to be the word translated heart. Kardia indicates, on many occasions, what we usually think of as emotions (John 16:6; Rom. 10:1; James 3:14). Sometimes it is virtually identical with physical drives (Matt. 5:28; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:24). In other places, heart involves what we think of as will, or intentions (John 13:2; Acts 8:22; 1 Cor. 7:37). In many others, kardia performs thinking functions (Matt. 24:48; Luke 2:51; Acts 7:23). Not infrequently, such thinking and intending may occur on what we call a subconscious level (Mark 11:23; 1 Cor. 4:5; Heb. 4:12).

The kardia is the true center of the person (Matt. 12:34; Mark 7:18-23; 1 Peter 3:4). When individuals are truly united, they are united "in heart" (Acts 4:32; Phil. 1:7; Col. 2:2). Yet the kardia is often deeply hid-

(footnote continued from previous page)

conscience, one's faith can be destroyed (1 Tim. 1:19).

17 TWNT, VII, p. 914. In 1 Cor. 8, both persons and their consciences are interchangeably called "weak." Cf. Bultmann, Vol. I, pp. 216-220.

18 The most common noun for mind or reason is nous, which appears 23 times. Common verbs for mental activities, not counting common words for hear and see, are ginosko * (about 200 total occurrences), krino* (about 140), epignosko* (about 40), egeomai*; (28), suniemi* (25), manthano* (24), and phroneo* (22). The most common words for knowledge are sophia (49), gnosis* (28), and epignosis* (20).

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den under contrary outward appearances (Mark 7:6; Rom. 2:28-29; 2 Cor. 5:12). That is why God, who alone is able to penetrate to the center of the person, is called the One who knows and searches "the heart."19 As in the Old Testament, salvation occurs only when God touches and transforms the depths of the kardia.20 This is why neither conscience nor thinkingdespite the importance that the New Testament ascribes to bothcan be regarded as the dominant faculty of human nature, or as the source of the saving knowledge of God.

B

Theological Affirmations

In classical rationalist philosophy, reason is what people have in common. Their bodies separate them. In contrast, what the Bible calls body or flesh ties people together, while life/soul, conscience, and heart distinguish them. We found little indication that a mental or spiritual substance separable from a purely physical body might exercise the latter functions. Yet we cannot doubt that persons, as well as being cohuman, are also individuals. Conscience is largely self-awareness of the correspondence between one's deepest convictions and one's actions. The heart involves feelings, intentions, and thoughts which one may hide from others.

The heart, of course, cannot act in a way unaffected by physical and social influences. Its decisions consist largely in aligning itself with one corporate reality or another. Nevertheless, such decisions are made in the deep interiority of the self. Here alone does the person decisively encounter God. In a day when individualistic and socialistic philosophies vie for people's allegiance, theology must insist that humans are intrinsically individual and social.

Second, while the life/soul transcends the material world, its existence depends not on some principle within itself, but on continually receiving life from God. Similarly, conscience is not merely awareness of one's deepest self, but of oneself as claimed by standards and religious forces beyond oneself. Moreover, the mind does not reflect on truth within itself, but is called to consider what God has done and is doing in the world. In all these ways our study confirms and expands what Chapter 4 called humanity's fundamental dependence on God. We could also call this, as does current anthropology, human "transcendence" toward God, although we have found no warrant for

19 Luke 15:17; Acts 1:24; 15:8; Rom. 8:27; 1 Thess. 2:4; Rev. 2:23.

20 Matt. 13:14-15 and parallels; John 12:39-41; and Acts 28:26-27 all quote Isaiah 6:9-10. Heb. 8:8-12 and 10:16-17 quote Jer. 31:31-34. Cf. also Mark 11:23; Luke 24:25; Acts 7:51; and Rom. 10:6-10.

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Rahner's assertion that this movement is always met by grace.

Third, conscience forms in response to external forces and is socially and religiously conditioned. Therefore, we cannot agree with Macquarrie that it inherently witnesses to and draws one toward "authentic selfhood." For the criteria or sensitivity by which it appraises anything may well be distorted. As Lutherans have correctly insisted, conscience can magnify the devil's voice as well as God's (see Chap. 1). For the same reasons, conscience cannot teach all people common principles of natural law.

Chapter 3 and 4 showed that the way of agape * and of God's kingdom, Scripture's behavioral norm, tends more to contradict humanity's various ethical and social standards than to supplement or "elevate" them. Now this chapter challenges, from a different angle, the common theological assumption that an identifiable, knowable set of "cardinal virtues" and "natural'' social principles can guide most of human life. It thereby challenges the idea that Jesus' "strenuous" teachings can be restricted to a special personal, religious realm. Biblical history presents Jesus alone as our anthropological norm, and the biblical understanding of conscience and reason show that they will err unless re-formed by such a norm.21

Fourth, the notion of "heart" shows that the person is fundamentally a unit. Since thinking, willing, and feeling can all be ascribed to lebab/kardia, it is good to think of them not as carried on by different faculties, but as different activities of the same person. As we already affirmed in the case of body/flesh, theology should use all major anthropological terms (soul/life, conscience, mind, etc.) to mean the entire person regarded from a particular aspect. They best refer not to components or faculties but to ways of being. They are more like verbs than nouns.

Should persons also somehow be composed of separable bodies and souls, theology lacks sufficient data to affirm this. One must argue the issue, if at all, on philosophical grounds.

Finally, the rooting of all rational activities in "the heart" refutes the traditional notion that reason is humankind's guiding faculty. Moreover, so long as the heart is turned from God, neither reason nor conscience can acquire enough undistorted knowledge to guide true humanization on a "natural" plane.

21 This general picture bears out our claim that whatever is known through "general revelation" is usually grasped from a distorted perspective and mixed with error (Vol. I, Chap. 13). It is also compatible with our conclusion that Romans 13 does not teach cultural or philosophical principles distinct from special revelation, but is profoundly shaped by the anthropological and norm found in Jesus Christ (Chap. 3). 1 Peter 2:19 and 3:16 also appeal not to general principles but to the example of the suffering of Christ.

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On the other hand, in view of the many biblical words for reasoning, and the attribution of intellectual functions to "the heart," neither willing nor feeling can replace thinking as humankind's guiding function. Biblically oriented anthropology can neither overemphasize reason nor sell it short.

III

Will, Spirit, and Freedom

The previous sections have shown that while humans are not wholly determined by biological or sociological forces, they are nonetheless limited by them. We are limited, first, in a structural way. Through our bodies, or our "facticity," we are interdependent with the natural and social worlds. Second, we are limited through sin. Through the blindness and corruption of our "hearts," we participate in the solidarity of "the flesh."

Both factors raise deep questions about the character of human transcendence. How much freedom, one might wonder, do we really have? Such questions are particularly significant in light of modern liberation theology and psychotherapy. Both encourage people to take responsibility for themselves, to take their destiny into their own hands.

Traditionally, philosophers and theologians have dealt with such issues under the heading of the freedom of the will. Such discussions have dealt with two main questions which often became confused. First, to what extent is the will bound by sin, so it cannot choose the good? Second, to what extent is our freedom limited or shaped by God, so it cannot choose otherwise than God has determined? Ephesians 2:10 speaks of "good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Such a text may mean that God has predetermined even our specific acts. The predestination of some people to salvation and others to perdition seems to be explicated in Romans 911.22

Since the first issue mentioned above involves sin, we will handle it in Chapter 6. We shall prepare ourselves for this by asking, in the remainder of the present chapter, how human freedom and divine sovereignty are intertwined. In this discussion, interconnections between anthropology and the doctrine of God will emerge more clearly than they yet have in Volume II. Upon entering this profound subject, however, we must refrain from demanding more precise and comprehensive conclusions than the relevant data allow.

22 Cf. also Acts 2:23; 4:28; John 6:39, 65; Eph. 1:11; Rom. 8:29-30.

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A

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom

Among the early fathers, Augustine laid significantly greater emphasis on divine predestination and the bondage of the will than did any other.23 During the Reformation, both Luther (p. 10 above) and Calvin revived his emphasis as an antidote to Catholicism's apparent confidence in human goodness and freedom. These themes were increasingly stressed by the developing Reformed tradition in order to clarify not only the human structure, but, above all, God's nature and salvation's character. To set the issue of human freedom in its broader context, we will first notice briefly how the Reformed tradition has expressed these broader concerns.

Calvin's reflections on predestination appear toward the end of his discussion of salvation, and serve to deepen one's appreciation of it. Predestination emphasizes, first, that salvation in its entirety comes from God alone. It thereby magnifies God's sovereignty. "For when it is said that God hardens or shows mercy to whom he wills, men are warned by this to seek no cause outside his will."24 Second, this emphasis teaches us proper humility. For in salvation, "nothing, however slight, can be credited to man without depriving God of his honor, and without man himself falling into ruin through brazen confidence."25 Third, assurance that one is predestined gives one confidence in the trials of Christian life.

Charles Hodge reflects the emphasis of later Reformed tradition when he discusses predestination not under soteriology, but the doctrine of God. For Hodge, it is clear that God, as a rational and volitional being, governs history through a plan, or by "decrees." The character of these decrees can be deduced from God's perfection. Divine perfection entails, first, that the decrees are eternal. They cannot be "successively formed as the emergency arises, but are parts of one all-comprehending plan." This is because "it is inconsistent with the idea of absolute perfection, that the purposes of God are successive, or that He ever purposes what He did not originally intend."26

Second, divine perfection entails that everything decreed will hap-

23 For the sources, see The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Vol. II, pp. 84-93, 234-244; Vol. III, pp. 252-256; Vol. V, pp. 80-255, 374-552. For a discussion, see Pelikan, The Emergence of Catholic Tradition (Chicago: University, 1971), pp. 297-303, 318-330.

24Institutes, p. 947. Cf. pp. 936, 949, 951.

25 Ibid., p. 255. Cf. pp. 267, 298, 921-922.

26Systematic Theology, Vol. I, p. 537. For the treatment of this theme in Reformed orthodoxy, see Heppe, pp. 133-189.

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pen. For no one "fails to execute what he proposes, except through the want of wisdom or power to secure the end proposed, or through some vacillation in his own mind."27 And none of these can be ascribed to a perfect being. Finally, divine perfection entails that its decrees prescribe every event which will ever happen. For "he who purposes a machine, purposes all its parts. . . . Whatever is wanting in his foreordination is due to the limitation of human power." Therefore, "as God is infinite in knowledge and resources, his purpose must include all events."28

However one may evaluate Calvin's or Hodge's arguments, they clearly raise questions about the human will. For if God has predetermined that some people will be condemned, God would be the cause of their sin unless they had some capacity for choice by which they justly incurred their own condemnation. Moreover, sanctification would not be possible unless the bound will were capable of renewal. In other words, a person's created nature, or structure, must be such that free choices areat least with God's helppossible.

How do Reformed theologians conceive this structure? Calvin acknowledged that Adam's will, before the fall, could incline to either good or evil.29 However, Calvin is chiefly concerned to stress that the fallen will can make no movement whatever toward salvation.30 Accordingly, he often speaks as if salvation involves the creation of a new will.31 And even though he occasionally affirms that "in man's conversion what belongs to his primal nature remains entire,"32 it is difficult to determine what structure the old self and the new self share in common. It is probably the sharpness of this emphasis that leads theologians like Macquarrie to conclude that unregenerate persons, for Calvin, are not fully human.33

Reformed orthodoxy, however, sought to conceptualize more exactly what fallen and redeemed wills have in common by developing

27 Hodge, p. 541.

28 Ibid., p. 542.

29Institutes, p. 303. Cf. pp. 194-196.

30 Ibid., p. 294. For "if even the least ability came from ourselves, we would also have some share of the merit" (p. 298).

31 E.g., in regeneration, "(1) the Lord corrects our evil will, or rather extinguishes it; (2) he substitutes for it a good one from himself" (ibid., p. 299; Cf. pp. 300, 302).

32 Ibid., p. 297. Cf. pp. 308, 335.

33Principles of Christian Theology, 2d ed., p. 259 (see p. 29 above). Macquarrie, however, tends to simply reject Calvin's views rather than to dialogue seriously with them. (Cf. his critique of Calvin's concept of predestination, p. 245.)

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a precise notion of "freedom." The chief objection to Calvin's view is at bottom a commonsense one. Most people assume that the will, at the moment of choice, finds itself face-to-face with various internal desires or motives, and with various external objects. Some of these motives and objects may attract the will more strongly than others. Selecting some of them may be better for the person involved than selecting others. The will's freedom, however, is thought to consist in its having a certain power of its own to incline toward some of these motives and objects and to reject others. This is so even if the latter attract it more strongly and are better for the person.34

A truly free choice, therefore, must be somewhat unpredictable. Before the actual moment of decision, there can be no way of knowing which motives or objects the will might select. This means that true freedom is incompatible with any certain knowledge of what will occurincluding predestination.

Orthodox Reformed theologians agreed, with Calvin, that Adam had the capacity to choose among options. Unlike their opponents, however, they did not equate this capability with freedom. On the contrary, they attributed it to the will's immaturity, or imperfection. For freedom to choose any of several things, even if some of them are not good for one, is not true freedom. Instead, freedom is the capacity to will what is best for a person, unhindered by any obstacle. Freedom consists in selecting the object or course of action that best meets the needs of our finite, limited nature, and in being undeterred by all contrary motives or external forces in doing so.35

So defined, freedom can be compatible with predestination. For when God decrees that only what is best for a person shall surely come to pass, freedom will consist in following this pattern to the letter. Such a concept of freedom, moreover, enables theology to explain how the will retains something of its created structure even when sin intervenes. For sin, on one hand, involves an arousal of motives and an obscuring of vision which prevent persons from discerning what is truly best for them. Sin thereby insures that one will not choose what is God's ideal. On the other hand, the will will still choose in accordance with those motives and objects which impel and attract it most strongly. It is this

34 According to Hodge, this commonsense view holds that "the will, at the moment of decision, is self-poised among conflicting motives, and decides one way or the other, not because of the greater influence of one motive over others, but because it is indifferent or undetermined, able to act in accordance with the weaker against the stronger motive, or even without any motive at all" (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 283; cf. p. 296).

35 See Heppe, pp. 241-248; Hodge, Vol. II, pp. 278-309.

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basing of choice on dominant motives and objectsnot any capacity to act against themthat constitutes the basic structure of all willing.

We have sought to deepen our awareness of the limitations, or the framework, within which human freedom operates by considering the tradition which apparently places the greatest limits on it, can we agree with Reformed anthropology's concept of freedom? Or must we incline toward the view which it opposes? In light of what data shall we decide?

B

Biblical Data

Significant insight can be derived from a third group of anthropological terms: those translated as spirit. Traditional anthropologies often debated whether humans were dichotomous (composed of body and soul) or trichotomous (composed of body, soul, and spirit).36

The Old Testament ruach, when used of natural forces, means "wind." The wind is often an instrument used by Yahweh. In connection with animals and humans, ruach means the vital force without which they could not live (Job 34:14-15; Psalm 104:29-30; Isa. 42:5). When a special task had to be performed, Yahweh's ruach often provided the enabling. Through God's "Spirit" the judges delivered Israel (Judg. 3:10; 6:34), artists decorated the tabernacle (Exod. 31:3; 35:31) and Saul was transformed "into another man" (1 Sam. 10:6). In these and other texts, the ruach appears as ''an invisible independent being" at Yahweh's disposal.37

Ruach, however, is also an anthropological term. It comes closest to what we think of as the will, although not as a sheer volitional force distinct from thoughts and feelings. The human ruach can be patient or proud (Eccl. 7:8; Prov. 16:18). It can endure or be broken (Prov. 18:14). When Yahweh calls someone to a task, Yahweh "stirs up their spirit" (Ezra 1:5; Jer. 51:11). Above all, ruach is that dimension of the human person which can be especially moved by God's ruach. The new spirit which Israel will someday have is Yahweh's own Spirit (Ezek. 36:26-27; cf. also Ps. 51:10-12).

Pneuma, the New Testament word for spirit, can also mean wind and also refers often to God's Spirit. As an anthropological term, however, pneuma, like sarx (flesh), soma * (body), and psuche* (soul) can mean the whole person. In studying sarx/soma* we noted that by saying "our flesh (sarx) had no rest" (2 Cor. 7:5) and "my spirit (pneuma) had

36 Heppe, pp. 221-225; Heinrich Schmid, ed., The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3d ed. (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1899), p. 166.

37 Wolff, p. 36. See also Num. 11:17-29, 2 Kings 2:9-15.

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no rest" (2 Cor. 2:13), Paul meant the same thing. Further, while Paul often closed his letters with "the grace of God be with you (all)" (Rom. 15:33; 1 Cor. 16:23; 2 Cor. 13:14), he could express the same wish with the words "the grace of God be with your pneuma" (Gal. 6:18; Phil. 4:23; Philem. 25).

Like the other anthropological terms, pneuma can indicate an overall way of acting. The "spirit of gentleness" (1 Cor. 4:21; Gal. 6:1) and the "spirit of faith" (2 Cor. 4:13) are not entities but orientations, attitudes, activities. That is, pneuma, like psuche *, can refer to the whole person as willing and striving. When Paul encourages the Philippians to "stand firm in one pneuma, with one psuche* striving side by side" (Phil. 1:27), he is not referring to two components with distinct functions, but using two similar terms to commend a way of acting.

In several places, however, pneuma is differentiated fairly precisely from psuche* (soul/life). In 1 Corinthians 15:44-46, the adjective psuchikos, derived from psuche*, means the merely physical body which, of itself, is corruptible. But the adjective pneumatikos, derived from pneuma, denotes the body which has "put on" the incorruptibility which comes from God (verse 53). In Jude 19, psuchikoi persons are those who lack God's pneuma (cf. James 3:15). In 1 Corinthians 2:14, psuchikoi people are those who neither receive nor understand the gifts of God's pneuma. They stand in contrast with the pneumatikoi who do (verses 10-16). In these passages where pneuma/pneumatikos has a precise usage, it refers to humans insofar as they are open to the divine.

Other uses of pneuma convey the same meaning. According to Romans 8:16, God's Spirit witnesses with our spirit. However, this precise distinction between a divine and a human pneuma is unusual. In fact, we see here a major difficulty in discovering the anthropological meaning of pneuma. In some texts it is not clear whether the writer means a divine or a human spirit. Yet this difficulty exists because the activities of the two often merge, as was true of the Old Testament ruach. This means that to understand humanity's nature as pneuma, we must explore the workings of God's pneuma.

When we do so, however, we find that the New Testament often speaks of God's Spirit in connection with freedomthe very topic we set out to investigate! Second Corinthians 3:17 assures us that "wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." In this passage, freedom from the Mosaic law is particularly in view. Galatians, which Luther called "the charter of Christian liberty," repeatedly contrasts bondage, which comes through the law and the flesh, to freedom, which is bestowed by God's energizing Spirit (esp. Gal. 2:4; 4:6-7, 22-31; 5:1, 13, 16). And Romans 8 pictures the whole cosmos surging toward "the glorious liberty of the children of God" (8:21) by God's Spirit. This passage has already shown us how we are in solidarity with creation

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through our bodies. Now we can appreciate the guiding role of the Spirit.

According to Paul, then, true freedom does not emerge simply through the actualization of some "natural" anthropological capacity. It begins when God's Spirit releases one from the otherwise invincible bondage of sin and death (Rom. 8:2; cf. 7:4-25). The Spirit begins to reform one's mind and one's conduct, which are irreconcilably opposed to those of the flesh (Rom. 8:6-8; cf. Gal. 5:16-17). The Spirit's goals become ours (8:14). This orientation brings us "life and peace" (Rom. 8:6) and assurance of being God's children and heirs (Rom. 8:15-17; cf. Gal. 4:6-7). This deep sense of God's love liberates us from "the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear" (8:15).

However, such peace and assurance are not plateaus of unperturbed pleasure. For insofar as our bodies are subject to the flesh, we must by God's Spirit put its deeds "to death" (8:13). And wherever the "bondage to decay" (8:21) affects nature and society, the Spirit brings us into solidarity with their groaning for liberation.

C

Theological Affirmations

In light of what Scripture says about the intertwining of the divine and human spirits, what can theology affirm about the relationship of divine sovereignty and human freedom?

First, we have seen that the issue cannot be decided wholly by anthropological considerations. Data concerning salvation and God's character are at least as important. Accordingly, we must take up these issues again under sanctification (Chap. 8). Our overall perspective cannot be formulated until we consider God's nature (Chap. 19).

Second, we have seen that the freedom of the human spirit unfolds in relation to the divine Spirit. Yet this human freedom does not first exist on a "natural" level which can later be elevated by the divine. Apart from God's Spirit, sin and the flesh irrevocably bind the human spirit and heart. In bestowing freedom, God's Spirit takes the initiative, and re-forms the human spirit in line with its own purposes and love. The more thoroughly we are led and transformed by God's Spirit, the more is our freedom actualized.

All this supports Reformed theology's general point that true freedom consists in consistently willing the good, not merely in the ability to choose among different motives and objects. Further, we remember that the conflict between setting one's mind on the flesh and on the Spirit in Romans 8 parallels the conflict between yielding one's members to sin and to righteousness in Romans 6 (see p. 85). We noticed Paul's insistence that our fundamental choice is between these two lordships (Rom. 6:16-22). This confirms the paradoxical thesis that we first discovered in exploring Jesus' humanity: that human freedom

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unfolds only in dependence upon God (Chap. 4). Now we have reconfirmed this in light of that anthropological terminology which touches most directly on the structure of human willing.

Third, however, we must remember that the data so far examined cannot unravel all the mechanics involved in human choices. Any theology designed to guide the living church must emphasize that the Spirit draws us into sharp struggle with the flesh. Whether we actually choose according to the strongest motive or not, we often seem called to follow a weaker impulse toward righteousness instead of a stronger one toward sin. Whether or not God has predestined our choices to lead toward good, it is often plain that we if we do not struggle mightily against evil, we will be overwhelmed by it. Whatever our theology may decide about freedom, it must not dim those imperatives found throughout Scripture to choose decisively and in face of great opposition. We will explore this more fully in Chap. 8.

Fourth, spirit refers to the entire human person from the standpoint of its responsiveness to the Spirit who hastens all things toward the consummation. This confirms our conclusion that the imago dei involves a continual calling to relationship with God, and also to other persons and to creation (Chap. 4). In other words, the person as "spirit" is always being called toward God's future. This means that true self-identity is never something which one fully possesses. "Authentic selfhood" (to use Macquarrie's term) cannot be the primary goal of personal growth. It can be attained only as one opens oneself toward the future, and empties oneself to be filled by God. This means that the one who is truly open to the Spirit.

comes "to himself"but in hope. . . . He finds the way of lifebut hidden in the promised future of Christ that has not yet appeared. . . . The man who trusts himself to the promise is of all people a riddle and an open question. . . . In pursuit of the promise, he finds himself in search of himself and comes to regard himself as an open question addressed to the future of God. . . . The event of the promise does not yet bring him into the haven of identity, but involves him in the tensions and differentiations of hope, of mission, and of self-emptying. . . . It makes him ready to take the pain of love and of self-emptying upon himself in the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead and quickens the dead. . . . He gains himself by abandoning himself. . . . He attains to freedom by accepting the form of a servant.38

Each person's self-identity, then, is not something which is already fully formed, and which one might discover if one could only stop history long enough to look deeply enough within oneself. Karl Rahner

38 Moltmann, Theology of Hope, pp. 91-92.

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helpfully suggests that we think of our true selves somewhat as he thinks of God: as a "pre-thematic," partially obscure "horizon." Our true selves are a fullness which we dimly sense but do not yet fully know. We can come to know them only as we move forward in response to that ultimate Horizon, God.39

Finally, because God's Spirit surges toward the liberation of all creation, authentic human freedom works toward social and psychological humanization. Though divine sovereignty limits human freedom in some respects, it stifles nothing that is authentically human. The subordination of our spirits to God's need not involve subordination to traditional institutions and behavior patterns. On the contrary, it will often call us to oppose them. Nevertheless, this gives no blanket endorsement to every movement claiming to promote humanization. Questions as to what really does or does not humanize must be decided in reference to Jesus' humanity.

D

The Spirit and God

In the preceding chapter, our reflections on Christ's humanity pushed us to consider his deity. In the present chapter, our discussion of the human spirit has required that we consider God's. In both ways our anthropology, proceeding "from below," is gradually accumulating data for incorporation into our doctrine of God (Chaps. 15-19).

In the Old Testament, Yahweh's ruach (spirit) sometimes appears as a somewhat impersonal force emanating from God. It bestows life upon creatures and energizes rulers, warriors, and artists. Yet this spirit often acts in ways which we think of as personal. It intervenes in Israel's life unexpectedly. It acts with specific intentionality. In general, however, the Old Testament is unclear as to how this ruach is related to God. Is it a subpersonal force? a subordinate personal messenger? Or is the reality of this Spirit somehow more intimately tied with the reality of Yahweh himself?

In the New Testament, the activities of God's Spirit are so often intertwined with those of human spirits that the Spirit seems more personal. Only in response to the Spirit does what is most personal in usour freedom and self-identitycome alive. God's pneuma re-forms our thoughts and actions. It witnesses with our spirits, assuring us of God's love, and interpreting our feelings and thoughts (Rom. 8:15-17; Gal. 4:6-7; 1 Cor. 2:10-16). The Spirit seems to bring us in touch with the very heart, mind, and will of God. Yet all this only leads us to the threshold of the mystery of Godself.

39 Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. V (New York: Seabury, 1974), pp. 199-211.

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Suggestions for Further Reading

Bertocci, Peter. Free Will, Responsibility and Grace. Nashville: Abingdon, 1957.

Braaten, Carl and LaVonne. The Living Temple: A Practical Theology of the Body and the Foods of the Earth. New York: Harper, 1976.

Bultmann, Rudolf. Theology of the New Testament, Vol. I. New York: Scribners, 1951.

Farrer, Austin. The Freedom of the Will. New York, Scribners, 1958.

Fenton, John, ed. Theology and Body. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974.

Gundry, Robert. Soma in Biblical Theology. Cambridge: University, 1976.

Käsemann, Ernst. "On Paul's Anthropology," Perspectives on Paul. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969, pp. 1-31.

Miles, Margaret. Fullness of Life: Historical Foundations for a New Asceticism. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981.

Nelson, James. Embodiment, Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1956.

Owen, D. R. G. Body and Soul. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. The Idea of God and Human Freedom. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973.

Paoli, Arturo. Freedom to Be Free. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1973.

Ramsey, Ian. Freedom and Immortality. London: S.C.M., 1960.

Robinson, H. Wheeler. Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964.

Robinson, John A. T. The Body. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952.

Shedd, Russell. Man in Community. London: Epworth, 1958.

Stendahl, Krister. "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 56, pp. 199-215.

Wolff, Hans Walter. Anthropology of the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974.

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Chapter Six

Sin

Anthropology discusses what humans are intended to be and how they fall short. In considering what humans ought to be, traditional anthropologies begin with Adam and Eve, who function as a rather ideal, static norm. Moreover, since Scripture contains little information about this first pair, it has been easy for anthropology to supplement this norm with elements from current philosophies (Chaps. 1-2).

We, however, have discussed what humans ought to be by beginning with the history of human acts culminating in Jesus Christ (Chap. 4). Along the way we gathered a good deal of data, which has hopefully helped us outline a distinctly kerygmatic norm. These findings were corroborated and amplified by the anthropological terminology discussed in Chapter 5. The resulting human "structure" has been historical rather than ideal dynamic rather than static.

In discussing how humans fall short of what they ought to be, traditional anthropologies begin with a classic instance of sin: Adam and Eve's taking the forbidden fruit. However, profound as the story in Genesis 3 is, it provides a rather slender foundation for a comprehensive doctrine of sin. As the present chapter will show, traditional anthropologies have also supplemented this account with data from other sources. In contrast, we will examine the history of those acts which climax in opposition to Jesus.

First, however, to tie this theme into our overall presentation, we will fill in the outlines of some understandings of sin already sketched in Chapters 1 and 2. This will alert us to issues and insights of which

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we might otherwise remain unaware. We will then develop our own perspective, whose particular nature and significance will emerge through dialogue with these other approaches.

I

Traditional and Contemporary Perspectives on Sin

A

Roman Catholicism

Thomas Aquinas, following Augustine, formally defined sin as "a word, deed, or desire which is against the eternal law."1 Described in more detail, however, sin turns out to be more complex than the transgressing of a standard. As we know, Aquinas maintained that all human activity is rooted in a striving towards happiness. Since we are physical creatures, happiness consists partially in enjoying "temporal" goods on the "natural" level: food, clothing, sex, etc. Yet true happiness consists in attaining the "eternal" Good: unbreakable communion with God, available only on the level of grace.

Now our desire for temporal goods is valid so long as it is subordinate to our striving towards eternal Good. According to Thomas, however, "the cause of sin is . . . man's turning to the perishable good. . . . Every sin presupposes an inordinate desire for some temporal good."2 In other words, sin arises when earthly, finite aims supersede our ultimate aim. This occurs when our physical desires pervert and obscure the guidance of reason.

Aquinas defines original sin as "the lack of original justice."3 We have seen that original justice (or original righteousness) was a supernatural grace by virtue of which Eve and Adam's minds were submissive to God, their wills to their minds, and their appetites to their wills. But when their wills, urged by their appetites, turned towards the "temporal good" of the forbidden fruit, God withdrew supernatural grace. As a result, "disorder in all the other powers of the soul followed."4

Notice that sin, according to Catholicism, is not an actual force opposing God. Original sin introduced no new element into human behavior. Instead, the withdrawal, or "lack," of original righteousness allowed a disharmony among the elements already present to arise.

1Summa Theologiae, II, 1, Q. 71, a. 6.

2ST II, 1, Q. 77, a. 5.

3ST, II, 1, Q. 82, a. 3.

4 Ibid. This disorder is often called concupiscence, although concupiscence can also indicate the natural appetites, which are not sinful unless they exceed "the bounds of reason" (reply to objection 1: cf. Q. 30; Q. 83, a. 4).

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John Macquarrie speaks similarly in modern terms by calling sin an "imbalance" among human nature's constituent polarities. For Catholicism, even fallen humans continue to strive towards happiness, "authentic selfhood," and Good. Sin consists in their striving towards these goals in mistaken, perverted, and self-defeating ways. (For instance, people can mistakenly suppose that wealth is the Good and be inwardly destroyed by the anxiety and overindulgence of appetites aroused in their quest for it.)

In general, Catholicism understands sin and evil as negative rather than positive phenomena.

Since each real thing tends to its own existence and completion, we have to say that this fulfills the meaning of good in every case. Therefore evil cannot signify a certain existing being, or a real shaping or positive kind of thing. Consequently, we are left to infer that it signifies a certain absence of a good.5

But if sin was definitively exemplified and actualized so long ago, through Eve and Adam, the human mind inevitably begins to wonder how it was transmitted to the present.

Some of Aquinas's predecessors held that this occurred biologically. Thomas, however, argued that original sin was voluntary, and that only a rational soul can commit voluntary acts. The soul, however, cannot be biologically transmitted. Instead, Aquinas sought to explain transmission of sin through a notion of corporate solidarity. All those "descending from Adam are, as it were, many members of one body." Therefore, each person is involved in Adam's act much as the hand is involved in a murder.

Hence murder which the hand commits should not be imputed as sin to the hand, as though the hand were considered to have its own life isolated from the body, but inasmuch as it is part of a human person and moved by the principle which first sets human actions in motion. So, too, the disorder which is in an individual man, a descendant of Adam, is not voluntary by reason of his personal will, but by reason of the will of the first parent, who through a generative impulse, exerts influence upon all who descend from him by way of origin, even as the will of the soul moves bodily members.6

Despite this attempt, it is difficult to see how people who live millennia after Adam participate in his sin in any voluntary way. Thomas

5ST I, Q. 48, a. 1.

6ST II, 1, Q. 81, a. 1.

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comes close to the biological explanation when he asserts that Adam's will affects us "through a generative impulse."

In light of these problems, it is understandable that many contemporary Catholics regard the notion of anything transmitted from Adam through time as mythological. Instead, they regard original sin as a constitutive feature of every human situation. For Karl Rahner, it is the "universal, permanent, and ineradicable codetermination of the situation of every individual's freedom by guilt."7 In such understandings, the social dimensions of original sin are often stressed.

B

Reformation Protestantism

According to John Calvin, God forbade Adam to partake of the tree "to test his obedience," to "exercise his faith" as he walked towards eternal life Calvin located sin's essence in faithlessness, or disobedience, to such a command.8

We remember how Reinhold Niebuhr depicted this struggle in existential terms. Called to transcend our present situation in a threatening and uncertain world, anxiety overwhelms us and tempts us to cease trusting in God's continuing guidance and love. In response, we may act and think as if we had greater mastery over reality than we do (the sin of pride). Or we may forfeit our genuine capacity for transcendence and seek for security in "turning inordinately to material good" (the sin of sensuality).9 Niebuhr argues that the second response, which Catholicism regards as sin's essence, is less common and less important than the first. Like Calvin, he regards faithlessness or unbelief as sin's essence. He sees prideful self-love as the primary form it takes.

This emphasis on pride, or on the will's active opposition to God, gives sin an active, energetic character for Protestants. Calvin complained that Catholic understandings had "not expressed effectively enough its power and energy."10 Accordingly, original sin could not be a mere "lack" of original righteousness. Instead, Calvin defined it as "a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us . . . 'works of the flesh.'"11

7Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 110. Cf. Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, 2d. ed., pp. 263-267.

8Institutes, p. 245.

9The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, p. 185.

10Institutes, p. 252.

11 Ibid., p. 251.

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Frequently, this view has been called ''total depravity." This term is accurate if it is not understood intensivelythat is, that everyone were as corrupt as possible. Instead, it should be understood extensivelyas showing that every aspect of human nature is seriously affected by sin. "Total depravity" denies that any human faculty (such as reason or conscience) provides an undistorted point of contact with God.

An intensive understanding of depravity is refuted by Calvin's insistence that even unregenerate people can perform laudable moral and social behavior. Indeed, although our minds have been darkened, "no man is to be found who does not understand that every sort of human organization must be regulated by laws, and who does not comprehend the principles of those laws."12

While Martin Luther treated sin less systematically that did Calvin, he probed it with acute psychological penetration. Luther emphasized that sin is often most active where it is least observable. Many people lead exemplary lives and promote worthy causes. Yet all this may well be designed (often subconsciously) to gain benefits and good reputations for ourselves. People may perform religious exercises and duties. Yet all this may be subtly aimed at gaining God's favor by our effortsrather than confessing our sin and receiving God's favor.13

The Reformers' frequent use of words like corruption and contagion can give the impression that they saw sin as overt and obvious. Luther reminds us that sin is often most potent when hidden under its apparent opposite. And although neither Luther nor Calvin extended such an analysis to the state, which they reverently regarded as God's agent, Niebuhr did so. Niebuhr insists that governments can do great evil only if they can successfully image themselves as benefactors.14

The Reformers gave little detailed attention to sin's transmission. For Calvin, however, sin is so comprehensive that it seems to include physical corruption. For him, Adam was "the root of human nature."15 Due to Adam, "we are so vitiated and perverted in every part of our

12 Ibid., p. 272.

13 Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), pp. 144-152.

14The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, pp. 208-219. Niebuhr regrets that Luther "was more intent upon challenging the pride of the pope than the arrogance of kings. . . . Thus Protestantism, in spite of its more prophetic conception of the inevitability of sinful pride in all the activities of mankind, allowed a vent for political arrogance of which the rising nation state was to take full advantage" (p. 218).

15Institutes, p. 248.

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nature that by this great corruption we stand justly condemned and convicted before God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity."

Accordingly, we are condemned not simply for Adam's sin, but for our own. Moreover, the possibility of biological transmission appears even more plausible than for Catholicism. For

even infants themselves, while they carry their condemnation along with them from their mother's womb, are guilty not of another's fault but of their own. For even though the fruits of their iniquity have not come forth, they have the seed enclosed within them. Indeed, their whole nature is a seed of sin; hence it can only be hateful and abhorrent to God.16

C

Protestant Orthodoxy

We noticed that Thomas Aquinas formally defined sin as "a word, deed, or desire which is against the eternal law." While Thomas did not actually grant this venerable conceptwhich goes back at least to Augustinea working priority in his theology, Protestant Orthodoxy did.

This concept can seem appropriate in light of Genesis 3. For there, little is elaborated concerning the will of God, which appears largely as a simple, prohibitive command (Gen. 3:3). And since little has been said about Adam or Eve's character, their sin appears largely as a transgression of this command. Moreover, one New Testament passage apparently defines sin in this way. "Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; for sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). The word for "lawlessness" (anomia) means, literally, that which is without or against the law.17

In a theology that emphasizes the sort of biblical texts that can function as deductive premises, 1 John 3:4 plays an important role. Calvin was mainly concerned to highlight sin's seriousness, and Luther to expose its subtle operations. Protestant Orthodoxy, however, developed more precise theories, based on legal conceptuality, as to what sin is and how it is transmitted.

Charles Hodge argued that this conceptuality was also entailed by those innate moral truths so prominent in his theology (see Vol. I,

16 Ibid., p. 251.

17 It appears in the New Testament some 20 times. Hamartia, the most general and common word for sin occurs some 190 times. Adikia, a broad word for wickedness or unrighteousness, appears about 65 times. Parabasis, meaning a "stepping over" or "transgression" occurs 15 times.

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Chap. 5). He argued that everyone, being both a moral creature and a sinner, has a consciousness of sin. Further, this consciousness necessarily has reference to a law.18 Unfolded more fully, this notion of law "implies a law-giver, a being of whose will it is the expression, and who has the power and purpose to enforce all its demands. . . . "19 Finally, by continuing to elaborate the contents of moral consciousness, Hodge deduces the nature of sin. It is "the want of conformity to a divine law or standard of excellence."20

In discussing original sin, Hodge argues, like Calvin, that it consists in a corruption "and consequent entire moral depravity of our nature."21 Yet while insisting upon the "total inability" of sinners in "the things connected with salvation," Hodge affirms their fundamental competency in social affairs, or ''things external."22

In explaining how Adam's sin affects us, Hodge is not concerned with biological transmission. Neither does he employ the organic model of Adam as the soul of the body of humanity. Instead, he stresses a legal model. Adam was the "federal head," or legal representative of humanity before God. Through this legal arrangement, the blessings promised to him were for his descendants, as were the penalties with which he was threatened. Thus,

in virtue of the union, both federal and natural, between Adam and his posterity, his sin, though not their act, is so imputed to them that it is the judicial ground of the penalty threatened against him coming also upon them.23

Thus the main barrier which sin raises between humanity and God is this legal penalty, and reconciliation will not be possible unless it is paid.

18Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 181.

19 Ibid., p. 184. Even more fully, "it is clear from the very constitution of our nature that we are subject to the authority of a rational and moral being, a Spirit, whom we know to be infinite, eternal, and immutable" (p. 183).

20 Ibid., p. 187. By analyzing conscience yet further, Hodge tells us that sin "includes both guilt and pollution" (p. 181). Pollution is the subjective corruption of our nature. Guilt further involves both "criminality" (which he also calls demerit and blameworthiness) and "obligation to suffer punishment due to our offenses" (p. 189).

21 Ibid., p. 230.

22 Ibid., p. 263.

23 Ibid., pp. 191-192.

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D

Liberation Theologies and Psychotherapy

In our own era, liberation theologies have stressed the social dynamics of sin. It is a "hamartiosphere" which corrupts all institutions and relationships.24 Although liberation theologies seldom discuss transmission of sin in the traditional way, they strongly imply that sin is passed on through the corrupt network of institutions, relationships, and attitudes into which we all are born.

Liberation theologians also challenge the classic Protestant claim that pride, even though not the essence of sin, is its most common and most dangerous manifestation. Liberation theologians often argue that pride is indeed a dominant sin of oppressor groups.25 Churches dominated by oppressor groups have often warned the oppressed against the pitfalls of pride. In reality, however, those attitudes of passivity and self-deprecation which the oppressed internalize are at least as sinful. To overcome sin, then, oppressed peoples need to develop a healthy sense of pride.

A similar attitude appears in many psychotherapies popular among pastoral counselors. Where Calvin and Niebuhr suppose that people normally have too high a self-image, and therefore need to have it dismantled, psychologists like Carl Rogers affirm the reverse. For Rogers, people suffer because their self-image is too low. To attain healing, or humanization, they must be encouraged not to distrust their natural inclinations, but to express them; not to subdue their wills, but to exercise them.

II

Sin as Opposition to Christ

Each of the traditional perspectives can find support in one facet of the Garden of Eden story. In defining sin as inordinate desire for temporal good, traditional Catholics can point out that Eve and Adam lusted after the fruit.26 In asserting that sin is faithlessness, classic Protestants can show how prohibition of the fruit was a test. And in defining sin as transgression of the law, orthodox Protestants can urge that Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command.

While each theory highlights a significant aspect of sin, it is far

24 Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, p. 175. (Cf. also p. [53] above.)

25 Cf. Rosemary Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk (Boston: Beacon, 1983), pp. 179-183.

26 Genesis 3:6 mentions three attractions of the tree. It was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and able to make one wise. The third, at least, does not seem to be strictly "temporal."

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from obvious that any one represents the main thrust of Genesis 3, let alone of Scripture as a whole. All such theories, in fact, are also grounded in other biblical and/or philosophical data. It is time to turn from Genesis to the whole sweep of Scripture, and from descriptions of other theories to the development of our own.

It was not only God's redemptive work that reached its climax in Jesus Christ; evil also reached its greatest force in opposition to him (see Vol. I, Chaps. 15-18). Accordingly, we will develop our view of sin much as we did our view of humankind's positive potential and structure. Much as Chapter 4 examined the history of response to God's call which culminated in Jesus, we will first review the history of resistance to God's kingdom which climaxed against Jesus. Then, much as Chapter 5 checked and supplemented Chapter 4's findings by investigating Scripture's key anthropological terms, we will examine the vocabulary and phenomena associated with sin in Paul and John.

A

Sin in the Old Testament

The most common Old Testament word for sin, chattath, means "to miss the mark," to fail to attain the goal or to live up to the norm of a certain kind of behavior. Thus chattath often involves the notion of an objective legal norm (Exod. 32:30; Deut. 21:22). This objectivity is underlined by the insistence that even should one transgresses a divine command unknowingly, one must still offer sacrifice (Lev. 4:3, 14). However, a second common word, ayin, emphasizes that subjective intention, guilt and corruption are normally involved in sin (1 Sam. 25:24; Isa. 5:18; Jer. 30:14-15). A third common word, peshar, indicates that sin is rebellion (Amos 4:4; Isa. 1:2; Jer. 2:29).

By themselves, however, such words merely outline some of sin's formal features. To apprehend sin's concrete reality, we must ask, Within what actual circumstances did sin manifest itself? Against what kind of norms was it a transgression, a willful act, a rebellion? The actual history within which sin operated shows that Israel's sin, negatively stated, was primarily a turning away from Yahweh's covenant. This covenant, in which religious and social statutes were inseparably intertwined, outlined a vision of the coming kingdom of God (see Vol. I, p. 272).

Positively stated, Israel's sin consisted chiefly in idolatry. In Volume I, we claimed that idolatry was not only "religious," but also involved adopting the social values of pagan nations. We also claimed that the gods of these nations were the functional realities for which interestamental and New Testament writers developed terms like principalities, powers, etc.27 Now we can substantiate these claims more fully.

27 Pp. 327-329.

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According to many intertestamental apocalyptic writings, Yahweh governs the universe through spiritual beings. Some govern natural forces (Jubilees 2:2; 1 Enoch 60:11-24, 82). Long ago, Yahweh placed such spirits in authority over all nationsexcept for Israel, which God ruled directly (Jubilees 15:31). These beings were to teach humans the arts, crafts, and just government.

Some of these spirits, however, formed a conspiracy to rule humankind to serve their own ends. They were led by several "Satans," or by a "Satanail" who had previously sought to be equal with Yahweh.28 Under their rule, justice was perverted and even crafts intended for peaceful purposes, such as metallurgy, were used for war (Jubilees 4:15; 1 Enoch 8, 69). These beings were also called "sons of God." They produced giants through unions with "the daughters of men.''

Drawing humans into their wars, these giants began killing each other off. Yet when they were slain, evil spirits emerged from their bodies. These continued to incite people to warfare and the worship of idols (1 Enoch 15; Jubilees 11:2-7. Cf. Gen 6:2-4). Yet since the nationsincluding Israelwillingly followed these spirits, Yahweh now allows them to afflict humankind. The Satans have access to "the Lord of Spirits." They tempt humans to do evil and then denounce them before this heavenly court (2 Enoch 40:7).

In many respects, these intertestamental notions parallel those which Mesopotamian societies in particular entertained. According to Mesopotamian mythology, the gods, who ruled various natural forces, created humankind because they were tired of working. They wanted someone else to till fields and build cities.29 Accordingly, these societies regarded political rulers largely as overseers who exacted labor and tribute from a god's slaves. Thus, "the god can live the life . . . of a nobleman surrounded by servants, attendants, and material wealth."30

The gods, however, often fought among themselves. They met in a heavenly council characterized by shifting alliances and balances of power. The rise or fall of city-states on earth was attributed to the rise or fall of their gods in this council.31 Accordingly, earthly rulers could

28 The "Satans," who persuaded some 200 "watchers" to descend to earth for this purpose, are found in 1 Enoch 6:40-71. Satanail appears in 2 Enoch 29:4-5; 31:3-6. Cf. Life of Adam and Eve, 12-17.

29 Henri Frankfort, et al., The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Chicago: University, 1946), p. 162.

30 Ibid., p. 191.

31 In the preface to his well-known Code, the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi claimed that the gods chose Marduk as ruler in the heavenly council. When they did that, Hammurabi said, so did they "call me to afford well-being to the peopleme, Hammurabi, the obedient, god-fearing prince, to cause righteousness to appear in the land, to destroy the evil and the wicked"

(footnote continued on next page)

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hardly restrict themselves to administering "secular" affairs. Their primary function was to discern, by "religious" means, the frequently shifting will of the gods.32 The prosperity, social stability, and military success of a given state was regarded as proof of the ascendancy of its god, and of the adequacy of the service its people gave it.

In Egypt, religion and society were at least as intertwined. Pharaoh was considered an actual god whose function was to create and maintain harmony among political and natural forces. Since this god-king owned the land, all property and legal rights flowed from him.33 Although the Pharaoh was to guard the people like a herdsman, this often meant that the people were regarded as cattle.34

The Pharaoh, a small circle of nobles, and the priests of the major gods lived in fabulous luxury, pouring much of Egypt's wealth into their tombs. During the period of imperial expansion beginning about 1550 B.C., military success was attributed to the gods, and unprecedented wealth flowed into their temples. Society became more tightly controlled and the gods became increasingly distant and demanding. Gargantuan monuments and temples were constructed to glorify Pharaoh and his fellow gods.35 It was from this society that Yahweh delivered Israel to govern them by a different religious and social covenant.

In the intertestamental Mesopotamian and Egyptian understandings, then, we find first that the gods are the forces behind each state's social, economic, and military structures. Second, their rule is primarily oppressive. Third, "religious" and "social" affairs are inseparably intertwined. For the rulers' main function is to serve the gods or to act as one, while the gods are worshiped to ensure the stability and success of the state.

Since these beliefs were held throughout the Old Testament world, and since we find them fully expressed in later Hebrew literature, the

(footnote continued from previous page)

(quoted in Frankfort, p. 193).

32 Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: University, 1948), pp. 251-258; Helmer Ringgren, Religions of the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), pp. 93-107.

33 Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: University, 1948), pp. 9, 18-21, 34, 143-212.

34The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, pp. 78-79.

35 Ibid., pp. 112-119, John Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago: University, 1951), pp. 166-205.

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Old Testament authors certainly would have been familiar with them. However, the relationship of the gods to Yahweh was clarified only over long historical experience. On one hand, the experienced power of these gods at times seemed to imply that they were nearly as powerful as (or even more powerful than) Yahweh. On the other hand, Yahwism's monotheistic thrust sometimes seemed to entail that they were nonentities. Only long experience led to the conclusion that the nations' gods were the rebels among the lesser beings through whom Yahweh governed the cosmos.36

In light of this background, occasional Old Testament reflections of this understanding are not as peripheral as they might first appear. For instance, some texts, recalling Mesopotamian beliefs, envision Yahweh surrounded by a heavenly council (Neh. 9:6; Psalm 89:6-7; 97:7, 9). Its members are often called "sons of God." Some go forth to promote deceit and suffering (1 Kings 22:19-23; Job 1:6-12; 2:6-12). According to Deuteronomy, Yahweh divided the nations among them, but personally ruled over Israel (Deut. 32:8-9).

Some gods, however, treat their charges unjustly and thus experience Yahweh's judgment.37 Satan appears among these "sons of God" to accuse and test Job (Job 12; cf. 1 Chron. 21:1). Satan also accuses Joshua the high priest, although "the angel of the Lord" rebukes him (Zech. 3). Daniel tells us that the archangel Michael fights for Israel against the angelic rulers of Persia and Greece.38 The linkage between heavenly and earthly rulers appears in Isaiah's prophecy that Yahweh will punish "the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on earth" (Isa. 24:21; cf. 34:2, 4). Here and elsewhere the notion that Yahweh entrusted the governance of natural phenomena to supernatural powers appears (Psalm 18:10; 104:4; Job 38:8).

Having examined the historical contexts within which sin operated, we conclude that sin was primarily a turning away from Yahweh, which was inseparable from rejecting his religious and social covenant. It was a turning toward other gods, which was inseparable from adopting the social patterns which these gods supported. Although sin is often called

36 G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), pp. 1-15.

37 See Psalm 82. The title Lord of hosts is probably connected with the heavenly council. In earlier times, this title may have identified Yahweh largely as leader of Israel's armies (1 Sam. 17:45). But as early as the Song of Deborah, the stars are said to have fought on Yahweh's side (Judg. 5:20). Amos, then, uses this title to praise God's lordship over nature (Amos 4:13; Caird, pp. 1-4).

38 See Dan. 10:13, 20-21; 12:1. The Old Testament also refers frequently to destroying angels who carry out Yahweh's judgment (2 Sam. 24:16; 2 Kings 19:35; Job 33:22; Psalms 35:5-6; 78:4-9).

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transgression (chattath) and rebellion (peshar), it is not merely individual disobedience to Yahweh, nor is it simply against general, eternal statutes. Sin is participation in collective rejection of Yahweh's concrete covenant and adherence to opposed religious and social practices. Such adherence, however, brings one under the dominion of forces which, while promising success and security, actually enslave their adherents.

As an historical actuality, then, sin is not merely a human attitude or state. The power of these forces, which energize and increase human resistance against God's kingdom, must be included in the concrete reality of sin.

B

Sin in Response to Jesus' Ministry

The main purpose of Jesus' work was the establishing of the promised kingdom of God. While God's kingdom is not merely a sociopolitical entity, it certainly has such features (see Vol. I, Chap. 15). People from different nations, races, classes, and sexes can hardly live together on earth according to the kingdom's "reversed" relationships without developing distinct social patterns. And such patterns will, at least occasionally, affect broader sociopolitical structures.

Jesus' reversed proclamation and the resistance which it aroused show that sin acts forcefully through structures which promote inequality on the basis of nationality, race, sex, or socioeconomic class. They show that all uses of political or military power to promote such relationships are sinful, as are all religions which pronounce certain groups as closer to or further from God on these bases.

In this respect, classical liberal and current Catholic and liberation theologies prove to be correct. Sin consists not only in individual attitudes of discrimination, but also in structures which perpetuate it. Such structures wield a collective, enduring power far more destructive than the sum of the individuals who support or acquiesce to them.

However, even though sociopolitical structures give sin an enduring structural power, we also learned that resistance to Jesus had an even deeper, demonic dimension. Jesus' emphasis on the subtlety of "the heart" (Mark 2:6-8 and parallels; 7:20-23) directs us to probe more profoundly how sin gains control over individuals and structures. While the Gospels' exorcism stories show that it can influence the body and terrify and derange the mind, our understanding of sin's inner workings comes from the deep, continuous struggle with temptation waged by Jesus' disciples and Jesus himself.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was confronted not by the choice between obedience to or independence from God; but by the choice between obedience to God and obedience to Satan. Obedience to God meant adopting the servant pattern of life and ministry. Although various features of Jesus' ministry were peculiar to him,

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Chapter 3 has shown that the servantlike way of agape * is normative for all humans. Consequently, in the chief forms of opposition to this way we can discern some chief forms of sin.

Satan tempted Jesus to validate and exercise his ministry through highly visible, powerful signs (Matt. 4:3-11 and parallels). During his ministry, his religious opponents asked for similar demonstrations (Matt. 12:38-39; 16:1-4 and parallels; John 2:18; 6:30). At the end, his political and religious enemies' challenge to come down from the cross echoed the tempter's original urging (Luke 23:35-39 and parallels). Jesus' servant way, however, was centered in humility and involved the willingness to endure obscurity, misunderstanding, and shame. In contrast to it, then, the desire and striving for visible prestige emerges as a major dimension of sin.

We can see this further, first, in the emphasis which Jesus' opponents placed on outward appearance. The Roman rulers sought to appear as gracious benefactors (Luke 22:25 and parallels). Rich people liked to display their generosity (Mark 12:41-44 and parallels), while religious leaders sought positions of public honor (Luke 14:7-11; Matt. 6:1-18; 23:25-28). Jesus often used words for sin in an ironic way, indicating that those who were outwardly regarded as sinners were closest to the kingdom, while those who appeared outwardly "righteous" were the real sinners (Mark 2:15-18 and parallels; Luke 7:36-50 and parallels). This corresponds with Jesus' emphasis that outward appearance can cloakand thereby make more deceptive and effectivethe sin lodged in the heart (p. 89). We have seen how the unmasking of such pretensions played a fundamental role in Jesus' resurrection triumph (see Vol. I, pp. 357-359).

Interlinked with this striving for prestige was a striving for coercive power. Jesus' way of agape fundamentally opposed all notions as to how power is attained and exercised in social situations. We have seen how not only Jesus' opponents, but also his disciples supposed that real power would have to be wielded by a warrior Messiah; and how even Jesus' fundamental struggle focused around this Satanic option. Jesus' continued rejection of it, moreover, constituted the fundamental "disguise" by which he defeated the powers.39 Along with the striving for deceptive, outward prestige, then, the desire for and use of coercive power is a fundamental characteristic of sin.

Our study of Christ's work also showed that not only his specific opponents, but all of humankind, participated in his death. Yet most

39 Vol. I, pp. 296-298, 332-338. We have seen how most major Christian traditions have supposed that the way of agape must be restricted to personal relationships. Yet, as we have seen, no such personal/social dichotomy can be found in Scripture (Chap. 3).

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people in Jesus' timeas in all timesdid not participate in open struggles for power. The crowds' participation in his death was passive. They allowed Jesus' opponents to manipulate or silence them, or they simply became indifferent.

Indeed, most people do not overtly strive for power. As liberation theologians suggest, such titanic, prideful striving may be the special sin of oppressor classes. Of course, most people desire some measure of power for a benefit which it brings: security. But longing for security often leads to passivity, and to fear of the risks involved in changing one's situation or one's self. As liberation theologies suggest, sins of this sort may be the most common.

This longing for security was illuminated not only by Christ's death. For Jesus' call to the kingdom involved leaving all earthly forms of security behind: family, property, wealth, and group identities. The inordinate longing for security clashed directly with the eschatological newness of God's kingdom. As illuminated through this clinging to known sources of security, sin involves resistance to that orientation toward the future essential to authentic humanity.

In sum, it is chiefly through strivings for prestige, power, and security that the demonic power of sin becomes operative among humans. This is not to say, of course, that all forms of security, power, and prestige are sinful. Indeed, to those willing to endure insecurity, weakness, and humiliation for his sake, Jesus promised security, power, and honor of a very different kind. Worldly strivings for these things, however, are sinful insofar as they lead to adherence to institutions, ideologies, attitudes, or persons which conflict with Jesus' servantlike way of utter dependence on God.

Such strivings are also sinful insofar as they rupture our fundamental cohumanity. Prestige, power, and security are usually attained only through depriving others of them. Paradoxically, however, subtle appeals to our cohumanity often move us to do just that. We are urged to sacrifice our individual selves for the greater good of our local organization, social class, or nation. It is often through such narrower loyalties, however, that the sharpest group hostilities are created and maintained. Since our self-identity merges with that of our group, such appeals really spring from eros *, not agape*.

Jesus' struggle with the strivings for prestige, power, and security ended on the cross. There we glimpse an even deeper force through which the powers of evil bind people. We strive for these things because they promise to bring stability, meaning, and happiness to our lives, and to deliver us from that threat of irredeemable futility and pain: the fear of death (Vol. I, pp. 138-139, 339-342). We have seen that death is not mere nonexistence, but a force which opposes, chokes, and

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finally isolates people in total abandonment from the Life of God.

Having examined sin's intensifying activity in opposition to Jesus' ministry, we conclude that sin was primarily a turning from the inbreaking newness and servantlike way of God's kingdom. It was a turning toward other powers and the structures and ways of life through which they operated. Sin, of course, gained power through promising relief from those fears of shame, weakness, insecurity, and death which gnaw at the depths of the heart.

Since Jesus himself was the center of the kingdom's good news, sin was not only rejection of his way, but also rejection of his person. As opposition to Jesus increased, sin appeared less and less as mere individual resistance, and more and more as a collective energy uniting all institutions and people against him.

III

The Vocabulary and General Phenomena of Sin

Our understanding of sin, like that of humankind's positive potential, must be grounded in Jesus' history considered as the culmination of those that preceded it. Scripture itself, however, reflects on that history by developing more general terminology for sin. Accordingly, much as Chapter 4 led to Chapter 5, we must now check and amplify our reading of that history by turning to that broader reflection.

A

Sin According to Paul

For Paul, the fundamental human choice lies between yielding one's body to righteousness or to sin (pp. 84-85). We have seen that both are collective forces struggling for cosmic dominion (Rom. 6:12-23). As sin increasingly spreads through the human race, it brings people under the reign of death (Rom. 5:12-21). We have seen that the Reformers, in order to emphasize the bondage that sin brings, stressed Paul's personal description of its operations in Romans 7. Here Paul acknowledges that in his "inmost self" (7:22), or through the law of his "mind" (7:23), he has an awareness of and desire for what is good. Most people assume, like John Macquarrie, that such an awareness involves some power to do the good, and thus must be "the first step away from sin."40 But Paul laments that even though he desires to do it, he has not the power (7:15, 19). For the Reformers, this text demonstrated how thoroughly sin had bound the individual's will.

Yet while this is true, the bondage produced by sin is not merely a matter of individual corruption. For Paul distinguishes his "inmost self"

40Principles of Christian Theology, 2d ed., p. 266. Cf. pp. 29, 38 above.

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from another "law" which operates through his "members," warring against "the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin" (7:23). Paradoxically, Paul acknowledges responsibility for his actions: "the evil I do not want is what I do'' (7:19. Cf. 7:15). Yet he also argues that "if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me" (7:20; cf. 7:17).

The "I" appears on both sides of this struggle: as actually doing evil, and also as disapproving of it. Paul expresses a fundamental human polarity here. He is "body" (soma *) and is thus intrinsically incorporated in broad solidaristic forces and structures. He also has "life" (psuche*) which longs to stretch beyond them. Accordingly, while sin is something that he (primarily as soma*) truly commits, it is also a pervasive force which holds him (primarily as psuche*) captive (7:14, 23) and kills him (7:9, 11, 24).

Much the same is true of "the flesh" (sarx). We have seen that flesh means not the mere body, but a corporate force which energizes all attempts to exalt what is physical, visible, or measurable against God (Chap. 5). In Romans 7, Paul is enslaved by sin insofar as he is flesh (7:18, 25). We have observed that the struggle between sin and righteousness in Romans 6 is paralleled by that between flesh and God's Spirit in Romans 8. The conflict between these two latter forces is also a major theme of Galatians (Gal. 3:3; 4:22-31; 5:16-24).

For Paul, then, sin is so much a supraindividual force that his main word for it (hamartia) denotes just such a power. Sin operates in humans through a similar powerfleshand thereby brings everyone under the dominion of a third power, death. Paul's extensive discussion of these forces in Romans, however, includes a fourth entity: the law (cf. 1 Cor. 15:26, 56). Is the law also a hostile power? Martin Luther often spoke of it operating in such a way (Chap. 1). However, Protestant orthodoxy, which defines sin as transgression of the law, would protest such a suggestion.

In Galatians, Paul draws a parallel between the function of the law and that of "the elemental spirits (stoicheia) of the universe." These "elemental spirits" are "demonic forces which constitute and control 'this evil aeon.'"41 and are worshipped in pagan religions. Paul writes that before Christ, Israelites "were confined under the law" which functioned as a paidagogos*as a severe, disciplinary "custodian" or

41 Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), p. 204. For literature on this subject, see Betz's note 30. Paul mentions "this evil aeon" in Galatians 1:4, a verse which echoes the pre-Pauline kerygma. When Paul mentions that the law was given through angels (Gal. 3:20), he may well be paralleling the rule of the law in Israel with that of fallen angels in pagan societies.

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"schoolmaster" (Gal. 3:23-24). Paul parallels this with the situation of the Gentiles, who were "under guardians and trustees," whom he defines as "the elemental spirits'' (Gal. 4:1-3). Christ, however, redeemed from slavery both those who were "under the law" (4:5) and those "in bondage" to pagan gods, whom Paul again identifies with the elemental spirits (4:8-9). Their worship involves observing days, months, and seasons, much as does Judaism (4:10).

In Colossians, Paul finds parallels between the legalism of pagan religions and that of popular Judaism. But he argues that since his readers "died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the universe," they no longer need to worry about either kind of legal demands (Col. 2:20-23; cf. 2:8-9). In the same context, Paul refers to the Israelite law as "the bond which stood against us with its legal demands." God, however, set this aside by "nailing it to the cross." This bond had been a weapon used by the forces of evil, for when God did this, "He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them" (Col. 2:14-15).

Ephesians, in somewhat similar language, speaks of the "law of commandments and ordinances" as abolished through Christ's death (Eph. 2:15). Here the law clearly has a social function. As that which gave Israelites their special sense of identity, it formed a "dividing wall of hostility" between them and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14). In fact, we find the law functioning similarly in Galatians, where its emphasis on circumcision and table fellowship divides Gentiles from Jews (see esp. Gal. 2:11-21). Paul is proclaiming that as Christ dethroned pagan religions, so he dethroned the law as the supreme way to God. Now both Gentiles and Jews have equal access to God.42

Finally, in Romans 7, the law is "that which held us captive" and from which Christ frees us (Rom. 7:6). Here Paul focuses on the psychological way in which the law intensifies the power of sin. Rather than inspiring and enabling better behavior, the law's commands increase our awareness of our inability to fulfill them. The harder we try, the deeper do we become entangled in the consciousness and energy of sin (Rom. 7:7-11).

In the above passages, the law prescribes practices and standards whose attempted performance places people in bondage to itself and to other sinful forces.43 It is an enemy from which Christ frees us. How

42 Cf. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, pp. 215-232; and Markus Barth, "Jews and Gentiles: The Social Character of Justification in Paul," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring, 1968), pp. 241-267.

43 Galatians (3:3-4; 4:21-31; 6:12-13) and Colossians (2:23) link the power of the law closely with that of the flesh.

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can we reconcile this with Paul's affirmation that "the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good" (Rom. 7:12)? It is helpful to remember that the gods of Old Testament times were created to promote righteousness and well-being among the nations. They sinned when they sought to direct the peoples' allegiance not toward God, but toward themselves. Nonetheless, they still bestowed a measure of cultural stability and justice upon their nations.

Now Paul, for whom the law and pagan religions often function similarly, also regards the forces behind these religions and those behind Gentile political states as intertwined.44 Thus the law's paradoxical character is much the same as that of religiopolitical powers. In its essence, as it comes from God, the law is good. In its actual function, however, it often operates much as do these other powers: it makes adherence to itself, rather than God, the supreme condition of salvation.

Accordingly, pagan religious and political forces and the law are not sinful by virtue of their ontological structure. They were created with potential for good. To some extent, they promote the good even while functioning as agents of sin and death. This is clearest with the law, which expresses God's will more directly. Even Luther acknowledged that the law, in its pedagogical use, can function positively for Christians (Chap. 1). And Paul says that all the religiopolitical powers are also touched somehow by Jesus' saving work (Col. 1:20). Is it possible, then, that his lordship might transform even them? We must tackle this question in Chapter 11.

In summary, Paul speaks of two cosmic forces, sin and death, which are wholly evil. These operate through phenomena which, though created for good, now function as their agents. The entire physical, visible world, insofar as it exalts itself against God, has become an evil power, the flesh. The law, pagan religions, and Gentile political structures function chiefly as systems which direct allegiance away from God.45 Paul also indicates frequently that a specific evil figure, the devil or Satan, is somehow behind all opposition to Christ and to Paul's own ministry.46

44 This is indicated by Paul's frequent use of terms like "principalities," "powers," "thrones" and ''dominions" (1 Cor. 15:24-26; Rom. 8:38-39; Eph. 1:20-21; 3:10; 6:11-12; Col. 1:16-20; 2:10, 15; Titus 3:1). Chapter 3 showed how Paul also finds suprahuman forces behind earthly political rulers in 1 Corinthians 2:6-9; 6:1-8; and Romans 13.

45 See also 1 Cor. 10:20-21 and 2 Cor. 6:15-16. The relationship between Christianity and other religions will be discussed in detail in Chapter 10.

46 1 Thess. 2:18; 3:5; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 2:11; 4:4; 11:3, 13-14; 12:7; Rom. 16:20; Eph. 2:2; 6:10-20. The "man of lawlessness" is a political and religious figure who is Satan's direct agent (2 Thess. 2:3-12).

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Finally, Paul provides some glimpses into the subjective effects of these powers. The synoptic Gospels show that they prey upon fears of shame, weakness, insecurity, and death. Romans 7 illustrates how awareness of one's bondage to the powers can engender total despair. To be sure, as Luther insisted, the heightening of this despair through the law's prosecuting function can lead one to repentance and salvation. Nevertheless, as Luther also asserted, despair over the possibility of one's salvation is a demonic pressure from which one needs deliverance.47

B

Sin According to John

Like Paul, John speaks of sin as a suprapersonal power. Even more explicitly, he links its operation to that of the devil. In John's Gospel, Jesus warns his opponents that "everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin." They are caught in this slavery because they carry out the desires of their father, the devil (John 8:34, 44). John's epistle warns that whoever makes a practice of sinning is "of" the devil. Jesus, however, came to destory the devil's works, which is the same as taking away sins (1 John 3:5-9). John contrasts being ''of" the devil, who is a liar, and being "of" God or "in" Christ, who is the Truth.48

John uses the term world (kosmos) in a two-fold way which recalls Paul's usage of body/flesh. Positively, the world was created through Christ (John 1:10; cf. 17:5, 24) and is the object of divine love (John 3:16-17; 12:46; 1 John 4:9, 14). Negatively, however, the same word means a corporate way of life bitterly opposed to God (1 John 2:15-17; John 8:23). It persecutes Jesus and his disciples.49 "The world" in this sense is under the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19; John 17:15). Jesus depicts his crucifixion and resurrection as a struggle against this "prince" of the world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and as overcoming "the world" (John 16:33; cf. 1 John 5:4-5). For John, Jesus' religious and political opponents are agents of the prince and of the world.50

47 Similarly, Paul points out that grief can lead either to repentance or to despair and death (2 Cor. 7:9-10).

48 John 8:44, 47; 1 John 2:14; 3:8-10; 5:18-20.

49 See John 15:18-20; 17:14-17; 1 John 3:13. Paul probably uses this world in a similar sense in 1 Cor. 1:20-28; 3:12; 7:31; Gal. 6:14; Eph. 2:2. Cf. also "this age (aion *)" in Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6-8; 3:18; 2 Cor. 4:4; Gal. 1:4; and Eph. 2:2.

50 While John seldom emphasizes the kingdom theme, he makes it very clear that this was the issue over which Jesus was crucified. When Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is "not of this world," he is not referring to a purely spiritual kingdom. For Jesus goes on to explain that if it were, "my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews" (John 18:36). Here Jesus contrasts

(footnote continued on next page)

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John also states that sin is "lawlessness" or "transgression of the law" (anomia; see 1 John 3:4). According to Protestant orthodoxy, this statement provides the basic definition of sin. John also appears to emphasize law by stressing the importance of keeping Christ's commands. And since John also speaks of Jesus' death as an expiatory sacrifice, the notion of sin as a legal transgression is present in his thought (1 John 2:1-4; cf. 4:10). Nevertheless, Jesus' "commands'' are primarily to believe and to love (1 John 3:22-24; 5:2-3; John 15:9-13). Sin, as we have seen, is primarily a participatory reality in which lies and hatred flourish. Its opposite is participating, or abiding, in the Father, Son, and Spirit where truth and love abound (1 John 2:5-11; John 15). While legal models have a limited place in John, his main ones are organic and ethical.51 Transgression of the law is not his primary definition of sin.

The notion of sin as transgression which makes one liable to judgment, however, throws some light on its subjective effects. While Paul describes how consciousness of sin can lead to despair, John adds that it can involve a tormenting fear of condemnation, which only the love perfected through abiding in Christ can expel (1 John 3:19-22; 4:17-18; cf. 2:28).

IV

Conclusions

Our investigation of the Old Testament, Jesus' ministry, Paul, and John has shown that sin is not merely an individual attitude, action, or state.52 Neither is it wholly a human phenomenon. Sin is a massive corporate power, or interweaving of interrelated powers, which opposes God on all social, religious, and personal levels, seeking to bring all creation under the dominion of death.

For humans, sin is turning the heart from God, turning back from the future which God promisesbut not in a general, formless way. For finite people, sin always involves turning away from specific acts and relationships willed by God. It means turning toward forces opposed to God, and involvement in acts and relationships which they promote. The modern Western notion of the essentially independent individual is

(footnote continued from previous page)

the way of his kingdom, the way of agape *, with the way of "the world" as carried out by both the religious leaders and Pilate.

51 Cf. Vol. I, pp. 346-348, 355-357. Darkness, which is opposed by Jesus the Light, is another major Johannine image for the realm and power of sin (John 1:5-9; 8:12; 9:4-5; 11:9-10; 12:46; 1 John 1:5-8; 2:8-11).

52 We have had to omit other New Testament writings due to lack of space.

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no more supported by our study of sin than it was by our positive anthropology.

Sin, then, is collusion with and bondage under corporate powers of evil who oppose God's call. As such, sin manifests the paradoxical double-sidedness we first discovered in the Christus Victor motif (Vol. I, pp. 317-322). On one hand, since all humans cooperate with these powers to some degree, they bear responsibility for their plight. On the other hand, once someone gives in to such a power, sin may become, as Macquarrie says, a "runaway escalation that drags its initiator along, whether he wills it or not."53 If one gives in fully, say, to materialistic or militaristic impulses, one may find oneself committing acts that one initially never dreamed of, yet unable to escape from doing them. This means that, in dealing with individuals or groups caught in sin, Christians may rightly urge them to assume responsibility and do what they can to break sin's grip. Yet the church must also recognize that sin's structural, corporate power is often far greater than anyone can resist by themselves. Touched by compassion for sin's victims, the church must also combat sin on this level.

How is our view of sin related to what other theologies have said?

A

The Essence of Sin

For traditional Catholicism, sin is inordinate turning toward temporal good. This reminds one of Paul's notion of "the flesh," that force which exalts the physical and measurable against God. However, the things toward which sinners turn are not sinful primarily because they are temporal or finite. For obedience to God also involves adherence to specific, finite relationships and objects. Finite thingsvalues, customs, persons, groups, etc.participate in sin only insofar as they take over that allegiance which belongs to God alone.

Classic Protestantism more accurately regards sin as disobedience, or faithlessness. Sin is primarily turning from God's willthough as expressed more fully through the specific relationships and commands of God's covenants than through Eden's single prohibition. God's will, moreover, is revealed through God's continuing faithfulness through the generations, as are the variety and specific forms of faithlessness in response to it.

Faithlessness is most appallingly actualized in opposition to God's call toward the coming kingdom and to God's personal faithfulness in Christ. For humanization occurs in response to God's call (Chap. 4), in our openness as spirit to God's Spirit (Chap. 5). In contrast, sin involves turning back and aside from this call. Whereas true

53Principles of Christian Theology, 2d. ed., p. 266.

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humanization is guided by hope, sin succumbs to hopelessness and despair. Even prideful attempts to direct one's life and others' in ways opposed to God are rooted in the conviction or fear that the future which God promises cannot really come to pass.

Although faithlessness involves disobedience to specific commands, sin is not primarily, as Protestant orthodoxy claims, transgression of the law in a general sense. Sin is the deeper turning of the heart from relationship with God, of which the breaking of laws is only one dimension. Protestant orthodoxy is too dependent on rational, legal models.

B

The Nature and Effects of Sin

Original sin is not, as Catholicism says, merely the loss of original righteousness, nor is evil the mere absence of good. Sin is not simply internal imbalance among human faculties or the polarities of existence. By themselves, such concepts fail to express effectively enough sin's power and energy, as Calvin complained.

We can affirm that sin plunges all people into "total depravity," provided that this term means that no human capacity provides an essentially unobstructed point of contact with God. In fact, theology should apply total depravity more totally than it was in classical or orthodox Protestantism. There is no room to exempt a "civil righteousness" from sin's corruption. Moreover, Luther's insight that sin is most powerful when hidden under the guise of righteousness must be extended from the personal to the social sphere.54

We must also challenge Calvin and Niebuhr's claim that the main form of human sin is pride. Sin involves allegiance to standards, institutions, and conduct opposed to God. Most people are largely passive in doing this. Even those who seek to assert their wills pridefully cannot really become independent from God, but submit themselves in reality to other gods.

What does this mean for pastoral care and for mission among the oppressed? Do people normally think too highly or to little of themselves? Should their self-images be broken down, as Calvin and Niebuhr recommendor built up, as Rogers and liberation theologians insist? Sin plays on people's fears of shame, weakness, insecurity, and death. Sin can weigh one down with despair and fear of condemnation. Moreover, as Niebuhr himself said, the anxiety of being a finite creature

54 Deceptiveness is fundamental to the demonic. The devil is "the father of lies" (John 8:44). He "has blinded the minds of unbelievers" (2 Cor. 4:4). ''Satan disguises himself as an angel of light," and "his servants . . . as servants of righteousness" (2 Cor. 11:14-15).

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faced with indefinite possibilities of self-transcendence in a threatening world accompanies all sin.

All this suggests that even when people construct exaggerated self-images, they are trying to shield themselves from the weaknesses they fear. They are attempting, perhaps unconsciously, to hide their fear of opening themselves to God's call and their vulnerability to the future it involves. Accordingly, even when a person's pride and self-will must be critiqued, one must remember that a vulnerable and fearful self-concept lurks somewhere underneath. People will never be able to live or love in the fully human way of agape * unless agape* first surrounds and renews them (Chap. 3). Thus everyone needs to be accepted with "unconditional positive regard"provided, of course, that such regard is not equivalent to overlooking or idealizing sin.55

C

The Transmission of Sin

Since sin is essentially collusion with and bondage under corporate powers of evil, it is passed through the generations primarily by these powers themselves. Efforts to explain sin's transmission from Adam to the present arise more from the mind's desire to trace things to their origins than from the biblical data. Aquinas's notion of Adam as the soul of humanity's body, while echoing Scripture's solidaristic notion of "body," still provides little insight as to how Adam's act actually affects the concrete activities of later generations. Hodge's concept of federal headship is based on the assumption that divine-human relationships rest on legal foundations. And the hints of biological propagation lurking in most traditional theories usually assume, or at least reinforce, an unbiblically negative view of sexual relations.

Since sin operates largely through social structures, we agree with liberation theologies that it is transmitted at least partially in this way. Sin forms a "hamartiosphere" which conditions our values and attitudes even before we consciously adopt them. Yet if we reduce sin's transmission and operation to sociological dimensions, we risk underestimating both its power and the extent to which people actively co-operate with forces which bind them.56 We risk succumbing to the modern illusion

55 Such a reconciliation of Niebuhr and Rogers's views was suggested by Walter Horton in Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 85 (June, 1958), pp. 20-22. See the discussion between Niebuhr, Rogers, and others on pp. 6-28 of this issue; in Vol. 11, No. 101 (February, 1960), pp. 45-54; and in Vol. 11, No. 104 (May, 1960), pp. 23-26. For the term unconditional positive regard, see Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 61-62; cf. pp. 481-533; and Thomas Oden Kerygma and Counseling (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), esp. pp. 73-82.

56 Walter Rauschenbusch distinguished sharply between supernatural and sociological understandings of the "suprapersonal forces of evil" and adopted

(footnote continued on next page)

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that sociological understanding and political change alone can eliminate evil. For sociology can only elaborate a surface dimension, as it were, of the activities of uncanny and irrational powers and of the paradoxical way that humans both resist and serve them (cf. Vol. I, pp. 331, 339-340).

D

Are the Powers Personal?

Since we frequently refer to the powers in personalistic terms, modern people will wonder how literally we mean this. On one hand, these powers cannot be fully personal. For only God is fully personal, and much of the powers' activity consists in making humans less personal. They cannot be fully rational, for evil involves an intrinsic irrationality. Furthermore, picturing the powers as individual beings has often fostered superstition and focused attention away from their all-pervasive structural influence.

On the other hand, if one conceives the powers merely as forces, one risks underestimating their subtlety and intentionality. For despite occasional vivid phenomena such as exorcism, it is the nature of evil to disguise itself. Evil powers "withdraw from sight into the men, elements, and institutions through which they make their power felt. To seem not to appear is part of their essence."57 If we regard evil as impersonal, we may underestimate the depth of that dominion which behavior patterns, ideologies, and institutions exert over lives. People may regard these forces merely as a pressure which may be resisted or rejected. They may discover too late that they are borne along by an intentionality which they are powerless to break.

Accordingly, since evil displays a purposefulness that one can resist only through God's personal activity, we prefer to speak of the evil powers as "personal," though not in the full or positive sense.

(footnote continued from previous page)

only the latter (A Theology for the Social Gospel, pp. 69-94).

57 Heinrich Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (New York: Herder & Herder, 1961), p. 29. Cf. note 54 above. But despite this, the powers "manifest themselves as beings of intellect and will, which can be spoken to. They are something which is capable of personal activity" (p. 19).

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Suggestions for Further Reading

Berkouwer, C. G. Sin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.

Caird, G. B. Principalities and Powers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

Dubarle, A. M. The Biblical Doctrine of Original Sin. New York: Herder & Herder, 1964.

Frankfort, Henry. The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Chicago: University, 1946.

__________. Kingship of the God. Chicago: University, 1946.

Green, Michael. I Believe in Satan's Downfall. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.

Kierkegaard, Søren. The Concept of Dread. Princeton: University, 1944 (originally published in 1844).

__________. The Sickness Unto Death. Princeton: University, 1944 (originally published in 1848).

Menninger, Karl. Whatever Became of Sin? New York: Hawthorne, 1973.

Murray, John. The Imputation of Adam's Sin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.

Pittinger, Norman. Cosmic Love and Human Wrong. New York: Paulist, 1978.

Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil. New York: Harper, 1967.

Rondet, Henri. Original Sin: The Patristic and Theological Background. New York: Alba House, 1972.

Rupp, Gordon. Principalities and Powers. Nashville: Abingdon, 1952.

Schlier, Heinrich. Principalities and Powers in the New Testament. New York: Herder & Herder, 1961.

Schooneberg, Peter. Man and Sin. Notre Dame, Ind.: University, 1965.

Smith, C. Ryder. The Bible Doctrine of Sin. London: Epworth, 1953.

Wink, Walter. Naming the Powers. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.

__________. Unmasking the Powers. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986.

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Chapter Seven

Justification

Chapters 3-5 have shown that human beings were created, first, for a relationship of obedience to God. They were created for obedience not simply to standards (though standards will be involved) but in response to God's initiating, challenging, and sustaining call toward the future. Humans were created, second, for relationships of mutual servanthood. Energized by agape *, mutual servanthood was to bring people of all races, classes, and sexes together under God's reign. And these harmonious human relationships were to be intertwined, third, with careful, responsible stewardship over all God's creation.

Chapter 6 has shown, however, that humanity has turned aside from God's call, and toward other relationships which block and pervert those originally intended. In this turning, the heart's deep, internal resistance to God and the enticement and binding pressure of suprahuman forces are intertwined.

Anthropology shows what humans were intended to be and how they fall short. Soteriology shows how this falling short can be remedied. In our system, soteriology falls under three headings. To emphasize that God's radical inbreaking activity is necessary not only to heal humankind, but even to show us what we ought to be, we have dealt, first, with the foundation of salvation laid in the work of Jesus Christ (Vol. I, Chaps. 14-18). We have shown that Jesus renewed the call to and the actuality of God's reign. He defeated the powers who block the way to it. He united God and humankind from within.

We still need to show, second, how this salvation is actualized in

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human lives. Traditionally, this has been discussed largely under the headings of justification and sanctification. To these topics we will devote the next two chapters. The traditional discussion, however, has focused largely on the application of salvation to individuals. But given our emphasis on the corporate character of humanity and sin, we must deal more fully with salvation's corporate character. This is focused largely through the church, the body (soma *) of Christ which opposes the corporate solidarity of the flesh (sarx). Accordingly, the third heading under which we will discuss Soteriology will be Ecclesiology (Chaps. 9-14).

I

The Debate over Justification

According to many Protestant Reformers, "justification by faith" was the issue over which the church would stand or fall. Their primary concerns revolved around the relative priority and the exact relationships among divine and human elements in the salvation of the individual. Since we have affirmed that human nature involves the deep interiority of "the heart" where God is decisively encountered, we can temporarily focus on this individual dimension of salvation. Even this attempt, however, will reveal its one-sidedness by often pointing, of its own accord, back toward the corporate dimension.

A

Traditional Roman Catholicism

In Latin Christianity's discussion about justification, the concept of justice provided a fundamental norm. This concept had been influenced not only by biblical elements, but also by Roman and Greek ones. The Romans had emphasized legality. Justice consisted primarily in acquitting or condemning those accused of breaking the law. The Greeks had regarded justice as the chief moral virtue, which consisted in a harmony among all the human faculties.

Accordingly, at least two questions became central to discussions of justification. First, how can sinners be judged, objectively, as just according to God's law? Second, how do individuals become subjectively just, or righteous? These questions helped shape the framework within which relationship of human and divine elements in the individual's salvation process came to be articulated. Catholicism's official position on justification was formulated by the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Yet many of its essentials had been articulated earlier by Thomas Aquinas.

Catholicism taught that justification, viewed from God's standpoint, was an instantaneous act. This single act, however, involved not only forgiveness of sins, but also conversion and the impartation of renewing grace.1 According to Aquinas, justification involved all this because for-

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giveness is grounded in divine love. It is not the nature of this love merely to excuse without at the same time bestowing grace.2 Therefore, since grace frees our wills, justification also includes conversionturning from sin (repentance) and turning toward God (faith). Aquinas argued that from the standpoint of Godthe origin and agent of justificationthe infusion of grace has a certain priority. It is because grace is infused that forgiveness, repentance, and faith occur. In this sense, Catholicism could be understood to teach that possession of subjective righteousness (through infusion of grace) is the basis upon which individuals are objectively justified in God's judgment. Rome might seem to be insisting that people must repent, believe, and be filled with grace before they could be justified.3

Although faith was the instrumental cause of justification, the Council of Trent in particular insisted that unless hope and love accompanied it, faith could not unite one with Christ.4 Faith by itself was merely, as it were, an empty form which attained saving efficacy only when working through and informed by love.

However one evaluates these teachings, it is clear that when Catholicism spoke of justification, it had the entire scope of the salvation process in view. Instead of focusing solely on (objective) forgiveness and acceptance, Catholics also emphasized (subjective) renewal through grace. Rather than speaking simply of justifying faith, Catholicism stressed the love through which faith and faithful people are perfected. Briefly, Catholicism spoke not only of what we are saved

1ST II, 1, Q. 113, a. 6. Cf. Q. 114, a.5; Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter 7 (in Henry Denziger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma [St. Louis: B. Herder, 1957], Section 799 [p. 251]). References to Trent will be cited by listing the Section[s] in Denziger prefaced by "D."

2ST II, 1, Q. 113, a. 2. Cf. D 821. For Aquinas, grace is "nothing other than a certain participation in the divine nature" (Q. 112, a. 1). He is saying, then, that God's love involves not only forgiving but also self-giving.

3ST, Q. 113, a. 7, a. 8. Aquinas, of course, is not arguing about temporal sequence, since justification is an instantaneous act. Rather, he is talking about ontological priority. According to Trent, justification's "unique formal cause is the 'justice of God . . . by which He makes us just,' that, namely, by which, when we are endowed with it by him, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and not only are we reputed, but we are truly . . . just, receiving justice within us." Faith is justification's "instrumental" cause (D 799).

4 D 799-800. Cf. ST, Q. 113, a. 4. Trent anathametized anyone who said "that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy which remits sin for Christ's sake" (D 822).

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from, but also, and more emphatically, of what we are saved for. It spoke not only of how God judges us as righteous, but also, and more fully, of how we come to be righteous.

B

The Reformation Protest

When the Reformation erupted, Aquinas was not the only theologian being heard. Trent was convened after the Reformers' critique, partly to counter certain tendencies which they had understandably opposed. What the Reformers attacked, then, was not necessarily the position just outlined, but perhaps an exaggeration of certain of its emphases. In a word, the Catholic position could be taught and heard in a way that accented human works far more heavily than divine grace. One could hear that justification consisted in renewal rather than forgiveness, and that unless one's love were perfected, faith was worthless. Such an emphasis often produced acute inner turmoil, of which Martin Luther's experience was a profound expression.

I was always thinking, when will you do enough that God may be gracious? Such thoughts drove me to the monastery. . . . In the cloister we had enough to eat and drink but we had suffering and torment in heart and conscience. . . . I was often terrified at the name of Jesus. The sight of a crucifix was like lightening to me and when his name was spoken I would rather have heard that of the devil, because I thought I must do good works until Christ because of them became friendly and gracious to me. . . . I greatly longed to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, "the justice of God," because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. . . .

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by faith.' Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.5

Catholics maintained that justification involved both subjective renewal and also objective approval in God's judgment. In contrast, the Reformers insisted on restricting the concept "justification" to the latter. In justification, they insisted, the righteousness of Christ was imputed,

5 Quoted in Roland Bainton, The Age of the Reformation (New York: Van Nostrand, 1956), pp. 94-97. For a classical Protestant analysis and critique of the common medieval Catholic view of justification, see James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1955), pp. 113-126.

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or reckoned, to sinners who had not yet begun to be subjectively righteous. For God justifies sinners, and not the righteous.6

Luther and Calvin argued that if justification depended on subjective righteousness, people would be riddled with anxiety. For no amount of personal righteousness is pure enough to assure our acceptance by a perfectly holy God. Objective justification, then, cannot be based on subjective justification. On the contrary, it is only when we know that we have been justified objectively that our consciences will find peace and enable us to begin becoming righteous subjectively.7

Further, the Reformers argued that justification was appropriated by faith, by itself, before it is formed by love.8 Of course, they acknowledged that faith goes on to work through love. But at its beginning, faith is exercised by individuals acutely aware of their lack of subjective righteousness, including love. The Reformers linkened faith to an empty vessel, and often spoke as if it were passive.9 Nevertheless, faith's passivity could hardly be like that of a material object. It must involve some kind of responsiveness. Calvin stressed that faith is always intertwined with living hope, for the promise of eternal life is faith's object.10 And since Luther emphasized that faith receives the living Christ, he could speak of it as "living, busy, active, mighty."11

However one evaluates these teachings, it is clear that when the

6 Calvin, pp. 727-729. While Calvin acknowledged that God always renews those whom he justifies, he insisted on distinguishing justification from renewal (pp. 732, 778). Luther, whose language was often less systematic, occasionally spoke of sinners being justified "because" God had begun renewing them. Most interpreters feel, however, that here Luther was only insisting that justification leads to renewal. (See the discussion in Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966], pp. 235-242.)

7 Calvin, pp. 726, 739, 765, 778, 780. Accordingly, Luther emphasized that the justifying righteousness of Christ is entirely passive and alien ("Lectures on Galatians [1535]," in Luther's Works, Vol. 26, pp. 4-12).

8 Calvin, pp. 589, 750, 829-831; Luther, "Galatians," pp. 88-90, 160-161, 168, 269.

9 Calvin, pp. 733, 768; Luther's Works, Vol. 34 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960), pp. 159-160.

10 Calvin, pp. 575-580, 588-592.

11 "Faith is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers. . . . It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly" (Preface to Romans [in Althaus, p. 235, n. 56]). Calvin also stressed that faith is a trust in and a grasping of Christ's personal reality whereby believers become united with him (Calvin, pp. 576-584).

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Reformers spoke of justification, they focused on the divine (or objective) dimension of the salvation process. Instead of focusing on (subjective) renewal, they emphasized the divine activity in virtue of which alone this is possible. Briefly, Protestants spoke more of what we are saved from than of what we are saved for, and more of how God judges us as righteous than of how we become righteous.

C

Protestant Orthodoxy

As it did in dealing with sin, orthodoxy formulated the Reformation's main emphases on justification by means of a precise legal model. In defining righteousness, orthodoxy accented the emphasis on law long present in the Latin notion of justice. God's righteousness was defined largely as "His constant and eternal will, by which according to the immutable order fixed by Himself He renders each his due."12 God's original relationship to humankind was defined by a "covenant of works." By perfectly obeying God, Adam could accrue merit, whose reward would be eternal life. This perfect obedience to God's commands would be "righteousness." If Adam once disobeyed, however, he would suffer eternal punishment.13 But that was not all. Adam's relationship to the rest of humankind was also governed by a legal arrangement. In virtue of Adam's "federal headship," God would impute either the reward of his merit or the penalty of his defection to his posterity (cf. Chap. 6).

After Adam's transgression, the covenant of works remained in force. If eternal life were to become available, it would have to be merited by another legal representative who perfectly obeyed its stipulations, and who paid the penalty for all transgressions against it. Since righteousness is the name for such obedience, Charles Hodge could define the righteousness of Christ as "all he became, did, and suffered to satisfy the demands of divine justice, and merit for his people the forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life."14

Since orthodoxy defines Christ's righteousness largely as a legal quantum, its imputation to us can be defined as a legal transaction. According to orthodoxy, one is justified when God transfers the legal merits earned and legal penalties paid by Jesus to one's own account.

12 Fransiscus Burmanus, quoted in Heppe, p. 470, cf. pp. 96-98; cf. Hodge, Vol. I, pp. 416-427.

13 Heppe, pp. 281-300; Hodge, Vol. II, pp. 117-122. Merit was defined as "the work provided, to which a reward or retribution is due proportionate to the work" (Gisbertus Voetius in Heppe, p. 450).

14 Hodge, Vol. III, p. 142; cf. Heppe, pp. 458-479.

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God now regards these merits and penalties, in a judicial sense, as our own. Although Hodge, like the Reformers, agrees that those whom God reckons as righteous will become actually righteous, he sharply distinguishes this judicial imputation from any subjective impartation.

To impute is to ascribe to, to reckon to, to lay to one's charge. . . . This does not, and cannot mean that the righteousness of Christ is infused into the believer, or in any way imparted to him as to change, or constitute his moral character. Imputation never changes the inward subjective state of the person to whom the imputation is made. . . . In the forensic, although not in the moral or subjective sense, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ does make the sinner righteous. That is, it gives him a right to the full pardon of all his sins and a claim in justice to eternal life.15

Readers may have observed that this understanding of justification corresponds with the substitutionary model of Christ's work (Vol. I, Chap. 16). That model describes how Jesus merited life and paid the penalty of death. Orthodoxy's theory of justification, by showing how those benefits are applied to believers, simply extends the model a step further. Justification itself is the act by which God pronounces a sinner legally righteous. It is appropriated by faith, which is ''merely the instrumental cause of justification." Faith is not a human effort, perhaps intertwined with love, which somehow contributes to one's justification. "It is the act of receiving and resting upon Christ, and has no other relation to the end than any other act by which a proffered good is accepted."16

In one sense, justification by faith as conceptualized by orthodoxy is opposed to legal righteousness. Like the Reformers, orthodox theologians insisted that sinners can never be justified by earning legal merit, but only by surrender to Christ. In another sense, however, this model is grounded in legal notions of righteousness, for these provide the fundamental concepts for defining justification and for explaining how one can attain it.

D

Protestant Liberalism

The Reformers affirmed that all whom God forgives and accepts God also renews. They insisted, however, on distinguishing the first two activities (justification) from renewal (sanctification). When Protestant orthodoxy sharply differentiated imputation, conceived in legal terms, from all notions of impartation, it accentuated this distinction.

15 Hodge, Vol. III, pp. 144-145; cf. Heppe, pp. 543-559.

16 Hodge, Vol. III, p. 170; cf. Heppe, pp. 559-564; Schmid, pp. 424-434.

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Protestant liberalism, however, could not make so thorough a contrast. For Friedrich Schleiermacher in particular, salvation itself consisted in impartation of Christ's living influence to us. Schleiermacher's divergence from orthodoxy show up in his notion of imputation. How does Christ's righteousness come to be attributed to us, so that God treats us not as our own sinfulness would deserve, but as Christ himself would deserve? Schleiermacher writes that once the impulse emanating from Jesus renews us,

God sees us, not each of us for himself, but only in Christ. In living fellowship with Christ no one wishes to be anything for himself. . . . Each one wishes to appear only as animated by Christ, and as a part of His work which is still in the process of development, so that even that which has not yet been altogether united with Him is still related to the same animating principle, because it is yet to be animated by Him some day. . . . Because of His life in us, the impulse to the fulfilling of [God's] will is also active in us, so that in connection with Him we too are objects of the divine good pleasure. This is the meaning . . . of the often misunderstood expression, that Christ's obedience is our righteousness, or that His righteousness is imputed to us. Such an expression . . . cannot be thoroughly defended except on the assumption of a common life.17

Notice that God does not first impute Christ's righteousness to us objectively, as the basis upon which it begins to be imparted to us subjectively. Instead, Christ's righteousness is first imparted to us subjectively, and on that basis God regards us as righteous objectively. Somewhat as in traditional Catholicism, an infusion of righteousness appears to provide the basis for justification.

In fact, justification was so directly related to this impartation that Schleiermacher used the term to mean not a specific divine act, but the consciousness that accompanies union with Christ. Before this union, individuals have a "self-consciousness of guilt and merited punishment." At "the very beginning of living fellowship with Christ," however, this must vanish, "for there can be no true consciousness of fellowship with Christ as long as that other consciousness persists."18

17The Christian Faith, pp. 454-455. Rauschenbusch described imputation similarly (A Theology for the Social Gospel, p. 265). Cf. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, pp. 543-547.

18 Ibid., p. 479. Schleiermacher called the whole process of salvation "redemption." Through it "the God-consciousness already present in human nature, though feeble and repressed, becomes stimulated and made dominant by entrance of the living influence of Christ" (p. 476). Schleiermacher divided redemption into "regeneration," which is the beginning of this process, and "sanctification," which is its continuance. Regarded as a changed form of personal life, regeneration is called ''conversion"; regarded as a changed relation to God, it is "justification" (p. 478). "Conversion" is further divided

(footnote continued on next page)

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Yet by identifying justification with this clear assurance, Schleiermacher opened the door to something the Reformers sought to avoid. For many people are occasionally troubled by guilt and fears of condemnation long after they have embarked upon the Christian life. If justification is a state of consciousness untroubled by this, people may doubt their justification when contrary thoughts arise. This may prompt them to become more preoccupied with achieving a state of spiritual or ethical perfection than with the agapaic service of God and others.

In his analysis of soteriology's subjective side, Schleiermacher wrestled with another Reformation problem. How can faith be receptive and yet in some way active? He argued, first, that both repentance and faith arise "out of the vision of the perfection of Christ."19 In this way, faith originates from and is wholly directed toward God. Yet at the same time, Schleiermacher insisted that faith arouses something in us which remains from "the original perfection of human nature." This is "desire for fellowship with God." Still, Schleiermacher claimed that we are passive, or receptive, even here. For this ''mere desire is not an act; it is but the anticipatory feeling of an act that may possibly happen if a certain impulse occurs later."20

E

Summary

We have seen that the traditional discussion of justification focused on the relative priority and the exact relationships among divine and human elements in the process of an individual's salvation. Reformation and orthodox Protestantism emphasized the divine origination of the process. They stressed God's judgment of us as righteous and what we are saved from. On the other hand, Catholicism and Protestant liberalism focused on the process itself. They emphasized how we become righteous, and what we are saved for. Although both dimensions of salvation are undoubtedly important, centuries of debate over justification have produced little convergence.21

(footnote continued from previous page)

into "repentance," turning from the past; and "faith," which is "appropriation of the perfection and blessedness of Christ" (p. 481).

19 Ibid., p. 484

20 Ibid., p. 495. Ritschl defined faith in more volitional terms as "the direction of the will towards God as the highest end and the highest good." (Justification and Reconciliation, p. 103). For Rauschenbusch, faith must be "an energetic act of the will . . . declaring our solidarity with the kingdom" (p. 102).

21 For a good overview and significant attempts at rapprochement, see George Anderson, Austin Murphy, and Joseph Burgess, eds., Justification by Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VII (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985); and Hans Küng, Justification (New York: Nelson, 1964).

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We have learned that theological doctrines are, in part, answers to questions raised in different times and places (Vol. I, Chap. 14). Conflict among these answers may arise partly from the way the questions are put. Might this be true of justification? Might the very intensity of the debate have focused everyone's attention so exclusively on certain issues and assumptions that other crucial biblical data has been lost from view? Might the issue of justification, when examined within its biblical horizon, take on a somewhat different shape? Let us see.

II

"Righteousness" and "Faith" in Scripture

A

The Old Testament

1

Righteousness

The Hebrew words translated righteous and righteousness (tsedeq, tsedeqah) carry rich and varied meanings. Sometimes, as orthodox Protestants have insisted, they indicate a precise standard. In their economic dealings, Israelites were admonished to use "just" (tsedeq) weights and balances (Lev. 19:36; Deut. 25:15). In all legal dealings, they were to "do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness (tsedeqah) shall you judge your neighbor" (Lev. 19:15; cf. Exod. 23:6-8; Deut. 1:16-17). Such righteousness was essential to social stability and prosperity (2 Sam. 8:15; 23:3-4; Isa. 9:7).

In other places, as Catholics and Protestant liberals have stressed, the same words refer to ethical character. Especially in Proverbs, the righteous are those whose behavior differs from "the wicked" in obvious ways. However, their conduct "includes far more than mere correctness or legality. . . . [It] demanded the showing of kindness, faithfulness, and, as circumstances arose, helpful compassion to the poor or the suffering."22

In Chapter 6 we noticed that Scripture often describes sin as transgression of a standard or as immoral characteras the opposite, that is, of those aspects of righteousness just mentioned. To apprehend sin's nature more fully, we had to inquire, Against what standards, in what kinds of acts, is sin most characteristically active? Similarly, to understand righteousness more broadly, we must ask, Through what standards and conduct is it expressed? Much as sin in the Old Testament was a turning from Yahweh's call and faithfulness as expressed in his covenant, so righteousness was Yahweh's establishing of the living

22 Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Vol. I (New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 373-374. Cf. Prov. 12:10; 21:26; 29:7; Ezek. 18:5-9.

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relationship expressed and regulated by that covenant.23 Most fundamentally, righteousness indicated the covenant making, maintaining, and renewing activity of God.

This covenant relationship, however, hardly existed in abstraction from Israel's historical circumstances. Since Israel was frequently assailed by other nations, God's active righteousness often took the form of rescue from them. From its earliest uses, righteousness carried the meaning of God's triumph over his enemies and the deliverance of God's people (Judges 5:11; 1 Sam. 12:7; Micah 6:5). Fundamentally, Yahweh's "righteousness was not a norm, but acts, and it was these acts which bestow salvation."24

Since God's righteous acts established or renewed a covenant, righteousness in the full sense included human action. Human righteousness meant conforming one's actions and character to the covenant. In Israel's earlier history, the righteousness of an individual was little distinguished from that of the nation. The prophets, however, increasingly emphasized the individual's responsibility for being righteous and the difficulty of doing so.25 Accordingly, some later texts are pessimistic about humanity's capacity for righteousness (Ps. 130:3; 143:2).

In general, however, human righteousness is not understood as Protestant orthodoxy defined it: as conformity to the law so perfect that a single sin destroys it. To be sure, concrete obedience is importantso important, indeed, that "the righteous" are clearly distinguishable from "the wicked." Yet human righteousness is rooted in the adherence of entire persons to a relationship, of which significant conformity to covenant standards is a result and expression. Human righteousness is not perfect conformity to covenant standards, of which the relationship is merely a result and expression.

As Israel's history developed, the understanding of righteousness

23 "Ancient Israel did not in fact measure a line of conduct or an act by an ideal norm, but by the specific relationship in which the partner had at the time to prove himself true." (von Rad, p. 371. Cf. Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, Vol. I [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961], pp. 240-241, 249). Leon Morris, in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), argues that righteousness is the eternal, "inflexible law which is at the very basis of the being of God" (pp. 295-296). Morris begins, however, not with the tsedeq word group, but from other words in which the concept of law is fundamental.

24 Von Rad, p. 373. Von Rad finds "no radical transformation or development" in this ancient concept of righteousness (p. 372).

25 Eichrodt, pp. 245-246.

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as Yahweh's saving action also deepened and extended. As the nation strays further from the covenant, true righteousness contrasts ever more sharply with the way things are.26 "The righteous" are increasingly the poor, the widows, and others afflicted by an unjust society.27 At the same time, however, the range of Yahweh's salvation widens. All nations come within its scope (cf. Vol. I, pp. 272-274). Thus many psalms anticipate the day when Yahweh will judge the world in righteousness. Then those who "band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death" will be overthrown (Psalm 94:21). All gods will bow down (Psalm 97:7; 96:5). The sea will roar, the fields will exult, all trees will "sing for joy, before Yahweh, for he comes [to] judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth'' (Psalm 96:12-13; cf. 98:7-9).

In the latter chapters of Isaiah, righteousness becomes "the key to the understanding of the whole work of salvation."28 The tsedeq word group repeatedly indicates Yahweh's powerful acts of deliverance.29 Significantly, these words often appear in the imagery of a cosmic trial. Yahweh insistently calls the nations and their gods to this trial. They are to plead their case (1:21; 43:26; 45:21), to bring forth witnesses (43:9). Of whom will it be said, "He is right" (41:26)? Can the gods show that they have foreknown the course of history, and brought their plans to pass? Can their witnesses "justify them" (43:9)? Will the gods "be proved right" (43:26)?

No. The gods have neither foretold Yahweh's present delivering acts, nor will they hinder Yahweh's future liberation. As the Psalms anticipate the revelation of God's vindicating, saving righteousness in the sight of the nations (Psalm 98:2-3), so Yahweh assures Jerusalem, "I will not rest until her vindication (tsedeqah) goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory!" (Isa. 62:1-2; cf. 56:1).

In the strongest possible language, God declares that God alone will accomplish all this through God's own righteousness. "From my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear'" (Isa. 45:23). Thus even the mysterious Servant, who will somehow participate in this, will

26 Norman Snaith, Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (New York: Schocken, 1964), pp. 68-70.

27 Amos 2:6; Isa. 5:23; Ps. 31:18; 94:21, etc.

28 Eichrodt, p. 246; Snaith, pp. 79-93.

29 Isaiah 46:12-13; 51:5-8; 56:1; 59:16-17; 62:1-2; 63:1; etc. Even the victories of Cyrus of Persia, who defeats Babylon and releases Israel's captives, are described by these words (41:2, 10; 45:8, 13).

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entrust the manifestation and vindication of his own righteousness to God (Isa. 49:4; 50:7-9).

In the above texts, justification language occurs in the imagery of a trial. In a modern trial, people are examined in a courtroom by the standards of a codified law, and then pronounced guilty or innocent. When Protestant orthodoxy conceptualizes justification in legal terms, it is thinking of this kind of trial. Jesus and humanity are judged by God's legal standards and humanity is pronounced guilty. But since Jesus is pronounced innocent, and since his merits can be legally transferred to us, so are we. Accordingly, when advocates of orthodoxy find justification language in the context of a biblical trial, they argue that their own view is predominant.30

Yahweh's cosmic trial, however, concludes with far more than verbal declarations. Yahweh's righteousness is "pronounced" by his acts of judgment and deliverance. The nations and their gods are defeated by their inability to predict or prevent these acts. The courtroom of this trial is nothing less than the cosmic history of the gods and their nations. The arguments are Yahweh's concrete struggles with them. The justifying verdict is the victory above all of Yahweh, and thereby of Yahweh's people (cf. Isa. 54:14-17).

Yahweh's justification, however, does not end with the defeat of opponents. God's righteousness, as an active force, will continue to ground and permeate a new and peaceful social order.31 Righteousness will even renew the course of nature.32 Finally, the full manifestation of God's righteousness will include the confession and the praise of all creatures. For God's righteousness will not reach its goal until every tongue acknowledges him. Then those who have been justified can sing:

I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels! For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations! (Isa. 61:10-11)

2

Faith

Old Testament words for faith derive from the verb aman.

30 E.g., Morris, p. 257.

31 Isa. 33:5-6; 48:18-19; 54:14-15; 58:8.

32 Isa. 32:15-18; Joel 2:23. See von Rad, p. 375 (cf. pp. 360-361); Eichrodt, p. 247.

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Aman-words indicate that physical objects are firm or lasting.33 When used of persons, their consistency and reliability is in focus (Num. 12:7; 1 Sam. 22:14). Used as a verb, aman means to consider something or someone as reliable, and hence to entrust oneself or commit oneself to them.

In the Old Testament, however, these words are seldom applied positively to humans. Most often, we hear that people fail to rely on or trust in Yahweh over time.34 In contrast to human faithlessness, however, Yahweh is repeatedly described as faithful.

Since relying on God means to regard God's character as consistent and enduring, faith or belief has a future orientation. It means trusting that Yahweh will keep on guiding, loving, and rescuing as in the past. Although Israel usually fails to do this, Abraham succeeds. When Yahweh promises to bless all nations through Abram and Sarai's descendants,

Abraham reacts . . . by taking this promise of God seriously, by relying on it, or to be more specific, by relying on God and believing that he is able to fulfill his promise. . . . Thus, in this passage, it is clear what right conduct toward God is . . . (tsedeqah, 'righteousness'): trusting in him, relying on his promise without doubting, indeed contrary to all appearance.35

Such a continuing attitude of faithfulness is expressed by the related adjective emunah, which is applied sometimes to humans and often to God. Yahweh's emunah is most highly praised in Psalm 89, which celebrates his promise to David and his descendants. Yahweh will give David victory (89:22-24), and even "make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth" (89:27). Even should his descendants turn away, Yahweh still promises, "I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness" (89:33). Nevertheless, even this text comes from a time when God's faithfulness seemed to have disappeared. It ends with the cry, "Where is thy steadfast love of old, which by thy faithfulness thou didst swear to David?" (89:49).

We have learned that the Israelites often asked such questions when the pressure of external enemies or internal sins seemed to prevent Yahweh from fulfilling the promises (Vol. I, pp. 271-274). However, as God's righteousness and faithfulness triumphed again and again over such opposition, they came to be regarded as essential to the divine nature.

33 Isa. 22:23, 25; 33:16; Jer. 15:18.

34 Num. 14:11; Deut. 1:32; 9:23; Psalm 78:8, 32, 37.

35TDOT, Vol. I, p. 305.

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For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh?

Who among the heavenly beings is like Yahweh?

A God feared in the council of the holy ones,

Great and terrible above all that are round about him? . . .

Who is mighty as thou art, O Lord,

With thy faithfulness round about thee? . . .

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne;

Steadfast love and faithfulness go before thee!

(Psalm 89:6-8, 14)

Accordingly, the Old Testament increasingly looked forward to the time when these divine energies would renew the whole earth.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

Righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground

And righteousness will look down from the sky.

(Psalm 89:10-11; cf. 36:5-10; 40:9-11; Isa. 16:5)

3

Summary

Traditional theology has been concerned with how individuals come to be, or to be regarded as, righteous. In contrast, the Old Testament focuses mainly on the righteousness of God. When it speaks of justification, especially in the language of a trial, it is most concerned with the vindication, actualization, and revelation of God's righteousness. Justification consists neither in the passing of a verdict nor the development of human righteousness alone. It also involves an historical conquest of enemies and the liberation, establishment, and grateful confession of Yahweh's people. The Old Testament looks forward to a cosmic eschatological justifying event of this kind.

Traditional theology has regarded faith as a human response. In contrast, Old Testament faith is more often attributed to God. As Yahweh's long-term loyalty to the covenant people, God's faithfulness, like God's righteousness, is a source of the salvation God will bring. As long-term reliability, faithfulnesswhether divine or humanstretches toward the future. Human faith is continually and consistently responsive. While it is not "active" in the sense of creating righteousness, neither is it best described as "passive."

B

The New Testament

The orthodox Protestant view of justification, which seeks to conceptualize the Reformation emphasis, corresponds with the substitutionary model of Christ's work. The liberal Protestant view, which has several affinities with Catholicism, corresponds with the moral influence model. The Old Testament, however, with its emphasis on Yahweh's cosmic triumph, reminds one of the Christus Victor motif. Is it possible

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that this third model of Christ's work, almost wholly neglected in discussions of justification, might nevertheless be present in the New Testament texts?

Justification is developed so fully in Romans that one's interpretation of this letter is decisive for one's understanding of this theme. We may limit ourselves, then, to several crucial issues on which its overall interpretation rests. These issues, however, are complex enough that readers will need to follow our discussion with the text of Romans in hand. To place these issues in clearest relief, we begin by contrasting the two readings which have opposed each other most explicitly.

1

Orthodox Protestant Interpretation

What is the major emphasis of Paul's Roman letter? Protestant scholars have stressed that Paul begins with a lengthy discussion of divine wrath and human sin (1:183:20). Following Luther, Protestants have usually assumed that Paul, before presenting the gospel, first seeks to crush his readers under the law, and that Romans' main purpose is to show how Christ saves us from sin and wrath. Paul summarizes his indictment by stressing that the law speaks so "every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God" (Rom 3:19). Charles Hodge argues that "held accountable" (hupodikos) is a strict legal term and that the following verses on justification therefore deal with removal of this legal penalty.36

In exegeting Romans 3:21-26, orthodox interpretation underlines three words. First, Christ's saving work is called a redemption (apolutrosis *) in verse 24. This word derives from the word for ransom (lutron) and Christ's blood is mentioned in the next verse. It is concluded from this that redemption means "a deliverance effected by the payment of a ransom" and that the ransom-price is Jesus' blood.37 Second, orthodox exegetes emphasize that Christ's death is called a hilasterion* in verse 25. This word means "expiation" (or perhaps "propitiation"a sacrifice offered specifically to quell the wrath of an offended deity; Vol. I, p. 309). Third, verse 26 calls God both righteous (dikaios) and the one who justifies (dikaiounta). By itself, the latter term might refer broadly to God's saving activity. But by emphasizing that God not only "justifies'' but at the same time is "righteous," Paul

36Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950 [originally published in 1886]), pp. 80-81.

37 Ibid., p. 97. See also John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), Vol. I, pp. 115-116. Although this could well be the meaning of apolutrosis* in Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; and Heb. 9:15; it means deliverance in a much broader sense in Luke 21:28; Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:14; 4:30; and Heb. 11:35. Cf. Vol. I, p. 310 above.

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apparently means that God's justifying activity is exercised in accord with a certain standard. Thus orthodox scholars insist that the crucial words righteousness (dikaiosune *) and righteous (dikaios) in 3:25-26 mean God's standard of justice.38

Having argued that, according to Romans 3:19-26, justification was procured by Christ's paying the penalty demanded by God's legal standard, orthodox exegesis claims that Romans 4, especially verses 1-8, shows how this is imputed to us. Individuals are justified when, like Abraham, their faith is "reckoned as righteousness." In secular Greek, "reckon (logizomai)" usually meant to credit something to someone's commercial or legal account.

Accordingly, Paul seems to be saying that when we have faith, God regards this faith, or credits it to our account, as righteousness, even though our character is not yet righteous. Reckoning, that is, is an imputation which "produces no change in the individual. . . It simply alters his relation to the law."39 Paul apparently makes it clear that the righteousness which is reckoned is distinct from subjective righteousness in verses 6-8, which seem to define the former as simply having one's sins "covered" or "forgiven."40 Orthodoxy strengthens this distinction by noting that Paul sharply differentiates faith, which is ''reckoned as righteousness," from works (4:2-5). That is, faith seems to be largely a passive acceptance of God's forgiveness.

Finally, orthodox scholars find their legal perspective in Romans 5:12-21, which contrasts the reign of sin and death begun by Adam with the reign of righteousness and life introduced by Christ. According to orthodoxy, the main purpose of this passage is to teach that God governs humanity by legal principles which regulate the imputation of both sin and righteousness.41 This legal structure shows up in the following contrasts.

The judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification (dikaioma*) . . . .

(5:16)

38 Hodge, pp. 95-99. Murray, pp. 118-121.

39 Hodge, p. 106.

40 Therefore Paul "must have regarded justification as correlative with, if not as defined in terms of, remission of sins. This inference is conclusive against the Romish view that justification consists in the infusion of grace. Justification must be forensic, as remission itself is." Murray concludes that for Paul, "imputing righteousness" is "synonymous with justification" (Murray, p. 134; cf. Hodge, p. 115).

41 Murray, pp. 179, 192, 207; Hodge, pp. 142-143.

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As one man's trespass led to condemnation for all people, so one man's act of righteousness (dikaioma *) leads to justification (dikaiosis*) of life for all people.

(5:18)

Orthodox interpreters argue that since Adam's sin is described as a legal trespass (paraptoma*) and its penalty is legal condemnation (katakrima), the corresponding terms for Jesus' act and its result (dikaioma*, dikaiosis*) must also be legally understood. These parallels show that both condemnation and justification are legal judgments consisting in the imputation of the act of a legal representative to those whom he represents. This argument is important since dikaioma* and dikaiosis* seldom occur elsewhere in the New Testament and are the only nouns translated justification.42

2

Liberal Protestant Interpretation

We have occasionally noticed that in Romans 5 Paul begins to use righeousness in a more dynamic way. Here and in Romans 6 righteousness primarily means the renewing energy of the new life which brings our bodies, and finally the whole cosmos, under its lordship (p. 85). Nevertheless, orthodox scholars argue that Romans' basic thesis has been articulated by the end of chapter 5.43 Now that Paul has dealt with what we are saved from, the coming chapters on what we are saved for merely trace out the implications of this.

Protestant liberal interpretation, however, argues that Romans is most concerned about what we are saved for. Accordingly, Romans' basic theme emerges precisely in chapters 58. Although liberal exposition often differs from Catholic exegesis, a brief glance at it will show how moral, subjective righteousness rather than imputed, objective righteousness can be regarded as Romans' major emphasis.

According to many liberal scholars, Paul was affected by Jesus' death much as the moral influence model said. The cross impressed Paul with God's love and brought him into mystical communion with the sufferings and resurrection of Christ.44 Paul's faith was a mysticism

42Dikaiosis* is found only here and in Rom. 4:25. Dikaioma* appears 10 times, meaning commandments in Luke 1:6; Rom. 1:32; 2:26; cultic regulations in Heb. 9:1, 10; judgments in Rev. 15:4; and righteous deeds in Rev. 19:8. For its meaning in Rom. 8:4, see pp. 189-190 below.

43 Murray, p. 211. Hodge asserts that Paul's teaching on justification is now essentially completed, and that in Romans 6 he moves on to sanctification (p. 191).

44 Otto Pfleiderer found this communion expressed most clearly in Gal. 2:20 and Phil. 1:21 (Paulinism [London: Williams & Norgate, 1877], Vol. I, pp. 17-18). We will refer chiefly to Pfleiderer not because Protestant liberalism is more cogent or more important than Catholic treatments, but because most Catholic exegesis, often through being more carefully nuanced and better balanced, is less useful for illustrating the broad contrasts which we wish to

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which responded to this love, and therefore bore ethical fruit. Paul's understanding was conditioned, however, by the thought forms of his era. For instance, most liberals agree that Paul, by using legal and sacrificial models in Romans' early chapters, consciously intended to say substantially what orthodox interpreters had thought. In reality, liberals argued, Paul had made "the reconciling favor of God clothe itself in the categories of a judicial act which is really the exact opposite."45

Similarly, in Romans 5 Paul himself thought of Adam and Christ as two historical individuals from whose acts specific legal consequences flowed. Yet Paul's deeper message was actually about two general human tendencies: "the principle of the natural man" and "the principle of the generation of a new humanity" (pp. 44-45, 141). Paul connected these with Adam and Jesus only because of his culturally conditioned inclination "to conceive the precise historical moment in which a new general principle is originally manifested as the operative cause of that principle" (p. 45). Paul's underlying emphasis, accordingly, has nothing to do with what he thought about an historical Adam or any legal arrangement with him. In fact, anything that Paul says about Jesus' historical life is "external and unessential.''46 For by "Christ" Paul means an ideal principle or pattern of human life.

Romans 58 also speaks of sin, death, flesh, and law as real, volitional entities. This, too, results from Paul's tendency to personify and objectify ethical principles. Liberals felt that Paul's theology was also undesirably shaped by the eschatological outlook of his age. Paul expected Jesus to return soon, and that Christians would experience the resurrected life in a totally different kind of world. Romans 58, however, speaks of this life as already transforming the present world. For liberals, then, these chapters contained the heart of Paul's theology. For here the "transcendent eschatological idea became of necessity an immanent ethical one."47

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consider.

45 Ibid., p. 184. Despite "the hard dogmatic husk" of Paul's reasoning about penalties and sacrifices, his "dominant mood is grateful love to him who loved him and gave himself for him" (pp. 108-109). For Pfleiderer's exegesis of how Paul understood these categories, see pp. 92-99. (The page references that follow are to Pfleiderer's work.)

46 Ibid., p. 126; cf. pp. 139, 155, 167. Moreover, Jesus is not the object of faith in the sense that it is he "in whom faith or trust is placed, or to whose personality trust attaches." Rather he is faith's object "only so far as he . . . is instrumental in producing . . . trust in the historically revealed favorable will of God" (p. 163).

47 Ibid., p. 19; cf. pp. 192-199, 207. Pfleiderer's emphasis on the ethical character of faith is similar to Ritschl's.

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In these chapters a "real righteousness, or the new moral character of life which is brought about by the spirit, is added to ideal righteousness, or harmonious relationship with God" (p. 211). This righteousness will grow through faith. Although the beginning of Romans regards faith largely as passive appropriation of God's favor, in later chapters it becomes an active "living impulse and power of good in every phase of personal life, in feeling, in moral conduct, and in the perception of truth, both religious and moral" (p. 170). Through the growth of this righteousness, the new principle of humanity first personified by Christ will be actualized. Accordingly, Jesus' future breaking into history is really unnecessary, for "the completion of salvation depends on an essentially immanent development of the higher life, which is already inwardly present'' (p. 263).

The two approaches just outlined illustrate a genuine problem. Exegetes have long noticed that while Romans 14 stresses God's pardon of the penalty of sin, Romans 58 emphasizes the Spirit's conquest of the power of sin. Chapters 14 seem to employ legal and sacrificial models while Chapters 58 adopt mostly moral and organic ones.48 However, history shows that legal and ethical interpretations of the entire doctrine of justification have been argued, respectively, by the traditional Protestant and the Catholic/liberal Protestant sides.

Is it possible, then, that divergent interpretations of Romans arise partly from the presuppositions from which exegetes from different traditions begin? Must we choose between forensic readings which underemphasize moral and cosmic renewal, and ethical readings which dilute or dismiss the objective and the eschatological? Or might there be a third way, more rooted in Old Testament understandings of righteousness and faith?

3

The Eschatological Interpretation

During the last few decades, various scholars have argued that precisely speaking, Romans' major theme is neither salvation from God's wrath nor renewal through God's Spirit. Instead, Romans is concerned with the unexpected, eschatological dawning of the New Age in the midst of the Old.49 In particular, Paul

48 Albert Schweitzer illustrated the centrality of this problem in nineteenth-century exegesis in detail (Paul and His Interpreters [New York: Macmillan, 1956], esp. pp. 29-32, 39-40, 68-73, 112-116). He argued that exegetes were unable to reconcile these emphases because they overlooked the centrality of eschatology (esp. pp. 237-249).

49 E.g., Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1949); J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); Ernst Käsemann," 'The Righteousness of God' in Paul" in New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), pp. 168-182; and Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980). For an overview of some significant developments, see Manfred Brauch, "Perspectives on 'God's Righteousness' in

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seeks to express how God's favor toward Israel, Yahweh's chief saving activity in the Old, is related to the calling of the Gentiles, the central activity in the New.

a

The Eschatological Trial

From this perspective, God's trial against humanitywhich orthodox interpretation rightly recognizes as the theme of Romans 1:183:20appears in a new light. While Romans 1:18-32 focuses on the sins of Gentiles, Romans 2 denounces equally the sins of Jews. But if both groups are equally condemned, what becomes of Yahweh's special historical concern for Israel (Rom. 3:1)? Paul replies that God's oracles were entrusted (episteuthesan *) to Israel (3:2). Yet, he acknowledges, some were faithless (epistesan*; 3:3).

Now these facts suggest a possible explanation for the change in God's activity. Has God broken faith with Israel because Israel broke faith with God? Paul rejects this explanation in the strongest terms. Human faithlessness can never nullify the faithfulness of God (3:3)! In the following verses Paul also contrasts human lies with God's truth (3:4, 7) and human unrighteousness with God's righteousness (3:5). The parallelism here shows that Paul regards God's faithfulness, righteousness, and truth as closely intertwined realities.

Why does Paul stress this? So God may "be justified in thy words, and prevail when thou art judged" (3:4). Verses 1-8 show, in fact, that Paul regards not only humanity, but also God as on trial. God is accused for having abandoned Israel (3:1; cf. 11:1) and for judging unjustly (3:5, 7; cf. 9:14, 19). Paul replies, however, that God indeed judges justly (3:5-6; cf. 9:20-21) and that God's faithfulness toward Israel has not failed (3:3; cf. 9:6). In other words, Romans 1:183:20 speaks of a two-sided trial. Not only is humanity judged as guilty, but God emerges as faithful, true, and righteous. This reminds us of the great eschatological trial prophesied especially in Isaiah. Paul is saying that this cosmic trial has come to pass.50

The centrality of this theme in Romans is clarified by those parallels between Paul's emphases in 3:1-8 and in chapters 911 briefly

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Recent German Discussion" in E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), pp. 523-542.

50Markus Barth, Justification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), esp. pp. 25-34; Kasemann, Commentary on Romans, pp. 77-85; Christian Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Gottes Volk (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 1964), pp. 49-51, 57-65; Peter Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 1965), pp. 84-91, 113-146, 203-207.

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cited above.51 In Romans 9 Paul again discusses God's faithfulness to Israel (Cf. 3:2 with 9:4-5). Paul postpones this theme until then, however, because he cannot clarify Israel's historical role without first unfolding that overarching drama from creation through Christ within which it has its place. Accordingly, neither chapters 15 nor 68 but the entire sweep through at least chapter 11 make up Romans' core.

b

Faithfulness

How is God vindicated in this cosmic trial? According to most translations, Paul proclaims that God's "righteousness has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (Rom. 3:21-22, RSV). The last phrase, however, can also be translated, "through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe." In light of the context, the second rendering makes better sense. For Paul is emphasizing that God alone is righteous and true. Why, then, instead of once mentioning God's action ("the faithfulness of" Christ) should he refer to the human response twice (by speaking both of "faith in" Christ and ''all who believe")?52

Verses 23-26 continue to emphasize divine self-revelation and self-vindication. God "put forth" Christ "to show God's righteousness" (3:25), "to prove . . . that he himself is righteous and that he justifies" (3:26). In light of this, we may question the usual translation of verse 25, "God put forward [Jesus] as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (RSV). Paul is more likely stressing that this expiatory shedding of blood was an act and manifestation of divine faithfulness. Verse 25 likely means God put forward Jesus through his faithfulness, actualized in the shedding of his blood.53

51 This is a major theme of Müller's book.

52 For the translation "faithfulness of" Jesus, see Sam Williams, "The 'Righteousness of God' in Romans," Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 99, No. 2 (1980), pp. 241-290; Richard Hays, "Psalm 143 and the Logic of Romans 3," Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 99, No. 1 (1980), pp. 107-115; Luke T. Johnson, "Rom. 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 44 (1982), pp. 77-90. This translation is usually supported by reference to Galatians. Hays argues that this meaning is found in Gal. 2:16 and 3:22, which otherwise would be redundant; in 3:11 where "the righteous One" refers to Christ; in 3:2 and 5, where "hearing of faith" means the message about Jesus' faithfulness; in 2:20; and possibly in 3:23-26 (The Faith of Jesus Christ [Chico, Cal.: Scholars, 1983]. For a much briefer treatment see "Jesus' Faith and Ours," TSF Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 1 [Sept.-Oct., 1983], pp. 2-6; cf. Williams, pp. 273-276). Markus Barth suggests that Phil. 3:19; Eph. 3:12; 4:13; and 1 Tim. 3:15 might also be translated in this way ("The Faith of the Messiah," Heythrop Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4 [Oct., 1969], pp. 363-370).

53 See Johnson, pp. 79-80. Moreover, Rom. 3:26 should read not that God "justifies the one who has faith in Jesus" (RSV for ton ek pisteos * lesou*), but that God "justifies the one of Jesus' faith"that is, "the one who shares the faith of Jesus" (Johnson, p. 80; Williams, pp. 277-278). This translation is supported by

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Accordingly, orthodoxy's interpretation of certain key words must be apprehended within a broader horizon. Redemption need not mean merely "a deliverance effected by the payment of a ransom." While this meaning may be included, redemption in this context signifies deliverance in a broader, cosmic sense, as in Romans 8:23 and elsewhere.54 Blood, moreover, need not mean merely a "ransom price," nor does hilasterion * (expiation or propitiation) mean only the satisfaction of a legal penalty. We have seen that sacrifice itself is frequently the public pledge and demonstration of covenant faithfulness (Vol. I, pp. 343-346). Blood is itself the concrete bodily outpouring of that faithfulness unto death.

Since Christ's sacrifice involves taking the penalties of the covenant breakers upon himself, it indeed has a substitutionary dimension. Yet that "payment" is not made to God's righteousness, considered as an abstract standard. Instead, paying with his life is an activity of that righteousness, actualized in the faithfulness of Christ. For this reason, even though righteousness and righteous in 3:25-26 indicate an integrity maintained in God's justifying activity, this integrity cannot be merely that of a standard, nor can such a legal meaning be the primary one of "righteousness" throughout the passage.55 Even orthodox interpreters acknowledge that righteousness elsewhere in this context (1:17; 3:21, 22) includes God's active saving power.

Yet does our interpretation fit Romans 4? Doesn't this chapter show that righteousness is largely a legal acquittal "reckoned," or imputed, to a passive faith, and not primarily the dynamic saving activity just described? As emphasized by orthodox interpretation, the word reckoned (logizomai) can mean a legal judgment. In the New Testament, however, it more often means to regard or consider something in a general way. Frequently, because God's eschatological salvation has

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Rom. 4:16, where toi ek pisteos* Abraam clearly means not "to those who have faith in Abraham," but "to those who share the faith of Abraham" (cf. 4:12). Moreover, since faith (pistis) is equated with obedience in Romans (1:5; 10:16; 15:18; 16:26), 5:19 also speaks of justification through Jesus' faithfulness when it affirms that ''through one man's obedience many will be made righteous." In light of the parallel between God's truth and faithfulness in Rom. 3:3-7, Rom. 15:8 provides an unmistakable emphasis on Jesus' faithfulness. "Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs."

54 Luke 21:28; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:14; 4:30.

55 For an interpretation generally compatible with orthodoxy, and with which we can often agree, see John Piper, The Justification of God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), pp. 115-130.

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become and is present in so unforeseen a manner, to reckon means to evaluate something far differently than people normally do.56

Now while Romans 4:1-8, by itself, may seem congenial to the orthodox interpretation, Paul describes faith much more fully in verses 17-25. Here we learn that faith does not merely accept an imputed righteousness, but moves forward toward God's promise. While it is, of course, wholly dependent on God's initiative, faith nonetheless involves struggle. For as liberal interpretation recognizes, faith can waver or grow stronger (4:19-21). It is not, then, best defined as "passive." Indeed, faith clings to God when the normal evaluation of "reality" appears to belie the promise (4:19).

In other words, faith is the attitude which endures during times when God seems to have disappeared, and when the cry for God's righteousness becomes acute. Faith endures because its object is "the God . . . who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (4:17). That is, faith is dependent on and oriented toward that creative divine activity which the Old Testament often calls righteousness.

Further, whereas this righteousness is often actualized through Yahweh's faithfulness after a period of its apparent absence, so human faith (pistis)as that long-term struggling and hoping directed toward God's saving poweris also "faithfulness."57 Otherwise said, human faith, according to Romans 4, is faithfulness which responds to and hopes for the faithfulness and righteousness of God. Paul climaxes his exposition by affirming that faith's object is "the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (4:24). Indeed, God's saving faithfulness was actualized not only in Jesus' death, but also in his resurrection. For he was "raised for our justification" (4:25; cf. 8:33-34; 10:9-10).

Having described Abraham's walk of hope, Paul concludes, "That is why his faith(fulness) was 'reckoned to him as righteousness'" (4:22). In other words, Abraham's faithfulness consisted in evaluating and clinging to God's promise as real despite contrary appearances. So when Paul says that God "reckoned Abraham's faith as righteousness," he means God regarded Abraham's faithfulness, which appeared groundless according to the usual standards, as a channel through which divine righteousness would be actualized. Reckoning, that is, is

56 Esp. Rom. 6:11; 8:18, 36; 1 Cor. 4:1; 2 Cor. 10:2, 7, 11; Heb. 11:19.

57 This is even clearer in Hebrews 11, where numerous stories of those who persevered provide the examples of what it means that "my righteous one shall live by faith" (Heb. 11:38, quoting Hab. 2:4, as does Paul in Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11). This recital climaxes with Jesus, "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith" (Heb. 12:2).

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not the strict legal substituting of one quantity for another, but a way of regarding reality. This way perceives that "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are" (1 Cor. 1:27-28).

c

Romans 58

Romans 4, then, does not outline a strictly legal "reckoning" of Abraham's faith. Still, orthodox exegetes argue that Romans 5, through its parallels between Christ and Adam, shows that God always deals with humanity through legal arrangements. However, the emphasis of Romans 5 is not on parallels but on staggering contrasts between Adam and Christ. However pervasively sin and death may flow from Adam, Paul exclaims that "much more" will righteousness and life flow from Christ (Rom. 5:9, 10, 15, 17; cf. 8:34). The chapter's major purpose can hardly be to outline general principles by which God governs humanity.

In fact, as liberal interpretation rightly recognizes, chapters 58 form a unit in which Paul speaks of death and life, sin and righteousness, and flesh and Spirit as dynamic, contending forces. The unity of this section is evident in the fact that it begins and ends with many of the same themes. Paul and his readers hope in God's coming glory (5:2; 8:18, 21, 24); yet they now endure severe struggles (5:3; 8:18, 35-36) in which patience is essential (5:2-4; 8:25). Nonetheless, God's Spirit (5:5; 8:23, 26-27) and the love manifested in Jesus' death (5:6-10; 8:32-35) sustain them.

In chapter 5 Paul does, of course, draw a parallel between Adam's trespass, which led to "condemnation," and Christ's "act of righteousness" which leads to "justification." Yet the argument that Paul understands justification in a forensic sense hinges largely on the claim that he uses condemnation (karakrima) in a strictly legal way. Elsewhere in chapters 58, however, condemnation means something more. When Paul exclaims that here "is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus!" (8:1), condemnation means the overpowering interworking of sin, death, and law described in chapter 7. People are liberated not through a legal pronouncement, but through ''the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. . . " (8:2). When Paul adds that God "condemned (katakrinen) sin in the flesh" (8:3), he means that God "overthrew the power of sin; he not only declared sin to be what it was but pronounced and executed judgment on it."58 Further on, when Paul asks, "Who is to condemn (katekrinon *) God's elect?" the assaults of the powers are in view (8:34).

If condemnation and condemn cannot be reduced to strictly legal meanings in Romans 58, neither can the words for justification with

58 Murray, p. 278

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which they are paralleled in 5:16 and 18.59 Paul does not depict a world in which humanity's moral life is developing smoothly toward greater maturity. Rather, it is developing toward the sharp eschatological struggle between the Spirit and the onslaught of the powers.

The volition and vitality attributed to these powers does not arise from Paul's culturally conditioned tendency to personify ethical principles. Instead, Romans 58 widens the scope of justification to cosmic dimensions. It shows that at the eschatological trial God has triumphed not only over the charge of faithlessness stemming from Israelite history, but also over the powers. Paul depicts the eschatological community as still being persecuted and dying (8:36) and the powers as still accusing them, claiming that their lordship still stands (8:33-34). Nevertheless, Jesus' death and resurrection have brought Christians into a union with divine love which no power can break.60

However, even this ringing affirmation does not complete Romans' main task. For Paul has not yet shown concretely how God has remained faithful to historical Israel. Had God in fact abandoned Israel, the assurances climaxing Romans 8 would ring hollow. Accordingly, though we cannot discuss them here, chapters 911, by wrestling concretely with this issue, play an integral role in Romans' central task.

III

Conclusions

When the Protestant Reformers emphasized justification, their main intention was to insist that salvation is entirely dependent on God's initiative and grace. Today, many Catholic scholars affirm that this is, and always was, their church's intention, too.61 Historically, however,

59 Moreover, in 8:4, the dikaioma * of the law (often translated as "just requirement") is fulfilled by walking according to the Spirit. Here is further evidence that dikaioma*, the word used for Jesus' "righteous act" (5:18) and "justification" (5:16), must be more than a legal stipulation.

60 8:34-39. For the role which evil powers played in Paul's thought, see esp. Nygren, pp. 16-37, 187-334; Charles Anderson Scott, Christianity According to St. Paul (Cambridge: University, 1961); James Kallas, The Satanward View (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976); and Walter Wink, Naming the Powers (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 3-96.

61 According to a recent "Common Statement" of Lutherans and Catholics, both agree that "our entire hope of salvation rests on Christ Jesus and on the gospel whereby the good news of God's merciful action in Christ is made known. We do not place our ultimate trust in anything other than God's promise and saving work in Christ. This excludes ultimate reliance on our faith, virtues, or merits, even though we acknowledge God working in these by grace alone." (Anderson, Murphy, and Burgess, eds., p. 16).

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both sides have been so concerned with the elements involved in individual salvation that broader biblical dimensions of righteousness and faith were obscured from view. We could recover these dimensions only by examining Scripture with different questions than these traditions have raised. This has made our biblical investigations somewhat complex. Finally, however, we can make the following affirmations.

Ironically, the very thing which Protestants in particular have stressedGod's initiative and activityis far more forcibly expressed and articulated by the biblical terms, understood within their eschatological horizon, than by most traditional Protestant concepts. Justification includes the entire scope of activity whereby God (1) defeats enemies, (2) liberates creatures, (3) establishes new life, and thereby (4) reveals, actualizes, and vindicates God's own faithfulness and righteousness.

In contrast to Catholic and liberal Protestant emphases, righteousness refers not chiefly to subjective, ethical human qualities, but to God's own delivering and re-creating power. And, in contrast to traditional Protestant emphases, faith (better, faithfulness) refers not chiefly to a human response, but to God's continuing steadfastness and love. In fact, the entire work of Jesus Christ, including his resurrection by and his outpouring of the Spirit, could well come under the heading, "justification by faithfulness." Since we have already discussed this saving work, let us see what implications our investigations carry for its actualization among human beings.

A

Justification and Sanctification

Protestants and Catholics have always held that salvation involves both God's pardon and acceptance, and also the conversion and growth effected by God's renewing grace. Protestants, however, have insisted that the former alone is justification, and have sharply distinguished it from the latter (sanctification). Do our biblical investigations warrant such a distinction?

They certainly show that salvation is initiated and carried through by God alone, as something which humans could in no way accomplish or deserve. Yet when words for righteousness (including those translated justification and to justify) refer to this saving activity, they often include that transformation of reality in which humans participate. Although such words also frequently refer to divine activity alone, we have discovered no usage of these or similar terms (such as redemption in Romans 3:24) that consistently separates it from human renewal.

As Catholics have insisted, the content of the overall saving process which justification words describe includes "subjective," ethical

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renewal. Nevertheless, these human activities do not form the basis of that process. As Protestants have insisted, they do not function as something which earns, or helps initiate, God's activity, but are results, or consequences, of that activity.62

B

Faith and Love

Protestants insist that the only appropriate response to God's saving work is the openness and surrender involved in faith, and that this alone can unite us with Jesus and his salvation. Catholics, however, insist that we cannot be united with Christ unless love informs that faith. Once again, the conflict between these affirmations, as well as the truth of each, becomes clear when we distinguish basis from content. Protestants rightly deny that love can be a basis for God's saving worksomething which humans must first produce to earn salvation. We have seen, however, that that revelation of God's faithfulness to which human faith responds is also a revelation of God's love. It is artificial, therefore, to distinguish sharply faiththe openness and surrender to this lovefrom any element of responsive love. Love is surely included, at least implicitly, in the content of one's response to, and thus one's appropriation of, God's salvation.

C

The Nature of Faith

In order to emphasize that no human activity forms the basis for salvation, the Reformers often spoke of faith as if it were passive. Yet the biblical data shows that faith is essentially faithfulnesslong-term fidelity to a relationship. As the paradigm case of Abraham shows (Rom. 4), faith often involves activity and struggle. It is better, then, to speak of faith not as passive, but as responsive to and wholly depend-

62 Hans Küng concludes that "Protestants speak of a declaring just which includes a making just; and Catholics of a making just which supposes a declaring just. Is it not time to stop arguing about imaginary differences?" (p. 221). According to Käsemann, God's gift of righteousness "is never at any time separable from its Giver. It partakes of the character of power, insofar as God himself enters the arena and remains" ("'The Righteousness of God' in Paul," p. 174).

In the debate as to whether righteousness is an imputed judgment or an imparted power, both sides apparently assume that "divine righteousness . . . is an entity in itself." However, the "power and the Lordship of Christ" is the "peculiar content" of this righteousness, and "a Lord is not assured possession and not subordinated to our arbitrary disposal. His existence for us is experienced only according to the mode of promise" (pp. 176-177).

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ent on God's leading and initiative. But how, specifically, does faith open one to participation in God's righteousness?

Human faith is essentially faithfulness in response to the faithfulness of God actualized through Jesus Christ. God's faithfulness was vividly manifested through Jesus' expiatory shedding of his blood (Rom. 3:25). Over against this faithfulness, humankind's faithlessness stood out in grim relief (Rom. 3:2-9). In opposing Jesus, evil reached its height (Chap. 6). Humankind and the powers who enslaved it stood condemned at this decisive eschatological trial.

Since all of this was actualized through specific events, human faith involves cognitive acknowledgment of these events and their meaning. Moreover, faithful response to this revelation of God's faithfulness involves accepting that judgment upon oneself. Yet Jesus' faithful self-giving revealed not only God's judgment but also God's love (Rom. 5:6-10; 8:31-32; cf. Vol. I, pp. 345-346). Further, God continued to be faithful to humankind by raising Jesus and thus opening the way to participation in his resurrection life. Faithful response to God's faithfulness, then, is also openness to the power Who raised Jesus (Rom. 4:24-25), and to tha righteousness that hastens the world toward the consummation (Rom. 5:17, 21; 6:13, 19; 8:18-23). As openness to the God who always ca 1s humankind toward the future (Chaps. 45), saving faith, like Abraham's, is always intertwined with hope.

D

Imputation and Eschatology

Since justification language is largely trial language, theology has usually regarded God's justifying act as a legal pronouncement that an individual is "righteous." Protestants, however, have insisted that God does this when the individual is not yet subjectively righteous. What then, could God be "looking at" that causes God to reckon righteousness to such an individual? According to orthodoxy, it is Christ's righteousness, regarded as a legal title to pardon and eternal life. The individual's faith consists largely in accepting this legal title as applying to oneself. Thus, when God "looks at" the individual, God sees that legal title, and imputes that title (or that righteousness) to the person.

This explanation, however, reduces God's justifying act to a declaration and God's righteousness to a legal stipulation. It leaves the individual's character untouched. The overall divine activity called righteousness can neither be narrowed down so far, nor left so external to the justified person. Can we better explain how God "sees" sinners as righteous when they open themselves in faith?

The contrast is not really between the legal and the ethical, or the verbal and the actual. It is the eschatological contrast between the already and the not yet. When sinners surrender themselves authentically to the dynamism of God's righteousness, that righteousness already

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takes them up decisively into its flow. They are truly righteous in the sense that the powers are already defeated and God's kingdom is already here. That is, God's righteousness has now overcome (though not wholly destroyed) all forces opposing it in a way which these forces can never reverse. Such persons are righteous in the sense of being caught up into that righteousness which will inevitably transform them entirely. They are truly righteous already, but they are not yet fully righteous.

In "reckoning" individuals as righteous, then, God does not "impute" to them a legal title or a quality which they do not have. God simply recognizes their openness to, and hence their incorporation in, the eschatological victory. This victory is largely hidden from most people and will remain so until the consummation. Since the phrase imputed righteousness suggests that righteousness can be a purely verbal, legal quantum, it is better not to use it. Rather, we can say that when God views things from the standpoint of the eschatological triumph, God affirms that some people are irreversibly caught up into it.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Anderson, George, Austin Murphy and Joseph Burgess, eds. Justification in Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985.

Barth, Markus. Justification. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.

__________. "Jews and Gentiles: The Social Characters of Justification in Paul," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 5, pp. 241-267.

Berkouwer, C. G. Faith and Justification. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954.

Brauch, Manfred. "Perspectives on 'God's Righteousness' in Recent German Discussion," in E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.

Buchanan, James. The Doctrine of Justification. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1955.

Crabtree, Arthur. The Restored Relationship. London: Kingsgate, 1963.

Denney, James. The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919.

Hays, Richard. The Faith of Jesus Christ. Chico, Cal.: Scholars, 1983.

Käsemann, Ernst. Perspectives on Paul. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971.

__________. " 'The Righteousness of God' in Paul," New Testament Questions of Today. Philadelphia: Fortress, pp. 168-182.

Küng, Hans. Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983.

Pauck, Wilhelm, ed. Luther: Lectures on Romans. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.

Pfleiderer, Otto. Parkinison, Vol. I. London: Williams & Norgate, 1877.

Piper, John. The Justification of God. Grand Rapids, Baker, 1983.

Reuman, John. Righteousness in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress,

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and Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1982.

Smith, Norman. Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament. New York: Schocken, 1964.

Williams, Sam K. Jesus' Death as Saving Event: The Background and Origin of a Concept. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1975.

__________. "The Righteousness of God' in Romans," Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 99, (1980), pp. 241-290.

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Chapter Eight

Personal Sanctification

Salvation is entirely dependent upon God's initiative and grace. This is essentially what the Reformation sought to emphasize when it preached justification by faith. The Reformers thought of salvation chiefly as deliverance from God's wrath, and largely as something accomplished in the past. In support of this, some biblical texts speak of salvation as a past event. "By grace you have been saved through faith," Paul wrote, "and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of Godnot because of works, lest anyone should boast."1

In other passages, however, salvation is a present reality or process. "Behold . . . now is the day of salvation!" (2 Cor. 6:2; cf. 2:15). "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12; cf. 2 Pet. 3:15). In many others, salvation is still future. We are to "grow up to salvation," to "a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 2:2; 1:5; cf. 1:9). Those who ''endure until the end will be saved."2

When closely examined, these passages prove not to be inconsistent, but to emphasize different features of the fundamental New

1 Eph. 2:8-9, cf. 2:5. "Have been saved" (sesoismenoi *) is in the perfect tense, which emphasizes that the activity has been completed, although it continues to exert continung effects (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 2:5).

2 Matt. 10:22 and parallels. Cf. Rom. 5:9-10; 1 Thess. 5:8-9.

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Testament kerygma: that salvation is "already" present though "not yet" fully consummated. That is, salvation is an eschatological reality firmly grounded in God's past historical work. Yet it alters and heals our present reality as it stretches towards the climactic renewal of all things.3 Now if salvation involves an ongoing process, it clearly includes human activities. No matter how strongly one wishes to stress the divine initiative, God is clearly working to save us for the fullness of life eternal. This process includes humanization in every dimension.

Of course, the Reformers were aware of this. Nevertheless, Protestant discussions of sanctification have often treated practical life insufficiently in two respects. First, as in their treatment of justification, Protestants have focused primarily on the individual and have underemphasized salvation's social, cosmic, and eschatological dimensions. Second, even though pastoral, evangelistic, and ethical concerns have often given rise to them, such discussions have seldom thrown much light on sanctification's concrete dynamics. Instead, the Protestant concern to emphasize the divine priority has spawned intricate debates on exactly how human and divine elements are intertwined in the process. Protestant soteriology, like anthropology, has left a void to be filled with cultural, psychological, and sociological content in actual practice (cf. Chap. 1).

Since our theology seeks to help guide today's church, we must outline sanctification's dynamics more broadly and concretely. The preceding chapters of this Volume suggest an orientation. Humans were created for the obedience, servanthood, and stewardship actualized by Jesus (Chaps. 3-5). Sin consists largely in bondage to powers who oppose Jesus' way and kingdom (Chap. 6). Salvation is grounded in Jesus' faithfulness to his Father, to humanity, and to creation, whereby he overcame these powers. Individuals are justified when their faithfulness corresponds to his (Chap. 7). All this suggests that sanctification would be a continuing walk in the way of Jesus and his kingdom. Jesus' teachings and his servantlike manner could provide the concrete norms.

While we will indeed adopt this approach, we will not sketch it immediately for two reasons. First, we have always resisted theologizing in a deductive manner. Rather than simply deriving one doctrine from another, we always consider fresh material when approaching each theme. Second, history shows that concentration on Jesus' teaching and example often leads to legalism. Often Jesus' wayrather than being a reality into which we are invited and empowered to participate by

3 The Latin root salvus, from which salvation comes, means "healed." Emphasizing this, many theologies make healing the central notion in their soteriology. (See Macquarrie, pp. 337-338, and Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology [Chicago: University, 1957], Vol. II, p. 166.)

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graceemerges as a set of demands which we must fulfill by our own strength. For this reason, even though we find traditional soteriology too abstract, we must seriously ponder its emphasis on the divine initiative.

The present chapter, then, will first introduce the traditional discussion. Next, we shall develop our own concrete outline of sanctification's dynamics. Since salvation has a personal side, we can focus on this as we did in Chapter 7. Nevertheless, as happened in Chapter 7, these considerations will keep on pointing towards salvation's social, cosmic, and eschatological dimensions. We will take these up under Ecclesiology in Chapters 9-14.

I

The Way of Salvation

Since salvation involves a growth process, the question naturally arises whether it, like other kinds of growth, might pass through regular stages. If such stages could be identified, the churches might be aided in guiding individuals through the process. Traditionally, discussions of sanctification have debated the sequence and the precise character of the stages involved in the "way of salvation" (in Latin, ordo salutis).

Discussions of the ordo salutis have also focused on the notion of "grace." Some of the issues were thrown into sharp relief in the debate between Augustine and the British monk, Pelagius. For Pelagius, grace consisted in God's creating us and bestowing certain capacities upon us: reason, our knowledge of moral and spiritual laws, and our ability to will the good. Yet the actual choosing of good depends on us. Pelagius held that sin had not essentially affected the ability to will. For Augustine, however, grace did more than provide humans with initial potentialities and guidelines. Grace is a divine power which wholly renews our fallen nature. Without it our wills, which are completely bound by sin, could never move toward salvation.

Pelagianism was condemned in 418. Since then it has functioned as a marginal possibility which most Western soteriology has rejected.4 Soon, however, various forms of semi-Pelagianism arose. These, unlike Pelagius but like Augustine, regarded grace as a transforming power essential to the saving process. Semipelagians argued, however, that our wills must cooperate with grace. Specifically, they held that we must merit the "first grace" with which the way of salvation begins. Eventually, semipelagianism was also condemned. In 529 the Synod of

4 For the debate between Pelagius and Augustine, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (Chicago: University, 1971), pp. 313-318. For the sources, see The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Vol. V.

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Orange insisted that even our initial desire for grace and our first response to it are results of the prior activity of grace.5 This remained the church's official position through the Council of Trent (1545-1563). However, the Synod's decision was little known for centuries preceding Trent, and the Reformers complained that semipelagianism was the most common attitude in the Roman Church.

A

Traditional Roman Catholicism

Thomas Aquinas maintained that justification involves four elements: repentance, faith, infusion of grace, and forgiveness of sins (Chap. 7). From the individual's perspective, these things usually seem to occur at different times. Many persons, for instance, will first go through a time of repentance, then experience the dawning of faith, then come to feel forgiven, and finally sense renewing grace. Other experiential sequences among these elements are possible.

Aquinas, however, maintained that all four of them actually occur at once.6 In other words, individuals who experienced forgiveness after they experienced faith would actually have received both of them at a single instant, and at a deep subconscious level, before they fully experienced either. Their concrete experiences of faith and forgiveness would be the conscious, temporal unfolding of something which God did instantaneously.

Thomas and the Council of Trent agreed, moreover, that in the individual's experience a period of preparation for justification normally preceded justification itself (Trent and other theologians sometimes called it repentance.) Both agreed with Augustine that no one could embark upon this preparation without the prior assistance of grace.7 Yet they also insisted that this preceding, or "prevenient," grace renews the fallen will. Thus, persons so renewed will actively cooperate not only in the process of sanctification, but also in their justification. Through their newly freed will they will be capable of either accepting or rejecting God's call to repentance and faith.8

Catholicism also taught that once one is justified, the will is able to cooperate with grace to produce works which "merit" an eternal reward

5 See Pelikan, pp. 318-331. For the decree of Orange, see Henry Denziger, ed., The Sources of Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1957), pp. 75-81.

6ST II, 1, Q. 113, aa. 6-8; Q. 114, a. 5.

7ST II, 1, Q.109, a. 6; Q. 114, a. 5; Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter 5 (in Denziger, Section 797).

8ST II, 1, Q. 113, a. 3; D 798, 819. If the renewed will freely accepts justification, it also must be able, in principle, to reject it (D 814).

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in God's judgment.9 This renewed will, however, can also turn away from God and the grace of justification be lost. Accordingly, the justified can never be certain that they will "persevere" until death on the way of salvation.10

One progresses along the ordo salutis by growing in the "cardinal virtues" of faith, hope, and love (Chap. 1). One can acquire these virtues only through grace. Grace here is an energizing power, "a positive reality infused into the soul by which we are made to share in the divine life."11 Grace is obtained largely through sacraments. Two of Catholicism's seven sacramentspenance and the eucharisthave traditionally been the normal, repeated means by which one receives forgiveness and Christ's sanctifying presence. The other five form a framework which manifests "the Christian life of grace in the existentially fundamental moments of human life."12 Baptism brings sacred meaning to birth; confirmation brings it to one's entrance into adulthood; and extreme unction, to death. Marriage marks the fundamental decision of adult life for most people, while ordination does so for priests (cf. Chap. 13). However, since virtues increase only through exercising them (through the strengthening of "habits"), people must cooperate with grace. Thus moral and religious activity is also essential to the way of salvation.

B

Reformation Protestantism

The Reformers were disturbed by the claim that acts of preparation, sometimes equated with repentance, must precede justification.13 Despite the complexity and variety of Catholic thinking, they felt that

9ST Q. 114; D 809-810.

10 D 806 808, 826, 833; cf. S. T. Q. 114, aa. 7, 9. To a few rare individuals, however, God may grant assurance of perseverance through a special revelation (D 826).

11 George Smith, ed., The Teaching of the Catholic Church (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 557. Grace is "a communication to us of the divine life itself" (p. 554). While this volume provides a good general outline of Catholic teaching before Vatican II, Rahner complained that grace was not understood nearly so actively or personally in the scholasticism with which he was familiar (Theological Investigations, Vol. IV [New York: Seabury, 1974], pp. 16-169, 174-184).

12 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury, 1978), p. 415.

13 Repentance is mentioned in Chapter 6 of Trent's decree, "The Manner of Preparation," while Chapter 7 describes "In What the Justification of the Sinner Consists . . . " (D 798-800).

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Catholicism had made repentance into a work which preceded justification, and by which it was obtained. For this reason, John Calvin insisted that repentance does not precede faith, but that faith precedes repentance.14 Individuals first come to faith at a deep, subconscious level. Later, they experience the struggle of repentance and the conscious dawning faith. But these two experiences are really the result of that deeper act of faith. Calvin also rejected the teaching that before people come to faith, their wills are freed by prevenient grace in such a way that they can either accept or reject God's further calls toward justification. Calvin acknowledged that God moves the wills of those predestined to salvation to freely assent to justification. Yet since true freedom is not a neutral capacity to choose among options, but the ability to choose what is good (cf. p. 93), Calvin insisted that a free rejection of grace would be impossible.15

The sort of ordo salutis implied by Calvin could be divided by Reformed orthodoxy into the following stages. It begins with God's calling, which originated in eternity (Eph. 1:4; 2:10; 4:1, 4). However, calling here refers only to the proclamation of the gospel of personal justification.16 Calling is further divided into an external and an internal call. The external call is simply the verbal message, which may be disregarded or rejected. In the internal call, however, the Spirit brings the meaning of the external call alive.

Between the external and the internal call occurs the all-important act of regeneration. Regeneration is "that act of God by which the principle of the new life is implanted in man, and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy . . . and the first holy exercise of this new disposition is secured."17 In other words, before one can truly hear God's call, one must already be regenerated.

The first three stagesexternal call, regeneration, and internal callare then followed by conversion. Conversion itself has two elements: repentance, the turning away from sin; and faith, turning toward

14 For no one can really "apply himself seriously to repentance without knowing himself to belong to God" (Institutes, p. 594). Luther traced the dynamics of conversion in more detail, and acknowledged that either the law's threat or the gospel's promise, and either repentance or hope, could predominate experientially. Yet all were modes of the one justifying word of grace (Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966], pp. 258-266).

15Institutes, pp. 303-304.

16 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), pp. 459-460.

17 Ibid., p. 469.

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God.18 Notice that these specific movements toward justification are consequences, and definitely not preconditions, of regeneration. Moreover, since God's Spirit is so fully the agent of all stages of salvation, the justified will never fall away. They will persevere until the final consummation.19

This does not mean, however, that Christians will reach perfection in this life. The Reformers emphasized the energy of sin more than Catholicism did (p. 103). Furthermore, "grace," like justification, signified more nearly God's favorable attitude than, as it did for Augustine and Catholic tradition, the energy through which God transforms.20 Accordingly, the Reformers maintained that even the best works of the saints will be tainted by sin.21 Thus they can never produce the kind of merit that will earn eternal life.22

Since repentance does not precede but follows regeneration, Calvin insisted that one must repent throughout the course of sanctification.23 For him, "the sum of the Christian life" consists in "denial of ourselves."24 Though Calvin believes that God created our bodies and their fundamental desires, he stresses that sanctification involves continual "mortification" of the fleshly way in which they operate.25 As befits a theology for which pride is sin's chief manifestation (p. 103; cf. pp. 37-38), he recommends activities and attitudes which curb our active, aggressive tendencies and make us humble and dependent on God. For instance, when misfortunes defeat our hopes and plans, we should welcome them as opportunities to turn from earthly vanities toward hope

18 Ibid., p. 486. Repentance and faith are not two stages, but "complementary parts of the same process" (p. 487). One can also distinguish between active conversion, the activity by which God "causes the regenerated sinner, in his conscious life, to turn to him in repentance and faith"; and passive conversion, which is "the resulting conscious act" of repentance and faith (p. 483).

19Institutes, pp. 304-306, 971-977; cf. Heppe, pp. 581-589.

20 Grace (charis) chiefly means forgiveness in texts such as Luke 7:42 and 2 Cor. 2:7, 10; favor toward the undeserving in passages like Rom. 11:5-6; 2 Tim. 1:9; and Heb. 4:16; but a living, transforming energy in texts like Acts 4:33; John 1:14, 17; 1 Cor. 15:20; and 1 Peter 4:10.

21 Calvin, pp. 754, 778, 780.

22 Ibid., pp. 788-797.

23 Ibid., pp. 595, 601.

24 Ibid., p. 689.

25 "The life of a Christian man is a continual effort and exercise in the mortification of the flesh, till it is utterly slain, and God's Spirit reigns" (ibid., p. 615).

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of heaven.26 We ought not consider surplus wealth as ours to hoard, but as something entrusted to us to give to others.27

C

Believer's Churches

Some suppose that believer's churches differed with the Reformation over anthropologyspecifically that they regarded human nature as less depraved by sin. In actuality, the major differences were soteriologicalover the extent to which, and the ways in which, God wills to renew human nature. In evaluating humanity's sinfulness apart from grace, many believer's church leaders sound no more optimistic than Calvin. John Wesley stressed that "the loathsome leprosy of sin" which everyone brings "from his mother's womb . . . overspreads his whole soul, and totally corrupts every power and faculty thereof."28 According to the Quakers, all humans "are in a fallen, demoralized, and deadened state. They are deprived of sensing or feeling the inward testimony or seed of God (Rom. 5:12, 15). They are subject instead to the seed of the serpent. . . . Not only their words and deeds, but their thoughts are evil in the sight of God."29

The Reformation traditions, however, mitigated their pessimism by affirming that most people were capable of acceptable social behavior (Chap. 1). In contrast, believer's churches often contended that many social standards and practices which established churches condoned were deeply twisted by sin. In this sense, their anthropologies were even more negative than Luther's and Calvin's.

In what ways, then, are believer's churches more "optimistic"? The differences have to do largely with the nature and scope of saving grace. Most believer's churches place greater emphasis on grace as a transforming power than did the Reformers.30 In addition, most hold that Christ's work has made a "prevenient" kind of grace widely available. For Wesley, prevenient grace precedes the "convincing grace" that brings repentance. It includes

26 Ibid., pp. 700-701, 712-714.

27 Ibid., pp. 695-698.

28The Standard Sermons of John Wesley (London: Epworth, 1956), Vol. I, p. 323.

29 Dean Freiday, ed., Barclay's Apology in Modern English (Philadelphia: Friends' Bookstore, 1967 [originally published in 1676]), p. 66.

30 It has been argued that the notion of grace as a divinizing power was central to Anabaptism. See Alvin Beachy, The Concept of Grace in the Radical Reformation (Nieuwkoop, the Netherlands: B. De Graaf, 1977); J. A. Oosterbaan, "Grace in Dutch Mennonite Theology" in C. J. Dyck, ed., A Legacy of Faith (Newton, Ks.: Faith & Life, 1962), pp. 69-85.

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the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency toward life; some degree of salvation; the beginning of deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God.31

Wesley, however, often identified this prevenient grace with the conscience. On the one hand, he insisted that "it is not natural, but a supernatural gift of God . . . it is not nature, but the Son of God."32 But on the other hand, prevenient grace, so defined, is not an activity which God initiates when God wills, but a faculty which everyone has. Why, then, should one refer to it as "grace"except in Pelagius' sense, that all natural endowments were created through grace? By identifying prevenient grace with a human faculty, Wesley opened the door to the Enlightenment and the liberal notion that human nature, though affected by sin, is not fundamentally perverted by it.

The Quakers sought to connect God's prevenient work more closely with Christ. They explicitly rejected Pelagianism and all notions of an innate "natural light."33 They argued, somewhat like Paul (pp. 88-90), that conscience merely reflects what one otherwise happens to believe.34 Before the proclamation of the gospel, God works only through the special activity of the divine "seed," which in fact is Christ. Initially, humans do have the power to resist or not resist the working of this seed. If they resist, "Christ is said to be slain and crucified."35 Eventually God, who begins working in each individual whenever God chooses, will withdraw.

But if people do not resist, the seed will eventually arouse "the desire to become a coworker with it." However, since we are powerless to cooperate until the seed has imparted the desire and ability to do so, Quakers feel that this understanding of God's prevenient work

31 "Working Out Our Salvation," The Works of John Wesley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958), Vol. VI, p. 509. Prevenient grace precedes "convincing grace" which leads to repentance.

32 "On Conscience," The Works of John Wesley, Vol. VII, pp. 187-188.

33 Barclay, pp. 6, 83, 90-91, 108.

34 Ibid., pp. 92-93. Cf. Vol. I, pp. 251-255.

35 Ibid., p. 85. Most comprehensively defined, the "seed or light" is "a spiritual, celestial, and invisible principle, a principle in which God dwells as Father, Son, and Spirit" (p. 85). However, it is most often identified with Christ. See Howard Brinton, Friends for 300 Years (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1965), pp. 15-58.

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attributes "our entire salvation to the mere power, Spirit, and grace of God."36 Since Wesley's prevenient grace and the Quakers' seed operate in all people, these claims carry significant implications for the salvation of those not in direct contact with the kerygma (cf. Chap. 12).

They also have implications for the ordo salutis of those who hear the gospel. The practical activity of Wesley, the early Quakers, and many other believer's churches emphasized conversiona definitive turning from the ways of "the world" to God's kingdom. This often distanced them from traditional Catholicism, with its emphasis on gradual sanctification through the sacraments. Like Catholics, however, most believer's churches hold that prevenient grace can restore a person's freedom of choice, which therefore must be exercised when one approaches justification. Somewhat like Catholics, many such churches place repentance before faith and stress "works meet for repentance" as part of this preparation.37

Wesley was particularly dissatisfied with the common Protestant teaching that justification occurs below the threshold of consciousness. For it implied (as Catholicism more explicitly held) that many justified persons might never attain assurance of their salvation. In contrast, he thought of justification as occurring after a deeply experiencedand often very difficultperiod of repentance. Justifying faith, then, included the assurance that "the Son of God hath loved me, and given Himself for me. . . . I, even I, am now reconciled to God."38

Given their emphasis on choice in the salvation process, many believer's churches feel that persons once justified can later turn from God and lose their salvation. However, since the will which has been restored by grace also becomes capable of increasingly greater response to grace, believer's churches often expect a higher degree of sanctification than have the Lutherans or Reformed. Wesley even stressed that once persons were justified, many could reach a state of "perfection" in this life. By "one that is perfect," Wesley meant, in part,

one in whom is 'the mind which was in Christ' and who so 'walketh as Christ also walked' . . . [who] can now testify to all mankind, 'I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' . . . He 'loveth his neighbour,' every man, 'as himself,' yea, 'as Christ

36 Ibid., p. 93; cf. pp. 82-84, 94-96.

37 For the relationships of Wesley's views to the Reformation and to Catholicism, see Colin Williams, John Wesley's Theology Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960), pp. 60-65.

38 "The Way to the Kingdom," John Wesley's 53 Sermons (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), p. 111.

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loveth us.' . . . Indeed, his soul is all love, filled with 'bowels of mercies, kindness, meekness, gentleness, longsuffering.' And his life agreeth thereto, full of 'the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labour of love' . . . [having] 'a heart so all-flaming with the love of God . . . as continually to offer up every thought, word, and work, as a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God through Christ.39

Notice that the above description does not stress absolute legal perfection, as if every act and thought were wholly flawless when measured by a standard. Instead, perfection seems to consist in unbroken continuity of relationship with Christ.40

D

Some Conclusions

All the above views intend to stress the priority of God's action. At the same time, they all acknowledge that salvation involves our free response. When questions arise about whether and exactly how one of these is prior, all disputants refer to processes which are not wholly open to conscious reflection. Catholicism and many believer's churches speak of subtle influences which free the will before one can really repent. Reformation Protestantism insists that repentance and faith are conscious results of prior subconscious regeneration.

Questions about the exact order and relationship of divine and human activities naturally arouse people's curiosity, especially that of those involved in evangelism and spiritual direction. But although Scripture contains many accounts of spiritual growth, even those which apparently indicate some orderly progression (e.g., Rom 5:1-4, 8:30; 2 Peter 1:5-7) are quite diverse and imprecise. Theology simply lacks the biblical and experiential data to answer most such questions.

Therefore, a theology carried on within the living church can neither allow past debates to set its agenda, nor let speculation provide apparent answers for issues beyond its range. On the other hand, theology and the church can gain much by seeking to discern, beneath the surface of the traditional debates, what pertinent and resolvable issues have been involved. Thereby the wisdom which the past offers can be appropriated.

39 ''A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," The Works of John Wesley, Vol. XI, p. 384.

40 For a discussion of this much-debated notion, see Williams, pp. 167-190; Thomas Langford, Practical Divinity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1983), pp. 39-43; Stanley Burgess, ed., Reaching Beyond: Chapters in the History of Perfectionism (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1986); and H. K. La Rondelle, Perfection and Perfectionism (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University, 1971).

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1

Divine Initiative and Human Freedom

Discussions of the "way of salvation" have largely been concerned with the issue, What kinds of human acts form the most appropriate response to God's action? Those who argue that prevenient grace frees the will before conversion occurs are usually claiming that active, positive human behavior is appropriate. Both in preparing for justification and throughout sanctification, one should earnestly perform whatever God commandspray diligently, live virtuously, aid the needy, etc. On the other hand, those who insist that conversion can occur only after regeneration stress attitudes of waiting and acts of renunciation. Throughout the ordo salutis, one should be humble, reject sinful behaviors, and surrender all things into God's hands.

We suspect that the differences arise partly because proponents of each view tend, at least implicitly, to view the way of salvation from different standpoints. The classical Protestant view makes sense when one looks back over one's entire life. From this vantage point, sudden crises and drastic decisions prove not to have been entirely uncaused, but to have been prepared for by, and to have flowed into, other events. One discovers that God has worked in many subtle ways through one's emotions, one's subconscious, and through fairly routine relationships and tasks.

From this standpoint, is it really possible to isolate acts, or elements of acts, which were wholly one's own in distinction from God's predisposing grace? When touched with humility over God's past leading, can anyone be certain that they were exactly as free to make other choices than those which they actually made?

The common Catholic and believer's church perspective makes sense when people look not backwards, but forwards toward choices which they must make. Whatever dynamics of grace may have brought one to a given decision, these cannot all be clear at that moment. Whether or not God has disposed an individual to make only one choice, at least two seem viable. Whether or not one will actually choose in accord with the strongest motive (cf. pp. 130-132), one often feels called to opt for a weaker one. When situated at this vantage point, one cannot passively expect God to take care of everything. One must chooseradically, painfully, decisively.

These considerations help round off our discussion of freedom (Chap. 5). Since true human freedom unfolds only in response to God's Spirit, one cannot resolve the anthropological question apart from soteriology. Reformed tradition has held that true freedom is not mere liberty to select different options, but unhindered capacity to will the good; such freedom is compatible with God's so disposing us that we could not choose otherwise. Our recent reflections show that the intertwining of divine and human activities occurs on such deep, sometimes

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unconscious, levels that we cannot definitively reject this position. Through influences unknown to us, God might shape our character so that we choose with full freedom whatever God decides.

However, neither anthropology nor soteriology can prove such a position. We acknowledge it, then, as a marginal possibility which keeps us from setting limits to God's work. As such, it can induce humility, awe, and gratefulness as we contemplate our past, and instill confidence that God will continue with us.

However, as each person moves forward toward the consummation, it is essential that they respond decisively, sometimes radically, to new things. Everyone, especially oppressed people inclined to sin through passivity, must often act as if their choice of one option over others makes an important difference. Our initial journey toward justification and our continuing sanctification call us to act as if we have some capacity, distinguishable from predisposing grace, to determine whether certain things will occur.

Thus theology must acknowledge another unprovable possibility: that however much sin may have damaged it, our anthropological structure involves a capacity which, at least when liberated by grace, is able to select more than one option of its own accord.

Traditional theologians may dislike our declining to support either side in a debate which has absorbed so much energy. In this case, however, we find that while each model expresses certain truths, data for resolving this issue are not available. Theology can only recommend that as we walk along salvation's way, we allow the claims of both models to qualify each other.41

2

Stages?

We find attempts to divide the ordo salutis into stages problematic for two reasons. First, since Scripture does not outline precise stages, and since transitions among many of them allegedly occur in subconscious regions, we find no way to test rival theories. We cannot definitely assert, for instance, that before the kerygma awakens repentance and faith, prevenient grace restores free choice. Of course, we cannot deny this, either. We can only affirm that if grace works preveniently, it is a divine activity and cannot be identified with a human faculty (such as conscience, for Wesley). We have no grounds for asserting that it encounters every person, as Rahner claims (Chap. 2). Yet with whatever kind of grace and dynamics the ordo salutis begins, our consideration of justification (Chap. 7) affirms the tradi-

41 Cf. our consideration of the possibility that the models of universalism and particularism operate in similar fashion, and our rejection of such a solution in that matter (Vol. I, pp. 148-149).

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tional position of both Catholics and Protestants. The "first grace" is bestowed solely by God.

Dividing the ordo salutis into stages also creates problems by implying that salvation must follow a certain sequence. By insisting that "perfection" is a normal stage of sanctification, Wesleyans drew many toward a deeper experience of grace. Yet many others were thrown into despair by their inability to attain this. The same has been true of movements insisting on a "second blessing," including blessings of a charismatic sort.

While such experiences doubtless bring joy and purpose to many Christians, there is no biblical warrant for identifying such blessings with a particular mandatory experience or stage. Moreover, experience shows that many others come to similar goals by different paths, and are deterred when a single sequence is presented as a theological necessity rather than a possible pattern.

3

Perfection?

The perfection depicted by Wesley is frequently urged in Scripture.42 Since such appeals are rooted in the affirmation that the New Age is "already" here, pursuit of these ideals is meaningful. Classical Protestants opposed perfectionism because they felt that it underestimated human depravity.43 With believer's churches, however, we affirm a greater optimismnot by minimizing sinfulness, but by emphasizing the possibilities of grace. Eschatologically, humanity's sinfulness belongs to the Old Age. While sin's lingering effects still impinge upon the New, the latter has already overcome it in principle and has introduced limitless potentialities for sanctification into its midst.

Nevertheless, theology should regard perfection as a meaningful goal rather than a specific, describable, mandatory stage. In fact, maturity is a better translation of the biblical terms often translated perfection.44 Maturity better expresses, as Wesley apparently intended, that consistency in a relationship rather than flawless fulfillment of legal standards is to be sought. In affirming that pursuit of such maturity is meaningful, theology articulates the eschatological hope that places no fixed limits on the actualization of the New Age in the present. However, in refraining from making it a mandatory stage, theology declines to judge or discourage those who fall short.

42 E.g., Matt. 5:22, 28; Eph. 4:15, 27; 1 Peter 1:13-16; 1 John 3:6-9.

43 See Geritt ten Zythoff, "The Non-Perfectionism of John Calvin," in Burgess, ed., pp. 181-212; Benjamin Warfield, Studies in Perfection, 2 Vols. (New York: Oxford, 1931).

44 See TWNT, Vol. VIII, esp. pp. 76-77.

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II

The Dynamics of Sanctification

Throughout the preceding section, something has been missing. Traditional discussions have been limited by their preoccupation with regions of experience about which theology can make few definite assertions. In all the debates about sequences of stages and interactions of wills, the actual character of sanctified persons and the concrete means by which they grow are often left blank. Surely discussions of a process have little value, especially for those who are pursuing it, when its goal and the kind of paths that lead to it are vague. In fact, if a vision of fully actualized humanity and its means of development is missing, the church will often import norms and methods from other sources in its actual work.

On the other hand, efforts to depict sanctification's course concretely encounter dangers similar to those of plotting specific stages. If the vision of the sanctified person is filled in with too much detail, allowance for the wide diversities among individuals will not be made. The sanctification process will be circumscribed by norms and procedures which will arbitrarily encourage certain attitudes and behaviors while repressing other equally legitimate ones.

Sanctification, the individual's movement toward the consummation, participates in the general dynamics of eschatological hope (Vol. I, pp. 175-176). Without some broad vision of its goal, sanctification becomes vague, unrealistic, or borrows its content from secular sources. Yet if that goal is defined too precisely, one's hope is narrowed and made rigid and one's openness toward it hardens into methodical calculation. In the following, then, we shall seek to outline the "framework" which does not restrict, but which channels, and thus arouses and makes effective, the dynamism of sanctifying grace.45

A

The Goal and the Path

What is sanctification's goal? It is not the attainment of some specifically religious state, characterized by unique theological virtues. It is none other than the goal of humanization as such. It is "the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). We have seen, however, that the New Testament refrains from defining this anthropological normativity of Christ in detail (Chap. 3). It chiefly emphasizes Jesus' obedience toward God and his servanthood toward his fellow humans, both of which are rooted in his way of agape. Jesus' kingdom message outlines

45 Cf. our discussion of propositions, and of specific historical events, as the framework which brings the personal and cosmic/historical dynamism of revelation to life (Vol. I, pp. 201-205, 213, etc.)

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some social implications of this way (Vol. I, Chap. 15), while stewardship over nature is also involved (Vol. II, Chap. 4).

Yet this "mature" humanity (Eph. 4:13) was not merely something exemplified once in history which now functions as a distant ideal. Jesus' humanity is inseparable from the fullness of his living person, in whom all Christians participate and toward whom they grow (Eph. 4:15-16). This humanity, in fact, as communicated to us through the Spirit, is an essential feature of that grace which initiates and energizes salvation.

Sanctification, then, is not lonely striving toward an ideal. It involves participation in a fellowship where the love, joy, and wisdom of mature humanity is "already" actualized in its Head. It flows through all his members, even though it is "not yet" fully actualized in them (p. 68). In other words, sanctification occurs in large part within the church.

Having identified sanctification's goal and its ecclesial context, can theology say anything in general about how it begins? According to Reformed theologians, the ordo salutis begins with a call, although they sometimes reduce this to the message of individual justification. We agree that sanctification begins with a call. But if it is a call to participate in Jesus' perfected humanity, it will sound within the horizon of Jesus' call to the kingdom and to discipleship. True sanctification begins when one recognizes (explicitly or implicitly) Jesus' call to follow him.

Traditions which emphasize Jesus' call to discipleship, including believer's churches, sometimes act as if it were a condition which one must fulfill to earn salvation. Careful examination of Jesus' calls to follow him, however, show that they themselves are acts of grace. The summons to Levi the tax collector (Mark 2:14 and parallels) shows most vividly that Jesus' call itself "breaks through the barrier which had hitherto been considered insurmountable" and brings "forgiveness of sin as an actual event."46 In promising that those who lose their lives for his sake will save them, Jesus is not simply calling people to a way of life, but offering eternal salvation (see esp. Mark 8:35 and parallels). Through this call, Jesus opens himself to fellowship with people and to shared participation in his suffering. And as Jesus' own mission was empowered by the Spirit, so the Spirit energizes and communicates this call and the caller's own presence. This process, indeed, is at the heart of that "grace" which enables sanctification.

While liberation theologies often seem to evaluate human freedom much as does the Western humanistic tradition, their spiritual writings

46 Eduard Schweizer, Lordship and Discipleship (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960), pp. 13-14.

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frequently focus on Jesus. Gustavo Gutierrez shows how discipleship originates in Jesus' call which comes from beyond us. It is a journey toward the one, and therefore sustained by the one, whom we have already met.47 Throughout this journey Jesus often challenges us, probing our reasons for following him, and asking whether we understand who he, the "unique reality that stands beyond human opinion," really is (see esp. Mark 8:27-33). This process of testing and challenging "pulls us out of our subjective world and, 'turning us inside out,' locates the point of reference of our faith, and of our life, beyond ourselves, in the person of Jesus."48

Traditional theologies have sought to ground salvation in the divine initiative by equating justification with God's invisible declaration upon individuals, and sanctification with God's invisible operations within them. We have argued, however, that justification's foundation is the historical actualization of God's righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus (Chap. 7). Similarly, Gutierrez shows how sanctification is rooted in Jesus' continuing call, which itself communicates the grace (the Spirit) to begin launching out afterand withhim.

Since this call comes to people in diverse contexts, its specific contents will vary. In essence, however, this call continues the one which Jesus issued in his own day. Thus, Jesus' historical call provides general guidelines for our movement toward sanctification and for discerning whether it is rooted in divine grace. As we move along the ordo salutis, Jesus will often challenge, and thereby deepen, our understanding of who he is, and what his mission is. Nevertheless, as an eschatological call, Jesus' summons thrusts us out into the future "where there is no path marked out in advance in its every detail."49 The call to salvation arouses courage and creativity as well as dependence upon its "pioneer and perfecter" (Heb. 12:2).

In Christian tradition, mystics have sometimes emphasized a personal relationship with Jesus unrelated to following his commands. Activists have sometimes emphasized following his commands apart from a personal relationship. In the approach just sketched, however, knowing and doing are inseparably intertwined. Only those who know

47We Drink from Our Own Wells (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984), pp. xv, 3, 33, 38. For an overall presentation and critique of Gutierrez, see Osvaldo Mottesi, An Historically Mediated 'Pastoral' of Liberation (Emory University: Ph.D. dissertation, 1986).

48 Ibid., p. 50.

49 Ibid., p. 3; cf. pp. 75, 91. Just as salvation has past, present, and future dimensions, so sanctification is a journey from, with, and towards God (pp. 72-89).

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Jesus as the one who calls and sustains them can really do his commands. Yet one can know him more fully and intimately only by walking in his way.50 In fact, sanctification as increasing conformity to Jesus' character is rooted in following in action and thought the way Jesus trod, "from below." Likewise, Christology as the adequate knowledge of him is rooted in following in action and thought the way which Jesus trod, "from below."51

B

The Disciplines

Sanctification is a work of God's Spirit requiring openness to the Spirit's spontaneous, often unpredictable leading. Yet this process isn't formless, Jesus' life, teachings, and call give it a general shape. When people ask how to follow Jesus concretely in a complex world, they often wonder whether more specific practices might be involved. Does God's Spirit demand different responses in each moment? Or does the Spirit's leading toward sanctification normally include certain kinds of activities? Catholics reply that grace is normally bestowed in conjunction with sacraments. We shall examine these in Chapter 13. For now, let us ask whether other fairly regular activities, or "disciplines," might be central to the process.

The powers of the law, sin, flesh, and the world operate largely through human "desires" (epithumiai).52 Though these drives have physical dimensions, they also involve an intentionality like that often ascribed to the will.53 While God created human nature with certain normal appetites and longings, these have come to seek satisfaction in ways which oppose God so regularly that desires in Scripture often means evil inclinations without qualification (Num. 11:4; 1 Thess. 4:5; 1 Peter 4:3).

Thomas Aquinas's notion that character forms through the development of "habits" (Chap. 1) shows how the desires can be transformed. The justified person, of course, is free from the dominion of all powers.

50 1 John 2:2-6; cf. the Anabaptist theologian, Hans Denck: "No one can truly know [Christ] unless he follow him in life, and no one may follow him unless he has first known him" (Walter Klaassen, ed., Anabaptism in Outline [Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1981], p. 87).

51 "One cannot know who Jesus is until one shares his way with him" (Schweizer, p. 21). This has also been stressed by liberation theologies (Vol. I, pp. 269-271).

52 Rom. 7:7-8; James 1:14-15; Gal. 5:16, 24; 1 John 2:15-17.

53 TWNT, Vol. 3, p. 171. This is especially clear in Eph. 2:3, which equates "desires (epithumiais) of the flesh" with "the will of the flesh and of the mind."

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Bestowal of the Spirit diminishes the force of these desires for a while. Still, these desires have become accustomed to operating in directions whose overall momentum will not be easily reversed. They have been strengthened by repeated activities of a certain kind. They will not flow consistently in other directions until they are repeatedly reoriented in those ways.

How might such habits be formed? Catholicism has developed many detailed devotional, ascetic, and ethical exercises in which regular reception of the sacraments plays a part. Protestants, fearing that such precisely prescribed procedures are human efforts to control grace, have usually refrained from developing guidelines for sanctification. Many believer's churches, however, have protested the laxity which can arise from this, and have again emphasized the importance of spiritual disciplines. (Method-ist, in fact, means those who follow a method for pursuing sanctification.)

When carefully examined, the exhortations and exemplary behaviors found in Scripture assume, and sometimes insist, that certain regular practices will characterize the lives of all true Christians. Since these practices are essential to the way and call of Jesus and his kingdom, they form a sound biblical basis for a theology of the disciplines. However, due to the danger of making salvation a legal relationship, we stress that such disciplines do not prescribe what people must do to be saved. Rather, they describe how those who are saved behave (p. 95).

Since any worthy practice can be distorted into a precondition for receiving grace, systematic theology cannot insist that one must always perform each of the following disciplines. However, since character cannot be lastingly transformed apart from the acquisition of consistent habits, the framework within which sanctification occurs ought normally include at least the following practices.54

1

The Inward Disciplines

While theology cannot divide the person neatly into a physical body and a spiritual soul, the personal center, "the heart," forms an interiority which outward acts and experiences cannot exhaust (Chap. 5). Although sanctification transforms one's activities in the world, it must at the same time deeply transform the heart. Accordingly, in keeping with this chapter's focus on sanctification's personal side, we can broadly distinguish between disciplines which focus primarilythough not exclusivelyon attitudes of the heart and those

54 "The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us. . . . By themselves the spiritual disciplines can do nothing. They can only get us to the place where something can be done" (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline [San Francisco: Harper, 1978], p. 6). Cf. Williams, pp. 127-132, 137-138.

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which focus on one's relationships with others. Disciplines of the first sort can be practiced both individually and in small groups.

a

Prayer

Jesus' obedience to his Father was no mere following of rules, but a personal response of faithfulness, gratitude, trust, and love (Chap. 4). Such attitudes are possible only in relationship to a person. Accordingly, Jesus placed high priority on times of personal prayer^55 and instructed his disciples in it. Although prayer includes meditation upon God and any aspect of creation in light of God, personal address is at its heart. Prayer involves the requesting, questioning, wondering, doubting, complaining, dialoguing, praising, and thanking essential to deep personal relations.

God speaks to us, and we speak to God, in many waysthrough Scripture and hymns, through nature and personal relationships, through present and past events. At its core, however, conversation with God is the communion of our inmost heart with a Person who is presently invisible. Thus, for prayer to be a meaningful means of communion, we must practice it continuously. Without this, we cannot learn how to distinguish consistently between God's voice and our own desires. We become lost in a wandering confusion of impulses, thoughts and moods. The existence of any reality beyond present experience grows vague and doubtful. Yet in proportion as this reality becomes dim, we lose our capacity to sense love when we feel unloved, to be uplifted by joy when despair pervades our situation, to hope for the future when the present is filled with defeat.

b

Simplicity

While Jesus opposed poverty, he also regarded as opposed to God's kingdom the desire for riches and the cares that they bring (Vol. I, Chap. 15). Paul counseled that "if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils."56 Religious orders and believer's churches have often stressed modesty in dress, frugality in spending, and avoidance of luxuries. Today, "the simple life" is often a protest against an economic system and a social mentality based on the desire for ever-increasing consumption. Adherents of the simple life offer much-needed alternative models of fulfilled human living and for overcoming today's glaring economic disparities.57

55 Mark 1:35, 6:46; Luke 6:12, 9:18.

56 1 Tim. 6:8-10.

57 E.g., Ron Sider, ed., Living More Simply (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1980); and Lifestyle in the Eighties (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982); Vernard Eller, The Simple Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973); Adam Finnerty, No More Plastic Jesus (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977).

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But while limitations in possessions and pleasures are doubtlessly involved, simplicity has primarily to do with one's purpose or focus. Simplicity is the continual practice of centering one's attention and energyamid all the demands of one's body, one's social situation, and one's life circumstanceson those directions in which Jesus is truly calling one.58 Amid the continuous changes brought about through one's sanctification and by occurrences in one's world, simplicity is the continuous practice of re-focusing one's vision and reevaluating one's priorities. Paradoxically, however, a person whose chief concern is to live inexpensively can greatly complicate life (by doing without conveniences, by always searching for the lowest price, etc.) and emphasize less important over more important concerns.

There is much to commend fasting as a practice of simplicity. Jesus apparently expected his followers to practice it (Matt. 6:16-18; 9:15). Almost all Christian traditions have recommended it. While fasting can be commended for good economic or physical reasons, it has primarily to do with inner attitudes. Jesus emphasized that fasting, like prayer, is to be practiced without outward show, and only before ''your Father who sees in secret" (Matt. 6:6, 18). Fasting is not merely abstaining from food, but also, when hunger pangs arise, turning toward God. Like simplicity in general, this trains us to focus our attention on what is most meaningful when other desires clamor for attention. Like prayer, it trains us to find strength and meaning in that invisible relationship upon which our visible life really depends.

c

Study

In biblical parlance "the heart" does not signify the emotions in contrast to the mind, or "the head." Moreover, faith, as a response to particular events, involves the apprehension of the mind (Vol. I, pp. 41-46). Accordingly, Christian growth involves deeper probing into the meaning of these events and their relationship to one's contemporary context.

Jesus' and the earliest church's constant citation of Scriptures (see, e.g., Matt. 4:3-10; Acts 2:16-36) show that they were continually seeking to understand current events in its light and vice versa. Theology now does this on the corporate level, as the intellectual dimension of the church's wrestling with the kerygma within its apologetic context. In a similar way, study accomplishes this on the individual or small group level. As the church, to keep hearing and applying the kerygma afresh amid changing contexts, must carry on theological reflection in a sustained way, so all maturing persons need to delve into the sources of their faith repeatedly.

58 Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pp. 69-83; and Freedom of Simplicity (San Francisco: Harper, 1981).

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Since study is a continuing attempt to reappropriate the meaning of what one believes, it cannot be reduced to mere intellectual apprehension of facts and doctrines. However, since these beliefs are rooted in biblical events and their "interpretations," study also involves the mastery of content.

2

The Corporate Disciplines

a

Mutual Submission and Affirmation

Since Jesus' humanity was cohumanity actualized through servanthood, sanctification involves the repeated learning of submission. Yet since submission, like obedience, has often meant suppression by some external or unfriendly authority, many modern people reject all mention of it (Chap. 4).

True submission, however, is placing oneself voluntarily in the service of other people. This can bring great freedom. Through voluntary submission we can

lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way. . . . We are at last free to value other people. Their dreams and plans become important to us. We have entered into a new, wonderful, glorious freedom, the freedom to give up our own rights for the good of others.59

Only when we have done this can we be free, when differences of opinion arise, "to distinguish between genuine issues and stubborn selfwill."60

Significantly, the heavy emphasis on submission in Christian tradition has often been connected with the notion that the chief form of sin is pride. Yet we have seen that passivity and self-deprecation can be equally destructive forms of sin (pp. 54-55, 161-162). Many people instinctively subordinate their viewpoints and desires to others out of a sense of worthlessness or despair. Such peoplein fact, all peopleneed to affirm their intrinsic value as persons created and loved by God, and the legitimacy of expressing their opinions and wants. Authentic submission is impossible when one's authentic self has not been affirmed, just as one cannot truly love without having first been loved.

Actually, neither submission nor affirmation can be continuously practiced apart from a community where they frequently occur. Submission requires others to whom to submit oneself. Affirmation is concretized and intensified through others. At bottom, submission and affirmation call each other forth. We are affirmed when others submit to

59 Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pp. 97-98. Cf. Wesley's emphasis on "Christian conference" (Williams, pp. 135-136).

60 Ibid.

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us, and they are affirmed when we submit to them. Both are fully possible only when they are mutually practiced in a community where agape reigns. Since these reciprocal practices are most fundamental to bringing servanthood (the goal of humanization) to fruition, they are foundational to all the corporate disciplines.

b

Confession and Guidance

Since sin is a turning against God, and since prayer often includes confession, this practice could be classified under the inward disciplines. However, since specific sins are usually committed against other people, Jesus insisted that confession and forgiveness are essential to the kingdom community's growth (Matt. 5:23-24; 18:19-35; Luke 11:4). The Catholic sacrament of penance has sometimes made confession and forgiveness too routine. Nevertheless, it bears witness that sin is often not purged unless it is openly and explicitly acknowledged, and until the offender receives the accepting and healing affirmation of others. Since sins damage interpersonal relationships, their force will seldom be broken unless some reconciliation occurs on this level (1 John 2:9-11; 4:205:1).

If we stress confession apart from guidance, however, we emphasize salvation from sin without a corresponding emphasis on what salvation is for. Positive growth takes place through regular counsel and encouragement from others. Since God's gifts are distributed among many persons, no individual can be complete without others (1 Cor. 12:4-31). Guidance can involve having a spiritual director who can share wisdom gained from having traveled further along certain paths. It can take the form of a small group with whom one meets regularly, where enough trust and intimacy exist for sharing major struggles and decisions. Finally, major crises and turning points in life can often be negotiated most helpfully when a special group is called together to seek God's guidance.

c

Service

While submission and affirmation, in their interrelatedness, are foundational to the corporate disciplines, they naturally overflow into service. Service includes all things which we do for others for their sake, and not chiefly for reward. While it involves things done for sisters and brothers with whom we are mutually submitted, it stretches beyond the community of agape to all things done for anyone. To be sure, we cannot truly serve others until we have been served by God's Servant (Mark 10:43-45). Yet, insofar as this has occurred, service enables us to receive life precisely through giving it away.

Through service we experience the great paradox which Jesus taught and exemplified: that we gain our lives by losing them, and are enriched through becoming poor.61 Through serving, we give away what

61 Mark 8:35; John 12:24; 2 Cor. 8:9; 9:6-15.

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we visibly and presently have and are. Like prayer and fasting, service enables us to focus on and to draw life from that invisible reality which bestows our deepest hope and strength. Moreover, the indispensable role played by service, which includes all social and political activity, reminds us that sanctification can never be an individual process distinct from its social dimensions (cf. Matt 25:31-46).

d

Celebration

Since discipline usually connotes something unpleasant, it may seem strange to class celebration under this heading. Although any discipline can clash with a deeply rooted desire, its aim is to help us move freely along with the motions of grace. Accordingly,

joy is the keynote of all the disciplines. The purpose of the disciplines is liberation from the stifling slavery to self-interest and fear. When one's inner spirit is set free from all that holds it down, that can hardly be described as dull drudgery. Singing, dancing, even shouting characterize the disciplines.62

Celebration reminds us that sanctification is no striving toward justification. It is rooted in the joyful "already" of God's justifying act. It reminds us how throughly the earliest church's life was rooted in worship and joy (Acts 2:46-47). And precisely because the powers' lingering opposition often makes sanctification a struggle, it is good that we not regard celebration as optional. Those who strive most earnestly toward maturity often need to be exhorted most specifically to relax. If we take the personal and corporate imperfections of our "not yet" too seriously, salvation can subtly metamorphize into a distant, unattainable goal.

It is often helpful to introduce times or acts of celebration into the other disciplinesinto periods for prayer, study, or service. In addition, while we shall question the Catholic practice of sanctifying the "existentially fundamental moments" of life by sacraments (Chap. 13), celebration naturally occurs at many ordinary junctures of human life. Births, weddings, graduations, vocational choices, arriving or leaving a place, taking up or relinquishing tasksmany such milestones can become occasions for regular celebration which reminds us that our ordo salutis is undertaken in and sustained by joy.

C

Perseverance

Although we should move along the way of salvation with joy, many persons experience anxiety about whether they will reach the end. Our eschatological approach, by stressing the conflict that often

62 Foster, p. 2.

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befalls those who follow Jesus' call and cross, raises the question afresh. Hope, through its very dynamism, draws people into greater struggles with evil than they would otherwise have dared. Because such struggles can become so intense, those involved may be tempted to despair.

Will all those who are justified persevere until the end? One can enlist biblical passages to support either side of the debate. Those who say "yes!" point to Jesus' assurance that his sheep will never perish out of his hand (John 10:27-29). They also cite Paul's confidence that the One who began a good work in us "will bring it to completion at the Day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6). Those who argue that the justified can fall away cite other texts, of which the following is probably most emphatic.

It is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the Age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt.63

Since the biblical evidence seems mixed, proponents of both views undergird their positions with their understandings of freedom. Those who hold that a truly free will must be able to refuse grace (including most Catholics and believer's churches) conclude that falling away is possible. Those who hold that regeneration is entirely God's work, and that the fullest freedom is incompatible with refusing grace (most conspicuously, the Reformed tradition) conclude that God will infallibly enable the justified to persevere.64

Since we regard the solution of the debate about freedom as beyond theology's scope, we cannot resolve the issue on this level. On second glance, however, the biblical evidence does not seem entirely inconclusive. Strictly speaking, most texts enlisted in favor of perseverance affirm only that God wills and is able to preserve those who are saved.65 Yet perhaps Romans 8:29-30 affirms something more. Those whom God "predestined, he also called; and whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified." If this is the case, will not all such persons without exception reach the end? Yet this same epistle warns against such an absolute interpretation. Romans 11:29 affirms similarly that "the gifts and the calling of God are

63 Heb. 6:4-6; cf. 3:124:1; 1 Cor. 9:27; 10:12.

64 Berkhof, pp. 547-548.

65 John 10:27-29; Phil. 1:6; 2 Thess. 3:3; 2 Tim. 1:12; 4:8.

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irrevocable." This same chapter shows, however, that not only did many individual Israelites fall away, but that Paul's readers must "continue in [God's] kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off" (v. 22).

In brief, those texts which favor perseverance, especially Romans 8:29-30, emphasize that it is God's will, and that it is the normal pattern for those who are justified. Yet those texts which warn against falling away, especially Hebrews 6:4-6, depict this possibility too vividly to make its occurrence impossible.66

But what are the implications of such a conclusion for practical theology? Might the slightest possibility of falling away cast anxious individuals, caught up in the throes of the end time, into such despair that they will actually fall away? Not if properly understood. For we would turn their attention not to their own abilities, but to the God who is willing and able to bring them to final salvation. We would seek to ground their hope not in some metaphysical inevitability, but in God's continuing faithfulness and power. We would remind such people again and again that human faithfulness is simply that continuing attitude of openness through which we can be adequately filled with divine love and strength.

Not by being anxious, but only through such openness and surrender of our own anxieties, can we be justified. Simply by continuing in this attitude we can keep on being sanctified until the end.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Beachy, Alvin. The Concept of Grace in the Radical Reformation. Nieuwkoop, Holland: B. de Graf, 1977.

Berkouwer, C. G. Faith and Sanctification. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952.

__________. Faith and Perseverance. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958.

Boff, Leonardo. Liberating Grace. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979.

Brown, Robert McAfee, Spirituality and Liberation. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988.

Burgess, Stanley, ed. Reaching Beyond: Chapters in the History of Perfectionism. Peabody Mass.: Hendrickson, 1986.

Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. San Fransiso: Harper, 1978.

__________. Freedom of Simplicity. San Francisco: Harper, 1981.

Fowler, James. Stages of Faith. San Francisco: Harper, 1981.

66 For the exegetical discussion of Hebrews 6:4-6, see I. Howard Marshall, Kept by the Power of God (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1969), pp. 140-147; Thomas Hewitt, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), pp. 106-111. John Owen, "The Doctrine of the Saints' Perseverance," The Works of John Owen, Vol. XI (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1852 [originally published in 1654]), pp. 638-654.

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Gelpi, Donald. Charism and the Sacrament: A Theology of Christian Conversion. New York: Paulist, 1976.

Gutierrez, Gustavo. We Drink from Our Own Wells. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984.

Marshall, I. Howard. Kept by the Power of God: A Study of Perseverance and Falling Away. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1969.

Murray, John. Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.

Runyon, Theodore, ed. Sanctification and Liberation: Liberation Theologies in Light of Wesleyan Tradition. Nashville: Abingdon: 1981.

Smith, C. Ryder. The Biblical Doctrine of Grace. London: Epworth, 1956.

Toon, Peter. Born Again: A Biblical and Theological Study of Regeneration. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.

Warfield, Benjamin. Perfectionism, 2 Vols. London: Oxford, 1931.

Wesley, John, "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," in The Works of John Wesley, Vol. XI. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1872, pp. 366-445.

Whitehead, Evelyn and James, Christian Life Patterns, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979.

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Chapter Nine

Approaches to Ecclesiology

Our quest for a theological understanding of human nature and of salvation has led again and again to the church. We learned that humanity is cohumanity, and that our cohuman potentialities are fully actualized through relationships of mutual servanthood (Chap. 4). We discovered that the human body (soma *) involves a corporate solidarity which comes to fullest fruition through participation in the body of Christ (Chap. 5). We saw that sin involves subjection to corporate Powers of evil (Chap. 6). Accordingly, salvation involves establishing an opposing social reality.

Finally, we temporarily distinguished, for purposes of discussion, individual dimensions of justification and sanctification from their corporate context. However, we found that the former kept pointing back toward the latter (Chaps. 7-8). Briefly stated, humanization and salvation intrinsically involve the participation of people in communities of mutual sharing, service, and love. God wills that these be most fully attained through the church.

However, when discussion turns to the church, the interest of many modern people wavers. To the average person, church connotes a seldom-used building on the corner, or perhaps a rather dull, declining institution. Having surveyed the broad cosmic themes of eschatology, revelation, anthropology, and salvation, one may feel puzzled and let down upon hearing that much of the hope envisioned there is to be actualized through the church.

Indeed, ecclesiology has often been one of theology's least innova-

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tive and interesting loci. Systematic theology has often served well-established institutions, and rigidified and legitimized their doctrines and practices (Vol. I, Chap. 2). Rather than inquiring afresh into the church's nature and its mission in the world, theologians have sometimes been more anxious to defend those structures which paid their salaries. For this reason, issues of church structure, including those of its particular ceremonies, have often taken precedence over those of its activities and mission.

However, while the Bible says little about church structure, it speaks often about the activities, attitudes, and relationships which characterize the church. Moreover, when modern people begin to be interested in churches, they are usually far more curious about what activities and relationships might be found there than as to how these institutions are organized.

Accordingly, for both kerygmatic (biblical) and contextual reasons, we may approach ecclesiology somewhat as we have anthropology and the work of Christ. We will begin with a fresh examination of the church's activities (Chaps. 10-13). In light of what we discover there, we will consider its structure (Chap. 14). Among the church's activities, we shall be most concerned with its mission. Having outlined its overall commission in a general way (Chap. 10), we will consider its mission in relation to sociopolitical structures (Chap. 11) and other religions (Chap. 12). We will then turn to the church's worship, including the sacraments (Chap. 13).

In contrast to much theological traditionand contrary to common current impressionsecclesiological discussion is lively today. Both in high-level ecumenical consultations and in grass-roots-endeavors, old denominational distinctions and perceptions are breaking down. New alliances crop up in the most unlikely places. Staid Catholics frolic with Pentecostals. Evangelicals launch protest marches with old-style liberals. Baptists become liturgical while Episcopalians clap to guitar music. The old distinctions themselves seem to be caught up in some kind of eschatological dynamic.

The present situation, then, provides exciting opportunities for fresh inquiry into the church's mission and nature. Yet such investigation needs to be aware of the assumptions and traditions that lie behind the current scene. To this preliminary task we devote the present chapter.

I

The Church and Contemporary Democratic Presuppositions

Christians believe that God has founded and guides the church. Yet no matter how lofty one's view of its origin and purpose, the churches are also human institutions with particular sociological struc-

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tures. Existing in particular times and places, churches are shaped not only by biblical guidelines, but also by current ideas as to what social institutions are all about. Ecclesiology, that is, cannot focus entirely on the kerygmatic ideal of the church, but must also investigate the social dynamics and assumptions and of its present context.

During medieval and Reformation times, all social institutions were thought to have an intrinsic legitimacy. Rulers reigned because God willed it. People were born into certain occupations and social classes. The particular offices, sacraments, and functions of the church were thought to flow directly from divine decree.1 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, Western society was increasingly revolutionized by the emerging notion of "democracy." Whether they are aware of it or not, all modern people have been deeply shaped by democratic assumptions as to what any social institution, including the church, should be.

Perhaps no rationale for democracy has been more influential than that developed by the empiricist philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704). Locke hypothesized that human beings originally lived in a "state of nature." Here each individual led a basically independent existence, subsisting on whatever they could gather from the land. The state of nature was governed by a "law of nature," reason, which clearly taught each person what behavior was best. In general, this state of nature was a peaceful, pleasant existence.2

Nevertheless, there were always a few who did not follow the law of nature. Instead, they robbed, killed, or otherwise took advantage of their fellows, who lived alone and unprotected. Largely because of this, most individuals eventually decided to gather into groups for protection and mutual advantage. This was the origin of all social groupings.3 It is important to notice that, according to Locke, individuals joined them voluntarily. Further, the laws, procedures, and structures which regulated these groups were established through a "social contract": through mutual agreement as to what was best for all. If authority was granted

1 Ernst Troeltsch has argued persuasively that, sociologically speaking, the Reformation along with Medieval Catholicism, comprised the "age of church civilization," and that democracy, capitalism, and other modern movements came to the fore a century or more after the Reformation (Protestantism and Progress, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986 [originally published in 1912]), pp. 20-53.

2The Second Treatise of Government (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), pp. 4-11. Locke did not insist that the state of nature had ever existed. It functioned as an imaginative way of presenting the hypothesis that humanity is composed of individuals who are essentially independent.

3 Ibid., pp. 11-14.

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to any leaders, it was only through voluntary common consent.4

Locke's specific interests were political. He was arguing that government ought to derive only from the consent of the governed. Therefore, if political authorities make laws with which the people do not agree, or if they exceed their delegated powers in other ways, the people have the right to depose themthrough elections if possible, through force if necessary.5

Although Locke grounded these rights in the Enlightenment notion that humans are primarily rational creatures and that reason is sufficient to guide human conduct, the emphasis placed by Baptists, Quakers, and others on the freedom of conscience contributed to the rise of democratic ideals. Over the following centuries, people began to increasingly feel that not only political institutions, but all institutions areor at least should berooted in a social contract.

It is crucial to notice that according to this democratic theory, institutions, authorities, and laws have no inherent legitimacy. They exist only because individuals decide that certain structures, leaders, and procedures will meet their needs. If these individuals decide that what they have created is not meeting their needs, or that their needs have changed, they may alter or even dismantle these institutions. In other words, individuals with their needs and desires are the fundamental sociological reality. Corporate social phenomena exist (at least ideally) only because individuals create them to satisfy their desires. Accordingly, in a society deeply shaped by democratic philosophy, it will be difficult to think of church structures, leaders, decisions, teachings, or ceremonies as having any intrinsic reality and authority.

II

The Traditional Roman Catholic View of the Church

Roman Catholic structures and procedures developed during ages when different sociopolitical assumptions prevailed. Despite the novelty which one often finds in recent Catholic theologians, some of them present a rather traditional account of the church. Karl Rahner, as we know, argues that God's saving grace encounters everyone, even wholly secular persons and adherents of other religions. This occurs in ''a hidden closeness, a forgiving intimacy," in "the mystery of [one's] existence which is quietly present." Thus, one might assume that religion is a very subjective experience, without any objective framework or form.6

4 Ibid., pp. 70-73, 75-84.

5 Ibid., pp. 119-139.

6Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 131.

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Rahner, however, stresses that faith must have an objective source and structure.

The simple question for the religious person is whether there is . . . a reality . . . established independently of himself, and which he can allow to triumph as a power which is not at his disposal, but rather which disposes of him. . . . A genuine subjectivity . . . knows . . . that it has to allow itself to be at the disposal of something objective which it has not established. . . . By its very nature, the subjectivity of man . . . requires that it encounter an objectivity, which is the norm for this subjectivity.7

Unlike Protestants, however, who emphasize objectivity and authority in connection with revelation (Vol. I, Chaps. 10-13), Rahner stresses the church. Jesus Christ confronts us not only on the basis of his past historical existence, not only through the propositions of Scripture, but also in a more tangible, contemporary form. Originally, through his incarnation, "a single human nature was taken up into union with God in the person of Christ our Lord." But God also wills

to continue the Incarnation through the centuries, not simply in its effects, but, so to say, in its very substance. This prolongation of the Incarnation is but another name for the church. So we find the great incarnational principleviz., the pouring out upon the world of what is divine and spiritual through the medium of material elementsverified in every aspect of the church's life.8

For Roman Catholicism the church is Christ's body in a very real way.

We have noticed that corporate solidarity plays an important role in the anthropological meaning of body (soma *), and that Paul understands the ecclesiological concept body (soma*) of Christ in similar fashion (Chap. 5). Given our democratic social assumptions, people today assume that churches are really collections of individuals, and that Paul must have used this solidaristic term in a weakly metaphorical way. For us, "the most pressing problem is how the many can be one. The multiplicity is obvious, the unity problematic." For Paul, however, the difficulty was

the other way around. The singularity of Christ's resurrection body is taken for granted just as it was by those who saw it on Easter morning. It is the fact that it can consist of a number of persons that really calls for

7 Ibid., p. 344.

8 George Smith, ed., The Teaching of the Catholic Church (New York: Macmillan, 1949), Vol. II, p. 693. (Both volumes of this work contain excellent summaries of pre-Vatican II Catholicism.)

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explanation. So we find Paul opening his longest discussion of the church as the body of Christ with these words: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ" (1 Cor. 12:12).

The unity of Christ, as of the human body, is his starting point. He then proceeds to show that the body cannot in fact consist of only "one member," but must be "many" (verse 14).9

Paul's major discussions of the church as Christ's body presuppose and emphasize its unity.10 Individuals are then exhorted not to act merely as if the body of Christ were one, or to make it so, but to participate in the unity already established (1 Cor. 12:21-31; Rom. 12:6-8; Eph. 4:7-16). Paul speaks similarly as regards the Lord's Supper. "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor. 10:17). Of course, these texts need not legitimate all that Catholicism says about the extension of the incarnation. But they do warrant our taking the sustaining presence of Christ in his church, which precedes the incorporation of particular members, more seriously than Protestants often do.

Catholics not only stress the oneness of the church in Christ, but also insist that the church could not continue his presence and mission in the world unless it were "a society visible to all as an unmistakable concrete fact."11 Such a society must manifest four characteristics, or "marks": unity, holiness, universality, and apostolicity. The last three of these, however, emanate from the first.

Both the divine and the human elements in the church alike demand her unity. She comes from the Triune God, the one and the true, in whom disunion is unthinkable, and share in a manner the oneness of the life of the Godhead. . . . On the other hand, the unity of the human race, the whole of which is intended to be incorporated into the Mystical Body, demands a church that is manifestly one and undivided. Moreover, the fact that there is no approach to God save through Christ, that he is "the one Mediator of God and men," reinforces the need for unity.12

Now if the church is to be Christ's continuing, undivided body, it must have a certain structure. Catholics, unlike many Protestants, find it impossible to "detach the inner mystery of the Mystical Body from the outward framework of the church. Both are so closely connected that it

9 John A. T. Robinson, The Body (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), pp. 58-59.

10 1 Cor. 12:4-13; Rom. 12:4-5; Eph. 4:4-6. Cf. Gal. 3:16, 28-29.

11 Smith, p. 701.

12 Ibid., p. 703.

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is impossible truly to love the one without loving the other; they are as integral to the church as body and soul to man, or divinity and humanity to Christ."13

If the church is to carry on Christ's work, it needs to perform the functions that he did. Like other groups, Catholics have often divided Jesus' activities into the roles of prophet, priest, and king (Vol. I, Chap. 14). In Catholicism, Jesus' prophetic role is continued in the church's teaching office. Of course, the church has Scripture as a norm for its teaching. Nonetheless, the Bible can be, and often has been, interpreted in many ways. If the church is to witness with unanimity to Christ, there must be some unity in its interpretations.

Accordingly, Catholics argue, the church must have a teaching office which can define doctrines with an authority binding on all members. Thus the College of Bishops along with the pope has the right to define doctrines authoritatively. In 1870 the First Vatican Council explicitly proclaimed that the pope alone may do this when he clearly intends to do so.14 Yet as we shall see, the scope and authority of this teaching office are much debated today (Chap. 14).

The Roman Catholic Church carries on Christ's kingly office through its judicial authority. This includes a legislative power "to make laws binding in conscience, for the general good of the Christian community. It includes also the right to impose precepts . . . to apply the law to individuals in the form of a command."15 Judicial authority also involves a coercive power to punish those who disobey the church's laws or precepts. This does not involve physical punishment, but the imposition of "spiritual" penalties (such as excommunication) and "temporal" ones (such as fasting). Without the power to make and enforce laws, Catholics have argued, the church could not maintain the unity of organization and purpose which belong to Christ's continuing body.

The church's ultimate doctrinal and jurisdictional authority are vested in the pope. Traditional legitimation for his primacy has placed much weight on Matthew 16:18-19. The "rock" (petra) on which Christ was to build his church is interpreted to be Peter (Petros). The power of the keys is understood as "power to grant admission to the future kingdom."16 Even though Jesus gave this same power to all the disciples (Matt. 18:18; John 10:22-23), he is held to have given Peter the primacy

13 Ibid., p. 710.

14 Denziger, Sections 1832-1840.

15 Smith, p. 714.

16 Rahner, p. 334.

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among them (Luke 22:31-32; John 21:15-17).

Catholics believe that Jesus was not only giving Peter himself an important role, but establishing a church structure to endure through the ages. Catholics also support papal primacy by insisting that if the church's unity as an "extension of the incarnation" is to be visible, this unity must be represented in an earthly head. However, the pope is not merely a representative or symbol. The church's doctrinal and jurisdictional authority really reside in himalthough not as an individual, but as embodying the church. God has willed to invest these first in the pope, and from thence to distribute them in hierarchical fashion to increasingly lower levels.

The church carries on Christ's priestly office through its ordained priests. "The central fact of human history is the redemption, wrought . . . by the life-work of Christ and culminating in the supreme act of self-oblation. . . . The sacrifice which Christ offered to his Father on the Cross is the one perfect act of worship ever offered by man to God."17 However, according to traditional Catholic teaching, "the same sacrifice which Christ offered on Calvary is unendingly renewed in the sacrifice of the Mass."18 Thus, "the essential act of priesthood is the offering of sacrifice, both as the supreme act of man's worship . . . and in expiation for the sins of man."19

In a certain sense, all Catholics perform a "priestly" service by offering themselves to God during the mass. They also perform priestly services for one another. However, since the mass imparts grace in the supreme degree, Catholics argue that a special grace must be given to those who distribute it. This is conferred on potential priests through ordination. This sacrament (like baptism and confirmation) is held to imprint an indelible "character." It is "a spiritual seal or stamp impressed on the soul by God to indicate the consecration of that soul in some official capacity." It "imparts a spiritual power or capacity in regard to the sacred and divine things possessed by the church.''20 Once imprinted, this character can never be lost, regardless of what becomes of the priest morally or spiritually.

In sum, although no one can limit the ways in which God may bestow grace, it is normally available through the sacramental system. For the grace which they need for sanctification, the laity must normally turn to a special class of priests, who possess it in a unique way. Thus a

17 Smith, p. 678.

18 Ibid., p. 678 (cf. Chap. 13 below).

19 Ibid., p. 1022.

20 Ibid., p. 1030.

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crucial distinction arises between the priesthood and the laity, however much one may stress that the former has grace only for the sake of the latter.

Catholicism also makes distinctions within the class of priests. The chief differentiation is between the episcopate (the bishop) and the Presbyterate (the ordinary priests). Bishops have doctrinal and jurisdictional authority over large areas. They alone can ordain. Bishops themselves are installed through "consecration," a laying on of hands which only another bishop can perform. Catholics stress that if Christ's body is to be truly visible, the chain of apostolic succession among bishopsand primarily among popesmust be demonstrably unbroken.

Today, Catholic theologians regard other denominations as valid Christian bodies.21 But they are often disturbed at the ease with which Protestants can accept divisions in the church. If one accepts such divisions, one seems to be assuming "either that the church of Jesus Christ as he willed it does not exist at all, or that in spite of the divisions among Christians it exists to such an extent that it does not really have to be brought about."22 In view of Jesus' own desire for unity (John 17:20-23), Catholics find this attitude difficult to accept.

In conclusion, Roman Catholicism has traditionally emphasized that the church is the unified, visible, continuing presence of Christ's body in the world. Its inward, or mystical unity, cannot be separated from its outward, visible form. Unlike democratic institutions, the church does not arise from a social contract among its individual members. As Jesus' very body, its essential reality precedes the incorporation of any members. The church has doctrinal, jurisdictional, and sacramental authority not because its members have granted these to it, but because Christ has. The authority and grace bestowed upon the church flows downward from pope to bishops to priests to laity in hierarchical fashion.

Theology has often asked: Where is the true church? On what principle is it based? What distinguishes it from false ones? Traditional Catholicism answers in terms of authority. The true church is the one in which the authority derived from Christ is most visible, and the one in line with this authority.

21 See "Decree on Ecumenism" in Walter Abbot, ed., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America, 1966), pp. 341-366.

22 Rahner, p. 353.

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III

The Reformation View of the Church

Originally, almost all the Protestant Reformers desired not to separate from, but to reform, the Roman Church. During the Reformation's early years, an abundance of proposals for the new shape of the church burst forth. Martin Luther originally proposed that three distinct congregational meetings be held. He proposed a Latin mass for the well-educated classes and a German mass for most of the general populace. These two public services would be necessary because "there are many who do not yet believe. . . . " To them "the gospel must be publicly preached to move them to believe and become Christians." These services would center around preaching to these largely unconverted crowds.

Yet Luther also proposed a third assembly. "Those who want to be Christians in earnest and who profess the gospel with hand and mouth should sign their names and meet alone in a house somewhere to pray, to read, to baptize, to receive the Sacrament and to do other Christian works." Preaching is not emphasized. However, Luther confessed, "As yet I neither can nor desire to begin such a congregation or assembly or to make rules for it. For I have not yet people and persons for it. . . . "23

Apparently, Luther never did find such persons, for he never established such congregations. Nonetheless, the vision of the church as a deeply committed group which shared their joys and burdens persisted in his writings and sermons. In 1520 he wrote:

I believe that throughout the world there is only one holy, universal Christian church. . . . I believe that in this community or Christendom all things are held in common: what each one possesses belongs also to the others, and no one has complete ownership of anything. Hence, all the prayers and good deeds of all the Christian community benefit and strengthen me and every other believer at all times . . . and that each one bears the other's burden. . . . 24

For Luther, however, this communion of saints was not always clearly visible. At the core of his theology lay a sharp distinction between justificationGod's invisible, forensic declaration upon an individualand sanctification, the gradual, imperfect, visible transformation of one's character (Chap. 7). Faith discerned and accepted

23 "The German Mass and Order of Service," Luther's Works, Vol. 53 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1965), pp. 63-64.

24 "Personal Prayer Book," Luther's Works, Vol. 43 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), p. 28.

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this invisible declaration despite the obviousness of one's sins. Luther stressed that a Christian is "at the same time righteous and a sinner."

While justified inwardly, then, a Christian's outward behavior might differ little from others. Similarly, in the church the true life of faith and fellowship could often be hidden under the formality, inertia, and sinfulness of an ecclesiastical body. Like justification, the true church could only be perceived by faith.25 Its characteristics were not nearly as visible as in Catholicism.

During the 1520s, however, Luther laid increasing emphasis on the church's visible, institutional aspects. Anabaptists and other groups sought to reform existing churches more radically than he, or even to establish separate communions of saints. Luther feared the chaotic breakdown of all authority. At the same time, Catholic military power threatened to mangle the newly Protestant territories. Already in 1520, Luther had called upon the nobility to protect and strengthen the church. He appealed to them as those who were Christians on the basis not so much of faith as of baptism.26 For despite their new insights, Luther and the other major Reformers fit them within the basic medieval relationship of church and state. The state was called upon to protect and support the church while the church encouraged allegiance to the state (cf. Chaps. 1, 11). All persons in a given political unit were routinely baptized into the church as infants. This assured a steady supply of those "who do not yet believe" and to whom, accordingly, "the gospel must be publicly preached. . . . "

Although the Reformers never ceased working for a church which would experience and witness to the living Christ as fully as possible, their formal definitions of the church tended to leave this out. John Calvin expressed the common Reformation view when he asserted that "wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists."27 Calvin insisted that no matter how poorly a church may do this, it is still a true church. Consequently, "the Lord . . . counts as a traitor and apostate from Christianity anyone who arrogantly leaves any Christian society, provided it cherishes the true ministry of the Word and sacraments.28 Despite his rejection of

25 Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, pp. 290-291.

26 "To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate," Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), p. 129. For an account of these events, see Bainton, Here I Stand (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960), pp. 116-119. (Cf. Chap. 1 above.)

27Institutes, p. 1023.

28 Ibid., p. 1024.

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Rome's authority, Calvin (like Luther) clearly did not leave church membership to the subjective preferences of individuals. For him, Christ's church is founded on God's objective will and authority. It demands obedience even when it does not do what individuals desire.

But what does Calvin mean by pure preaching and hearing of the Word? Luther sometimes spoke of "preaching the Word" as the words or deeds of admonition and comfort which Christians give each other.29 Both he and Calvin emphasized "the priesthood of all believers: that any Christian can represent God and intercede before God on behalf of another. No special class marked by the "character" of ordination is needed for this.

Nevertheless, as emphasis on the institutional character of Reformation churches grew, "preaching the Word" increasingly meant the Sunday sermon. Preaching was done by those validly ordained (even though they had no "character") and trained intensively in Scripture and theology. Thus the test of whether "we see the Word of God purely preached and heard" and the sacraments rightly administered was largely doctrinal. Precisely speaking, Calvin spoke of two "bonds" of the church: "sound doctrine and brotherly love.'' However, he clarified their relationship as follows: "this conjunction of love so depends upon the unity of faith that it ought to be its beginning, end, and, in time, its sole rule."30

Theology has often asked, Where is the true church? On what principle is it based? What distinguishes it from false ones? Reformation Protestantism would answer in terms of doctrine. The true church is the one where authentic biblical doctrine is taught, and which seeks to order everything else in light of it.

IV

The Believer's Church Perspective

Throughout the centuries, countless groups have arisen for whom the attempt to live the Christian life as fully as possible lay at the heart of their religion. Some have emphasized authority, some have not. Some have stressed doctrine, others have not. For all such movements, the thing that makes groups (and not only individuals) authentically Christian is the kind of life lived in their midst.

These groups have existed in varying relationships to Catholic and Protestant establishments. Some, such as the many monastic movements, have remained formally within the established ecclesiastical framework. Others, however, have broken with the given structures.

29 Althaus, pp. 315-318.

30 Ibid., pp. 1046-1047. (Faith is clearly a synonym for "sound doctrine.")

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Sometimes such groups were forced out by authorities who regarded them as heretical. At other times, they found the establishment and its claims to authority intolerable. But whenever such a break was made, a distinct approach to ecclesiology emerged.

Cogent generalizations about the believer's church tradition are extraordinarily difficult to make.31 Usually such movements arose from, or appealed mainly to, the lower classesthose who felt alienated from the established ecclesiastical and social institutions governed by upper classes. Otherwise, however, their historical origins have been widely diverse. They have often been relatively small. Their quest for a pure church often led to internal splits. Moreover, they were so often persecuted and misrepresented that much of what they originally said about themselves has perished, yet the not unbiased reports of their enemies have survived. (In fact, believer's churches were often successful to the extent that they kept their practices hiddenfrom their contemporaries and, therefore, from modern inquirers as well!)

In addition, some believer's church leaders had little education or theological inclinationdue largely to their frequent exclusion from higher education and the lower class character of their movements. Accordingly, systematic theologians often disregard their views. Yet despite these obstacles, the believer's churches offer crucial and distinctive perspectives on the church of Jesus Christ. They insist that no authoritative structure, no matter how finely developed and historically authenticated, makes a group an authentic body of Christ. Furthermore, no amount of biblical doctrine, no matter how accurately articulated or skillfully preached, can make a group an authentic body of Christ. A group which claims to be Christ's body must be livingor at least seriously striving to liveas he did.

A concise statement of this perspective appears in Harold Bender's pamphlet, The Anabaptist Vision.

First and fundamental in the Anabaptist vision was the conception of the essence of Christianity as discipleship. It . . . meant the transformation of the entire way of life . . . so that it should be fashioned after the teachings and example of Christ. The Anabaptists could not understand a Christianity which made regeneration, holiness, and love primarily a matter of intellect, of doctrinal belief, or of subjective "experience" rather than one of the transformation of life.32

31 For a good attempt, see Donald Durnbaugh, The Believers' Church (New York: Macmillan, 1968 [reprinted 1985 by Herald Press]), esp. pp. 209-299; and James Garrett, ed., The Concept of the Believers' Church (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1969).

32The Anabaptist Vision (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1944), p. 20.

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The second element in the Anabaptist vision was "a new concept of the church."33 If the Christian life was one of committed discipleship, then a true church could consist only of those who had consciously committed themselves to Christ. Despite the name Anabaptist (given by their enemies), the emphasis on believer's baptism was not, by itself, the basis of the Anabaptist or the later Baptist movements. Instead, their conviction that the church must be composed of disciples implied that baptism should be administered only to those who were so committed.34 Not surprisingly, most believer's churches have rejected infant baptism.

Although Anabaptists stressed that conscious decision was indispensable to baptism and church membership, their ecclesiology was hardly individualistic. Christ calls us to love, to servanthood, to humilityto virtues which cannot be practiced by isolated individuals. These can blossom only in communities which seek to direct their entire existence in accord with them.35 And one cannot consistently behave in this way toward the worlda world which is often hostilewithout the community's assistance and encouragement. The Anabaptist vision is inherently corporate. Turning from the world to Christ involves joining a body that seeks to wholly follow Christ. For Jesus desires that his way be made visible in the world. In stressing that Christian faith must be concretely lived out, believer's churches have insisted, like Catholics, that the unity and holiness of the church cannot be merely inward or mystical, but must also be outward and visible.

For believer's churches, mission has usually also been an essential "mark" of the church. Such groups often regarded themselves as restorers of a faith which had become seriously corrupted and obscured. Thus they saw proclamation of this message as intrinsic to their reason for being. In their eyes, the established churches had become corrupt largely through their compromises with fallen social practices and institutions and their alliance with the state. Accordingly, the believer's message and way of life often critiqued the standards and practices of their age.

Believer's church movements were usually hostile toward ecclesiastical authority. For this reason, they have often been perceived as highly individualistic and opposed to authority. History shows,

33 Ibid., p. 26.

34 This is the main thesis of Franklin Littell's The Origins of Sectarian Protestantism: A Study of the Anabaptist View of the Church (New York: Macmillan, 1964 [originally published in 1952]).

35 Robert Friedmann, The Theology of Anabaptism (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1973), p. 81.

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however, that their attitudes arose largely out of experiences of being opposed and often bitterly persecuted by authorities in whom they saw little or nothing of Christ. Their aim was to reject false or formal authority in order to come more directly under the authority of Christ and his Spirit.

In fact, whatever their views on authority, few such groups survived their turbulent beginnings without strong leaders and carefully developed procedures and structures. Their vision hardly demands rejection of all human structures and leaders. On the contrary, their emphasis on close-knit community life often necessitates these. The believer's church vision demands only the rejection of leaders who are not first participants in community life, guided by the Spirit, and walking in Jesus' way.

Believer's church movements were often suspicious of doctrine and theology. History shows, however, that this frequently occurred because theological pursuits seemed to distract from the vibrant life of faith, or because the establishment demanded adherence to creeds. Yet believer's churches usually consist of avid Bible readers. (When they are not being criticized for being too experiential, they are often critiqued for being too "biblicist.")

As these movements spread through the lower classes, they almost always raise the education of their adherents considerably. However, they insist that Scripture cannot be rightly understood apart from the life of which it speaks. The Bible cannot be meaningfully interpreted by experts who are not first participants in the community. Scripture is rightly understood only when the Spirit who energizes the life of faith also enlivens the written word in the context of the community.

In emphasizing the importance of decision and in rejecting established authorities, believer's churches have usually insisted on freedom of conscience. Accordingly, they have often been interpreted as forerunners and advocates of the democratic principle that individual free choice is the basis for all social institutions. Of course, some believer's movements (Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, etc.) contributed to the rise of democracy. Often, however, they regarded conscience not as a self-sufficient organ for perceiving truth and making decisions, but as one corrupted by personal sin and fallen social standards. When they urged the authorities to refrain from coercing the conscience, it was usually because they regarded conscience, darkened though it is, as the channel which God first begins to regenerate.

Despite the positive visions which awaken them, believer's movements can come to emphasize the negative side of things. Their striving for a unique, visibly redeemed community has sometimes, especially when seared by persecution, turned into withdrawal from society. Their longing to come under Christ's lordship has occasionally become mere resistance to human authorities. Under the increasing influence of

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modern individualism, they can become unconcerned with and irrelevant to the larger society. They have sometimes merited the Catholic criticism that they are merely societies for the expression of subjective religious needs, not churches established by the God who confronts us as an Other.

Yet despite these occasional flaws, believer's churches propose an important answer to theology's questions. Where is the true church? On what principle is it based, and what distinguishes it from false ones? They give their answer in ethical and pneumatic terms. True churches are those where people are living, or at least seriously seeking to live, according to the biblical teachings by the Spirit's power.

V

Basic Ecclesial Communities

As described so far, Catholic and believer's churches seem like near opposites. Yet today's ecclesiological ferment has been heightened by the emergence of groups within the former which remind one of the latter. Especially in Latin America, communities of laypeople, mostly among the poor, have spontaneously begun worshipping, studying Scripture, and working together to better their lot.

Though most of these people are nominally Catholic, many have felt distant from this church. Whether due to its shortage of priests or its traditional alliance with ruling classes, the ecclesiastical establishment has sometimes done little to guide these "basic ecclesial communities" (in Spanish, comunidades eclesiales de base). Their activities and their social goals sometimes occasion sharp conflict in the larger Roman Church.

These basic communities raise afresh the question, On what principle is an authentic church based? What gives rise to it? What legitimates it as a true church? What "marks" or activities will characterize it? These communities also reopen other questions, especially in light of their affiliation with Catholicism. Where is the authority of authentic churches located? And what roles might different offices and hierarchical structures have?

Literature on basic communities abounds with phrases like birthing the church, reinvention of the church,36 and resurrection of the church.37 Does this mean that authentic churches arise without historical or ecclesiastical connections to others?

While few would go this far, Leonardo Boff criticizes traditional

36 Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogenesis (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986), pp. 2, 23.

37 Jon Sobrino, The True Church and the Poor (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984), p. 84.

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Catholicism for modeling the relationship between the church and Christ too exclusively on that of an institution and its founder. According to this model, the founder is largely a past figure. The most important things passed down from him are his teaching and authority, which are to be preserved by a select group. But Boff argues that Christ is to be regarded primarily as risen, and as more directly present in his church through the Spirit. New churches, then, arise not so much from doctrinal, jurisdictional, and sacramental power passed down from above, but from the Spirit, which blows where it wills. Often they arise from among the unchurched and the lower classes.38

Does this mean that the base communities are churches? Or are they, like other prayer circles or social action groups, simply associations which happen to be composed of Christians? Vatican II, in line with traditional Catholicism, insisted that the gospel, the eucharist, and the presence of apostolic succession through a bishop form the essential elements of a particular church.39

Boff, however, insists that the essential Christian mystery is "the trinitarian God who communicates to human beings in definitive and eschatological form in Jesus Christ and who continues to communicate through the presence of the Holy Spirit." Wherever people accept this gracious communication in faith, the church is born. Boff concludes in words which remind one of the Reformation and of believer's churches. "Faith, therefore, constitutes the minimum constitutive reality of the particular church."40

Boff quickly adds, however, that faith is not simply an individual experience, but "is given essentially as communion." Faith has to do not only with the invisible, but is bestowed through "those mediations that present Jesus to the world and keep his memory alive down through history." Thus, faith reaches out and ''establishes communion with the particular churches that live Jesus' message in the fidelity of the apostolic succession." Faith also tends toward visible expression through a leader who is "a symbol of [believers'] oneness with one another and with other communities" and through sacramental celebration of the eucharistic presence. Boff is saying that any authentic base community will move toward union with the established church. Nevertheless, authentic ecclesiality need not first be bestowed by this church, for "believers, by reason of their faith-and-community, are already, in themselves, the presence of the universal church."41

38 Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, pp. 24-26; Church: Charism and Power (New York: Crossroad, 1985), pp. 144-153.

39Documents of Vatican II, pp. 50, 403.

40 Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, p. 19 (emphasis his).

41 Ibid., pp. 19-20 (emphasis his).

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For Boffwith whom many Catholic theologians disagreethe organized Roman Catholic Church is not the universal church of which particular churches are parts, and from which they derive their ecclesial reality. For him, the universal church is the essential saving mystery of God through Christ and the Spirit. Wherever an authentic particular church exists, the fullness of this mystery is present.

The universal church is not a whole, whose parts are the particular churches. . . . Nor does it exist after the fashion of a substance with the particular churches as its accidents. . . . The universal church is in the particular churches whole, and has in them its phenomenal, or reflex, reality. Whatever is attributed to the universal church is attributed to the particular church. . . . We have the universal church, which is intrinsically differentiated, or manifested, in the particularity of the local churches.42

This means that even the Church of Rome is a local church, although it "may well be . . . constituted as the sign of unity of the universal church present in all particular churches."43

Assuming for now that the risen Christ, through the Spirit, can give birth to the church anywhere, can we say anything more about the form that it will take? Can we distinguish authentic churches from others which may claim the title?

Catholic liberation theologians assume that authentic communities will eventually come into doctrinal, sacramental, and jurisdictional unity with Rome. However, their overwhelming emphasis is that such congregations will be in tune with what God is now doing in the world at large. While these theologians talk comparatively little about sacraments, considered as specific ceremonies, they speak much of the church itself as a sacrament. A sacrament is a visible sign, or manifestation, of the grace which otherwise operates invisibly or less obviously. Modern Catholic theology speaks of the church as the place where God's salvific intentions for humanity are made clear (Chap. 13).

Similarly, liberation theologians argue that the church "is meant to reveal and give impetus to the liberating thrust of the kingdom which runs through the history of the peoples."44 The church, that is, is the

42 Ibid., p. 17 (a quotation from Henrique Vaz).

43 Id. Boff argues, much as Protestants often have, that Peter is the "rock" upon which the church is built not in his juridical person, but in that the church "is built upon faith in the resurrection as first testified to by Peter" (p. 52). In support of his argument that the church is fully present in its local manifestations, Boff notes that Paul used ekklesia * both for the mystery of the church and for many such manifestations (p. 20).

44 Ronaldo Muñoz, "Ecclesiology in Latin America" in Sergio Torres and John Eagleson, eds., The Challenge of Basic Christian Communities (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981), p. 151. Cf. pp. 157-158.

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"sacrament of humanity," the efficacious sign of the "new humanity of the kingdomwhere human divisions have been truly reconciled in authentic peace and justice."45

Many liberation theologians argue that God's intention for humankind is also being revealed and actualized emphatically through the poor. Indeed, most basic communities have arisen from among the poor. Accordingly, some can even speak of the poor themselves as "the visible body and a sacrament of Jesus Christ."46 In any case, they insist that authentic churches will not only have concern for the poor, but will become churches of the poor. Through immersion in the struggles of the poor, their concerns will become its own. In this way, the church will further God's kingdom work and will at the same time be renewed by God's presence among the poor.

This means that the authentic church "must follow the real historical Jesus. If it does not do this, it corrupts its own nature."47 Like Jesus, it will focus on God's kingdom and not on itself. Like Jesus, it will adopt the pattern of Yahweh's servant.48 The authentic church will find its primary identity not in doctrine or structure, but in mission.

In affirming the primacy of the Spirit and the local church, of mission and lifestyle, basic communities remind one of believer's churches. Like the latter, they often seem to regard offices and structures as having little inherent value, existing only to facilitate the church's functions. Nonetheless, they lay more emphasis on the necessity and importance of structures. Boff distinguishes a "community," where people "are oriented by a sense of reciprocity and belonging," from a "society," where "anonymity and indirect relationships prevail.'' He argues, however, that community never exists in a pure state, wholly apart from the structures and stratified roles of a society. "Community,"

45 Jose Miguez-Bonino, "Fundamental Questions in Ecclesiology," Ibid., p. 147.

46 Muñoz, p. 153. Cf. Sobrino, pp. 95, 121; Gustavo Gutierrez, "The Irruption of the Poor in Latin America and the Christian Communities of the Common People" in Torres and Eagleson, pp. 107-123.

47 Sobrino, p. 203; cf. pp. 222, 224, 350. The church is "the community of disciples who adopt the messianic practice of Jesus" (Gutierrez, p. 119 [cf. pp. 157-158] above). "The deeds of the crucified and risen Jesus and his message . . . remain the perduring criteria by which we are to pass judgment on the church" (Boff, "Theological Characteristics of a Grassroots Church" in Torres and Eagleson, p. 130).

48 Sobrino, pp. 108-109.

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rather, "must be understood as a spirit to be created, as an inspiration . . . to overcome barriers between persons and to generate a relationship of solidarity and reciprocity." Basic communities, therefore, should not seek to be wholly unstructured, nor to replace the institutional church. They should work as leaven within it and counteract its tendencies toward rigidity.49

For Boff, church structure is provided by "charisms." These are various gifts given to each church member for the good of the whole (1 Cor. 12:4-11; Rom. 12:6-8; Eph. 4:7-13). When charisms are stressed, structure becomes not something relatively fixed and imposed from the top, but something which can flow with the Spirit's movement and to which all members contribute. Some charisms will function for limited periods. New ones will arise as the need for them does. All of them, however, must be exercised for the good of the whole body, and never in a domineering way.

Having emphasized that all charisms "co-constitute" a church, Boff acknowledges "there is obviously a hierarchy among them" and some will be permanent.50 Amid the diversity of gifts, there will be need for a charism of direction, administration, and unity. Boff affirms that "the one presiding in the community is endowed with a special grace." This "implies an ontological character . . . that is abiding, that is ongoing.''51

VI

Summary

Viewed against the backdrop of the historical and social forces which have challenged and helped shape it, the church hardly appears as a staid institution concerned mostly with organizational matters. On the contrary, its organizational questions themselves prove to have arisen largely through its interaction with and its mission within various sociocultural contexts. The tightening of church structures has not been unrelated to stabilizing tendencies in traditional or threatened societies (medieval Catholicism, later Reformation Protestantism). The loosening of such structures is often connected to novel movements among the lower classes (believer's churches, basic communities).

Yet, not even the radical groups we have mentioned would claim that structural matters ought to be entirely determined by the given situation, or that they are unrelated to the nature of the church. The

49Ecclesiogenesis, pp. 5-6. Somewhat similarly, Sobrino argues that both prophetic and institutional elements belong to the church, and that these will not be resolved until the eschaton (pp. 210-217).

50 Boff, Church: Charism and Power, p. 159.

51 Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, p. 28.

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kinds of leaders and offices the church has, the kinds of ministries it pursuesthese are not shaped entirely by the wishes of its members or the pressures of its environment. For something more basica principle, a presence, a practice, some essential "marks"makes an ecclesial body truly a church and determines all else that it does.

But what is it? Visible, authoritative structures, as in traditional Catholicism? Correct doctrine, as in traditional Protestantism? Spiritimbued discipleship, as in the believer's churches? Missionary praxis, as in the basic communities? And if it is one of these, how is that one related to the others?

As the churches' history raises the question of what is essential to the church, this question proves to be similar to one raised at the end of our last chapter. For the church, like the individual walk of sanctification, is essentially Spirit-led. God's Spirit refuses to be identified entirely with any personal discipline or social structure. Yet at the same time, the Spirit's movement is not entirely shapeless. It normally operates through certain activities and organizations. But just what forms and patterns does the Spirit usually adopt? How can theology speak of them flexibly enough to acknowledge the Spirit's freedom, yet specifically enough to bring its concrete operations into view?

So far, one thing seems clear. Whatever it is that makes the church an "objective" realitysomething more than human desires and pressurèsit cannot be static. It cannot be something that takes exactly the same form in every situation. It must be a dynamic reality which itself is hastening toward the consummation. If so, theology will begin to identify it only by considering the church in actionby first attending to the church's mission. This is primarily what the next three chapters will do.

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Chapter Ten

The Commission of the Church

The church has been included in our theological reflections, at least implicitly, ever since we began. We originally defined theology itself as the intellectual dimension of the church's worship, fellowship, and mission. In describing theology's starting point, the kerygma, we could not restrict ourselves to its verbal content, but outlined the life-in-community which it energized as well (Vol. I, pp. 120-123).

Since all topics in systematic theology are interrelated, we could have begun with the church. We chose not to for two main reasons. First, ecclesiology concentrates significant attention on human activities and structures. Given the anthropocentric orientation of modern culture, this concentration would make it difficult (though not, of course, impossible) to adequately emphasize the radical divine initiative which grounds and sustains the church. Second, when the church occupies center focus, theology often overlooks the church's relationships to whatever else God is doing in the world.

An eschatological approach, we feel, better enables us to emphasize that the church is rooted not in human social dynamics, but in God's Spirit. Eschatology also stresses that God's actions and intentions are cosmic, and that one can rightly appreciate the church's function only within this horizon. The church forms one stream within the current of God's broader historical movement. Therefore, one ought not

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to regard the church primarily as a fixed structure, but as an active force (although, as we shall see, anything which acts must also be structured.) Ecclesiology, that is, should begin with the church's mission.

Mission can mean two things. First, in contrast with structure, mission can denote every activity which God commissions the church to perform, everything which God sends the church into the world to do. To avoid ambiguity, we shall call this the church's "commission." We shall devote the present chapter to it. Second, this broader commission consists, as we have often said, of three activities: worship, fellowship, and mission. Here mission means outreach among those who do not fully acknowledge Christ's lordship. Chapters 11 and 12 will cover thisand show us that the church's fellowship is an integral component of its missionary message and method.

Chapter 9 presented diverse understandings of the church and a wide variety of ecclesiological issues that have arisen in different contexts. How, amid such diverse claims as to what the church is, ought to be, and ought to do, shall we begin charting our own course? We must return to our starting-point: the kerygma and the life-in-community which it began and energized in such a way that the community in turn proclaimed and concretized the kerygma. Although the earliest communities' life cannot tell us all we need to know about the church, it will provide that vantage point essential for apprehending the significance of all other data (Vol. I, pp. 118-120).

Then, having outlined the earliest church's worship, fellowship, and mission, we shall, with the help of some broader New Testament ecclesiological models, formulate our basic theological affirmations about the church's commission. Throughout this latter task, we will compare and contrast our views with those presented in Chapter 9.

I

Worship, Fellowship, and Mission

The eschatological context within which the earliest church lived involved the joyous "already" of the New Age. This is true, we believe, for the present church as well. It also included the sober acknowledgment that the New Age was also "not yet" fully present, with all the struggling and hoping that this involved. In fact, the church moved from the former realization to the latter with something of a jolt. For this reason, it will be convenient to describe them consecutively, even though they form one paradoxical, intertwined reality.

A

The "Already"

1

Worship

The kind of worship which flowed from and accompanied the kerygma's proclamation is indicated primarily in Acts' early chapters and by elements of early confessions, practices, and hymns scat-

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tered through other New Testament writings. In Acts, worship forms a constant feature of the early community's existence, yet one which is intertwined with the rest of its life.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . . And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

(Acts 2:42, 46-47)

If any one mood dominates this worship, it is joyeven though tension and threats surround the community from the beginning. This joy, we have seen, was vividly expressed by the cry, "Maranatha!" meaning "Our Lord, Come!"1 This exclamation addressed the risen Jesus as Lord over the cosmos, the new community, and the individual. It besought his presence both immediately in worship and shortly upon the earth. However, the fervent worshiper probably made little conscious distinction among these dimensions, times, and modes of Jesus' lordship and his coming.

Our glimpses into the earliest Christian worship show that certain activities were prominent in such gatherings. There are prayers, hymns, confessions, teachings, and something called "the breaking of the bread." Baptism, which surely occasioned praise and worship, marked the frequent incorporation of new members (Acts 2:41; 4:4). Nonetheless, despite the fairly frequent presence of elements like these, it is hard to imagine early worship as staid and formal. It was largely a spontaneous, Spirit-engendered communal experience of God's presence through praise, petition, edification, education, and celebration.

2

Fellowship

The earliest communities brought very different kinds of people together. The gift of tongues bestowed at Pentecost made the kerygma intelligible to persons from widely-scattered nations (Acts 2:5-11)reversing the divisions erected at the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). While members of the earliest communities were Jewish, fellowship among Jews scattered throughout the nations was a notable occurrence. (The potential friction among such groups soon surfaced in a dispute among Palestinian and Hellenistic Jews [Acts 6:1].) The Spirit's uniting of different peoples spilled over spontaneously to draw in Samaritans (Acts 8:4-26), an Ethiopian (8:26-39), and Greeks (11:20). The divine intentionality which drew Gentiles into the church (1011:18; 15) continued the movement of God's kingdom toward all nations begun in Jesus' ministry (Vol. I, Chap. 15).

1 1 Cor. 16:23; cf. Rev. 22:20; Didache 10:6; cf. Vol. I, pp. 37, 120-121.

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As the early church continued the reversal of national and racial divisions, it kept overcoming the sexual barriers opposed to God's kingdom. The eschatological "already" was marked by the outpouring of the Spirit upon both sons and daughters, upon both maid- and menservants (2:17-18). While the 12 chief apostles were male, women were included in the disciples' company from the beginning (1:14). In a culture where males alone were usually counted in the membership of a synagogue, the frequent observation that "both men and women" were active in the church (5:14; 8:3, 12; 9:2) emphasizes an outstanding feature of the new movement.

By being together so often in the temple, on the streets and in homes, the early Christians shared deeply in each other's lives. This, however, was not limited to sharing of experiences, but included sharing of goods as well. Two brief passages summarize the early community's life (2:43-47; 4:32-37). In both, no theme receives so much emphasis as the fact that those who had goods sold them so no one might be in need. The first major test of loyalty to the new way had to do with this issue (5:1-11). The first important dissension arose over the fairness with which economic sharing was being carried out (6:1-6). Given Jesus' critique of riches and the kingdom's "reversal" of economic relationships, it is hardly surprising that new economicand thereby socialpatterns were central to the earliest church.

The fellowship of the earliest communities, then, was not simply spiritual, but involved novel and far-reaching sociological changes. At the same time, this fellowship hardly consisted of such structural patterns alone, for it was experienced and enhanced in the community's worship. In fact, when theologizing begins from this new reality, today's common dichotomies between spiritual and social, between persons and things, are overcome. Early church fellowship was a quality of spiritual and interpersonal communion which transcended any mere social arrangement, yet which engendered and was further enriched by novel social patterns.

3

Mission

While fellowship could not be separated from worship, neither could it be divorced from mission. Through its worship and fellowship, the earliest community gained "favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved" (2:47). Although formal proclamation of the kerygma was apparently done largely by the leaders (4:33; 6:4), the quality of life in the new community was part of the overall message. At its heart, the good news included the affirmation that a new form of corporate life was possible and real. Fellowship was not merely a by-product or consequence of proclamation, but part of the reality proclaimed.

Mission was absolutely fundamental to the early church. The church itself arose from God's own mission,2 and furtherance of that

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mission flowed intrinsically from its inner life. It is particularly in reference to mission that the Holy Spirit is stressed. The Spirit, who initiated things on Pentecost (2:1-4), and who is the sign that the "last days" are here (2:16-21), is mentioned 19 times in Acts 16. The Spirit was given by Jesus to continue his own mission (1:5, 8; 2:33)a mission which the Spirit had energized, and had climaxed by raising Jesus from the dead. This indicates that the church is not merely a human response to God's acts in Christ, but arises from and is energized by God's continuing activity. Being grounded in this activity and the surprising forms it takes, the earliest church proves to be something "objective"not, of course, as something fixed and static, but a dynamism which precedes and underlies the incorporation of individuals into it. It is a dynamism which gives them new purposes and desires rather than merely fulfilling the ones they previously had.

Since the early church is rooted in God's outflowing, energizing love and power, this energy continually flows beyond it, drawing others into its life. The church has its very existence in mission. Its increasingly wider spread throughout the earth ("mission" in the specific sense) most vividly shows that its entire "commission" is a participation in the divine movement.

As it spreads geographically, the church's mission is enhanced by miracles.3 Given the Hebraic expectation that the New Age involves renewal of the cosmos, these miracles cannot be discounted as "mythological" embellishments of mission stories. Instead, they testify that the renovation of the entire cosmos, begun in Jesus' ministry, truly continues in these last days (Vol. I, pp. 274, 298-300). Miracles are concrete, physical indications that the kerygma deals not only with individual souls, but with whole persons and the whole creation.

4

Observations

From these glimpses of the life which accompanied the kerygma's earliest proclamation, theology can hardly derive everything it needs to know about the church. Moreover, those specific practices and activities which come to view cannot, by themselves, serve as

2 On mission as God's mission (missio dei), see Georg Vicedom, The Mission of God (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965); Norman Goodall, ed., Missions Under the Cross (New York: Friendship, 1953); Wilhelm Andersen, "Further Toward a Theology of Mission" in Gerald Anderson, ed., The Theology of Christian Mission (London: S.C.M., 1961), pp. 300-313. For a criticism of the use of missio dei in an insufficiently christological way, see Peter Beyerhaus, Mission: Which Way? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), esp. pp. 33-40.

3 2:43; 3:10, 16; 4:16, 30; 5:14-16; 6:8, etc.

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blueprints to which subsequent churches must conform. For instance, total economic sharing cannot be essential to fellowship unless continuing New Testament practice and its theological rationale show that this is so. Nonetheless, if specific forms of economic sharing cannot, by themselves, become obligatory, the centrality of this sharing shows that it is, in some form, essential to the church. We may conclude this section, therefore, with several observations which, along with what was said above, help provide a vantage point from which we may view the New Testament.

The "already" which the kerygma called to life reveals a close connection between the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus and the church. Indeed, the kingdom's racial, sexual, and social characteristics begin to be actualized in the church. However, the missionary impetus which continually thrusts the church beyond itself warns against identifying the kingdom with the church. Particularly in the conversion of Cornelius, the Spirit preceded the missionaries' proclamation, provoking Peter's reflection that "in every nation any one who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:35). While general theories of church-kingdom relationships (or of mission) cannot be deduced from this statement alone, it prompts us to ask whether and how God's kingdom work might extend beyond the church.

As first experienced, the "already" helps fill out our understanding of humanization (Chap. 4). "Obedience" to God comes to fruition partly through worship. The joy experienced in worship testifies that obedience, when fully actualized, is hardly grim subjugation to commands. Instead, submission to a living and loving God opens one to enjoy the reality and hope of God's presence. "Servanthood" is actualized partly through fellowship. When mutually practiced, the limitations which result from yielding to others are supplemented by the richness which relationships with many kinds of people bring. Finally, the spread of mission through creation helps show how humanity's stewardship over nature, including the renewal of our bodies, is integral to our final destiny.

Finally, in addition to worship, fellowship, and mission, we notice that a fourth activity, teaching, is intrinsic to the church's commission. The kerygma itself and the speeches based upon it are elaborate interpretations of how recent events fulfilled and extended God's ancient promises.4 These interpretations trace back to Jesus himself (Acts 1:2-3). Analysis of Acts' speeches shows that considerable study and discussion of the Old Testament was involved. From the beginning, the apostles found it important to convey these teachings to the larger community

4 Acts 2:14-36; 3:12-26; 4:7-12; 5:30-32; 7:2-55. Cf. 4:24-31.

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(Acts 2:42). However, teaching was not an end in itself. It was part ofand was designed to enhancethe church's other activities. Thus we can best represent it more as running through than as existing alongside the other three.

B

The "Not Yet"

A theology derived solely from the "already" of the New Age would be an escapist utopianism, unable to deal with the disappointments and tragedies of real life. Eschatology, however, focuses on the "already" only as qualified and challenged by the "not yet." Yet its confidence in the former bestows a unique perspective on the latter.

Precisely because the powers have been defeated and can no longer exercise dominion through slavery and fear, those who have been liberated can look without blinders into evil's awful face. Precisely because hope arouses the conviction that nothing can defeat God's love, it energizes the courage to attack evil at its roots. In brief, precisely because eschatological theology is grounded in the joy of the "already," it need not be frightened or compromised by the "not yet." Rather, it can deal realistically with it.

To understand the church's commission in the real world, we must trace the effects of the "not yet" upon its worship, fellowship, mission, and teaching. The reality of the "not yet" dawned upon the early church and affected these fundamental activities in three main forms.

1

Suffering

Since Jesus had conquered death, some early believers apparently assumed that Christians would never die. Thus, they were deeply perplexed when their fellows passed away (1 Thess. 4:13; cf. 1 Cor. 11:30; 15:18). When persecution arose, many were equally distressed. The earliest community was scattered (Acts 8:1) and many new churches suffered opposition from the start.5 But if Christ had defeated the powers, why did the church keep struggling with them?

When it was first unsettled by these questions the church had its gaze fixed on the risen and coming Lord. It answered them by turning its gaze back to the crucified Jesus, and through being deeply impressed that the two were the same (Vol. 1, pp. 122-123). This emphasis is particularly apparent in the Corinthian letters. The Corinthians, who had been blessed with abundant spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 1:4-7), assumed that they had essentially passed beyond the realm of suffering and imperfection (1 Cor. 4:8). Yet Paul reminds them that he never preached a Jesus other than the one who was crucified.6 And

5 1 Thess. 1:6; 2:14-15; Acts 13:48-50; 14:1-6; etc.

6 1 Cor. 1:172:5; cf. Gal. 3:1; 4:13-14; 1 Thess. 2:2.

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deep continuity exists between Jesus' mission and Paul's. For it is only through Paul's sufferings that the Corinthians receive life (1 Cor. 4:9-13; 2 Cor. 1:4-6). It is only through experiencing the death of Jesus in their bodies that the life of Jesus renews them (2 Cor. 4:7-17). In contrast to worldly understandings of what makes one productive and successful, Paul insists that suffering is the mark of a true apostle (2 Cor. 11:22-33).

In connecting their own sufferings with those of Jesus, early Christians saw these experiences transformed from threats of God's absence to assurances of God's presence. Since Jesus had suffered, those who belonged to him could surely expect it as well (1 Thess. 2:14-15; 2 Thess. 1:5; Phil. 1:29-30). When God allows Christians to suffer as Jesus did, God is preparing them to be like Jesus when he returns.7

Beyond this, these experiences of suffering deepened the early church's notion of mission. In the main, suffering arose not through accidents and ill fortune, but because the church was continuing Jesus' message and life-style. Persecution arose because the church, in carrying on the struggle waged by Christ against the powers, aroused the same opposition that he had. Mission was effective because, in enduring persecution, the church exhibited faithfulness and self-giving service much as Jesus had (pp. 68-73). In an important sense, then, missionaries could be said to complete in their flesh "what is lacking in Christ's sufferings for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Col. 1:24).

Suffering and persecution thus deepened the church's understanding of how it participates in God's mission. Amid the euphoria of the "already," Christians had experienced the Spirit who raised Jesus beginning and energizing the church. As the Spirit brought new life, healing, and marvelous gifts, Christians could easily assume that they participated directly in the blessedness of the risen Christ. But further experience showed that the Spirit is most fully present where it brings people into fellowship with Christ's sufferings, and creates new life out of persecution, discouragement, and death.

Through the "not yet," then, the church learned that it participates in Christ's risen life only as it continues his earthly mission, marked by servanthood and opposition. This participation is not merely an "imitation" or following of one who has disappeared. It is a concrete, experiential, sym-pathetic sharing in the presence and sufferings of Jesus (Phil. 3:8-11; Rom. 5:3-11; 2 Cor. 4:8-11). Nevertheless, the church participates in Christ and his Spirit not chiefly through mystical raptures

7 1 Peter 4:1-2; Heb. 12:1-14; 2 Tim. 2:11-12; 3:12; Mark 10:30.

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which remove it from earth, but through continuing to share God's agape * with a needy and often hostile world.

Suffering also deepened worship. The ''breaking of the bread," or love feast, had consisted not in scraps of bread and sips of wine, but in a full communal meal. Yet among the Corinthians it had become a revel where the poor, who had little food or drink, felt left out. Paul insisted that this destroyed the unity essential to worship (1 Cor. 11:20-22). Further, he reminded them that the Lord's Supper, in addition to celebrating Christ's presence and anticipating his return, commemorated his death (11:23-32). Given this emphasis, communion and worship became ways of bringing the community's sufferings into connection with those of Jesus. Especially in Revelation, we find many liturgical expressions of praise deeply tinged by the pains of martyrdom.8 Worship became not only an expression of joy but an experience of God's presence amidst sorrow.

2

Divisions

In addition to experiencing suffering, which came largely from without, the early church was soon distressed to find divisions arising from within. Divisions arose, on one hand, from friction among its different ethnic and social groupsespecially between Jewish Christians and Gentiles. On the other hand, the very diversity of gifts bestowed by the Spirit tempted some people to regard their charisms as superior to others. The diversity at the root of the church's fellowship seemed to be tearing that fellowship apart.

a

Ethnic, Economic, and Sexual Dimensions

Many social groups deal with conflict by banishing certain factions so greater homogeneity will result. The church, in general, strongly resisted this solution throughout the "not yet."9 Its mission throughout the known world kept bringing a breathtakingly wide variety of ethnic and racial groups into the church (Rom. 1:14; Col. 3:11; Rev. 7:9). Despite the conflicts among Jewish Christians and Gentiles, Paul regarded their unity as a fundamental "mystery" which constitutes the church. Through this unity they oppose the powers (Eph. 2:11-22; 3:6-10).

Ethnic and racial fellowship was closely connected with economic sharing. Despite the working distinction between Jewish and Gentile missions, leaders of both agreed upon remembering "the poor" (Gal.

8 E.g., Rev. 7:9-17; 14:12-13; 19:1-9.

9 In several cases, however, people who differed agreed to go separate ways. Paul and Barnabas began separate missionary endeavors over disagreements concerning the inclusion of Mark (Acts 15:37-41). Peter and Paul headed different missions to Jews and Gentiles (Gal. 2:7-10) although, as we shall see, the principle of Jewish-Gentile unity remained essential for the church.

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2:7-10). "The poor" were primarily Jerusalem Christians whom churches with Gentile members had aided from the beginning (Acts 11:27-30).

A collection of aid from Gentile churches for these Jewish Christians became a major feature of Paul's ministry (Rom. 15:25-27; 1 Cor. 16:1-4). He stressed that when some Christians experience abundance, whether materially or spiritually, this is to be shared with others who are in need, "that there may be equality" (2 Cor 8:13-15). Such sharing arouses thanksgiving, praise, and unity among Christians (2 Cor. 9:11-15). On Paul's final trip to Jerusalem, representatives of major Gentile churches accompanied him as he carried this collection, symbolizing and actualizing the economic and spiritual fellowship of the world-wide church (Acts 20:4; 24:17).

Like the Gospels, the rest of the New Testament is almost entirely negative toward "riches" (see, e.g., Jas. 1:9-11; 2:1-5; 5:1-5). The most positive word appears in 1 Timothy 6:17-19 where the rich are encouraged "to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous." In the same context, however, Paul affirms that

if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs. (1 Tim. 6:8-10)

From Jesus' kingdom message through the total sharing of the earliest community to Paul's collection and throughout the New Testament run certain significant economic themes.10 To pursue wealth as a major goal of life is directly counter to the God. This is countered, however, not simply by emphasizing the evils of wealth, but even more by stress-

10 In the Old Testament, wealth is promised as a result of national faithfulness (Lev. 26:3-13; Deut. 28:1-14). Proverbs regards wealth as a reward of holy living (3:16; 14:24; 22:14). Yet even here "better is little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice" (16:8; cf. 11:28; 14:31; 22:16).

All such texts envision existence within a basically righteous nation. Throughout most of its history, however, Israel was quite unrighteous, and wealth was often acquired through deceit and oppression. In such a society, the truly righteous tend to suffer and to become the "poor and needy" (Isa. 10:2; 14:30; 26:6; 32:7; 41:17; Jer. 22:16; Psalm 9:8; 12:5; 72:4-14; 82:3-4; etc.). Old Testament promises of wealth, then, presuppose existence within a righteous nation according to a specific covenant no longer in effect. Theology, therefore, cannot use them as universal norms, but must base its approach on Jesus and the early church.

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ing the value of sharing, "that there may be equality." To be in the church is to place everything, including one's material goods, at the service of others. However, total community of goods is but one form that this may take. Even the possessions of the earliest Christians were regarded as theirs freely to withhold or give (Acts 5:4). Paul stresses that giving must be voluntary (2 Cor. 8:7) and allows that some Christians may permissibly be relatively "rich."11

We remember that Christianity spread largely through the lower classes. Those who had wealth were urged to share generously with the needy at home and in other parts of the world. We can therefore conclude that the church is to be in "solidarity" with the poor. This does not mean, however, that today's church can directly identify the general class aspirations of the poor (or the "proletariat") with God's activity. Insofar as liberation theologies may do this, they subordinate the kerygma to a current philosophy (cf. Vol. I, p. 254).

Nevertheless, the church will renounce wealth and its trappings as life's goal, and develop mutual ways of sharing at a modest economic level. When it does this, the church can increasingly become a community not only "for," but also "of" the poor.12

As the church's fellowship across ethnic and economic lines continued throughout the "not yet," so did its overcoming of sexual barriers. Acts mentions several women who played prominent roles in establishing new churches: Lydia (Acts 16:11-15), Priscilla,13 and Damaris (17:4, 12, 34), while four daughters of Philip were prophets (21:9). Paul lists a number of female missionaries and church leaders. Phoebe was a "deacon (diakonos)" of the church at Cenchreae and a patron of Paul and many others.14 Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Mary had been deeply involved in mission work (Rom. 16:6, 12). Junia, once a fellow prisoner with Paul, was an apostle before he was.15 Euodia and Syntyche, who were leaders at Philippi, had "labored side by side with [Paul] in the gospel" (Phil. 4:2-3). These names remind us that Acts

11 1 Tim. 6:17-19. The Pauline congregations had some members who were fairly wealthy, even tough their numbers, proportionally, were small. See Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians (New York: Yale, 1982).

12 Cf. Sobrino, pp. 92-93.

13 Acts 18:1-4, 18, 26; cf. Rom. 16:3; 1 Cor. 16:19; 2 Tim. 4:19.

14 Romans 16:1-2. In carrying Paul's letter to the Roman church which had never met him, she was not simply serving as a messenger, but an important leader paving the way for him and his missionary plans.

15 Rom. 16:7. The name could possibly be masculine, Junius, but historians have found no one by this name at Rome in the first century, whereas the feminine name, Junia, has often been found there.

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and Paul's letters provide only a few windows through which to see the early church. The unfamiliarity of the names reminds us that many congregations were founded and guided by women and men whom history has forgotten.

The Corinthian women were graced by charisms, including prophecy, the public declaration of God's word in the congregation. Paul did not forbid this, but requested that women who prophesied or prayed publicly be dressed in a respectful manner.16 In general, the value which Jesus placed upon women continued to mold the early church. For in terms of superiority and inferiority, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. . . . All are one in Christ Jesus."17

b

Harmony and Order

Although the diversity of races, classes, genders, and charisms increasingly spawned divisions in the early church, the church did not resolve the tensions by simply banning some of them. Why not? Through the "not yet," the church increasingly apprehended that eschatological unity is not absence of diversity among people, but vibrant, enriching interchange among those who are different. Eschatological unity is not, so to speak, the repeated sounding of a single note, but constantly changing, interweaving harmony among different voices.

The church began to sense that the risen Christ was among them not only when he shared their sufferings. Furthermore, when the Spirit gifted various persons to express and execute Christ's will in specific

16 1 Cor. 11:2-16. Paul's instructions in the same letter for women to "keep silent in the churches" (14:34), then, cannot be a total ban on speaking, but seek to curb the disorder arising when many people spoke at once. See Alvera Mickelsen, ed., Women, Authority and the Bible (Downers Grove, Ill.: InverVarsity, 1986), pp. 134-160 (cf. pp. 97-117); Linda Mercadante, From Hierarchy to Equality (Vancouver, G-M-H Books, 1978).

17 Gal. 3:28. The most problematic text for women's leadership in the church is 1 Tim. 2:11-15, where women are not "to teach or exercise authority over men . . . for it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression." Interpretation depends largely on the meaning of "for (gar)." Does it introduce a reason, grounded in creation, for a universal practice? (So Douglas Moo, "1 Timothy 2:11-15: Meaning and Significance" Trinity Journal, n.s. 1 [1980], pp. 62-83, and "The Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15: A Rejoinder," n.s. 2 [1981], pp. 198-222.) Or does for introduce an illustration of something similar to what was happening among the letter's readers, but which carried no universal implications? (So Philip Payne, ''Libertarian Women at Ephesus," Trinity Journal, n.s. 2 [1981]), pp. 169-197; Alan Padgett, "Wealthy Women at Ephesus," Interpretation, Vol. 41 [1987], pp. 19-31; Mickelsen, ed., pp. 193-253).

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ways, they began to experience various facets of Christ's risen fullness itself coming to expression. While Christ's fullness is that of a risen person, and is therefore unified, it contains a richness of elements as diverse as the members of a body. Thus, beginning from their experience of oneness in Christ (p. 172), the church learned to cope with divisions by apprehending that these are inevitable when true oneness is a harmony of diverse elements.

Through the gifts and activities prompted by his Spirit, Christ is truly among his people. They are not merely serving a distant Lord; his own fullness is being actualized. Yet, as in suffering, Jesus' presence is not most fully experienced "mystically" when earthly activities and concerns are stilled. Christ's presence is actualized precisely when his people serve each other, work together, worship together, and carry out his mission in the world.

During the "not yet," theological divisions also arose. The church was rooted in the kerygma. As the kerygma's implications for diverse situations unfolded, a variety of theological expressions emerged. The diversities among Pauline, Johannine, Markan, Petrine, and other perspectives have enriched the church to the present day. Yet while this kind of variety is essential to a message designed to reach all cultures, other interpretations undermined the kerygma itself.

In struggling with theological divisions, certain limits had to be set and certain interpretations rejected. In articulating Christian truth, all New Testament writings, whether explicitly or implicitly, also oppose distorted interpretations. Often this conflict is obvious. New Testament authors frequently assert that their teaching is authoritative.18 Yet, like Paul, they are confident that it is not their own invention. For they themselves stand under the kerygma's judgment (Gal. 1:8-9).

Divisions of another sort called for limits. The church, grounded in God's agape-love, is called to practice agape internally and in relation to others (Chap. 3). On one hand, agape helps overcome divisions. It enables one to understand the perspective and needs of the other. Agape abounds in patience and forgiveness, which are essential to resolving conflicts (1 Cor. 13; Rom. 14). In these and other ways, agape is flexible and creative. From it imaginative behavior in tune with the Spirit's leading can continually flow.

On the other hand, the way of agape is difficult and demanding amid the struggles of the "not yet." Many common forms of human behavior oppose it. Accordingly, certain kinds of conduct cannot be permitted as general practices within the church. The New Testament

18 Acts 10:40-41; 1 Cor. 14:37; 2 Cor. 10:5-10; 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Thess. 3:14; 2 Peter 3:2-3; 1 John 2:18-23; Rev. 22:18-19.

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often rejects certain behavior in the strongest terms (Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Peter 4:1-4; Rev. 21:8; etc.). In extreme cases, those guilty of gross sins must be excluded from the church.19

Through the "not yet," then, the church learned to welcome diversity, and thus to work creatively with divisions arising from ethnic, economic, sexual, and charismatic factors. Yet as Christ's body, it was being formed for specific kinds of unified action in the world. Some behaviors were incompatible with its purposes. Some organisms, so to speak, were incompatible with its health. Thus while diversity is essential to the church, diversity is not sheer, formless plurality. The diversity appropriate to Christ's body is harmony, and harmony requires a significant measure of order and form.

Divisions within the body also led to a balancing of spontaneity and order in worship. In Corinth, different members contributed hymns, teachings, revelations, and messages in tongues. Paul encouraged this variety. Nonetheless, he insisted that when these contributions burst forth disconnectedly, chaos results. Paul therefore stressed that worship should be orderly (1 Cor. 14:26-33). Of course, order does not mean rigidity. When God's Spirit, and not sheer human enthusiasm, are in control, things come together in creative ways.

C

Immaturity

The church's difficulties during the "not yet" arose from a third factor which we can more briefly describe. Although the powers' dominion had been broken and the Spirit had begun to renew them, early Christians eventually realized that humans attain eschatological perfection, or maturity, only through a growth process. The eschaton had not abolished our created structure as beings who mature through repeated response to God's historical call. We still overcome the pull of sinful inclinations only by developing opposing ones. Thus the church came to see itself as a body not only because its members were interdependent, but also because it proved to be an organism growing up toward the maturity of Christ (Eph. 4:11-16).

Spiritual maturity, the church learned, is not the same as having marvelous powers. The Corinthians were "fleshly" precisely because they allowed such charisms to blind them to their shortcomings. True "spirituality" involves humbly acknowledging one's limitations.20

Accordingly, the church can grow, and fellowship can be perfected,

19 1 Cor. 5:1-5; Matt. 18:15-18.

20 1 Cor. 3:1-4, 18-21; 10:12; cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book IV, chaps. 38-39 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 521-523.

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only where there is willingness to accept others at different stages of growth. If someone's conscience, for instance, is bound by standards which limit freedom in Christ, these scruples must be respected so conscience can mature in a normal way (pp. 88-89). Paul encourages "the strong" to accommodate to the limitations of "the weak," and for both groups to respect each other, so all may learn the patience and humility essential to sanctification (1 Cor. 8; Rom. 14:115:7).

The church, in other words, is "already" energized by eschatological life. Yet this life surges not toward the abolition of human finitude, but toward its transformation within those structures with which it was created.

II

Ecclesiological Affirmations

Rather than beginning ecclesiology with general pronouncements about the church's nature, we have started by examining the church's activitiesspecifically, its responses to the New Age's "already/not yet" presence. Through inductive study of these, we are seeking to derive some general affirmations about the church's nature.

Inductive study of Scripture, however, soon comes across images which express the significance of the biblical themes more broadly (Vol. I, pp. 52-53). Around 100 images of the church have been discovered in the New Testament. To connect our discoveries about the earliest churcheswhich provide our fundamental vantage pointwith the overall New Testament witness, we conclude this chapter by bringing forward, or adducing, several clusters of these images to serve as models for expressing what we have discovered so far. We will then derive some theological affirmations from these models, and will compare them with the positions described in Chapter 9. Paul Minear has grouped the images of the church into three clusters: the church appears as the people of God, the new creation, and the fellowship in faith.21

21 Paul Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960). Minear lists his 96 images on pp. 268-269. Hans Küng organizes much of his study around the same three emphases (The Church [Garden City, N.Y.: Image, 1976], pp. 147-337). For a different discussion of models based not only on the New Testament but also on subsequent theology and practice, see Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City, N.Y.: Image, 1974).

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A

The People of God

Many New Testament images present the church as the fulfillment of what God began in Israel. The church exists as "a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices." It is "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people" (1 Peter 2:5, 9). The church is the children of Abraham, the house of David, the remnant, the elect. All such images show that the church exists in continuity with a historical movement stretching far back into time. The church transmits the memory of God's mighty deeds and of God's faithfulness through the centuries. Narrative theologians have rightly stressed that Christian claims cannot be articulated without telling how these acts have shaped reality.

Since the transmission and celebration of God's past acts is at the heart of the church's existence, theology can affirm that the true church exists in continuity with earlier generations. "The church" is a broad historical movement, not a disconnected series of particular congregations. Authentic churches do not simply spring into being, proclaiming and doing whatever they wish regardless of what has gone before.

However, nothing yet indicates that this continuity must be organizational, as traditional Catholicism insists. On the other hand, this continuity appears to be partly doctrinal, as Protestants have said. For the church can exist only where God's acts and their significance are proclaimed accurately enough to renew and extend the church. Particular congregations and even denominations, then, may perhaps arise when no discernible organizational "succession" links them to the apostles. But "apostolic succession" at least in terms of basic teaching must exist.

Theology can further explore this continuity by asking in what sense the church might be "the extension of the incarnation." This phrase can overlook that Jesus himself came to "extend" something even earlier. He came to fulfill God's promise to Israel. Thus the church continues a far more ancient historical movement. Further, this phrase itself does not mention Jesus' uniqueness and the difference between God's presence in him and among us. Finally, it can wrongly suggest God is chiefly present in a substantial way, transforming the church's finite, human characteristics into something else.

However, insofar as this phrase points to the continuity of God's mission through Israel, Christ, and the church, it has value. We have seen that the church's mission does not merely point to, recall, or seek to imitate God's mission in Jesus. Rather, it continues that same mission in the world. The church originated and has its very being in that divine movement. God, then, is present in the church in a real way. Yet God is primarily present as the Spirit, who energizes the church's activity, and not in a directly substantial way.

Apostolic succession, then, cannot be merely doctrinal. Correct

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teaching alone does not put the church in continuity with the apostolic era's essential thrust. Proclamation and teaching of God's saving faithfulness must exist within the movement of that salvation to all nations. Apostolic succession, that is, also involves continuity in mission, and in the activities of service which mission involves.

Moreover, unless the opposition of the powers is significantly less than it was for Jesus and the early church, authentic mission will be marked by opposition and suffering.22 If theology focuses merely on images of "the people of God," suffering and conflict will appear less prominent than our inquiry into the church's activities has shown. Had the church not met opposition, including Jewish opposition, it probably would have spent little time puzzling over its connection with the histories of Jesus and Israel.

Finally, as the people of God, the church still has a significant relationship to Jewish people. In regarding itself as a royal priesthood and a holy nation, the church saw itself not replacing but fulfilling God's intentions for Israel. Thus the church is relevant for all who still hope in God's ancient promises. Moreover, those who cling to these promises and their accompanying Israelite heritage can continually remind the church of many features of its own heritage which it tends to forget.

B

The New Creation

A second cluster of images presents the church as the firstfruits, the new humanity, the light and life and glory of the new creation which God is establishing. While the model of "the people of God" links the church backward to its roots, the model of "the new creation" directs it forward to the consummation of God's cosmic purposes. Particularly instructive is the image of the firstfruits.23 When the first fruits appear, the harvest begins. But since other fruits are not yet ripe, the harvest will continue until all which grow to maturity are gathered in. The firstfruits, then, are an indication that what will happen to all mature fruits has already happened to some. Through his resurrection Jesus became the firstfruits of a new humanity (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). The Holy Spirit is the firstfruits of the liberation of the whole creation (Rom. 8:21-23). Similarly, the first converts in a particular area are called the firstfruits of that region (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:15), while

22 Chapter 11 will discuss the possibility that the powers have already been significantly changed by the church's mission, and that the relationships between church and state, Christ and culture, etc., are quite different than they were in Jesus' day.

23 Minear, pp. 112-113.

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Christians in general are "firstfruits of [God's] creatures" (James 1:18; cf. Rev. 14:4).

This image, then, expresses something similar to the modern Catholic notion that the church is an eschatological sacrament, a visible expression and actualization among some people of what God wills for all. The church is not simply a religious organization, but the place where the full humanization which God intends is already maturing. This means that the church can legitimately encourage and promote anything which contributes to genuine humanization. Although, as we shall see, the church is not itself an educational or medical or economic institution, it may well involve itself in any such activity.

As the new creation, the church is also a universal movement. As it sweeps through history, so it extends into all regions of the globe. To be sure, if it is to accomplish this commission effectively, organizational unity in the church would be ideal. But since it is the Spirit who extends the church, sometimes in new and surprising ways,24 we cannot yet insist that organizational unity is essential to the church's universality. So far, the church's geographical universality (or catholicity), like its temporal continuity (or apostolicity), consists in teaching and mission.

As firstfruits and herald of God's movement throughout creation, the church's purpose and goal cannot be the establishment and preservation of itself. The church exists to express and establish God's kingdom. We have seen that the essential characteristics of Jesus' kingdom ministry immediately began to be actualized in the early church. In sharp contrast to contemporary society, Christians immediately began fellowshiping across ethnic, economic, and sexual barriers. And despite fierce opposition through the "not yet," they kept living by these ideals.

This shows that God is actualizing the universal kingdom paradoxically: chiefly by focusing or intensifying its reality through a particular people. God is not gradually permeating all cultures at the same rate, but is actualizing and illustrating the divine intentions for everyone chiefly through particular communities who strive to live out the kingdom's fullness. This actualizing of the universal by means of the particular stretches back to God's election of the small nation Israel.25

All this also shows that, while the church must deal realistically with the "not yet," it nonetheless lives according to the reality and standards of the "already." No less than Jesus is it to compromise its fundamental vision and obedience, no matter how great the cost (cf. Chap. 3).

24 Cf. Acts 8:4-8; 10:44-48; 16:6-10.

25 See 1 Peter 2:9-10 with Exod. 19:5-6; Deut. 4:5-8.

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Embodying the actual presence of the New Age, the true church will be marked by holiness of behavior, as believer's churches have stressed. This is emphasized in the images of the church such as light, life, and God's glory.26

While the kingdom's reality is focused intensely through the church, Christ is also Lord over the cosmos. God's kingdom work is being carried on in other ways. The kingdom, then, not only provides the norms for the church's message and behavior, but also a broader, moving horizon within which its activity is to be carried out. Chapters 11 and 12 will seek to discern how the church participates in this.

C

The Fellowship in Faith

While the people of God model stretches backward and the new creation model strains forward and outward, the fellowship in faith model focuses inward on the church's internal relationships. While these relationships are pictured by images like the sanctified, brotherhood, and the household of God, they are most comprehensively expressed by the body of Christ, an image rich enough to function as a model itself. Christ's body, however, is not an entirely internal image. On one hand, we have seen, this body grows up toward the maturity of the consummation (Eph. 4:11-16). On the other, Christ's risen body is continuous with his earthly body. Both during and after his earthly life it is the instrumentality through which Christ accomplishes his mission.27 For all these reasons, we may, along with Catholicism and many other ecclesiologies, regard the body of Christ as the primary model of the church.

Diversity in the body is partly a diversity of charisms. Each member is graced with a gift important for the functioning of the whole. Accordingly, while some charisms may involve greater exercise of authority than others, sharp divisions among clergy and laity, as in traditional Catholicism, disrupt the mutuality among ministries.28 Bodily diversity is also racial, sexual, and socioeconomic. Of course, the working distinction between Jewish and Gentile missions (see Gal. 2:7-10) shows that not every single congregation must involve diversity of every sort. Nevertheless, fellowship among people of different groups is absolutely fundamental to the church.29 Accordingly, it is highly

26 Minear, pp. 125-135.

27 Ibid., pp. 240-244, in opposition to Ernest Best, who argues that the body image "looked inward and not outward." (One Body in Christ [London: S.P.C.K., 1955], p. 188).

28 For fuller discussion and substantiation, see Chaps. 13-14 below.

29 Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:11-22; 3:4-11; Col. 3:11.

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questionable whether churches which deliberately exclude certain groups, or which have no kind of contact with those who are different, really belong to Christ's body.30

While the body's diversity gives rise to variety and creativity in behavior, not every behavior can be permitted. For a body must function as an organic unity, especially in confronting the evils of the Old Age. Especially in view of the holiness that marks the church which lives in light of the already, the church must have something of what Catholicism calls a jurisdictional authority. Much as the church may exercise a "doctrinal authority" to keep its kerygmatic message clear, so may it prescribe and even enforce behavioral limits (cf. Chap. 14).

The body of Christ model emphasizes the church's unity. Of what is this unity predicated? Of the universal church, of denominations, or of individual congregationsas Catholics, Protestants and believer's churches respectively have sometimes stressed? On one hand, the word church (ekklesia *) is most often used of smaller units: of house churches (Rom. 16:5; Philem. 2), for the church of a town (Acts 13:1; 1 Thess. 1:1; Rev. 2:1; etc), or for churches in a region (1 Cor. 16:9; Gal. 1:2, 22; etc.).

Since such churches are usually recipients of admonitions to unity, one might suppose that unity could be predicated only, or at least primarily, of these. Church, however, also denotes the universal church, especially in Ephesians and Colossians, where the body model is quite fully developed.31 In addition, since the church stretches backward and forward through time and outward in space, its oneness cannot consist merely in that of local congregations or denominations.

If the universal church is somehow one, what kind of unity is involved, and how is it related to local churches? Since suffering, divisions, and immaturity still mark the churches, might this unity perhaps be spiritual? Might the true church, as Luther said, be invisible, hidden

30 Since sociology indicates that groups which are homogeneous often grow far more quickly than those which are not, many "church growth" advocates recommend the deliberate formation of "homogeneous units." Given the pluralism and instability of modern society, many people understandably long for such groups to give them identity. Nevertheless, unless such efforts are strictly strategic and temporary, and balanced by heterogeneous tendencies, whatever grows may not be the true body of Christ. For advocacy of the homogeneous unit principle, see C. Peter Wagner, Our Kind of People: The Ethical Dimensions of Church Growth in America (Atlanta: Knox, 1979); and Church Growth and the Whole Gospel (San Francisco: Harper, 1981), pp. 166-183. For a critique, see Wilbert Shenk, ed., Exploring Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), esp. pp. 69-91, 235-240, 277-302.

31 Cf. Matt. 16:18; Heb. 12:23; 1 Cor. 12:28; 15:9; Gal. 1:13; Phil. 3:6.

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beneath the empirical church's visible flaws? Talk of purely spiritual unity, however, overlooks the fact that the body language of concrete interaction among the members often refers to the universal church.32 Working, suffering, growing, and rejoicing together among members of different congregations cannot be predicated of a wholly invisible reality.

We must conclude that the unity of the church exists not only in local and denominational bodies, but also in the church universal, and that it is at least partially visible. It is better to speak of the church's worldwide unity as real and empirical, even though fragmented and imperfect. This means that more profound unity, difficult as it may be to find, needs not so much to be created as discovered.

Thus the word church, the body model, and most images of fellowship in faith apply to the universal, denominational, and local churches. We can therefore conclude with Leonardo Boff that the essential characteristics of the church exists at all three levels. Particular churches are not simply incomplete parts of the universal church, nor visible manifestations of some invisible essence. The fullness of the universal church is present in each. Yet this hardly means that that fullness is completely or exhaustively present in each. Accordingly, even if local churches have started more or less spontaneously through God's Spirit, they will still be drawn to other churches in which that fullness is present.

Finally, let us be a bit more precise as to how Christ is present in his body, the church. The body image, like the "extension of the incarnation," can imply that Jesus is as directly present in the church as he was in his earthly body. If the church is Christ's body, some people reason, then the church is Christ. But if this is so, it is difficult to see how the church could be inspired and corrected by any reality beyond itself. We would insist, therefore, that the body model be completed by the image of Christ as its head (Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:18). Although Jesus is truly present or immanent in his body, as head he transcends, rules, and guides it. His presence in the body, on one hand, is not his direct identity with it. It is mediated through the Spirit. On the other hand, since the body is constantly growing up toward its head (Eph. 4:15-16; Col. 2:19), Jesus' presence may also be expressed in eschatological terms. The church already is but also is not yet fully Christ's body.

32 This universal meaning is quite clear in 1 Corinthians (esp. 12:13, 28), Ephesians (esp. 1:23; 2:16; 3:6, 9-11; 4:4-11) and Colossians (esp. 1:18-19, 24).

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III

Summary

In Chapter 9 we noticed that various traditions highlight certain characteristics as most essential to the true church. In light of our reflections, what criteria have we found to tell us what the true church is like? What criteria distinguish it from other groups that may bear this name? Since the church is grounded in and extended through the kerygma, we have seen that authentic churches will accurately proclaim and teach it. A doctrinal criterion, as traditionally emphasized by Protestants, will be involved.

However, the church is called not merely to expound the kerygma, but to live in light of its ''already." Thus authentic churches will also be marked by holiness of life, or at least by sincere attempts at this, as believer's churches have stressed. Third, we have seen that fellowship across the social boundaries ordinarily dividing our world is essential to the church. Accordingly, any authentic church will be working in some way toward bringing various kinds of people together.

By themselves, or even taken together, these three characteristics could be found in some very static, self-enclosed ecclesiastical groups. Accurate teaching, admirable behavior, and cross-cultural composition could characterize some rather lifeless bodies. For this reason, none of these three characteristics, or even all of them taken together, necessarily indicates the existence of an authentic church. All three characteristics will function properly only when they participate in that divine movement toward and through the world which began in Israel, which triumphed decisively in Jesus, and which continues through the Spirit. We must add a fourth criterion for the authenticity of a church: participation in God's overall mission in the world.

Of the ecclesiologies discussed in Chapter 9, ours comes closest to the believer's church model. While we agree that some doctrinal and jurisdictional authority is appropriate to the church, we find no reason to identify it with the line of apostolic succession and the particular hierarchy essential to the Catholic model. While we are indebted to Catholicism for stressing the church's universality, visibility, and unity, the following chapters will develop these themes differently.

Although our doctrinal, or teaching, emphasis is similar to Protestantism's, Protestants have limited the criteria of the true church too much to formal characteristics (right teaching and right sacramental practice). In emphasizing holiness, cross-cultural community, and mission, our criteria have mostly to do with character and action. Of course, since one can make important distinctions between correct and incorrect teaching and between proper and improper behavior, the church can formulate doctrinal and behavioral standards. Yet when we, like most believer's churches, emphasize teaching and holiness, we are pointing much more toward a positive, active fullness than toward standards or criteria.

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In the end, it is the life that is lived that makes a group authentically Christian. Our understandings of community and mission are similar to those of the basic ecclesial communities. Our emphases on teaching and holiness are perhaps greater. We cannot agree, however, that unity toward which the Spirit draws authentic congregations will always be marked by a Catholic bishop and eucharist.

In this chapter, we have called the church's overall missionthe fullness of what God calls it into the world to doits commission. For God does not move toward and through the world through particular missionary efforts alone. Worship and fellowship are essential features of God's overall movement and presence. Nonetheless, the way in which worship and fellowship participate in the church's movement beyond itself can be seen clearly only through examining the church's mission. To this we turn in Chapters 11 and 12.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Arias, Mortimer. Announcing the Reign of God: Evangelization and the Subversive Memory of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.

Boff, Leonardo. Church Charism and Power. New York: Crossroads, 1985.

__________. Ecclesiogenesis. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986.

Braaten, Carl. The Flaming Center: A Theology of the Christian Mission. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.

Durnbaugh, Donald. The Believer's Church. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1985.

Goodall, Norman, ed. Missions under the Cross. New York: Friendship, 1953.

Minear, Paul. Images of the Church in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Church in the Power of the Spirit. New York: Harper, 1977.

Pittinger, Norman. The Christian Church as a Social Process. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971.

Rahner, Karl. Theology of Pastoral Action. New York: Herder & Herder, 1968.

__________. The Shape of the Church to Come. New York: Seabury, 1974.

Schweizer, Eduard. The Church as the Body of Christ. Richmond, Va.: Knox, 1964.

Shenk, Wilbert, ed. Exploring Church Growth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Snyder, Howard. The Community of the King. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1977.

__________. Liberating the Church. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1983.

Sobrino, Jon. The True Church and the Poor. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984.

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Taylor, Sergio, and John Eagelson, eds. The Challenge of Basic Christian Communities. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981.

Vicedom, Georg. The Mission of God. St. Louis: Concordia, 1965.

Wagner, C. Peter. Church Growth and the Whole Gospel. New York: Harper, 1981.

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Chapter Eleven

The Church's Mission in the World

When ecclesiology begins by reflecting on the activities of the church within the eschatological horizon, a fundamental paradox emerges. By virtue of his resurrection, Jesus is already Lord of all creation. Thus the church, as Chapter 10 showed, exists within the Spirit's movement through all spheres of reality towards the consummation. Nonetheless, this lordship has not yet fully triumphed, and all spheres of reality are also permeated by powers who oppose it.

When theology considers Christ's exalted lordship alone, it would appear to follow that the world must already be significantly shaped by forces of the New Age. Mission, accordingly, would seem to consist in continuing this transformation of society in cooperation with other cultural and political forces.

Yet when theology considers the intense resistance of the powers alone, it would appear to follow that forces of the Old Age still dominate the world. Mission, accordingly, would consist in calling a distinct people out of society to live radically in light of the New Age. This fundamental paradox is well expressed by two Johannine texts which speak of "the world." The familiar words of John 3:16-17 tell us that

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into

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the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Nevertheless, 1 John 2:15-17 warns:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the worldthe lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of lifeis not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof.

(cf. John 15:18-19; 17:14-16)

How can "the world" be evaluated in such strikingly different ways? The answer is that world (kosmos), like the anthropological term flesh (sarx), can have two meanings. World can signify the entire universe, and more particularly the human sphere with all its physical, social, and cultural features, as created by God. In this sense, the world is at least potentially good, and is the object of God's saving love. Like flesh, however, world can also mean a way of acting. In this sense, world denotes the totality of intertwined systems, institutions, and life orientations which oppose God. The world in this sense is the Old Age under divine judgment.

This paradox accords with what we discovered in Chapter 10 about the church's mission. There we learned that this mission is universalthat it aims at transforming all personal, social, and natural existence. Yet it is carried out by a particular people whose life-style often conflicts with that of their social contexts. How can both be possible? How can "the world" be fundamentally good and mission universal; and yet "the world" be evil and mission focus on a particular people?

The way that a church answers this question carries significant implications for its mission. To the extent that it regards the values and institutions of its world as harmonious with the New Age, a church will invest much energy in promoting and defending them. To the extent that these behaviors and structures seem to express the Old Age, churches will critique them and/or seek to free individuals from their clutches.

Since all facets of mission are shaped by one's perspective on the church-world relationship, the present chapter will investigate this overarching framework, or context, within which mission occurs. First we will review several influential approaches to the church-world relationship. We will be asking how, and how well, they account for both facets of the paradox above. Then, guided by the same criteria, we will develop our own model and sketch its concrete significance.1

1 In doing this we will reconsider many issues raised under anthropology,

(footnote continued on next page)

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I

Models of the Church-World Relationship

A

Extreme Models

In 1951, H. Richard Niebuhr sketched five possible relationships between Christ and culture. They have provided parameters for much subsequent discussion of this theme. At one extreme is the Christ against culture option. According to it, mission calls everyone to separate themselves from involvement in all the institutions and customs of the societies in which they live.2 Churches consist only of those who have done so. Such groups often attempt, so far as possible, to set up their own systems of economic support (such as monasteries subsisting on previously uncultivated land) and to develop their own forms of community government. Such groups do not seek to reform or modify the values, behaviors, or institutions of surrounding societies. Niebuhr includes some believer's churches under this heading.

The Christ against culture model clearly stresses one aspect of our fundamental paradox: that the church lives radically in light of the New Age, which contrasts sharply with the ever-present Old. At the same time, however, this model distances the church from the universal thrust of God's mission. It is therefore unable to handle the second feature of that paradox: that the church's uniqueness does not remove its influence from the world, but enables it to impress the world all the more significantly.

At the other extreme Niebuhr places the Christ of culture option. For proponents of this model, the fundamental values and aspirations of their culture correspond with Christ's. In its mission, nonetheless, the church can call sharply for the reform of individuals and institutions. These appeals, however, urge people to live up to what is best in their culture, and do not question its basic values. The church calls all persons and organizations to participate in advancing their society's culture and civilization, assuring them that in so doing they participate in

(footnote continued from previous page)

which, we discovered, must consider humanity's cultural and political dimensions. For anthropology ponders not simply some unchanging human essence, but humans as called, judged, and renewed in historythat is, as perceived, encountered and engaged in the church's mission (Chaps. 1-2).

2Christ and Culture (New York: Harper, 1951), pp. 45-82. By culture, Niebuhr means approximately what we refer to as "the world" apart from theological valuation. "Culture" is "that total process of human activity and that total result of such activity. . . . It comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs, customs, social organization, inherited artifacts, technical processes, and values" (p. 32).

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God's mission. The Christ of culture model characterizes much Protestant liberal theology, especially Albrecht Ritschl's.3

This model also stresses one aspect of our fundamental paradox: that mission is directed toward transformation of every sphere of culture. At the same time, however, it surrenders the tension between the New Age and the Old. It implies a postmillennial eschatology, according to which the New Age, or God's kingdom, is present in culture in a discernible way. However, since the appalling inequality, disease, and warfare of the Old Age affect all nations and belie any such assertion, we cannot agree that the fundamental values of any culture correspond with Christ's (Vol. I, pp. 113-115, 162-164). The New Age and those who carry out God's mission are more in conflict with the prevailing order.

B

The Lutheran Model

We have already learned that Martin Luther answered the question of how the New Age is present in the world by speaking of two kingdoms (Chap. 1). The kingdom of Christ exists among justified Christians in the church (even though its character will be partially hidden beneath the flaws of visible ecclesiastical communions [Chap. 9]). In Christ's kingdom, behavior is governed by Jesus' "strenuous" teachings and example. This way of agape * flows over into the justified individual's personal dealings with everyone else, including enemies. The church's mission focuses on calling individuals into and nurturing them in a relationship with Godthat is, into Christ's kingdom. Luther accounted for one aspect of our fundamental paradoxthe radical presence of the New Age among a particular peopleby saying that it was spiritually present in the church.

Luther largely identified the Old Age, however, with the worldly, or secular, kingdom where evil and violence are rampant. God governs this kingdom through social structures which bring order and through rulers who use force. In this kingdom the basic principles governing society and one's daily relationships and vocation can be discerned apart from Scripture, through "natural law." In relation to this kingdom, the church's mission consists in supporting the authorities and teaching its members to obey them. In turn, the state promotes the church and leaves it free to pursue its specific, spiritual commission. In addition, the church encourages its members to serve God, and thus to perform their own specific mission, within the framework of their vocation and their other daily relationships. Especially in this latter way, the reality

3 Ibid., pp. 91-101; cf. Vol. I, pp. 69-71.

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of the New Age spills over a bit into that realm governed by the principles of the Old.

By emphasizing both the church's uniqueness and its mission in society, Luther maintained the tension of our fundamental paradox better than either of the two extreme models do. (Niebuhr, in fact, calls this model Christ and culture in paradox.4) Nevertheless, since the principles which guide cultural involvement are not grounded in the distinctiveness of the New Age, but are actually those which govern the Old, Lutheranism has been criticized for sanctioning rather than transforming the status quo. In the Peasant's War, Luther himself, although he criticized the injustices of the princes, nonetheless assured them that to "stab, smite, [and] slay" their opponents without mercy was God's will.5 And in the 1930s, many German Lutherans argued that the divine law which governs social life demands our allegiance "to the natural orders to which we are subjectsuch as family, people, and race (that is, blood relationship)." Therefore, "there is no contradiction between an unconditional allegiance to the gospel, on the one hand, and a similarly unconditional allegiance to the German national, that is, to the National-Socialist state."6

Especially since World War II, however, various Lutherans have argued that extreme dualisms between church and world are not true to Luther. They emphasize the novel importance that Luther gave to "secular" life by insisting that Christian discipleship was to be worked out not in monastic communities, but in the midst of vocation, family, and politics. The two kingdoms, these theologians stress, are not separate spheres or realms, but two ways in which God rules the same world, and two dimensions of human activity. These dimensions are intertwined in the life of every Christian, whose task it is to forge a unity between them.

These theologians also argue that for Luther, the "natural law" which governs social life did not teach anything different from what Christ did. The content of both, they claim, was the golden rule.

4 H. R. Niebuhr, pp. 149-189. For an excellent historical overview, see Thomas Sanders, Protestant Concepts of Church and State (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964), pp. 23-74. See also Carl Braaten, Principles of Lutheran Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), pp. 123-139.

5Luther's Works, Vol. 46 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967), p. 54.

6 Quoted in Karl Hertz, ed., Two Kingdoms and One World (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976), pp. 190 and 184, respectively. During the nineteenth century, Lutheran teaching about the secular kingdom often affirmed that social life constituted a divinely willed yet "autonomous" realm invulnerable to the church's critique (pp. 67-91 [cf. Vol. I, pp. 68-74]).

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Although Luther sometimes spoke of a distinct "Christian law," he described its content as "Suffering! suffering! Cross! cross!" This seems to mean that while Christians are more likely to apply the golden rule in difficult situations, and to willingly incur the suffering involved and to recognize its redemptive possibilities, they still do not act according to a different standard.7

In both Christ's kingdom and the worldly kingdom, then, love of and service to the neighbor is the guiding principle. However, since Christians will often grasp the natural law more clearly than others, their daily involvement in secular spheres can do much to help social life to operate more justly. In addition, the church can put its weight behind social concerns which are supported by many others of good will.8

Despite these noteworthy efforts to avoid Lutheranism's classic kind of dualism, we observe that the common principle of love of neighbor is still applied very differently in each kingdom. In Christ's kingdom it involves renouncing all forms of coercion, even when the neighbor is doing much harm. In the worldly kingdom coercion can be called an instrument of love, for it is used to protect one's neighbors from those who do harm. We have to ask whether these two different behaviorsone involving suffering, loss, and forgiving love; the other involving jails, penalties, and armiesreally can be forms of the same law of love.

We must also challenge Luther's claim that the content of Jesus' way of agape * is no different from that of natural law. When recent Lutheran theologians repeat this claim, they too seem to underestimate the radical uniqueness of agape*. Therefore, when they call the church to greater involvement in the world, we wonder whether they mean a church which acts wholly in light of the New Age, or one which acts largely according to standards of the Old. If, as seems likely, it is often the latter, then the classic Lutheran tendency to restrict the radicality of the New Age, in spiritualized form, to the church, while supporting various practices and movements of the Old Age and identifying them with God's will, has not wholly disappeared.

7 See esp. Karl Holl (1866-1926), in Hertz, pp. 171-175; and Paul Althaus, The Ethics of Martin Luther, pp. 25-35; See Luther's Works, Vol. 46, pp. 25-29; cf. Vol. 45 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1962), p. 247.

8 Today Lutherans often emphasize that "the love commandment must be used as a means of discriminating between different schemes of justice." It must be "affirmed . . . as the source of, and inspiration for, higher and more imaginative schemes of justice" (Harold Letts in Hertz, p. 296, cf. pp. 172-174). Although it is acknowledged that Luther engaged in no such far-reaching schemes of social reform, he nevertheless could be very critical of particular rulers and social practices.

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C

Roman Catholic Models

1

Traditional Catholicism

According to most Lutheran theology, the church and the world might be visualized as two spheres situated side-by-side. They tend to intersect onlyand then paradoxicallyin individual Christians. Traditionally, Catholicism has envisioned them as two more intricately intertwined planes, or levels. Human cultural life occupies the lower, or "natural," level. Here moral, social, and cultural life develops in pursuit of various "goods," which together comprise earthly happiness (Chap. 1). The state's chief task is to promote the "common good"the best possible balance among economic, social, and other desires of all citizens.9 According to Thomas Aquinas, all cultures operate according to the same general principles, which are governed by natural law.

Striving after earthly goods, however, is energized at bottom by the longing for communion with the supreme GoodGodwho exists on the upper, or supernatural, level. Yet this goal cannot be attained without supernatural grace, available through the church. The church's basic function, then, is to assist people in their journey toward God on the upper level. This journey is carried out in exemplary fashion by a select "religious" groupnuns, monks, etc.who have renounced as much as possible their involvement in the lower level. They strive to live wholly by Jesus' "strenuous" teachings, wholly according to the standards of the New Age. Richard Niebuhr calls this model Christ above culture.

Since both levels have their distinct activities and goals, it may seem that the world and the church are at least as separated as in Lutheranism. In the traditional Catholic model, however, all worldly activities aim, at least implicitly, beyond themselves. When people earn money, create art, or join social organizations, they are seeking to participate, at least indirectly, in that goodness whose fullness is God. This means that the state and other social institutions help shape one's supernatural destiny, and that the church thus has a keen interest in how they perform their tasks.

For this reason, the Catholic Church has often sought to organize society for the support of the church. It has encouraged artists, for instance, to work on religious themes. It has admonished the state to promote the morality, the ceremonies, and the centrality of the church. While Aquinas granted a certain degree of autonomy to sociocultural

9 Aquinas, ST II, 2, Q. 58, a.5. However, Thomas envisioned this as occurring within a generally hierarchical society (II, 2, QQ. 101-105).

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affairs, in practice Catholicism has often sought to dominate them more fully. The church's mission has consisted not only in assisting individuals toward heaven, but also in transforming all earthly life according to Christian ideals.

To this grand vision our world owes the elimination of many social evils and the creation of much that is magnificent in civilization. Nonetheless, in its efforts to shape earthly affairs, Catholicism has often operated according to the standards of the Old Age. Especially in pre-Reformation and recent Latin American situations, the church has been severely criticized for its questionable political alliances and its use of wealth. While the behavior of some ''religious" orders has been exemplary, that of other leaders has sometimes caused scandal. Moreover, at the same time as the church lowered its standards through involvement in the world, its deep investment in certain social institutions and practices raised them to a false level of sanctity. Catholicism has sometimes sacralized the status quo and thereby resisted social change.10

Theology must ask whether such failings, which many Catholics acknowledge, are due not simply to human shortcomings, but also to this church-world model. Like Lutherans, Catholics have held that the general principles governing social life are grounded in natural law. Lutherans have usually expected these principles to be poorly applied in practice. In contrast, Catholics have had greater confidence in the "natural" person's ability to do God's will. Accordingly, Lutherans have distinguished the church from the world so sharply that the New Age has influenced the latter little, and Catholics have involved the church so deeply in the world that the radicality of the New Age can become blurred. Expecting a world still permeated by the Old Age to be more open to the Coming than it is, the Roman Church can plunge into alliances with its leading institutions, only to find itself floundering amid forces which oppose God's mission. These forces can be invested with a deceptive aura of sanctity while the light of the New Age, except where it shines among some religious orders, becomes dimmed.

2

Liberation Theologies

In recent Catholic thought, the distinction between the levels of nature and grace is breaking down (Chap. 2). Correspondingly, the old distinction between world and church is eroding, too. If God's call to communion is not sounded on a distinctly supernatural level, and if it encounters everyone efficaciously, then the tasks and relationships of daily life will form the arena where people meet God. Moreover, involvement in building a just and humane socie-

10 H. R. Niebuhr, pp. 145-148.

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ty will be the chief way of participating in "the single vocation to salvation."

Given such a view, which often stresses the "autonomy" and inherent value of earthly tasks,11 what role is left for the church? Does it become irrelevant? In recent liberation theologies, the church is not visualized as occupying a sphere alongside the world, as in traditional Lutheranism. Nor is it seen as operating largely on a plane above the world, as in traditional Catholicism. For the church-world relationship is best depicted not in spatial, but in temporalbetter, eschatologicalterms. The church already experiences and lives out that which has not yet fully come to the world.12 The church, we have seen, is an eschatological "sacrament": a concrete, visible sign of those intentions for humanity which God is actualizing less visibly elsewhere (Chap. 9).

As the place where the New Age is most fully experienced, "The primary task of the church . . . is to celebrate with joy the salvific action of the Lord in history."13 In other words, worship is central to the church's mission. Nevertheless, worship does not consist in ceremonies practiced with little regard for what happens outside the sanctuary. Worship celebrates what God is doing in the world.

A second task of the church, prophetic denunciation, is more explicitly related to the world. Denunciation is aimed at "every dehumanizing situation which is contrary to brotherhood, justice, and liberty."14 Yet such criticisms are aimed not only at the world. The church must ask whether it has contributed to dehumanization and appropriately critique itself. Debate swirls as to what kind of actions denunciation involves.15 While many suppose that liberation theologians advocate violence, the precise implications of their statements are often hard to discern. No consensus has emerged on the extent to which the

11 Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation, pp. 66-72.

12 See Johannes Metz, Theology of the World (New York: Seabury, 1973), pp. 93-94.

13 Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation, p. 265. As in traditional Catholicism, the eucharist is at the heart of worship. It consists not so much in the reception of supernatural grace as in "an ever-renewed acceptance of the meaning of [Jesus'] lifea total giving to others. It is thanksgiving for the love of God revealed" in his death and resurrection (p. 263).

14 Ibid., p. 267.

15 Gutierrez acknowledges the risk of denunciation "remaining on a purely verbal level." He insists that words "should be backed up with clear actions and commitments." Nevertheless, he emphasizes that a clear public pronouncement by the church "is not only a . . . 'text'; it is an action, a stand" (Ibid., p. 268).

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church as church is to be directly involved in social affairs.

The reverse side of denunciation is annunciation: the announcing of the gospel, or evangelization. Yet the gospel cannot deal merely with individual salvation. It will focus chiefly on the presence of God's love in Christ and in human history, on the positive potentialities of human beings, and on the vision of God's kingdom. Annunciation will have a conscientizing function. By awakening people to what they can be, it will engender dissatisfaction with things as they are (cf. Vol. I, p. 76). Annunciation will involve both words and actions, although the precise relationships between them are often unclear. It is clear, however, that the mission of celebration, denunciation, and annunciation is to be carried out primarily among the poor. Among those movements which it finds in the world, the church identifies those of the poor most directly with the movement of God's Spirit.

3

Summary

Traditionally, Catholicism sought to distinguish the church, as the institution guiding people to their supernatural goal, from the world. Yet because the world's activities and structures were also indirectly aimed toward this goal, this church often sought to give them religious shape and meaning. In the process, however, it could lower itself to the level of the Old Age's practices and institutions while raising the latter to pseudo-sanctity.

Despite liberation theology's harsh criticism of traditional Catholicism, significant similarities between them persist. Both maintain that all sociocultural forces operate according to their own laws. Although these are Thomistic in one case and Marxist in the other, both are supposed to be knowable through natural reason. Both theologies agree that the intricately interweaving tapestry of human activity is ordered toward the divine fullness, and that the church, which discerns this grand purpose, must help the state and all other cultural forces pursue this end.

Moreover, whereas traditional Catholic practice tended to blur its theoretical distinction between nature and grace, modern Catholicism denies this distinction in theory as well. This raises the possibility that what is called the New Age will be even less distinguishable from the institutions and practices of the Old, and that the latter will be even more thoroughly sacralized.

One feature of liberation ecclesiology, however, works against this possibility. Insofar as the church understands itself eschatologically as the place where the New Age is lived out as fully as possible, and insofar as its mission operates according to these standards, it will retain its distinctive message and avoid identifying sociocultural tendencies with God's will.

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D

The Reformed Model

Like Lutheranism, the Reformed tradition has regarded the world as characterized by a sinfulness which the church will never fully transform. Yet unlike traditional Lutheranism, and like Catholicism, Reformed theology expects the church's mission to bring significant social transformation. Again like Lutheranism, the Reformed mission emphasizes calling individuals to justifying faith. Yet this is typically supplemented by greater emphasis on the visible transformation of life, so that individuals and congregations will model the reality of the New Age to some degree. Unlike traditional Catholicism, this transformation is expected from everyone, not primarily from a special "religious" class. But again like Catholicism, the Reformed tradition has also felt strongly that culture and the state ought to be shaped by Christian, or at least by moral, principles.

Reformed societies, while theoretically distinguishing the state from the church, have historically expected governments to support the church and help implement its broad social concerns. Through the influence of leading ministers (in a technically nonpolitical body called the consistory) Calvin sought to transform the Geneva of his day into a model of God's kingdom. The New England Puritans sought to do the same through both legislation and the pastoral influence of the church. In nineteenth and twentieth century America, as church and state have increasingly separated, people of such persuasion have often supported particular candidates for office and formed political actions groups focused on single issues. Much support for prayer in public schools, for outlawing abortion and for banning pornography comes from similar groups today.

Partly because of its emphasis on concrete legislative change, Richard Niebuhr calls this model Christ transforming culture.16 Reformed activists, however, have typically been less optimistic than Catholics regarding how much change would actually occur. Hard-nosed "realism" has often characterized their efforts.

This mixture of activism and pessimism has been articulated by Reinhold Niebuhr, who exercised an influence unusual for a theologian upon American political life in the 1940s and '50s. On one hand, Niebuhr argues that the agape * revealed in Jesus' cross is the highest norm for Christian behavior. Apart from this revelation, "the ethical norm of history as comprehended by the 'natural' resources of man . . . is mutual love"that is, an eros* which helps others only in ways which are also likely to serve one's own interests.17

16Christ and Culture, pp. 190-229. For an excellent historical overview, see Sanders, pp. 225-280.

17The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. II, p. 81. Niebuhr, however, finds

(footnote continued on next page)

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Social and political actions, that is, cannot normally be based on agape *. For agape* acts with no thought of benefit to the actor, while political decisions must be calculated to attain mutually beneficial results. Yet Niebuhr acknowledges that actions based on agape* can still influence society. When people have risked loving their enemies or forgiving evildoers, new possibilities of social behavior have sometimes been revealed.18 Niebuhr avoids placing limits on the social influence that agape* might wieldexcept the limitation that it will never totally transform society. Normally, moreover, the way of the cross will bring suffering, with no guarantee of concrete beneficial results.

Niebuhr holds this because he also regards Jesus' crucifixion as a revelation of the power of the evil which opposed him, and therefore of "the limits of what is possible in historical development."19 Although the cross reveals the highest ethical norm, this does not mean, as Protestant liberals hoped, that agape* will gradually transform the Old Age entirely. Niebuhr emphasizes that Jesus anticipated "the growth of evil as well as the growth of good in history," and that belief in Christ's return as judge expresses the conviction that evil will exert an influence as long as history lasts.20 Therefore, he concludes, a society governed by agape* is not possible in history. For this reason, "it is not even right to insist that every action of the Christian must conform to agape*, rather than to the norms of relative justice and mutual love by which life is maintained and conflicting interests are arbitrated in history."21

When he analyzes the social scene, Reinhold Niebuhr emphasizes that political organizations, and especially nations, never act from agape*, and seldom even from enlightened eros*. Fundamentally, they seek to acquire and hang on to power. Accordingly, the most important goal of politics, especially at the international level, is to maintain a balance of

(footnote continued from previous page)

Nygren's distinction between eros* and agape* "too absolute" because "the freedom of man . . . is not without some idea of the virtue of love which does not justify itself in terms of its own happiness" and because Jesus did not regard this contrast as absolute (Matt. 7:11); p. 84. Cf. Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner's, 1932), pp. 80-82.

18Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. II, pp. 85, 247.

19 Ibid., p. 86.

20 Ibid., pp. 48-49.

21 Ibid., p. 88. Niebuhr justifies the rejection of agape* and the adoption of coercive methods in social life in the way that Lutherans usually do. Although I may sacrifice my possessions or my life to an evildoer out of love, when others are similarly threatened, love itself demands that I, and society as a whole, employ whatever means are necessary to protect them.

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power. In this way, the domineering impulses of all organizations and nations will check each other, and no one will be able to subdue the rest. Niebuhr criticized the liberal notion that nations might act benevolently which, as he saw it, underlay the allies' timidity in checking Hitler. During the 1940s and '50s, he influenced the "realistic" cold war attitude which regarded communism as an unalterable foe.22

Nonetheless, even while advocating that governments use power to check other nations, Niebuhr felt that the Christian norm of love can help curb power's worst excesses.23 For one thing, it can check the politicians' tendency to conceive the national interest too narrowly, in wholly self-centered terms. It can also encourage them to emphasize values which not only serve their own interests, but transcend them as well. Then too, the Christian norm can keep realists from falling into moral cynicism. Finally, it can undercut the self-righteous moral pretensions with which all governments seek to glorify their own causes and to cast all blame for evil upon their enemies.24 In general, the norm of love shows up the imperfections of all political claims and institutions and can push them toward higher standards even in a world dominated by power-seeking forces.

E

Summary

When theology approaches the church's mission from an eschatological perspective, a fundamental paradox emerges. On one hand, "the world" is already being impacted by forces of the New Age, and mission is aimed universally at every dimension of culture. On the other hand, "the world" is still permeated by powers of the Old Age, and mission calls out a particular people to live radically in light of the New Age. Agape * provides the norm for this people in social as well as personal life, as Chapter 3 stressed. How well have the above models accounted for both poles of this paradox?

Only the extreme Christ against culture option insists that the church live fully in light of the New Age. It does so, however, by

22 For an overview of Niebuhr's approach to various social issues, see Gordon Harland, The Thought of Reinhold Niebuhr (New York: Oxford, 1960), pp. 163-271. Paul Merkley, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Account (Montreal: McGill-Queens, 1975); Ronald Stone, Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophet to Politicians (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972) and Richard Fox, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography (New York: Pantheon, 1985).

23 For what follows, see Harland, pp. 193-195.

24 Harland, p. 95; The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, p. 213, Vol. II, p. 268; cf. pp. 38-39 above.

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neglecting the universality of God's mission. The other models emphasize this universality, but only by qualifying the insistence on New Age behavior. Lutherans have traditionally spiritualized the New Age, reducing it to the individual's salvation, and advocating that Christians live in the world by the standards of the Old. Catholics have stressed that the New Age be lived out more fully: traditionally, by those in "religious" orders; and sometimes among liberation movements, by the whole church as an eschatological sacrament.

Yet when actually involved in the world, both kinds of Catholicism have lowered their standards and sacralized worldly movements. Finally, Reformed Christians, along with some recent Lutherans, understand the kingdom of God, and sometimes the way of the cross, as norms toward which the church can guide the world. Yet since sociopolitical affairs operate by very different standards, the church may often advocate these latter norms in its mission.

Is any other option possible? Won't the universality of God's mission and the distinctness of the church always work against each other, as these models seem to show? Or might they be compatibleor perhaps even enhance each other? Through probing more deeply into the church-world relationship, we will now seek to show that they can. In the process we will understand more fully why the paradox we have been discussing is essential to the church's mission.

II

The Church as an Alternative Model

A

What Is "The World"?

Is the world essentially in tune with God's purposes? Or is it fundamentally opposed? Should mission, accordingly, promote the given culture? Or should it call people out from this? In general, the biblical term world denotes the intertwined totality of physical and social conditions, institutions, customs, and attitudes which shape all human existence. In almost all its appearances, however, world bears one of two opposed meanings. This is because it functions in the same paradoxical fashion as do those principalities and powers to whom its governance was entrusted (Chap. 6).

In one usage, world means the field of created potentialities and structures within which God designed all humans to develop. God designed us, for instance, to undergo the process we have called humanization. Theology affirms that in regard to their created potentialities and structures, all things are "very good" (Gen 1:31). Nothing is evil simply by having, for example, a physical or institutional nature.

In the course of cosmic history, however, these created structures have been twisted by forces opposed to God. In its second usage, then,

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world means the solidarity and momentum of all creaturely movements, institutions and attitudes in their opposition to God. In this sense, the world, like the flesh, is an evil power. Yet not every characteristic of every movement and institution involved is evil. Like the principalities which stand behind them, virtually all movements and institutions exercise some positive, civilizing functions. They belong to "the world" in the negative sense insofar as they oppose, or claim for themselves, the allegiance due to God. (From now on, we will distinguish these two meanings of world by always enclosing the latter in quotation marks.)

Since the New Age has dawned, the dominion of "the world" has been broken. Moreover, the powers themselves have in some way become objects of God's saving work. This is clear in one passage. Christ is reconciling "all things, whether on earth or in heaven" (Col. 1:20), which includes thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities (Col. 1:16). It may be implied in texts which speak of the powers as perceiving God's revelation (Eph. 3:10), as confessing Christ's lordship (Phil. 2:10), and as serving God in general (Heb. 1:13-14) and in the social order.25 What relationship, then, can the church in mission expect to have with "the world"?

B

How Can the Church Impact the World?

1

The World as Created

As created, the world was not a completely finished product, but a field of potentialities and structures designed for further development (Chap. 16). This God-intended development was largely blocked and perverted by evil forces. Yet since Jesus' exaltation, his reign, or kingdom activity, has been removing this perversion and renewing the cosmos in a direction consistent with those original potentialities. The church, then, can encourage and support all ways in which these created possibilities are being developed. But can theology help it recognize these potentialities and the way that they are being actualized?

The models examined above rest on the assumption that definite, knowable laws or processes govern this development. These may point intrinsically toward the kingdom's fullness (like pursuit of the common good in traditional Catholicism, or the evolution of socialism in liberation Catholicism). Or they may order spheres of life that will never be free from sin (like Niebuhr's balance of power or Luther's natural law). In all cases, such laws are allegedly knowable through reason and general experience. They define the behavior appropriate for those outside the church, and for the church in most dealings with the world.

25 Rom. 13:1. See also Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, pp. 111-113. Cf. Christ and Time (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 191-210.

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We agree, of course, that much knowledge about society is available apart from biblical revelation (Vol. I, Chap. 13). Our anthropology, however, challenged the assumption that any comprehensive, self-sufficient understanding of society is available through reason or any other means. Reason and general experience are not unbiased organs for perceiving truth. Their interpretation of data is deeply influenced by the "heart" and by the perceivers' overall context (Vol. II, Chap. 5). For instance, apart from the revelation of agape * it is natural to assume that social well-being requires employment of force, and that anyone concerned to promote it must at least condone such force. Nevertheless, the radicality of revelation places even this assumption in doubt, and further undermines the possibility that the church's mission should conform to laws according to which the world's created potentialities allegedly develop.

In short, despite the renewing impact of Jesus' lordship throughout creation, something still hinders reason and experience in general from adequately discerning its overall character. This something has to do with the influence still exerted by "the world" in the negative sense. How does it affect the church's mission?

2

"The World" as a Power

a

Reconciliation of the Powers?

Scripture, we remember, occasionally represents the powers as objects of Jesus' reconciling activity (esp. Col. 1:20). What effects might that reconciliation already have had? Proponents of the major church-world models sometimes assume that, since the church has continued Christ's mission for over 1900 years, the powers are now reconciled far more thoroughly than they were in New Testament times. If so, the church should expect far more cooperation from "the world" than the Bible directly indicates.26

Such an assertion, however, can give mission no guidance unless theology can identify specific ways in which sociocultural life in general has been, or is being, conformed to God's kingdom. Yet our eschatology showed that poverty, unrest, and nuclear escalation are far more widespread than are any broad-scale effects of the kingdom (Vol. I, pp. 162-164). Moreover, history itself throws suspicion on ("postmillennial") attempts to identify any historical movement as God's. For

26 Augustine argued this way to support the Roman state's persecution of the Donatists. Before Constantine, emperors were pagan and used force to persecute the church. But now, since they are Christian, they may use force to protect the church ("The Correction of the Donatists," The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, pp. 640-641; cf. Geoffrey Wiles, St. Augustine and the Donatist Controversy (London: S.P.C.K, 1950), pp. 134-135; and pp. 13-36 below.

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both "Christian" kings and peasant uprisings, both nineteenth-century royalists and socialists, and twentieth-century fascist and proletarian movements have been variously identified with God's kingdom.

The Bible's few references to the powers' reconciliation, then, yield no specific directives for mission. Nevertheless, they do carry important implications for mission's overall perspective. For if reconciliation touches even the powers, no particular situation, structure, or person can be regarded as beyond possible transformation. (This further underlines the point that mission must be directed toward all dimensions of reality.) Moreover, since absolute limits cannot be placed on mission's impact, this forbids attitudes which anticipate defeat, seek suffering for its own sake, or withdraw despairingly from mission altogether.

With these important qualifications, however, mission can realistically adopt the general "premillennial" perspective in which evil, though defeated in principle, is still very active. The church can assume that the powers operate much as they did in New Testament times, from which it can learn how "the world" operates today.

b

Systemic Hopelessness and Blindness

Sin, we remember, influences people through intensifying their desires for security, power, and prestige, and by accentuating their fears of insecurity, weakness, and humiliation (Chap. 6). When the Bible speaks of "the world" as a power, it means that this occurs not merely on an individual level, but that sin distorts the overall systemic framework within which people perceive and think and act. Social life, for instance, is dominated by institutions which accumulate power. Prevailing customs and attitudes enforce a reverence and fear of power in countless subtle ways. People are conditioned to accept as an apparently self-evident axiom that "real" life cannot be governed in any other way. This corporate conditioning solidifies that hopelessness about real change which is always induced by sin (p. 116).

In other words, "the world" opposes God's kingdom in two major ways. First, it inflicts a systemic blindness about what is real, so the way of the kingdom does not appear possible. Second, it pervades hearts with hopelessness so even when glimpses of God's call or kingdom appear, people have difficulty greeting them as real possibilities for themselves.

We have seen how Jesus triumphed over the blindness and hopelessness inflicted by the world (Vol. I, Chaps. 17-18). He challenged the powers at their own point of blindness. God's power entered the world in Jesus' weakness and servanthood. However, due to their own assumptions about power, the forces of evil could not recognize it. Thus

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they sought to destroy Jesus. But their own blindness proved their undoing. Jesus' resurrection publicly displayed their evil character and revealed that the power which truly governs the world works chiefly through servanthood and faithfulness. His resurrection thus became a source of invincible hope.

Even though this revelation of God's righteousness presses toward the day when all shall become plain (Chap. 7), it still remains hidden to many. To most people, and to virtually all institutions, it still seems absurd that that way of agape *, through which Jesus has already overcome the world, could actually be the power energizing all real life. ''The world," that is, still retains what hold it has largely through its continuing infliction of systemic blindness and hopelessness.

The church's mission, then, must consist largely in making visible the already actualized dominion of Jesus in his kingdom and his way of agape*. How can this be done? First, by providing visions of alternative ways in which life can be lived. Second, by making these alternatives actual possibilities in which people are invited to participate. Only as God's kingdom takes shape as a recognizable and concretely possible option can "the world" be overcome. And the church can accomplish this only if its mission efforts are rooted in groups committed to living wholly in light of the New Age.

In other words, given the systemic blindness and hopelessness which bind many to "the world," the universality of Christ's lordship, and hence of God's mission, will be less visible and actual the more the church's behavior resembles "the world's." Likewise, they will be more visible and actual the more that they are proclaimed and embodied through particular peoples committed to living wholly in light of the kingdom. This is the deepest reason why the distinctness of the church's commission does not detract from, but instead enhances, the universality of its mission.

3

The Risk

Initially, our position may recall Reinhold Niebuhr's. Since the way of the cross is "already" the supreme ethical norm, it does contribute to concrete social change. As Niebuhr acknowledges, people who have been more concerned to live by this ideal than to calculate its consequences have opened new possibilities for sociocultural existence. In our view, that is, the church impacts "the world" not chiefly by seeking to help its present structures function better, but by presenting it with new, alternative possibilities. It can impact "the world" by being a channel for the agape* which alone can break old patterns.

With Niebuhr, we also regard Jesus' cross as the revelation of evil's awesome depths, which will continue to distort history until the consummation. Accordingly, the way of the cross will often involve suffer-

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ing and apparent defeat. However, we cannot draw Niebuhr's conclusion that "it is not even right to insist that every action of the Christian must conform to agape *."27 For Jesus and the New Testament writers lived in societies influenced at least as deeply by evil. Yet this hindered none of them from extolling agape* as the only Christianand the only fully humannorm (Chap. 3). For agape* is revealed and actualized most clearly in its self-giving response to conflict, threat, and possible loss . . . even of life itself.

The church impacts the world, then, chiefly by offering alternative possibilities for living under the lordship of Christ. These alternative models can break (and have broken) through "the world's" systemic blindness and initiate social changes which might never have occurred otherwise. The church offering such alternatives might be (and has been) ignored or persecuted. The church's task, however, is not to calculate the long-range consequences of its actions. For Jesus has given us no definitive outline of the process by which he is subduing all things. Instead, he commands the church to witness as clearly as possible to the uniqueness of his way, trusting that he will work all things together for good (cf. Rom. 8:28).

These conclusions reveal the full radicality of a theology, and thus of a lifestyle, for which Scripture alone is the final norm. When theology refuses to allow general revelation, or the flow of history, or a "realistic" outlookhowever much truth these may containto supersede Scripture at any point, the most radical implications are not epistemological. They concern life and mission. They confront us with the challenge: Will we follow Jesus and the Bible in all circumstances, no matter how painful or apparently pointless this might at times seem? Here also lies the test of belief in Jesus' lordship. When other powers seem to have everything in their grip, will we keep walking in the conviction that divine agape* is the ultimate force in the universe? Will we live as though we believe that through it God has truly freed us from the powers' dominion, even should they inflict upon us defeat and pain . . . and even death?

4

The Church and the Kingdom

Despite the pain and apparent defeat involved, the church can hope-fully affirm that mission which follows Jesus' way will positively affect the world. And even though it has no overall roadmap as to how this will occur, might theology still provide some guideline as to how God is working in particular contexts?

27The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. II, p. 88. Niebuhr generally charges that those who make agape* normative assume that agape* is becoming more and more dominant in history. They thereby underestimate the reality of evil. Our evaluation of evil's role, however, is about as "realistic" as his.

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Theology can do so by considering afresh God's kingdom. On one hand, "the kingdom of God" cannot refer directly to some allegedly universal sociocultural process, but only to the distinct way taught and actualized by Jesus. On the other hand, since Jesus is already Lord over the cosmos, his reign, or kingdom work, cannot be confined entirely to the church. For since the church's mission moves within and continues God's mission through all creation (Chap. 10), that broader flow will also energize created potentialities and structures not directly connected with the church.

The church can discern that wider work in the following way. While announcing and seeking to live out the kingdom taught and lived by Jesus, each church can also carefully explore its own cultural context, searching for tendencies and movements at least potentially oriented in this direction. Wherever it finds such tendencies, each church, so far as its resources allow, can affirm and cooperate with them. Yet in its ongoing relationships it will continue to assess them and its own mode of cooperation by the constructive and critical kingdom norm.

This kind of mission (unlike the Christ against culture model) acknowledges and searches for signs of God's kingdom beyond the church. Yet (more than the other models) it resists identifying other movements or institutions with that kingdom. For a movement's actual proximity to God's kingdom is quite difficult to discern. It cannot be wholly determined from points of outward resemblance. When discussing revelation, we noticed that experiences, events, and propositions which contain much truth can lead not only toward, but also away from, God. Precisely because they contain truth, people can trust in them rather than in the God to whom they point (Vol. I, Chap. 13). Similarly, a sociocultural movement may espouse principles (e.g., social justice) compatible with Jesus' kingdom. Yet it might demand an overriding allegiance (say, to a nation or class) which points away from, and thus clashes with, Jesus' lordship.

Thus the significance of any particular movement depends chiefly on the overall goal toward which it moves. If a movement toward, say, social equality, is part of an ideology which demands violent subjugation of some groups, it will point in a direction incompatible with what equality means in the framework of God's kingdom. On the other hand, other kinds of belief in equality might be more open to being enriched, and therefore changed in their overall meaning, when they come in contact with the total vision of Jesus' kingdom and lordship.

(In actual practice, the picture is often more complex. Even persons committed to the subjugation of other groups might be motivated at the deepest levels by the sufferings of their own groups. And when the

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compassion and sufferings of Jesus are announced to them, they might turn to him and his way. In such cases, certain ideals like social equality would have served as bridges to God's kingdom; even though, as they were originally understood, they never would have pointed in this direction.)

In announcing and seeking to live God's kingdom, then, the church will search its context for phenomena pointing in the same direction. When it does so, however, it will resist identifying other processes, institutions, or ideologies with God's kingdom work. Yet it will also resist identifying them irrevocably with "the world." The church will be more concerned with the tendencies, aspirations, and longings which operate within, behind, and sometimes in spite of them. It will be concerned, that is, not only with how harmonious another tendency is with God's kingdom, but also with how harmonious it might become. It will concern itself not only with how closely other movements resemble the church, but even more with whether they might be brought into dialogue and relationship with it.

The question of where God is working beyond the church will finally be solved not by speculative theology but through mission. For even though human curiosity seeks definitive criteria to determine whether other movements belong to God's kingdom, the issue will finally be decided by whether or not, as all things hasten toward the consummation, other movements prove to be. And they will prove to be to the extent that they eventually come under the lordship of Jesus and his way.

Through this kind of annunciation, the church will seek to draw as many persons and movements as possible toward the kingdom of God. Yet as Gutierrez notes, announcement of the kingdom's presence will draw attention to its absence. Annunciation will give rise to denunciation: the exposure and critique of tendencies opposed to God's kingdom, and of "the world" as a power. Denunciation will often be directed less at movements which are obviously evil than at those which claim God's sanction or otherwise appeal for people's loyalty. Jesus exposed the contrasting darkness of the powers by living entirely in agape *'s light. In the same way, the church, by making Jesus' way visible and actual, can unmask the true character of all forces deceptively claiming to represent goodness or God.

Denunciation, however, is not entirely negative. As Reinhold Niebuhr showed, critical assessment in light of agape* can suggest positive possibilities even for movements that fall far short. The church, therefore, can make constructive suggestions even for movements which have no intention of living by agape* (such as governments pursuing balance-of-power politics). It must take care, however, that such sugges-

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tions are not heard as direct announcements of God's will, or as ways of gaining God's total approval. Rather, they must be heard as coming from a standpoint which critiques the movement as a whole.28

C

The Missionary Message

Having analyzed how the church relates to the world, it will be helpful to summarize what the church itself proclaims. To be sure, God's grace may make proclamation effective even if it omits some of what follows. Yet the following outlines the minimum of what is theologically desirable.

Essentially, the church announces the eschatologically realized lordship of Jesus, actualized through his life, death, and resurrection, and the importance of turning to him. For this announcement to participate in the dynamic flow of God's mission, however, it must be more than verbal. It must itself be an expression of that lordship coming to actualization. It ought, in other words, to proceed from a community in which Jesus' lordship is already being actualized, and to be a further actualization of it. This means that proclamation consists not only in words, but also in deeds. For if words have no connection with the practice and outflow of agape *, they will not express what they claim. On the other hand, this announcement must also involve words. For deeds by themselves will not announce that overall context within which they have their meaning.29

Jesus' lordship cannot be reduced to a spiritual dimension, as if it were merely a lordship over "souls." Mission cannot proclaim the king without proclaiming his kingdom. Submission to Jesus' lordship involves submission to his way, which includes relationships with others. Yet neither can Jesus' lordship be reduced to an ethical or social ideal. It involves submission to the risen Jesus himself from the heart, or center, of one's personal being.

28 There is a difference, for instance, between the church suggesting that a government at war treat its prisoners more humanely and implying that if it does, it will have God's blessing in all else that it does.

29 Theology cannot absolutely deny that a verbal message apart from deeds of agape*, or a loving act apart from any interpretation, might transform someone. Such denials would limit God. But we wish to emphasize that God wills to include both words and deeds in the process of transformation, and that the church can never legitimately restrict its missionary activity to one or the other.

It is also possible that a proclamation wholly unconnected with any Christian community, so far as the hearer knows, might be transforming. Yet even the most individualistic evangelist owes something to Christian bodies, and God wills that this communal context normally be quite explicit.

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The missionary message, then, includes a decisive call for repentance. Like the early kerygma, it promises forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit for those who turn to Christ (Acts 2:38; 5:31-32). Yet this turning to Christ and his body will also be a turning from one's solidarity with "the flesh" and "the world." It will involve breaking with all practices, associations, and powers which bind one to the Old Age. In other words, announcing Jesus' lordship always at least implicitly involves announcing his lordship over all other powers. And it involves a corresponding denouncing of all powers which seek to claim that ultimate allegiance due only to God.

Yet while Jesus' lordship is already actual, it presses toward full realization at the consummation. God's kingdom is an active dynamism, and Jesus' reign involves continual struggle with the powers (1 Cor. 15:25). The church's call, then, will not be simply to initial repentance, but also to participation in this struggle. In other words, it will call people to faithfulness: to open themselves to that divine righteousness which was actualized through Jesus' faithfulness and which presses on toward his return (Chap. 7).

D

An Objection

With all we have said so far, perhaps some readers have long been disagreeing. Simply put, our vision may seem far too idealistic. One may grant, for instance, that the Bible, when its teachings are not compromised by other norms, insists upon agape *. Still, this possibility seems to be negated by the observation that churches themselves are marked by flaws. The Old Age does not exist solely in "the world." Ecclesiastical conflicts show that it affects the church. Christians, due to their immaturity, overcome it in a gradual way (Chap. 10). And if the church itself cannot live fully in light of the New Age, what right does it have to insist on these standards when dealing with the world?

This question enables us to emphasize again that mission does not consist simply in one organizationthe churchdirecting pronouncements, claims, or demands toward a certain sphere, the world. Mission, we have insisted, is essentially the outflowing of God's agape*, actualized definitively in Jesus and continued by the Spirit, through the world (Chap. 10). It is rooted in the energy of new life, expressed above all in the way of life of those whom it renews. Yet the divine life did not conquer death simply by annulling it. Instead, it poured itself into the midst of the pain and struggle of the world. It revealed and actualized itself as that agape* which takes the resistance and evil of others upon itself. It overcame death by remaining true to its inmost character as faithful self-giving, even in face of annihilation.

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This divine mission continues, therefore, where agape * continues to struggle in the same basic way with suffering and evil. Witness is borne to it not by those who have reached a fixed perfection, but by those who are loving and learning and growing through this struggle. Living wholly in light of the New Age, then, does not mean living flawlessly, but participating wholly in this process.

Mission consequently means bearing witness not simply to a standard, but to this process. To do this, the church need not have attained the perfection of the consummation. For the divine love and energy can be revealed precisely through the church's struggle with its own divisions, immaturities, and sins.

At the same time, of course, the church can hardly bear witness to the divine life unless it is seriously seeking to overcome these things, as believer's churches in particular have stressed. For if it simply excuses or ignores its shortcomings, it cannot possibly bear living witness to the energy which transforms them.

Accordingly, so long as the church seeks, through the Spirit, to live wholly in light of the New Age, it can authentically call individuals and institutions to live in the same reality. This call, however, cannot demand instantaneous perfection, but only radical openness to allowing the Spirit to draw one as fully as possible into the New Age.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Anderson, Gerald and Thomas Stransky, eds. Mission Trends No. 2: Evangelization. New York: Paulist, 1975.

Beyerhaus, Peter. Missions: Which Way? Humanization or Redemption? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971.

Brown, Dale. The Christian Revolutionary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.

Cobb, John. Process Theology as Political Theology. Philadelphia, Westminster, 1982.

Cullmann, Oscar. Jesus and the Revolutionaries. New York: Harper, 1970.

Ehler, Sidney and John Morral. Church and State Through the Centuries. Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1954.

Escobar, Samuel and Driver, John. Christian Mission and Social Justice. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1978.

Hershberger, Guy. The Way of the Cross in Human Relations. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1958.

Hertz, Karl, ed. Two Kingdoms and One World. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976.

Hunt, George L. Calvinism and the Political Order. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

Metz, Johannes. Theology of the World. New York: Seabury, 1973.

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Mueller, William. Church and State in Luther and Calvin. Nashville: Broadman, 1954.

Niebuhr, Richard: Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Row, 1951.

Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York: Macmillan, 1907.

Sanders, Thomas. Protestant Concepts of Church and State. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964.

Sider, Ronald, ed., Evangelicals and Development: Toward a Theology of Social Change. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982.

Wolf, Donald J. Towards Consensus: Catholic-Protestant Interpretations of Church and State. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968.

Yoder, John. The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel. South Bend, Ind.: University, 1985.

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Chapter Twelve

Mission Amid Other Religions and Worldviews

Mission is essentially God's mission. It is the outpouring of the divine agape * which triumphed decisively through Jesus and which the Holy Spirit sends surging through the world. Mission consists in the continuing actualization of God's kingdom as the entire creation eagerly anticipates its final liberation from bondage (Rom. 8:21-23).

Nevertheless, as Chapter 11 showed, powers who oppose God still inflict a systemic blindness about the kingdom's presence and a resultant hopelessness upon much of creation. Because of this, and because of the radical character of God's kingdom, the church's chief mission is to proclaim and actualize the kingdom as vividly as possible, and to invite others to participate. However, since God's kingdom is also active outside the church, mission involves critical discernment of its presence, and efforts to correlate the church's own participation in the divine movement with that of other groups.

Since God's kingdom is not merely an invisible spiritual presence, but also a social reality, it takes form in various concrete, corporate ways. Fundamentally, however, the kingdom is primarily a movement. Thus its specific forms will alter as it hastens through history towards the consummation. Both the church and other movements, then, are caught up in this process.

Accordingly, when the church considers its relationship to other

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institutions, religions, or philosophies, it should ponder not only their present actual form, but also their potentialities for change. The church should ask not only how similar or dissimilar to itself they now are, but also how similar or dissimilar they might become.

The nature and significance of such questions become clear when the church encounters movements which make ultimate claims about reality. Such contrasting assertions force the church to clarify what its own universal claims mean. They prompt it to ask, To what extent are our affirmations opposed to these other movements? However, since all such movements affirm and practice certain things with which the church can agree, they also prompt it to ask, Are these movements somehow in harmony with the kingdom we serve?

The urgency of these questions is often raised most forcefully by other religions, for their claims not only carry cognitive implications; they also call for the allegiance of the heart. Yet various social movements and "secular" attitudes toward life are also rooted, at least implicitly, in comprehensive worldviews and make similar personal appeals. The more modern communication and information bring all such movements together, the more urgent and perplexing do such questions become.

To help the church wrestle with the questions facing its announcement of the kerygma in today's world, this chapter will first examine two contrasting approaches to the major world religions. Then we shall elaborate our own approach to all movements which make universal truth-claims.

I

Approaches to the World Religions

Today's world is athrob with the incessant striving toward humanization. Though science and education have improved life in many ways, multitudes in developed countries feel stifled by bureaucracy and depersonalization. Millions elsewhere are deprived of human dignity and even means of survival. The conflicting needs and demands of classes, races, and nations clash and threaten to annihilate the race itself.

In such a situation, one wonders, how advisable is it to insist on the ultimacy of one religion? Especially if that religion has been allied historically with certain nations and social groups, won't insistence on its normativity exacerbate tensions already about to explode? Wouldn't it be better for the church simply to join with other religions and social movements in promoting certain humanizing aims? In so doing, Christians could still maintain that their faith is unique, or different from all others, and also relevant to people everywhere. Yet they would not insist that Christianity is superior to all others, or that its claims are normative for everyone.

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On the other hand, such an approach seems contrary to what Christian mission has usually assumed, and to the kerygma itself. Does not the kerygma emphasize that one particular individualJesus of Nazarethalone is Lord of the cosmos? Does it not insist that other claims to lordship are opposed to his? Do not his life, death, resurrection, and anticipated return vindicate Yahweh, God of Israel, as the one true God in a universe of contending powers? Mission, it would seem, cannot surrender Christianity's superiority and normativity without surrendering its very essence.

The above issues are hotly debated in current discussions of mission. To shorten our path through the maze of considerations involved, we will focus on two theological approaches. The first stresses the (contextual) continuity between Christianity and other faiths while the second emphasizes their (kerygmatic) discontinuity. The first is most influential in contemporary Catholic mission while the second is more common among Protestants.

A

A Contemporary Catholic Approach

In the 1960s, Karl Rahner raised many eyebrows by claiming that many adherents of non-Christian religions were, at heart, ''anonymous Christians." Rahner acknowledged that his approach was a priori: that it deduced from dogmatic assertions what must be true of other religions. Rahner's conclusions were not derived inductively from investigation of these religions.1

Rahner first asserts that, according to Catholic teaching, "there is no salvation apart from Christ. . . the supernatural divinization of man can never be replaced merely by good will on the part of man." Second, however, Catholic doctrine also affirms that "God has really, truly, and seriously intended this salvation for all."

Now there is no way of maintaining both these assertions, claims Rahner, except by supposing "that every human being is really and truly exposed to the influence of divine, supernatural grace which offers an interior union with God and by means of which God communicates himself whether the individual takes up an attitude of acceptance or refusal. . . . "2

Through deductive reasoning, then, Rahner concludes that God's

1Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 312; see also Theological Investigations, Vol. VII, pp. 390-398. Of course, widespread missionary involvement with people of other faiths is the broad apologetic context for Rahner's reflections.

2Theological Investigations, Vol. V, (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), p. 122.

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grace encounters adherents of all religions. But is there any way of estimating how effective this grace might be? After all, given the power of sin, few might ever respond and receive salvation. Rahner's premises, however, entail that the reverse is far more likely. He finds it

impossible to think that this offer of supernatural, divinizing grace made to all men on account of the supernatural salvific purpose of God, should . . . remain ineffective in most cases on account of the personal guilt of the individual. For, as far as the gospel is concerned, we have no really conclusive reason for thinking so pessimistically of men. On the other hand, and contrary to every merely human experience, we do have every reason for thinking optimistically of God and his salvific will.3

Having made these broad affirmations, is it possible, given the variety among world religions, to show more precisely how God's grace operates among them? Rahner first affirms that it acts in accord with what he calls the "supernatural existential" (Chap. 2). Rahner argues that everyone is aware of a transcendent, infinite horizon of Being, which enables them to raise questions about any finite value or purpose. In seeking answers, and in seeking to transform their existence, each person is also reaching out and longing for that infinite Being which Christians know to be the Trinitarian God. Rahner, we remember, insists that whenever and however people open themselves to this horizon, they experience the intimate, forgiving grace of God.4

This general description, however, yields no concrete information about how God might operate among other religions. Since Rahner seems to depict the supernatural existential as a transaction between the individual and God, could one infer that it happens in unusual private moments when persons are least influenced by their own religions? Other of Rahner's general premises say "no." For

if a non-Christian religion could not or may not have any positive influence at all . . . then we would be understanding the event of salvation . . . in a completely ahistorical and asocial way. But this contradicts in a fundamental way the historical and social nature of Christianity itself. . . . For even in his most personal history man is still a social being whose innermost decisions are mediated by the concreteness of his social and historical life, and are not acted out in a special realm.5

In other words, human beings are essentially social and salvation

3 Ibid., p. 123.

4Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 131.

5 Ibid., p. 314.

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must therefore be mediated through social channels. And since salvation is mediated to adherents of other religions, these religions themselves must be channels through which God works. Of course, such religions may include much which is inferior or even opposed to Christianity. But this does not overturn Rahner's conclusion that these religions are positively willed by God.

Yet even though God works through other religions, they are not on Christianity's plane. For Rahner, God's grace has triumphed decisively and irreversibly in Christ, the final cause toward which salvation history tends.6 The grace which is present in all religions, therefore, is most fully expressed and effective in the church. (That is why other religious people are "Christians," even though "anonymously.") Accordingly, Rahner, at least in his earlier writings, emphasized that once Christianity is firmly established in a culture, other faiths will lose their validity, and their followers should gradually come into the church.7

What are the implications of Rahner's theology for missionary practice? For starters,

"paganism" . . . must no longer be seen as the work of the devil. It is not evil in itself, to be destroyed root and branch. . . . It is an ante-chamber to the church, a church by analogy, a religious space where the one and only God dwells and works the salvation which he prepared, in Jesus Christ, for all mankind.8

Accordingly, the task of mission is not to bring non-Christians "something strange from the outside." Instead, it is to help them discover "Christ already in them and unveil him to their sights."9 For "at the basis of all religions, there must be one religion, the transcendental religion, expressed concretely in many religions."10

Nevertheless, once non-Christians have discovered Christ, or the transcendental religion, in their own religion, a movement toward Christianity should take place. How ought this to occur? The best clue comes from Jesus. He "did not wish to found a new religion but to take seriously the existing religion and to reform it. . . . Christ came not to eliminate the preceding religion but to complete it (Matt. 5:17)."11

6 Ibid., pp. 193-194, 316-318.

7 Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. V, pp. 119-121, 132.

8 Walbert Bühlmann, The Coming of the Third Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977), p. 231.

9 Ibid., p. 236.

10 Ibid., p. 238.

11 Ibid., p. 240.

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Accordingly, missionaries might begin at some point where another religion and Christianity agreeperhaps with Christ as a great prophet with much to say on social issues. Now many Hindus, for example, already appreciate Jesus' prophetic ministry. Here, then, would be a basis for Hindu-Christian involvement in common social tasks. Yet this would involve no rush toward conversions, for "it is much more important for Hinduism to become more Christian than for us to convert a few Hindus."

Finally, however,

When we do come to the baptism of an individual, this should not entail a final break in his loyalty to his social, cultural, and religious past. As Hinduism is, in the first place, a form of social community and leaves plenty of room in matters of faith, we could in the future think of "Catholic Hindus." These would be persons, or, preferably, whole families who have become Christian but continue to celebrate Hindu rites, interpreting them in a new way and receiving Christian sacraments in addition."12

The guiding of Hindus toward the church, then, will involve the continuing transformation of Hinduism itself. Yet since this transformation will occur largely through cooperation and dialogue among Hindus and Christians, this process will transform Christianity too. For the "mystery hidden in all the religions of the world" can be revealed only through a resurrection which follows the death of all religions, including Christianity, in their present form.13

While Rahner's proposals were at first shocking, some of his critics and followers have pushed in more radical directions. Some question whether the grace operating in other religions really tends toward the church. Perhaps Christianity embodies only one expression of grace, which should exist indefinitely alongside others. Perhaps missions should simply encourage Hindus to be better Hindus. Underlying these questions are growing doubts about whether Christ or the church can be causes, or bestowers, of salvation. Such theologians tend to regard them as examples or epiphanies of the fulness which God desires to bestow upon all humankind. Still, these theologians treat Christ and the church as the supreme examples of that fulness, and in this way affirm the normativity of Christianity.14

12 Ibid., p. 242.

13 Ibid., p. 240.

14 For an excellent discussion, see Paul Knitter, No Other Name? (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985), pp. 130-135.

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B

A Kerygmatic Protestant Approach

We have seen how Karl Rahner deduces his ("contextual") approach to non-Christian religions from dogmatic premises. Some of these (such as God's universal salvific will) are at least partly grounded in Scripture. Yet his fundamental theory of the "supernatural existential" rests on a largely philosophical base.

From the late 1930s through the 1950s, during the height of neo-Orthodoxy's influence, Hendrik Kraemer popularized a more "kerygmatic" approach. Although he studied the world religions more thoroughly than Rahner, his tenets were not derived entirely from inductive study of them.15 Instead, Kraemer sought his main guidelines in Scripture. In so doing, he did not assume that the Bible was one expression of a general transcendental religion, or that its distinctive emphases would be variations on common themes. Instead, much like Karl Barth, Kraemer felt that the best approach to Scripture was "to take it as it wants to be understood, and so to find out what is its particular mode of thinking and to try to present this biblical thinking according to its peculiar genus."16

Examining the Old Testament, Kraemer finds points at which non-Israelite experience and thought is valued. Particularly in the Wisdom literature one finds a "slight but undeniable" tendency to regard the wisdom found in many cultures as "a great, universal human value, essentially a gift of God. . . . " Moreover, this wisdom is "intrinsically connected with divine Wisdom, operating as a power operating everywhere in the world."17

In general, however, Kraemer critiques all efforts to find a Scriptural basis for direct continuity between humanity's general religious awareness and the particular emphases of biblical revelation. For instance, the imago dei of Genesis 1 does, of course, refer to "the divine mandate to produce culture, to be God's representative and commissioner on earth. Man is thus, by the ability to engender culture, a creator in a secondary sense."18

Yet Genesis says nothing about any capacity to know God apart

15 Kraemer spent nearly twenty years in Indonesia as a Bible Society consultant. He studied comparative religion extensively, as is clear in his The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1956), pp. 142-183; and Religion and the Christian Faith (London: Lutterworth, 1956), pp. 35-136, 200-234.

16Religion and the Christian Faith, p. 238.

17 Ibid., p. 265.

18 Ibid., p. 247.

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from revelation. For the imago dei is essentially a relationship which God has established and has not forsaken despite our rebellion. This means that, due to God's continual working on us, human beings are aware of God. They are "haunted" by the divine, always in some sense searching and longing for God. Yet paradoxically, this longing is at the same time a fleeing. As John Calvin said, since humans do not want to submit fully to the true God, our "religious consciousness" invents gods whom we worship instead.19

Kraemer finds this perspective substantiated by those missionary speeches often discussed under "general revelation" (cf. Vol. I, pp. 248-255). Paul's brief speech at Lystra (Acts 14:15-18), he says, does not really deal with human awareness of God. Instead it proclaims the God who, despite human sin, "has not left you alone, because he goes on revealing himself to you, whether you acknowledge it or not. Properly speaking, you are both God-forsaken and not God-forsaken." Kraemer insists that this "truth . . . is not a proposition about an unchanging verity . . . but a life-relationship between God and man."20

Kraemer acknowledges, however, that some dim awareness of God was evidenced by the Athenian altar "to an unknown god" which prompted Paul's speech in Acts 17:22-31. Here Paul affirmed that through its religions, humanity "sometimes gives some kind of answer to God, who incessantly works upon him."21 Nevertheless, despite this slight continuity between Athenian consciousness and the kerygma, Paul's concluding call for conversion was incredible to most.

Kraemer concludes that, according to Scripture, awareness of God is indeed present in non-Christian religions. But not in a way that provides a direct path to Christ.

The religious and moral life of man is man's achievement, but also God's wrestling with him; it manifests a receptivity to God, but at the same time an inexcusable disobedience and blindness to God. The world fails to know God in its highest wisdom, although it strives to do so. Man seeks God and at the same time flees from Him in his seeking, because his self-assertive self-centeredness of will, his root-sin, always breaks through.22

What, then, can the church conclude about the relationship of Christianity to other religions today? Kraemer finds a parallel in the way in which Jesus fulfilled the hopes of Israel's religion.

19 Ibid., pp. 251-252; cf. Calvin, Institutes, pp. 43-51.

20 Ibid., p. 282.

21 Ibid., p. 284.

22The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, pp. 124-125.

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Christ and His Kingdom may be called in a sense the fulfillment of these expectations. Nevertheless, this "fulfillment" brings quite the reverse of all expectations, for His Kingdom is a . . . recasting of all values; it is realized in the suffering and self-abandonment of the Saviour.23

Kraemer, that is, discerns a different kind of continuity between Old Testament religious themes and Jesus than do many current Catholic theologians. To be sure, Jesus affirms these themes "fully in their true intention."24 Yet he reverses, and thereby sharply critiques, the particular way in which most Israelites understood them. He "completes" the preceding religion in a way that calls most people to turn decisively from their understanding and practice of it.

Kraemer finds this relationship similar to the one substantiated by the contemporary study of religions. In Kraemer's day, many scholars of comparative religion noted that particular rites, scriptures, beliefs, etc., of various religions bear similarities to Christian ones. Some concluded that this gave evidence of a transcendental religion, or a common essence, underlying all religionsor at least of approximations or "stepping stones" in other religions to Christianity's fuller truth. Other scholars, however, insisted that such particular phenomena can be understood only within their original religious context. So viewed, they usually carry a far different meaning than do their apparent parallels in Christianity. Kraemer agreed with the latter approach that

every religion is an indivisible, and not to be divided, unity of existential apprehension. It is not a series of tenets, dogmas, prescriptions, institutions, practices that can be taken one by one . . . and that can arbitrarily be compared with, and somehow related to, and grafted upon, the similar item of another religion.25

Therefore,

to construe out of these concurring religious and ethical evidences the "normal," "natural" religion of mankind . . . is false. It confuses concurrent but widely scattered, unevenly distributed, differently graded, and differently motivated religious and ethical notions, with a supposedly coherent system. . . . There is no "natural" religion; there is only a universal religious consciousness in man, which produces many similarities.26

23Religion and the Christian Faith, p. 272.

24 Ibid., p. 272. "Jesus does not fulfill . . . many of the historical aspirations of the religions, but often kills them, or brings about their satisfaction in a way entirely in contradiction to what the religious regard as the way to their satisfaction" (p. 352).

25The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, p. 135.

26 Ibid., p. 112; cf. Religion and the Christian Faith, p. 349.

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What implications does Kraemer's theology carry for missionary practice? Despite his sharp contrasts between Christian faith and other religions, Kraemer does not view the church as a separate, unchanging sphere, as it were, which directs pronouncements toward equally self-enclosed, static religious realms. For all religions are essentially processes in which humanity's ceaseless longing for and fleeing from God take tangible form. Both the grandeur of human creativity and the misery of human distortion are present in all religions. Insofar as existing forms of Christianity are social, liturgical, and doctrinal complexes, they are marked by this, too.27

Yet only the churchdespite its defectsis rooted in Christ's saving power, which alone can deliver people from their sin and rebellion against God. Thus, its mission cannot be to help other religions discern Christ's presence within them, but to bring them the saving kerygma. Kraemer insists that

the only valid motive and purpose of missions is . . . to call men and peoples to confront themselves with God's acts of revelation and salvation . . . and to build up a community of those who have surrendered themselves to faith in loving service of Jesus Christ.28

This purpose is carried out through evangelism, adaptation and service.

Evangelism does not mean that the church proclaims the kerygma entirely "from outside," as if no points of contact existed between the kerygma and the searching and fleeing involved in other religions. Kraemer only wishes to deny that any essential feature of another religion provides a permanent stepping stone to, or point of identity with, Christ's saving grace. There is no salvific continuity, for instance, between Christianity and Hinduism. However, in a given culture at a given time there will be points of contact between what many Hindus are experiencing and how God's Spirit is leading the church.

Kraemer expresses this by affirming, "There is only one point of contact, and if that one point of contact really exists, then there are many points of contact. This one point of contact is the disposition and attitude of the missionary."29 Missionaries are to be engaged in continuous, careful, patient efforts to experience and understand how life is lived in a culture. They are thereby to discern points where the peoples' actual fleeing from and searching for God is open to the actual movement of God's Spirit.

27The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, pp. 284-287.

28 Ibid., p. 292.

29 Ibid., p. 140.

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Adaptation means expressing and embodying the kerygmatic reality in forms appropriate to the culture concerned. Through this process, the empirical shape of the church can change. Adaptation, however, is to be distinguished from a syncretism in which Christianity and another religion mutually interpenetrate and modify each other. For all religions "are huge social bodies (comprising life-patterns, ideas, attitudes, volitions, and strong emotions) that . . . instinctively strive for self-assertion and self-preservation."

Accordingly, when other religions are permeated by Christian ideals, they simply "build up a stronger frame of resistance to Christianity." This is why to "decide for Christ and the world He stands for implies a break with one's religious past."30 Nevertheless, this break does not mean a total separation from one's social world. God wills that indigenous concepts, expressions, and social forms be reshaped to express the kerygma, and thereby that the church be deeply rooted in every culture.

Service means that the kerygma not only brings a new, indigenous religious reality into being, but that it impacts social life. The church proclaims that God is working everywhere, and it therefore participates in education, health care, and other social activities. Yet much as Kraemer does not expect other religions to be transformed into Christianity, so he does not expect to eradicate social evil this side of the consummation. The church's social activities, therefore, are efforts to serve and witness to God's love in concrete situations rather than attempts to transform history.

Nonetheless, although the church does not aim at total transformation of other religions or society, effective missions will leave profound, even if indirect, imprints upon both. And insofar as the church truly adapts to and serves different cultures, its empirical forms will greatly change. Kraemer, then, regards Christianity and other religions to some extent as processes which, in today's global village, mutually interact and modify each other as history presses toward the consummation. At bottom, however, the major religions are rooted in fundamental orientations which make their total intertwining with Christianity impossible.

Although Kraemer, heavily influenced by Karl Barth, sometimes emphasizes the contrast between Christianity and other religions more sharply than others, many Protestant theologians share his basic orientation.31 Many Protestants agree that God is known, or revealed, in

30 Ibid., pp. 291, 364. Deciding for Christ is "radically different from taking a sympathetic attitude towards His personality and teaching" (p. 291).

31 For an overview, see Knitter, pp. 97-113. Some representatives of this approach are Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1946), pp. 218-236, 258-273; Carl Braaten, "The Uniqueness and Universality of Christ" in Anderson and Stransky, eds., Mission Trends No. 5 (New York:

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non-Christian religions. The major religions are not simply citadels of blindness and error, but witnesses that God is working and is known, at least partially, everywhere.

Nevertheless, such general revelations usually bring people only to recognize their need and longing for salvation. Other religions, contra Rahner, are not in themselves instruments of salvation even though God might occasionally save some of their adherents. Normally, at least, it is only through God's unique revelation in Christ that sin's full depth can be apprehended, and only through personal faith in him that it will be healed.

II

Christian Truth and Other Truths

On our divided and dangerous planet, people from all nations and religions deeply long for world harmony and peace. Given the sorrows which afflict us and the tensions which threaten us, it is appealing to claim that all major religions, despite their apparent contradictions, really point toward the same divine reality. It is also appealing to believe that if their divisions could be overcome, they together could unlock spiritual resources to save humankind from itself. On the other hand, the kerygma insists that Jesus is "already" Lord over all other lords and powersmany of which, in the first century, were gods of other religions (1 Cor. 8:5-6). This would seem to deny any fundamental unity among religions.

However, we have seen that Jesus' reign is "not yet" fully consummated. And while this reign, or kingdom process, is focused through the church, it also operates elsewhere, altering other institutions and the church itself as it goes.

Is it possible, then, that the church's mission and the kingdom's movement have made rapprochement among religions more plausible than deductive reasoning from the kerygma would seem to indicate? Might all religions be moving toward some point of convergence? While emphasizing Christianity's uniqueness and relevance, might mission eventually drop its claims to superiority and normativity?

In this section we will first consider more carefully the possibility that the basic claims of the world's major religions are compatible. Then, building on these considerations, we will work out our own understanding of how the truth which grounds the church relates to

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Paulist, 1981), pp. 69-89; Stephen Neill, Christian Faith and Other Faiths (New York: Oxford, 1970), pp. 1-19; Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 181-214.

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other claims and kinds of truth. We will close by sketching the missionary implications of our view.

At the outset, one general principle may be enunciated. If claims about the unity among religions are to carry significance for Christian mission, theology must be able to determine where these points of unity lie. For if such points cannot be discerned, the church will have no idea which features of any religion, including its own, to emphasize or to suppress.

A

Unity among Religions?

1

A Common Essence?

Earlier in this century, various historians and theologians argued that all religions have a ''common essence" of shared convictions.32 Often, Christianity was held to express these convictions in their highest, or fullest, form. This implied that Christian mission ought to emphasize those features which it held in common with other religions, to seek to attract others to them, and to minimize or suppress features unique to any religion, including itself. More recent investigation, however, has uncovered greater differences among the doctrines, practices, and institutions of the major religions. As Hendrik Kraemer maintained, even apparently similar features have usually proven upon closer examination to have quite diverse meanings within different religious complexes. As a result, scholars today are extremely reluctant to speak of any common essence in the sense of doctrinal content.33

Although the data supporting this conclusion are far too voluminous to present here, one issue illustrates its plausibility and its concrete meaning. Scholars have long noticed that all religions emphasize what might be called salvation. That is, all religions affirm that life involves suffering, and they all offer some form of betterment.

32 Arnold Toynbee, for example, claimed that seven major religions (1) experienced the universe as ultimately mysterious; (2) found its meaning in an Absolute which, though in the universe, was not identical with it; (3) found this Absolute a source of goodness as well as truth; and (4) regarded the giving up of self-centeredness as the way to harmony with the Absolute. Toynbee, however, was aware of major differences in each religion's way of understanding this "essence." For instance, Theravada Buddhism, unlike the others, regarded the Absolute as impersonal and the sacrifice of self-centeredness as something like extinction. (An Historian's Approach to Religion, 2d ed., [New York: Oxford, 1979], pp. 272-277.)

33 See Wilfred C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: American, 1964), pp. 16-50; Ninian Smart, Beyond Ideology (San Francisco: Harper, 1981), pp. 49-54.

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However, if one searches further for an essence of "salvation" common to all religions, one can scarcely go beyond this bland assertion.

For example, Theravada Buddhism holds that suffering is rooted in the mistaken assumption that what we think of as the physical world and the self have enduring existence. Release from suffering, then, involves destruction of the concepts and the experiences of selfhood and of a world distinct from it. No personal deity is involved in this process, for all god concepts are also illusory, and reality is much more like a void.34

For Christians, however, the ultimate reality is a divine person who has created a world in which creatures, including selves, are distinct (although, of course, they are also interrelated). Suffering arises not because finite beings are inherently distinctfor this created structure is "very good"but because their operations have become perverted. Salvation, accordingly, involves not the destruction of the self or the world, but their reorientation and renewal. This occurs when creatures entrust themselves to, and thereby enter into relationship with, the divine person.

The above contrast is only one of many between Theravada Buddhism and Christianity. This example illustrates that even when one can use the same words to refer to features of different religions, the similarities which these words represent are usually quite superficial. The similarity in words seldom represents any common, underlying process or reality. For the meaning which salvation, for example, has in any one religion is defined through its relation to other central notionssay, that of self. And salvation as extinction of the self and salvation as renewal of the self point in fundamentally incompatible directions rather than toward a common essence. As overall complexes of belief or doctrine, then, the major religions are fundamentally incompatible.

2

Christ as Fullness or Norm?

What do these findings of comparative religion imply for the recent Roman Catholic approaches discussed above? Karl Rahner, we remember, argued that God uses other religions as ordinary means of salvation. Yet he says that God also moves their followers toward Christ, salvation's final goal or cause, and also toward the church. These followers, then, are really "anonymous Christians," although they neither know nor confess it.

Rahner's theory leads one to expect that non-Christian beliefs and practices will often be less perfect expressions of what one finds more fully in Christianity. However, this theory, deduced from dogmatic

34 See Edward Conze, Buddhism (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951), pp. 105-114; C. H. S. Ward, Buddhism, 3d ed. (London: Epworth, 1947), pp. 61-107.

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premises, gives mission little help in discerning just where one might find such continuities. Moreover, it is seriously challenged by empirical investigations, which more often find conflict than continuity. Finally, little or no orientation toward Christianity among adherents of other religions has been detected.

Hans Küng has objected that "it would be impossible to find . . . a sincere Jew, Muslim, or atheist who would not regard the assertion that he is an 'anonymous Christian' as presumptuous."35 To tell someone that they really are what you are, even though they have no intention of being that, is a way of downgrading their distinctive experience (even though one may intend to honor it). "Anonymous Christianity" can disparage the integrity of other religions even more than traditional normative approaches.

We saw that some more recent Catholic theories acknowledge the possibility of the permanent existence of other religions alongside Christianity. In this way they are more applicable to the diverse data of comparative religion. Yet in regarding Christ as the norm (though not necessarily the final cause) of all religions, they, too, assert that Christianity has a fullness which the others need and lack. However, these theories also have difficulty identifying points at which these other religions are open to Christ's fullness. In this way they, too, superimpose questionable theories upon religious reality and give little concrete guidance to the church's mission.

3

Experiential Unity?

Comparative religion, then, seriously challenges that any objective unity exists either among beliefs which the religions presently hold, or in some process toward future agreement. But even if unity does not exist objectively, might it exist subjectively? Might many adherents of the major religions share some common experience, even though they conceptualize it differently?

Since such an experience would have no specific content (otherwise one could detect its presence or absence by objective criteria), it is usually described in a highly mystical way. According to Frithjof Schoun, for instance, highly spiritual adherents of all religions experience an "intuition [which] is a direct and active participation in the divine Knowledge." This intuition "is not possessed by the individual insofar as he is an individual, but insofar as in his innermost essence he is not distinct from his Divine Principle. Thus metaphysical certitude is absolute because of the identity between the knower and the known."36

35 "To bring the partner to the discussion into our own circle in this way closes the dialogue before it has even begun" (On Being a Christian [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976], p. 98).

36The Transcendent Unity of Religions, rev. ed. (New York: Harper, 1975), p. xxviii. Raimundo Panikkar argues that "religions meet in the heart rather than

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The "content" of this experience is precisely what one experiences: the underlying identity of the believer and the rest of the cosmos with God.

Those who emphasize experiential unity often critique attempts to rank religions by how closely they approximate a common essence. Upon closer examination, however, they prove to do much the same. This is so, first, because "religious experience" is extraordinarily varied. While some such experiences lead to service, others lead to sadism. Thus "religious experience" is too diverse and vague a criterion for identifying what religions might have in common. Proponents of this approach, then, cannot avoid evaluating certain kinds of experiences as superior, and evaluating doctrines and practices by how fully they express or promote these experiences.37

This is so, second, because descriptions of such experiences actually do entail assertions about ultimate reality. The experiences usually described are of an underlying oneness, or nonduality, among God, humanity, and the cosmos. However imperfectly language may describe or evoke this, such expressions fit into recognizable religious and philosophical views of reality and are incompatible with other claims about the universe.38

Experiences like that of nonduality, however, cannot be the church's criterion for discerning the presence of God's kingdom in other religions. For although salvation involves a certain, important par-

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in the mind" (The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, rev. ed. [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981], p. 43). The key is faith, "a gift of God, through which I participate in the divine knowledge that God has of himself and, in himself, of everything else. It is a simple, vital act which needs only a minimum of intellectual explicitness. 'I believe, Lord!' This act alone is a saving one. . . . 'Articles' of faith are only expressions, manifestations, explicit examples of the mystical act of faith, which has no fixed points, no adequate intellectual expression" (p. 60). Cf. Wilfred C. Smith's view of faith in The Meaning and End of Religion, esp. pp. 141, 170-171, 342.

37 This is clear in Schuon, who finds the "dualistic" experience of God as distinct from the world to be the chief cause of unhealthy division and distortion in religion.

38 For instance, R. C. Zaehner says that, "So far as it is at all possible to summarize the teachings of the Upanishads we should say that they identify the deepest level of the subjective 'I' with the ground of the objective universe" (Hinduism [Oxford: University, 1962], p. 64). Knitter shows how assertions of this kind are fundamental for many who find unity among religions elsewhere than in Christ. See his remarks on John Pawlikowski (p. 162) and Tom Driver (p. 165), and his own assertion that process and transcendental Christologies affirm this (p. 191).

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ticipation in the divine agape *, we have found this to consist more in sym-pathy and cooperation between distinct partners than in a merging of essence (Vol. I, pp. 353-354). Humanization unfolds through obedience to, and worship of, One who is first an Other. Moreover, as we shall see, despite the profound unity which God the Son attained with humanity, the divinity which he retains also makes him distinct from us (Chap. 18).

In sum, religious experience is too varied to identify any common core among religions. And when more specific types of experience are treated as the key to unity, they prove to carry theological implications and call for evaluation on this level as well.39

4

Ethical Unity?

Although commonality cannot be determined by experiential criteria, might it perhaps be by practical ones? John Hick regards "the great world religions as different human responses to the one divine Reality." He attributes differences in belief, ritual, and social structure to cultural and psychological factors.40 Theological criteria, therefore, can never determine a common core or common norms. Nevertheless, Hick argues that all religions share a "common ethical ideal" or soteriological structure. All religions emphasize "a voluntary renunciation of ego-centeredness and a self-giving to, or self-losing in, the Real" which will result in lives of "acceptance, compassion, love for all humankind, or even for all life."41

Although Hick feels that religions are too complex to be ranked by this criterion, different beliefs and practices in all of them can be evaluated insofar as they "make possible the transformation . . . from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness."42 Church mission, therefore should promote all movementsreligious and otherwisewhich facilitate this.

Such criteria sound closer to the Christian message than that of nonduality. Nonetheless, they are not merely practical, but bristle with theological terminology. How can we evaluate whether a practice over-

39 This is true of the classical Methodist and Quaker claim that awareness of Christ is universally available through conscience or a divine "seed" (Chap. 8). Though such an awareness would presumably be quite formless in many who never heard of Christ, it would intrinsically point towards Christ's fuller historical revelation and, accordingly, the church. It would lead toward unity among religions only to the exent that these religions themselves would move toward acknowledging the lordship of Christ.

40God Has Many Names (London: Macmillan, 1980), p. 6.

41 "On Grading Religions," Religious Studies 17 (1981), p. 463.

42 Ibid., p. 463.

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comes "ego-centeredness" unless we agree on the meaning of ego? How can we decide whether certain activities promote "Reality-centeredness" unless we agree on the meaning of the Real? Yet it is over just such concepts that the religions differ most profoundly.43

5

Conclusion

Despite the understandable modern hope that all religions might point toward Christ, or at least share other salvific features in common, actual study of them fails to establish significant points of unity. As complexes of belief, the major religions conflict with each other. The suggested experiential or practical criteria for unity prove to entail implicit and incompatible theological norms. The original impression produced by the kerygma stands: Jesus' lordship sets him primarily in opposition to other claims to ultimate truth. Mission's essential task is to proclaim this lordship and to actualize its implications. Jesus and his claims are not merely relevant to all people, but also normative for their lives.

Still, some of Christianity's specific features are similar to those of various religions. And all religions are modifying each other through historical contactsometimes to the betterment of empirical Christianity's life and practice. Christianity's relationship to the religions, then, while not one of underlying unity or harmony, cannot always be one of total conflict, either. But what else could it be?

B

Relationships among Truth Claims

The conflict between Christianity and other religions consists chiefly in that any religion, simply by being a religion, offers an interpretation of reality's nature and of life's goal, and offers the means of realizing the latter. Moreover, the precise meaning of each major doctrine, practice, and experience in any religion is inseparably interconnected with the meaning of all the rest. Insofar, then, as they are

43 The same difficulties beset Paul Knitter's effort to center common religious efforts "not around 'Christ' (or Buddha or Krishna), or around 'God' (or Brahman or Nirvana) but around 'salvation'that is, a shared concern about and effort to remove the sufferings that rack the human family today" ("Theocentric Christology: Defended and Transcended," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 [Winter, 1987], pp. 46-47; cf. his "Toward a Liberation Theology of Religions" in Knitter and John Hick, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987], pp. 99-107). For "suffering" is understood very differently by the various religions, as are appropriate ways to ''remove" it. For an excellent critique of Knitter's position as developed in No Other Name?, see Mark Heim, "Thinking about Theocentric Christology" in the same issue of Journal of Ecumenical Studies, pp. 1-16, and the following responses, pp. 17-41.

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doctrinal, ethical, liturgical, and institutional complexes, the major religions are fundamentally incompatible with authentic Christianity.

This systemic appraisal of religions, however, treats them primarily as static, unchanging complexes. It does not yet consider them eschatologically: as affected by the Spirit's hastening of all things toward the consummation. When religions are viewed eschatologically, two additional factors become especially significant. First, all persons, whatever religion they profess or however far from God they may be, appear as called to relationship with God. For to be in the divine "image" is to be continually called by God (Chap. 4). Second, all religions prove to be impacted by God's kingdom movement (Chap. 11).

When one takes these dynamisms into account, along with the wide variety of situations and persons among whom they function, many religious doctrines and practices prove to be capable of operating more flexibly. For example, in Theravada Buddhism as systemically considered, "salvation" involves destruction of the notion of the "self." Nevertheless, in a given Buddhist culture, God might actually be drawing individualsand groupstoward what is more a renewal than a renunciation of the self. Moved by this drawing, such persons might use Theravadian practices not precisely as that tradition intends, but to help purify and enhance an authentic sense of themselves.

In other words, the major doctrines and practices of the non-Christian religions, systemically considered, are as incompatible with authentic Christianity as are the overall complexes of which they are parts. Eschatologically considered, however, as God calls people and as the kingdom impacts them, these doctrines and practices can be loosened, as it were, from their original complexes and be refashioned to express something different.

Accordingly, while no systemic, unchanging point of contact exists between Christianity and the religions, many particular cognitive, experiential, or ethical points of contact might well exist in various situations. This is because both Christianity and other religions, within the movement of God's kingdom, are not only synthetic complexes, but also processes whose particular features interact with and can modify each other.

Yet this modifying has a limit. While some particular non-Christian doctrines and practices can be refashioned to communicate something of Christ, non-Christian religions as a whole cannot do so without ceasing to be religions. For what makes them religions is precisely that they offer an overall interpretation of reality and of life's meaning, and the means of realizing the latter. It is, of course, theoretically possible that a religion could give up all such claims and be entirely refashioned to express Jesus' lordship. Yet the result would not be, say, Christian

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Hinduism, but Christianity thoroughly adapted to a culture in which Hinduism had been dominant.

This analysis corresponds to what we have said about the powers as social forces (Chap. 6). Insofar as they bestow order and culture upon a society, such powers are not evil. It is only insofar as they claim ultimacy for themselveswhen they demand the worship due to God alonethat they are demonic. Similarly, all religions contain insights, ethical directives, and other features that are valuable. It is only insofar as they become religionsrival interpretations of reality's and life's meaningthat they usurp the lordship due to Christ. If their various insights and practices can be loosened from such ultimate claims and directed instead toward Christ, many such features will not only prove compatible with, but will even enrich, empirical Christianity.

As the Spirit's eschatological movement touches non-Christian religions and their adherents, however, they will not necessarily open themselves more fully to it. Instead, such individuals may appropriate the beliefs of their original religion with increased conviction. Religions as wholes may define themselves ever more sharply against authentic Christianity. (This may happen even when individuals or religions initially appropriate certain Christian emphases.) For where the positive potentialities of God's kingdom are "already" present, so also is the possibility of decisively rejecting them. To consider the religions in eschatological perspective, then, is to acknowledge the possibility not only of unforeseen understanding and cooperation, but also of increasing conflict.

The same general relationship exists between Christianity and non-religious world views. While discussing general revelation, we asked to what degree Marxism and Christianity might be compatible (Vol. I, p. 254). We answered, essentially, that insofar as Marxism is a system of which atheism and materialism are integral features, the two are incompatible. Any major concept in such a system, since it derives its meaning from its interconnections with all others, cannot be appropriated in that form by the church. For example, the classical Marxist critique of economic inequality is inseparably connected with a materialistic explanation of all historical dynamics. It cannot be consistently employed without adopting that mode of explanation.

In actual historical situations, however, certain Marxist concepts can trigger, or become vehicles for expressing, insights which have no intrinsic connection with the Marxist system. In present-day Latin America, for instance, many who combat economic inequality for various reasons find certain features of their struggle helpfully illumined by particular Marxist insights. When this occurs, so does the possibility that their acting and thinking will be drawn into Marxism as a system.

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But so does the possibility that they might loosen these concepts from the Marxist complex, stretch them a bit, and fill them with different implications.

Our discussion of religions and worldviews expands and confirms what we found in Chapter 11. While one cannot identify God's kingdom work with any other process or belief system, it may be operating among those movements and their adherents in surprising ways. Accordingly, the church must both emphasize the distinctiveness of its evangel and carefully search its context for other signs of God's work.

C

Implications for Mission

Mission's chief task is to announce the eschatologically realized lordship of Jesus and the importance of turning to him (Chap. 11). This annunciation consists in the words and deeds of a Christian community, which are themselves an actualization of the lordship they announce. Mission calls people to turn personally to the king, and also to the corporate reality of his kingdom. This requires turning from all opposing ways of life, and living and acting in hope of the kingdom's consummation.

Due to this call to conversion, mission cannot be reduced to social service, as important as this will surely be. Mission cannot limit itself to influencing other religions, cultures, or ideologies with Christian values. For these movements as wholes conflict with authentic Christianity, and their absorption of certain Christian values will likely strengthen their resistance. In other words, a central task of mission will be evangelism: the explicit presentation of the kerygma, including the call to repentance, forgiveness, and the gift of the Spirit.

Nonetheless, evangelism must move within the Spirit's overall flow. Particularly when they are in cultures dominated by different religions, Christians will need to invest much time not only learning the language and customs, but becoming sensitive enough to discern where and how God might be drawing things toward the consummation. For many points of contact might exist between ways in which that people are longing for and fleeing from God, and God's particular work there among Christians.

This sensitivity might first be gained through simply living and working in a culture, and through deeds rather than explicit Christian words. For without deeds, such words cannot express the reality which they announce. And given the difficulty of gaining sensitivity to another culture, even years could pass before the kerygma could be appropriately and widely announced in a verbally explicit manner. Over these years the Spirit might lead the church to announce the kerygma

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in ways which never occurred to it at first.

Particularly in cultures dominated by other religions, mission has often been entrusted to experts called "missionaries." In our ecclesiology, however, mission is intertwined with and flows from the worship and fellowship of communities seeking to live wholly in light of the New Age. For such communities can actualize God's kingdom vividly enough to dispel the systemic blindness of "the world" and to offer concrete alternatives to its way of life. (Contra Rahner, the fact that God's work has social dimensions does not legitimate other religions as its vehicles. Rather, it requires that Christianity's uniqueness be expressed in a socially explicit way.)

Thus, although sending missionaries may be a necessaryor the only feasiblemeans of first impacting a culture, mission should be rooted in indigenous churches as much as possible. Initially, whole Christian communities might move to another land, with many pursuing activities that are not specifically church-related. In any case, members of a new church, whatever their origin, should identify themselves chiefly as residents of that culture, and not as citizens or tools of a foreign one.

As it adapts to a different culture, the church should be as creative as possible in expressing itself in ways appropriate to that context. For this the church will need to engage in constant theological reflection as to what is essentially Christian, and what features of that culture and its religion(s) are incompatible with this. As it articulates these distinctions, however, the church will likely discover many indigenous forms of expression and action that are compatible with its mission, or else can be loosened from other socioreligious contexts and reappropriated within a Christian one. In certain respects, indigenous Christians may live much as other members of their culture do, though with a different orientation and purpose.

Through this missionary interaction with different religions and cultures, the empirical shape of Christianity itself will alter. Yet out of this interplay between the church's uniqueness and impulses operating in other religions, the church will avoid constructing an overall theory as to exactly how these two movements must always be related. Instead, it will constantly be reflecting on its kerygma and its cultural context to discern how God is actually relating them.

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Suggestions for Further Reading

Anderson, Gerald, ed. The Theology of the Christian Mission. London: S.C.M., 1961.

Anderson, J. N. D. Christianity and Comparative Religion. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1971.

Bosch, David. Witness to the World. Atlanta: Knox, 1980.

Bühlmann, Walbert. The Coming of the Third Church. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977.

Costas, Orlando. Christ Outside the Gate: Mission Beyond Christendom. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1982.

Glasser, Arthur and Donald McGavran. Contemporary Theologies of Mission. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983.

Hein, Mark. "Thinking about Theocentric Christology: Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 1987, pp. 1-16.

Hick, John. God Has Many Names. London: Macmillan, 1980.

Hick, John and Paul Knitter, eds. The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988.

Knitter, Paul. No Other Name? Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985.

Kraemer, Hendrik. World Cultures and World Religions. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

Neill, Stephen. Salvation Tomorrow: The Originality of Jesus Christ and the World's Religions. Nashville: Abingdon, 1976.

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Open Secret. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Pannikar, Raimundo. The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, rev. ed. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981.

Smith, Wilfred C. The Meaning and End of Religion. New York: American, 1964.

__________. Towards a World Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981.

Race, Allen. Christians and Religious Pluralism. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983.

Roper, Anita. The Anonymous Christian. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966.

Schoun, Frithjof, The Transcendent Unity of Religious, rev. ed. New York: Harper, 1975.

Swidler, Leonard, ed. Toward a Universal Theology of Religion. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987.

Van Buren, Paul. A Christian Theology of the People Israel. San Francisco, Harper, 1983.

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Chapter Thirteen

The Worship of the Church

Groups which are truly Christian churches will be participating in God's mission. This mission, which triumphed decisively in Jesus and is being extended by his Spirit, is bringing reconciliation and defeating evil throughout creation. We have therefore discussed the church's overall commission by first exploring its mission (Chaps. 11-12). We have focused, that is, on the church's often strenuous labors amid a hostile world where Christ's lordship has "not yet" been acknowledged.

Even though we have stressed that the church's mission is deeply intertwined with a second fundamental activity, its fellowship, our approach still carries two potential dangers. First, the church may appear to be simply an association of those who work zealously for Christ, and not a community which participates in him through his Spirit. Second, by stressing the labors and sufferings of the "not yet," we may obscure the joy of the "already" which motivates them.

To avoid these imbalances theology must consider the church's third fundamental activity, worship. For in worship Jesus is not simply the lord who thrusts us into the world, but also the savior whom we praise. He is not simply the example whom we follow, but also the source who bestows encouragement, comfort, and strength. Worship does not focus chiefly on the struggles and uncertainties of the not yet, but celebrates the joy and assurance of the already above all. Worship, moreover, is not a matter of ethical and practical effort but primarily one of aesthetic expression and enjoyment.

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How can theology begin setting its sights on worship as eschatological celebration? Acts' descriptions of the earliest church's worship are brief. The only New Testament style of worship examined at length (1 Cor. 1114) received this treatment because it was extreme. Current Jewish or Graeco-Roman practices may throw light on various features of worship. However, the eschaton's radical inbreaking reshaped the church's experiences so thoroughly that these sources cannot be used to fill in the gaps.

Yet on closer examination the early church's worship, much like its kerygma, proves not only to emerge in outline in Acts. It surges under the surface of the entire New Testament. At various points, much like the kerygma which it accompanied, it bursts through in short doxologies, hymns, and prayers. From these brief expressions, of course, no detailed instructions for the form and order of worship services can be derived. Yet careful examination of them can show what characteristics are essential to worship in light of the eschaton.

This chapter will first examine various features of New Testament worship in search of such characteristics. Then we will consider two elements often considered to be at worship's heart: preaching (among Protestants) and sacraments (among Catholics). Due to its complexity, the latter topic will require lengthier treatment.

Throughout these investigations we will be developing our own-position on what is essential to worship, and what this tells us about the nature of the church.

I

Some Elements of Worship

A

Praise

Acts provides glimpses of a community whose worship was pervaded by joy. The tidings of resurrection gladden the heart and loosen the tongue to rejoice (Acts 2:26, 28). The Holy Spirit, the source of these tidings, can produce an exuberance that looks like intoxication (Acts 2:13). Every day "attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes," the earliest community "partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God" (2:46-47). Their joy was like that of the lame man who, upon being healed, "entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God" (3:8; cf. 5:41-42; 8:39). And yet from very early, the potency of this joy aroused conflict between the community and others. And so its worship was often punctuated by appeals for guidance, and by the Spirit's renewed response (4:24-31).

The Holy Spirit also brought forth the cry, "Maranatha!" meaning "Our Lord, come!" (cf. Vol. I, p. 37). In this cry, Jesus, as the one addressed, was experienced as already present. Yet in longing for his

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fuller advent, it stretched towards the future, expressing the awareness that his work was not yet consummated. From the beginning, then, Christian worship was rooted in the joy of the Spirit and the presence of the Lord. Yet it reached forward and outward, yearning that this joy might triumph more abundantly.

Snatches of this joy burst forth frequently in the epistles. In his most complex theological letter, the profundity of his thoughts prompts Paul to praise "the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen!" (Rom. 1:25) and "Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever" (Rom. 9:5)! Paul exclaims, "O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. . . . For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever! Amen! (Rom. 11:33-36; cf. 1 Tim. 1:17; 1 Peter 4:11).

Eulogies and doxologies erupt when the epistles deal with creation (Rom. 1:25), Jesus' saving deeds (Gal. 1:4-5; Rev. 1:5-6), God's overall historical activity (Eph. 3:14-21; Rom. 11:33-36), life in the church (1 Peter 4:11), God's continuing deliverance,1 and the coming consummation (1 Tim. 6:16; Heb. 13:20-21; Jude 24-25). Given the variegated contexts in which these praises appear, they cannot be characteristic of particular authors or accompany specific themes alone. Instead, echoes of a widespread, common worship are breaking forthin a spontaneous manner which was also common.

Praise, moreover, was evoked not only in worship. The early Christians' lives also occasioned praise and glorification of God.2 The use of liturgical language to describe this impact emphasizes that early worship did not remove its participants from history. Rather, as it arose in response to God's historical acts, so it overflowed back into the church's historical mission.

Much as eulogies and doxologies give glimpses into early Christian worship, so does the recurrence of certain words. Like maranatha, amen and abba are Hebraic/Aramaic in origin. Their appearance in Greek documents shows that they had become familiar to the readers.

Amen comes from the same root, aman, as do the Old Testament words for faith (p. 166). This word family denotes firmness and consistency. Amen, then, is an affirmation or exclamation meaning, "let it be established," or "let it be true." Jesus himself is called the Amen, or affirming response, to God's promises. Therefore, Paul says, the church utters "the Amen through him, to the glory of God" (2 Cor. 1:20; cf. Rev 3:14). In worship, amen expressed the affirmation of individuals or

1 Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Tim. 4:18; 1 Peter 5:11.

2 See Matt. 5:16; 1 Cor. 10:31-33; 2 Cor. 8:19; 9:11-13; Phil. 1:11.

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the congregation of the truth of what was said or done (1 Cor. 14:16). Amen could be uttered frequently in an antiphonal or dialogical manner.3

In the New Testament, amen occurs in many different contexts. It shows that the author is not simply prescribing what ought to be believed, but, writing in response to the Spirit, is pausing for the readers' affirming "amen." The frequency of this exclamation shows that early worship leaders and participants often punctuated their services with it, too.

For Paul, abba was a supreme expression of prayer initiated by the Spirit (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15). Abba was Jesus' special term of address to his Father.4 It meant "Father!" in a tender and intimate sense, as a child would often exclaim. The Old Testament seldom calls Yahweh "father" even in a more formal way. Jesus' usage, therefore, expressed his unprecedented awareness of God's parental love. Paul's emphasis shows that salvation involves incorporation into that same awareness, or adoption into God's family. Accordingly, when Paul opens or closes his letters with liturgical reference to the Father, we hear an echo of that intimate, joyful address that sounded forth in many early worship services.

Early Christian worship, then, celebrated the risen Lord's presence and the fatherly love revealed in God's saving historical drama, all through the Spirit's joyful spontaneity. To Christians who strive to make things right and beautiful through mission, worship is a reminder and experience that "our existence is justified and made beautiful before we are able to do or fail to do anything."5 Worship bestows a "new spontaneity and a light heart. In faith we accept ourselves as we are and gain new confidence in ourselves because we have been trusted more than we deserve and ever thought possible. . . . "16 Worship assures us, at a deep affective level, that Jesus has already conquered evil and brought the joy of his kingdom to life.

At the same time, authentic worship does not remove us from the world, for

we come face to face with the glory of the coming God beholding the features of the crucified and not through infinite demands or flights of fancy. . . . 'The power of the resurrection' is always bound up with 'the

3 Rev. 5; 7:10-12; 19; 22:17, 20-21.

4 E.g., Mark 14:36; see Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1967) and pp. 304-307 below.

5 Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Play (New York: Harper, 1972), p. 21.

6 Ibid., p. 32.

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fellowship of Christ's sufferings,' and conversely so. Thus the earnest of the new creation . . . leads us deeper than ever into solidarity with the sufferings of the world. . . . Only those who are capable of joy can feel pain at their own and other people's suffering. . . . Where freedom is near, the chains begin to hurt. . . . Men are able to love because they are loved, they are also able to suffer, accept suffering, and live with the dead.7

Because the joy expressed in worship leads the church into the world, worship today, as in the early church, has room for expressions of longing and struggle.

Just because it experiences the freedom of the Messianic era . . . the things that are in contrast with thisthe pains, omissions, and failures of everyday lifeare brought to expression in the service of worship. . . . Joy in the divine liberation is therefore accompanied by the expression of suffering over the godlessness that restricts life; rejoicing in the presence of the Spirit is accompanied by the utterance of the sighs of expectant creation. . . . The service of worship reveals the heights of life, but also the depths of poverty of our own lives. These dissonances are part of its harmony.8

The joy experienced in worship, then, has nothing to do with the surface, manufactured expressions of happiness so common in our pleasure-oriented Western world. Accordingly, if congregations are prone to such superficiality, worship may appropriately place greater emphasis on the sufferings of Jesus, the worshipers, and the not yet of the world for a time. By so doing, true brokenness, and the joy which alone can overcome it, may be authentically experienced.

Our findings so far are confirmed and expanded by one New Testament writing whose contribution to worship is usually underestimated. The doxologies and hymns of Revelation consist, to some extent, of earthly worship patterns projected upon a heavenly screen. The Revelation, opened to the seer by the Spirit,9 extols the One who governs all history. God ''was and is and is to come" (Rev. 1:4, 8; 4:8), while Jesus is "the first and the last" (4:17; 22:13). God "didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created" (4:11). Yet worship focuses largely on the Lamb who "wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom for God [people] from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God" (5:9).

7 Ibid., pp. 30-31.

8 Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit (New York: Harper, 1977), pp. 261-262.

9 Rev. 1:10; 4:2; cf. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6.

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This tumultuous chorus, raised by the four cherubim and the 24 elders surrounding the storm-clouded throne and the crystal sea, also ascends from the saints on earth (5:8). Yet they do not retreat from earth's struggles to offer it. On the contrary, their praise abounds in conflict with Satan, through which many yield up their lives. precisely in the midst of these struggles, they extol God in two ways. God is lauded for the judgments by which "the accuser of our brethren has been cast down" (12:10), and the "destroyers of the earth" will be destroyed.10 Yet they also praise the One "who sits upon the throne" because he "will shelter them with his presence.'' They praise "the Lamb in the midst of the throne," for he "will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (7:15-17; cf. 21:3-4).

B

Hymns and Confessions

The praises pervading the Apocalypse are often called songs, and are accompanied by musical instruments. Many eulogies and doxologies, too, are likely snatches of hymnody. Paul encouraged his readers to be "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart" (Eph. 5:19). Here as elsewhere, songs flow naturally from being "filled with the Spirit."11

Some of the most profound New Testament passages can be identified as hymns.12 The foremost sing of Jesus Christ: his preexistence, his person, his incarnation, his death, his resurrection, and his exaltation over the powers.13 These texts show that hymns were not sheer outbursts of emotion, but often highly refined, intellectually articulate compositions. Moreover, since these songs predate the letters in which they appear, they show that New Testament theologizing was not the gradual product of abstraction removed from experience. Instead, praise and worship themselves pressed toward precise articulation of faith's deepest mysteries.

This means that hymns overlapped with confessions, of which the simplest was "Jesus Christ is Lord," and whose more developed content

10 11:18; cf. 15:3-4; 16:4-7; 19:1-3.

11 Eph. 5:18. See Luke 1:67-79; 2:26-35; 1 Cor. 14:15, 26; Col. 3:16; James 5:13.

12 For the criteria involved in determining that texts are hymnic, see Ralph Martin, Worship in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 48. "Ephesians 5:14 is usually regarded as the most cogent example of early Christian hymnody" (p. 47).

13 Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 1:15-20; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:3.

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paralleled the kerygma's (Vol. I, pp. 37-38). A study of worship, moreover, leads to the origins of Trinitarian formulae. In discussing how the different charisms should function in worship, Paul affirms

there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;

and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires

them all in every one.                                                   (1 Cor. 12:4-5)

This passage, like Ephesians 4:4-6, show us "how belief in the Spirit came to be of such decisive meaning for primitive Christian piety: it derived from Worship."14 Furthermore, it was experience of the Spirit in so active and personal a way, and not intellectual abstraction, that naturally prompted questions of how the Spirit related to God the Father and to Jesus the Lord.15

C

Prayers

Prayer, a constant feature of Jesus' life, breathes through the New Testament writings. It cannot always be distinguished from hymns, confessions, and other expressions of praise. Prayer is usually directed to "God," or to "the Father." As in the ''Maranatha!" cry, Jesus the Lord can also be addressed.16 More often, however, prayer is through or in the name of Jesus. Like hymns and other praises, prayer is prompted by the Holy Spirit.17 Prayers often contain specific petitions and request for guidance.18

D

Offering

Worship is an offering of all that we are and have in thanksgiving to God (Rom. 12:1). The earliest church's frequent worship was inseparably linked with the sharing of material goods (Acts 2:44-47). The New Testament depicts both the offering of praise and the giving

14 Gerhard Delling, Worship in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), p. 57.

15 See Delling, pp. 54-61. For other liturgically flavored Trinitarian expressions, see Eph. 1:11-13, 1 Peter 1:2, and Jude 20-21. In Matthew 28:19, the Trinitarian formula appears in connection with baptism.

16 Acts 2:21; 7:59; 9:14, 21; 13:2; 22:10, 16; Rom. 10:13-14; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 12:8.

17 E.g., Rom. 8:25-27; 1 Cor. 14:15; Eph. 6:18; Jude 20.

18 E.g., Acts 1:24; 4:29-30; Eph. 1:16-23; 3:14-21.

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of material goods in sacrificial terms.19 Moreover, our fundamental anthropological potentialities, whose actualization involves worship, include the stewardship of creation (Chap. 4). For this reason also, the offering of the fruits of our labor can fittingly occur in worship. All these considerations, however, warn against regarding "the offering" simply as a way to finance the church. Instead, what is given should be celebrated as a manifestation of the worshipers' self-giving, and of the transformation that the eschaton is already producing in the physical world and in human labor.

E

Summary

The anthropological structure of dependence on God comes to fruition through obedience (Chap. 4). Yet obedience, rather than being grim adherence to a law, involves joyous communion with the Creator. Our study of several elements of worship has given us some sense of how that communion is experienced and expressed. We have seen that joy and spontaneity are central to worship. Yet this joy, rather than removing us from history, often impels us more deeply into its suffering and pain. Worship is not primarily the ascent of the soul to a distant deity, but celebration of the transcendent God's shared journey with us through history.

Worship praises that God and the Lord for their activities throughout history and creation. Yet worship is also fellowship with that Lord, who is experienced as personally present. Moreover, though worship can bring human creativity to its highest pitch, it is elicited by the Holy Spirit.

Although worship primarily touches the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of our nature, it is prompted by and overflows back into the church's volitional and ethical missionary efforts. Moreover, the impulse toward aesthetic expression is often intertwined with the hunger for intellectual articulation. Authentic worship never encourages dichotomies among feeling, willing, and thinking. This is what we should expect if the center of human nature, the heart (which is none of these faculties but which includes aspects of all three), is renewed and expressed in worship (Chap. 5).

Worship, then, while often spontaneous, involves elements of rationality, balance, and order. Even the Spirit's most ecstatic expressions are meant to fall into patterns (1 Cor. 14:26-33). But this raises the question whether, beyond the aspects we have mentioned, worship ought to have one central, stable, unifying element. Christian tradition

19 1 Peter 2:5; Heb. 13:16-17; Phil 4:8; 2 Cor. 9:11-15.

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suggests two major candidates: preaching (among Protestants) and sacraments (among Catholics). We will consider these possibilities in the next two sections.

II

Preaching

The Reformers sought to restructure the church through God's living biblical word. Medieval Catholic worship, as they saw it, had largely substituted rituals of human inventionwhich were supposed to confer grace automaticallyfor the challenge and comfort of Scripture. In response, John Calvin insisted that "the church is built up solely by outward preaching, and that the saints are held together by one bond only."20 Although he formally distinguished preaching from the two sacraments which he retained, Calvin sometimes spoke of it almost as a sacrament, as a physical medium through which God had promised to regularly bestow grace.21 The sermon became the focal point of the new Protestant worship, and the church itself came to be regarded largely "as a heraldone who receives an official message with the commission to pass it on."22

But what evidence is there that New Testament worship accorded the central place to preaching? Teaching was important in the earliest worship services (Acts 2:42). Repeated Old Testament quotations and allusions in Acts' early chapters, and indeed throughout the New Testament, show that the early congregations were well-versed in Scripture. Then, too, the New Testament letters were apparently read in congregational assemblies.23 In Corinth, at least, prophecy, revelation, word of wisdom, and word of knowledgeall of which verbalize God's willcommonly sounded in worship (1 Cor. 11:4-5; 12:8, 10; 14:6, 26, 29-31). The later epistles emphasize teaching, exhortation, and Scripture reading (Col. 3:16; 1 Tim. 4:13). Finally, those who emphasize preaching point out that Scripture reading followed by exposition was central in the synagogue, as several New Testament episodes attest.24

20Institutes, p. 1019. For Luther's emphasis, see Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, pp. 35-36, 72-73.

21 E.g.: "although God's power is not bound to ordinary means, he has nonetheless bound us to this ordinary manner of teaching" (p. 1018, cf. pp. 1020, 1021).

22 Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y., 1978), p. 81.

23 1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:6; Philem. 2; cf. Rev 1:3. Martin, following Hans Lietzman, suggests that 1 Cor. 16:20-24 forms a bridge between the reading of the epistle and a communion service (p. 71).

24 Luke 4:16-17; Acts 13:14-16; see Martin, pp. 26, 66.

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This evidence indicates that teaching and its application to current situations were important in early churches. Undoubtedly some of this occurred in worship services. But in light of all we have discovered about praise, hymns, and the spontaneous involvement of many people in worship, this evidence falls far short of showing that the entire service was normally focused around a sermon delivered by one person. We must ask, then, whether there were other reasons for its centrality in the Reformation.

As we have seen, Martin Luther expressed his desire to hold three kinds of services: one in Latin for the educated populace, another in German for the rest (pp. 14, 20). Yet neither of these two would be "a well-ordered and organized congregation in which Christians could be ruled according to the gospel." Accordingly, Luther proposed a third kind, where "those who profess the gospel with hand and mouth should . . . meet alone in a house somewhere to pray, to read, to baptize, to receive the sacrament, and to do other Christian works."

Significantly, Luther did not stress preaching in this third kind of worship. Yet it was central in the first two. Why? Because among the general population there "are many who do not yet believe." Therefore, the gospel "must be publicly preached to move them to believe. . . . "25

This emphasis on preaching derived in part from the Reformtion's social character. Unlike the earliest congregations, which consisted of persons with conscious commitments to Christ, the Reformation churches included the entire population. Preaching, then, was needed largely to bring the kerygma to the unconverted. It is significant, however, that the believer's church of the Reformation era, the Anabaptists, regarded preaching largely as a mission activity. When Anabaptists worshiped, a number of people often contributed prayers, songs, Scriptures, and exhortations.26 This picture is similar to the New Testament, where the large majority of references to preaching occur in mission contexts, and where there is little evidence of its centrality in worship itself.

Discussion of preaching brings to light a further characteristic of New Testament worship. When the sermon is central, worship usually focuses on one person. But early worship was a shared fellowship in Christ. The often spontaneous intertwining of various elements shows that the Spirit elicited worship by prompting the participation of many. Although this "charismatic" style could lead to chaos, its purpose was that, through the contributions of various persons, everyone be edified (1 Cor 12:7; 14:12, 26, 31).

25Luther's Works, Vol. 53, pp. 63-64.

26 Klaassen, ed., Anabaptism in Outline, pp. 118-137 (esp. Selections 6.5 and 8.9).

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We may conclude, then, that teaching, and sometimes exhortation or preaching, are important elements of worship. This confirms our emphasis that proper doctrine is one essential characteristic of the true church (Chap. 10). Due to their importance, moreover, preaching or teaching might temporarily become the major emphasis of worship in certain cultural contexts.

Nevertheless, theology cannot identify preaching as the center of worship, nor as the central task of the church. If the church be primarily a "herald," the actuality and visibility of what it heraldsthe kingdom of Godwill be insufficiently expressed. To announce the kerygma effectively, the church must be seriously seeking to be what it proclaims: that fellowship which opens people for new kinds of communion and interaction with others and with God.

III

Sacraments

Since the church's commission consists largely in making God's work concretely visible and actual, perhaps it is better expressed by another element which has often formed the center of worship: sacraments. We have seen that one feature of early Christian worship, offering, involves the shaping and giving of material things. Now the sacramental system rests on

the principle that matter is good, that material things . . . are . . . capable of acting as the instrument or vehicle of the Holy Spirit. The principle is an immediate corollary of the Incarnation wherein the "Word became flesh," the visible instrument of the Triune God in the redemption and sanctification of man. Christ is in effect the sacrament par excellence.27

When worship is grounded in this principle, the aesthetic element is often heightened through architecture, vestments, gestures, and symbols. Worship focuses around particular ceremonies in which God is believed to be present in special ways. Christ is experienced less as exhorting, as he is through preaching, and more in meditative and nourishing experiences.

During the church's first millennium, many ceremonies were thought to function sacramentally. These included not only baptism and the Lord's Supper, but also the kiss of peace, the Lord's Prayer, and others. Medieval theology, however, became concerned with the objectivity of the sacramentswith the regularity and certainty with which one could count on them to convey grace. This expressed itself, first, in

27 Paul Palmer, ed., Sacraments and Worship (New York: Longmans, Green & Co, 1957), p. vii. This principle is called the "incarnational principle" above.

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attempts to determine the exact number of sacraments which, when rightly performed, bestowed grace "of themselves" (ex operere operato). Peter Lombard named seven, which were eventually affirmed by the Council of Lyon (1274): baptism, the Lord's Supper, confirmation, ordination, marriage, penance, and extreme unction (anointing the gravely ill, usually before death).

Medieval theology sought to emphasize objectivity, second, by locating God's presence in the sacraments' elements or in their words or in some relationship between the two. In particular, Jesus came to be thought of as present in the Lord's Supper through "transubstantiation." Although the accidents, or species, of the bread and wine (their color, taste, and nourishing properties) remained the same, the underlying "substance" of each was miraculously transformed into Christ's body and blood when the words of institution were pronounced.28

The Reformers regarded the Catholic sacraments as routine ceremonies which made no real appeal to faith, and which thus could not truly convey grace. In emphasizing that the preached word directly arouses faith, Calvin spoke of sacraments "as a sort of appendix, with the purpose of sealing the promise" conveyed through preaching. Sacraments sometimes seemed to be an afterthought, necessary only because

as our faith is slight and feeble unless it is propped up on all sides and sustained by every means, it trembles, waivers, totters, and at last gives way. Here our merciful Lord . . . since we are creatures who always creep on the ground, cleave to the flesh, and do not . . . even conceive of anything spiritual, he condescends to turn us unto himself even by the earthly elements.29

Calvin thus defined a sacrament as

an outward sign by which the Lord seals on our consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith; and we in turn attest our piety toward him in the presence of the Lord and of his angels and before men.30

28 The concept of transubstantiation was first proposed by Paschasius Radbertus around 832 and received classical elaboration in Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, III, QQ. 75-77. For an overview, see Alasdair Heron, Table and Tradition (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), pp. 92-102. For the historical texts, see Palmer, pp. 221-240, 250-259. For a modern Catholic critique, see Tad Guzie, Jesus and the Eucharist (New York: Paulist, 1974), pp. 60-74; and The Book of Sacramental Basics (New York: Paulist, 1981), pp. 38-51.

29Institutes, p. 1278; cf. p. 1011. For Luther's somewhat higher estimate of sacraments, see Althaus, pp. 345-352.

30 Ibid., p. 1277. A broader definition is found on pp. 1294-1297.

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Nevertheless, the Reformers insisted that since the sacraments are means of grace, Christ must somehow be objectively present in them. Their efficacy cannot depend solely on the subjective attitude of the recipient. For, as Martin Luther emphasized concerning the Lord's Supper

Even if I . . . practiced the remembrance and knowledge of Christ with such passion and seriousness that I sweated blood and became feverish, it would be of no avail. . . . For it would be pure work and commandment, and no word of God offered and given to me in the body and blood of Christ.31

In response to the Protestant challenge, the Council of Trent affirmed the medieval ways of emphasizing objectivity. Although Trent still embodies the official Catholic teaching, many recent Catholics have come to view sacraments from a different perspective.32

They argue that human beings are intrinsically symbol-making creatures. Humans can exist only by shaping the material world into thingsdwellings, clothes, edible food, etc.which sustain them. Furthermore, people can express their inner, spiritual nature (what we call the heart) only by transforming material things into symbols which convey it. A romantic feeling, for instance, can transform a variety of plants into a bouquet, or a mixture of metals into a ring. As expressions and extensions of this inner intentionality, these physical objects become something they were not before.

God also relates to the world in this sacramental way. This has happened supremely in Jesus, in whom God took on our flesh and blood to communicate himself. Jesus, therefore, is often called the "primordial sacrament."33 After his resurrection, however, Jesus willed to keep communicating himself through human and material channels. For this reason he established the church, which many Catholic theologians also call the primal or primordial sacrament.34 The individual

31 In Paul Althuas, The Theology of Martin Luther, pp. 392-393.

32 See Karl Rahner, "The Theology of the Symbol," Theological Investigations, Vol. 4 (New York: Seabury, 1974), pp. 221-252; Joseph Powers, Eucharistic Theology (New York: Herder & Herder, 1967), pp. 78-90; Bernard Cooke, Sacraments and Sacramentality (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-third, 1983).

33 Eduard Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of Encounter with God (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963), pp. 13-39; Cooke, pp. 56-67.

34 Rahner, Foundations of the Christian Faith, pp. 411-412; Schillebeeckx, pp. 40-82; "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church" in The Documents of Vatican II, p. 15. Karl Barth, in contrast, resists this Catholic intertwining of Christ and the church by calling the incarnation "the one and only sacrament," to which the church can only "attest" (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV, Part II, [Edinburgh: T & T

(footnote continued on next page)

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sacraments, then, are what occur when God continues to express God's saving, spiritual intention through material meansthat is, when the church "actualizes its essence fully as the primordial sacrament of grace."35

But that is not all. Five of the seven Catholic sacraments also celebrate crucial stages of human growth: baptism (birth), confirmation (adolescence or adulthood), marriage or ordination, and extreme unction (death). Meanwhile, the eucharist and penance mark the repeated rhythm of closeness to and distance from God. The sacraments, in other words, provide primary symbolizations through which the significance of true humanization can be made visible. Largely through them, the church can make visible the kingdom which God wills to bring to all humanity. In other words, the church itself can be an eschatological symbol or sacrament.

A

The Lord's Supper

1

Historical Understandings

Ever since the Middle Ages, theological discussions of the Lord's Supper has focused on two matters: the manner of Jesus' presence in the elements, and the way in which the communion is a sacrifice.

a

Patristic and Medieval

Many statements from the patristic era more or less identify the elements with Jesus' body and blood. Such identification, however, seems to occur only through the ceremonial words. It occurs most often through invoking the Spirit's power (through the "epiklesis *"), and at times through the consecration ("this is my body" and "this is my blood").36

During the Middle Ages, the epiklesis* was decreasingly used in the West (although it has always been emphasized in the East). Attention was increasingly focused on Christ's objective presence in the elements

(footnote continued from previous page)

Clark, 1958], p. 55).

35 Rahner, Foundations of the Christian Faith, p. 417.

36 E.g., Justin Martyr, First Apology, chap. 66 (2): "The food which has been blessed by the prayer of the Word, and from which our blood and flesh are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." For an overview, see Heron, pp. 59-79. For the texts, see Palmer, pp. 57-92, 195-220. According to Augustine, "The word comes to the element and it becomes a sacrament, itself a kind of visible word" (quoted in Heron, p. 71).

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at the words of consecration. Due to this actual presence, the eucharist was regarded as superior to all other sacraments, and as the central focus not only of the liturgy but of the church itself.

The notion of the Lord's Supper as a sacrifice began by emphasizing worship as the thankful offering of what one is and has to God. (Eucharistein, from which eucharist comes, means "to offer thanks.") Irenaeus, for instance, spoke of bread and wine as firstfruits of the material creation which the church offers up as the communicants offer themselves to God.37 Yet by the third century it was increasingly affirmed that Jesus' presence in the communion includes the sacrificial offering of himself. Thinkers like John Chrysostom (345?-407) stressed that this was no new offering, but a way in which Jesus' single historical sacrifice became effective in the present. It was not so much Jesus' propitiation for us as his inclusion of us in his self-offering to God.

The notion steadily grew, however, that each eucharist bears a distinct propitiatory value. Thomas Aquinas declared that when such offerings were made with proper devotion, they could obtain greater or lesser remission of sins.38 This encouraged the steadily growing frequency with which masses, especially private masses, were being said. Moreover, the notion of the Lord's Supper as sacrifice gave importance to the one who offered it: the priest. For centuries, through customs like saying mass in Latin and offering the bread alone to the laity, the role of priests in communion had increased. All these developments were separating the Lord's Supper ever further from the worship of the congregation.

b

The Reformation

The Reformers complained that these emphases on objectivity and sacrifice had turned the Lord's Supperand to a large extent worship and church lifeinto routine procedures controlled by the hierarchy. It had undercut the necessity of participation through faith. To counteract this, Ulrich Zwingli, at one pole of the reforming movement, argued that communion could only be a memorial of Jesus' death. Since Jesus' body is in heaven, he insisted, it cannot be in the elements. The heart of the Supper is not the words "this is my body," which focus on the elements; but in the command "do this in remembrance," which point to the entire service and our involvement in it.

At the Reformation's other pole, however, Martin Luther emphasized not so much by Jesus' exaltation as by another fact. "For our sakes he comes down to the very depths, into human flesh, into the

37Against Heresies, IV, Chap. 17 (5). For an overview of this topic, see Heron, pp. 74-79, 102-107; for the texts, see Palmer, pp. 267-319.

38ST III, Q. 79, aa. 5, 7.

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bread, into our mouth, our heart. . . . "39 And although Jesus' presence can only be appropriated by faith, Luther's faith was focused not so much backward, toward the historical cross, as on that presence of Jesus which also points forward, as promise, toward our final salvation. Accordingly, while Luther rejected the subtle theory of transubstantiation, he held, much like Catholicism in general, that "the true body and blood of the Lord Christ" are "in and under the bread and wine" when the Word "constitutes it a sacrament which is rightly called Christ's body and blood."40 However, since the Lord's Supper is a gift from God, Luther strenuously denied that it could also be a sacrifice offered to God.

John Calvin agreed with Luther that Christ is objectively present in communion. Yet with Zwingli, he affirmed that Jesus' risen body was in heaven. How could both be true? Calvin answered that Jesus' presence did not depend on some spatial contact or enclosing. Instead, it was in and through the energy of the Spirit that Christ himself became present. Calvin's emphasis recalls the central role of the ancient epiklesis *. It also suggests that Christ's presence may not be a matter of substances, but one of actions.

c

Contemporary Catholicism

The contemporary Catholic understanding of symbolic actions points in somewhat the same directions. We remember that when physical objects (say, a variety of plants) become vehicles of a human intention (say, a romantic one), they become something very different (a bouquet), even though their physical substance does not change. Along these lines, one could conceive how bread and wine, when they become vehicles of Jesus' intentionality, become something very differenthis actual presence through the Spiritalthough they would continue to be bread and wine.

Many recent Catholic sacramentalists consider the eucharist to result from just such an intentionality, which operates throughout the entire service. Eucharistic worship begins with prayer, through which Christ, by the agency of the Spirit, takes the prayers of the congregation up into his own self-offering to and intercession before his Father. In this sense, as the worshipers' self-offering through Jesus' self-offering, the eucharist is a sacrifice.41

The prayers are followed by a sermon, which is now receiving more emphasis in Catholicism than it has for centuries. Through the

39 "That These Words, 'This Is My Body,' etc., Still Stand Firm," Luther's Works, Vol. 37 (Philadelphia, Muhlenberg, 1961), p. 72.

40 Theodore Tappert, trans. and ed., The Book of Concord (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1959), pp. 447-448.

41 Powers, pp. 96-98, 175.

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living Word, the preacher's word ''comes to contain the reality it expresses, the good news of God's salvation in Christ."42 Finally, Jesus is present in the partaking of the elements. However, he is not present because the words of consecration suddenly place him there. On the contrary, only his presence throughout the service enables the elements to communicate him.

How close is this understanding to traditional Catholic teaching? Let us first consider transubstantiation. Because this approach stresses the change in what the elements signify, rather than a change in their physical substance, it is often called "transignification." Its proponents argue that this change is so fundamental that it also deserves to be called "a real conversion of the substantial reality" of the elements "into the substantial reality of Jesus."43 The church's official teaching, however, expresses some doubt, insisting that the change in signification must rest on an "ontological" change in the elements.44

Second, the phrase ex operere operato has meant that sacraments convey grace of themselves. Now it means more broadly "that the action in which the church, in union with Christ in the Spirit, seeks the grace of redemption from the Father, is one in reality with Christ's continuous intercession, and therefore is the very presence of Christ among men." It is acknowledged, however, that this occurs not only in ceremonial worship, but also in preaching, works of love, and prayer.45 Moreover, the new symbolic understanding of sacramentality can cover all of life. How consistent is this with traditional efforts to guarantee God's presence in seven, and only seven, ceremonies?

Third, the new approach emphasizes that sacraments are actions of the entire congregation. According to Catholicism's official documents, however, the priesthood of the laity and that of the priests still "differ from one another in essence and not only in degree."46

Finally, despite these possible tensions, recent eucharistic theology agrees with Catholic tradition in regarding "the Eucharistic sacrifice . . . [as] the fount and apex of the whole Christian life." Accordingly, "every liturgical celebration . . . is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the church can match its claim to efficacy."47

42 Ibid., p. 99.

43 Ibid., p. 173 (emphasis ours).

44 Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1965), sec. 46; (cf. secs. 11, 14).

45 Powers, p. 89.

46The Documents of Vatican II, p. 27.

47The Documents of Vatican II, pp. 28, 141; cf. Powers, pp. 89, 92.

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d

Summary

Historically, theology has assumed that the Lord's Supper is a particular liturgical rite conveying grace to individuals. To detect how this grace is conveyed, it has usually scrutinized that rite's particular features: the (objective) elements, the worshiper's (subjective) disposition, the words of the consecration, and the relationships among them. But in narrowing its focus, theology has often lost sight of broader considerations essential to answering its questions. Let us restore this horizon.

2

The Eschatological Banquet

In the earliest church, bread and wine were shared in the context of a celebrative love-feast.48 But why was a meal part of Christian worship? Largely because a major symbol of God's kingdom was the messianic banquet. It was prophesied that when God should fully triumph,

the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.

(Isa. 25:6-8)

Jesus also anticipated this prophecy's fulfillment, though in a "reversed" way. Many Gentiles would "come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Furthermore, many Israelites "will be thrown into outer darkness" (Matt. 8:11-12; cf. Luke 14:15-24). Yet Jesus did more than point forward. By joining in table fellowship with sinners and the socially marginalized, Jesus was proclaiming that the messianic banquet was "already" being celebrated. This was one chief sign that God's kingdom was "at hand''especially among such people.

Shortly before his death, Jesus fused the symbolism of the messianic banquet with the Passover imagery of liberation from bondage at the cost of sacrifice and death. By telling his disciples that he could not feast with them until God's kingdom would come (Mark 14:25 and parallels), Jesus emphasized that only his death could bring it decisively to pass. This feasting, however, began already in his postresurrection meals with his disciples.49

48 Acts 2:42, 46; cf. 20:7, 11. See C. F. D. Moule, Worship in the New Testament, pp. 18-35.

49 Acts 10:40-41; Luke 24:30-31, 36-43; John 21:9-14. See Oscar Cullmann and F. J. Leenhardt, Essays on the Lord's Supper (Richmond: Knox, 1958), pp. 8-16; cf. Vernard Eller, In Place of Sacraments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), pp. 103-105.

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The earliest "breakings of bread" were essentially continuations of these resurrection feastscelebrations of the messianic banquet with heightened joy. They were not distinct liturgical rites, but were embedded in communal meals shared in various homes. These meals, moreover, were themselves one form of that sharing of goods which pervaded the earliest communities (Acts 2:42-47; cf. 4:32-36; 6:1). From its beginnings, then, the Lord's Supper had social and ecclesiological significance. It was a visible expression of that total sharing central to the kingdom.

However, the hilarity of these feasts could be overdone. In Corinth the wealthier church members became gluttonous and drunk while the poorer ones went hungry. Paul insisted that both this carousing and this fracturing of the body's unity disqualified such feasts from being "the Lord's Supper" (1 Cor. 11:20-22). As a counterweight, he reminded them of Jesus' words at his last meal. Paul emphasized that communion always commemorates Jesus' death. He admonished individuals to examine themselves before partaking (1 Cor. 11:23-33).

However, this emphasis, which has dominated communion ceremonies through the ages, was not intended to deny their celebrative character. As he was doing throughout the Corinthian letters, and as the larger church was doing at that time, Paul was seeking to show how the present joy of God's kingdom is interlinked with the sufferings of the "not yet." He was doing so by pointing to Jesus' cross (Vol. I, pp. 122-123. Paul did not seek to abolish the love-feast and replace it with a brief religious ceremony. Instead, he sought to intertwine joy with sobriety, and corporate spontaneity with dignified ceremony.

Paul's way of linking the resurrection's gladness with the crucifixion's pain is reflected in his understanding of Jesus' presence in the Supper. Paul hands on Jesus' words, which most churches have used as words of institution, or consecration, ever since.

The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This (touto) is my body which is for you.50 Do this (touto) in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This (touto) cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this (touto) as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

(1 Cor. 11:23-25)

Almost all theologians have assumed that the first and third uses of

50 Some textual variants read, "broken for you." Mark 14:22 has simply, "Take; this is my body." Matt. 26:26 has "Take, eat; this is my body." Luke 22:19, according to most manuscripts, reads, "This is my body which is given for you."

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"this (touto)" refer to the bread and the wine. Accordingly, in seeking to detect Jesus' presence, they have often scrutinized these elements. In the text, however, this (touto) appears four times. Its second and fourth occurrences clearly refer not to objects, but to the process of sharing itself.

If we turn our gaze from the elements to the original meal, we can see that the first this might well do the same. Jesus has just broken the loaf. Before distributing its fragments, he looks around upon his disciples and says, "This is my body." What is the this? Possibly the bread. But possibly also the disciples themselves. Jesus, as he looks around, could be saying, "You, my disciples, are my body." But most likely, it is the act of breaking and sharing itself. It is in the midst of these actions that Jesus says, "This is my body." This breaking and sharing are the (second) this, which is to be done in remembrance of him.51

Even should one not wholly accept this exegesis, further considerations show that it is consistent with the text's meaning. Not much earlier, Paul had called the cup not a thing, but a "participation (koinonia *) in the blood of Christ." He also called "the bread which we break . . . a participation (koinonia*)" in his body (1 Cor. 10:16).

Koinonia* is the chief New Testament word for "fellowship." Here the bread appears to be a sharing, a participation, through which "we who are many are one body" (1 Cor. 10:17). It is probably not coincidental, then, that the earliest references to the Supper call it "the breaking of the bread" (Acts 2:42, 46). Nor is it surprising that in some postresurrection meals Jesus' breaking and distributing are prominent (Luke 24:35; John 21:13). In all these instances, emphasis falls not on the elements, but on the acts of giving and sharing.

This understanding of Jesus' body chiefly as his sharing or self-giving corresponds with what we learned about the biblical word for body (soma*). We normally think of bodies as objects which separate individuals. Yet the soma* brings people together. It forms the channel through which people relate with others and with God (Chap. 5). Much as flesh (Chap. 5) and world (Chap. 11) are often not things but ways of acting and relating, so is body.

How, then, is Jesus present in the Supper? As he was in the first Supper: by sharing himself through the medium of the bread and wine which his people share with each other. Since Jesus' self-giving is his total offering of himself for us and to his Father, one could call it a sacrifice. On one hand, as Zwingli emphasized, it vividly recalls his painful sacrifice on Golgotha. On the other hand, Jesus' present self-

51 See Eller, pp. 87-90, 106-109, and Graydon Snyder, "The Text and Syntax of Ignatius Pros Ephesious 20:2c," Vigilae Christianae, Vol. 22 (1968), p. 11.

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offering energizes us, enabling us to open ourselves to God.

The Supper can be called our offering, however, only in the secondary sense that Jesus' offering enables us to offer ourselves in thanksgiving and praise. Neither the church nor its leaders can sacrifice Jesus in a propitiatory way. Neither does Jesus' self-offering repeat or add to Golgotha. Instead, it is a concrete actualization of that intercession through which Golgotha's benefits become alive for us (Heb. 4:14-16; 7:25; 9:24).

Since the actions of giving himself through the elements are Christ's body and blood, there is no need for the elements' physical constitution to change. The theory of transignification offers a helpful explanation as to how something, by being taken up into a radically new meaning-context, can function so differently that it may legitimately be called something else. Further, since the Spirit is the dynamic agent in those contexts which describe the Supper (Acts 2:4, 17-18, 33, 38; 1 Cor 12:3-13), Jesus need not be thought of as locally present. Instead, as Calvin said, Jesus is present through the energy of his Spirit, as he is in worship.

Is this presence "objective"? We can answer, with Catholic tradition, that where the Supper is rightly administered, it is. Right administration, however, cannot consist merely in supervision by proper officials and repetition of proper words. For the Lord's Supper is the sharing among a diverse body of people of the life flowing from Jesus' self-giving. And since Jesus' presence is this sharing or relationship, and not a substance or thing, he cannot be anywhere in this sacramental way unless he is being willingly received.

This means that when Jesus is present, he will not be chiefly in the elements or the individual's subjective faith, but throughout the community. He will be present not simply when the elements are consumed, but throughout the entire service. This does not mean that Jesus would be wholly absent if a faithful individual took communion in another context. It simply means that the Supper is the fellowship banquet of those who rejoice in the kingdom's presence as they hasten, through mission, toward the consummation. In any other context, these vital dimensions of the Supper, and therefore of what Christ's presence actually is, would be mostly missing.

In his Supper, Jesus, through his Spirit, not only makes present the benefits of his death, but is present in the "already" of his resurrection. The Supper is a real, genuine tastealthough not the fulnessof the messianic banquet. God's presence through earthly food is a sign that the kingdom transforms, and does not abolish, matter. God's presence through this medium shows that he wills to dwell deep within us, and yet to remain distinct at the same time.52 And as a concrete sharing of

52 See Geoffrey Wainwright, Eucharist and Eschatology, pp. 58-59.

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material goods among diverse people, the Lord's Supper flows naturally into sharing such things in daily life as both Anabaptism and liberation theologians have stressed.53 In this way, the Supper is an eschatological sacrament of the fellowship which God desires for all.

B

Baptism

1

Historical Understandings

a

Patristic

Somewhat as they seemed to identify the eucharistic elements with Jesus' body and blood, the early Fathers could speak as if baptism itself conveyed certain gifts. Most commonly, these were remission of sins, deliverance from death, regeneration, and, most importantly, bestowal of the Holy Spirit.54 However, there is no clear evidence that baptism was routinely applied to infants before the fourth century.55 Up until then, given Christianity's threatened, minority status, it was bestowed upon sincere converts after a lengthy period of instruction (often two years).

The efficacy of baptism, and indeed of all sacraments, became hotly disputed during the Donatist controversy. In 311, one Caecilian, who had allegedly denied the faith during persecution, was consecrated Bishop of Carthage. The Donatists objected, arguing that the holiness of the church and the validity of its sacraments were bound up with the character of its leaders. If people like Caecilian became leaders, the church would lose its holiness, and its sacraments their power. The Donatists formed their own church, claiming that their baptisms alone were valid.

Augustine responded that the church's holiness "was not the holiness of its individual members or clergy, but the holiness of the grace dispensed in its sacraments." He insisted, in effect, "that the efficacy of the sacraments, and especially of baptism, was assured 'ex operere operato,' by the sheer performance of the act."56 For this reason,

53Anabaptism in Outline, pp. 190-210 (esp. Selections 1, 2, 3, and 15); Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, pp. 262-265; Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, pp. 74-75.

54 Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, pp. 163-166.

55 Joachim Jeremias assembled evidence for the frequent practice of infant baptism from New Testament times on in Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960). His interpretation has been sharply challenged by Kurt Aland in Did the Early Church Baptize Infants? (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963). See also Jeremias, The Origins of Infant Baptism: A Further Study in Reply to Kurt Aland (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1963).

56 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (Chicago: University, 1971), pp. 311, 312.

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Augustine conceded that the baptisms of schismatics who left the church, and even those baptisms which they later administered, were valid. Nevertheless, he distinguished validity from efficacy, and denied that such baptisms could possess the latter. Thus schismatics who returned did not need to be baptized. But they did need the laying on of hands, through which the efficacy of their baptism could be activated.

By Augustine's time, the holiness and unity of the church were thought to derive from the efficacy of its sacraments, and not the other way around. Baptism was increasingly applied to infants and regarded as the automatic means by which they were regenerated and joined the church. It also became customary to regard a second sacrament, the laying on of hands, or confirmation, as the means by which baptismal grace was activated. Finally, Augustine undergirded infant baptism with another, relatively new argument. Infants are born in an Original Sin which condemns them to hell, and which only baptism can wash away.57

b

The Reformation

Although infant baptism had been universally practiced for over a millennium, the Anabaptists protested that those gifts which baptism bestowed could only be appropriated through conscious choice. Moreover, baptism signified entrance into the church. Since the church was a society for mutual aid, admonition, and mission in a hostile world, it, too, could be entered only with deliberate decision.58 Accordingly, Anabaptists often distinguished three kinds of baptism. First was the baptism of the Spirit, "an inward enlightenment of our hearts, caused by the Holy Spirit through the living Word of God." Second was water baptism, "an outward and public testimony" of the former, and a commitment to the church and to a Christian life through God's strength. The third was the baptism of blood, a "daily mortification of the flesh" intensified by persecution and often ending in martyrdom.59

57 "On the Merits and Remission of Sin, and on the Baptism of Infants," in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), pp. 15-78.

58 Fanklin Littell argues that the redefinition of the church, which included a strong stress on mission, was Anabaptism's chief emphasis, and that believer's baptism was an implication of this (The Origins of Sectarian Protestantism [New York: Macmillan, 1974]).

59 Balthasar Hubmaier, "A Christian Instruction" in Anabaptism in Outline, pp. 167-168. The Anabaptists recovered the notion of baptism as a passing through the "waters" of tribulation and death (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50; 1 Cor. 10:1-2; 1 Peter 3:20-21). For a general discussion, see Rollin Armour, Anabaptist Baptism (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1960).

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Though Anabaptists called water baptism an outward "sign" or "pledge" to deny that its traditional benefits could be bestowed automatically, this ceremony carried momentous significance. Infant baptism had become the means by which virtually ever member of civil society became a church member. But believer's baptism singled people out and often marked them for death. It participated in a broader baptismal movement from inner enlightenment through church fellowship into mission, suffering, and sanctification.

For John Calvin, too, water baptism pointed beyond itself to inner conversion. Yet, for him, this sign could precede the event. Therefore, infants could be "baptized into future repentance and faith."60 Baptism, like the sacraments in general, was a seal of God's promise. Infant baptism was an especially appropriate sign that the promise of faith and new life depend entirely on God's power, not on human response. Calvin argued that baptism performed the essential functions that circumcision had. It made infants heirs of the promise and incorporated them into the convenant community. Through baptism, infants are "engrafted into the body of the church [and] are somewhat more commended to the other members."61

In line with medieval tradition, Martin Luther stressed more strongly the objective efficacy of baptism. "When the Word accompanies the water, Baptism is valid, even though faith be lacking. For my faith does not constitute baptism but receives it."62 For this reason, infants can be baptized.

Yet baptism, like all sacraments, must be appropriated through faith. How, then, should adults who feel stirrings of faith for the first time regard their infant baptism? According to Luther, they need not suppose that faith must somehow be added to, or become a constituent part of, baptism to make it valid. Instead, they should simply believe in the objective reality of what happened in their infancy. Baptism should summon them to faith. Amid the deep consciousness of sin and the demonic attacks which assailed him throughout life, Luther's own baptism loomed up as a comforting "objective" sign of his justification. While he never could rely on the strength of his own faith to secure salvation, he felt he could rely on this sign of God's promise.

Accordingly, Luther ridiculed the Anabaptists who, as he saw it, "do not want to acquire holieness through and from baptism, but by their piety want to make baptism holy and good."63

60Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 1343.

61 Ibid., p. 1332.

62Book of Concord, p. 443.

63 "Commentary on Psalm 117," Luther's Works, Vol. 14 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1958), p. 39.

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2

Commitment to the Kingdom Community

Historically, as with the Lord's Supper, theology has treated baptism as a particular liturgical rite, and has inadequately grasped its eschatological significance for the church's life. Baptism breaks suddenly into the biblical record with John's baptism "of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3). It calls for openness to the coming kingdom and refusal to rely on traditional religious identity for salvation (Matt. 3:9; Luke 3:8). True repentance will issue in acts like sharing food and clothing and renouncing robbery and violence (Luke 3:10-14). Yet John contrasts his baptism, performed with water, with Jesus', who will baptize "with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:15).

This latter baptism first occurred on Pentecost (Acts 1:4; 2:1-4). It issued in the first kerygmatic proclamation, which itself led to water baptism and the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:37-41). Since the early preaching accused its hearers of Jesus' murder,64 baptism "in the name of Jesus" signified not only the salvation of individuals but their sharp dissociation from the social mainstream and the formation of a radically different community.

Throughout Acts, the Spirit and water baptism are closely associated. Their exact relationship varies, however. Bestowal of the Spirit can precede baptism (10:45-48; 2:1-4) or follow it (8:12-17; 19:1-6). Other times, the two apparently occur together.65 According to Acts, then, water baptism is the usual means through which forgiveness, the Spirit, and incorporation into the community are bestowed.

Yet emphasis falls on the Spirit who does these. Nothing ties it automatically to this ceremony. Many other New Testament texts ascribe baptism to the Spirit's activity.66 Together with Acts, they show

64 Acts 2:22; 4:10; 5:30; 7:52.

65 2:38-41; 9:17-18. Baptism is occasionally mentioned without specific reference to the Spirit (8:36-39; 16:14-15, 33; 18:8). But given the pervasive agency of the Spirit throughout Acts, there is no reason to suppose that these brief accounts mean to deny its presence.

66 1 Cor. 12:13; Titus 3:5; John 3:3-5; cf. 1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 4:4-5; Heb. 6:1-6. "Sealing" by the Spirit almost certainly refers to baptism (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30; cf. Rev. 7:1-3). See G. R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 171-177. James Dunn emphasizes the Spirit's priority by arguing that water baptism and Spirit baptism are clearly distinguished throughout the New Testament, although the former is normally the sign of the latter (Baptism in the Holy Spirit [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970). Dunn's work is valuable, even though his sharp distinction is overdone.

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that, as in the Lord's Supper and general worship, the Spirit is baptism's specific, dynamic agent. This agency, of course, proceeds from, points to, and unites us with Christ, as in other worship activities.67

Although the Spirit sometimes works in subtle, subconscious ways (Chap. 8), its baptismal activity is not of this kind. For many important texts connect baptism's effects explicitly with faith. Paul tells the Galatians that "you are all sons of God through faith; for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:26-27). Through baptism we are buried with Jesus and "also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him. . . . " (Col. 2:12). Baptism "saves . . . as the pledge to God of a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."68

Moreover, many effects ascribed to baptism are elsewhere ascribed to faith. Baptism saves, and so does faith (Eph. 2:8). We are justified through baptism (Titus 3:5-7; 1 Cor. 6:11) as well as through faith. The Spirit is bestowed through baptism, and also through faith (Gal. 3:2, 14). Union with Christ comes through baptism (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 6:3-7) and through faith (John 1:12; Eph. 3:17). This list could easily be extended. It shows the effects of faith and of baptism to be so similar that two distinct events cannot be in view. And since faith receives the chief emphasis throughout Scripture, baptism cannot be a source which bestows these gifts on its own. Instead, baptism must be the normal, tangible means through which faith comes to expression and actualization.

When the kind of community into which it incorporates people is considered, it becomes even clearer that baptism involves conscious decision. As with John the Baptist, baptism separates people from the world's ways and makes us heirs of God's kingdom.69 It brings us into a body where people of all kinds work together, free from divisions of race, economic status, or sex (Gal. 3:28; 1 Cor. 12:13). Those who are thus united yield their members to righteousness and oppose sin's

67 Jesus baptizes through the Spirit (Matt. 3:11; Acts 2:33), through whom he washes us (Titus 3:6; cf. Eph. 5:26). We are baptized in Jesus' "name" (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 22:16; 1 Cor. 6:11; cf. Phil. 2:10-11). This probably means that the baptizand calls on Jesus in confession and praise (Beasley-Murray, pp. 100-104). We are baptized "into" Christ, whom we "put on" (Gal. 3:27). We are buried (Rom. 6:3-5) and raised (Col. 2:12) with him.

68 1 Peter 3:21. "Pledge (eperotema *) to God of a good conscience" could mean either "pledge proceeding from a good conscience" or "pledge to maintain a good conscience." On translation issues, see Beasley-Murray, pp. 258-262. On the explicit connection of baptism and faith, see also Eph. 1:13; 5:26; Heb. 10:22.

69 1 Cor. 6:9-11; John 3:3-5; cf. Acts 2:40; Eph. 4:28-32; Titus 3:3-7.

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dominion (Rom. 6). Baptism is pointless if its recipients turn back from the gift and promise of the New Age (1 Cor. 10:1-12; Heb. 6:1-6). For its washing points toward the church's final perfection (Eph. 5:27).

In brief, as baptism is inseparably intertwined with faith, so is it with ethics. Since faith, like ethics, is not simply a momentary or inner experience, but primarily the walk of faithfulness (Chap. 7), we can link these two emphases by saying that baptism appropriately marks a high point on that journey. Those who understand none of the choices involved cannot significantly undertake that journey, with its hazards. Considered from the individual side, then, baptism must be an expression of conscious belief and ethical determination.

Believer's baptism is also clearly appropriate when considered as an act and sign of the church. It is an eschatological actualization of burial and resurrection, of turning from "the world" to God's kingdom, and from "the flesh" to Christ's living Body. Baptism therefore marks the distinctiveness of the church from the world. Baptism, in other words, marks the church as the place where visible holiness is pursued, and realized to some degree. As such, baptism cannot be, as it was for Augustine, the sign of an ecclesiastical membership or unity in which holiness is markedly secondary, and with which it sometimes clashes. Sincere striving toward holiness, or sanctification, is constitutive for the church and for its members (Chap. 10). Obviously, then, baptism cannot function, as it has through much of history, as the de facto enrollment of infants in civil or ethnic groups.

With our emphasis on faith, ethics, and holiness, have we deprived baptism of objective reality, as Martin Luther feared? Not if, as in the Lord's Supper, we understand God's "objective" presence to be one of self-giving, and the participants to include the entire congregation. In proper baptism, the candidates do not simply witness to an inner experience, but pledge themselves to God and to the congregation. This pledging, of course, has become possible only through the Spirit's work in their lives, and is thus a response to God's prior pledge. Therefore, in this definitive, public act of commitment, they can rightly expect Jesus to bestow himself through the Spirit in a distinct way (even though this need not be intensely experienced at that precise moment).

Moreover, as the candidates offer themselves to God and the congregation, the members offer themselves to the candidates and to God in return. In response to the candidates' vow to walk with them in the way of the kingdom, the congregation makes a reciprocal vow. Thus the entire body renews its baptismal vows. Therefore, when baptism is rightly administeredwith such an intention and in such a churchGod will be sacramentally present among the members and throughout the entire service (and not simply in the water, the rite, or the

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candidate's faith). God will be affirming their vows, and thus promising continuing future presence (as Calvin stressed, though with a different ceremony in mind.)

During the first few centuries, baptism was celebrated, after a lengthy instruction period, as just such a momentous communal occasion. This, we suspect, is why the Fathers could speak as if baptism of itself regularly conveyed certain gifts.

IV

Conclusions

Due to the historic importance and complexity of sacramental issues, we have allotted them more space than our approach alone would require. Yet our understanding of worship has been enriched. The importance accorded specific ceremonies is consistent with the ecclesiological principle that God's universal intentions are expressed most effectively through particular, concrete channels. The emphasis on praising God through physical means is consistent with the church's chief missionary task: making God's kingdom visible in earthly, material ways (Chaps. 11-12).

We began our ecclesiology with mission partly because worship, when it becomes central in the church, often detracts from this worldly involvement. Yet by so doing we, like many believer's churches, risk coupling vital, highly engaged missionary existence with empty, drab worship. Severed from aesthetic appreciation and celebration of creation, work for its transformation can become legalistic and cold.

To appropriate ''the sacramental principle" in our own way, however, we must summarize several theological conclusions. Regarding the sacraments' objectivity, we have denied that God's presence depends on the individual recipient's subjectivity alone. Rather, whenever sacraments are rightly celebrated in a genuine church, worshipers can expect God to be uniquely present, even though they may not always experience this intensely. God's presence, moreover, will be chiefly among the members, rather than in the sacramental words or elements.

Given our understanding of presence, such celebrations can emphasize the material even more fully than has been traditional. The Lord's Supper, for instance, was originally a full mealnot a wafer and a sip. We recommend restoring those visible, material expressions of fellowship appropriate to a meal. This, among other things, would connect it more directly with the daily sharing of goods. We recommend, too, that the community's commitment to walk together toward God's future be more visibly expressed in baptism.

Catholicism's seven sacraments celebrate crucial stages of growth.

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Surely the church must make visible the drama of true humanization. Yet Catholic practice raises the old question, Exactly how many ceremonies regularly bestow grace? The Reformers reduced the number to those two (the Lord's Supper and baptism) which could be traced to Jesus' specific command. (Confirmation, however, came to be understood as the completion of the latter.)

There is danger in aligning life's major turning points too closely with regular bestowals of grace. By guaranteeing a special supernatural blessing, the church can entice many people into its ceremonies on these occasions. Yet in so doing, the church tends to enforce traditional cultural patterns rather than creatively expressing what these events are coming to mean in its living out of God's kingdom. Instead of transforming a given culture's understandings of these episodes, such routinization often sacralizes it. Moreover, sacraments attest primarily to God's promisesboth of continuing presence and of final consummationand not directly to human life-stages. The rootage of salvation in God's historical acts, and not directly in life's rhythms, will be obscured if ceremonies which flow from historical promises are not distinguished from those of chiefly human significance.70

The Last Supper accounts, with their Jewish characteristics and their echoes of Aramaic, provide strong evidence for Jesus' institution of the Supper.71 Already during his ministry, Jesus' disciples baptized (John 3:22; 4:1-2). Baptism appears so early as the obvious church initiation ceremony that if one acknowledges the risen Jesus' communication with his followers in any form, this practice can quite plausibly be traced to him.72 None of Catholicism's other sacraments, however, are so directly connected with Jesus' historic initiation of salvation.

Yet one other ceremony might be traced as directly to Jesus' command: washing each other's feet.73 Since this command was given during the Last Supper, however, it is best understood as a feature of this meal. The historic omission of this ceremony has helped obscure the Supper's significance as an occasion of sharing. As a practice which makes visible the mutual servanthood central to the church, we recom-

70 Cf. Calvin: "Erecting and establishing new sacraments is not a matter of human choice. . . . Indeed, a sacrament ought, by God's sure promise, to encourage and comfort believers' consciences, which could never receive this certainty from man. . . . Therefore, it is he alone who, with lawful authority, testifies concerning himself" (Institutes, pp. 1446, 1450).

71The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: S.C.M., 1966).

72 Matt. 28:18-20; cf. Luke 24:27, 44-49; Acts 1:2-3.

73 John 13:14-15. Ordination will be discussed in Chap. 14.

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mend its frequent incorporation into the Supper.

Theology cannot place other ceremonies on the level of baptism and the Supper. However, it can encourage the church to give symbolic expression and celebration to the significance and the milestones of authentic humanization. For instance, many arguments adduced for infant baptism (e.g., the importance of commending children to the congregation's care) express genuine family and community needs. While such considerations are not really relevant to baptism, they are to other aspects of human and congregational life. It is highly appropriate, then, that churches develop symbols and ceremonies expressing the significance of birth and early childhood (as many believer's churches actually do with infant dedications). In fact, if the sacramental principle can be disengaged from exactly those five additional, ex operere operato rites of medieval tradition, and applied creatively to all of life, worship through material symbols could be greatly enriched. (In fact, this enrichment, with its corresponding critique of tradition, might be exactly where recent Catholic sacramental theology, when consistently followed, is pointing).

In general, our perspective on sacraments is similar to that on tradition (Vol. I, Chap. 13). While we strongly encourage a deeper appreciation of both, we resist ascribing to either an authority or efficacy beyond that warranted by biblical revelation.

Finally, our discussion of sacramentality, like that of preaching and teaching, underlines the importance of recurrent features in worship. Although worship expresses that joy which continually draws us toward the future's newness, it also leaves its imprint on the life situations it traverses. Worship can celebrate new meaning in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. It can not only raise our aspirations toward heaven but symbolize their actualizations on earth. As the Spirit transforms the voices, gestures, hands, feet, goods, and labor of the churchin both their usual and unusual activitiesinto instruments of praise, it becomes an ever more visible sacrament of the eschatological blessedness which God desires for everyone.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Armour, Rollin. Anabaptist Baptism. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1960.

Balasuriya, Tissa. The Eucharist and Human Liberation. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979.

Beasley-Murray, George. Baptism in the New Testament. London: Macmillan, 1962.

Bridge, Donald and David Phypers. The Water that Divides: The Baptism Debate. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1977.

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Bromiley, Geoffrey. Children of Promise: The Case for Baptizing Infants. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.

__________. Ministry to Word and Sacrament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.

Books, Bernard. Sacraments and Sacramentality. Meptic, Conn.: Twenty-third, 1983.

Dufy, Regis. Real Presence: Worship, Sacraments and Commitment. San Francisco: Harper, 1982.

Dunn, James. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1970.

Eller, Vernard. In Place of Sacraments. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

Empie, Paul and T. Austin Murphy, eds. Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue: The Eucharist as Sacrifice. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1967.

Guzie, Tad. The Book of Sacramental Basics. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1981.

__________. Jesus and the Eucharist. Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1974.

Heron, Alasdair. Table and Tradition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983.

Jenson, Robert. Visible Words. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978.

Martin, Ralph. Worship in the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974.

Moltmann, Jürgen. Theology of Play. New York: Harper, 1972.

Powers, Joseph. Eucharistic Theology. New York: Herder & Herder, 1967.

Segundo, Juan. Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1953.

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Chapter Fourteen

The Structure of the Church

We have treated the church primarily as a movement. Reaching back to recall God's promises to Israel, it propels the kerygma of God's faithful fulfillment forward toward the consummation. Energized by the Spirit who raised Jesus, the church flows outward throughout the globe. As it goes, it touches and sometimes mingles with other currents impelled by God's kingdom work. Every sphere of life is touched by the kingdom which becomes visible through its fellowship. Its joys and struggles are vividly expressed, and once again energized, through its worship.

Yet to impact and be part of the concrete, material world, the church must also have particular, physical features. For a movement to affect specific persons, situations and systems, there must be some-thing which moves. In other words, the church's activities, no matter how eagerly undertaken, will be diffuse and ineffective unless they are organized and enabled to some degree through structures.

Throughout history, church activities have often been directed chiefly toward promoting and maintaining church structures. Our ecclesiology, however, has begun by examining those activities most essential to the church. Our last four chapters have pointed toward the reverse conclusion: that structures exist to promote and facilitate activities.

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Having emphasized this, it is time to explore the legitimate, even indispensable, role of structures. We will begin by examining four different models of church structure. Then will develop our own. Since traditional ecclesiology has emphasized structural issues, this chapter will round off many matters raised in Chapter 9.

I

Models of Church Structure

A

Episcopal

Modern Western people usually suppose that social institutions exist solely to meet their members' felt needs. If these needs are not met, or if they change, members have the total right to change or abolish such institutions (Chap. 9). We have argued, however, that as the resurrected Lord's living body, the church's existence precedes the incorporation of particular members. As the body directed by its Head and indwelt by his Spirit, the church's character and activities cannot be completely determined by those who compose it. The efficacy of its sacraments, for instance, depends on a divine self-giving which can never be reduced to the worshipers' subjectivity (Chap. 13).

To what extent is the church's objectivity bound up with and expressed through a given structure? These two factors are most closely aligned in "episcopal" polities: those which grant bishops (in Greek, episkopoi) the highest authority. While many churches (e.g., Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran) have bishops, we will focus on the one where the links between objectivity and structure have been most pronounced.

For traditional Catholicism, we remember, the true church is identified by four "marks": unity, holiness, universality, and apostolicity. The church is also governed through three authoritative offices, or structures: doctrinal, sacramental, and jurisdictional (pp. 173-175). The existence and expression of the four marks is clearly dependent on these three structures. Unity, the most important mark, is "to be manifested visibly in the unanimous profession of one faith, the performance of one act of worship, the acceptance of one system of government."1 For both unity and universality to become actual and visible, the world-wide performance of these three functions must be ordered and regulated by their respective structures. Holiness is guaranteed through theological purity (a doctrinal function), regulation of behavior (jurisdictional), and the bestowal of grace (sacramental). And apostolicity is made actual and visible through the historical succession of the sacrament of ordination.

Catholicism's all-important structure has traditionally been judicial

1The Teaching of the Catholic Church, p. 703.

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and hierarchical. Jesus has been regarded largely as the legal founder who passed his authority on horizontally, through history, in an apostolic succession. His authority also passes down vertically, through successively lower official levels.

Historically, authority has been transmitted through the consecutive ordination of bishops, regarded as the apostles' successors. Hierarchically, the bishops (who are collectively called the episcopate) have the main responsibility for the church's unity, holiness, and universality. Each is the leader of a major geographical unit called a diocese. Matters of import, however, are usually decided not by individual bishops alone, but by bishops' councils. Technically speaking, these carry the church's supreme authority.

This topmost hierarchical level, however, has expanded upward, as it were. Over the centuries, certain bishops have been elevated to the status of cardinals, who sometimes meet in a "college." Though cardinals are on equal footing with bishops in theory, they often exercise greater actual power. Cardinals have been elevated by the one bishop regarded as supreme: the bishop of Rome, or the pope.

Although the pope may call councils to decide major issues, he can also define doctrinal and jurisdictional matters through papal bulls, and can speak infallibly (ex cathedra) when he explicitly intends. While the supremacy of this one bishop has been questioned, it has often been buttressed by the argument that the church's unity cannot become adequately visible through the plural membership of a council, but only through a single individual.

Below the bishops come the priests. Collectively they form the "presbyterate." Through ordination by a bishop, priests receive a character. This enables them alone to consecrate the mass, which they dispense "downward" to the laity. Insofar as Jesus' presence is thought to reside in the words and elements of this particular ceremony, rather than among the gathered community, priests will be regarded as the sole channel for graces essential for Christian life.

Although ordination elevates both orders of clergy (the episcopate and the presbyterate) above the laity, in various times and places another order has existed. In earlier centuries especially, deacons (who are collectively called the diaconate) were devoted to works of service and charity rather than to doctrinal, jurisdictional, and sacramental functions. As the presbyterate assumed greater importance, the diaconate was gradually absorbed under it. Deacons came to be regarded not as church leaders in their own right, but as those who assist priests.2

2 See Rahner, Theology of Pastoral Action (New York: Herder & Herder, 1968), pp. 106-109.

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B

Basic Ecclesial Communities

The Roman Church has been deeply impacted by Western, democratic ideas about social institutions, and by the emergence of basic communities in other parts of the world. Karl Rahner emphasizes that authority can no longer be regarded as an intrinsic property of church structures passed down from the top. Authority

will be really effective in the future in virtue of the obedience of faith. . . . It will no longer be effective in virtue of powers over society belonging to office-holders in advance of this obedience. . . . Questions or doubts about office will no longer be effectively dismissed by appealing to the formal authority of office, but only by furnishing proof of a genuinely Christian spirit on the part of the office-holder himself.3

In discussing church structure, Hans Küng first stresses that all believers are priests, and that this involves privileges of direct access to God. These include preaching; administering baptism, the Lord's Supper, and forgiveness of sins; performing spiritual sacrifices; and mediating Christ to the world.4

Moreover, we have seen how basic ecclesial communities are being established not from the top down, but from the bottom up (Chap. 9). As Leonardo Boff points out, a kind of structuring quite different from the judicial and hierarchical is spontaneously at work. Authority and grace do not spread slowly downward and outward, gradually incorporating new churches and office holders into older structures. Instead, the Spirit emerges unpredictably here and there, creating faith and community, which eventually take on stable structural forms. Jesus is not a distant source from which legal authority is delegated. Instead, he is the risen Lord present through the Spirit in the midst of the community, which he energizes with his life. The church is experienced as an organic vitality rather than a judicial institution; as something participatory rather than hierarchical.

What do these new ecclesial and social realities imply for specific issues of church structure? Traditional and recent official documents assert that communion with a bishop and priestly celebration of the eucharist are essential for the existence of a church. However, the newer emphasis insists that faith is absolutely fundamental. For Boff, only faith, along with the interpersonal communion toward which it tends, need be present for a church to exist. Boff has confidence that

3The Shape of the Church to Come (New York: Crossroad, 1974), pp. 57-58.

4The Church (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 465-495.

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this tendency toward communion will inevitably press toward union with a bishop and eucharistic celebration.5

These latter two features, however, are somehow less fundamental than the personal and interpersonal reality of faith. This implies that faith will also be fundamental to the granting and exercise of any function in the church. According to Rahner,

office-holders will have as much effective authority . . . as is conceded to them freely by believers through their faith. The assumption of an authority in the church will always have to consist in an appeal to the free act of faith of each individual and must be authorized in the light of this act in order to be effective at all. In the concrete office-holder's appeal to his authority will be a proclamation of his faith.6

Through what offices and functions, more precisely, will the church be structured? Recent Catholic ecclesiologies stress that every Christian will have a role in the church's functioning, for each will receive one or more "charisms." These charisms are gifts for service as diverse as teaching, interpretation of tongues, and giving aid.7

Although all these are vital to the church's commission, some are more central than others. Hans Küng distinguishes between charisms which serve individuals and those which serve the whole church. While all Christians can preach to others and forgive them, and can participate in baptism and the Lord's Supper, only pastors can do these things for the community. Pastors therefore have "a special rank" among other members and a "preexisting authority" guaranteed by the Spirit through their ordination.8 Boff stresses the charism of coordination and administration, which must be permanent. This charism therefore "implies an ontological character (in the form of a special grace) that is abiding." It actualizes and makes visible the unity of each church, and also its "oneness with the various churches, including the church of Rome, which 'presides over all in charity.'''9

5Ecclesiogenesis, pp. 10-22.

6The Shape of the Church to Come, pp. 57-58. Rahner also insists that "The church will exist only by being constantly renewed by a free decision of faith and the formation of congregations on the part of individuals" (p. 108). Küng insists that both "the faith of him who administers it" and "the faith of him who has been called" are essential to the efficacy of ordination (The Church, p. 544).

7 Rom. 12:4-8; 1 Cor. 12:4-11; 1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11.

8The Church, pp. 560-561.

9Ecclesiogenesis, p. 28.

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The base communities, then, can allow that a permanent "authority" or "character" is bestowed through ordination. But is ordination's efficacy grounded in a hierarchical structure which, because rooted in apostolic succession, can bestow ordination ex operere operato?

Although Küng's ecclesiology, technically speaking, is not one of "base communities," he helpfully outlines a perspective compatible with them. Küng argues that the apostolic office of founding the church and providing its authoritative witness to Christ was exercised once and for all in New Testament times. The church, then, cannot claim to extend the powers of this office. However, the entire church was entrusted with the apostolic mission of spreading and living the gospel taught by the apostles.

Since this mission continues, there exists an "apostolic succession" carried on not by a class of leaders but by the entire church. This succession consists in "a continual and living confrontation of the church and all its members with this apostolic witness. Apostolic succession is fulfilled when this witness is heard, respected, believed, confessed, and followed."10 For this approach, neither unbroken structural continuity nor sacramental bestowal seem essential to apostolicity. Apostolic succession seems to be, much as it is for believer's churches, a matter of faith and practice. Wherever churches are believing and acting as the apostles did, they are in continuity with them, regardless of what history lies between.

Papal primacy can be approached in similar fashion. Küng finds difficulties in establishing historical links between Peter and the present pope.11 Though Peter enjoyed a certain precedence among the apostles, it is hard to show that anything like traditional papal prerogatives were entrusted to him, or were envisioned in Scripture at all. There is no good evidence as to what kind of office (if any) Peter exercised in Rome, or that he passed on any such office. Küng also emphasizes that many popes ruled in domineering ways incompatible with Jesus' servanthood.

Although clear historical and biblical warrants for a Petrine office are lacking, Küng argues that this function of caring for the whole church and its unity can have, and often has had, significant benefits. He thus favors retaining it, even while stressing that it will be rightly executed only if popes are willing to relinquish much of their tradi-

10The Church, p. 458. As such, apostolicity can never be "a secure piece of property which the church has at its disposal." Rather, it "must continually be achieved afresh, must be a recurring event" (Ibid., pp. 459, 460); cf. TDNT I, pp. 420-445.

11The Church, pp. 581-588.

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tional power. Küng also insists that possession of the Petrine ministry cannot mark a Christian body as the true church over against false ones.12

To what extent might new structural principles be emerging amid this recent ferment? It points toward the increasing importance of the diaconate, and of the charisms of all Christians. Writers like Küng and Boff apparently assume, however, that although such changes will deeply affect the functioning of traditional structures, they can be compatible with the latter.

Yet might these theologians be grounding the authenticity of churches and offices in a way that could invalidate traditional Catholic structures? If churches are essentially established by faith, and if faith's tendency toward community fails to lead them toward the priestly eucharist and the bishop, will they not still be valid churches? And if churches with eucharist and bishop have no faith, will they still be churches?13

If apostolicity is rooted in faithfulness to God's continuing mission, is not any church which accomplishes this mission apostolic, however recent it may be? And would not any which opposes it be nonapostolic, whatever its claims to historical continuity? Further, if priestly, episcopal, and papal authority is grounded in servantlike execution of one's office, might not each be justifiably rejected if they depart this criterion of activity and character?

C

Congregational

When Catholics speak of "the church," they are usually referring to an international, interconnected, highly structured organization. At the other end of the ecclesiological spectrum "the church" normally means a local, autonomous, loosely organized congregation. Precisely speaking, those who adhere to this latter model can talk of "the church" on two levels. On the first, or universal level, the church is "the whole company of regenerate persons in all times and ages, in heaven and on earth." Even though this church is somehow an ''organism," it is "invisible" and its unity is "spiritual."14

12 Ibid., pp. 597-611; see also Infallible? An Enquiry (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971).

13 Efforts to tie sacramental efficacy less tightly to priestly activities and locate it more broadly in the congregation, and to broaden "sacramentality" beyond the traditional seven sacraments, raise similar questions about the necessity of priests (Chap. 13).

14 Augustus Strong, Systematic Theology (Westwood, N.J.: Revell, 1907), pp. 887-888. Strong emphasizes the local church's autnomony more than do some other congregational schemes. (For this reason it might be called an "independent"

(footnote continued on next page)

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On the second level, "the church" is the particular, visible, physical congregation, and this is what the term usually means. Although this model has highly influenced some believer's churches (such as Baptists, at least in North America), it by no means characterizes all. Historically, democratic individualism has significantly shaped it. Many other believer's churches, especially those which flourished before this attitude took hold (Anabaptists, Quakers, Methodists, and Church of the Brethren) view the church in more organic fashion.

Faith, in recent Catholic theology, tends toward horizontal communion with others. For the congregational model, however, faith is mostly a vertical relationship between the individual and God. Conversion and justification come first. "Union with the church logically follows, not precedes, the soul's union with Christ." Since faith is a conscious decision, joining a local church must also be a voluntary "outward expression of that rational and free life in Christ."15 But in faith each person is equally accepted by God. Thus faith, if consistently followed, will point one toward a community where no hierarchy exists.

While this democratic emphasis can free churches from bureaucracy and authoritarianism, it also can hamper their ability to act as united bodies. For in discerning and following God's will, "each member has the right of private judgment, being directly responsible to Christ for his use of the means of knowledge, and for his obedience to Christ's commands." According to Augustus Strong, the local church

certainly has no right to say what its members shall eat or drink; to what societies they shall belong; what alliances in marriage or business they shall contract. It has no right, as an organized body, to suppress vice in the community, or to regenerate society by taking sides in a political canvass.16

This does not mean, however, that Christians are to withdraw from the world. As in Luther's two kingdoms, church members "as citizens, have duties in all these lines of activity." The church "is to give them religious preparation and stimulus for their work."17

(footnote continued from previous page)

model). We employ it because of its importance on the American scene.

15 Ibid., p. 893. Accordingly, this "doctrine of the church . . . is a necessary outgrowth of the doctrine of regeneration."

16 Ibid., p. 900. Moreover, "As each believer has personal dealings with Christ . . . for even the pastor to come between him and his Lord is treachery to Christ and harmful to his soul" (p. 898).

17 Ibid. Strong is differentiating his view from the "social gospel" of his colleague, Walter Rauschenbusch.

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Despite this stress on individual freedom, the church has jurisdictional authority over two kinds of offenses. "Private offenses," or conflicts among individuals, are to be handled according to Matthew 18:15-17. They should first be discussed by the persons involved. If these cannot reach resolution, several others should arbitrate. If this proves unfruitful, the dispute should come before the entire churchbut only as a last resort.

However, in "public offenses" which become widely known, the church's "good repute in the community, and its influence over its own members, are at stake. These therefore demand the instant exclusion of the wrong-doer, as evidence that the church clears its skirts from all complicity with the wrong." For the church "is a society whose end is to represent Christ in the world, and to establish his truth and righteousness."18

Even in public offenses, however, the accused can appeal to the entire congregation, for final authority belongs to "the church itself in its collective capacity" rather than to "ministers, the session, or the bishop." And finally, the congregation may restore even a convicted offender upon evidence of sincere repentancefor precisely this may result when a church takes its jurisdictional authority seriously.19

As befits the individuality of each believer and each local congregation, the latter, Strong claims, should be guided by a single pastor (except where size requires assistant pastors). He first argues that although the New Testament employs three termselder (presbyteros), bishop (episkopos), and pastor (poimen *)to designate leaders, it uses these interchangeably, and therefore they designate the same office.20

Strong thus finds no biblical basis for the episcopal distinction between bishops and presbyters (or priests); or for assigning the former a wider role. Second, Strong argues that each congregation normally had one such person. He acknowledges that certain churches were

18 Ibid., pp. 924-925. Expulsion, or "the ban," was used among Anabaptists. This procedure could be harsh, yet repentance and restoration of the offender was often stated as its desirable goal, as Strong also affirms (see Anabaptism in Outline, pp. 211-231).

19 Ibid., p. 926.

20 Ibid., pp. 914-915. The Ephesian leaders are called elders (Acts 20:17) and also bishops (20:28). Titus is to appoint "elders" (Titus 1:5) who are later called bishops (1:7). Although pastor is used only once of church leaders (Eph. 4:11), Strong notes that the related verb (poimaino*) describes the function of "bishops" (Acts 20:28) and "elders" (1 Peter 5:1-2). In our view, the overlapping usages of elder and bishop and the infrequent appearance of pastor shows that these terms did not denote clearly distinguished offices.

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governed by a group of elders (esp. Acts 20:17, 28; Phil. 1:1). But Strong maintains that single leadership was the norm because, first, the pastoral epistles often refer to "the bishop" in contrast to many deacons (1 Tim. 3:2, 8-13; Titus 1:7). And second, James was apparently the single leader of the Jerusalem church.21

The pastor's essential duties are three. Above all, the pastor is "a spiritual teacher in public and in private." Preaching is an essential part of this teaching. Second, the pastor administers baptism and the Lord's Supper. Third, the pastor is "superintendent of the discipline, as well as the presiding officer at the meetings of the church."22

The only other church officers are deacons, who are plural. Their first task is "relieving the pastor of external labors, informing him of the condition and wants of the church, and forming a bond of union between pastor and people." Second, deacons will help "by relieving the poor and sick and ministering in an informal way to the church's spiritual needs, and by performing certain external duties" in worship.23 Even though these deacons sound more like pastoral assistants than leaders in their own right, this office seems much like that which Catholicism has largely lost but is seeking to restore.

The independence and equality among local church members holds among local churches themselves. The congregational model harbors suspicion of larger ecclesiastical bodies.

All permanent bodies of this sort gradually arrogate to themselves power. . . . Their decisions have altogether too [much] influence, if they go further than personal persuasion. . . . Permanent councils of any sort are of doubtful validity. They need to be kept under constant watch and criticism.24

Nonetheless, since all true Christians are united in the universalthough invisiblechurch, congregations can gain much through cooperation. Strong can even say that local churches have "the duty" to seek

21 Ibid., p. 916. On James, see Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; Gal. 1:19; 2:12. Strong adds that "the angel" of each church in Revelation is best understood as its pastor (Rev. 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14). But this exegesis is quite uncertain. Strong supposes that all plural leadership in the New Testament was due to "the size of the churches for which these elders cared."

22 Ibid., p. 917. Strong recommends that the pastor appoint a committee to handle most of the discipline, however. If the pastor gets involved in making charges, "he loses dignity, and puts it out of his power to help the offender" (p. 926).

23 Ibid., pp. 917-918.

24 Ibid., p. 927.

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and take advice from others. He insists, however, that all admonition or advice from any intercongregational body

is not itself of binding authority. It is simply in the nature of moral suasion. The church receiving it has still to compare it with Christ's laws. The ultimate decision rests entirely with the church so advised or asking."25

The relationships between individual leaders, individual congregations, and intercongregational bodies are evident in ordination. Ordination is, first, not a bestowal of power, but "simply a recognition of powers previously conferred by God" upon an individual. Ordination, second, is the authorization to exercise pastoral duties within a particular congregation. It is the act of that local church alone, not "of a privileged class in the church . . . nor yet the act of other churches, assembled by their representatives in a council."26

Cooperation with other congregations, however, is normally helpful. Thus it is advisable that a broader organization approve (though not ordain) candidates and allow them to take subsequent pastorates in participating churches without an additional ordination. Strong's congregational model, then, while it grants no actual authority to intercongregational bodies, assumes that local churches will normally function within some association or denomination.

D

Presbyterial

Proponents of a fourth model often present it as the ideal mean between episcopal and congregational structures. Like the episcopal model, the presbyterial affirms that "faith cannot be separated from the form in which it expresses itself."27 True faith and the universal church cannot simply be invisible. Salvation's reality and the church's unity must become actual and visible through some framework, or structure. Like the episcopal model, the presbyterial is rooted in the assumption that reality and unity will be fragmented and distorted if no bodies above local congregations can exercise authority. On the other hand, the presbyterial approach shares the congregationalist apprehension about granting a few individuals, or even one, too much power. Such individuals can stifle the Spirit's movement within the congregations, the revitalizing source of the church's life.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., pp. 920, 922.

27 John Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition (Atlanta: Knox, 1977), p. 153; cf. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 590.

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Over against episcopal and congregationalist options (which may be likened to monarchy and absolute democracy), the presbyterial model offers something like representative democracy. Within local congregations, leadership is provided by a group of elders. Though these elders are also called presbyters (the Greek presbyteros means "elder"), they are neither priests, as are Catholic presbyters, nor pastors, as in the congregational system (which holds that the biblical words for elder, bishop, and pastor refer to the same person).

Instead, they form a board to which the governance of the congregation is entrusted. Initially, the congregation elects these elders. Then they are ordained and empowered to act together with an authority which can go beyond the immediate will of the congregation in certain cases. Although the local pastor or pastors are included among the elders, their governing authority, at least in theory, is usually no greater than any other's.

Intercongregational bodies are constituted through this same principle of representation. In Presbyterian churches in North America, for example, several elders from each congregation meet periodically in larger bodies called presbyteries. Care is usually taken that not only pastoral, but also lay elders be included. Each presbytery sends several representatives to regional bodies called synods. And finally, representatives from each synod attend a nationwide general assembly every few years. Here the denomination's most important decisions are made.

At all levels, while decisions are made by those who come from and represent lower levels, the higher level body is invested with doctrinal and jurisdictional authority which goes beyond, and in some cases may be enforced upon, lower ones. In other words, while authority is channeled through lower bodies, it is not wholly derived from them, as in Locke's democratic theory (pp. 227-228). The elders' authority is thought to derive from God. The people and procedures which elect them are the means through which God's authority operates, but not the source from which it flows and to which they are entirely responsible.28

Presbyterial polity has been practiced chiefly by the Reformed churches, and it bears the imprint of John Calvin. Unlike congregationalists, Calvin did not believe that individuals should select a local body after conversion, or switch congregations whenever they wanted. Instead, individuals usually came to faith in congregations which had nourished them since infant baptism. God would count "a traitor and apostate from Christianity anyone who arrogantly leaves any Christian society, provided it cherishes the true ministry of the Word and sacraments."29 While few Reformed Christians today would be this

28 See Berkhof, p. 584; cf. pp. 590-592.

29Institutes, p. 1024; cf. p. 175 above.

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strict, most would bear more willingly the flaws of their local churches and broader structures than would congregationalists.

Calvin distinguished four offices in the church: pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. Though members of the first group shared governing responsibilities with the elders, they exercised additional functions. Like Augustus Strong, Calvin argued that the New Testament uses the words for bishop, elders, and pastors interchangeably.30 He therefore rejected the episcopal office of jurisdiction over a large territory.

However, based not so much on specific words as on the functions he found operating in Scripture, Calvin could not reduce all leadership activities to one office. Seeing the priority gave to preaching, it is not surprising that the highest office was that of pastor. Pastors were, above all, to preach, and also to administer sacraments and participate in discipline. However, following Ephesians 4:11 and his own emphasis on doctrine, Calvin distinguished teachers from pastors. While teaching was included within the pastors' preaching function, it was only one of their several duties. In contrast, teachers were free from administering sacraments and discipline to concentrate on doctrine.31

These teachers functioned not merely in local congregations, but often as "doctors" responsible for training future pastors. From its beginning, then, presbyterial ecclesiology has stressed academic requirements for its leaders. (Not coincidentally, Reformed churches have done much to advance public education.) Moreover, adherence to doctrinal standards, or Confessions, has normally been necessary for membership in such churches.

The presbyterial model, then, assigns significant doctrinal authority to its teachers. (In contrast, while a congregational church may adopt doctrinal standardsthough it need notit will have no leader to explain and enforce them but the pastor, who may have little or no theological training.)

The third office, according to Calvin, was that of elder. Elders did not preach, teach, or administer sacraments. They shared the functions of oversight and discipline with the pastors. We have seen that Reformed theology emphasizes sanctification. For if justification has really occurred, a person will evidence visible behavioral changes. Accordingly, while early Calvinists were not as strict as Anabaptists, or as some later believer's and congregational churches, the jurisdictional authority exercised by pastors and elders was important in their polity. Calvin argued that "they who lead a filthy and infamous life" should be

30 Ibid., p. 1060.

31 Ibid., pp. 1057-1058.

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banished from the church, so Christ will not be disgraced; so other church members will not be corrupted; and so the offenders, having faced the consequences of their acts, might repent and be restored.32

Finally, Calvin mentioned the office of deacon (and deaconess). Deacons and deaconesses ministered to the poor but did notas in episcopal and congregational traditionsassist pastors in liturgical duties. However, since the diaconate has not become firmly established in Reformed churches, as it has not in Catholicism, "the office of deacon cannot be made a principle of Presbyterianism."33

II

Outlines of Church Structure

The church is the place where human nature, which God created as cohumanity, first reaches its eschatological goal of fellowship through mutual servanthood (Chap. 4). As the firstfruits of the new creation, the church is the eschatological sacrament of that fellowship which God wills all people to enjoy (Chaps. 9, 13). Further, since humanity is essentially cohumanity, and since the church is the corporate reality of Christ's body, the validity of its activities and structures cannot be derived wholly from, nor altered entirely in accordance with, the felt needs of its individual members. If the church is a dimension of the objective reality of Christ in the world, who transcends the world, its leaders must have some authority which transcends that of its members.

To be sure, the congregational model acknowledges this. Its goal, in fact, is to allow Christ's "absolute monarchy" alone to rule. But this model assumes that his monarchy cannot be freed from human control unless the church is an "absolute democracy."34 The extreme individualism of this democracy, however, obscures the reality of those relational bonds which unite individuals and congregations. In rescuing the church from the despotic control of a few, this model subjects it to the fragmenting control of the many. It subjects the unity of Christ's body, and thus the efficacy of its ministry, to clashing opinions and interests.

For these reasons, we cannot fully endorse it. How might the unity and objectivity of the church be better expressed? By being more identified with permanent structures, as the episcopal and presbyterial models claim?

32 Ibid., pp. 1232-1234.

33 Leith, p. 156; cf. Calvin, pp. 1061-1062.

34 Strong, p. 903.

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A

The Biblical Data

A single detailed, unchanging ecclesiastical structure cannot be derived from Scripture. This is chiefly so, as we have often said, because the New Testament focuses on the church's activity, and usually gives only passing hints about its structure.

Data concerning structure occur mainly in three diverse types of material. First, the book of Acts highlights the ministry of the apostles. Early, however, another group is chosen by the community and commissioned by the apostles to handle its administrative and benevolent work (Acts 6:1-6). This group is often seen as the forerunner of the diaconate, although at least one member, Stephen, is an evangelist (6:87:60). Eventually, the Jerusalem church installs elders (11:30; 15:2; 21:18), as do the Pauline congregations (14:23, 20:17). Throughout Acts, many prophets,35 evangelists, teachers, and healers come and go in the background. Some are women (2:17; 18:26; 21:9).

A second source consists of four lists from Paul. These occur in Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 12:8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:28; and Ephesians 4:11. At first glance, the latter two might appear to name "offices" while the former two enumerate "functions." Closer inspection, however, shows that any distinction between these terms must be fluid. All four lists include ministries which began before Paul. First Corinthians 12:28 mentions them in an order which may show priority among some or all of them: "first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues." Ephesians 4:11 may also imply priority when it says "some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.''

However, if priority is intended, it can only be affirmed of the first two "offices" (which also provide the church's "foundation" [Eph. 2:20]). Prophecy is the only ministry which appears on all four lists. Teaching appears on three.36 Apostleship appears twice. Healing, miracles, and tongues also appear on two lists, but both are from 1 Corinthians 12, where the "charismatic" gifts are emphasized in a way found elsewhere only in Acts. In addition to prophecy, teaching, and exhorting Romans 12:6-8 lists four benevolent ministries. These are service, contributing, giving aid, and acts of mercy. While these may be similar to the function of "helpers" in 1 Corinthians 12:28, they are not otherwise matched on the lists.

35 11:27; 13:1; 15:32; 21:10.

36 It is perhaps related to the "word of wisdom" and the "word of knowledge" in 1 Cor. 12:8.

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The third source, the pastoral epistles, reflects a later period when names for certain offices were more stabilized. There is the "bishop" (episkopos) who is probably the same as the "elder" (prebyteros [Titus 1:5, 7]), although elders, or perhaps "ruling elders" (1 Tim. 5:17) could be different. The pastorals are mostly concerned with the bishops' behavior and example. Bishops are to enable the whole church to witness that "the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:11-13).

Another major function is the teaching and defense of sound doctrine. Deacons are mentioned, but again their behavior and their basic orthodoxy, not their specific duties, are stressed (1 Tim. 3:8-13). Some deacons were women.37 Finally, Timothy and Titus each have responsibilities for a large group of churches. With gentleness and fairness, they also are to teach true doctrine and counteract the false, to stimulate good behavior and censor the bad. Titus, at least, is to appoint local bishops (Titus 1:5).

B

Local Church Offices

From this diverse data, what can theology conclude? First, since New Testament churches developed somewhat different structures and offices in different situations, churches in other eras may do the same. In certain contexts, offices seldom or perhaps never mentioned in Scripture could come to be central. Others might fall into disuse.

Yet no such arrangement could become binding upon quite different contexts. By itself, the biblical data on structures offers mostly examples and suggestions. Of course, they can help theology formulate some general guidelines, but only when they are integrated with broader principles regarding mission, fellowship, and worship.

One is impressed with the importance of apostles and prophets in Acts and Paul. Apostles establish churches in new places. Prophets proclaim God's will in urgent situations with greater directness and brevity than preaching. Neither are "officers" of particular churches. Both are on the move. It is sometimes argued, however, that these two offices, the "foundation" of the church (Eph. 2:20), existed only in New

37 1 Tim. 3:11; so J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (New York: Harper, 1963), pp. 82-83; C. K. Barrett, The Pastoral Epistles (Oxford: University, 1963), pp. 61-62; TDNT, Vol. 1, p. 788. For an opposing interpretation, see A. T. Hanson, The Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 80-81.

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Testament times. However, since prophets or prophecy are the only function to appear on all four Pauline lists, the activity of prophecy, at least, cannot have ended then.38

Apostleship, however, is more restricted. Luke seems to identify it with the original twelve who were companions of Jesus and witnesses to his resurrection (Acts 1:21-26). Yet Luke also calls Paul and Barnabas apostles (Acts 14:1, 4). By emphasizing his own experience of the risen Lord (1 Cor. 9:1; 15:8-9) and special missionary commission (Rom. 11:13; Gal. 1:1; etc.). Paul can seem to argue that only he should be added alongside the twelve. Yet he, too, says that others, perhaps many, deserve this title.39

In light of this major emphasis, it is better to reserve this title chiefly for those who founded the first churches. As Küng stresses, they provide the authoritative witness to Christ valid for all subsequent times. Yet given the indefinite edges of the term, and that the church has often moved into quite new territories since that day, theology should be open to the possibility that the Spirit will revive this role from time to time. The roles of apostles and prophets, often overlooked when one searches Scripture for stable structures, reminds us that the church cannot be reduced to given congregations, for it has its existence in movementin universal mission. The possibility that God will revive these roles in time helps guard theology from conceiving structure too fixedly.

The special ministry of service and benevolence, or of deacons, is attested in Acts, the pastorals, and Paul's lists. Significantly, the episcopal, congregational, and presbyterial models largely agree on this ministry's nature, even if they have sometimes ignored its existence.

Rather than overlooking deacons or making them pastoral assistants, our ecclesiology suggests that they are the church's most important office. It is chiefly through its fellowship, which provides alternative models for human living, that the church's mission impacts the world (Chap. 11). And in what way does this fellowship contrast most sharply with the world? Jesus said:

38 For discussions of New Testament prophecy, see David Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981); and David Hill, Early Christian Prophecy (Atlanta: Knox, 1979). On prophecy in the second century and beyond, see Aune, pp. 291-316, and Hill, pp. 186-213.

39 Paul mentions James, the Lord's brother (Gal. 1:19), Andronicus, and Junia (Rom. 16:7; the latter is female, despite traditional translations). Paul seems to include his own companions (1 Cor. 4:9; 1 Thess. 2:6), and mentions false apostles often enough to make it likely that there were other true ones, too (2 Cor 8:23; 11:5; 12:1; cf. Rev. 2:2).

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those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it will not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant (diakonos), and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all (Mark 10:42-44).

Now deacon is simply the transliteration of diakonos, "servant." It designates

an activity which every Greek would recognize at once as being one of self-abasement: waiting at table, serving food, and pouring wine. The distinction between master and servant was nowhere more visually apparent than at meals, where the noble masters would lie at table in their long robes, while the servants, their clothes girded, had to wait on them.40

The New Testament normally avoids the standard Greek words for "leader" or "office," for all these connote the supremacy of rulers over the ruled. Instead, it employs the lowly diakonos, not simply for a particular ministry, but to describe the attitude characterizing all ministries of the church. Accordingly, ministries involving authority, supervision, and direction are justified only insofar as they promote mutual servanthood.

As the ministries of apostle and prophet give shape to the church's mission, so do those of deacons to its fellowship. Yet as fellowship flows into mission, so the giving of aid within the church will stream beyond its walls. When the church, whose members come from different classes, sensitively aids its poor, it naturally becomes concerned about others who are poor and the causes of their poverty. As it ministers to its sick, it will pay attention to others who are sick, and to factors which promote illness and health. Especially through its deacons, then, the church will make visible its compassion over the ills afflicting humankind, and the servant role of the entire church in relation to the world.

All four major structural models regard the biblical presbyteroi as leaders of local congregations (even though they call them priests, pastors, and elders respectively). Presbyteroi appear often in Acts. The word episkopos in Acts and the pastorals (though usually translated bishop) probably refers to the same office, as Strong says. The teaching function essential to this office is emphasized in Paul's lists (which also mention exhortation and administration).

However, no clear evidence of a congregation led by a single person of this kind exists in the New Testament. Though Strong claims that James was the pastor of the Jerusalem church, his prominence among the elders and Christians in that area point toward his supervi-

40 Küng, p. 498.

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sion over a larger territory (Acts 21:18-20). Strong's observation that the pastorals use episkopos in the singular cannot support widespread single leadership. For this word also appears in the plural to show that at least two important churches, in Ephesus and Philippi, were governed by groups (Acts 20:28; Phil. 1:1).

Moreover, the plural of presbyteros (which is equivalent to episkopos) means group leadership in James (5:14), and perhaps in 1 Peter (5:21) and the pastorals themselves (1 Tim. 5:17; Titus 1:5). Above all, Acts shows that presbyteroi came Judaism, where these "elders" clearly formed a governing body. While the church diverged from Judaism at many points, it did not in its communal understanding of religious life. Therefore the many references to Christian "elders" most naturally refer to a group.

The ecclesiological implications are striking. Although Paul once mentions a gift of exhortation (Rom. 12:8), we know of no congregation led by a preacher who gave sermonsnor by a priest who distributed sacraments.41 Indeed preaching, as Chapter 13 showed, was more often directed to non-Christians by apostles and evangelists than it was to Christian congregations. This means that as congregational life in general was structured by the interplay among all its members' charisms, so its leadership emerged through interaction among members of a governing body. The mutual servanthood at the core of the church, expressed through service by its deacons, was also expressed where "the world" would least expect itin leadershipthrough its elders.

Based on the specific biblical data and on general ecclesiological principles, our theology recommends, though it cannot insist on, two permanent offices in the local church: deacons and elders. Other ministries may flourish more fully at times. Certainly the charismatic ones like healings, miracles, and tongues cannot be excluded. Additional ministries, as we shall see, may be exercised by those having roles beyond the local church. Yet deacons and elders seem essential to the continuing well-being of the congregation. That both are groups need not preclude clear lines of responsibility and authority. A "first among equals" might possibly oversee someand perhaps even allmajor tasks.

Of course, ecclesiology cannot prohibit the supreme leadership of a single pastor. However, congregations should adopt this latter possibility only if it clearly serves their commission in their particular context. They must realize that it could obscure and distort the church's corporate character.

41 The word priest (hiereus) "is not used once anywhere in the New Testament for someone who holds office in the Church. . . . " (Küng, p. 466).

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C

Intercongregational Structures

The roles of apostles and prophets show that some crucial early ministries were not rooted in local congregations. As the church expanded, it naturally organized itself not only in particular places, but also into wider units. Although the biblical word translated bishop (episkopos) denotes what we call an elder, the role of what history has called a bishop (an overseer of churches in a large territory) eventually came into being. Timothy and Titus exercised it, and so probably did James. The role is central in Titus's and Timothy's teaching ministries and in Paul's lists. Furthermore, the wandering teachers in Acts (13:1; 18:24-28) show that teachers may well have performed another intercongregational ministry, as they have in the presbyterial model. The same might be true of evangelists who, instead of starting churches in new territories as apostles did, preached to non-Christians in regions where congregations had been established (Acts 21:8; Eph. 4:11; 2 Tim. 4:5).

As one surveys the New Testament era, the emerging picture is neither one of independent, autonomous local units, nor of many units ruled by a few individuals. Instead, as congregations were composed of and served by persons exercising various gifts, so persons with various ministries cooperatively aided many churches.

Today such a ministry of church-wide teachers, evangelists, prophets, and others could obviate an objection often raised against plural congregational leadership. Some persons argue that few local churches have members sufficiently adept in all the necessary ministry areas. They usually conclude that each congregation needs a pastor professionally trained in all of them. This argument forgets that few pastors really have all these abilities, either. One may excel in preaching but do poorly in counseling. Another may counsel well but be a terrible administrator. Thus even in pastor-led congregations, it would often be better for the pastor to emphasize a few areas, and let more gifted persons inside and outside the congregation handle others.

Accordingly, our ecclesiology recommends, though it cannot insist on, the organization of congregations into geographical units within which all important ministries can be exercised. Not every congregation will need an evangelist, but one will be needed at many places much of the time. Not all congregations will need a theologian, but they will sometimes face issues and need training which call for this expertise. However, if such ministries are to be available in an effective, dependable way, planning for and supporting them cannot be merely optional. Effective regional organization, in other words, requires that each congregation cooperate and submit in certain ways, and that governing bodies have more than mere advisory power.

How, then, ought the church to be structured on an intercongrega-

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tional scale? At every level we have discussed, the church functions and is best governed through the cooperation of persons with different gifts. This implies that the wider church is best governed through councils composed of such diverse persons, as the presbyterial model suggests. Of course, nothing in Scripture demands several councils of increasingly wider jurisdiction, each composed of representatives of narrower ones, with the narrowest composed mostly of elders from congregations. Yet Scripture and tradition suggest no better way of intertwining the life and interests of local bodies with the larger concerns and movements of the church.

Some representatives on wider councils might be called bishops. Perhaps they could handle much daily oversight of the region. Yet the actual councils should consist largely of elders deeply involved in local congregations, and probably include a few others exercising intercongregational ministries. In fact, in order that broader structures not become captive to bureaucrats, it is essential that all those in wider ministries, although not commissioned to serve just one specific congregation, nevertheless be active members of one.

Ideally, since the church is one, all congregations and councils should be under the carefully limitedbut nonetheless realauthority of some universal body. What might that look like?

Catholics argue that the church's unity ought to be symbolized and actualized through a single supreme leader.42 For us, however, the church's true unity consists in a harmony forged by the Spirit out of diversity, whose only Head is the risen Christ. Such a unity is best symbolized and actualized through a council of diverse members and the absence of an earthly, visible head. Precisely where "the world," with its usual understanding of authority, looks for a single leader, it should find only a humble, diverse group working toward unity through the Spirit. In this way the local church and all councils up to the most universal witness that their Head is truly transcendent, and that the mutual servanthood which they manifest and desire is rooted in dependence upon him.

D

Authority

Mention of a universal council immediately raises the issue of

42 Similarly, the World Council of Churches' statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry argues that an important function of the ordained ministry is to provide a visible focus of unity (Geneva, Switzerland: World Council of Churches, 1982; esp. Sections 8, 12, 14, and 23 under "Ministry"). Our model, of course, does not preclude the handling of certain organizational and administrative tasks by some individuals, or even one.

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authority. General theological principles and specific biblical texts show that the church has two kinds of authority: behavioral (or jurisdictional) and doctrinal.

Because the church "already" lives in the New Age and participates in making it more fully actual, the serious pursuit of holiness is an essential mark of the church (Chap. 10). If certain behaviors are not practiced, or at least sincerely aimed at, the church can never present alternative models for "the world." Nevertheless, true righteousness is a dynamic, interpersonal vitality (Chap. 7). If sanctification is regarded primarily in terms of standards and penalties, the very freshness which energizes it will dry up. For this reason, ecclesiology should approach the discipline necessary in negative circumstances within the framework of discipling as a positive task.43

Discipleship is an interpersonal process. To grow toward maturity, individuals need deep relationships with others (Eph. 4:11-16). These can often be facilitated through smaller units such as prayer groups, Bible studies, and "house churches" intentionally developed in congregations. Such substructuring, for which elders and perhaps deacons should be largely responsible, is also an important element of church structure.44 In addition, the congregation, with guidance from larger bodies, should teach and encourage behavior which expresses God's kingdom. Given the importance of such behavior to its fellowship and mission, each church should probably spell out its major ideals in a membership covenant, as should each council. With such overall goals clearly stated, church leaders can deal sensitively and flexibly with all who strive toward them and those who fall short.

Serious difficulties can then be handled according to Matthew 18:15-17. Conflicts can first be dealt with by the parties involved, and undesirable behaviors by a few concerned individuals. If problems persist, additional persons skilled in resolution of conflicts should become involved. Hopefully solutions, or procedures for attaining them, will be found on one of these levels. If behavior clearly discordant with sanctification persists, the larger congregationperhaps through a representative council, and often with input from larger bodiesmust ask such persons either to move toward repentance or leave. For although righteousness cannot be reduced to behavioral standards, it still involves them (Chap. 7). In the face of persistent violation, expulsion

43 See Marlin Jeschke, Discipling in the Church (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1972, 1988).

44 See Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); Arthur Foote, The House Church Evolving (Chicago: Exploration, 1976); Philip and Phoebe Anderson, The House Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975).

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may be necessary to keep the righteousness which grounds the church clear before its members and the world. Yet even expulsion will be not so much a final severing as delivering people over to "the world," whose behavior they have preferred in the first place, in the hope that living with the full consequences of their choice might lead them to change as nothing else would.45

Because the church is rooted in God's historical acts, whose contents and propositional interpretations it communicates to the world, it also has doctrinal authority (Chap. 10). However, much as standards and penalties are not the chief objects of authentic behavior, although they are implied in it, so confessional statements are not the foremost objects of faith. Faith is primarily personal response to God as revealed through faithful historical acts. Confessions help specify what one has believed if one has truly responded (Vol. I, p. 45).

Accordingly, the church's doctrinal task is primarily the general one that we have called theology: clarifying the kerygma's meaning for the church's commission in its current context (Vol. I, pp. 47-48). It consists largely in teaching which emphasizes the kerygma's concrete relevance and vitality. Given the importance of such clarification, each church should probably spell out its primary beliefs in its membership covenant. Councils also should do so. In these processes, teachers will play important roles. Their function, however, will not be to write such confessions on their own, but to provide data which will enable the group, under the Spirit's guidance, to do so.

However, much as persistent negative behavior can mar the church's fellowship and witness, so can continued adherence to beliefs opposing the kerygma. In such cases, congregations and councils should dialogue sensitively with people, much as in behavioral matters. Hopefully such dialogue will enable all parties to rethink things and to search for truth together. However, since the true God is still contending against false gods and values, congregations and councils still have authority in extreme cases to exclude those whose beliefs point clearly in other directions.

Although God calls all people to unity, this unity is announced through the kerygma, which not all will follow. The same kerygma which brings reconciliation also brings judgment (Vol. I, p. 143). More-

45 Expulsion is thus patterned after God's primary method of judgment, handing people over to the consequences of their actions (Vol. I, pp. 327-331). Paul describes expulsion as delivering someone "to Satan" (who governs "the world") "for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus" (1 Cor. 5:6). Although Paul is probably not referring to the same individual in 2 Corinthians 1:232:11 (cf. 7:8-13), the attitude that he recommends toward any repentant person is well expressed there.

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over, those powers who still oppose Christ often disguise themselves as his followers (2 Cor. 11:13-15; Rev. 13:11-18). Accordingly, not all movements toward unity are from God, and desire for unity must be balanced by desire for truth. For this reason, although a universal council exercising limited but real authority is ideal, different groups may have to refuse concrete proposals for it on the grounds of behavioral and doctrinal truth. Such refusals, however, ought never to minimize Jesus' deep desire for unity, nor to reject any real possibility for genuine discussion and cooperation.

E

Ordination

Without structures the church cannot effectively accomplish its commission. But structures cannot function without leaders exercising some degree of authority. Who, then, ought to become leaders and how ought this to be accomplished? Our discussions point toward the ordination of three kinds: deacons, elders, and those exercising wider church ministries. The latter includes teachers and perhaps evangelists, prophets, apostles, healers, and others. Bishops could be included, providing that administrative authority does not emanate from them, but is periodically entrusted to them by a council.

Though Scripture contains no detailed interpretation or ceremony of ordination, it gives some suggestions. Laying on of hands was central in commissioning the first "deacons" (Acts 6:5-6), Paul and Barnabas for a special mission (Acts 13:2-3), Timothy (1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6), and those whom Timothy was to commission (1 Tim. 5:22). Moreover, the Spirit was often bestowed through this means (Acts 8:17-19; 19:6)the Spirit who grants diverse charisms which enable the church to function in unity. Since this gesture also signifies the close, bodily connection between the human agents of this giving and receiving, laying on of hands is appropriately the central act in ordination.

However, it does not convey grace "of itself" any more than do the words or elements of the Lord's Supper or baptism (Chap. 13). The crucial factors are congregations ready to receive leaders and leaders genuinely called by God to serve them. Where both exist, the church can assume that the Spirit will bestow the necessary gifts upon both the leaders and the bodies involved. However, since ordination does not express Jesus' own historic acts as clearly as the two ceremonies which he commanded, it is better termed a "sacramental" than a "sacrament".

Although every Christian exercises some charism, ordination is best reserved for those called to guide the church over long periods. This does not give their gifts more importance for the kingdom, but merely signifies that they are directed specifically toward the maintenance and functioning of the church. Special commissioning services are appropriate for members whose ministries are directed more toward

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society or who exercise briefer ministries in the church. But while ordination is long-term, it is not necessarily permanent. The call and the gifts come from an active God, who can change or withdraw them as circumstances shift, or when leaders become unfit for their ministries.

Our ecclesiology recommends, though it cannot insist, that deacons and elders be ordained through the local congregation. But since these congregations are organically linked with higher councils, these too will be actual, though secondary, ordaining bodies. Ordination should involve the cooperation and explicit approval of the congregation and the next highest council, and the implicit approval of all higher councils. Intercongregational ministers would be ordained equally by the council at whose level they function (and implicitly by all other councils) and by their own congregations, of which they must be active members.

F

Structure and Objectivity

Throughout our theology, we have examined divine and human reality beginning with their activities. We have insisted that many key theological termsrevelation, body, righteousness, world, etc.be understood chiefly as dynamisms. Yet we have also insisted that no activity could be dynamic were it not also shaped or structured. Divine and human energies flow within, and by means of, certain channels. Revelation, for instance, which is personal and historical, is also propositional (Vol. I, Chaps 10-12). The interior, personal dynamics of sanctification best develop through certain disciplines (Vol. II, Chap. 8). For God's Spirit, while often breaking sharply into what humans regard as reality, does not transport us to a different world, but works through and transforms the one which God created.

Because we have not insisted as strongly on certain offices or structures as have some traditional ecclesiologies, some may think that the church which we envision could hardly embody and express Christ's objective reality. Yet we have insisted that every congregation have leaders whose authority, while it comes through the members, comes from God. We have insisted that each congregation is organically linked with others, and that leaders and councils can exercise decisive behavioral and doctrinal authority. That this authority is exercised by groups rather than individualssomewhat as God is sacramentally present primarily among gathered communities (Chap. 13)hardly makes it less objective. If God has made us cohuman, God will most likely be effectively present in group contexts. And any effective group, even if it operates somewhat flexibly, will have some enduring structure which will enable it to have a concrete, or sacramental, impact on other structures in this world.

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Chapter Fifteen

The Spirit and the Son

If there is a God, a Source of all things and their infinitely complex variety, one would expect it to be the most profound and mysterious reality of all. One would expect knowledge of such a Source to be more difficult to attain than any otherif, indeed, God could be known at all. One would expect whatever knowledge humans might have to be quite fragmentary and indirect. With these general suppositions the Christian faith concurs. Scripture often marvels at the lofty, unfathomable mystery of the divine.

Yet Scripture also marvels that God is known. God is often known especially by the humble and the simple, in the midst of their daily lives. In this saving and central sense, however, knowledge of God exists only insofar as God gives Godself to be known. Apart from ''special revelation," only general, fragmentary, largely inconclusive awareness is available (Vol. I, Chap. 13). Moreover, this knowing, while it involves cognitive elements, is volitional and affective, too. It is chiefly "the heart's" acknowledgment and commitment through faith. Its essential cognitive elements are not of a complexity which simple and uneducated persons cannot grasp.

Nevertheless, Scripture frequently urges all people to ponder deeply the ways and mystery of God. Faith enlivens the whole person and, as Anselm, Barth, and others have said, it arouses the joyful search for understanding. Moreover, a needy but skeptical world continually asks the church to explain and justify what it means by "God." Thus to heighten the church's worshipful awareness and to facilitate its mission,

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theology must ask what it can say about reality's Source.

As we do so, our system makes its third major shift of focus. All systematic theology explicates both the divine, kerygmatic initiative, and the human context to which it comes. To interrelate both, we began with eschatology, where they are closely intertwined (Vol. I, pp. 100-103). Volume I, however, dealt largely with themes in which divine initiative predominated: revelation and the work of Christ. Then, having considered things in this light, through which alone their deepest significance can become apparent, Volume II turned to the human side: to human nature, salvation, and the church.

In these investigations, however, we repeatedly encountered the divine call, the Spirit's energy, Christ's way, Christ's bodyin short, God. The subjects of Chapters 1-14 pointed toward something which originates, sustains, and draws them, and without which they cannot be adequately understood. Therefore, having traversed the full range of systematic theology for traces of the divine activity, we can finally focus on the divine nature itself.

In these final five chapters, our method will be largely inferential. Reconsidering what we have discovered about God's acts, we shall ask what this tells us about God's nature. We shall take care to assert no more than the data warrants. As we try to elaborate this knowledge of God, the human mind's limitations will be keenly felt. Nevertheless, our assertions will be no less valid than those elsewhere in our system. In fact, they will provide the deepest grounding for all we have said so far. For while God comes at the end of our system epistemologically, God, as we have always affirmed, comes first in the order of things ontologically (Vol. I, Chap. 6). Our doctrine of God, therefore, is no appendix, but is the summit and culmination of our theology.

I

The Trinity: An Authentic Christian Teaching?

Christian theology's most interesting and controversial claim concerning God's nature has been that not only the One whom Scripture calls Father, but also Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, are fully divine. Christian theology has claimed that the Source called God not only is personal, but is in some important sense tripersonal. Three persons, but one essence or nature, has been the standard formulation.

Trinitarian doctrine, however, has been challenged by non-Christians. Furthermore, through the centuries, many simple Christians have disregarded it as an esoteric speculation. Most believer's churches, while formally affirming the Trinity, have theologized little about it, and focused instead on practical tasks. Friedrich Schleiermacher argued that the Trinity did not properly belong in Christian dogmatics. For this doctrine, he claimed, did not arise from reflection on religious experience, the fundamental source of dogmatics for him.1 Somewhat

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similarly, Protestant liberals influenced by Immanuel Kant minimized the Trinity. They complained that it was not based on, nor did it help guide, moral activity, the touchstone of Christian existence for them.

Trinitarian doctrine can also be challenged on broader historical and theological grounds. One can argue that monotheism has been the primary contribution of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Over against the fragmenting polytheism which has set societies and their gods against each other for millennia, Christianity taught the One God of all humankind. Belief in a single mind and will which govern the cosmos made possible the rise of modern science. It can engender peace among nations. In an agnostic world flirting with apocalyptic destruction, is it not better to proclaim one God rather than the Trinitarian oddity? Rather than insisting on the exclusive divinity of Jesus and the Spirit, should not one acknowledge that religions besides Christianity also manifest the one Deity (cf. chap. 12)?

If our theology is to hold to the method we have always followed, we cannot simply defend or reject the Trinity. Rather, we must again consult the data of revelation and ask whether it, of itself, presses toward articulation in Trinitarian concepts, or articulation in others. In this process, we shall not simply discover whether the Trinity is a valid doctrinebut also what the Trinity, or some other conceptualization, really means.

Jürgen Moltmann has noticed that the Trinity can be discussed from two directions.2 Traditionally, theology has almost always been asking questions about the Origin, the causality from which all things spring. Accordingly, it has considered first the Father, then the Son whom he begets, and finally the Spirit who proceeds. However, theology can also consider the Trinity in light of the eschaton, the goal toward which all things move. From this perspective, theology would begin with the Spirit, through whom the last days first come alive and are made known. Since the Spirit witnesses to Jesus, theology would next turn its gaze forward toward the Son, who will soon return as Lord. And since the Son will finally place all things under the Father's rule (1 Cor. 15:23-28), theological reflection would focus on the latter last.

Our theology considers all themes in eschatological perspective. Moreover, as we have discussed human freedom (Chap. 5), sanctification (Chap. 8), mission, and worship (Chap. 13), the Spirit has

1The Christian Faith (New York: Harper, 1963), pp. 738-751.

2The Future of Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), pp. 80-96.

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repeatedly been the agency through which God (and also our deepest selves) become concretely alive. Therefore, to discover whether the Trinity might be a meaningful doctrine, and to discover what this doctrineor some alternativemight mean, we will begin by reflecting on the Holy Spirit, and move from there to the Son and then the Father.

II

The Holy Spirit

How shall we determine whether, and in what ways, the Holy Ghost might or might not be divine? One approach would consist in searching for biblical propositions asserting something about the Spirit's deity or person. This procedure would parallel what we have called "Christology from above" (Vol. I, Chap. 14). Such a Christology begins with concepts or titles which describe Christ's person in clearest and most cosmic fashion. It is inclined to assume his deity, and to inquire secondarily how this relates to his humanity and his historic acts.

If we adopt this approach in pneumatology, we will likely come quickly to grief. For we will find few texts speaking clearly of the Spirit's person, and probably none that directly assert the Spirit's deity. We might abandon our task too easily, simply dismissing the Trinity as an unbiblical speculation. Such a method, however, would be understanding theology too narrowly as a re-arranging of explicit biblical propositions.

Instead, we have consistently maintained that God is known primarily through God's acts. When we sought to understand Jesus in this way, we began developing a "Christology from below." That is, although we did not discount cosmic concepts and titles describing his "person," we insisted that their meaning could be made plain and their appropriateness determined only by reflecting on his historical "work." So we concluded Volume I with Jesus' human ministry, waiting until now to begin synthesizing its implications for his deity and person.

In line with our method, then, we will first examine the Spirit's activitiesa task which has already begun in previous chapters. Our question will be whether, and in what ways, these acts, when most profoundly understood, could only beor could not bethose of God. We will find ourselves unable to answer without also discovering what such assertions mean in our modern context.

Beginning in this manner, however, presents a general difficulty. One of the Spirit's chief activities is to witness to something or someone else. As Jesus says, the Spirit "will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:13-15). That is, the Spirit is usually experienced and known indirectly. The Spirit does not make itself a direct object of revelation. Instead, it reveals messages, empowers mighty

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works, sanctifies the saints, arouses worship, and glorifies the Son and Father. Thus the Spirit can easily be overlooked. When theology seeks to penetrate behind the Spirit's acts, the Spirit seems, like the wind, to dissolve and elude our grasp.

In addition to this methodological difficulty, texts mentioning the Spirit often display two features. Many speak of the Spirit as being sent by, or as otherwise serving the purposes of, God, the Son, or the Father. Such passages seem subordinationist. That is, they seem to represent the Holy Spirit as indeed some suprahuman agency, but yet as less than fully divine. Scripture also raises questions about the Spirit's personality. In many activities, the Spirit might simply be a form of energy. We have yet to deal fully with what personality might mean when ascribed to God (Chap. 17). But we may provisionally say that if the Spirit proves to be less personal than the Son and Father, the Spirit would be less than God. Let us then investigate, first, the issue of personality, and then that of deity.

A

Is the Holy Spirit a Person?

The Spirit's work has already emerged at several points in our theology. We found that human freedom is fully actualized only through the divine Spirit (Chap. 5). To be sure, the Spirit's enablement of human actions sometimes appears as that of a compulsive, irrational force (1 Sam. 19:23-24, etc.). The Spirit grants visions, speaks through unknown tongues, casts out demons. In our post-Enlightenment age, these may seem like irruptions of subconscious, subrational forces. Then, too, even in a key text on the Spirit's work like Romans 8, its groaning in humans is interlinked with its groaning throughout nature. Perhaps the Spirit is some cosmic energy which actualizes human freedom by enhancing our natural capacities.

A close reading of Romans 8, however, shows that something more is involved. Liberation occurs as we are led by the Spirit (Rom. 8:14), and follow its mind as we combat the flesh (8:5-8). When we fear falling back into that power's enslavement, the Spirit assures us, in the core of our being, that God is our loving Father (8:15-16; cf. Gal. 4:6-7). So intimate and personal an assurance could hardly be conveyed convincingly by an impersonal force. Similarly, when we are unsure how to pray, the Spirit searches our hearts for their unarticulated intentions, and expresses them in a way appropriate to both our wills and God's (Rom. 8:26-27). Something much like this occurs in revelation. The Spirit searches the depths of God's mind and communicates God's thoughts to us (1 Cor. 2:10-14). The Spirit, then, is the interpreter and communicator of loving concern and of purposeful intentions and thoughtsactivities characteristic only of personal beings.

These Pauline passages remind us of the Johannine one we

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previously quoted. The Spirit takes Jesus' words and declares them to his followers.3 This communication involves cognitive contentand more. The Spirit is the "paraclete," which means both advocate and comforter during trial. The Spirit also assures us of God's love. We know that God abides in us because God's Spirit does (1 John 3:24; 4:13; cf. John 15:1-7). For both John and Paul, then, the Spirit communicates not only purposes and thoughts, but also a third personal quality: love (cf. Rom. 5:5).

We have also found the Spirit to be the agency through which Jesus is present in worship. At the heart of genuine worship, including the sacraments, we have found personal self-giving. Christ is present in the Lord's Supper, for instance, as he opens himself to the congregation, and as they open themselves to him and each other in response (Chap. 13). The agency of such a communion can hardly be an impersonal force. The Spirit, moreover, is not only the chief agent of church worship, but also that of church structure. Irrational as some individual charisms might seem, and chaotic as their exercise at least in Corinth was, these defects stemmed from human misuse. In reality, the Spirit distributes the charisms so the body will function in the most balanced, best organized way (Chap. 14).

Theology, therefore, has every reason to interpret other personalistic descriptions of the Spirit's work in a fully personal, and not a merely figurative, sense. As one entering into intimate union with persons, the Spirit can be genuinely "grieved" (Gal. 4:30), even "outraged" (Heb. 10:29). As teacher and revealer, the Holy Ghost does not inculcate uncanny, illogical persuasions of truth, but interprets mind to mind. The specific leadings of the Spirit, especially frequent in Acts, are not disconnected flashes of inspiration, but form into patterns of mission. And in combating the flesh, the Holy Spirit strives against a power acting with subtle yet intentional purpose.

In conclusion, even though we have not fully considered what "personality" when ascribed to supra-human realities involves, we may confidently call the Holy Spirit "personal." We have not yet decided, however, whether the Spirit can be called "God." In many of the activities just described, the Spirit seems more like a messenger, or servant, of the Son or Father.

B

Is the Holy Spirit Divine?

Salvation involves ethical harmony and positive legal standing with God. But it involves more. Salvation is also personal union with God and participation in God's very Life (Chaps. 7-8). Thus, while God

3 John 16:13-16; cf. 14:25-26; 15:26; cf. Acts 1:2.

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normally uses secondary means such as Scripture and the organized church to draw people, only God can be salvation's direct agent. For if any other being were salvation's direct agent, we would be "the servant of that being" and not of God.4 We would simply come under the dominion of another power. Accordingly, if the Spirit is involved in salvation not merely as a secondary instrument, but as its direct agent, we must ascribe the Spirit's work directly to "God."

In the church's early days, when pneumatic activity was intense, the Spirit's work was sometimes not clearly distinguished from Christ's. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, "You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11). Here it is impossible to ascribe distinct saving actions to different persons. Paul also wrote that sanctification, being transformed "from one degree of glory to another . . . comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18), for "the Lord is the Spirit" (3:17). This apparent identification of the risen Jesus with "the life-giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) raises problems for theology's distinctions among Trinitarian persons. Yet this very ambiguity expresses the directness with which the Spirit was thought to bestow salvation.5

The Holy Spirit also plays a decisive role in starting the salvation process and in hastening it toward cosmic consummation. Here the eschatological orientation of her work is clear (esp. Rom. 8:19-23).6 Paul, for instance, calls the Spirit the "guarantee" (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14) and the "firstfruits" (Rom. 8:23) of salvation. Apart from context, the first term might convey an extrinsic, legal meaning (it meant "down payment" in secular Greek). However, the second, which is also used of the resurrected Jesus (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) and the first Christian converts implies organic continuity between that which first blossoms and the final full flower.7 Paul elsewhere stresses that the Spirit, appropriated

4 Anselm, Cur Deus Homo? in Basic Writings (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1962, p. 184.

5 Such statements probably express the inseparability of the Lord and the Spirit in experience rather than any ontological identification (cf. James Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975], pp. 322-324). For these experiences also push Paul towards making some Trinitarian distinctions in Corinthians (1 Cor. 8:6; 12:4-6).

6 For our reasons for using feminine pronouns for the Spirit, see pp. 485ff. below.

7 Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:15; James 1:18; Rev. 14:4; and possibly 2 Thess. 2:13. From these texts the image of the church as the "firstfruits of creation," or as an eschatological sacrament of what God intends for the world, is derived (pp. 198-199 above). The church can be such a sacrament precisely because God's new creation is "already" actualized in it. Thus a real, and not merely figurative, link between it and the consummation exists. Similarly, the Spirit is

(footnote continued on next page)

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through faith, is prominent at salvation's initial stages (Gal. 3:2-5; cf. Rom. 7:6; 1 Cor. 12:13) and guides salvation toward its goal.8

John depicts the initiation of salvation in vivid feminine imagery as being given birth by God,9 which he attributes directly to the Spirit (John 3:3-8). In similar language, the Spirit is often said to bestow life.10 In Scripture, we have often noticed, life (zoe *) does not mean mere biological duration, but the unquenchable, unconquerable vitality flowing from God's very being. The Spirit's life-giving activity operated most decisively in Jesus' resurrection (Rom. 1:4; 1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Peter 3:18). This is connected to the Spirit's saving activity within us: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you" (Rom. 8:10-11).

The divine character of the Spirit's activity is directly stated in other texts which emphasize this saving transformation of the body. It is argued that the individual believer's body (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:17-20), and the church body (Eph. 2:22; cf. 1 Peter 2:5) are the temple of God because the Holy Spirit indwells them. Salvation is not merely a change of status or an isolated benefit bestowed by a God who remains distant. In John's language, we are saved whenand asFather, Son, and Spirit come to abide in us (John 14:23-36; 1 John 3:24; 4:13). Or, in Hebrews' terminology, as we become partakers of the Son and Spirit (Heb. 2:14; 3:14; 6:4).

In conclusion, our movement of reflection "from below" has shown that the Holy Spirit is no mere messenger of God, but the activity and presence of Godself. The Spirit is so direct an agent of God's saving work that she must be called "God." But while the texts above provide

(footnote continued from previous page)

the "guarantee" of our final salvation not as a secondary, extrinsic sign, but as one "sealed" on our "hearts" (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13), as the groaning of the heavenly life which has begun transforming our bodies (2 Cor. 5:5; cf. Rom. 8:22-23).

8 Gal. 5:5, 16-25; cf. 2 Thess. 2:13. The Holy Spirit is also the agent of baptism. The fathers often argued that since baptism bestows divinization, its agent, the Spirit, must be divine. While we have not ascribed this effect to baptism itself, we regard it as a high point in the salvation journey, and therefore one whose agent is the agent of the entire process (Chap. 13). But since we have said, precisely speaking, that Christ is present in baptism through the Spirit, the relationship between the agency of these persons awaits clarification in section C. below.

9 John 1:13; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1-4, 18.

10 Rom. 8:6; 2 Cor. 3:6; Gal. 5:25; 6:8; 1 Peter 4:6; Rev. 22:17.

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this answer, some of them raise additional questions. For some also ascribe this saving activity to the "Son" or "Father" or even "God." How can saving operations be ascribed directly to two or more agents? To understand what the Spirit's deity means, our reflection beginning from God's historical acts leads us next to consider the relationship of Spirit and Son.

C

The Relationship of Spirit and Son

Although is not yet clear what the Spirit's person is like, the Spirit's work is fully divine. Yet some readers may still feel uneasy with this conclusion. For while the Spirit does things which only God can do, many of her activities have a subordinate character. She often reveals, witnesses to, or points to something or someone else. Most people, however, instinctively suppose that God must always direct, control, initiate. God must always be master . . . never servant. Therefore, if any agent be in a serving role, it is instinctively assumed that it could hardly be divine.

We have discovered, however, that servanthood was central to Jesus' earthly ministry (Chap. 4). Of course, we may find that this servanthood was limited to his human side. Nevertheless, Jesus Christ was and is one person, not two. The servanthood which permeated his human activity might correspond to something on his transcendent side. For now, let us seek to set aside that instinctive assumption that deity can never take a subordinate role. (Perhaps we still have something to learn about the divine nature.) Let us simply investigate, again "from below," how the Spirit witnesses and relates to Jesus.

Beginning with the church's existence in the "already," the assurance and experienced reality of the eschaton's presence clearly stem chiefly from the Spirit. The Spirit works miracles, inspires mission, and guides the church's activities with an immediate authority.11 Nevertheless, though the Spirit's work is so intertwined with Jesus' that they can sometimes be almost identified,12 it is clear that the Spirit acts through Jesus' initiative and for his sake. In Jesus' "name" people are healed (Acts 3:6, 16; 4:10, 30), baptized, and forgiven (Acts 2:38; 10:47-48; 19:5-6). Mission engendered by the Spirit brings people into obedience to Jesus' name (Acts 8:12-13; Rom. 15:19-20; 1 Cor. 1:2), and mission's heralds into suffering for his sake (Acts 5:41; 9:16; 1 Peter 4:14). The Spirit glorifies the risen Christ.13 Yet it extols no bloodless phantom, for

11 See Dunn, pp. 146-196.

12 See our remarks on 1 Cor. 15:45 and 2 Cor. 3:17-18 in section B. above.

13 Acts 19:17; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 3:3; John 16:14.

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it testifies to Jesus' earthly history^14 and illuminates his teachings as well (Acts 1:2; John 14:26; 16:13-15). Moreover, the Spirit's sanctifying work consists in transforming people into Christ's likeness.15

In view of all this, it is hardly surprising that after his resurrection, Jesus is represented as sending the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33; John 15:26; 16:7). In the "already" of the eschaton, in the church's present life, the Spirit's primary function is to witness to Jesus, and to bring his past, present, and future reality to life experientially. The Spirit acts in the service of Christ.

Nevertheless, when we follow the Spirit's witness back toward Jesus' earthly ministry, their relationships begin to reverse. Though Jesus baptized through the Spirit after his resurrection, his earthly ministry began when the Spirit baptized him (Mark 1:10 and parallels). Immediately after baptizing Jesus, the Spirit drove him into his wilderness struggle with Satan, and back again into Galilee (esp. Luke 4:1, 14). Jesus' entire ministry, including his exorcisms (esp. Matt. 12:28), healings, and above all his bringing good news to the poor,16 was performed through the Spirit, who also facilitated his prayers (Luke 10:21). It is not surprising, then, that a central role is ascribed to the Spirit in the origins of Jesus' human existence (Matt. 2:18-20; Luke 2:35).

In fact, this relationship probably provides the key to Jesus' central proclamation that God's kingdom was "at hand" (Mark 1:15), and to his own consciousness of uniqueness and authority. From where did Jesus derive his invincible confidence that, despite all contrary appearances, God's kingdom was decisively present, and that he was its definitive agent? Most likely

it was an awareness of otherly power working through him, together with the conviction that this power was God's power. In his action God acted. When he spoke or stretched out his hand, something happenedthe sufferer was relieved, the prisoner freed, the evil departed. This could only be the power of God.17

Thus, although theology can say that God's kingdom was present because the kingJesuswas, this is not the whole story. In addition, the "eschatological kingdom was present for Jesus only because the eschatological Spirit was present in and through him."18 This means that,

14 Acts 5:32; 1 Peter 1:12; 1 John 4:2; 5:6-7.

15 Esp. Rom. 8:14-17; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; 4:6-15. For a thorough discussion, see Dunn, pp. 318-342.

16 Esp. Luke 4:18-19; cf. Dunn, pp. 53-62.

17 Dunn, p. 47.

18 Ibid., p. 48.

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while the Spirit could be said to have aided or empowered Jesus in a certain sense, the fundamental relationship is better described by saying that Jesus became the Spirit's instrument, or servant.

Jesus' Spirit-guided ministry eventually led him to the cross, where he ''through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God" (Heb. 9:14). Moreover, the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 1:4; 8:11; 1 Peter 3:18). As we know, this was no isolated miracle. It was the conquest of the powers of evil, Jesus' vindication over against their claims (1 Tim. 3:16), and the decisive victory of Life over Death (Vol. I, Chap. 18). Yet the Son did not raise himself. God the Spirit (more precisely, as we shall see, God the Father through God the Spirit) performed this decisive saving act.

Our brief overview finds the Spirit and the Son working together in salvation history, and their relationships as servant and served reversing. First the Spirit sends the Son, then the Son sends the Spirit. The Spirit first helps the Son worship, then the Spirit directs worship to the Son. We have not yet inferred what relationships these "persons" might have in an eternal "Trinity." But if theology can ever speak of such relationships, its starting point must lie in what we have discovered.

III

The Son

Were we to explicate the Son's person "from above," our task would be easier than in the Spirit's case. Several biblical texts define Jesus Christ as "God." John 1:1 and 20:28 clearly do, and probably also John 1:18 and 1 John 5:20.19 Hebrews designates the Son as God (Heb. 1:8-9) and briefly describes his divine character (1:2-3a). Colossians depicts him in similar terms (Col. 1:15-17, 19; 2:2, 9). In several other places Jesus is, in all likelihood, briefly designated as "God" (Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1).

For a theology which accepts the authority of biblical propositions (Vol. I, Chap. 12), these statements sufficiently affirm Christ's deity. However, they offer relatively little information about its character and meaning. From these passages we might conclude that the Son is eternal; that he is somehow the same and yet different from the Father; that these two enjoy an intimate relationship; that both were active in creation (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6); and that God's revealing or expressive activity

19 Although some manuscripts of John 1:18 read "the only-begotten son," the most likely reading is "the only-begotten God." For a discussion of these and other passages probably calling Jesus "God," see Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), pp. 306-314.

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is especially exercised by the Son. However, even these brief assertions prompt the understanding, once aroused by faith, to search for texts to help clarify these activities and relationships more fully.

Pursuing Christology "from below" will provide this detail. We shall review Jesus' historic acts, as we have the Spirit's, to determine whether some must be understood as God's own acts, with Jesus not merely as a secondary instrument, but their direct and primary agent. From this starting point, we will be able to discern how the specific christological concepts and titles arose to express essential characteristics of his person, which transcends any of his acts.

To say it otherwise, while Christology "from above" can affirm Christ's deity and several characteristics of his person, Christology "from below" enables us to explicate their meaning. It not only helps us understand the biblical kerygma, but also helps the church elaborate it meaningfully in its apologetic context. For in our modern world, it is not at all clear what meaningif anyassertions that a particular historical individual is God, or is Creator, might carry. Unless Christological assertions can be illumined by concrete, historical reference points, they will likely strike our contemporaries as empty echoes from a vanished era.

In proceeding "from below," however, we will be running a risk. Reflection on Christ's person has often swerved toward the opposed extremes of Docetism or Adoptionism. Docetism holds that while Christ is fully divine, he merely seemed to be fully human. Docetic tendencies were already criticized in John's letters (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). They became widespread in ancient Gnosticism, and tinged the Monophysitism of the fifth and sixth centuries.20 They have threatened all orthodoxies which neglect Christ's humanity. In our day, however, almost no one would deny, at least in theory, that Jesus was fully human.

Today, adoptionism is more appealing. Adoptionists hold that Jesus was a mere man who, by virtue of his dedication to God, was adopted as God's Son (at his baptism or at his resurrection, according to various versions). Adoptionistic tendencies appeared among early Jewish Christian movements and in the Nestorianism of the fifth century. They

20 Monophysitism, from the Greek words meaning "one" and "nature," is the view that Jesus had one nature, the divine, rather than two, the divine and the human, as affimred by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This label is sometime wrongly attritubed to the Alexandrian Christology of the fourth and fifth centuries, which emphasized the activity of Christ's divine nature. On Monophysitism, see W. H. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (Cambridge: University, 1972) and Roberta Chesnut, Three Monophysite Christologies (Oxford: University, 1976).

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resurfaced in nineteenth-century liberalism, which was prone to reject "metaphysical" understandings of Christ and to emphasize him as an historical model for human living.

Our approach "from below" has also emphasized Jesus' historical work (Vol. I, Chaps. 15, 17) and his anthropological normativity (Vol. II, Chaps. 3-4). Will we be able to do justice to biblical claims concerning Christ as God, or as the agent of creation? Or are we already committed to an adoptionist slant?

We will now review what earlier chapters have said about Jesus' work, asking what this can tell us about his fundamental nature or character. As we go, we shall discuss some major titles which Scripture assigns him. This chapter and Chapter 17 will focus on the meaning of his divinity. Chapter 18 will ask how this relates to his humanity. The following features of Jesus' work may imply his deity.

A

Fidelity to God's Kingdom

Earlier, we organized all facets of Jesus' work around his central mission, bringing God's kingdom (Vol. I, Chap. 15). When we focused on this kingdom work, the total harmony of Jesus' will with his Father's became apparent. Our examination of Jesus' obedience (Vol. II, Chap. 4) and of the centrality of his faithfulness to justification (Chap. 7) have deepened and strengthened this affirmation. The present chapter has shown that a full picture of Jesus' fidelity must include his obedience to and harmony with the Spirit.

Some liberal theologians, most notably Albrecht Ritschl, sought to base Christ's deity on this volitional unity (Vol. I, pp. 70, 267-269). By itself, however, this unity of wills does not take us beyond adoptionism. Other humans (at least in theory) might also be fully dedicated to God's will. By doing so, however, they would only fulfill their human destiny. Some theologians have added that Jesus was the first to obey fully God's will. Thus any later person who did the same would be dependent on Jesusfor inspiration, instruction, etc.21 Still, temporal priority and dependence, by themselves, cannot make a human person divine. Neither can Jesus' appearance at a decisive point in history, which gave his dedication to the kingdom a unique character. If Jesus' work consisted only in a human response to a divine work, theology could not move from the former to his divine person. Only if features of that work were inherently divine can it do so.

21 E.g., Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917), pp. 152-153.

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B

Eschatological Judgment

The coming of God's kingdom involved the coming of God's last judgment. The imminence of this judgment was expressed in the figure of the Son of Humanity. Traditional Christology usually assumed, without adequate exegesis, that this title indicated Jesus' humanity. But modern research has shown that this figure, who emerges in Jewish apocalyptic, is primarily a preexistent divine being. He is hidden from all eternity, but revealed to exercise judgment on the Last Day, and to preside over the redeemed community forever.22 In an undoubtedly authentic saying, Jesus declared, "Everyone who acknowledges me before humans, the Son of Humanity will also acknowledge before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before humans will be denied before the angels of God" (Luke 12:8-9; cf. Mark 8:38). Scholars disagree whether Jesus regarded this Son of Humanity as himself or as someone else.23 In either case, this and similar sayings reveal several important things about his person.

First, the validity of Jesus' historical claims was dependent on future vindication. Even as he uttered them, his opponents were seeking to destroy him. His words about God's kingdom and judgment would be true only if future events bore them out. They would be disproved if his enemies triumphed. To be sure, Jesus' message has "not yet" been confirmed by his return as Son of Humanity. Nevertheless, it was decisively vindicated by his resurrection by the Spirit and the Father, through which eschatological judgment and salvation have "already" been actualized.24 Thus the truth of Jesus' claimsincluding those about his personwas dependent not merely on his own actions or authority, but also on the actions of the other divine persons.

Second, since Jesus' message could have been falsified by his defeat, its truth, correspondingly, was intrinsically bound up with the

22 Cf. Dan. 7:13-14; 4 Ezra 13; Ethiopian Enoch 46; 4849; 52; 62; 69; 71.

23 For the former view, see Cullmann, pp. 137-192; Dunn, Christology in the Making (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), pp. 82-87. For the latter, see Reginald Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology (New York: Scribners's, 1965), pp. 119-125 (cf. pp. 34-43, 142-155). To avoid an unduly masculine understanding of this title, we are rendering it Son of Humanity, rather than the usual Son of Man. However, to render it The Human One, as does An Inclusive-Language Lectionary (see esp. Readings for Year B [Atlanta: Knox, 1984], p. 245), is to emphasize its less prominent human dimension and to lose sight of its more prominent Divine One.

24 Vol. I, pp. 355-357. This "proleptic" structure of Jesus' message and claims is a major theme of Wolfhart Pannenberg's Jesus: God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967), esp. pp. 53-66.

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continuance of his person. If he perished, so would his message. The arrival of God's kingdom, therefore, was so intimately tied to Jesus' arrival and continuance that accepting his message involved accepting him.25 The Son of Humanity would award salvation or judgment not to those who merely accepted or rejected Jesus' message, but to those who accepted or rejected Jesus himself.

Third, having been vindicated by resurrection, Jesus was openly installed as the eschatological Judge (Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom. 2:16), openly recognized as the Son of Humanity (Acts 7:56). In the biblical understanding, the Last Judgmentthe final decision concerning everyone's fatebelongs to God alone. Moreover, Christ's public installation confirmed his earlier claims that judgment was already occurring during his ministry.

These considerations move us beyond the alignment of Jesus' will with God's. They show that the presence of God's kingdom was so dependent on the presence of Jesus' person that salvation depended on accepting, and finally being judged by, Jesus himself. Jesus now appears as more than a man who obeyed God. He emerges as the one who bestows the salvation and pronounces the judgment that only God can give.

Perhaps this does not yet take us beyond adoptionism. Perhaps, since Jesus was decisively vindicated by his resurrection, he was "adopted" at this point. Might the early resurrection kerygma be saying this when it affirms that "God made him both Lord and Christ"?26 Or, if he acted as God throughout his ministry, might he have been adopted at his baptism? After all, the words which he then heard, "Thou art my beloved Son," recall Psalm 2, which continues, "Today I have begotten thee."

C

Authority

Jesus' ministry was marked by the exercise of unique authority. In confronting his demonic, religious, and political opponents, it was manifested interchangeably through words and deeds (Vol. I, pp. 291-298). Thus various facets of the same authority will appear as we examine his teachings, healings, and exorcisms.

For the scribes, the highest religious authority was the Torah. Its words were God's. Yet after quoting the Torah, Jesus could simply

25 Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper, 1974), pp. 120-125.

26 Acts 2:36; cf. Rom. 1:4. For this interpretation, see John A. T. Robinson, "The Most Primitive Christology of All?" in Twelve New Testament Studies (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1962), pp. 139-153.

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assert, "But I say unto you . . . " (e.g., Matt. 5:21-48). This use of "I" in expanding or supplementing God's own words can only mean that Jesus "puts himself in the place of God."27 Jesus' frequent use of amen *, meaning "verily" or "truly,'' carries the same implications. Throughout the synoptic Gospels, Jesus often bases his teaching merely on a "Truly, I say to you. . . . " This reminds one of his frequent use of "I am" in Johna phrase which clearly claims divinity.28

Jesus' authority extends to his healings, which are linked with his forgiveness of sins. When his opponents rightly insist that only God can so forgive, Jesus replies that forgiveness had been an implicit dimension of his healings all along (Mark 2:5-11 and parallels; cf. Luke 7:48-49; John 5:16-18). Such texts show that later New Testament affirmations of forgiveness through Jesus are rooted in his historical work. Christ's exorcisms were also manifestations of divine power. Jesus "rebuked" (epitimazein) not only illness (Luke 4:11), demons (Mark 1:25; 3:12 and parallels), and his disciples' demonic intentions (Mark 8:33 and parallels), but also storms (Mark 4:39 and parallels), demonstrating an authority over physical creation. Much as his healings were evidence of the forgiveness he was granting, so his exorcisms were proof that he had already bound Satan and was bringing the kingdom through the Spirit (Mark 3:22-30 and parallels).

Throughout his ministry, then, Jesus proclaimed truth, forgave sins, and bound the devil not merely as the instrument of a higher being, but by his own authority and his ownand the Spirit'spower. The authority he exercised was thus the very authority of God. Indeed, Jesus' agency is proving to be so directly identified with God's that it is increasingly implausible to regard him simply as a human agent whom God adopted and used.

Let us explore Jesus' saving role more fully to see if this continues to be so. And let us remember that some significant changes in Jesus' relationship to his Father occurred at his baptism and resurrectionchanges which we have not yet explored.

D

Salvation

Each activity we just discussedteaching, forgiving sin, and defeating Satanhas been emphasized by a major theory of Christ's work:

27 Ulrich Wilckens, "The Understanding of Revelation within the History of Primitive Christianity" in Pannenberg, et al., Revelation as History (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 69.

28 Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to St. John: I-XII (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 533-538.

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the moral influence, the substitutionary, and the Christus victor (Vol. I, Chap. 16). Perhaps if we probe more deeply the significance of these three saving activities, we can discover more about his person.

Jesus' teaching involved guidelines for living in God's kingdom (Vol. I, Chap. 15). Without these, his salvation could hardly have been salvation for a new way of righteousness and life. Yet these contents, by themselves, could have been conveyed simply by a human in tune with God's will. But Jesus' teaching, as we recently said, consists not merely in impartation of content. Sometimes, as in the Beatitudes, it involved the proclamation of eschatological blessedness or woe.29 And Jesus' teaching of and call to discipleship involved the promise of eternal fellowship with him.30

Moreover, Jesus' commands were not merely ideal demands which sinful humans could not fulfill, but descriptions of a way of life which was already becoming possible. Thus his teaching carried with it the power of salvation and renewal (Vol. II, Chap. 3). In all these ways, thenas proclamation of judgment and of personal, saving fellowship, and as implicit salvific empowermentJesus' teaching was the saving work of God.

As substitutionary, Christ's work paid the penalties due human sin and attained the goal for which we are destined. Had this work not been fully human, it would never have gained these results. We have seen, however, that his sacrifice consisted chiefly in actualizing the covenant faithfulness of God (Vol. I, pp. 343-346). In Hebrews, which regards the Son as divine, his sacrifice surpasses all previous sacrifices primarily because he shed "his own blood" (Heb. 9:12)because he offered himself (7:27; 9:26). Of this act Jesus is clearly the direct agent. Yet Hebrews also helps us glimpse its Trinitarian dimensions. For Christ offered himself "through the eternal Spirit" (9:14), and the agent of this act is also the will of God.31 Thus the figure of the high priest,

29 Matt. 5:3-12; Luke 6:17-38. In this and most New Testament contexts, blessed (makarios) refers "overwhelmingly to the distinctively religious joy which accrues to man from his share in the salvation of the Kingdom of God." TWNT, Vol. IV, p. 367.

30 Eduard Schweizer, Lordship and Discipleship (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960), pp. 11-21.

31 10:10. Heb. 9:15-22 explains that a covenant (diatheke *) comes into force only when the "death of the one who makes it is brought forward (pheresthai)" (9:16). The writer explains this by referring to the sealing of the Sinai covenant. Here Moses sprinkled sacrificial blood on the people and on "the book itself," representing God (9:19-20; cf. Exod. 24:3-8). This sprinkling indicated that both Yahweh and the people were taking the covenant sanctions upon themselves. They were saying, "Let me be torn in pieces like this sacrificial animal if I do not perform this covenant" (Vol. I, pp. 343-344). Hebrews is saying, then, that Jesus' death is the actual death of the one who

(footnote continued on next page)

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which only Hebrews elaborates, indicates Jesus' deity.32

Paul also regards Jesus' sacrifice as the decisive expression of God's faithfulness (Chap. 7). It is so insuperable a manifestation of God's love that nothing can separate us from it (Rom. 5:8-10; 8:32-39). John, too, finds God's love supremely manifested by the sending and sacrifice of his Son (1 John 4:9-10). Of course, these passages focus to some degree on the love of God the Father. However, when Paul and John speak similarly of the Son's love as the agent of this sacrifice (Gal. 2:20; 1 John 3:16), the self-giving and initiative of both are clearly involved. The deepest marvel of Jesus' substitutionary suffering, then, is not that a sinless human suffered what we deserve. It is that when all humanity had rejected God, God stepped in and absorbed all the pain and the hell that that broken relationship had spawned.

Jesus is also the direct agent of salvation considered as the triumph over evil powers. He is the one who challenged Satan's kingdom by his teachings, his exorcisms, and his very presence. He bore the devil's direct assault in the wilderness, in his lifelong temptations, and finally in death itself. In light of the above, Jesus is hardly a secondary instrument of this divine work. In fact, his death and resurrection constitute the decisive victory over evil. For precisely in assaulting him, the powers made their strongest possible bid for masterythe attempt to destroy God's own selfand were defeated.

Jesus' saving activity is also expressed as a divine work by two New Testament titles. Lord indicates Jesus' present, ruling activity. Some argue that it is a fairly late, Hellenistic title that conceives Jesus largely as the deity present in the local cult, whose historical work has been forgotten. They claim this because Lord was a widespread designation

(footnote continued from previous page)

made the first covenant: God (see William Lane, Call to Commitment [Nashville: Nelson, 1985], pp. 124-126).

Most exegetes, however, reject this reading. For although diatheke *, which almost always means covenant in the New Testament, is used throughout the passage, many argue that it could not possibly mean this in verses 16-17. For this "would lead to the absurd idea that in the institution of the first diatheke* the death of the sacrificial beasts represented that of the testator, i.e., God." (TDNT, Vol. II, pp. 131-132). To avoid this "absurdity," most commentators suppose that diatheke* must mean will in verses 16-17, although it clearly means covenant in the statements immediately preceding and following. Rejection of this extremely awkward shift in meanings, however, is entirely congruent with a major biblical understanding of sacrifice (Vol. 1, pp. 343-346) and with Hebrews' emphasis on Jesus' deity and the significance of "his own" blood.

32 See esp. Heb. 7:3. Cullmann also argues that the earthly Jesus "considered it his task to fulfill the priestly office" (p. 89).

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for Greek political rulers, and also for gods of mystery religions who were experienced in an ecstatic, nonhistorical way. Moreover, it is argued that the earliest Palestinian Christians focused so intensely on the return of the Son of Humanity that they could not yet consider Jesus' present, cosmic functions. Only the "delay of the parousia" forced them to ponder the significance of Jesus as reigning Lord.33

We have insisted, however, that early Christian hope was grounded not, strictly speaking, in the "not yet" of Christ's return, but in the "already" of his triumph over the powers (Vol. I, pp. 123-124). Thus from the beginning he was their reigning Lord and was worshipfully addressed by this title appropriate to God alone.34 This was expressed in an early hymn, later quoted by Paul, which ends by exclaiming that God bestowed upon the risen Jesus "the name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:6-11). This is clearly God's own name, Lord. In bestowing it, God fulfilled the vow, "To me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear!'' (Isa. 45:23). This hymn does not acclaim a heavenly being who appears chiefly in worship, but one who rules the powers on the basis of his humble historical work.

Since Lord (kurios) was the Greek Old Testament's common name for God, its attribution to Jesus opened the way for referring Old Testament texts about Yahweh directly to him.35 The cosmic dimensions of this title were entailed in it from the beginning, though some of them became more explicit as time passed. In the process, of course, Lord effectively expressed Jesus' sovereignty in a Hellenistic world populated with many gods and "lords" (1 Cor. 8:5-6). In fact, given the Hellenistic use of lord for both religious and political figures, this title effectively expressed Jesus' sovereignty in both spheres.

One other title clearly designates Jesus' saving activity as a divine work. Jesus actually means Savior. In the Old Testament, Savior usually designated God as the one who delivers from enemies and death (2 Sam. 22:3; Isa. 45:21; 49:26). Occasionally a human through whom Yahweh so acted shared this title (2 Kings 13:5; Neh. 9:27). The early kerygma understood Jesus as Savior largely in this latter sensealthough adding that he saves from sins.36 Paul applied Savior to Jesus as future transformer of the cosmos (Phil. 3:20; cf. Eph. 5:23; Titus 2:13).

33 See Fuller's argument, pp. 142-158; also Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, Vol. I (New York: Scribners, 1951), pp. 52-53, 121-128.

34 Cullmann, pp. 195-222; cf. our argument in Vol. I, p. 37.

35 Cullmann, pp. 234-237.

36 Acts 5:31; 13:23; cf. Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:47; 2:11.

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For the most part, however, this title appears in later writings (the pastorals, 2 Peter, Jude) where Savior frequently designates "God." It is significant, then, that these brief letters often call Jesus Savior, too, and in two instances designated him as both Savior and probably also God (2 Peter 1:1; Titus 2:13; cf. 1:3-4). They twice elaborate on Jesus' work as Savior as a divine work (2 Tim. 1:10; Titus 3:4-7). Like Lord, Savior applied to both gods and rulers in Hellenistic culture. While this title, when applied to Jesus, could lead to his being regarded much as they were, its intention was to exalt him alone over religious and political reality.

The more we consider Jesus' bringing of salvation in depth, then, the more clearly he emerges as the direct agent of acts that can only be divine. Yet he also appears to have received some of these powers and functions from "God." This is especially clear in the Philippian hymn which, like the kerygmatic declaration of Acts 2:36, has Jesus receiving the title Lord at his exaltation. To apprehend more fully how this was possible, we must examine Jesus' sonship.

E

Sonship

According to some scholars, Son, too is a largely late, Hellenistic title. It presents Jesus in the role of a popular miracle worker, or "divine man." This notion is thought to be present when Jesus is endowed with the Spirit's power or with supernatural splendorsuch as at his baptism or transfiguration.37

Son of God, however, was also an Old Testament title for those exercising a special mission or office for Yahweh.38 Accordingly, Jesus' baptism, where he heard the words, "Thou art my beloved Son" involved his calling to such a mission. Further, we have seen that Satan's testing, "If you are the Son of God, . . . " was a challenge regarding how he would carry it out (Vol. I, pp. 292-293). In fact, when Satan tempts Jesus to marvelous displays of power, he is suggesting behavior characteristic of a Hellenistic "divine man." And precisely as the commissioned Son of God, Jesus rejects this understandingin the wilderness, throughout his ministry (Mark 8:11-12 and parallels; cf. John 2:18; 6:30), and finally on the cross (Matt. 27:40, 43).

Moreover, our study of the relation of Spirit and Son suggests that Jesus' baptism was not an infusion of marvelous power, but something far more personal. In addition, the words, "Thou art my beloved Son," confirmed a personal relationship. In fact, Jesus' mission began with a

37 See Fuller, pp. 68-72, 192-197.

38 Cullmann, pp. 270-290; acknowledged by Fuller, pp. 65, 164-167.

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distinctive experience of both the Father's love and the Spirit's presence. These were "two sides of the one coin." In this commissioning the obedience of the Son and the liberty of the prophet, the ethical and the charismatic, were inseparably intertwined.39

Jesus' further ministry suggests that this consciousness of sonship, along with his awareness of the Spirit's power, were the most fundamental elements in his sense of identity and mission. At his transfiguration, the Father again affirmed Jesus as his "beloved Son."40 The deeply personal meaning of Son was clear above all in Jesus' unique way of referring to God as his "Father." Although the familial term father was seldom used for Yahweh in the Old Testament, Jesus addressed God with the even more intimate word, abba, especially in prayer.41 Jesus' expressed his awareness of this unique relationship in the assertion that "all things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matt. 11:26; cf. Luke 10:22).

This declaration from the synoptic Gospels recalls similar statements in John, and shows that the latter's essential affirmations are rooted in Jesus' history. Especially in John 5:17-32, the unity of Father and Son appears primarily as an intimate unity of will. Although Son expresses Jesus' deity, he is not described in terms normally associated with thisomnipotence, omniscience, etc. Instead, Sonship consists primarily in obedience and receptivity. Hebrews is even more explicit. In his trials, the Son "offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears" (5:7). In short, "although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered" (5:9).

Hebrews is referring largely to Jesus' final days, when his intimate sense of Sonship was most deeply tested. Jürgen Moltmann has written that Trinitarian theology is required above all by the cross. When theology considers what happened there, simple talk of "God" proves inadequate. For at the cross we find the Son, who has accomplished his mission in awareness of his Father's loving presence and with certainty, amid ever-growing opposition, of doing his Father's will. Yet at Gethsemane, the Son is delivered to his enemies. On the other hand, we find

39 Dunn, pp. 66, 90.

40 Mark 9:2 and parallels; 2 Peter 1:17; cf. Matt. 12:18; Mark 12:6; Luke 20:13. The Johannine term only-begotten also includes the meaning "beloved" (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:19). The roots of this term can also be found in the Old Testament notion of the individual called to a special mission for Yahweh (cf. Psalm 89:27).

41 See Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (London: S.C.M., 1967).

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the Father, whom the Son had known and loved . . . and who now withdraws. The Son is abandoned into the agony of defeat, shame, and death. In his last moments he screams out, "My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).

But even then Father and Son are united (Vol. I, pp. 339-342). The Son suffers forsakenness and dying. But the Father, who has delivered his beloved Son to the powers for our sake, "suffers the death of the Son in the infinite grief of love."42 Therefore, although "Father and Son are most deeply separated in their forsakenness," they are at the same time "most inwardly one in their surrender."43 For as the Son reaches upward through the darkness to his Father, and as the Father reaches downward, as it were, toward his Son, a link still unites them. It is ''through the eternal Spirit" that the Son offers "himself without blemish to God. . . . " (Heb. 9:14).

Any attempt to discover the common nature (homoousion) shared by Father, Son, and Spirit must reckon with the cross. It questions the common patristic assumption that the divine nature (ousia) is inherently immutable, impassible, and immortal (Vol. I, pp. 260-262). For here, on the cross, the Son certainly seems to change, suffer, and even die. The Father and Spirit participate intimately in this process.

Theology cannot downplay this paradox, since (among other things) it is profoundly soteriological. For God has entered into suffering, despair, and death in their worst possible formin the murder of God by the forces of evil. Thus "there is no suffering which in this history of God is not God's suffering; no death which has not been God's death in the history on Golgotha."44 Salvation, then, involves God's presence with us in every kind of joy or sorrow, in every victory or defeat, in all dimensions of life and death.

This dimension of salvation is expressed, in part, by the notion that humans, too, become "children" or "sons" of God. In other words, by being drawn into the suffering and the joy of the Son through the cross and resurrection, we, too, are brought into Jesus' relationship of Sonship with his Father. He becomes our elder brother; we become sisters and brothers of Jesus, and of each other (cf. Mark 3:31-33 and parallels). This relationship is actualized when God sends the Spirit,

42 Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp. 243-244.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., p. 246. Moreover, "only if all disaster, forsakenness by God, absolute death, the infinite curse of damnation, and sinking into nothingness is in God himself, is community with God eternal salvation, infinite joy, indestructible election, and divine life. The 'bifurcation' in God must contain the whole uproar of history within itself" (p. 246; cf. our Vol. I, pp. 339-342).

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who prays in us as she prayed through Jesus, "Abba! Father!" (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15-17).

In recent years, feminist theologians have challenged the pervasiveness of father-son imagery. They rightly insist that it has often been used to solidify oppressive, patriarchal structures in society, and to downgrade the importance of women in the church. Nevertheless, such uses of "father" imagery have little in common with Jesus. For him, Father did not primarily connote masculinity, but intimacy. And Jesus brings us not into relation with a stern masculine potentate, but into family relationships of tenderness and agape. Many characteristics of Jesus' "Father" are those often associated with ''Mother."

This unique intimacy and unity between Father and Son, into which humans are savingly invited, preceded Jesus' resurrection. Clearly, then, he was not adopted as Son at that point. His subsequent installation as Lord signified not an ontological change in relation to his Father but a functional one in relation to the cosmos. Similarly, being addressed as "Son" at his baptism did not begin this relationship, but affirmed it and called him to his specific mission. For the depth of the Father-Son relation revealed in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection made it plausible that it stretched back beyond not only his baptism, but even his birth. For Father and Son had been deeply united in a work which culminated saving history.

Might not their relationship, then, have existed before thiseven from all eternity? Philippian's pre-Pauline hymn affirms this.45 Both Paul (Gal. 4:4; Rom. 8:3) and John (John 3:17; 1 John 4:9-14) speak of God sending his Son into the world.46 According to Hebrews, the Son took on

45 Dunn argues that Jesus' being "in the form of God" (Phil. 2:6) means simply that he possessed God's image, as Adam had. Thus the entire hymn (2:6-11) need not assume Jesus' preexistence, but only that he recapitulated the human course that Adam should have followed (pp. 114-121). But the contrast between being "in the form of God" and "being made in human likeness" (2:7), or "being found in human likeness" is too strong to empty the hymn of all reference to preexistence. See Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Pre-Existence, Wisdom and the Son of Man (Cambridge: University, 1973), pp. 156-168; Ralph Martin, Carmen Christi (Cambridge: University, 1967), pp. 97-164; Cullmann, pp. 174-181; Fuller, pp. 208-211.

46 Dunn argues that "sending" the Son in Gal. 4:4 and Rom. 8:3 refers only to Jesus' earthly ministry, and not to some preexistent state from which Jesus was sent (pp. 38-46). While such a reading is perhaps possible for Rom. 8:3, it is unconvincing for Gal. 4 with its emphasis on humankind being ruled by supernatural powers (4:4), the parallel between sending the Son and sending the Spirit (4:6), and the stress on Jesus' being born of woman (4:4). Second Corinthians 8:9 also indicates a preexistent state. First Corinthians 15:45-47 may do so, although it perhaps attributes Jesus' heavenly status solely to his resurrection. See Dunn, pp. 121-125; Hamerton-Kelly, pp. 111-112, 132-144, 150-153, 192-196; Werner Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God (London: SCM,

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flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14, 17). The depths of the Son's intimate relationship with his Father, then, point back beyond adoption at his resurrection, baptism, or even his birth. Son appears in texts which discuss this earlier relationship.47 Yet they describe it largely through other titles.

F

Creation

Creation of the universe, perhaps suggested by Jesus' authority over nature, was implied by his historical work in three more explicit ways. First, since salvation, which involved participation in the relationships among Son, Father, and Spirit, bestowed eternal life, these relationships could well have existed from the cosmos' origins. Second, the radical, transforming scope of Jesus' work led to its results being called a new creation (1 Cor. 1:28-30; 2 Cor. 5:17; James 1:18). Since Jesus was the mediator of this new creation, he might well have been involved in the original one.

Third, the kerygma presented Jesus' work as fulfilling "the definite plan and foreknowledge of God."48 Later, this plan could be called the "mystery" which was "hidden for ages and generations," but which had been fulfilled by, and consisted in, "Christ."49 Similarly, Jesus and his salvation were ''destined before the foundation of the world" but "made manifest at the end of the times."50 Since God had always intended that all things be united in Christ (Eph. 1:9-10), Christ could well have been involved in their creation.

Across the centuries, the title which has most deeply influenced theology's understanding of Jesus' preexistence and his creative role has been Logos (in English, Word; see John 1:1-18; cf. 1 John 1:1-2). Logos was a common term in Greek philosophy. It denoted the rational law which governs the universe and the human mind. According to many theologians, Logos unfortunately enabled Christology to leave the historic, Hebraic environment of early Christianity and to enter the alien realm of Greek speculation. According to some feminist theologians, Logos intensified theology's attribution of masculine, rationalistic charac-

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1967), pp. 111-115.

47 Heb. 1:2-3; Col. 1:13-17; John 1:14, 18; 1 John 1:1-3.

48 Acts 2:23; cf. 13:27; 1 Cor. 15:3-4; Rom. 1:2.

49 Col. 1:26-27; 2:2; cf. Eph. 3:4-6, 11; Rom. 16:25-26.

50 1 Peter 1:20; cf. 2 Tim. 1:9-10; Titus 1:2-3; Heb. 9:26.

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teristics to Christ and its corresponding devaluation of the feminine.

However, New Testament expressions of Jesus' role in creation, including Logos, have been formed more decisively by the Hebraic concept, Wisdom. Wisdom, which is personified in female form, is the principle through which God shaped and ordered the creation.51 In this creative work Wisdom was "daily his delight, rejoicing before him always" (Prov. 8:30). "She is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God" (Wisdom 7:26). Yet Wisdom does not remain in heaven. Crying out God's truth to humanity, she descends to earth to impart it (Prov. 8:1-21; Sirach 51:23-30). Yet she is usually rejected. So she ascends back among the angels (1 Enoch 42:2)even though she remains with those who welcome her.

Luke shows that Jesus regarded himself as the Child of Wisdom (Luke 7:35; 11:49-51). Matthew presents him as the incarnation of Wisdom herself (Matt. 11:19; 23:24-26). Wisdom, however, does not merely communicate cognitive content. Two of Wisdom's appeals are especially pervaded with tenderness. The first is, "Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28-30; cf. Sirach 51:23-27). The second is Jesus' lament, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . . how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!"52 Clearly, Wisdom is neither a mere intellectual principle, nor a markedly masculine one. And neither is John's Logos, who, as "only-begotten God," dwells "in the bosom of the Father;" the Logos who ''came to his own and his own received him not" (John 1:11).

Paul also called Jesus "the Wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24; cf. 1:30) and spoke of this wisdom (like the "mystery") as "secret and hidden . . . decreed before the ages for our glorification" (1 Cor. 2:7). His main emphasis, however, was on the contrast between human wisdom and the real divine Wisdom, which was revealed and actualized in the "foolishness" of the crucifixion (1:18-29), and which the rulers respon-

51 Prov. 3:19; 8:22-31; Wisdom 7:22; 8:4-6.

52 Matt. 23:37 and parallels. Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza emphasizes the role of Wisdom in Jesus' ministry and self-understanding (In Memory of Her [New York: Crossroad, 1983], pp. 130-140). However, she bases the emphases of the early "Jesus movement" too exclusively on the "Sophia-God" and contrasts this concept too sharply with others. For the role of Wisdom in Jesus' ministry, see Dunn, Christology in the Making, pp. 196-206; and M. Jack Suggs, Wisdom, Christology, and Law in Mattew's Gospel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1970). For the Hebrew background, see Dunn, pp. 163-176; and Fuller, pp. 72-75. For a more negative feminist evaluation of the biblical use of Wisdom material, see Joan Chamberlain Engelsman, The Feminine Dimension of the Divine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), pp. 74-120.

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sible for it did not know (2:6-9). This Wisdom conceptuality probably informs the earliest affirmation of Jesus' role in creation: "There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (8:6).

Wisdom definitely informs Paul's more detailed description in Colossians, as it does Hebrews 1:2-4 and John's Logos. These texts do not discuss creation in abstraction from, but in connection with Christ's saving work (Col. 1:18-20; Heb. 1:3b-4; John 1:5, 9-17). They seek to give this work its deepest foundation and widest scope by rooting this purpose in creation. Thus "all things" were originally created "for him" (Col. 1:16). He is "heir of all things" (Heb. 1:2). The life he brings was also that which he originally bestowed (John 1:5, 9). These texts conceive Christ's role in creation, as in salvation, as one of revealing, communicating, and expressing the divine character and person. He is therefore not simply the origin from "whom'' all things flow. (This is the Father's role [1 Cor. 8:6].) Rather, Christ is the one "through" whom all things have purpose and shape.53

However, as we begin to explore this complex and important theme, we begin to realize that our theology has not yet examined all of God's works. We have not really discussed creation. Consequently, before the results of this chapter can help us probe more deeply into God's nature, we must devote our next one to creation.

G

The Meaning of the Son's Deity

Our Christology "from below" is designed to show not only that Jesus is divine, but also what this means. So far, our investigations have revealed that the Son's work is deeply intertwined with the Spirit's and the Father's. This suggests that the meaning of his deity and person can be adequately stated only in relation to theirswhich we will do in Chapter 17. At present, however, we can provisionally indicate some dimensions of the confession that Jesus Christ is God.

The deity of Jesus Christ means that allegiance to him cannot consist merely in following his teachings or example, or in revering him as a spokesperson or representative of God. Allegiance is also a direct relationship with him. It involves committing oneself directly to Jesus and coming directly under his salvation and his judgment (Sec. B above). Confessing the deity of Jesus Christ also means accepting his authority. His teachings and commands are not guesses or suggestions about how one might live, but instructions to be obeyed. At the same time, belief in his deity carries the comfort of knowing that all evil

53 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; John 1:3.

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forces are subject to his power and command (Sec. C).

If Jesus Christ is God, then his teachings are not cold rules, nor standards to be attained before we can receive grace. Instead, his teachings announce and describe the joyous possibility of new life with God. They arouse desire and hope for the way of God's kingdom and thereby begin conveying the grace which energizes our response. If Jesus is God, then his sufferings are not merely those of an exemplary human, nor mere evidence of the inviolability of God's law. They are above all God's taking our burdens upon himself in the unutterable anguish of love. Moreover, if Jesus is divine, Godself has confronted and suffered under all the terror, pain, and hell the powers can inflict. God has even died at their hands, and yet, through this, has passed beyond their dominion (Sec. D).

If Jesus Christ is divine, then he draws us into his own intimate relationship with his Father and Spiritnot merely into the relationship of subordinate to superior, but into a mutual sharing of purpose and love. This relationship can be afflicted by and yet absorb and heal all the agony that humans have ever known. We are enlivened and nourished by that relationship and thereby adopted into the family of God (Sec. E.)

Finally, if Jesus Christ is God, then he is reigning Lord over all dimensions of the cosmos, the one to whom all creatures owe allegiance. Allegiance to him and his way must supersede and critique commitment to any social or political system (Sec. D). Yet this lordship, however much it may challenge our usual understandings of society and nature, fulfills and enhances those potentialities and rhythms built into creation. Jesus is revealed not only through his life, death, and resurrectionfor these events enable us to discover his presence in all creation, too. The material, historical, social, aesthetic, and other dimensions of life were originally designed, through the Son himself, to be "sacramental" expressions of his glory (Sec. F).

Suggestions for Further Reading

Cady, Susan, Marian Ronan, and Hal Taussig. Sophia: The Future of Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper, 1986.

Chestnut, Glen. Images of Christ. New York: Seabury, 1985.

Cullmann, Oscar. The Christology of the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959.

Dunn, James. Christology in the Making. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980.

__________. Jesus and the Spirit. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.

Dunn, James and J. P. Mackie. New Testament Theology in Dialogue: Christology and Ministry. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988.

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Ewert, David. The Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald, 1983.

Fuller, Reginald. The Foundations of New Testament Christology. New York: Scribners, 1965.

Hamerton-Kelly, Robert. Pre-Existence, Wisdom and the Son of Man. Cambridge: University, 1973.

Jeremias, Joachim. The Prayers of Jesus. London: S.C.M., 1967.

Kramer, Werner. Christ, Lord, Son of God. London: S.C.M., 1966.

Krieg, Robert. Story-Shaped Christology. New York: Paulist, 1987.

Schweizer, Edward. The Holy Spirit. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.

__________. Lordship and Discipleship. Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960.

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Chapter Sixteen

Creation

In most systematic theologies, creation appears near the beginning: right after the doctrine of God. Chapters on creation often argue that the reigning natural sciences are compatible with, incompatible with, or irrelevant to, faith. Since all this is discussed before the activities of God and the church have been considered, placing creation near the start of the system runs some of the same risks as beginning with God. First, since the relationships between God and nature, and between theology and science, are highly complex, theology can become oriented more toward intellectuals in the academy than the faithful in the church. Second, since such discussions tend to construct the framework within which revelation, Jesus, and Christian life will be examined, they may force such explorations into preconceived molds.

By beginning not with God's nature but with God's acts, and with their the eschatological goal rather than their chronological origin, we have ensured that creation will come near the end of our system. Along the way, of course, nature's crucial role has emerged at several points. (This has occurred most notably in the cosmos' final transformation [Vol. I, Chaps. 7, 9] and in humankind's original calling [Vol. II, Chap. 4].) Creation's importance has emerged most fully as we have plumbed the depths of God's saving work. The universal and eternal character of this work show that it must be rooted in creation (Chap. 15).

This chapter will approach creation as the last of those divine activities which our theology will consider. Since creation's significance has emerged as we examined salvation, we will not be able to distin-

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guish creation sharply from redemption, as theology often does. Rather, creation itself will prove to be one of God's saving activities in large part. We will first consider God's creating activity "from below," from within the context of salvation history. Since the affirmations that we can derive from this investigation will touch on areas studied by natural science, we must next consider the relationship between the two. Finally, informed by these two explorations, we will see what broad theological affirmations we can make about creation.

I

Salvation History and Creation

We have seen that theological anthropology is often based on those brief accounts of the first humans found in Genesis. It often overlooks what centuries of biblical history and what Jesus, the only fully actualized person, can tell us about human nature. Moreover, the sparseness of Genesis' information often allows philosophical or scientific anthropologies to be smuggled into theology under its cover (Chaps. 1-3).

Somewhat the same thing can be said of creation. Though a greater proportion of Scripture's important references to this theme appear in Genesis, it, too, recurs in many places. And Jesus is not only the original creation's goal (Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:2), but the inaugurator of a new one (2 Cor. 5:17). Moreover, Genesis' brief accounts have often been enlisted to sanction elaborate scientific and metaphysical theories. To avoid these limitations, we shall approach creation, much as we have humanity and God, by first examining the relevant activities. We will consider Genesis 12, but we will also search for other occurrences of God's creative activity and ask how Jesus is related to them all.

A

The Biblical Writings

According to even conservative theories of the Pentateuch which place its composition in Moses' time, the final form of the creation stories was shaped by the Exodus experience. In light of the popularity of creation myths and festivals throughout the ancient Near East, the attention which the Pentateuch gives to creation is surprisingly small. Instead, the heart of Israel's early faith was expressed in "recitals" of God's mighty acts, which focused on the Exodus (esp. Josh. 24:2-13; cf. Vol. I, p. 13). These recitals show, for instance, that Israel observed the law not because it reflected eternal divine statutes, but because it reflected and recalled Yahweh's deliverance and covenant enacted at the Exodus (Deut. 6:20-24). Similarly, even the festival of the Firstfruits, whose counterparts in surrounding nations celebrated nature's potency, served chiefly as a reminder of and thanksgiving for liberation from Egypt (Deut. 26:5-10).

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In general, Israel's understanding of creation emerged from its experience of salvation.1 The ancient Near Eastern understanding of creation was rooted in a cyclical view of time. In creation festivals (such as the Babylonian new year) the original time of creation, when order had triumphed over chaos, was not simply remembered as a past event. Through the festival's rituals, it was believed, order actually triumphed again, assuring that the rhythms and structures of nature and society would operate for another year without change.

In the Exodus, however, Israel experienced a power which broke through the structures of nature and society, delivering them from the most powerful empire they knew, and bringing judgment upon its gods (Exod. 12:12; 18:11). This act convinced them that Yahweh was surely ruler of the whole earth (Exod. 19:4-5). Moreover, because Yahweh had accomplished something radically new, and had set Israeland by implication, historyon a new course, Israel began to perceive that God's creative power could not be limited to establishing and maintaining fixed rhythms and structures.

Israel's creation faith developed by tracing back the power which had established it almost "from nothing" to the origins of all things. The patriarchs' stories emphasized God's ability to accomplish universal purposes beginning from historical insignificance and biological sterility. The creation accounts, while containing echoes of current creation myths, presented them within a very different context.2 Especially in Mesopotamian myths, creation consisted largely in imposing order on preexisting elements through titanic struggle with the forces of chaos. In Genesis, however, God creates all things and their component elements by calling them immediately into being: "Let there be . . . !" (cf. Ps. 148:5). This is underscored by the placement of the word bara' at crucial points in the narrative (Gen. 1:1, 21, 27 [3 times]; 2:3-4; cf. 5:2). In contrast to all other verbs of making, which normally imply that some preexistent material is used, this little-used word affirms that something is created directly in its entirety.3

But while Israel first perceived creation in light of the Exodus, its understanding did not stop there. This was because in later events Israel experienced the same power.4 God's deliverance of Israel over to

1 See Bernhard Anderson, Creation versus Chaos (New York: Association, 1967), pp. 11-77; Norman Young, Creator, Creation, and Faith (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), pp. 25-63; John Reumann, Creation and New Creation (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973), pp. 31-42; cf. Gutierrez.

2 See esp. Anderson, pp. 11-26, 39-42.

3TDOT, Vol. II, pp. 242-249.

4 Anderson, pp. 78-131.

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the Babylonians and the destruction of Jerusalem were pictured as a return to primeval chaos, when "the earth . . . was waste and void" and "the heavens . . . had no light" (Jer. 4:23-26). Yet as the people languished in exile, lamenting the apparent end of Yahweh's power, a new hope burst forth with a promise. ''From this time forth I make you hear new things, hidden things which you have not known. They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard them" (Isa. 48:6-7; cf. 43:18)! In Isaiah's latter chapters, where Yahweh is repeatedly extolled as Creator (Isa. 40:26-28; 44:24; 45:12, 18; etc.) and the word bara' once again often used, the prophet called on God.

Awake, awake, put on strength,

O arm of the Lord;

awake, as in days of old,

the generations of long ago!

Was it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces,

that didst pierce the dragon?

Was it not thou that didst dry up the sea,

the waters of the great deep;

that didst make the depths of the sea a way

for the redeemed to pass over?

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

(Isa. 51:9-11)                 and sorrow and sighing shall flee away!

In such a passage, three events are intertwined. First, creation is presented under the Mesopotamian imagerylargely absent in Genesisof the subduing and slaying of the dragon of chaos, Rahab (cf. Psalm 89:9-13; Job 41). Second, the Exodus, making "the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed" is depicted in similar imagery (cf. Psalms 74:12-17; 77:16-20). Third, the coming return of the exiles to Zion is anticipated as an outbreak of the same creative power (Isa. 41:18-20). Such passages vividly demonstrate that for Israel, God the Creator was not one who had once set up the universe and then turned its operation entirely over to natural laws and human management. Instead, God continued to interact with the world, and the most decisive of these acts were conceived of as new creations.

Some time after the return from exile, Israel again seemed all but swallowed by far larger nations. Still, its faith in God's creative power expanded. The increasing dominance of these nations and their gods convinced many that Yahweh's future liberating act would have to be drastic enough to reshape the cosmos' physical foundations. The very

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suffering and death of the righteous convinced them that if God were truly faithful, God would raise the righteous back to life, and that Yahweh's power must therefore extend beyond death's boundaries (Vol. I, p. 274). Accordingly, when Israel looked forward to the future which Yahweh had promised, it was increasingly envisioned as a new cosmic creation.5

In sum, Old Testament language about creation functioned largely to express the magnitude of God's saving, recreating power. It thereby assured those threatened by evil of Yahweh's ability to deliver them. While some later passages depict God's creative activity as a struggle with chaos, it is clear that neither evil nor matter are coeternal with God.6 But while creation ex nihilo ("out of nothing") is affirmed in the Old Testament, its significance becomes clearer in the New.

The New Testament links salvation with creation in many ways. It calls Jesus' saving work not only the purpose of creation, but also a new creation (Chap. 15). Revelation 2122 envision the new heavens and earth as perfecting what was incomplete in the first.7 Other texts emphasize that the saving, new creation, while in continuity with the old, surpasses it in significance and scope. The light which shone in the beginning has come among us to be seen and touched (John 1:1-18, 1 John 1:1-3). That light which once shone into space now shines into our hearts (2 Cor. 4:4). We are "born" again through the Word of truth (James 1:18); through the Spirit from above (John 3:3-8; cf. 1 John 5:4, 18). The last Adam is the life-giving Spirit from above (1 Cor. 15:45-49). "If anyone is in Christ, there is a whole new creation; the old has passed away; behold, the new has come!" (2 Cor. 5:17).

5 Esp. Isa. 65:17-25; 66:22-23. Bara' appears with the same general meaning in Isa. 4:5 and Psalm 119:18. Isa. 27:1 applies the slaying of Rahab to the eschatological future. See Young, pp. 66-72; Reumann, pp. 73-82; Anderson, pp. 132-143.

6 Since many creation texts involve poetic language, they sometimes depict it as the conquest or shaping of previously existing phenomena. For instance, while Job can say that God "stretches out the north over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing," he proceeds to declare that "by his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he smote Rahab" (Job 26:7, 12). Creation ex nihilo, however, is clearly taught in Genesis 1:12:4 and in other contexts where the little-used bara' deliberately affirms it. It is strongly implied in other texts, such as the Wisdom passage which was later applied to Christ (Prov. 8:22-31).

7 "Not only will there be light out of darkness, but darkness will be overcome; there will be no more light. The waters of chaos are not just separated, they disappear; no longer will there be any threatening sea. God will come, not just to walk with man in the garden but to make his dwelling place with him" (Young, p. 80, cf. 75; cf. Reumann, pp. 83-99).

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This confidence, however, is not based simply on the incarnationon the entrance of some higher potency into the world. It is based essentially on Jesus' struggle with the forces of evil, through which "the Author of life" was actually killed (Acts 3:15), and from which the Father raised him through the Spirit's inbreaking power. Plumbing the utter desolation of the cross, Paul finds in it the evidence that "God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are" (1 Cor. 1:28).

Paul parallels our faith in the cross and resurrection with Abraham's faith despite the physical impossibility of producing an heir. He writes that the object of both is God "who gives life to the dead, and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Rom. 4:17; cf. 4:18-25). Thus while the Old Testament affirms creation ex nihilo, the New proclaims that God has entered into and arisen from the annihilating nothingness of evil and death. It therefore gives greater depth to the assertion that nothing lies beyond God's creative power.

The theme of creation shows from another angle how denial of the physical dimensions of Jesus' resurrection eviscerates the hope which it brings to all creation (cf. Vol. I, Chap. 18). For when the bodily resurrection is rejected for "scientific" reasons, nature provides the framework within which resurrection must be understood, rather than resurrection being the dynamism through which to understand nature. But this obscures the joyous anticipation with which the entire cosmos strains toward the further inbreaking of God's creative power at the consummation.

B

Theologies of Creation

Much as Scripture unfolds a history of human acts (Chap. 4), of sinful acts (Chap. 5), and of divine saving acts, all of which culminate in Jesus, it presents a similar history of God's creation activity. On the basis of what we have discovered so far, two common understandings of creation must be challenged.

1

Completed Creation

For most of its history, the church has assumed that God's creation activity was wholly completed by the seventh day. Not only the natural world, but also the human world with its essential social structures, were thought to have been given fixed form at the beginning. Accordingly, all natural and social changes occurred within this preestablished, unvarying pattern.

However, if creation had endowed the world with fixed, unalterable processes and structures, all God's other dealings with it would have to be of a special kind. Traditional Catholicism called these other activities grace. Although grace would "perfect" nature, this would happen in a way which did not alter nature's or society's laws. Protestants

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divided God's acts into creation (which God continued to sustain through "providence," or "preservation"), and redemption. This enabled many to distinguish between ''two kingdoms." The first, established at creation, was an outer, natural and social kingdom where God operated through established laws. The second was an inner, spiritual kingdom where God's redemptive work chiefly occurred (cf. Chap. 1). Of course, by allowing for "miracles," both approaches acknowledged that created structures could occasionally be altered. In general, however, by regarding creation as completed in the beginning, they limited salvation from having a truly transforming effect on nature or society.

Precisely speaking, most traditional Catholic and Protestant theologians regarded creation as a foundation on which God planned to build something higher. In this way, at least, creation was open for development and pointed toward eschatological perfection. In popular imagination, however, the completed creation perspective often led to the assumption that God's original work had been perfect. But if so, then all important historical changes must have been effects of humankind's "fall." Accordingly, salvation must consist in a return to the Garden of Eden. The church's task, then, was to lead society back to "the good old days." Innovations were viewed with suspicion.

However, if Scripture calls God's most decisive saving acts acts of creationif such language is not merely figurative but speaks about something never before seen or donethen creation cannot have been entirely completed at the beginning. Instead, the creation must have been one form in which God's creative power expressed itself, but one also open to and pointing toward future manifestations. Further, if God's creative acts are saving works which at least recall or anticipate nature's transformation, then creation cannot denote fixed physical and social orders largely unaffected by redemption. Instead, God's creation activity, revealed and actualized most fully through Jesus' resurrection, must be a power to which no necessary limits can be set, and which has always surged toward the consummation.

2

Continuing Creation

When the theory of evolution appeared, most Christians opposed it bitterly. It upset their sense of living within a stable cosmos, recently created in its entirety, by extending its origins back through aeons of struggle and change. Moreover, it seemed to derive all things from an inherently creative, though conflicting, process which had no need for a purposeful, personal God. In the twentieth century, however, many theologians have argued that the biblical data concerning God's creative activity accords with some type of evolutionary interpretation. They minimize or deny any original act of creation, and equate creation with that universal, continuing activity which traditional theology called "preservation" or "providence."8

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Modern scientific data has been incorporated into such a view with care by process theologies. For process theologies, the fundamental particles which make up the universe are not bits of passive matter. They are "occasions" with some capacity for choice and valuation. These occasions, which are analogous to subatomic particles, exist only for fractions of seconds. They do not derive their existence from any prior cause. For they themselves are the sources and components of all that exists. Therefore they simply come into being. Yet their form and their relationships with other occasions are derived in large measure from other causes.

The ultimate evolutionary principle is what Alfred North Whitehead called "creativity." Creativity is a name for the general process by which individual, relatively disorganized occasions are brought together into relationships of ever greater harmony and intensity of experience. Creativity, according to Whitehead, does not itself have a cause. As the most basic characteristic of the evolutionary process, it is the explanation or cause of everything else.9

But how can the numberless minute, momentary occasions be incorporated into the overall flow of Creativity? For Whitehead, the agency which does this is "God." God is also an occasionyet one whose existence, unlike all the rest, is "everlasting." Moreover God (again, quite unlike the rest) envisages, in God's "primordial pole" (or mind), all the potential patterns into which occasions might organize themselves.

Now as each occasion spurts into existence, God, as it were, sur-

8 Paul Tillich, for instance, not only insists that God's activity does not break through natural laws (Vol. I, pp. 188-190 above), but also that creation is not a past event, but that "continuous creativity" which theology used to call "preservation" (Systematic Theology, Vol. I [Chicago: University, 1951], p. 262), and which is "identical" with the divine life (p. 252). For an excellent historical overview, see Richard Overman, Evolution and the Christian Doctrine of Creation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967). On Providence, see Calvin, Institutes, pp. 197-228. We prefer providence since it denotes purposeful, goal-directed activity, whereas preservation implies that God simply maintains things.

9 Alfred Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1929), pp. 25-26, 410. Although process theology has been fertilized from many sources and exists in many versions, space limits us to it as derived from its most influential source, Whitehead. Although the features that we shall criticize are usually present in theologies influenced by Whitehead, some have modified him in directions more or less compatible with our perspective. A general view of continuous creation is also taught by Macquarrie (see Principles of Christian Theology, 2d ed., pp. 211-238).

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veys the given configuration of the universe. Then, out of those possibilities envisioned in the primordial pole, God proposes to each occasion that pattern of development which will best actualize its own potentialities and those of the universe. The pattern presented by God and the desired response will involve some degree of novelty. Yet this novelty will not contravene nature's regular processes nearly as sharply as miracles have been thought to. For God operates upon entities primarily as a final cause. God provides the "lure" which draws them toward their highest possible form and their best possible relationships with other occasions. But God is not the efficient cause who bestows existence upon them or impels them to act in unusual ways. Moreover, as in any evolutionary theory, wrong or evil choices are regarded as necessary to the development of higher stages of life. It is only as entities make bad choices, and then experience the negative consequences, that higher consciousness with its distinctions between right and wrong emerges.10

God, then, does not compel occasions to follow any proposed pattern. God simply presents it, allowing them to accept or reject it freely. As Whitehead poetically phrased it, God "does not create the world, he saves it; or, more accurately, he is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness."11 Moreover, when occasions reject the lure, God, also being an evolving occasion, suffers under the evil that results. For God "shares with every new creation its actual world" and is thus "the great companionthe fellow-sufferer who understands."12

This perspective offers a solution for the problem of evil.13 In the era of Auschwitz and Hiroshima, evil has revealed itself as something far greater than human choices alone could produce or eliminate. Yet if God created all entities in their entirety (their existence as well as their

10 If humanity arose wholly from a lower, animal stage driven by impulses alone, the sense of right and wrong could not have developed without experience of sin. The emergence of conscience must have involved some reprehensible choices (represented symbolically by Eve, Adam, and the apple), which were necessary to humankind's development. See Immanuel Kant, "Conjectural Beginning of Human History," in On History (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963 [originally published in 1786]), pp. 53-68; Paul Tillich, Vol. II, pp. 36-47.

11 Whitehead, p. 408.

12 Ibid., pp. 406, 413.

13 See John Cobb and David Griffen, Process Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), pp. 69-75, 118-122; and Griffen, God, Power and Evil (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976).

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form) and thus has complete power over them, God would seem directly responsible for evil. However, if God's power over other entities is limited, then God is relieved of this responsibility and becomes a powerthough a limited oneentirely on the side of good. Humans, too, are relieved of some responsibility, for evil becomes an inevitable product of their development toward greater good.

For a sociocultural context deeply shaped by the evolutionary paradigm, process theology has admirably articulated several features of biblical creation. Creation, as in Scripture, is oriented toward a goal toward which God draws all things. Moreover, since both God and creatures are capable of novel responses, some degree of newness can break forth in the cosmos. And God's involvement in creation through suffering and sympathy is underlined.

Nonetheless, the Bible's creation language does not speak of universal processes operating within the constraints of evolutionary laws. To be sure, Scripture often extols God's presence amid the rhythms of natural and human life.14 But these texts, which speak of what theology has called providence, can be distinguished from that smaller number where God's specific creative activity is in view. The latter usually refer to historic events in which God breaks far more radically into the apparent order of things.

Since such specific, decisive events are involved, this creation language cannot be interpreted as a figurative way of assigning some degree of novelty to God's general providential activity. Of course, since creation and providence flow from same author and toward the same consummation, providence may operate somewhat as process theology suggests. But the Bible's creation language can no more be flattened out and generalized into continuing providential activity than it can be compressed and reduced to an initial, completed act.

This becomes clearer when one recognizes that many of God's creative acts not only inject something new into the cosmos, but also save it from distortion or destruction. Indeed, apart from such divine inbreaking, eventseven novel eventstend not toward evolution, but devolution.15 This, however, does not stem from deficiencies in God's providential activity or in the structure of created things. Instead, we have seen that God chose to govern the universe in part through the mediation of angelic powers. Though we have focused on their rule

14 Gen. 8:22; Psalms 19:1-6; 104:10-30; Jer. 5:22-24; Matt. 6:24-34; Acts 14:15-18.

15 By devolution we do not mean that creatures eventually perish (Ps. 102:25-27; 103:14-16; etc.), for this results from their created finitude. By devolution we mean the tendency of the whole cosmos toward violent disintegration and chaos.

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over what we today call political and religious spheres, these could not be separated from nature in ancient times or in Scripture (Col. 1:16).

Thus when these powers exalt themselves as gods over various nations, nature is affected by their rebellion as well. Correspondingly, God's special creative acts destory not only these powers' social and spiritual oppression, but also their attempted dominion over nature. Thus the crossing of the Reed Sea and the preceding ten plagues devastated the Egyptian gods' control over their land.16 The renewal of nature attending the return from exile is linked to a fresh conquest of the Babylonian deities (Isa. 41:11-24; 43:9-21; 49:8-13). Jesus' resurrection overcame the cosmic source of death. And at his return the final subduing of his enemies will coincide with nature's transformation (Vol. I, Chap. 9).

These conflicts with evil make it especially plain that the "creativity" which characterizes cosmic history is no impersonal process. Instead, initiation, maintenance, and enhancement of the cosmos' creative direction emerge from an active, personal forceoften through struggle with a "world" that resists. The magnitude of this struggle, especially in Jesus' cross and resurrection, shows that this force overcomes evil not only by "luring" creatures toward good, but through judging and destroying some,17 and creating others "out of nothing." This force, then, is not simply one entity evolving along with other self-initiating occasions, ontologically interdependent with them.18

16 Exod. 7:4; 12:12; 18:11. See George A. F. Knight, Theology as Narration (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), pp. 52-66.

17 In process cosmology, every occasion is so interlinked with others that it is difficult to conceive of any being destroyed or separated from the whole. According to Whitehead, the good which even evil occasions achieve "in individual joy, in individual sorrow, in the introduction of needed contrast, is yet saved by its relation to the completed whole." God's judgment, then, "is the judgment of tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved" (p. 408). Process eschatology, then, tends toward universalism. However, since all occasions eventually perish, it is difficult to conceptualize how persons could exist beyond death. Process theologians tend to think of personal immortality according to the model of Whitehead's "objective immortality": the continuing influence of occasions which have perished on subsequent occasions. Some argue, however, that process metaphysics leaves the question of personal survival open, and that it can thus be affirmed in a process theology (Cobb and Griffen, pp. 121-124; Griffen, pp. 311-313).

18 According to Whitehead, "It is as true to say that the World is immanent in God, as that God is immanent in the World . . . that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God . . . that God creates the World, as that the World creates God" (p. 410).

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It is the source not only of the creatures' form, but also of their existence.

II

Creation and Science

The affirmations which close the preceding subsection have been adduced in "kerygmatic" fashion. Starting from the main biblical emphases concerning God and creation, we have sought to assess their relationship to a "contextual" theological approach shaped by modern science. We have sought to avoid beginning contextually and to avoid giving any science or philosophy normative status. Still, our theology (like all theology) is being done for churches in particular contexts. Thus we often cannot adequately show what our assertions mean for life and mission in those contexts unless we give closer attention to the methods and assumptions of their sciences and philosophies (Vol. I, pp. 54-55).

Both theologies in Section I. B. carry significant implications for science. Through much of church history, completed creation has seemed consistent with a literal interpretation of Genesis 13: that the universe and all plant and animal species were created in their present form by distinct divine acts in the fairly recent past. God's creative acts were thought to be unique and unlike current natural processes.

According to continuing creation, however, Genesis 13 does not teach natural science at all. Yet this model is deeply rooted in the evolutionary understanding that all life forms emerged over aeons through forces like those now operating. It not only allows but encourages Christians to accept and adopt the general results and methods of evolutionary science. Recently the conflict between these two perspectives has broken out afresh. We can begin outlining our own views by referring to it.

A

The Revival of Creationism

Despite the initial conflict between the churches and evolutionary science, the latter seemed to have triumphed by the 1936 Scopes trial. Thus many were surprised when sharp debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools revived in the 1970s. Unfortunately, much confusion over the role of legal, scientific, and religious issues, often exacerbated by both sides' unwillingness really to hear the other, marks this controversy. Nonetheless, our theology has emphasized Jesus' lordship over all dimensions of reality, including those studied by natural science (esp. Vol. I, Chap. 7). Accordingly, we must consider several matters which have resurfaced in this debate.

The primary issue is the nature of science and its relation to religion. Contemporary creationists seek to distinguish the two. They claim

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that their model of the cosmos' origins and history is strictly scientific, and that this, and not any religious belief, should be discussed in public schools. They rightly recognize that any such model, since it deals with events no longer observable and for which empirical data is sometimes thin, is somewhat hypothetical. Creationists thus acknowledge that their model cannot be proven. Yet they quickly affirm the same for evolution.19 They complain, however, that evolution is normally taught as unchallengeable dogma. They therefore propose that both views be taught as hypotheses, so students will be challenged to reason scientifically to decide which model better fits the data.20

The creationist model claims that the order observable in the universe is best explained by the existence of an intelligent creator. It claims that each species of plant and animal life was directly created by this being. It hypothesizes that many geological phenomenamountain-building, sedimentation, fossil preservation, etc.resulted not from age-long, relatively uniform processes, but from sudden catastrophes such as Noah's flood. Most creationists also hold that the earth is only several thousand years old. They hypothesize that once creation was finished, distinctly different processes of preservation came into being, and that any significant changes "in a perfect primeval creation must be in the direction of imperfection."21 Even if this approach is scientific, we notice that it clearly is consistent with the theology of "completed creation."

B

Objections to Creationism

Opponents usually insist that creationism is not science for at least the following three reasons. "It involves a supranatural cause, transcendent to the system of finite causes; it explains in terms of purposes and intentions; and it cites a transcendent, unique, and unrepeatableeven in principle, uncontrollableaction." Creationists, that is,

fail to distinguish the question of ultimate origins (Where did it all come from?) from the quite different question of proximate origins (How did A arise out of B, if it did?). They ignore the (scholastic) distinction between the primary causality of a First Cause, with which philosophy or theology might deal, and secondary causality, which is causality confined to finite factors.22

19 Henry Morris, ed., Scientific Creationism (General Edition), (San Diego: Creation-Life, 1974), pp. 4-6.

20 Ibid., pp. 10, 33

21 Ibid., p. 12.

22 Langdon Gilkey, "Creationism: The Roots of the Conflict" in Roland Frye, ed., Is God a Creationist? (New York: Scribners's, 1983), p. 60.

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But modern science can deal only with secondary, finite causality. This means that "the 'atheism' of natural science," like that of historical science, "is a priori and methodological." Further, neither can "include the divine as a central cause of an historical event."23

It is certainly true that science as we know it arose when questions of purpose and ultimate causality were excluded from its territory. Medieval science, following Aristotle, sought to explain things not only through efficient causality (as products of the states and forces out of which things arise) but also through final causality (the goals or purposes toward which they tend).

Modern science emerged when questions about purpose, and also those regarding an ultimate First Cause, were dropped. It restricted itself to those regular conjunctions among events and contemporaneous and immediately preceding ones which can be mathematically described.24 Thus opponents of creationism are correct in insisting that its model is quite different from what is usually called science, and that it is adduced largely from religious, and not simply from scientific, data.

C

Novelty and Science

Whatever the defects of the recent creationist model, the fundamental issue which it raises cannot be easily dismissed. Science and religion cannot be neatly separated by assigning the realm of "secondary" causality to one and that of "primary" causality to the other.25 For so long as investigation is limited to secondary causality,

23 Ibid., p. 61. For Gilkey's perspective on the 1981 Arkansas trial over creationism, see Creationism on Trial (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985). For his theological views on creation, see Science and the Sacred (New York: Crossroad, 1981); Religion and the Scientific Future (New York: Harper, 1970); and Maker of Heaven and Earth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959).

24 See E. A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1952); I. Bernard Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960).

25 Gilkey's attempt to do so involves the claim that "religious language contains no factual information, since it does not contain indicative or informative statements about matters of fact" (Religion and the Scientific Future, p. 26). This claim makes it difficult to know what to do with the vast number of historical assertions in Scripture. Such a distinction is influenced by previous attempts to make religion and science "autonomous" (such as that between "things" and "persons") even though approaches like process theology overcome the crudeness of many such efforts (cf. Vol. I, pp. 68-74).

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one must explain each occurrence as the product of prior or contemporaneous events or processes of the same sort. As soon as one reckons with the emergence of genuine novelty and uniqueness in history, such explanations will be incomplete. For they can only show what new events have in common with preceding and contemporary onesnot what makes them distinctly different. For instance, historical science can certainly explain many features of Jesus' teaching and ministry by tracing connections between them and current social, economic, and psychological phenomena. Jesus did not appear in a vacuum. Many of his characteristics were derived from his environment.

But what about those features of his which transcended and contradicted this contexteven to the point of apparent blasphemy? If study of Jesus is restricted entirely to secondary causality, won't that uniqueness which made Jesus a truly important historical figure be missed? Can one explain Jesus' concrete, historical impact without considering another kind of originative, primary causality which, in his case at least, might well be divine (cf. Chap. 15)?

Although such considerations may be clearest in Jesus' case, they hold for other historical figures. For example, despite the many connections between, say, Beethoven's music and that of his predecessors and peers, can one really account for its distinctiveness without positing a unique, originative creativity? Or, turning to broader historical movements, we have seen that Israel's religion, including its notion of creation, is marked by many parallels with other ancient Near Eastern nations. Yet when one examines closely the specific parallels, the differences between their functions in Israelite and in other socioreligious complexes are often more striking than their similarities. Such differences cannot be satisfactorily explained unless a unique creative agency, which in this case might well be divine, is seriously taken into account.

Since evolutionists as well as creationists emphasize the emergence of newness in natural history, the possibility of explaining it entirely through "secondary" causes like those operating today must be challenged. We can illustrate and substantiate this point by briefly considering two issues in the scientific study of origins.

1

The Origin of the Universe

Most scientists agree that the universe emerged some 10-20 billion years ago with a "big bang" whose origination cannot be further traced by science but must simply be posited.26 This is indicated by the laws of thermodynamics. The first of these says that the energy in the universe remains constant. The second states that

26 See George Gamow, The Creation of the Universe (New York: Viking, 1952); Milton Mienitz, Space, Time and Creation (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957).

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the energy actually available for work is decreasing. But if the energy for work is decreasing, the universe cannot have existed forever: for then it would have long since ceased to function. The universe, then, must have had a beginning.

Similar conclusions can be drawn from certain radioactive isotopes, such as those of uranium and thorium, which gradually disintegrate into lead. If the universe had always been, these would no longer exist, but would have long since become lead. Other lines of evidence show that the galaxies have been receding from each other at steadily increasing rates. If they are thus receding, they must once have been together in, and have exploded from, one point or mass.

To be sure, these arguments cannot absolutely prove that the cosmos had a temporal origin. The "big bang" might have simply marked the beginning of one cycle in an infinite series of cosmic expansions and contractions. Yet if so, different thermodynamic laws must have applied in some other cyclesotherwise the whole series would have eventually ground to a halt. Some scientists hypothesize that new atoms have always been coming into being, and then condensing into stars which recede from each other. Yet the older stars cannot be observed, for they have long since approached the speed of light. This "steady state" theory, however, hypothesizes a continuous introduction of new energy which contravenes the first thermodynamic law.27

2

The Origin of Life-Forms

The difficulties involved in explaining the emergence of novelty entirely by familiar "secondary" causes also arise when one considers the gaps in the fossil record. If higher life forms have evolved from lower ones entirely through such means, one would expect to find fossils not only of distinct species, but also of many transitional forms. Yet species appear suddenly in the fossil record, persist unchanged through long periods, and disappear as abruptly. Charles Darwin was distressed that "the absence of innumerable transitional links . . . pressed so hardly on my theory."28

Over a century later, ardent opponents of creationism must acknowledge periods of "stasis" (of little or no morphological change for as long as hundreds of millions of years). Fossils showing "species-level transitions" are still "rare."29 To account for this, some recent

27 The classic statement of the steady-state theory is Frederick Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe (New York: Harper, 1950).

28The Origin of the Species (New York: Washington Square, 1963 [originally published in 1859]), p. 307.

29 Laurie Godfrey, "Creationism and Gaps in the Fossil Record" in Godfrey, ed., Scientists Confront Creationism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), pp. 204, 201. For fossil discoveries that have been made, see pp. 198-202. For a skeptical discussion of significant fossils that have been regarded as

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paleontologists have hypothesized a ''quantum evolution"that many major transitions might proceed at abnormally rapid rates.30 Others have espoused "punctuationalism"that evolution "commonly proceeds in fits and starts punctuating relatively long periods of evolutionary stasis."31 Yet such theories have difficulty explaining how such unusual jumps might have occurred. Drastic kinds of mutations which have seldom or never been observed are often posited as the causes.32

3

Implications

Our discussions are not designed to critique the theories mentioned. They are meant to show how science itself indicates that novel phenomena appear at many points in natural history. Yet some are far from being explained by processes like those operating today. One may, of course, hypothesize that such explanations are discoverable, and that all creatures have emerged through the regular operation of secondary causal processes. However, there is nothing "unscientific" in recognizing that natural science is chiefly designed to deal with features and relationships which many entities share in common, and not with what is particular and unique (Vol. I, p. 128).

If genuinely novel events have occurred, particularly if they display a purposiveness not previously evident, one need not be surprised if sciences of secondary causes cannot account for all their concrete features. And since modern science explains different phenomena by diverse models which cannot all be reduced to one isomorphic scheme, it at least raises the question whether models involving purposiveness or personal agency might be appropriate for explaining certain kinds of events (Vol. I, pp. 130-131).

Now Section I has shown that, according to Christian faith, God is guiding all things toward a cosmic consummation. This guidance is normally exercised through "providence"through the established rhythms of natural processes. Christians can therefore expect that natural phenomena will normally be explicable through regular conjunc-

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transitional, see Pattle Pun, Evolution: Nature and Scripture in Conflict? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 87-94.

30 George Gaylord Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (New York: Columbia, 1953).

31 Godfrey, p. 205; see Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould, "Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism," in T. J. M. Schopf, ed., Models in Paleobiology (San Francisco: Freedman, Cooper and Co., 1972), pp. 83-115.

32 Pun, pp. 215-228.

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tions, or laws. However, since this process moves toward a goal, the possibility that purposiveness may be detected at any level of nature cannot be eliminated. Further, since regular natural processes are servants of the divine intention, God's activity cannot be entirely limited by them.

Creation in the strict sense refers to purposive acts which introduce something genuinely new and transcend normal providential operations. Thus Christians cannot deny the possibility that activities quite different from those regularly operating today were at least partially responsible for the origination of the universe or of some life forms.

In fact, Christians can allow their awareness of purpose and personal agency to suggest models for the better understanding of nature. Of course, this might be done in different ways. The definition of science might be broadened to include purposive and personal categories. Or science might be restricted to secondary causality but supplemented by a philosophy or theology of nature. Systematic theology need not decide exactly what lines to draw.

Yet it should insist that new models not be developed and adopted simply to fill gaps in current scientific understanding. For good models must not only be "applicable" to particular phenomena, but "adequate" to other kinds and "coherent" with other models (Vol. I, pp. 55-56). Elements of purposiveness or personal agency cannot helpfully be introduced into scientific explanation, or used to supplement it, without considering what this means for the broader scientific enterprise, and without testing strengths and weaknesses of these categories against other kinds of explanation.

Honestly considered, then, the data of natural science point up the difficulties of explaining everything by "secondary" processes like those operating today. Moreover, the biblical portrait of a creator whose acts occasionally alter the physical structure of things can help stimulate alternative explanations about how our present world arose and now operates. Of course, if being "scientific" means that every event, whatever the difficulties, must be wholly explained through recurrent secondary processes, then no such explanations can be scientific. But "science" can also denote a collection of ways of knowing which generate different models to deal with different data. So understood, science will be open to supplementation or even modification by new data and other ways of knowing. So understood, full affirmation of God as Creator need not hinder, but can offer incentive and fruitful suggestions for, participation in the scientific enterprise.

4

Creationism?

We have critiqued evolutionary science insofar as it seeks to explain everything through laws like those operating today and refuses to consider purposiveness or unusual creative events of a different order. Nevertheless, we affirm that the universe has usually

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operated through ("providential") processes like those which evolutionists hypothesize.

In contrast, the recent creationist movement gives far greater weight to unique, sometimes catastrophic, divine acts. Scientists usually calculate the ages of things by assuming that processes now in motion (radioactive decay, galactic movements, etc.) operated at roughly the same rates in the past. Creationists often reject such methods, arguing that past conditions were probably far different. In addition, they argue that the geological "column" with its fossils does not record the history of species, for most of it was laid down suddenly at the Great Flood.33 Creationists also point out that if God created things in fully mature forms, they would have had the appearance of age even if they were brand new. (For instance, Adam would have had a navel, light would already be coming from the stars).

While such hypotheses cannot be absolutely disproven, they deny almost all continuity between the present and the past. They represent a revival of the "completed creation" theology which we have critiqued on biblical grounds. Such hypotheses gravely undercut the possibility of learning about the past through inference from the present. They make it difficult to explain how many sciences could have advanced so far on the basis of so erroneous an assumption as the relative similarity of present and past.

We agree with the creationists that science involves the construction of models, and that its procedures are best learned through exposure to different models, and by deciding which one best fits the available data. However, despite creationists' efforts to present their own model as strictly scientific and to distinguish religion and science, their hypotheses prove to have actually arisen far less from scientific data than from an overly literal reading of Genesis.34 Accordingly, while the recent creationist movement raises some significant issues, we must critique its usual presentation for overemphasizing creation at the expense of providence, and a certain understanding of the Bible at the expense of science.

On the other hand, we have already critiqued the continuous creation theology (whose scientific form is sometimes called "theistic evolution") for collapsing creation into providence and subordinating the Bible to a certain understanding of science. Our own position is closest to what is sometimes called "progressive creationism," which works

33 Morris, ed., pp. 17-169.

34 See, e.g., Morris, King of Creation (San Diego: C.L.P., 1980), pp. 3-6, 41-46. For a brief discussion of the interpretation of Genesis 12, see Section III A. below.

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toward a better balance between creation and providence and between theology and science.35

III

Affirmations about Creation

In light of what we have discussed above and at the end of Chapter 15, theology can make the following affirmations.

A

Original Creation

Since creation owes its very existence to God, it cannot be an eternal, unoriginated process. However, since divine creative power has introduced the genuinely new into history, and since all divine activity moves toward a cosmic goal, God did not originally create the fullness of what God intended. The original creation, then, was preparatory and incomplete. This is also evident from the power of evil in history.

Since evil was able to emerge, creation had to have been fragile, liable to distortion, and open to movement toward or away from God. In the beginning, then, God created certain potentialities for the cosmos' development. God called into being certain spatio-temporal entities, their relationships, and patterns of behavior. These provided the framework and ground-plan within and from which the cosmos was to develop.36 In speaking of successive "days," or "generations," over which higher life forms appeared, Genesis allows such development to be a lengthy process.37 At the same time, its repeated emphasis on God's creative command and its use of bara' for the creation of animals (1:21) and humans (1:27; cf. 5:2) argue against the emergence of every phase through evolutionary mechanisms alone.

While the original creation was incomplete, or imperfect, it was not so in the sense of being sinful. Given the massive scope of evil in his-

35 Representative expressions of progressive creationism are Pun, op. cit.; Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954), pp. 253-293; Davis Young, Creation and the Flood (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977); and Christianity and the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).

36 See Moltmann, "Creation as an Open System" in The Future of Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), pp. 115-130; and God in Creation (San Francisco: Harper, 1985), pp. 197-214.

37Day (yom) in Genesis 12 need not denote 24-hour days, as is especially evident in the use of day in 2:4 to refer to the whole process. See Pun, pp. 254-256. For the creationist position, see Robert Kofahl and Kelly Seagraves, The Creation Explanation (Wheaton, Ill.: Shaw, 1975), pp. 231-232, and Henry Morris, King of Creation, pp. 55-62.

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tory, it might seem plausible to suppose, with most process theologians, that God's power over it is limited, or that evil forms a necessary stage in evolution toward good. These suppositions, however, contradict not only God's power over creatures, but also the true malignancy of evil, by making much of it appear like an inevitable fate. The more evil appears to be a necessary feature of existence, the deeper does humanity's systemic blindness and hopelessness to the possibility of living in the New Age become (Chap. 12). Wholehearted obedience to God's call to share in the divine holiness (Lev. 11:44-45; Rom. 6:19, 22; Heb. 12:10) becomes impossible, at least in this life, due to our anthropological structure. Of course, the material, temporal cosmos was intrinsically flawed according the Greek worldview; but emphatically not in the Bible, where all things were created "very good" (Gen. 1:31).

By speaking of creation as beginning, theology does not affirm that before this there was, as it were, an "empty" time ticking away, and that creation occurred at some moment within it. Of course, since the divine life is intensely active, temporality of some sort might be involved in the divine eternity (see Chap. 19). Time as we know it, however, is a feature of created reality. This sort of time, then, could not have existed before creation, and creation could not have occurred in some moment of it. Instead, creation appeared along with time as we know it.38

Accordingly, when we deny that creation or matter are eternal, we do not mean that some temporal interval preceded them, but we deny that they are self-existent. For their existence was begun by and depends entirely upon God, while God's existence does not depend on them. Similarly, when we affirm that God created ex nihilo (out of nothing), theology does not mean that there originally existed some empty space or "nothingness" outside of God out of which God shaped creatures. We simply mean that no matter or agency other than God contributed in any way to the creation, and that space and matter as we know them also originated with creation.

B

The Divine Self-Limitation

Despite the previous assertion, creation ex nihilo is usually pictured as being engendered by God "from above" into an empty space "below." If space does not exist until God creates it, this cannot be accurate. Until God created, nothing existed but God. Creation occurred, then, not when God went "outside" himself, but when God withdrew or contracted, as it were, to allow creation and space to exist "inside" herself.39

38 Augustine, Confessions (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961), Book XI (pp. 253-280).

39 Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (San Francisco: Harper, 1981), pp. 108-110; God in Creation, pp. 86-93. For the use of the feminine pronoun, see

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Of course, since this very act permitted something other than God to exist, creation was distinct from God. Nonetheless, it is best pictured as occupying not a space adjoining or below God, but one within God. Accordingly, sin is best conceived not as the creatures' plunging into depths ever more distant from the light, but as their erecting walls of resistance to the love and life which continually surround them.

Creation, then, is not the making of something external and unrelated to God, which can easily be disposed of or forgotten. It is already God's giving of herself. In making room inside herself, God limits herself and bestows energy and love upon other beings who may resist or forget her. Such a self-giving is therefore also a humiliation.

Here we glimpse another connection between creation and salvation. The love which humbled itself in choosing Israel and limited itself in the incarnation was already limiting and humbling itself for the sake of its creatures at the creation. The sending of the Son and Spirit (Gal. 4:4-6), then, were not emergency operations, but consistent with the initial flow of God's self-giving into creation. In this connection, however, a relationship between creation and the Trinity begins to emerge. Let us, then, begin integrating our reflections in this chapter with those in the last.

C

Trinitarian Creation

In the central New Testament texts, creation is a cooperative activity of Father and Son (John 1:1-5, 14-18; Col. 1:13-17; Heb. 1:2-3). Chapter 15 has shown, however, that the Father-Son relationship is not simply one of common purpose and activity, but also one of mutual sharing, suffering, and love, in which the Spirit also participates. Salvation involves incorporation into this mutual interchange of agape *, whose origins stretch back into eternity.

John has Jesus affirm this explicitly when he asks his Father that his followers "might be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24; cf. 17:5; 1:18). In the Wisdom passage underlying the New Testament creation texts, creation is also rooted in mutual love and sharing. "I was daily [Yahweh's] delight," Wisdom exclaims, "rejoicing before him always" (Prov. 8:30). And as in another Wisdom text, this relationship is a reflecting back and forth of the divine glory.40

With these activities of Father and Son in creation let us integrate

(footnote continued from previous page)

pp. 488-490 below.

40 Heb. 1:3; 1 Cor. 4:4, 6; Col. 1:15; Wisdom 7:26.

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what we have learned about the Spirit. The Spirit bestowed gifts for the healing of bodies in Jesus' ministry and the early church, and raised Jesus bodily from the dead. The Spirit renews our human bodies as it energizes the whole creation's yearning toward transformation (Rom. 8:11, 19-23). In light of these New Testament affirmations, certain Old Testament texts concerning God's Spirit (ruach) can deepen our understanding, even though this agency was not yet clearly identified as divine.

God's spirit bestowed whatever came from God, in contrast to what was merely creaturely (Gen. 6:3; Isa. 31:3). This included divine gifts of leadership, prophecy, and many others. More broadly, the Spirit communicated life to all creatures. When God takes away "their breath (ruach), they die and return to their dust. When thou sendest forth thy spirit (ruach), they are created (bara')."41 Accordingly, the spirit was assigned a role in creation. In the beginning, it moved over the waters (Gen. 1:2). Not only were the heavens made by God's creative word, but also "all their host by the breath (ruach) of his mouth" (Psalm 33:6). When God stretched out the heavens and spread forth the earth, God gave "spirit to those who walk on it" (Isa. 42:5).

Understanding these Old Testament texts as amplifications of what the New ascribes to God the Spirit, theology can now say the following about creation. In the mutual love exchanged between Father and Son, we discern a source of the divine self-limitation. From all eternity, the Father's love has flowed out toward the Son and the Son has perpetually returned it. But love is creative. Creation, then, originates from an upwelling and overflow of this love. It arises from the desire of divine Love to bestow itself ever more fully. Space-time and matter first arise as containers, as it were, for its ever fuller expression.

This creative love is agape *.42 The divine persons do not create the world to fill some need or lack. For their mutual giving and receiving of love already bestows full satisfaction. Of course, the existence of creatures gives them pleasure. Yet they create not in order to add something that was lacking, but to share the fullness which they already experience with others. Since God does not need creation to enhance or perfect Godself, God can freely limit herself and create beings which are truly different. Creatures are not extensions or emanations of the divine essence. They are distinct beings with their own integrity and independencewhich includes the possibility of disobedience.

While creation is distinct from God, it cannot, as an overflow of

41 Psalm 104:29-30; cf. Job 34:14-15. The spirit also bestows new life in the heart (Ezek. 36:16-17) and upon dead bodies (37:5-10, 14).

42 See Chap. 3 above. For a fuller discussion, see Chap. 19 below.

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love, be entirely separate. Creation will always be "inside" the omnipresent God. Moreover, the life overflowing from the divine love is "breathed" into creatures through the Spirit, invisibly and largely from within. In an important sense, then, God is present, or immanent, in creation as the Spirit who energizes creatures in the secret well-springs of their being. However, since this energizing does not override human freedom but brings it to fullest actualization (Chap. 5), theology can infer that it enhances every creature's uniqueness.

Creation arises from the overflowing of divine love toward an ever greater fullness, quickened inwardly by the Spirit. Here is the deepest reason why its original form cannot have been "completed." Here is why the original creation was not a fixed "nature," autonomous in structure, later to be supplemented by "grace," or restored to pristine form through redemption. For the creation, in light of its deepest origin, proves to be the vehicle and instrument of long-range intentions. To serve as such, it must be flexible and adaptable in the hands of its author. It must be open, in all its dimensions, to growth and change. All "laws" which appear to govern it at any one time must be modifiable in light of its larger purpose (Vol. I, Chap. 7).

This also provides the deepest reason why its physical and existential dimensions, why "things" and "persons," cannot be sharply separated (as asserted radically by Bultmann). (See Vol. I, pp. 71-74.) For love, the deepest personal reality, overflowed into a physical creation.

To say it otherwise, God, who is spiritual, chose to express Godself sacramentallythrough the instrumentality of matter. And in creating humans, God expressed this love through beings who themselves must actualize their inner intentions through shaping and transforming matter (Chap. 13). Thus God's subsequent revelation will have "thing"-like features (Vol. I, Chap. 11), and salvation will involve the transformation of the social and natural orders.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Anderson, Bernhard. Creation versus Chaos. New York: Association, 1967.

Brown, Colin. Miracles and the Critical Mind. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

Cobb, John. A Christian Natural Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965.

Geister, Norman, and J. Kerby Anderson. Origin Science. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.

Gilkey, Langdon. Religion and the Scientific Future. New York: Harper, 1970.

Godfrey, Laurie, ed., Scientists Confront Creationism. New York: W. W.

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Norton, 1983.

Hendry, George. Theology of Nature. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980.

Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Harper, 1966.

Moltmann, Jürgen. God in Creation. San Francisco: Harper, 1985.

Morris, Henry, ed. Scientific Creationism (general edition). San Diego: Creation-Life, 1974.

Overman, Richard. Evolution and the Christian Doctrine of Creations. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967.

Peacocke, Arthur. Creation and the World of Science. Oxford: University, 1979.

Pun, Pattle. Evolution: Nature and Scripture in Conflict? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.

Santmire, Paul. The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.

Thomas, Owen, ed. God's Activity in the World: The Contemporary Problem. Chico, Cal.: Scholars, 1983.

Young, Norman. Creator, Creation and Faith. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976.

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Chapter Seventeen

The Trinity

The works of God are the foundation of the Trinitarian doctrine of God. Rightly understood, the doctrine of the Trinity arises not from speculation, but because the specific character of these works demands it. Indeed, Trinitarian formulae first appeared in early Christian communities as responses of praise to the experienced working of God.

These works, however, can be considered from two perspectives. Theology has almost always considered them "protologically": from the standpoint of their initial origin. Since the divine initiative in creation flows from Father through Son and then through Spirit, theology usually considered each person in this descending order of importance. And, despite beginning with the historical (or "economic") Trinity, theology has quickly left this concrete base to ponder natures and persons in the eternal (or "immanent") Trinity.1

The Trinitarian acts, however, can also be considered eschatologically: as tending towards God's cosmic goal. If theology begins here, it

1 Theologians often call the Trinity insofar as it operates in history the "economic" Trinity (from the Greek oikonomia, which can mean the overall plan, or "dispensation," of God's saving action [Eph. 1:10, 3:9]). They often call the Trinity in and of itself, apart from reference to history, the "immanent" Trinity. Since these terms often create confusion, we simply use "historical" for the former and ''eternal" for the latter.

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first considers the acts of the Spirit who brings the eschaton alive and hastens all things towards the consummation. Reflection will next move to the Son and finally the Father. Only after pondering at length their historical interactions in light of their goal will it curve back towards the creation and their eternal relations.

Having begun Chapter 15 with the Spirit's eschatological activity, our reflections have already swept in one large arc back to the creation. We have concluded an extensive tracing of the historical activities of the Trinitarian persons. Now we are ready to complete the final movement in our reflections "from below" in two stages. First we will summarize those relationships which have appeared in the different historical works (including creation) of the Trinitarian persons. Then we will see what theology can say about these persons' eternal relationships.

I

The Historical Trinitarian Relationships

In examining the relationships between Spirit and Son, we found that these varied in different historical periods (Chap. 15). This should warn us against assuming that the Trinitarian persons always relate to each other in the same ways or within a fixed structure. To determine whether more complex patterns might be involved, let us summarize all their activities according to different historical phases.2

A

The Trinity from Creation to Incarnation

At creation the divine activity passed from the Father through the Son. The Father created the cosmos "through" (dia) the Son.3 The relevant texts also describe the Son as Wisdom, as Logos, as "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), as reflecting God's glory and bearing the stamp of God's nature (Heb. 1:3). In all these ways the Son gives shape and visibility to the Father's character and intentions (cf. John 14:9-11). The Son is also called ''the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15; cf. Prov. 8:22-26) and the "only-begotten God" (John 1:18), terms perhaps implying some derivation or subordination.

The Son is also the source of creation's continuing coherence. All things hold together in him (Col. 1:17); he upholds the cosmos through his word (Heb. 1:3). However, life is more directly bestowed by the Spirit whom Yahweh sends forth (Ps. 104:30). At the creation, then,

2 This general approach is suggested by Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 61-96.

3 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; John 1:3.

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divine activity originates in some sense from the Father, is given concrete, coherent shape by the Son, and is brought vividly to life by the Spirit. Until Jesus' coming, however, there is little more one can say about the Son.4 In the meantime, the Spirit continues to be the agent who bestows the divine vitality, whether upon specific charismatic leaders and prophets or throughout creation. Thus we can briefly characterize the Trinitarian relationships which operated until Christ's coming by saying, "The Father sends the Spirit through the Son."

B

The Trinity during Jesus' Ministry

With Jesus' coming, the relationship between Son and Spirit reverses as he becomes the greatest of those messengers which the Father sends through the Spirit. We have seen how the Spirit begat Jesus; baptized him; guided him; healed, exorcised, and brought glad tidings to the poor through him; and facilitated Jesus' prayers (Chap. 15).

Jesus also acts in dependence upon his Father and in conformity with his will. Various glimpses into the "inside" of this relationship are brought together in John 5. The oneness of Father and Son is a unity in a common task (John 5:17). Although this oneness implies the Son's deity (5:18), he does and decides nothing on his own. He acts and judges only according to that will which his Father progressively reveals (5:19-20, 30). To enable this, the Father gives him the Spirit (John 3:34). This apparent subordination extends even to the Father's granting the Son life (5:26). And the Johannine Jesus can call the Father "greater" than himself (John 14:28).

Paradoxically, however, while the incarnate Son totally obeys the Father, the Father is causing events to bring divine honor to the Son (John 5:23; cf. 5:32, 37). He has already granted eschatological judgment to the Son (John 5:22; cf. Luke 12:8-9). The Son, accordingly, can declare, "All things have been delivered to me by my Father" (Matt. 11:27). John also portrays this relationship as one of intimacy. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father (John 5:20; 14:31). Jesus' mission involves calling people to share in that close, trusting, mutually responsive community between Father and Son (John 14:20-23; 15:10; cf. 16:13-15).

Although the direction of divine activitythe Father sends the Son through the Spiritpersists through Golgotha, here its inner character significantly alters. The Son's obedience, though accomplished amid

4 In light of the New Testament, the Son can be said to have executed some functions of Yahweh's creative "word" (dabar), and thus to have been involved in God's creative command, "Let there be. . .!" (cf. Ps. 33:6).

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opposition, had always been undergirded by the Spirit's energy and the Father's love. Now, as the Father allows the Son to be delivered to the powers, he withdraws. Now obedience comes to mean fidelity amid abandonmentamid terror and possible defeat. For both Son and Father it means hanging on to a purpose and a person, even when that person seems to have disappeared. It means continuing to be that self-giving divine love, whatever the cost, when darkness and separation threaten to overwhelm all. Yet even as the darkness of death separates Son and Father, a link still unites them: "the eternal Spirit" through which Jesus "offered himself without blemish to God" (Heb. 9:14).

The cross was surely consistent with the agape * and self-limiting humiliation that initiated creation. And God, especially through the Spirit's immanence, had surely shared in creaturely suffering. Yet the direct experience of death was something new, even for Deity. Not only when the Son became incarnate through the Spirit, but even more at the cross, something happened to God that had never happened before.

At Easter the Spirit again acts upon the Son (1 Peter 3:18; 1 Tim. 3:16; Rom. 8:11). Yet the initiating agency is again the Father, who appoints him "Son of God in power" (Rom. 1:4) and makes him Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), giving him the Name above every name (Phil. 2:9-11). In Chapter 15 we asked whether such texts teach "adoptionism"that Jesus was not God's Son until the Father adopted him at this point. We discovered that Jesus was the Son long before the resurrection. Now, however, we can more deeply appreciate the significance of this bestowal of titles. For the history we have traced shows that the divine persons take different roles at different times. It is entirely consistent with this pattern that the Son should take on different functions at his resurrection, even while his person remains the same.

Jesus' resurrection is also the inbreaking of the eschatonnot only the triumph of God's rule, but also the eruption of God's joy. Paul can call the Spirit who raised Jesus "the glory of the Father"5the eschatological Glory who fills all creation with the joyous presence of God. At Jesus' resurrection, then, the Trinitarian relationship must be conceived as one of rejoicing (cf. Heb. 12:2)a rejoicing deepened by having persisted unbroken through the horrors of death and hell.

In sum, we can briefly characterize the Trinitarian relationships operating between Jesus' incarnation and resurrection by saying, "The Father sends the Son through the Spirit."

5 Rom. 6:4; cf. 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:16; 1 Peter 4:14.

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C

The Trinity from Ascension to Consummation

At Jesus' ascension to cosmic Lordship, the Father ceases sending the Son through the Spirit, and begins sending the Spirit through the Son. According to the earliest kerygma, the exalted Jesus received the Spirit from the Father and poured it out upon the church (Acts 2:33). Paul attributes the agency to "God," who sends "the Spirit of his Son" (Gal. 4:6). According to John, the Spirit "proceeds from the Father" (John 15:26). But in a more complex way, the Son asks the Father to bestow the Spirit (14:16), whom the Father then sends in the Son's name (14:26). Consequently, John can also say that the Son sends the Spirit (16:7). The New Testament frequently speaks of Jesus baptizing with the Spirit after his resurrection (Mark 1:8 and parallels).

In such formulations, however, we only glimpse the extent to which the risen Son is becoming the initiator of divine activity. Having been granted lordship by the Father, it is now the Son who "must reign until he has put his all enemies under his feet" (1 Cor. 15:25). In this subduing, the Son is already active as eschatological Judge. The Son is also bestowing the salvation which he previously wrought. On our behalf he intercedes before the Father (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25), with whom he is our "advocate" (1 John 2:1). To be sure, the Father is presented as a bestower of salvation in these texts. Yet the Son actively acquires it and communicates it to us. When salvation is described as participatory, it is both Father and Son (John 14:23), and indeed the entire Trinity (John 14:17; 16:13-15) in whom believers dwell. Yet emphasis falls far more often on "abiding in" Christ (John 15:1-11) or simply being "in" Christ (Gal. 3:26-29; Col. 2:9-13; etc.).

In these activities, the Spirit serves and points to the Son. We have seen how the Spirit heals, baptizes and forgives in Jesus' name. The Spirit also engenders mission which brings people into obedience to that name. We have noted how the Spirit glorifies the risen Jesus and illuminates his teaching and his earthly history (Chap. 15). In short, the divine activity since the exaltation can be summarized from the standpoint of its source by saying that the Father sends the Spirit through the Son. Yet theology must add that, in comparison with Jesus' ministry, the Father steps further into the background, and immediate initiatory activity is ascribed much more often to the Son.

Moreover, when theology considers the divine activity in this era from the standpoint of its goal, the picture again changes. For the primary agent who hastens all things towards the end is the Holy Spirit. While the Spirit has indwelt creation since the beginning, the eschaton itself comes to life when, with Jesus' exaltation, she is much more dynamically poured out "upon all flesh" (Acts 2:17). And with the defeat of the powers who enslaved the creation, the Spirit within it awakens.6

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The Spirit is the firstfruits who sets the whole creation in motion toward final liberation. The Jesus toward whom the Spirit directs us is not simply enthroned in the heights, but chiefly the Lord who is subjecting all things in preparation for his return in glory (Phil. 3:20-21). Thus when the Spirit brings believers into the Son's own intimate relationship to the Father, she also liberates the yearnings of our hearts toward the future (Rom. 8:22-27; cf. Gal. 4:6; 5:5). The Spirit begins transforming individuals into Jesus' image and into his body, so at his return "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

Considered in light of its goal, then, the Spirit can be regarded as the initiator of the divine activity, directing its transforming work toward the lordship, perfection, and return of the Son. This initiative will then pass through the Son. For when he has subdued all his enemies, he will deliver his kingdom back to the Father from whom he received it (1 Cor. 15:24-28). And when this reign of his is ended, even the Son's role as Lord, bestowed at his exaltation, will cease. Yet he will continue to be what he was from the beginning: God's Son.7

To complete its overview of the Trinitarian relationships between the exaltation and consummation, then, theology needs to add that the Spirit glorifies the Father through the Son. Once again, however, the Father recedes somewhat into the background. Emphasis falls on the Spirit's energetic transformation of all things according to the image and reign of the Son.

D

Modalism?

Having delineated the Trinity's historical relationships, should we perhaps stop? Perhaps the very complexity and variety of these relationships will make any coherent articulation of the Trinity's nature impossible. "Isn't it enough," some might argue, "to know about God's activities? Why go on to speculate about God's being?" Or, alternatively, "Isn't it sufficient to know how God is manifested in relation to us? Why speculate about what God is like 'in Godself'?" In fact, some might continue, "Can you really discuss the Trinity's eternal character without abandoning your methodology 'from below'?"

Such objections echo a traditional Trinitarian understanding called

6 Cf. Moltmann, God in Creation, p. 69.

7 Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper, 1974), pp. 256-266; The Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 90-94.

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modalism. Modalism arose as a second-century attempt to comprehend the work of Spirit, Son, and Father in salvation-historical terms. According to modalism, salvation is the work of one God who reveals Godself, and God's acts, in three different ways, or "modes." In the Old Testament, this one God appeared to humankind as Father. From 1-30 A.D. he came to us in the form of the Son. Since then, God appears and works in the mode of Spirit. Modalism differs from classical Trinitarian teaching (first formulated largely by Tertullian [160?-225?] against the modalists) by maintaining that the Trinitarian distinctions do not actually exist in God, but only in God's activity toward us. God, that is, is not actually Trinitarian in Godself. Instead, God merely appears Trinitarian to us. Modalism appears capable of affirming all that we have discovered about the work of God "from below" while avoiding profitless speculation about persons, natures, and essences. Shall we then adopt a modalistic perspective?

Modalism cannot make at least one crucial assertion that we have made about God's saving work: salvation means that God's own self has come to us. Salvation means that God's very self dwells with and within us; that we and all dimensions of creation are being brought ever more fully into the very life of God. If Spirit, Son, and Father are merely appearances, or modes, of God, we cannot affirm that God has given his or her very self to us. For God can and does speak to humans in many ways: through a cloud, a pillar of fire (or, as Karl Barth once said, through "Russian Communism or a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub or a dead dog"8). Perhaps there are four, or eight . . . or even several hundred equally authentic modes of God's appearing. And if we have come in contact merely with appearances of God, the true God remains somewhere enshrouded in the mists above them. God is still a mysterious "X," an unknown force, which has only sent us its representatives.

The historic doctrine of the Trinity affirms that God appears in "special," saving revelation as God is in God's own self. God has come to us, and not someone else. God has come to us as God really is.9 To clarify and adequately affirm this claim, theology must be able to say something about what the eternal Trinity truly is, and not only about how it works or appears. Difficult as this task may prove to be, we must attempt it.

8Church Dogmatics, Vol. I, Part I, p. 60.

9 "The unity of the nature and the revelation of God is what is meant by the doctrine of the Trinity" (Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960], p. 220).

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II

The Eternal Trinity

As chapters 15 and 16 summed up the biblical data on God's activities, they spoke much as the Bible speaks. We have spoken unabashedly of three agents, all divine, and have called all three "persons." Historically, however, as theology has penetrated the eternal depths of the divine, talk of persons and of threeness has proved problematic. Accordingly, as we attempt to make affirmations about God's own self which are intelligible in our sociocultural context, these two issues must first claim our attention. Clarifying them will then enable us to articulate the meaning of the eternal Trinity more broadly.

A

Preliminary Considerations

1

Is God a Person?

Philosophers have often argued that "person" is a finite concept. We cannot conceive of a person without attributing to it specific characteristics which distinguish it from other persons and things. The concept "God," however, entails the notion of infinity. Therefore, God cannot be a person.

Paul Tillich has supported this conclusion not only with logical arguments, but also with existential ones. Tillich, like John Macquarrie, argues that every existing thing is characterized by tensions between polarities, and is thus threatened by nonbeing. All things oscillate between individualization and participation (and also between dynamics and form, and between freedom and destiny). If things become too individualized, they will be isolated from sustaining communion with other beings. If they become too submerged in others, they will lose their identity. The threat of either possibility arouses "anxiety about disintegrating and falling into nonbeing through existential disruption."10

For Tillich, religion is the quest for a source of power and meaning which can integrate human existence and deliver it from threat of nonbeing. Yet this source, Tillich insists, could not itself be a being. For all individual beings, by definition, experience the polarity between individualization and participation. Thus they oscillate between being and nonbeing. Only the "Ground of Being," which is not itself a beingand is thus beyond these polaritiescould be this source of power and meaning. Ground of Being is a philosophical term for what Christian faith calls God.11

10Systematic Theology, Vol. I (Chicago: University, 1951), p. 199; cf. Vol. I, pp. 188-190 above; on Macquarrie, see Vol. II, pp. 24-30 above.

11 Ibid., pp. 235-238. For Macquarrie on Being and God, see Principles of Christian Theology, 2d ed., pp. 104-122.

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Tillich knows, of course, that the Christian God is experienced far more personally than is a metaphysical Ground of Being. Therefore, theology must insist that this Ground is personal: that it is the source of everything personal. For the "Ground of Being" is not static; it is the ever-active Source of the being and meaning of all things.12 Nevertheless, theology must also insist that God is not a person. For if God were, God would be limited by other realities, and would not be truly infinite. God would not be unconditioned, but have a source in other beings. Most seriously, God would be subject to the disruption of nonbeing, and could not be the source of power and meaning. To what extent should such considerations modify the personalistic Trinitarian language we have used so far?

Tillich correctly says that God is the source of all meaning and power. But, he continues, if God were a person, God could not be this source; for God would interact reciprocally with other beings and also be threatened by nonbeing. In contrast, we find that both these features characterize God as creator and savior; but that neither prevents God from being the source of meaning and power.

Since God created the entire cosmos ex nihilo, God was indeed unlimited by any other beings "before" creation.13 But creation, we have seen, involved God's self-limitation. By that very act, God entered into reciprocal interaction with other realities. This meant that God could be distinguished from them, both ontologically and conceptually. However, this did not limit God as the source of either power or meaning. On the contrary, a God who can allow creatures to affect and even disobey Godself, and who can nevertheless bring cosmic purposes to pass, is far more powerful than a "Ground of Being" who cannot be genuinely limited or affected. Moreover, since this self-limitation grounded the cosmos in an overflow of agape *, through it God became its deepest source of meaning.

Nevertheless, when God made room within herself for the first basic spatio-temporal entities, she also withdrew to a large extent from the region which she granted them. She allowed a nearly empty space-time, as it were, to arise: a region burgeoning with potentialities for growth and developmentbut also a fragile one vulnerable to disintegration, chaos, and "nonbeing."14 By creating such a region and its

12 Tillich, op. cit., pp. 241-245.

13 See Chap. 16. Moreover, God has had a certain character from all eternity. For instance, God always was and is loving, not hateful. Even "before" creation these attributes distinguished God from other possible kinds of beings. They therefore enable theology to define God as a distinct person from all eternity, even though God has not always had reciprocal relations with other beings.

14 See Moltmann, God in Creation, pp. 86-93.

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creatures through agape *, God also opened herself to be affected by their struggles with nonbeing. But does such a self-limitation, as Tillich argues, make God any less the source of meaning and power?

Evil operates largely through fear of evil (cf. Heb. 2:14-15). Death and the powers afflict us most implacably when they threaten to make all that we have done meaningless, and to cast usabandoned, helpless, and condemnedfrom God's presence. However, this fear can be overcome if we know that God's own self has endured such hell, and that God is with us when it stares us in the face. But if God is always wholly immune from such a threat, God cannot really be with us at such times, and has no real power over nonbeing.

Fortunately, though, the cross and resurrection tell us that death has afflicted God's very depths, but that the divine love and life have overcome even this. Surely a God who can allow nonbeing to attack so deeply, and who can nevertheless bring cosmic purposes to pass, is far more powerful than one who cannot allow this. And such a God is a far more satisfactory source of religious meaning.

This leads us to ask whether a metaphysical concept of God is more adequate than a personal one. Personal concepts are often criticized for reducing God to human terms and for projecting our limited awareness, hopes, and fears upon the divine. However, metaphysical concepts are also limited, for they conceive God in broad, general terms. They are unable to convey the specificity with which God opens Godself to us and is present with us (cf. Vol. I, Chap. 10). They adequately express neither the incisive severity of divine judgment nor the wonder and pain of God's self-giving love. Conceiving God in general metaphysical terms may not lead to a "higher" theological understanding. It may shield one from decisive encounter with the Living God.15

Speaking of God as a person, then, need not be a concession to human limitations. This language alone can properly express certain essential features of the divine. Yet Tillich rightly underlines the difficulty of showing how talk about beings who think and feel and interact with creatures can be talk about God: about the infinite, omnipotent Source of all being and meaning. In seeking to speak not simply of the Trinity's historical activities, but of its eternal nature, we must continue to keep this in mind.

15 See Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), pp. 124-127.

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2

How Is God "One"?

If personalistic language creates problems when used of God in general, these are multiplied when it is applied to each Trinitarian member. Three active divine agents sound suspiciously like three gods. Yet over against the prevailing polytheism, the Old Testament emphatically proclaimed that God is One. If the Son's and Spirit's coming fulfill the Old Testament promises, then Christians must affirm this, too. How might one do this?

Through the centuries, many theologians have sought to safeguard the divine oneness by granting the Father a certain priority. Since the Bible often speaks of the Son or the Spirit as related in some way to "God," one can argue that this word usually designates the Father, and that Scripture thereby affirms his priority.16

Tertullian was the first to analyze many Trinitarian concepts (such as three "persons" but one "substance") with precision. However, he also insisted that the Father possesses the total divine substance. From this substance the Son is "generated" and the Spirit is "aspirated."17 By regarding the Father in this way as the ''origin" of the Trinity, Tertullian sought to affirm a oneness or unity in God and avoid tritheism. The Nicene Creed (325) affirmed that the Son is "begotten from the Father," while the Constantinopolitan Creed (381), a slightly revised version of the Nicene, asserted that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father." From Tertullian on, however, Trinitarian reflection focused mostly on the relationship of Father and Son. In the Latin West, the Constantinopolitan Creed was gradually revised to affirm that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" (this addition was called the "filioque").18 All this made it possible to understand Trinity in a hierarchical way. Trinitarian, and thereby divine, unity could be affirmed by conceiving substance, authority, and action as flowing down from Father through Son to Spirit.

Roman society was also ordered hierarchically, with authority descending from the emperor at the top. Almost all rulers from Constantine (272-337) on sought to solidify the rule of one emperor by fostering the unity of one supreme religion. The more autocratically the Christian God could be conceived, the more suited would Christianity be for their purposes.

In affirming the monarchical supremacy of the Father, then, might Trinitarian theology have lent support to such despotic tendencies?19

16 E.g., Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol. I, pp. 125-148.

17 Esp. "Against Praxeas," Chaps. 1-9, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), pp. 597-604.

18 In Latin, filios means "son" while que means "and."

19 For the issues involved, see Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 129-137; Thomas Finger, "The Way to Nicea: Some Reflections from a Mennonite Perspective," Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring, 1987), pp.

(footnote continued on next page)

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Or, on the other hand, might this model simply have expressed the subordinationism we have found in Scripture? As we seek to understand how God can be both three and one, we must keep this issue in mind.

B

The Intra-Trinitarian Relationships

Since the most explicit data on these relations comes from texts concerning Father and Son, we will begin with them.

1

The Father-Son Relationship

Two biblical concepts in particular imply a subordination of Son to Father: birth and imaging. Let us consider the first kind first. Jesus is the "only-begotten" and the "firstborn" son. These terms, however, express much more than derivation or generation. An "only-begotten" child is its parents' only child, and is therefore especially precious. Luke used this term of several children whom Jesus healed or raised to emphasize the pain of their parents' loss (Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38). Accordingly, only-begotten can underline the depth of the Father's love and self-giving in sending his Son.20 Paul expressed this by speaking of God's "own Son" whom he ''did not spare . . . but delivered up for us all" (Rom. 8:32; cf. 8:3). Thus, at least when used to affirm the Father's care for Jesus on earth, only-begotten means much the same as beloved (esp. Mark 1:11 and parallels).

In the Old Testament, begetting and being firstborn could convey installation in an important position without any biological derivation (Psalm 2:7; 89:27, 37; cf. Exod. 4:22-23). Jesus' exaltation to new functions after his resurrection is in view when the kerygma speaks of "begetting" (Acts 13:30-33), and when he is called the "firstborn" from the dead (Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5) and "firstborn" among many brethren (Rom. 8:29). However, since his resurrection was also an act of creation (Chap. 16), bestowal of life upon him may also be indicated in these instances.

Beyond this, birth imagery appears in several places where the Son's preexistence is in view. He is "the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15). The "only-begotten" God, or Son, came from the Father's bosom (John 1:14, 18). And Hebrews' birth imagery seems to interwine the resurrection (esp. Heb. 1:5) with eternity past (esp. Heb. 1:6; cf. 5:5).

Birth imagery, then, expresses the Father's bestowal of love and authority upon the Son, and it traces at least the former back before

(footnote continued from previous page)

212-231; Erik Peterson, "Monotheismus als politische Problem," Theologische Traktate [Munich: Kösel, 1951], pp. 49ff.).

20 John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9; cf. Heb. 11:17.

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Jesus' human birth. But does this language also assert or imply something about the Son's being? In view of the overall context in which it functions, we conclude that it does. The very terms Father and Son express some type of irreversible dependence. The Son is "born of God" in a way analogous to our own spiritual birthin which we are surely recipients (1 John 5:18). And "as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26).

While these texts probably refer chiefly to Jesus' earthly activity, their contexts repeatedly depict this activity as reflecting an eternal relationship. Thus, although they tell us little about that relationship, they do show that the Son's being is "grounded in" and "proceeds from" the Father's in a way that the Father's does not from him.21 Yet while this birth imagery expresses some kind of derivation, it also heightens the difference between this derivation and Creator-creature relationships. As the "only-begotten" dwelling in the Father's "bosom," the Son receives being from the Father in a way quite different from the way creatures do.22

The second group of concepts that may imply subordination are those of imaging, or reflection. They are closely connected with creation "through" the Son, and thus with wisdom and logos. The Son is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). He "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature" (Heb. 1:3). He was originally "in the form of God" (Phil. 2:6). This close "likeness'' (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:4, 6); which can even appear as identity (John 14:9-11), also has historical saving significance.

This reflection imagery can be read in two ways. The Son as image might relate to the Father as a copy to its original. On this reading, the Father would have the fullness of divine reality. The Son would be a derived, secondary reproduction. But reflection terminology can also

21 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. I, Part I, p. 491.

22 In the early fourth century, Arius argued that the Son was a creaturealthough the highest and "first-born""made" ex nihilo by the Father. Arius understood certain texts to describe the Son as a creature (esp. Prov. 8:22; Acts 2:36; Col. 1:15; Heb. 3:2).

The Nicene Creed rejected this but emphasized some kind of derivation of the Son by using making (poieo *) for God's creating activity, and reserving begetting (gennao*) for the Son's generation. It further insisted that the Son, unlike all creatures, was "begotten" directly "from the Father" and was "of the same essence (homoousion) as the Father." This begetting was understood as an "eternal generation"a ceaseless, unoriginated activity and not a distinct, initial act. (See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. [San Francisco: Harper, 1960], pp. 226-237; and Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, pp. 191-207.)

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express two sides of the same reality. If image and reflection mean much the same as word (logos) and wisdom, they can mean that the Son is God insofar as God expresses Godself, makes Godself visible and known. To put it somewhat anthropomorphically, whenever God expressed God's character or purpose, this basic intentionality, considered in itself, would be the Father's. That same character or purpose, insofar as it was expressed and communicated, would be the Son's. Here the Father's intentionality would not be superior to the Son's expression. For characters or purposes that are entirely unexpressed are incomplete and mute. They need both intention and expression to be what they are.

On this reading, the Son as image would be no secondary copy of the Father, but the way that God becomes visible, or expresses Godself. Moreover, the Son would not merely reflect or convey the Father's intention "outward," as it were, toward the creation. More fundamentally, the Son would reflect the Father's intention "back" like a mirror does. When we humans want to express a deep but vague intention, we often grope for the right word or thought, or form of expression. When that expression occurs to us, not only does it enable us to communicate our intention to others; even more fundamentally, it enables us to recognize our own intention. For us as well as others, the right word or thought or expression brings that gestating purpose to birth.

Somewhat similarly the Son, being that Word (Logos) or Wisdom through which the Father's intention finds expression, would bring that intention fully to birth, and reflect it back to the Father himself. The Son would be like a mirror in which the Father beholds himself, and thereby comes to fuller expression. Reflection imagery would point primarily to a mutual reflecting back and forth of glory and love. Creation would reflect that love "inward," as it were, into that space which God vacates so creatures can come to be. Accordingly, when the Father's intentions are reflected "through" the Son in creation,23 the Son's shaping of them would hardly be a secondary, inferior action. For without this shaping, this bringing to birth, the cosmos would never have originated.

How should we understand this reflection? As image and reflection, is the Son a secondary copy of the divine fullness? Or a mirror who brings it to self-recognition and self-expression, and sends it pulsating back and forth? And what about birth language, with its element of derivation? Does it imply some kind of subordination? A synthetic overview of the Trinity's interrelationships will help us decide.

2

The Trinitarian Relationships

Although the Father-Son terminology just examined says little about the Spirit, reconsideration of her historical

23 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; John 1:3.

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activity will help determine her eternal relation to them.

In creation, while the Son gives shape to the Father's intention, specific creatures do not properly exist until the Spirit breathes life upon and within them (Chap. 16). Precisely speaking, the Son's role in reflecting and shaping the Father's initiative in creation is intermediate. Only through the Spirit's energy does this initiative emerge as actual, concrete reality which reflects God's glory.

In his earthly ministry, the Son also gave shape to the Father's intentions. Here this reflecting or imaging was no mere secondary copy. It is precisely through the Son's doing nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing (John 5:19) that the Father's saving purposes move toward realization. Jesus' activity is hardly a passive reproduction of something more fully actual. It is the very means by which the Father's intentions are given shape and actualized. Here also these intentions come concretely to life through the Spirit, the agent of Jesus' specific healings, exorcisms, preaching, and prayers, as well as the overall energy who guides him. And when the Spirit actualizes the Father's love by raising the Son from the dead, the Father's saving purpose "already" reaches its essential goal.

From here on, the divine task is to bring the eschaton to full actualization. Although the Son shapes and directs this process, so it will finally glorify the Father and his purpose, the Son, and even more the Father, step somewhat into the background. The Spirit becomes increasingly active in testifying, convicting, comforting, and sanctifying. The goal of this divine activity is that God will dwell among us (Isa. 11:9; 1 Cor. 15:28; Rev. 21-22). Or, to use our creation imagery, that that space "inside" God will be permeated and transformed by the life of God (or of "heaven" [Vol. I, pp. 156-158]) and that from it praise will increasingly return to its Source.

In sum, the biblical data concerning the historical Trinity show that divine activity passes through three phases. We might call them origination, formation, and actualization. The last phase, however, does not stop with bringing entities into existence and guiding their development. All through this process the Spirit glorifies the Son and Father, and thereby guides all things toward the time when, in and through them, the divine activity will flow back in unhindered praise and joy toward its source.

The Spirit's historical activity, that is, might be pictured as a circle which arches outward from the Father through the Son, passes through creation, and then curves back through Son to Father. Through this process, creation is caught up into the very life of God. But if creatures have been created to participate in God's very lifeand are not just touched outwardly by a saving divine operationthen this circular, or

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circulating, activity must be intrinsic to that life itself. The flow of love and energy from origination through formation to actualization and backfrom Father through Son through Spirit through Son through Father and so on forevermust characterize the eternal Trinity itself.

Our biblical data also show that the Spirit circulates back and forth between Father and Son. The Spirit sent the Son from the Father into the world. Through the agony of Golgotha (Heb. 9:14) and the joy of resurrection, the Spirit drew the Son back toward the Father. The circulation of divine love and energy into which we are savingly incorporated was especially active in the cross and resurrection. For here death and hell inserted themselves, as it were, between the Father and Son, striving to tear their communion apart. Yet the "link" between them, the Spirit, still drew the grieving Father and the desolate Son toward each other. In this way, death and hell were overcome by the eternal divine life.

But if eternal life in its fundamental characterand not simply in an unusual saving operationwas active here, then this circulation between Father and Son must characterize the eternal Trinity. That is, the divine reality, in its inmost nature, must consist of the initial origination of the Father and of its expression or formation by the Son. Furthermore, it must also consist in that energy of the Spirit which actualizes itwhich conveys this intention and reflects it back.

3

Conclusions

What does this tell us about the divine oneness? Does divine unity consist in a hierarchical ordering through which substance, authority, and action flow down from Father through Son to Spirit? Insofar as theology considers the origination of Trinitarian activity, it can call the Father the "origin" from which it flows. Insofar, that is, as theology thinks protologically (as it traces things to their source), it will regard the Father as prior in this sense.

In Scripture, however, expression and actualization are equally important as origination. The biblical God is an expressive, living God, not only a primordial source. Insofar as theology regards the Trinity from the standpoint of its expressive or actualizing activities, it has to say that the Son or the Spirit are the sources without which the Trinity, and thus God, also would not be. The divine "substance" is not a quantity handed down from one level to another. It is an energy ceaselessly flowing among, and continually revitalized by, different sources.

Further, even though origination, expression, and actualization generally characterize Father, Son, and Spirit respectively, the biblical data caution against conceiving this pattern too rigidly. For in history, relations among the persons alter. During Jesus' ministry the Spirit initiated the Son's activity, while after the resurrection the Son initiated the

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Spirit's. Viewed eschatologically, the Spirit is the primary initiator of Trinitarian action. This strongly implies that varying patterns of initiation and response characterize the eternal Trinity. It also argues against the Western church's filioque doctrine, or at least any understanding of it that puts the Spirit perpetually in the "lowest" position of receiving, where its contribution to the other two is not equally stressed.24

These Trinitarian relationships show that biblical expressions which seem to express subordination or inferiority in being really indicate differences in function, or direction, of the divine energy. As image or reflection of the Father, the Son is no secondary copy, but the expressiveness, or shape, of the Father's intention. As begotten or born, the Son is beloved, and also the recipient of authority which he then makes actual. Texts which show Jesus obeying or receiving from the Father also show him making what he receives concretely real. The Trinitarian relationships, in fact, overturn the common assumption that "God" must always be initiator and master, and never responder or servant (p. 294). They show that being God intrinsically involves responding to and serving God.

All this suggests that divine unity is best conceived as what John of Damascus (645?-750?) called "perichoresis," or the mutual exchange of energies.25 The continual circular flow of origination, formation, and actualization, through which each person repeatedly energizes the other, is itself the dynamic divine unity. Expressing this in terms of one divine person rather than three, theology can say: God is that activity which continually originates, expresses, and actualizes itself. This occurs somewhat as one human person intends something, forms a plan for executing it, and puts it into action. In both God and humans, one person and one overall action are involved. In God, however, the planning

24 For discussions of the filioque, see Moltmann, pp. 178-187. Curiously, the history of Trinitarian interactions corresponds somewhat to human family relationships. When children are young, their parents' love for them is initiatory, while the children's is responsive. As children mature, however, their love and activity become increasingly self-initiated, even though final authority and responsibility still rest with the parents. Finally, in the parents' old age, the children's love is primarily initiatory and the parents' responsivealthough the children (ideally, at least!) still direct their activities in line with their parent's original intentions and towards their honor.

One should not press this analogy too far. Yet it renders general talk of the Father as sole Origin even more doubtful. For the different persons take over originating roles of some kind at different times and in different ways.

25 "The Orthodox Faith," in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IX (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), pp. 6-11; see Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 174-178.

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and acting themselves are also, in a way we cannot fully comprehend, persons who exchange love and adoration in the process.

In itself, then, the Trinity is not structured hierarchically. Thus this doctrine hardly implies that the church or society ought to be. On the contrary, it implies that church and society ought to be structured as mutually as possible, with authority and activity flowing back and forth among different but equally valuable persons and groups.

III

The Meaning of the Trinity

Since Chapter 15 we have been seeking to show how theology, beginning from God's historical acts, can adduce several valid, though limited, assertions about God's eternal, Trinitarian character. However, despite our argumentation, some readers may still be wondering why theology should insist that God not only appears as, but actually is, Spirit, Son, and Father? Why should theology risk exceeding its limits by speaking of their actual activities and interrelationships?

We can best answer by summarizing what we can now say about the Trinity; and, as we do so, by nothing the significance of affirming that God really is this way. Since the data for these affirmations have come "from below," most of them will also say what Trinitarian beliefs mean for the church's commission.

A

The Holy Spirit

What is the significance of affirming that the Holy Spirit not only acts for or appears as God, but actually is God? It is to assert that life, vitality, and eschatological newness are in the very heart of God. Creation and the kingdom's coming and consummation are not the mere unfolding of some prior plan whose actual execution could be left to an inferior agent. Rather, the pulsating, all-quickening newness of resurrection and sanctification is the abounding vitality of Godself. God not only plans and oversees things. God comes into the midst of creation and leaps with joy.

If the Spirit is fully God, then the mission which propels the kerygma to all nations is not simply a message about what God once did. It is also, at its deepest levels, God's own movement through the world. Worship, too, is not only a human response to God. It is that sacramental movement through voices, gestures, and physical objects by which God's own glory continually returns in ever greater fullness and adoration to itself. The Spirit's deity further means that God truly comes to dwell within creatures, and within the inmost heart of those who are in Christ. God not only yearns, inspires, convicts, and comforts from beyond. The yearning, inspiring, convicting, and comforting that we sense within us are the very yearning, inspiring, convicting, and

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comforting movements of God.

To affirm that the Spirit is one of three equally divine persons is to affirm that God is as involved in the execution of something as in its planning. God is as active on earth as in heaven; as concerned with the inconspicuous individual as with governing the cosmos. God is as involved in the consummation of all things as in their beginning; as involved in challenging, overturning, and remaking reality as in upholding and conserving it.

In the history of the church and of theology, groups which have emphasized the Spirit (through prophecy, charismatic gifts, etc.) have often been thrust aside. The unpredictability of the Spirit's leading threatens churches which are becoming highly structured and theologies which are being increasingly rigidified. The marginalization of the pneumatic element in the early church corresponded broadly to its increasingly hierarchical ecclesiology, and to theology's overemphasis on the Father-Son relationship, to which the Spirit was often an appendix. Systematic theology, which has usually been fostered by established institutions (Vol. I, Chap. 1), has reinforced this neglect, even while officially defending the Spirit's deity.

However, a church which truly confesses the Spirit's deity must welcome spontaneous and prophetic impulses which may challenge its structure. A theology which understands the Spirit must allow her vitality to reshape its categories and must ponder all things in light of her prophetic, renewing surge.

B

The Son

What is the significance of affirming that the Son is not only a servant or a supreme earthly manifestation of God, but actually is God? It is to assert that shaping, forming, and expressing are in the very heart of God. The cosmos' structure did not emerge from some secondary process or being, but is the very work of God.26 It is also to assert that when Jesus came among us, taught, healed, and suffered, it was not merely some representative of God who did so, but that Godself became incarnate, taught, healed, and suffered.

To assert the Son's deity, then, is to assert that God is truly a servant. To be divine is not simply to command and to lead. God also obeys and is led. The self-giving, the servant form, the humility of Jesus were not simply a "mode" of God's working; not an "emergency

26 Arius held that God was absolutely unique and transcendent. Not only could he never be two or three in himself; he also could never come in direct contact with creation. Both of these were reasons why the actual creator of the world, the Son, could not be fully God.

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measure" undertaken for a unique purpose. Instead, God appeared in this revelation as God truly is in Godself. This answers the objection of "subordination" against the deity of Spirit and Son: since, in Scripture, Son and Spirit often obey "God," serve "God," witness to ''God," how could they possibly be "God"? Only the Trinitarian affirmation that God eternally and in Godself always serves God supplies an answer.

The deity of the Son also means that God has died. From its beginning, theology has been troubled by the cross. On one hand, the Son's death was central to salvation. On the other, "immortality" was an essential divine attribute in contemporary Greek thought. God had apparently died; but God could not die. How was this possible? The common answer was that only Christ's human nature had diedeven though the divine nature was bound up with it closely enough to "experience" death through sympathy.27

Our study of the historical Trinity, however, has discovered no way around the impression created by the Gospels: that the Son himself, and not simply his human nature, died on the cross. Godself, then, is liable to what Tillich calls "the threat of nonbeing." Further, the agony of the cross strained the Father-Son relationship nearly to the breaking point. If their triumph over evil was real, and not mere shadow boxing with a pretended enemy, God is liable in some way to "existential disruption."

Epistemologically, our theology has proceeded from God's work to God's person. Especially at the cross, it is clear that the true character of those acts cannot be unfolded until we ponder God's very nature. For if Jesus were not the beloved divine Son, but merely a human servant of God, then Godself would not have died or experienced death's grief. Then salvation would not involve God's participation in our death and our participation in God's.28

To affirm that the Son is one of three equally divine persons is to affirm that God is as much shaper as originator; as much servant as lord; as much responder as initiator. God is as much one who obeys as one who commands; as much one who suffers as one who experiences bliss.

In the history of the church and of theology, groups which have emphasized the Son's servanthood have often been thrust aside. They have disturbed churches seeking alliances with contemporary forces of power, wealth, and success. Theologians have often dismissed such groups as "mere practitioners" or "pietists." Patristic Christology, which debated the Son's nature and person at length, often forgot to mention

27 See Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp. 227-235.

28 Ibid., pp. 240-249.

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what following him involved.29 However, a church which truly confesses the Son's deity must welcome opportunities to discover divine power in humility, service, and even suffering. A theology which understands it should see that its categories are fashioned as tools for serving humanity and God.

C

The Father

What is the significance of affirming that the Father is God? This may seem a strange question, for theology has hardly ever doubted it. Yet there is profound meaning in the assertionnot, strictly speaking, that "the Father is God," butthat "God is the Father." For concepts of God have often been formed on the models of the all-powerful emperor, or of moral energy, or of some philosophical principle like "Unmoved Mover" or "Ground of Being.''30 All these suggest something largely impersonal and aloof.

To be sure, Scripture speaks of God as "the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy." Yet this One also dwells with those "of a contrite and humble spirit" (Isa. 57:15). The good news of biblical revelation is that this exalted one is primarily a father. And Father, we have seen, is not chiefly a title of hierarchical authority. It is a term of intimacy, expressing delight in being Father of a familymuch like what is often connoted by Mother. From a Trinitarian perspective, God is not first a ruler or cosmic mind, or even Creator. For God "in himself," and not merely in relation to creatures, is above all Father. The universe is the product of his overflowing love for his Son and Spirit. God becomes Creator and ruler to further this agapaic purpose. The cosmic rule of the Fathermuch like the later lordship of the Sonis not supremely valuable in and of itself, but the means by which he attains his ends of love.31

D

The Trinity as a Whole

Finally, in view of what we have said of each person, what is the significance of affirming that God does not merely act or appear in Trinitarian fashion, but is so in God's inmost beingthat is, that God eternally originates, expresses, and actualizes Godself? This significance is not merely speculative. It provides the deepest possible undergirding for many themes of our theology.

29 See Finger, "The Way to Nicea," op. cit.

30 Whitehead, op. cit., pp. 403-404. We agree with Whitehead's critique of most God concepts even though we question his alternative.

31 See Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 162-166; and Chap. 19 below.

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1

Agape *

To affirm that God is Trinitarian is to affirm that the universe is created and sustained through agape*-love. Since Godself is a continual giving and receiving of love, God does not need the world on which to bestow or from which to receive love. Trinitarian love, which flows among those who are of the same nature but individually different, is thereby free to overflow into creatures whose nature is different. They can be loved for their own sake, not for what they can contribute back to God. They can be allowed to make their own decisions, even to cut themselves off from God. For although God rejoices in their existence and obedience, God is not dependent upon these for fulfillment.

Thus the outflowing of love toward those who are different is not limited to rare occurrences in human history. Rather, it sustains the creation and guides it toward glorification. Any perspective which regards it as less ultimate is shaped in part by the systemic blindness inflicted by the power (Chap. 11).

2

Personal Salvation

To affirm that God is Trinitarian is to assert that, and to show how, salvation is a participatory reality. If God is regarded as an isolated individual^32 or a general force, salvation can be conceived as an external benefit which God bestows, and communion with God as conversation with or meditation on a distant person or source. But if God is Trinitarian, communion with God, and hence salvation, must involve participation in an intimate relationship. This shows why salvation cannot be limited to justification, construed simply as legal pardon and privilege (Chap. 7).

Further, if God is an individual being or force, even salvation by participation can be construed as infusion of or absorption into the nature of this One. But within the Trinity, communion is the constant self-giving and receiving of persons who remain different. This makes it clear why people entering into communion with the divine do not cease to be human and become divine, but are enhanced precisely in their humanity.

3

Sacramental Presence

If God is simply an individual or general force, then, if God is truly present at all among creatures, this must be through direct identity, in some substantial way. If God is present in creation, creatures will be at least partially divine. If Christ is present in the church or sacraments, then ecclesiastical institutions and sacramental elements will be, in some direct sense, Christ himself. But if creatures, the church, and sacramental ceremonies are caught up in dif-

32 In this section we are using individual to indicate a solitary, non-relational being who is therefore not fully "personal" (cf. Vol. I, p. 122).

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ferent ways into the flow of divine energies, then Jesus will be present through the sending and response of his Spirit, which communicates his sym-pathy to us and draws us back into his intercession with the Father. We will be "in Christ" chiefly by becoming, through the dynamism of the Spirit, companions with him in his sufferings, his mission, and his resurrection joy.

4

Corporate Salvation

Since salvation intrinsically involves participation in the Trinitarian fellowship, it is clear why it must have a corporate dimension. For salvation, at its core, involves opening oneself to these Others, being indwelt by them, and interacting with them. Since many humans are also incorporated into this participation in God, salvation must involve each one's increasing openness toward and interaction with the others. This makes it clear theologically why a call to salvation must entail a call to participate in mutual servanthood, and why genuine faith must issue in works of love. This also shows why salvation in its most essential nature, and not as a secondary step, involves the formation and upbuilding of the church.

5

The Imago Dei

Since God is Trinitarian, and humanity is made in God's image, it is clear why cohumanity is essential to the imago dei (Chap. 4). Were God a single individual, the single human person, perhaps through its rational or spiritual character, might display the imago. But since God is a community, each person of which maintains its identity precisely in and through its relationships, humans are inextricably interconnected with others. Yet they are also destined for actualization as unique individuals through these very relationships.

6

Society

As long as God is conceived of as an individual, exceedingly exalted monarch, despotic governments can claim divine support for their regimes. But since God is Trinitarian, it is clear why human society is best structured not in authoritarian, hierarchical fashion, but in ways that allow the distinct contributions of as many as possible.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Brunner, Emil. The Christian Doctrine of God. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

Burgess, Stanley. The Spirit and the Church. Antiquity: Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984.

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Gelpi, Donald. The Divine Mother: A Trinitarian Theology of the Holy Spirit. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984.

Heron, Alasdair. The Holy Spirit. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983.

Jenson, Robert. The Triune Identity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God. New York: Harper, 1974.

__________. The Trinity and the Kingdom. San Francisco: Harper, 1981.

O'Donnel, John. Trinity and Temporality: The Christian Doctrine of God in the Light of Process Theology and the Theology of Hope. Oxford: University, 1983.

Pittinger, Norman. The Divine Triunity. Philadelphia: Pilgrim, 1977.

Rusch, William, ed. The Trinitarian Controversy, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.

Taylor, John. The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and Christian Mission. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979.

Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology, Vol. I. Chicago: University, 1951.

Wainwright, Arthur. The Trinity in the New Testament. London: S.P.C.K., 1962.

Willis, Waite. Theisson, Atheison and the Doctrine of the Trinity. Atlanta: Scholars, 1987.

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Chapter Eighteen

The Person of Jesus Christ

To affirm that God is Trinitarian is to affirm (among other things) that God came, comes, and will come to us as God truly is in Godself. Jesus' sufferings, the Spirit's groaning, the Lord's glorious returnthese are not mere "modes" of God's presence but the very activities of God's own self.

If Godself truly comes into this world, then God is affected by it. Especially in the incarnation and cross, God experiences something new. While most theologies since Patristic times have insisted that God, by definition, is "immutable" (unchangeable), these foundational events of the Christian faith raise questions about that claim. For if God truly became a particular human and truly experienced death, then God (although this may be entirely consistent with God's purpose and plan) became something God was not before.

To clarify its claims about "God" in various cultural contexts, the church has often had to give some account of how the One Godcontrary to common opinioncould change in such ways and remain God. And the matter has another side. The church has also often needed to show how Jesus Christ, if he truly is this God, can also be a real human being. For it would seem that if any human really were God, that person must be an extraordinary superhumansomeone who could have no real connection with our ordinary experiences, problems, and sins. Yet if Jesus did not fully share our ordinary human condition, he could not really save us, either. For, as the Fathers often said, what

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God did not assume God did not save.1

Today, some religious people, despite what they profess, have difficulty relating to Jesus as one who really shares their human situation and struggles. In general, however, modern people assume that Jesus was fully human. Many, even in other religions, can acknowledge him as teacher or model (Chap. 12)perhaps even, along with us, as the norm for human existence (Chap. 4). Yet modern people find it far more difficult to believe that this one human meets them with God's own authority and eternal saving power. For these reasons, questions as to how Jesus can be both fully human and fully divine are hardly irrelevant today.

I

The Issue, Past and Present

A

Patristic Christologies

Until roughly the middle of the fourth century, most theologians thought that Jesus' divine-human character could be sufficiently expressed, following John 1:14, as a union of the Logos with "flesh" (sarx).2 But experience showed that flesh could be interpreted to mean merely the body, and that Jesus' willing, thinking, loving, etc., could be attributed to wholly divine powers. But if this were so, Jesus would be vastly different from all of us.

Recognizing this, certain theologians, especially of the "Antiochene school," insisted that Jesus had a complete human "nature," including a finite mind and will. Since theologians of all schools agreed that he also had a complete "divine nature"including an infinite mind and willhow could the joining of the two be conceived? Nestorius (381?-451?) expressed the Antiochene perspective somewhat sharply by emphasizing the continuing distinction between these two natures throughout Jesus' life. As a result, Nestorius's Christ looked like a sort of third being, a strange composite of the two.

In contrast, the Antiochenes' opponents from Alexandria also spoke of two natures in Christ . . . but only "before the incarnation." At the incarnation, they claimed, the divine Person and nature took on the

1 Gregory Nazianzen, Epistle 101, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), p. 440.

2 For what follows, see esp. Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964); Pelikan, pp. 226-277; Kelly, pp. 310-343; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), pp. 287-293.

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human naturebut in a way that tended to absorb the latter. (Extreme teachings of this sort are called monophysite, meaning of one [mono-] nature [phusis].) Whereas the Antiochenes maintained the difference between the natures but had difficulty conceptualizing the unity of Christ's person, the Alexandrians maintained the unity of the person but had difficulty asserting the continuing integrity of Jesus' human character.

The orthodox solution was formalized at the Council of Chalcedon (451). Regarding his "natures," Christ was declared to be of the same essence, or "consubstantial (homoousion)" with the Father "in his divinity," and ''consubstantial with us in his humanity." The latter phrase means that he had both "body and rational soul." These two natures were united "without any commingling or change or division or separation." Thus "by their union . . . the specific character of each nature is preserved."

Regarding Christ's person, Chalcedon affirmed that the natures were "united in one person and one hypostasis." This is the "one and the same Son and only-begotten, the divine Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ."3 This union of two natures in one person was already complete in principle before his birth.

Notice that the unity of the person was established by affirming that the personal center, the true personhood, of Jesus of Nazareth was none other than the divine Logos who assumed or took on the human nature. By teaching this, Chalcedon sought to affirm that when Jesus comes to us, it is God who takes the initiative and comes, not simply a man representing God. Yet this raised several problems. How could the infinite Logos become a fetus and develop and grow? And how could the omniscient Logos learn and choose in a fully human way, where ignorance is always involved?

In sum, although Chalcedon granted Jesus a human "rational soul," it denied him a distinctly human personal center. Thus many have argued that Chalcedon did not really overcome the weakness of Alexandrian Christology. It still favored the divine nature at the expense of the human, styling Jesus as a superman without a fully human personality.4

In ancient thought, moreover, nature (whether human, divine, or other) was defined by an unchanging set of permanent properties. And

3 The assertion that Jesus was homoousion with his Father was also central to the Nicene Creed (cf. Chap. 17, notes 19 and 22).

4 E.g., Pannenberg, p. 338: "By itself Jesus' humanity would not only be impersonal in the modern sense of lacking self-conscious personality, but taken by itself Jesus' human being would be nonexistent. Hence, it can be conceived by itself only by abstracting from the actual reality of Jesus' existence."

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since many properties of the divine and human natures were thought of as mutually exclusiveimmortality vs. mortality, infinity vs. finitude, etc.it became extremely difficult to conceive of any union between them. Over the past few centuries, however, people have increasingly regarded all things as being caught up in evolutionary development. Accordingly, many theologians have argued that we must now think of human and even of divine nature as undergoing historical change. And when we do, we will understand how Jesus' divinity and humanity were united.

B

Recent Christologies

1

Karl Rahner

Rahner's "transcendental" anthropology provides a foundation for such a Christology. For Rahner, human nature is a movement of aspiration towards its infinite horizon, or Source (Chap. 2). Rahner even detects this aspiration operating throughout the entire evolutionary process. Humanity is that point at which the "tendency of matter to discover itself in spirit through self-transcendence reaches its definitive breakthrough."5 From its beginning, then, human nature has not had a fixed character, but has been open and in movement toward God.

All along, however, the divine nature has not been static, either. God has been bestowing grace upon creation, and thus has been in movement toward us. Both movements, then, while originating from different points, are proceeding toward each other, and thus toward the same final goal: "the divinization of the world as a whole." From the character of these movements, one can conclude that the "hypostatic union" will occur somewhere in this process. That is, there will come a moment when the self-bestowing divine nature will be so fully appropriated by a self-transcending human person that it will form "the initial beginning and the definitive triumph of the movement of the world's self-transcendence into absolute closeness to the mystery of God.''6

To say it otherwise: by reasoning deductively from characteristics of the divine and human processes, one can conclude that an "absolute savior" will appear. This savior will be "that historical subjectivity in which, first, this process of God's absolute self-communication . . . exists irrevocably"; and also in which "it can be recognized unambiguously as irrevocable."7

5Foundations of the Christian Faith, p. 181. Rahner's evolutionary view can be classified under "Continuing Creation" (Chap. 16).

6 Ibid., p. 181.

7 Ibid., p. 194. Rahner's Christology is "transcendental," or "a priori," in the sense that its fundamental features can be deduced from what Rahner has already established about human transcendence and God's grace. Formally

(footnote continued on next page)

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The hypostatic union, of course, occurred in Jesus, but not because there was anything special about his human nature. Rather, Jesus was uniquely filled with the divine as he wholly fulfilled the human destiny assigned to all of us: attaining self-transcendence by opening oneself fully to God. Jesus was, however, different from other humans in two respects. First, he appeared at the unique, "irrevocable" point in the history of God's self-communication. Second, because he appeared at that point, the divine Logos, which had been imparting divine wisdom and reality to creation from the beginning, fully imparted itself to, and thereby assumed, the person of Jesus.8 In this way, Jesus was God.

This general christological model calls for two comments. First, since both divine self-giving and human self-transcending are continuous processes, a way is opened for Jesus' deity actually to be constituted at some point when he definitively opens himself to, and is adopted by, God. That is, Jesus need not necessarily have been God, or God's Son, from his conception, as Chalcedon affirmed. He could have later become God, as in ancient adoptionism (Chap. 15). Rahner, however, does not take this step. Since the hypostatic union is God's own self-offer, Rahner insists that the personal, preexistent Logos created and assumed Jesus' human nature. Nevertheless, such an emphasis on the divine and human processes has been used by others in an adoptionistic manner.

Second, the relationship which Rahner stresses is not that of Son with Father, but of the human Jesus with the Logos. In Rahner's view, only the second Trinitarian person can become incarnate. God, insofar as God is Father, "always remains the ineffable and holy mystery, the incomprehensible ground and origin of the coming in the Son and in the Spirit."9 But the possibility that "the incomprehensible abyss whom we call Father" has for offering himself, for being faithful in history, is "the Logos."10 Because of this Trinitarian understanding, and because

(footnote continued from previous page)

speaking, the concepts of "hypostatic union" and "absolute savior" can be developed without reference to Jesus. In actuality, however, Rahner insists that this "a priori doctrine of the God-Man" could not have been "temporally and historically prior to the actual encounter with the God-Man'' (p. 177). Moreover, although incarnation is "an intrinsic and necessary moment in the bestowal of grace" (p. 199), this bestowal itself is not necessary, but is a free act of God.

8 Ibid., pp. 198-203, 212-227.

9Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 136.

10 Ibid., p. 215.

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Rahner stresses that Jesus' human growth was essentially the same as ours, the main process of self-yielding and of being filled and guided occurs between the human Jesus and the Logos. It does not chiefly occur between Son and Father, as our investigations have emphasized. Rahner, that is, somewhat like Nestorius, sometimes seems to speak of two persons in Christ.

2

Wolfhart Pannenberg

Like Rahner, Pannenberg finds Jesus' unity with God actualized through his obedience to God and God's kingdom. For Pannenberg, Jesus' deity was definitively constituted and revealed by his resurrection. For this resurrection is God's ultimate eschatological revelation. And the very character of this revelation is such that its essence (God) cannot be separated from its specific content (the resurrected Jesus).11

Pannenberg, however, avoids saying simply that Jesus became God, or was adopted by God. He attempts to do so by rejecting the Greek and Patristic notion that a thing's nature or essence is always the same. Pannenberg articulates an alternative, "Hebraic" understanding. Since all things undergo a process of development, their "essence" consists in what they finally become at the eschaton. Howeverand here is the crucial movesince this eschatological essence reveals what things truly are, they truly were this all along.12 Thus since Jesus was revealed as God at his resurrectionwhich was "already" the eschatonhe was also God all along. Therefore, theology can say that Jesus was God at and before his incarnation. This does not mean, however, that he was "a preexistent divine being" before his "earthly appearance,'' or that this being entered and was born from a virgin in a special way.13

Pannenberg roots Jesus' deity not in his relationship to the Logos, as Rahner does, but in the relationship of Son to Father, as we have. By the eternal Son, however, Pannenberg does not mean an eternal person with a distinct self-consciousness. Rather, "'Person' is a relational concept." Now the concept Father, by its very definition, involves a relationship to a child. Accordingly, as the earthly Jesus obeyed God, he increasingly fulfilled the concept of the child, or Son, eternally entailed

11 Pannenberg, p. 69.

12 Ibid., pp. 133-141.

13 Ibid., p. 154. Pannenberg regards the virgin birth as a legend which is very probably unhistorical and is incompatible with the proper concept of preexistence. Theology, then, cannot assert Jesus' "virgin birth as a miraculous fact to be postulated at the origin of his earthly life" (p. 149). Pannenberg establishes Jesus' role as Creator by means of the same "retroactive" concept of truth (pp. 390-397).

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in the concept Father. That is, because the man Jesus' dedication to God made him "identical with the relation to the Father intended by the designation 'the Son,' Jesus in his human dedication to the Father is identical with the eternal person of the Son of God."14 And since his eschatological resurrection showed him finally to be "the Son," Jesus was, according to Pannenberg's notion of truth, always the Son. However, for Pannenberg (unlike Rahner), this way of becoming or being God's Son is incompatible with the Chalcedonian view that the Son was a pre-existing being who intentionally became incarnate.15

In short, Pannenberg seeks to conceive Jesus' deity in a way consistent with his having a fully human personality and developing in an entirely human way. Yet if "God's Son" is something whose fullness Jesus gradually attained, Pannenberg may tend not only toward adoptionism, but also toward the Nestorian positing of two persons in Christ.

C

Evaluation

Although philosophy and common sense usually regard God as "immutable," Christian faith is rooted in the conviction that God has changed, especially in the cross and incarnation. Thus all Christologies must reckon with change. Patristic Christology, however, had difficulty doing this because it conceived Jesus' humanity and deity as his having human and divine "natures." Since these natures were largely defined by mutually exclusive properties (e.g., mortality vs. immortality), it was hard to see how one person could possess both.

The theologies just examined, however, insist that commitment to and growth in relationships, above all with God, are basic to human nature. In this way they make change and development essential to it. Moreover, by emphasizing God's continual self-giving, they suggest ways of conceptualizing change in God, and for showing how what God is and what we are might unite in Jesus without either one becoming something else.

However, though all Christologies must acknowledge change, significant differences arise from where they place it in Jesus' history, and in their precise understanding of its agent. The model of the cosmos underlying modern Christologies is that of evolution, or continuous creation (Chap. 16). According to it, the essence of anything is attained at the end, rather than the beginning, of its development. For most current theories, then, change in God occurs chiefly during and at the end

14 Ibid., p. 336; cf. pp. 154-156.

15 Ibid., pp. 291, 337-344.

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of the life of the man Jesus, rather than at its beginning. Moreover, since modern Christologies seek to stress Jesus' full humanity, they tend to conceive his personal center, or personhood, as a strictly human personality, and to make it the agent of much of this change. While the eternal God takes the initiative in calling, inspiring, and filling Jesus, the significant changes occur as this man opens himself, becomes increasingly filled with God, and thereby allowes God to increasingly affect the world.

These modern efforts to overcome some difficulties in Chalcedonian Christology have several problems of their own. First, Chalcedon, to emphasize that God had fully come in Jesus, regarded Jesus as wholly divine from before his birth. The most important Christological change occurred at the beginning of his existence. To be sure, this raised problems as to how God could become a fetus and grow. But the more that modern Christologies make a strictly human personality the agent of change, the more does the constitution of the Son's person and God's incarnation itself become dependent on his human actions. Only through a process which depends largely on this man's acts can God be said to be the Son, and to become incarnate, die, and rise. Jesus' deity itself tends to be constituted gradually, much as in ancient adoptionism (Chap. 15).

Second, Chalcedonian Christology, again seeking to emphasize God's own coming in Jesus, identified his essential person with that of the eternal Logos. To be sure, this raised the "Alexandrian" problem of how Jesus' willing, thinking, etc., could be fully human. Yet insofar as modern Christologies make a strictly human personality the agent of these acts, they encounter the "Nestorian" problem of how this personal center relates to that of the Logos, or eternal Son. Ironically, this way of conceiving Jesus as wholly human like us can give him a dual personality very unlike ours.

Third, insofar as these Christologies minimize or deny Jesus' divinity from his human beginnings, the Father alone (as in much traditional Trinitarianism) tends to be fully God. Before the Son's personal fullness begins to be constituted, the Father is the eternal One creating and guiding all things. While it is being constituted, the Father is a superior being bestowing the necessary energy and direction. This means, however, that the one who is "God" in the full sense does not personally enter history. Instead, "God" inspires, directs, and gives Godself to the man Jesus. God enters the world only insofar as God is appropriated by and revealed through this man. Only the secondary God, or "mode" of God, actually enters it.

Insofar as "God's Son" is simply a man who was gradually filled with God, one might admire the heights of self-giving to which this inspired him. But one cannot say that God, in God's inmost personal nature, has opened Godself to sharing our finitude, our grief, and our

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death. Here is the weakness of all views which deny the Son's personal preexistence, regarding him merely as a man filled with something divinesay, with Schleiermacher's "God-consciousness" or Ritschl's fidelity to God's kingdom (Vol. I, Chap. 14). Pannenberg's admirable effort inclines in the same direction when he argues that Jesus gradually actualized the concept Son, which had previously been only a correlate to Father in the concept of God. Of course, Pannenberg argues that Jesus was "God's Son" from the beginning because the end of history shows that he fulfilled this concept. But this does not mean that Jesus' life was the actual overflow of a prior loving, personal communion with his Father into the conditions and hell of our existence.

Rahner, of course, insists with Chalcedon that the personal, preexistent Logos created and assumed human nature. Jesus' human acts do not begin to constitute the Son in his personal fullness. They are expressions of the Logos who always was God's living, personal self-expression. In this respect, Jesus' coming and suffering are God's very own. Nonetheless, Rahner shows less clearly how this person is the loving Son who always existed in communion with his Father, and how this communion overflowed at his coming, inviting us into it. Jesus seems to relate more to his own divine self, or Logos, than to the Father. In this respect "the incomprehensible abyss whom we call Father," the One whom Rahner regards as most properly "God,"16 remains somewhat distant from the world.

In sum, modern Christologies tend to emphasize changes that occurred during and at the end of Jesus' life, with a human personality as their agent. Though this makes the human side of incarnation more intelligible, it can remove God's own self somewhat from our world.

To assert that Godself became incarnate, Christology, in line with Chalcedon's intent, must stress changes at the beginning of Jesus' life no less. But is this really possible? Could the eternal Son actually become a fetus? And if Jesus' personal center were really that of this Son, wouldn't he be a superman wholly unlike us? Could he really

16Theological Investigations, Vol. I, pp. 125-148. Rahner attempts to assert both God's immutability and incarnation by affirming that "he who is not subject to change in himself can himself be subject to change in something else." In this way, he seeks to stress that "the Logos became man, that the history of the becoming of this human reality became his own history, that our time became the time of the eternal One, that our death became the death of the immortal God himself" (Ibid., p. 220).

Still, his equal stress that the Logos and Father as such do not change may indicate that Rahner is conceiving immutability in a way which does not allow them to relate in fully personal fashion as they do in Scripture, and which may still restrict change and suffering to Jesus' humanity.

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grow and learn? If theology derives its God concept not from philosophical or common-sense notions, but "from below," from the biblical data examined in the last three chapters, some answers are possible.

II

The Divine Person of Jesus Christ

A

Trinity, Incarnation, and Person

The God of Scripture and history is essentially a ceaseless, self-renewing interchange of personal love and energy. God is that one Mystery who eternally originates, expresses, and actualizes Godself. Yet (as is not true in us) the originating, expressing, and actualizing are also each fully personal acts of giving and response. And while these three acts are characteristic of Father, Son, and Spirit respectively, Scripture warns against simplistic generalizations. For in salvation history, these persons enter into different relations of initiating and receiving. Indeed, the very mutuality of which God is the eternal source and highest actualization suggests that the multiplicity of their intersecting patterns surpasses our imagination.

This eternal Trinity is open to the possibility of incarnation in several ways. First, self-limitation (rather than immutability, understood as static sameness) is compatible with the divine essence. For One whose very being involves continual self-giving, it is but a short step to yielding some space and control so others might come to be. And since creation of finite others involved the possibility of disruption and chaos, the divine being can open itself even to the threat of "nonbeing" and remain God.

Second, God can enter deeply into finite creatures without ceasing to be God. God the Spirit energizes and sustains all things from within, as we know most intimately from her presence in our deepest heart. Third, it follows from the reciprocity of the divine essence that God can be receiver, servant, follower, and still be God.17 Since God is an eternal "perichoresis" of giving and receiving, initiating, and actualizing, it is entirely consistent with God's essence to take responding, serving, humble roles.

God as Trinity and each Trinitarian member are also "persons" in the fullest sense. Only in light of them can theology determine what is essential to personhood of any sort. Though we cannot fully elaborate this key Christological concept here, our Trinitarian reflections can help

17 Indeed, only when theology views things "protologically" do initiating and commanding appear superior. Considered eschatologically, their actual execution and accomplishment prove equally important.

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us sketch several of its features. First, relatedness is essential to personhood. A being cannot be personal apart from relationships of giving and receiving with others.

Trinitarian reflection shows, second, that to be a person is to have a specific "character": a distinctive way of apprehending, responding, acting. Despite the multiplicity of their relational patterns, a unique, nontransferable way of originating characterizes the Father, while equally distinct ways of actualizing and expressing belong to the Spirit and Son. Authentic relationships, then, can only exist among beings who have some distinct individuality. For without genuinely different participants, no significant relationships could exist. Ultimately, both relatedness and personal distinctness are equally essential to personhood. Neither can be more fundamental.18

Third, intentionality, or purposefulness, is essential to the Trinitarian persons. To be a person is to act in view of values, purposes, and goals.

Fourth, since God's Trinitarian life is the fountain of all joy, longing, satisfaction, and love, something corresponding to feeling belongs essentially to its persons. To be a person is not merely to be in relationships and promote values, but also to invest oneself in them and be affected by them with inward intensity.

Fifth, being a person involves repeated exercise of choice. To be a person is not simply to enter relationships and affirm values and then perpetuate them passively. This entering and affirming, this giving and receiving, must be continually renewed. Even the eternal Trinity's inward life is a "repeated," continually reaffirmed, reciprocity of origination, expression, and actualization (cf. Chap. 19).

B

Kenosis

Christ Jesus, who "was in the form of God . . . emptied (ekenosen *) himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6-8). This text, so vividly describing the self-giving movement underlying Jesus' saving work, calls it a self-emptying. This notion of kenosis* provided the key for some fairly conservative Protestant theologians of the last century regarding how the eternal Son could actually become human yet retain his divine personal identity. Briefly, they argued that the Son did so by surrendering his "incommunicable" attributes, or those which characterize God's relation to the world (omnipotence, omniscience, and

18 Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, pp. 171-174.

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omnipresence); but retained his "communicable" attributes, or those proper to God's own self (such as holiness, truth, and love).19

Objectors to the kenotic theory have often claimed that if the Son surrendered his "relative" divine attributes, he would renounce what really makes him God. Moreover, they have wondered how he could have exercised his divine functions (like governing the cosmos) during his incarnate state.20

In response, we insist that theology cannot define "God," or any divine attribute, apart from Jesus' cross and incarnation. It can do so only, and primarily, in light of what it finds there. (Indeed, this is just what Philippians 2 emphasizes. Its "kenosis" consists not only in "being born," but chiefly in self-giving into the ''nonbeing" and annihilation of death.)

While we can discuss these "attributes" thoroughly only in Chapter 19, the general model of kenosis is applicable to what we have learned about the divine essence starting from these points. Since God's essence involves self-giving, and since self-limitation and deep involvement with creatures are its overflow, kenosis is not a contradiction, but an extraordinarily profound expression, of the divine nature.21 Our approach also shows that divine functions can be exercised by the various persons in diverse ways in different situations. Therefore, much as the Son need not be "Lord" until his exaltation (Phil. 2:9-11) or after his return (1 Cor. 15:27-28), other functions flowing from God's "relative attributes" need not be exercised by him, but could be exercised by the other persons during his humiliation.

To be sure, precise understanding of how the eternal Son became a fetus will always exceed theology's grasp. Yet the general model of kenosis, combined with what we have learned about the concept person, can make it plausible. To this we must add what we learned about the human person in Chapter 4. Human personhood develops in response to God's call toward the future. Although each one of us knows certain things (maybe many things) about ourselves, our full personhood is a partially unknown "horizon" toward which God, the ultimate Horizon,

19 For a summary and critical discussion, see Pannenberg, pp. 307-323.

20 This is Pannenberg's chief objection: the renunciation of his incommunicable attributes would not merely be a self-emptying, but "a self-relinquishment of the Logos" (p. 319).

21 In fact, as Rahner says, God's capacity, actualized in the hypostatic union, to unite himself fully with creaturely reality without ceasing to be himself, is his "primordial possibility," in comparison with which creation of other finite beings "is only a derived, delimited, and secondary possibility. . . . " (Foundations of Christian Faith, p. 222)

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calls us. Though we may dimly intuit certain dimensions of our fuller person at earlier points, we discover its concrete character gradually, only as we move through life.

Now the general features of personal being which we sketched (relatedness, character, intentionality, feeling, and choice) all characterize the eternal Son. As long as the same fundamental relatedness, character, etc., characterize him, he continues to be the same person, regardless of what divine functions he does or does not exercise. Moreover, the same general features also characterize a human fetus. As soon as it is conceived, a fetus exists in relation (primarily to its parents). General features of its character are already structured through specific genetic material. It begins developing at once in the direction of adulthood.

In addition, studies increasingly indicate that fetuses respond to and are shaped by feeling tones. Finally, since the development of any creature involves some valuation of and response to the process, fetuses exercise something like choice. In shortthough the details are far too complex to describe heretheology can affirm that the human fetus also has the features which characterize a being as a person.

Now just as theology can distinguish between those features which make a divine person a person and the exercise of any specifically divine functions, so it can distinguish the fullness of the human person from the exercise of specifically human functions. Of course, as soon as a fetus, and then a child, begins developing, the five personal features that we identified begin functioning through distinctly human "faculties." That is, choice begins to be exercised by what is commonly called a human will. No person would be fully human whose personhood did not develop through these faculties.

However, the human person is something more. Each human is an eschatologically oriented fullness which transcends the exercise of these faculties and the self-awareness attained through them. In other words, although human persons develop through distinctly human activities of thinking, feeling, etc., their full personhood cannot be reduced to, cannot consist entirely in, these functions. In each human, the full mystery and depth of who he or she is as a person is something greater.22

Now if the characteristics essential to being a specific person can be present both in God and in a human fetus, and if they are separable from the exercise of any specifically divine or human functions, it

22 This does not mean that personhood of any sort could exist apart from the exercise of any faculties or functions whatsoever. Persons are not static entities who could exist apart from particular activities. As intentional, persons are always active in some way, even though their full reality cannot be reduced to any specific group of activities.

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would be possible for the eternal Son to become a human fetus. Despite the astounding change in other respects, his basic relationality, character, intentionality, feelings, and volition would continue to be the same throughout the process. As this person began developing, he would do so by normal human means. He would gain self-awareness and knowledge in the gradual way that all humans do. For his personhood as the Son would not, of itself, include the exercise of any uniquely divine capacities. Yet it would transcend the functioning of his specifically human faculties, just as the personhood of any other human would.

C

Jesus' Self-Awareness

Still, if Jesus of Nazareth, in his deepest personal center, was the eternal Son, this unique personhood would surely affect his development. How could this fail to give him a superhuman status, vastly different from everyone else's?

To answer, we need simply remember that this personhood involved the possession not of uniquely divine abilities, but only of a unique identity. Now human self-awareness consists in a prethematic sense of one's uniqueness-in-relationship, and of being called toward a goal by the ultimate Horizon. One's personal identity becomes clearer as one follows that call. Jesus, then, would have first been aware of his identity as the eternal Son in the same prethematic way.23 Its precise characterJesus' knowledge of who he really waswould have crystallized only through his continued obedience to and reliance upon his Father. It would have grown as he became increasingly aware of the mission to which he was called.24 Among other things, this process would surely have been fostered by Jesus' reading of the Scriptures in light of his historical context. Of course, the content of Jesus' identity, his being the eternal Son, would be different from anyone else's. But the uniqueness of this content, by itself, would hardly make him a superman. For the identity of any human is different from all others'.

Since Jesus was always completely obedient, his self-awareness and knowledge would have developed in a manner unclouded by sin. Perhaps this enabled him to mature more quickly than others. If so, this "advantage" stemmed not from his deity, but from his sinlessnessa potentiality of the created human structure. It is tempting to speculate just how and when Jesus became conscious of his Sonship. Since, at Jesus' baptism, the Father's acknowledgment of this Sonship coincided

23 Rahner understands the development of Jesus' self-awareness along these lines (Theological Investigations, Vol. V, pp. 199-211.

24 This is a chief emphasis of Pannenberg's.

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with his call to mission and the Spirit's empowerment (Chap. 15), theologians have often placed the definitive emergence of Jesus' self-consciousness here.

However, given the meager biblical data, theology must concede that its essential features could have appeared much earlier (cf. Luke 2:49). Or perhaps some features, especially those related to his death, might have become clear only near the end.

III

The Virginal Conception of Jesus Christ

The initial coming, or kenosis, of the eternal Son into history has been traditionally identified with his virginal conception.25 For many centuries, discussion of this matter focused on its theological meaning. Since the rise of modern science, however, debate has often swirled around its historical and physical nature. Although the meaning and nature of this event are deeply interlinked, we may divide our discussion into these two themes for clarity.

A

The Meaning of Virginal Conception

Initially, at least, consideration of this theme will divert us from the main concerns of this chapter. For the theological issues surrounding this event are more soteriological than christological. Both God and a human play a part in the virginal conception. Thus this decisive episode in salvation's initiation may provide clues to the relationship of divine and human factors in the overall salvation process.

1

Catholic Interpretation

Catholics have insisted that Mary's words to the angel, "let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38), show that human free will plays a decisive role in salvation. They like to cite Irenaeus, who presented Jesus' obedience as the reversed and saving "recapitulation" of Adam's disobedience (Vol. I, pp. 319-320, cf. pp. 338-339). Irenaeus similarly claimed that "the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary." Thereby she became "the cause of salvation, both to herself and to the whole human race."26

25 We speak of "virginal conception" rather than "virgin birth" because the latter can be understood to mean that Mary remained a virgin even during Jesus' birth: that her hymen was not ruptured. But there is no biblical basis for this view, and it removes Jesus somewhat from the normal process not only of conception (which we will affirm) but also of birth (which we will not). See Stephen Benko, Protestants, Catholics, and Mary (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1968), pp. 70-72; and Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 517-518.

26Against Heresies, Book II, Chap. 22 (4).

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In Catholic soteriology, we remember, God initiates the salvation process by freeing a person's will to respond to grace. Between this initial freeing and one's decisive act of saving faith, a long process of searching and repentance may intervene in which the human will freely cooperates with grace. The Protestant Reformers objected that this view makes the human will a partial agent of salvation. They thus insisted that saving "regeneration" must precede, not follow, repentance and faith (Vol. II, Chap. 8).

Catholics have interpreted Mary's history as the paradigm of their understanding of faith. Presumably, God had been preparing Mary for the angel's visitation throughout her previous life. Catholics can regard this period as one where her will was progressively energized by and cooperated with prevenient grace. They then interpret her "fiat" (which is Latin for "let it be") as her free, saving response to and union with Jesus Christ through faith.27

However, this free act played such an important role in salvation that it made Mary more than the paradigm of faith. "Her fiat was not simply a gracious gesture by which she 'accepted' the redemptive work of Christ. It was an act of formal participation in the soteriological mystery itself."28 Thus some Catholic theologians can call Mary a "coredemptrix" with Christa role begun at the visitation, but continued through her life. For example, the motherly pain which she experienced in seeing her son crucified can be interpreted as her offering him up for the world's sins. Thus "when she uttered her fiat she accepted in advance for herself and for her Son all the sufferings which the redemption would involve."29

The different titles and affirmations which Catholic theologians have accorded to Mary flow from the role which they have given her in salvation. Through her obedience she made the church possible, exemplified that faith which characterizes its members, and became its first member. Thus Mary can be called "Mother of the church." Further, her action made the salvation of all things possible. Thus Mary can be called "Mother of God's Creatures"not in the protological sense of giving them life, but in the eschatological sense of initiating their perfection.30

27 E.g., L. J. Suenens, Mary the Mother of God (New York: Hawthorn, 1959), pp. 43, 52-53.

28 Juniper Carol, ed., Mariology, Vol. II (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 390.

29 Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior and Our Interior Life (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1949), p. 180. References to Mary's redemptive work at the cross do not appear until the twelfth century (Carol, p. 397).

30 This title includes being "Mother of Humans," a designation first found in Ambrose (339-397) but popularized around 1100; and "Mother of Angels," a term first found in the thirteenth century.

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The more Mary's continuing partnership in Jesus' saving work is stressed, the less fitting does it seem that she could be stained by sin in any way. Largely through such reasoning did the dogma that Mary herself was immaculately conceived arise.31 Further, if she was free from sin and in closest communion with Jesus, she would be far less affected by death. Largely through such reasoning did the dogma of Mary's bodily assumption into heaven emerge.32

2

Protestant Interpretation

Catholics emphasize Mary's active involvement in Jesus' conception and the continuity of this occurrence with the salvation process. Protestants might be said to emphasize Joseph's absence from the conception and its stark discontinuity from all other processes. Positively stated, this startling conception without a human father means that

when we look at the beginning of the existence of Jesus, we are meant to be looking into the ultimate depth of the Godhead . . . the freedom of the inner life of God. . . . The male, as the specific agent of human action and history . . . must now retire into the background, as the powerless figure of Joseph. . . . God did not choose man in his pride and in his defiance, but man in his weakness and humilitynot man in his historical role, but man in the weakness of his nature as represented by the woman, the human creature who can confront God only with the words, 'Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according as Thou hast said.' . . . We must not think of making a merit of this handmaid existence, nor attempt once more to ascribe a potency to the creature.33

In other words, Protestants, like Catholics, emphasize the soteriological implications of Jesus' virginal conception. They tend to regard it as a paradigm of their own view: that salvation comes through God's radical inbreakingapart from human preparation or ability to respond. In the face of such divergent readings, can any approach make meaningful discussion possible?

3

Continuity and Discontinuity

In recent decades both Protestants and

31 The immaculate conception was hotly debated in the Middle Ages, and even during the Council of Trent. Thomas Aquinas denied it. However, Pius IX made it an official dogma in 1854.

32 No clear reference to the assumption appears before the sixth century. It was not generally accepted until the thirteenth, but was promulgated as dogma by Pius XII in 1950.

33 Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, p. 99.

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Catholics have discovered a new kind of continuity between Mary's obedience and the broader salvation process. Her actions have proven to be continuous not so much with a general soteriological principle as with God's activity in Israel. In the Old Testament, God's people are frequently personified in female terms. They are often called the "daughter" of Judah (Lam. 2:5), the "daughter" of Jerusalem or Zion (Ps. 9:14; Zeph. 3:14), and also Yahweh's bride or wife (Hos. 2:4; Ezek. 16). Significantly, "virgin daughter" or simply "virgin" can symbolize the same thing (Isa. 37:22; Jer. 3:14; Amos 5:2).

As time passed, Yahweh's true people were increasingly associated not with the nation as a whole, but became a "remnant" which continued to walk righteously in God's law. Because such people were often victimized and ostracized by an increasingly unrighteous society, they often became "poor and needy." This drove them into loosely or tightly knit groups which awaited the fulfillment of Yahweh's promises with increasing expectation (Vol. I, pp. 272-273).

Now Luke's gospel in particular presents Mary within the context of such a group. Her kinsfolk Elizabeth and Zacharias "were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless" (Luke 1:6). Zacharias's hymn (Luke 1:68-78) expresses the intensity with which they awaited Yahweh's deliverance. They were like Simeon, who "was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25), and the prophetess Anna, who spoke "to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (2:38).

Mary's own "magnificat" reveals the extent to which she participated in the lot of such righteous poor. God, she exclaimed, "has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. . . . He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away" (1:48, 51-52). Jesus' birth in a stable (2:7) and the modest sacrifice that his parents offered (2:24; cf. Lev 12:8) show that they came from the poorer classes (cf. Vol. I, p. 285).

When we combine Mary's presence among the humble, righteous poor with the common symbolizing of God's people as bride and as virgin, Mary emerges as the representative and "ultimate expression of the Remnant people of God."34 Her "fiat" fulfills that history of human humbleness, faithfulness, and expectation through which God's faithfulness had always been working. This shows that human activity initiated by and developed in response to grace does play a significant role in

34 George A. F. Knight, "The Protestant World and Mariology," Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 19 (1966), p. 61. For a thorough development of the biblical themes above, see also Max Thurian, Mary: Mother of the Lord, Figure of the Church (London: Faith Press, 1963).

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the coming of the decisive eschatological salvation.

Yet Scripture does not really present Mary's "fiat" as an act which attains full union with God the Son. Like many others, Mary was sometimes confused by Jesus' actions and received his correction (Luke 2:48-50; John 2:3-5). Partly because of such misunderstandings, Jesus once clearly differentiated her and his "brothers" from his inner circle of disciples (Mark 3:19b-21, 31-35 [and parallels]; cf. Luke 11:27-28). Jesus complained that he was not without honor, save "among his own kin, and in his own house" (Mark 6:4; cf. Matt. 13:57; John 7:3-8). Yet Mary was also present at the cross, where she was commended to the "beloved disciple's" care (John 19:25-27), and among the earliest Christians.35

From this biblical data Mary's role in salvation history emerges much like that of a major Old Testament saint. Basically humble and righteous, earnestly seeking God's will and yielding to it at decisive points, her successful pilgrimage toward closer union still passed through confusion, struggle, and distance from God. Through such a pilgrimage, however, she became not only the fulfillment of God's remnant but an ideal figure of the church. In fact, given her essential role in enabling the Son's mission, Mary may be fittingly called "Mother of the church."36

When one approaches the theological meaning of the virginal conception in this historical way, however, it proves not to consist chiefly in affirmations about Mary herself. Nor can it be reduced to general assertions about the human role or the divine initiative in salvation. Instead, this approach illumines the more complex manner in which God's saving activity is both continuous and discontinuous with human response. It is continuous in that God grants human capacities and activities an essential role in actualizing salvation. It is discontinuous in that God uses persons and capacities that could never produce such results on their own. God makes contact not with human ability but with human humility. Not with immaculate perfection but with imperfection tinged with confusion. God is born through human organs, but ones that can perform only part of the work.

God, moreover, "co-operates" not with rich people but with poor ones. Not with powerful people but with oppressed ones. And in being continuous with this kind of human history, God's incarnation is

35 Acts 1:4. For a discussion of biblical texts by Catholic and Protestant scholars, see Raymond Brown, ed., Mary in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, and New York: Paulist, 1978).

36 cf. Benko, pp. 79-108.

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sharply discontinuous with those values and powers guiding the masses of humankind. Mary's inward and outward poverty, even her gender, foreshadow the reversal which the incarnation is bringing. Yet if God's incarnation is itself a becoming poor, a self-humblinga kenosisthen it is fittingly expressed through continuities of this kind.

B

The Nature of the Virginal Conception

The incarnation means that God truly and decisively came to dwell in and work through human reality, yet in ways far transcending its limitations and perversions. What kinds of transcending are involved? In the story at the incarnation's heart, religious and social transformations are integrally intertwined with a biological one. In the modern world, however, this last dimension has become problematic. Accordingly, theology cannot speak coherently of the incarnation's meaning without considering it.

The confusion surrounding modern discussion is usually heightened by regarding Jesus' conception in protological fashion. The biological issues, that is, are treated exclusively as questions about Jesus' origin. But since this event was virtually unprecedented, it emerges as an odd, perhaps embarrassing one to explain. Moreover, since one can hardly guess how God might have operated in it, attention usually focuses on the possibility or the character of what happened to Mary. But this, too, is difficult to fathom. Given the perplexities that the protological orientation engenders, it is small wonder that many modern theologians bypass the biological issue.

The preceding section, however, has begun to show how incarnation can be considered eschatologically. As something occurring through a poor woman of an oppressed group, it announces and foreshadows the coming of God's kingdom to this kind of people. Now when theology considers things eschatologically, the Holy Spirit emerges into the foreground. Perhaps it is not accidental, then, that the Spirit is the specific divine agent of the virginal conception. This suggests that the biological significance of this event might best be discerned by looking not backward, but forward.

When theology looks forward to Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and expected return, the virginal conception proves not to be a strange, isolated occurrence. Rather, it announces and foreshadows the crucial role the Spirit will play in these events. The Spirit will be the main agent prompting and energizing Jesus' ministry. Jesus' healings and exorcisms, which announce liberation from disease and death, will be performed through the Spirit's power. The Spirit will also be the immediate agent of Jesus' resurrection. She will transform his created humanity into a "spiritual body" like that which his people will receive when he returns (1 Cor. 15:44-53).

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Notice, however, that this resurrection transformation is structurally similar to that of the virginal conception. Both involve a created, physical human structure which cannot produce the eschatological transformation by itself. Yet the eschatological reality is a transformation of that created structure. Our bodies will not be destroyed, but will be "clothed upon" (2 Cor. 5:4), drawn up into a higher life (Vol. I, pp. 140-141, 157-158). Perhaps it is not accidental, then, that the Spirit is said to "overshadow" Mary (Luke 1:35) and that theology talks of the Son assuming, or taking up, human nature into himself. For whatever the mechanics of its accomplishment, the virginal conception initiates God's drawing up of human reality, body and alland thereby the natural world (Rom. 8:19-23)into the divine fullness.

The virginal conception, then, is no odd miracle. It is of a piece with the Spirit's eschatological transformation which is both continuous and discontinuous with created reality. It is continuous with it in that it operates on and through given structures and capacities. It is discontinuous in that it raises them to a fullness unattainable on their own. The continuity in Jesus' conception and birth consists in the normal human activity of his mother; the discontinuity in the Spirit's activity in absence of a human father.

Belief in such an event, of course, has implications for one's view of the natural world. But these implications are consistent with belief in a God who created a cosmos which was initially incomplete. This cosmos was thus open for, and a fit instrument for, purposes not yet apparent. Furthermore, this God occasionally introduces genuinely novel, creative impulses into this cosmos. While not destroying the reality which preceded them, these impulses raise it to a level unattainable on its own (Chap. 16; cf. Vol. I, Chap. 7).

These general considerations, of course, hardly address specific biological questions about the virginal conception. Still, they show what affirmation of its biological reality means, and provide a framework within which to further explore its significance.

The physical dimensions of the virginal conception are also of a piece with its social dimensions. For the kingdom which Jesus brought was continuous in some ways with the concrete, historical past: with the life of the Remnant through the centuries, and with scattered hopes and impulses found in all cultures. Yet the actual arrival of its "reversed" reality, and the possibility of living wholly in its light while the Old Age persisted, depended entirely on arrival of the king and his Spirit. The personal, religious response which the angel's announcement demanded of Mary, and which it analogously demands of everyone, was also continuous with God's past preparation. Yet it, too, demanded and demands an openness to new divine acts which can transcend what preceded.

Exploring the virginal conception in eschatological perspective can

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rescue it from excessive biological or Mariological preoccupation. For from this perspective it proves to be not an isolated event concerning the Son and his mother, but one with far broader, intertwined, physical, social, and religious meanings. Soteriologically considered, the virginal conception shows, as Catholics have stressed, that human acts do play a part in God's saving work. And, as Protestants have insisted, even these depend on a grace which far transcends our capacities. Historically and theologically considered, the virginal conception proves to be a decisive phase in the movement not only of God's people, but also of the entire Trinity. It is another movement of that arc which swings outward, as it were, from the eternal Trinity's inner communion, to breathe its life and joy into creatures, and then sweeps backward in praise and thanksgiving toward that source.

Yet this time it is not only the Spirit who comes, as it was at creation. Now the Spirit brings the Son. And by this swing of the arc, creatures are more fully caught up into the divine communion. It thus foreshadows and hastens the day when the Father, too, will dwell in the midst of creation and all creation will once again dwell joyously within God.

IV

Summary

To assert that ''Jesus Christ is God" is to proclaim that God has entered our world, and while becoming completely what we are, has remained completely Godself. It is to affirm that God fully entered into the widest possible range of activities and circumstancescreating and creatureliness, lordship and servanthood, bliss and suffering, life and death. God has participated in them fully while remaining fully Godself. To assert in today's world that Jesus Christ is completely human and completely divine is to affirm that God has fully and definitively come among us, has lived life on our terms, and has taken our struggles, sorrows, joys, and all that we are created to be into God's own victorious, eternal life.

Specifically, affirmation of Jesus' deity means that amid all these widely changing circumstances, he continued to be the eternal Son in reciprocal relationship with his Father and Spirit. His deity, that is, consisted largely in the continuing identity of his person, of his Trinitarian uniqueness-in-relationship. During his humiliation, however, he did not exercise some functions (or "attributes") in ways usually associated with the divine naturewhich prompts us to reconsider the attributes in the coming chapter.

Specifically, affirmation of Jesus' humanity means that he carried out all his activities by wholly human capacities. Since his divine person could act and express itself adequately through these capacities,

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without the addition of any uniquely divine functions, the divine did not overshadow or truncate the human in "Alexandrian" fashion. Nor, to explain how Jesus acted in a fully human way, need theology attribute all his actions to an entirely human person, raising the "Nestorian" problem of how this person related to the eternal Son.

This hardly means that recent Christologies which tend in a Nestorian direction are valueless. For personal identity is not simply a given fact. It must be continually discovered and reaffirmed in relationship. Thus these Christologies' emphasis on developmental human dynamics can clarify how the Son, wholly through human capacities, persisted faithfully with his Father and Spirit through the struggles of life and terrors of death. They can help explain those changes which affected the Godhead itself, and with which all Christology must deal.

Yet this dynamic, future-oriented relationship and the changes it involved can be God's own coming and changing only if it flowed from the prior, kenotic intentionality of Son, Spirit, and Father; only if Jesus Christ is the Son who assumed our humanity, not simply a man increasingly elevated by divinity.

This intentionality and change were not a temporary descent of a solitary Person into a wholly alien realm. They were the flow of the entire Trinitarian perichoresis, which created the cosmos by making room within herself, back into that space which had walled itself off against her. The incarnation is the coming not of the Son alone, but of the entire Godhead, so that creation might be drawn back into its flow of energy and love. Christology can emphasize this adequately only if Christ's coming is the coming of the Son himself, not simply the history of a man gradually filled by God.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Benko, Stephen. Protestants, Catholics and Mary. Valley Forge, Pa.: Johnson, 1968.

Boff, Leonardo. Jesus Christ Liberator. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1976.

Brown, Raymond, ed. Mary in the New Testament. New York: Paulist, 1978.

Carol, Juniper, ed. Mariology. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1955-1961.

Green, Michael, ed. The Truth of God Incarnate. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.

Grillmeier, Aloys. Christ in Christian Tradition. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964.

Hick, John, ed. The Myth of God Incarnate. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977.

Kasper, Walter. Jesus the Christ. New York: Paulist, 1976.

Knight, George A. F. "The Protestant World and Mariology," Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 19, 1966, pp. 55-73.

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O'Meara, Thomas, ed. Mary in the New Testament. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966.

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Jesus: God and Man. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968.

__________. Mary: The Maternal Face of God. San Francisco: Harper, 1987.

Sobrino, Jon. Christology at the Crossroads. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1978.

Thurian, Max. Mary: Mother of the Lord, Figure of the Church. London: Faith Press, 1963.

van Beeck, Franz Josef. Christ Proclaimed: Christology as Rhetoric. New York: Paulist, 1979.

Wilson-Kastner, Patricia. Faith, Feminism and the Christ. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

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Chapter Nineteen

The Attributes of God

God, according to the preceding chapters, is the one Mystery Who eternally originates, expresses, and actualizes Godself. In God's deepest selfand not only in relation to history and creationGod is Trinitarian. Nevertheless, the Scriptures speak not only of Spirit, Son, and Father, but also, quite often, simply of "God."

Scripture, and the church which is rooted in it, often say that "God" is loving, holy, righteous. God is (or is like) a father, a mother, a fortress, a lion, a rock. Accordingly, to help the church articulate its God language in today's contexts, theology must reflect not only on its Trinitarian features, but also on what various images, models, and concepts mean when applied directly to "God." If Chapters 15-18, with their emphasis on God's three-ness, seem to have inclined towards tritheism, the meaning of God's oneness will emerge more clearly in this final chapter.

Our approach, however, reverses systematic theology's traditional procedure. Customarily, those characteristics, or attributes, which could be affirmed of God in general were discussed toward the beginning of the doctrine of God. Only after this treatment of God as One did systematics consider how God might be three. Yet since the data of revelation had not been deeply explored, theology's concepts of the attributes were either derived from "natural theology," or highly shaped by philosophical considerations even when apparently derived from Scripture.

Once established, these concepts and the resultant understanding

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of divine nature influenced how the Trinitya notion derived from Scripturecould or could not be conceived. We have already noticed the difficulties occasioned by theology's understanding of "immutability." Philosophy and common sense usually find it inconceivable that God, who possesses the fullness of all possible perfections, could really change. Yet the conviction that God became incarnate, died, and rose is at the heart of Christian faith. Quite often, however, a philosophical understanding of immutability has hindered theology in expressing God's deep participation in our humanity and our death.

In our approach, a general, philosophical understanding of God's attributes cannot predetermine how God's historical acts and Trinitarian character are conceived. On the contrary, God's historical acts and Trinity must determine how we conceive God's attributes. Nonetheless, our reflections on the attributes can broaden and check our Trinitarian understanding. For if our Trinitarianism is accurate, a scriptural understanding of God's attributes will be consistent with and deepen it. But if this does not occur, we must reconsider the Trinity.

I

Preliminary Considerations

A

Classification

Theologians have classified God's attributes in various ways. Usually the major distinction is between those thought to be uniquely divine, or "incommunicable" (such as infinity, omnipotence, and immutability), and those "communicable" ones which creatures can some way share (such as righteousness, holiness, and love).1 Since theology has begun from divine nature in general, it has usually considered the "incommunicable" attributes first. For the "communicable'' appear when history, creation, and Trinity are in view. This order can suggest that the incommunicablewhich are largely impersonalare the source and foundation of the communicable, and are more genuinely divine. We noted the importance of this distinction in the kenotic theory, in which the Son became incarnate by surrendering the former while retaining the latter. We also noted a major objection to kenosis: that surrendering the former would mean forfeiting his deity, since these are distinctly divine (Chap. 17).

Since we have generally endorsed kenosis, we have also implied that some such distinction can be made. More precisely, we have argued that the Son, while incarnate, retained what characterized him

1 This distinction is prominent in Reformed theology. See Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), pp. 55-56; Heppe, pp. 60-62.

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as a person; while what characterizes God as ultimate in relation to the universe (such as omnipresence) was then exercised by the other persons. But isn't such a distinction really artificial? Doesn't itin opposition to the traditional approachmake the personal attributes more divine than the ultimate ones? And doesn't this make not only the Son, but God in general, less than God?

To check our own kenotic approach, we will organize our discussion into attributes of personhood and of ultimacy. We will test whether this distinction will undercut, or whether it will actually enhance, our grasp of the equal importance of both. First, however, we must address a question about all attribute language.

B

God Language

When we speak of God as love, or king, or omnipotent, do we mean that God really is these in some sense? Or does God simply appear this way to us (much as, according to "modalism," the Trinitarian persons are only ways in which God's activity encounters us [Chap. 16])? How closely do creaturely characteristics resemble God? A major clue comes from creation. Through it, creatures are both related to and distanced from God (Chap. 16).

On one hand, creatures are the overflow, are diverse concrete expressions, of the infinitely manifold Trinitarian love, within whom the Spirit breathes life. They are not wholly external to, but participate in, the divine life which gave them birth. On the other hand, this very love also involves God's withdrawal, or making room within herself, for beings with distinct identity and independence to emerge.

In their nature as created, then, all beings have and reflect, on one hand, qualities which truly exist in God. On the other hand, these qualities exist in them in partial and diverse ways, quite different from the fullness in which they exist in God.

Humanity's particular resemblance to God is revealed more fully in the incarnation. On one hand, since the eternal Son assumed all created human characteristics into union with his Person, humans surely express what God is like, and more fully than other creatures. On the other hand, this process brought salvation only because the Son, by remaining wholly divine, brought the fullness of divine love and lifesomething which vastly transcends us. Both creation and incarnation, then, show that essential human and creaturely characteristics do exist in God. Yet since they exist in a much fuller way, and are intertwined with countless other attributes, their manner of existence is quite different.

However, despite this last disclaimer, when theology derives its

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understanding of God language from creation and incarnation alone, human relationships and institutions tend to appear as reflectionseven if distant onesof the divine.2 This has often led such theologies to sanction the status quo. Yet in the Bible's historical and eschatological language, terms used for God operate far differently than they do in most societies. Human kingship, for instance, does reflect God in some way. But in showing that true kingship is revealed through, and is compatible with, radical servanthood, biblical history sharply critiques and reverses customary human notions.

Accordingly, considerations derived (protologically) from creation from incarnation assure theology of a basic likeness-in-difference between creaturely characteristics and the divine. Yet the specific nature of that relationshipand of particular terms for Godmust be determined in light of Scripture's eschatological thrust.3

Human language, then, can by no means describe God fully. Yet the above considerations show that theology and the church can, in modest and limited ways, speak about God truly. The rest of this chapter will specify and clarify this claim. However, even when stated modestly, it is open to distortion. For people can identify a divine characteristic (say, fatherhood) too closely with its human form in a given

2 So far our approach corresponds roughly to Aquinas' doctrine of analogy. Aquinas noted that attributive terms could be used "univocally," to indicate that two or more beings possess something in the same way (as when two people are called "healthy"). They could also be used "equivocally," with completely different meanings (as when a medicine and a climate are called "healthy"). But neither relationship holds between terms predicated of humans and those predicated of God.

God language functions in a middle, or "analogical" way, in which terms expressing human characteristics are related to human nature in much the same way that the same terms, when used of God, are related to divine nature (ST I, 1, Q. 13, a. 5; for fuller treatment, see Eric Mascall, Existence and Analogy [New York: Longmans, 1949]; and Frederick Ferre, Language, Logic, and God [New York: Harper, 1961], pp. 67-77).

3 While analogies stretch the usual application of a word, they do not go beyond its accepted (though often implicit) range of meaning. Thus they cannot convey radically new meanings (see David Burrell, Analogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven: Yale, 1973). Other kinds of metaphors, however, such as those found in Jesus' parables, convey more striking and novel meanings, and are thus more expressive of biblical language's eschatological thrust. Sallie McFague makes this point well (Metaphorical Theology [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982], pp. 17-18). However, her presentation is marked by too general and ambiguous a use of the term metaphor, as well as vagueness as to what the "univocal" element in language and concepts might be.

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culture. Moreover, in affirming that God is anything, one may set that attribute over against others. Yet only attributes as defined by biblical history, and as intertwined with others in the divine reality, can be ascribed to God.

Accordingly, as we examine various attributes, we will often consider them in pairs or groups, and as they emerge in historical and eschatological perspective.

II

Attributes of Personhood

A

God and Gender

God's initiative and depth of self-giving cannot be adequately expressed unless we regard God as a person (and not merely the "Ground" of the personal [Chap. 17]). As soon as we stress this, however, another issue arises. Human persons are either feminine or masculine. A person is called "he" or "she," not "it." Sexuality is integral to being human, especially as being in God's image (Chap. 4). But do human sexual characteristics have any counterpart in God? What pronouns and adjectives appropriately refer to God? We will find that these issues are not simply modern concerns, but will further clarify what it means to attribute any characteristic to God.

1

Scripture

Any biblically oriented theology must acknowledge that scriptural pronouns, titles, and images for God are overwhelmingly masculine. However, systematic theology cannot infer significance from statistics alone. It must discern what function biblical terminology performs within its canonical context (Vol. I, Chap. 12), and therefore what it truly intends.4

In its ancient Near Eastern context, masculine terminology for the Hebrew God chiefly indicated not patriarchy, but transcendence. The gods and goddesses of the nations promoted the fertility of fields,

4 In the biblical languages, all nouns and pronouns belong to a grammatical classification called the masculine gender or to one called the feminine gender. (Greek also has a neuter gender.) These terms, however, can be misleading, for a word's grammatical "gender" has nothing to do with the actual gender of the being it denotes. Now since the grammatical gender of Hebrew and Greek words for God (and also for humankind in general) is "masculine," the pronouns representing those words are also "masculine." For this reason, they are almost always translated into English as he or him (or man in the case of humankind). However, since these pronouns and some of the nouns they represent are masculine only in the grammatical sense, one can infer nothing about God's actual nature from the grammar of these words alone.

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flocks, and families. They also promoted the stability, prosperity, and military prowess of their city or state. They were largely embodiments and representatives of these natural and social orders (Vol. II, Chap. 6).

Israel's God challenged the ways of these societies. Yahweh did not glide smoothly along with natural and social rhythms. This God stood "above" them, critiquing them and calling for their transformation. Now how could this critical, liberating will and power be expressed?

In the patriarchal ancient Near East, the feminine was often identified with cycles of reproduction and growth. Goddess imagery would not likely suggest a Power above nature and society. Neither, for much the same reason, would a male god with a female consort (most deities came in pairs). But what about a "masculine" God without a consort, who created and changed things simply by his "word" and acts? Such imagery was almost unique, and well suited to the God who had begun transforming nature and societyincluding its patriarchal structures.

Scripture's historical revelation shows, then, that God's uniqueness and transcendence had to be established first. As time advanced, "his" concern for, involvement with, and tenderness toward humanity were increasingly expressed.5 Eventually, this God became immanent in a way far more radical than any ancient god or goddess. God took on our very nature, walked among us, suffered, died, and rose for us.

The "Father-Son" terminology in which this newly revealed relationship was expressed conveyed intimacy and mutual fidelity, not patriarchy (Chap. 15). While the Son, the perfect image of humanity as well as of God (Chap. 4), displayed conventional "masculine" characteristics such as decisiveness and leadership, he also exercised "feminine" ones of nurturing tenderness. Indeed, characteristics associated with each sex appear in about equal measure in the Son. After God lived and died with us as a single individual, God the Spirit came to dwell within us all. The Spirit comforts, encourages, yearns and brings to birth. Most of her activities are best expressed in "feminine" terminology.

This historical and Trinitarian overview shows that insofar as his transcendent, initiating characteristics are concernedtraits chiefly associated with the FatherGod may be regarded primarily as masculine. Insofar as her life- and growth-bestowing characteristics are concernedtraits chiefly associated with the SpiritGod may be regarded primarily as feminine. And God the Son, the Sophia-Logos, may be regarded as having many qualities of both. However, since each Trinitarian person can exercise different functions in different situations (Chap. 17), sexual attributes should not be identified too rigidly with any one of them.

5 Hos. 11:3-4, 8-9; Isa. 42:14-26; Psalm 103:11-14, etc.

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This overview also shows why theology and the church have strongly preferred masculine God imagery: they have usually regarded God protologicallyas initiating, establishing, and commanding. But an eschatological theology, which emphasizes God's transforming, over-turning, and nurturing work, will bring the feminine to lightnot, indeed, to replace, but to balance, the former with the latter.

2

Ontological Implications

Can theology say more precisely how femininity and masculinity exist in God? In addition to that general likeness-in-difference which basic human characteristics bear to God by creation, we recall that male-female relatedness is the most fundamental form in which humanity bears God's image (Chap. 4). This underlines our affirmation that these attributes are not simply selected randomly from our experience, in the hope that they might vaguely express what God means to us. Instead, the initiative that we find in the masculine at its best, or the nurturing of the feminine at its bestthese are the overflow and expression of qualities of God's own self. Moreover, since the relatedness of female and male is also central to the imago dei, active relating among elements which are similar yet unique also characterizes divine reality.6

To this positive assertion, theology must add the qualifications necessary to all God language. First, as underlined by the presence of feminine-masculine relatedness in God, both attributes exist in a fullness, intertwined with countless others, which renders their divine form quite different from ours. Second, biblical historyour chief criterion for defining the attributesleads theology to confess its modest grasp not only of what the masculine and feminine are in God, but also of what they are in humans.

In general, the centrality of female-male relatedness to our cohumanity shows that important distinctions, other than purely biological ones, exist between men and women (Chap. 4). There are masculine qualities which generally characterize males, and feminine qualities which generally characterize females. Nevertheless, all people have some mixture of both. All females are also more or less masculine, and vice versa. Further, Scripture shows that these qualities have been so warped by sin that it is hard to know what they really are like, and how people ought to exercise them. It may be, for instance, that taking initiative is a quality of authentic masculinity, and is more often pos-

6 Strictly speaking, however, theology should avoid saying that "female" and "male" exist in God. Since these words denote creatures with specific biological differences, they imply that biological features literally exist in God. Theology should say that general "masculine" and "feminine" qualities truly exist in God.

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sessed by males. Even so, all women possess some degree of it, some in greater measure than some men. Likewise, though nurturing may be authentically feminine, all men have it in some measure, some more than some women.

Moreover, Scripture shows how easily decisiveness can be perverted into domination, and tenderness into passivity. In addition, it stresses that activities and traits considered normal in most societies are sharply reversed by God's kingdom (Vol. I, Chap. 15). Accordingly, when some genuinely decisive males (and females) are incorporated into the kingdom, it may be more important for them to develop nurturing. Conversely, when some genuinely tender women (and men) are incorporated into the kingdom's reversed way, they may need more work on exercising initiative.

In sum, our affirmation that the genuinely feminine and masculine exist in God indicates that some significant distinction between them exists. Yet this can hardly validate the masculine and feminine roles found in any society. Instead, since all major qualities associated with both are intertwined in God, our approach encourages all persons to explore and develop whatever combinations are most authentic for them. It invites us to discover and celebrate, through participation in God's transforming kingdom, what femininity and masculinity really are, and are coming to be.

3

Language

If God is in some sense both masculine and feminine, with what language shall the church refer to the divine? When issues of specific linguistic usage arise, the line between systematic and practical theology is crossed (cf. Vol. I, Chap. 3). Nevertheless, systematic theology cannot bypass this particular question, for it must express itself in language. Yet as we consider this issue, we emphasize that we are enunciating not basic theological principles, but recommendations based on such principles for linguistic usage chiefly in a late twentiethcentury, Western context.

As feminist theologians have rightly protested, referring to God in exclusively masculine terms can convey the impression that the human male is more God-like. This has often sanctioned personal and social oppression by the male. Yet making religious terminology entirely feminine would probably have the opposite result. Might neuter terms, then, better express the divine?

This question draws attention to many biblical God words which are not gender-specific: light, life, truth, and concrete images like rock or fortress. It encourages theology and the church to explore their meaning and expand their use. Moreover, certain nongender terms could designate the Trinitarian persons (e.g., Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer). Yet

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since such names lack much of the personal warmth and fidelity that characterize the Trinity, their use should be restricted.

Pronouns present a more difficult problem. Predominant use of he or she suggests that God is preponderately more one than the other. Yet constant switching back and forth creates confusion. The frequent use of neuter pronouns (it, this, etc.) implies that God is not truly a person. Therefore we recommend avoiding pronouns when possible in speaking of God (and of humankind in the singular). Instead, the word God can often be repeated or a word like Yahweh sometimes used. Though Godself now sounds a bit clumsy, it can become genuinely personal and familiar with continuing use.

Still, in a few cases anything but her or him, herself or himself, will sound extremely awkward. Here we recommend using whichever gender pronoun most appropriately expresses the activity concerned (such as "God makes room within herself" for creation).

When God's initiating, directing activities are in viewactivities associated most often with the Fathermasculine language can be appropriate. But what of the "second" Person, the Logos-Sophia? Father-Son language has undoubtedly been used to support patriarchy in society and the church. Should this terminology then be scrapped? Perhaps, for a time and in some contexts where it inevitably arouses the wrong connotations. In the long run, however, the church will lose greatly if it cuts ties with these and other apparently masculine terms that pervade Scripture (King, Lord, etc.). For if these words are simply critiqued or avoided, people will hardly know how to read the Bible, not to mention their traditions.

Yet the Bible itself provides the most telling criticism and reversal of negative uses of these terms. Here Father and Son convey not patriarchy but intimacy and mutual fidelity. Here the drama of the king who was a servant unfolds as nowhere else. Scripture's masculine God language, within its canonical context, provides numerous positive models for personal and social relationshipsespecially for males who may need them most.

Of course, nongender terms like Parent-Child can indeed convey some major meanings of Father-Son. Yet they lack personal warmth for some. Mother can indeed express many parental qualities of the biblical Father. But daughter, though appropriate in light of biblical Wisdom, fits awkwardly with Jesus' historical maleness. In general, we recommend that the church recover and emphasize the biblical origins of all terms for God. For although most of these are masculine, they have dimensions not directly connected with masculinity, and which reverse its "worldly" meaning. And other, nonmasculine, terms will be discovered and recovered for use in many contexts. Generally, however, our con-

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siderations favor retaining Father and Son as the primary names for these Trinitarian persons.

Insofar as God's actualizing and nurturing activities are in viewactivities associated most often with the Spiritfeminine terms can be appropriate. Some may object that we are assigning feminine language chiefly to the "third," or lowest role in the Godhead, reinforcing the subordination that women often experience.

Our Trinitarian theology, however, has sought to overturn the common opinion that initiating and planning are more divine than actualizing and serving. Indeed, the revolutionary meaning of the Spirit's full deity is that actually making concrete things happena role often performed by women in our worldis as integral to the divine essence and activity as are the others. Initiation and planning are as dependent upon concrete execution for their being and meaning as the latter is on them. And since humanity, especially in its female-male relatedness, is in God's image, these general values hold for human roles.

The chief implication, however, is not that women should be chiefly in serving and men in initiating and planning roles. Our main point all along has been that all major qualities associated with femininity and masculinity exist (in about equal proportion though in a different manner) in God. Some are exercised by different Persons at different times in diverse ways. Thus all humans should be encouraged to develop whatever qualities become most important for them as they participate in that kingdom community and process through which these qualities' true character emerges more clearly.

B

Love and Intentionality

Those who stress God's masculine or feminine characteristics often emphasize one to the exclusion of the other. Much the same tension exists between God's love and sovereignty. Divine love is utterly self-giving. It absorbs the pain of the most heinous sins and opens in forgiveness toward the worst atrocities. Some, therefore, cannot conceive how God could ever command or judge. Others, however, so stress judgment that Jesus' work seems little more than a payment to the divine honor.7 Can theology say anything about how God is loving and/or sovereign?

Love is surely a divine attribute. For salvation and incarnation are not emergency acts directed toward a wholly external realm. They are

7 The former attitude is common in the moral influence model and the latter in the substitutionary model of Christ's atonement (Vol. I, Chap. 16).

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the fullest overflow of the reciprocal, circulating Trinitarian love itself (cf. 1 John 4:7-11). We have said that this love, as exercised in creation and salvation, is agape *, not eros*. Because God's deepest self is a giving and receiving of love, God does not need the world to fulfill a lack. Therefore God can grant creatures their own distinctness and independence (Chap. 17).

What about the intra-Trinitarian love itself? Some recent theologians argue that divine love could not be agape*. They understand agape*'s outgoing, self-giving character to mean that it is wholly indifferent to value.8 It involves "no element of responsiveness to the qualities of the loved one,"9 and exists apart from any corresponding influx of love. But this cannot be true of divine love, which values and shares with its creatures.

In response to this objection, we recall that the distinction between agape* and eros* has nothing to do with the qualities of the beloved, or even with their subjective effect on the lover. It has to do with motive, with why one loves. When one loves out of eros*, one loves essentially because the beloved will please, ennoble, or complete the lover. With agape*, one loves because it will please, ennoble, or complete the beloved (Chap. 3). In agape*, it is entirely possible that the beloved will also delight and enhance the lover. And since agape* hopes to draw the beloved into reciprocal relationship, it surely finds value in the beloved. Thus, even though these effects are not what motivate agape*, they are entirely consistent with it. This counters the objection above.

However, theologies have found other reasons for regarding divine love as eros*. Is not the object of God's love, considered apart from the world, God's own self? Some have understood this to mean that

since God is absolutely good in Himself, His love cannot find complete satisfaction in any object that falls short of absolute perfection. He loves His rational creatures for His own sake. . . . He loves in them Himself, His virtures, His work, and His gifts.10

While God indeed loves Godself, this assertion takes on quite a different meaning when God's Trinitarian character is considered. For then divine love proves to be not a cosmic Self's delight with its absolutely identical Self, but a giving and receiving among persons who

8 See Sallie McFague, Models of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 101-103; and pp. 3-23, note 31 above.

9 John Cobb and David Griffin Process Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), p. 46.

10 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 71.

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are not only alike, but also significantly different. Each Trinitarian person's love is focused toward the others, and cannot be motivated simply by desire for enhancement. (Further, divine love for creatures is an extension of that other-directed energy, not simply a reflection of that identical Self.)

Thus divine love in its deepest motive is agape *. Of course, since each person loves the others perfectly in this way, that love also flows back ceaselessly to each one. The result desired by eros* is also perfectly attained. Yet since loves are distinguished by their motives, divine love must be called agape*.11 Its quality, however, is no dry, dutiful sacrificing out of emptinessbut a full reciprocity of joy and delight.

If divine love is essentially agape*, which ceaselessly gives itself for the other, can the same God be the Sovereign who commands and judges others? Jürgen Moltmann contrasts God's love with his lordship. Moltmann rightly stresses that the Trinity's ''first" Person is not above all Lord of the cosmos, and that his relationship to the world is not chiefly one of ruling. Instead, he is essentially Father of the Son, and the cosmos itself is a product of this love. This emphasis rightly critiques models which make God a supreme autocrat and thereby justify oppressive social systems. However, Moltmann employs it so sharply that God can hardly be Lord or Judge.12

Is it true, however, that Fatherhood, or Parenthood, is wholly different from ruling? Human experience hardly suggests so. Our research into biblical history has shown that divine Fatherhood involves having a firm intention, while Sonship and Spirithood involve obediently carrying it out. These relationships, moreover, reflect those within the

11Agape* is sometimes called a love of "unlike for unlike" while eros* is called a love of "like for like" (e.g., Moltmann, The Crucified God, pp. 25-28). But since both are characterized by their motives rather than their objects, these cannot be satisfactory definitions. It is true, however, that agape*'s motive is more fully revealed the more the beloved is unlike the lover; and eros*' the more that they are alike. Elements of both likeness and unlikeness appear in Trinitarian love in that the persons, insofar as they have distinct character, are unlike; and insofar as they are God, are alike.

12 For Moltmann, the heart of Jesus' kingdom proclamation, which flowed from his intimate awareness of God as Father, was that God comes not to judge, but to forgive. "In this kingdom God is not the Lord; he is only the merciful Father. In this kingdom there are no servants; there are only God's free children. In this kingdom what is required is not obedience and submission; it is love and free participation" (The Trinity and the Kingdom, p. 70). Moltmann often opposes Barth, who derives the Trinity from God's lordship (pp. 63, 139-144). At most, Moltmann seems to allow that when God is understood only as Creator, and not yet as Redeemer, there is a valid sense in which God may be regarded as Lord (p. 219).

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Trinity (Chaps. 15, 17). Accordingly, when the cosmos is created, it is not as if something so differently related to God arises that a wholly new attribute, lordship, emerges from nowhere. Instead, God's lordship is an expression and reflection, in relation to the cosmos, of the firmness or sovereignty of the divine will within the Trinity.

Still, since "lordship" implies the existence of subjects, Moltmann is correct in insisting that it is not, strictly speaking, an attribute of God's own self. The feature of God's will that we are discussing is perhaps best called "intentionality." In God, love is not simply an emotion, inconsistent and diffuse, as it sometimes is in us. Instead, it is an expression and energy of what we might call character. The perichoretic Trinitarian love ceaselessly expresses and energizes the perfect goodness, righteousness, and holiness of each Person. Divine love always goes out toward, sustains, and flows back fromindeed, is itself the continuing actualization ofpersonal realities and relationships that have a certain ''moral" character. God's love, that is, is not aimless and meandering, but always flows from, with, and toward character and purpose.

Theology, in our view, will not best articulate all this by speaking simply of divine love. It is better to use agape *, which expresses extraordinary self-giving, to refer chiefly to the divine "feeling," or emotional tone. To emphasize that this love also flows from and toward character and purpose, theology can best speak of divine will as well as divine feeling, and of intentionality as well as love.13 This does not mean, of course, that love and intentionality are widely contrasting, perhaps competing, realities in God, as they often are in us. They are so intertwined that neither exists without the other.

Reformed theology has stressed God's will and sovereignty in its doctrine of divine decrees, through which every historical event is predetermined. This approach, however, considers the divine will largely from a "protological" perspective. That is, it conceives God's will chiefly as an immovable source from which things flow, and underemphasizes its character as the dynamism which transforms and perfects them. Reformed theology thus tends to conceive this will as an inflexible pattern of which actual events are copies or shadows, turning God's sovereignty into an impersonal law. This can make it hard to see how dynamic, novel events and processes can be of God.

Accordingly, to stress that God's will is an energy which cease-

13 It is probably the effort to stress that agape* is not sheer feeling, but is guided by intentionality, that has resulted in presentations of it as unresponsive to the beloved's qualities. Rather than risking such an austere portrayal of love, we prefer to speak of agape* and intentionality as mutually balanced, intertwined realities.

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lessly upholds and flows toward what is righteous and good, we prefer to speak not of sovereignty, but of intentionality. God's purposeful, goal-directed orientation will bring the new into history, and will hasten creation toward eschatological fullness.

The intertwining of love and intentionality shows why God's saving work cannot consist in forgiveness alone. For while salvation's character as agape * descends, as it were, into all possible depths to reach and rescue creatures, its intentionality catches them up into its dynamism toward goodness and holiness. Divine love does not only accept and pardon; it also transforms and purifies. This is the deepest reason why salvation is not only from sin and evil, but also for righteousness and good (Chap. 7). This brings us to divine righteousness itself.

C

Righteousness and Holiness

Although divine reality is incessantly active, this activity also exhibits a certain consistent pattern, or character. To indicate that this stable element is not static and impersonal, but purposeful and personal, we have just called it "intentionality." In pointing to this and other stable features, other theologians have used various biblical terms. To clarify and deepen our understanding in dialogue with them, we must now ask how intentionality might relate to such concepts.

Protestant orthodox theologians emphasize God's righteousness. They define its content largely through the notion of law. Divine righteousness is that characteristic by which God "wills and approves, . . . does and effects in others, such things as He has laid down in his law."14 Having rooted legality in God's inmost being, divine righteousness in relation to the world can be defined as that "immutable order fixed by himself" according to which God "renders each his due.''15 The way is open to understand Christ's righteousness, and thus the core of his saving work, as paying the penalties and earning the reward stipulated by this law.

In biblical history, however, righteousness is primarily the power through which Yahweh establishes a living relationship, rescues it, and keeps on energizing it. As especially revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus, God's righteousness involves continuing commitment to and continuing rescuing and revitalizing of the relationship (Chap. 7). To be sure, this relationship has a particular form. It is regulated by a covenant, which includes laws and commands. These laws show that

14 Petrus van Mastricht, quoted in Heppe, p. 96.

15 Fransiscus Burmanus, quoted in Heppe, p. 470; cf. p. 170 above.

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ethical character is at righteousness' core.

However, these laws are not really the basis of the relationship. For the relationship consists in a concord of hearts, actions, and character which permeates all aspects of living, and which can never be fully covered by, or reduced to, a system of laws. Rather than the relationship being a result and expression of the laws, the laws are one important expression, or articulation, of the relationship's character.

Reasoning "from below," then (from the righteousness manifested in biblical history), theology can infer that righteousness in God must be the energy of what is good and just in God's character. Of course, since good is different from evil, and justice from injustice, righteousness is not sheer energy. It is energy which flows from and toward, and which is itself the power of, character. It is a dynamism which has form. Better, it is a formed dynamism. This form can be regarded as lawlike, provided that law means something not only like judicial statutes, but also like aesthetic and scientific laws which describe living structures from other perspectives. Such a "law" would be infinitely more complex and subtle than any human construction.

Another candidate for that inner element of stability has been holiness. More than any other biblical term, holiness expresses God's "innermost and secret essence" and distinction from all that is earthly.16 "'To whom will you compare me, that I should be like him?' says the Holy One." For ''the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!" (Isa. 40:25; Hab. 2:20). Orthodox theologians have interpreted holiness, like righteousness, largely in terms of morality and law. For Augustus Strong, holiness is that attribute in virtue of which "God eternally wills and maintains his own moral excellence."17 "Many dogmaticians conceive of holiness (preferably lawgiving) and righteousness (preferably judicial) as identical concepts."18

While holiness certainly has ethical dimensions (e.g., 1 Peter 1:14-17), it also has others. Holiness is also the overwhelming, awesome divine majesty. It involves God's "Wholly Other" characterthat numinous mystery that can strike terror, reducing humans to "dust and ashes" (Vol. I, pp. 187-188). In fact, in its earliest Old Testament appearances, holiness is often a largely nonmoral force of this kind.19

16 TWNT I, p. 93; cf. Norman Snaith, Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (New York: Schocken, 1964) pp. 42-47. Cf. Isa. 45:11; Ezek. 39:7; Hos. 11:9.

17Systematic Theology, p. 268. Hodge calls holiness "a general term for the moral excellence of God." It "implies entire freedom from moral evil; and . . . absolute moral perfection. Freedom from impurity is the primary idea of the word" (Systematic Theology, Vol. I, p. 413).

18 Heppe, p. 92.

19 Snaith, pp. 36-42; TWNT I, pp. 89-91. Cf. 1 Sam. 6:19; 2 Sam. 6:6-9; Lev. 6:27.

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For as we saw in tracing Scripture's sexual imagery, it was historically necessary first to establish God's otherness and transcendence. For this, masculine imagery and an almost impersonal notion of holiness were appropriate.

As time passed, it became increasingly clear that holiness was to characterize humans and their world as well. This is expressed most dramatically in the name of the "third" divine Person, for whom feminine imagery is most appropriate. For while the "Holy" Spirit can act in a dramatic, transcendent manner like fire (Matt. 3:11 and parallel; Acts 2:2-4; etc.), her chief work is to impart moral and spiritual renewal more gradually from within.

God's holiness, then, while it can overawe humans with fear, is also a life-transforming force which can move more gently. Both elements are unmistakable in that temple vision where Isaiah, though he is overawed by God's holiness and a corresponding sense of his own sinfulness, is yet healed by the touch of that holiness (Isa. 6:1-7). And here a third element of holiness is present. For the seraphim in the vision cry, "Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of his glory!"

Glory, closely associated with holiness, can also arouse numinous dread (Exod. 24:16-17; Lev. 9:23-24; Num. 16:42-50). Yet glory, like holiness, can only have such devastating effects because it is a beauty so bright and intense that nothing sinful can withstand its splendor. Holiness, then, also has an aesthetic dimension. This is most vivid in the far more elaborately painted scene in Revelation 4, where seraphim again cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy!" amid burning torches, pealing thunder, a symphony of voices, and flashes from all colors of the rainbow. For while holiness indeed has ethical effects, it is experienced more deeply in worship. Holiness is that limitless, superabundant glory, bounty, and mystery of the divine which evokes awe, joy, and praise above all else.

In sum, when theology, in search of some stable element in God, turns to holiness, it finds it identified even less than righteousness with a definite form. Of course, there is a sense in which God's inner purity is absolutely consistent and unvarying. It is absolutely distinct from all unholiness and impurity. Yet this consistency is that of an intensity, of a mystery whose infinity, while not formless, constantly spills over all forms and boundaries. In short, wherever we have found a divine element of form, we have always found it inseparably expressive of and expressed by divine dynamism.

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D

Freedom

Our discussion of dynamism and form raises questions about one more attribute of personhood. If God is somethingsay, righteouswon't God always act in a righteous way? Yet if so, doesn't that attribute constrain God? Isn't it like a higher law which restricts God's freedom?

This issue appears in discussions of atonement (Vol. I, Chap. 16). Substitutionary theorists stress that since God is righteous, God must punish all sin. Love, it sometimes seems, can operate only secondarily, after law has been satisfied. Moral influence theorists, however, insist that since God is loving, God must forgive. It sometimes seems that God could never really judge. Despite their differences, both models are similar in this: they insist that God's freedom must accord with one particular attribute.

Initially, we must agree with their general point. We have seen how human freedom is not simply the ability to act according to different motives. It is above all the capacity to choose wholeheartedly what is right and good (Chap. 5). Similarly, divine freedom cannot be naked, unrestricted power by itselfsheer ability to do anything conceivable, no matter how evil or destructive. For if it were, freedom, or power, would be exalted far above God's other attributes. God would be loving or anything else only arbitrarily, only when God chose.20 God's freedom, then, can only be an unhindered capacity to be whatever else God isholy, righteous, etc. It is "simple, undivided joy in the good."21

But if so, how can one avoid the impression that God is "bound" to act in fairly restricted ways, as popular atonement theories can suggest? The answer lies in the number and variety of divine attributes. That is, theology can affirm that God will always act in a loving way.

20 "Freedom as a neutral existence, absolute freedom, abstract ability, power in itself is an intoxicating thought." Yet one could not better "define the devil than by trying to think this idea of a self-based, free, sovereign ability. This intoxicating thought of power is chaos . . . which God . . . rejected when he created heaven and earth. . . . All solitude and solitary self-assertion, is, as such, wrong and therefore not real power. . . . God's power is the power of order, the power of the ordering of His love, which operates along lines of order and leads to goals of order. God's power is holy, righteous, merciful, patient, kindly power" (Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline [New York: Harper, 1959], pp. 47-49).

21 Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, p. 55. Moltmann correctly concludes from this that God will always be loving. But his failure to balance love with other attributes leads one-sidedly toward universalism.

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But since God will always act righteously, too, God's love will always promote what is righteous, and vice versa. This means, given the myriad of divine attributes and the complexity of the world, that God will operate in ways that seem quite different at different times. Theology, then, cannot fully predict or explain how God will act in particular situations. It can affirm, however, that the eschatological course of God's acts will be consistent with each attribute.

Theology, then, does not properly employ its limited knowledge of divine attributes when it isolates one and uses it as a premise for deducing that God must act in specific ways.22 On the contrary, acknowledging the variety of the attributes can check such attempts. For example, though God's actions will always be loving, divine intentionality forbids the conclusion that God will simply excuse every sin. And though God will always act righteously, divine love forbids the conclusion that God will always act according to limited understandings of law. In short, while the multiplicity of attributes shows that God will both save and punish, it does not always show how God will do this. They show that God's freedom consists in the ability to act in a variety of ways according to the diversity of circumstances and the fullness of God's nature.

III

Attributes of Ultimacy

We have just considered freedom, which we have called an attribute of personhood. Yet we soon found ourselves discussing "omnipotence"what it can mean to call God's freedom, or power, unlimited. We have provisionally called omnipotence an attribute of ultimacy: one which belongs to God alone, while attributes of personhood can also belong to creatures. Our exploration of freedom, however, prompts us to reconsider this distinction. For since God is not only free and powerful, but also loving, intentional, and many other things, we cannot understand these ultimate attributes in an absolute, abstract way. Instead, God's power proves to be the power of God's purpose and love. This suggests that other attributes of ultimacy might not be definable apart from God's personhood. Let us consider some of them individually, remembering that this issue is crucial for understanding the kenosis of the Son.

A

Immanence, Transcendence, and Aseity

Transcendence is God's difference or distinction from the universe.

22 Cf. our critique of all one-sided deduction, whether from philosophical or theological premises, in Vol. I, pp. 346-348.

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Immanence is God's presence within it. Christian theology has usually held that God, in God's inmost self, is entirely independent from the cosmos. This independence is also called "aseity," meaning that God's existence and essential character derive entirely from God's self, not from anything else.23

In the development of our modern world, however, as a distinct divine realm has seemed increasingly unreal and the earthly realm increasingly real, God's independence or aseity has often been questioned. Process theologians in particular argue that a wholly transcendent God seems aloof and self-absorbed, in love only with Godself; and that this encourages selfish, individualistic behavior.24 Some feminist theologians decline to call God king because kingship involves a notion of transcendence in which "God and the world are only distantly related and all power . . . is on God's side. . . . God can be God only if we are nothing." Accordingly, some claim, "God is worldless and the world is Godless; the world is empty of God, for it is too lowly to be the royal abode."25 This God image leads to lack of concern for the world, both human and natural; and to passivity, for if God is all-powerful, he will eventually see that everything turns out all right.

Such notions of transcendence are quite unlike the Christian God's deep involvement with creatures, and the concern for others and the world consistent with this. Now surely a theology which begins with God's historic acts and emphasizes the Spirit's work within creatures must affirm God's immanence in the cosmos. Shall we then join this modern critique of the "ultimate" attribute of aseity? Let us examine more closely the alternatives that these critics recommend.

If God, in God's inmost self, is not distinct and independent from the universe, God must have always been partially limited by and dependent on the universe. Process theology conceives this by making God an "actual entity" evolving with all others (Chap. 16). Unlike other entities, God evolves "everlastingly" and has a "primordial pole," or limitless storehouse of conceptual possibilities, to help guide them. Yet God is not (in most versions) the origin of, but is a participant in, the ''Creativity" characterizing the process. God is not responsible for other entities' existence or for the evil or suffering intrinsic to the process. And while luring others from bad choices, God cannot prevent them.

To overcome the extrinsic God-world relationship conveyed by

23 In Latin a means "from;" se means "self."

24 Cobb and Griffin, pp. 9, 41-54. (See pp. 19-17 above on Godself as the object of God's love.)

25 McFague, Models of God, pp. 64-65. See also Gordon kaufman, Theology for a Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985).

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kingship, Sallie McFague recommends considering the universe as God's body. She does not mean that the world literally is a body, for body here is a metaphor.26 This also does not make God wholly immanent, for God would transcend this body much as humans do theirs. In fact, McFague suggests that God is at least potentially independent of the world.27

Nonetheless, the relationship is quite direct. The world is to be seen as "God's palpable presence in all space and time," as God's own "outward and visible presence."28 This means that "evil is not a power over against God; in a sense, it is God's 'responsibility,' a part of God's being."29 What shall we make of these two efforts to emphasize God's immanence?

We notice, first, that something of the radicality of love is missing. We do not hear of a creation which is the unique opening of and giving away of Godself so that something distinctly other can emerge. Especially in process theology, God does not love creatures from an agape * which, because it does not absolutely need them, can allow them to be themselves. Rather, God loves at least in part from eros*, because God's own nature and fate are intrinsically tied up with theirs.30 God loves creatures partly because the nature of things constrains God to, not simply out of that freedom moved by God's nature alone.

We also notice that evil's radicality is diminished. Evil is part of the inevitable order of things. God is limited by it or even responsible for it. No living Righteousness or Holiness absolutely opposed to evil exists. This reduces the scope of grace. "The world" cannot be so resistant and God so holy that God could have rightly abandoned it to its own oblivion. Accordingly, God's coming in the face of resistance and freely absorbing all its pain are far less astounding. Forgiveness and renovation are more nearly "automatic," recurrent processes in the given order of things.

26 On metaphor, see esp. Models of God, pp. 29-48; and Metaphorical Theology, pp. 31-66.

27 If the world-body "is blown up, another could be formed; hence, God need not be seen to be as dependent on us or on any particular body as we are on our own bodies" (Models of God, p. 72, cf. p. 76). Calling the world "the 'incarnation'" (p. 62, cf. p. 72) seems to be another way of stressing that the world is "similar to but not identical with God" (p. 112).

28 Ibid., pp. 60, 61.

29 Ibid., p. 75.

30 For McFague, "the depth of divine love" is "agapaic," for its distinctive feature "is its impartiality, its willing of existence and fulfillment for all being" (p. 103). Yet "agape* cannot be isolated from . . . eros*," for ''elements of need, desire and mutuality are evident in all forms of love" (p. 102).

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Modern critics argue that if God is really distinct from the world, God will be distant and unable or unwilling to make a real difference in our affairs. Yet it is their intertwining of God's being with the world that seriously reduces the difference between God's love and righteousness and "the world." If God's inmost being is limited by or responsible for evil, nothing, not even Jesus' resurrection, can be the decisive victory over evil. The New Age cannot dawn as radically, its "alternative models" cannot critique the existing order as sharply, the full energy of hope cannot be released. While adherents of such an immanent God may effectively oppose certain evils, ''systemic blindness" (Chap. 11) will dull their sensitivity to evil elsewhere (perhaps in their own efforts for change).

The alternative, however, is not the (often pejorative) concept of a self-absorbed being unwilling to share real goodness and power. Instead, the transcendent God is a ceaseless, perichoretic energy of self-giving whose power expresses and orders that love. This makes it conceivablethough not necessarythat this God, out of the fullness of that nature, would freely create, redeem, and dwell within a world. God, in other words, is transcendent "by nature"; but in such a way that God can become immanent "by choice."

Biblical revelation shows further how this God is immanent. God is immanent largely through the Spirit, who circles outward, as it were, to energize, sustain, and challenge creatures who are distinctly different, and then back through them toward the Son and Father. Since this movement of love is marked by intentionality, God transcends the world not only ontologically, but also eschatologically, as that fullness which also draws the cosmos toward a goal. God's immanence, then, is less direct, and at the same time more invigorating and challenging, than is suggested by calling the world God's "body."

This subsection has reconsidered many "attributes of personhood" (such as love and intentionality) discussed in Section II. It has shown that their significance can be adequately appreicated only when we apprehend them as expressions of characteristics belonging uniquely and ultimately to God. Only when divine love is recognized as the self-giving of the transcendent, self-existent One do its breathtaking wonder and scope appear. To be sure, this "ultimate" attribute of aseity exists only as intertwined withand is indefinable apart fromthose attributes of personhood. Yet the latter do not exist, and cannot be defined as divine, apart from this attribute of ultimacy.

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B

Infinity, Omnipresence, and Eternity

When we try to think about infinity, we often imagine it to be a large space or a lengthy time process stretching endlessly in all directions. Yet space and time as we know them come into being only at creation (Chap. 16). Thus such an infinity (if it exists at all) could only characterize created things. Divine infinity, then, must first be some dimension of God's being "before" and apart from all spatio-temporal relations.

We also tend to think of infinity as that which is unlimited and unaffected by anything else in any way. Yet God has been limited and affected in some ways since the creation. Divine infinity, then, must also be compatible with this kind of limitation. How might theology define this infinity?

If God is interrelated with the universe by choice, and not in God's inmost nature, then it is this inmost being which is infinite, or unlimited by anything else. Considered before and apart from creation, that is, infinity means that God possesses the fullness of all possible perfections. It means that love, intentionality, righteousness, etc., are as real and full as they can possibly be in God. They are not limited by anything else (although each one interrelates reciprocally, of course, with all the others).

In creating the universe, however, God limited herself in certain respects. By opening up space for creatures to exist, God has removed herself from it and refrains from influencing it in certain ways. If divine infinity meant being wholly unlimited by anything else, creation would have contradicted it. But since God's infinity denotes the fullness of all perfections, creation is one way in which God's fullness of love, holiness, and other attributes, in perfect freedom, decided to express itself. Creation, then, is not a limitation, but is an expression of God's infinity. To affirm that God is infinite involves affirming that all ways in which creationand incarnation and crucifixionlimit God do not diminish, but rather express, the fullness of God's perfections.

In relation to space, divine infinity is often called omnipresence. However, since creation involves "withdrawal" as well as generation, God is not directly present in every part of space. God's presence is more indirect, largely through the influence or attraction conveyed by the Spirit, whose manner will vary with different creatures. Omnipresence, then, means that God is in everything, as the word panentheism can express.31 But to avoid the impression of too direct an

31Pantheism (from the Greek pan, meaning "all," and theos, meaning "God") literally means that God is everything, or is identical with the universe. With the addition of en (meaning ''in"), panentheism literally means that God is in everything, and that God can in some way be distinguished from the universe. While we affirm this literal meaning of panentheism, the word is usually used

(footnote continued on next page)

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identity (as can also be conveyed by calling the world God's "body"), it is better to say that all things are in God.32 Omnipresence means that God overarches, surrounds, and surges through all creatures in a dynamic way, all the while retaining the distinct divine identity. It does not mean that God merges with or is located statically within them.

The particular presence of the Son is of this sort. This is why we have called union with Christ, or being "in" Christ, not a mingling of substances, but a sym-pathetic communion of hearts (Vol. I, p. 339). This is why the church as Christ's Body is not directly identical with him but responds to him as its Head (Vol. II, Chap. 10). This is why Jesus is not directly identical with the sacramental elements, but exercises his saving power in conjunction with them (Chap. 13).

In all these cases, the Son's presence, more precisely considered, is mediated by the Spirit. However, there is one exception. When the self-emptying Son took on all the features of being a specific human person, the Spirit provided the initial link. However, these features became directly his in a way which no other created entities ever have been or will be. To affirm God's omnipresence is to affirm that the fullness of God's perfections was expressed, and not diminished, by this action.

In relation to time, divine infinity is often called eternity. Yet since time as we know it begins with creation, divine eternity cannot simply mean endless extension through time. It must mean, rather, that all cosmic and historical epochs, while independent and distinct, exist within the overarching divine presence, which does not come to be and pass away as creatures do. This presence, however, is not mere timelessness. Although the inner divine life cannot be divided into our kind of temporal phases, we can only conceive its ceaseless and varied interactions as involving different "moments."

Since these interactions are intentional, God's eternity, as it affects time, is not an unvaried presence, but an eschatological dynamism. Much as God as omnipresent affects different creatures in different ways, so God as eternal will operate differently in different historical moments. And since the natural and human worlds will presumably always have some sort of temporal structure, theology has no grounds for saying that even the consummation will usher in a timeless state (Vol. I, Chap. 9). In fact, since God has permanently taken on human nature in the Son, theology can say that God has become permanently marked by our kind of time. To affirm God's eternity is to affirm that

(footnote continued from previous page)

for views which deny, or at least minimize the significance of, God's aseity. For this reason we generally avoid the term.

32 Cf. Heppe, pp. 65-66.

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God's enduring, abiding perfections were expressed, not diminished, by this action.

We have provisionally defined infinity, omnipresence, and eternity as attributes of ultimacy. Yet it is clear by now that they cannot be separated from attributes of personhood. For they indicate the fullness of God's perfections, and many of these are clearly personal. Moreover, since this fullness has been marvelously expressed through creation, incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, they are compatible with kenosis. God's infinity does not have to be repudiated for God to take on our nature and our death. For infinity is not some characteristic which more or less opposes, say, love, and therefore love's incarnational and sacrificial expression. Instead, it denotes that fullness of love (and of other attributes) so perfectly expressed in these actions.33

C

Omnipotence and the "Decrees"

From the preceding remarks, from those at the beginning of this Section and our discussion of divine freedom (Section II D above), the general significance of calling God all-powerful should be clear. God's power cannot be the arbitrary, abstract capability of doing absolutely anything, even what is evil. Omnipotence, rather, is God's capacity to exercise any and every attribute in all ways which are harmonious with all the others, unhindered by any other reality. Since many of these attributes are clearly personal, omnipotence also must be understood in a personal way. Yet to express some of these, God may choose to let his own power be limited by other forces in certain ways.

Thus in the short run, God's power over certain circumstances can be limited. Omnipotence, however, means that nothing will finally prevail against God's character and purposes. Omnipotence undergirds the confidence that nothing can finally thwart God's desire and power to save. It engenders the eschatological hope that, however opposed any situation may seem to God's will, "in everything God works for good" (Rom. 8:28).

To affirm this, however, theology need not insist that the exact nature of every occurrence has been determined by divine decrees. We recall how Charles Hodge deduced this implication from God's omnipotence. Anyone who desires a definite result and has the necessary power to achieve it, he says, will predetermine every step leading to that goal (pp. 129-130).

33 Similarly, incarnation is not in conflict with God's presence in all places, but actualizes this presence in a deeper and more direct way. God's identification with a specific human is not in conflict with God's presence in all moments, but actualizes this presence more deeply and directly.

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Yet Hodge is operating with abstract, philosophical concepts of power and "perfection"not really with the perfection of the biblical God, whose power is the power of perfect love. For this latter perfection allows others a real freedom to contravene one's purposes and plans. Such an allowance, however, only contradicts an omnipotence separated from God's other attributes and regarded as an abstract force which necessarily controls every facet of what is subordinate. Yet power which must control every detail is not really the greatest kind of power. Power which can allow its plans and desires to be contravened, and which can bring its purposes to pass despite opposition, is much greater.

Much as infinity does not mean that God is present in every event in the same undiminished way, so omnipotence does not mean that God directs every event in the same irresistible manner. This conclusion, however, need not deny the whole notion of "decrees." Since intentionality marks all divine actions, creation, incarnation, and crucifixion were all undertaken with certain purposes in mind. Theology can, then, speak of God's historical actions being guided by decreesso long as these are themselves one expression of the divine fullness, not superior laws which regulate the rest. Due to the extremely complex intertwining of divine and creaturely freedom, the precise extent to which events are predetermined surpasses theology's knowledge.

D

Immutability

As we have defined them, infinity and omnipotence are not only compatible with, but can be perfectly expressed through, change. What can it mean, then, to say that God is unchangeable? Like infinity and omnipotence, immutability must refer to God not as an abstract substance or energy, but largely to God's character. To affirm that God is immutable is to affirm that God's essential love, holiness, etc., never change. But if God in love and holiness freely decides to create a world, God will be impacted by realities which, though God envisioned and planned them, God has not yet experienced. When God takes on human nature, dies, and rises, God will actually become something which God was not before.

Immutability, then, cannot mean that God never changes in any respect, any more than omnipotence can mean that God never limits the divine power in any respect. When God in the immutable perfection of the divine character decides to create, nurture, and save a world, God will change in all ways necessary to accomplish those decrees.

In relation to the cosmos, then, immutability means that God's

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basic purposes will never alter (and, since God is omnipotent, that these purposes will finally be accomplished). Yet since history is filled with diverse, shifting situations, the means by which God accomplishes these immutable purposes will frequently alter. In relation to history, God's immutability is best expressed by the biblical notion of faithfulness. Despite vast changes in circumstances and the fierce opposition of hostile powers, God never forsakes her people or promiseseven though God's fulfillment often transcends and reverses many of our expectations.

E

Classification of the Attributes

Since all divine attributes are interwoven with all others, any division of them is artificial. Nonetheless, to bestow some order upon our discussion, we have provisionally divided them into attributes of personhood and ultimacy. As we near the end of our investigations, has this distinction proven to be valuable?

To begin with attributes of personhood is to affirm that theology knows God primarily through God's personal and historical activities. In contrast to systematic theology's common emphasis on God's "incommunicable" attributes, it is to stress that love, righteousness, etc., denote realities as fully divine as any others. They are not simply anthropomorphic symbols for a Deity who is more adequately described in an abstract way.

Of course, if theology wishes to speak of God, and not simply of some glorified humanlike entity, it must also discuss those attributes which distinguish God, as the cosmos' unique and ultimate reality, from all else. Nonetheless, when attributres like love and righteousness are considered first, it becomes clear that qualities like infinity and immutability must indicate, at least in part, an unsurpassable fullness and constancy of the former. In fact, when the ultimate attributes are considered from this perspective, their potential conflict with the personal ones begins to fade. Immutability, for instance, comes to be seen positivelyas a continuing fullness of many elements, rather than as the negative quality of incapacity for change.

Eventually, the provisional distinction between these two classes begins dissolving of its own accord. Attributes of ultimacy prove to include the fullness, or ultimate perfection, of personal qualities. Attributes of personhood prove to be divine only as characteristics of ultimate Reality.

Yet even though this classification (like all classifications) gradually breaks down under the intertwining of all attributes in God, it has one great value. It makes conceivable (though, of course, it cannot explain)

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how the One, ultimate, infinite, immutable Reality could actually be (and not simply be expressed through) Jesus Christ. It shows, in fact, that this ultimate kenosis is not only compatible with, but is a profound expression of, the divine aseity, infinity, omnipotence, and immutability.

F

Unity

Having begun our doctrine of God "from below," from those diverse historical actions which led us to stress God's Trinitarian character, can we meaningfully affirm the divine unity? Is not our Deity so marked by interaction and alteration that it actually consists of three gods? On the contrary, our approach has shown that unity can no more be bland sameness than immutability can be a static immobility. Instead, God's unity, like that of the cosmos God created, is a harmony among complexly interwoven and minutely balanced elements. God's oneness is no undifferentiated calmness, or void, in which all things come to rest (cf. Chap. 12). God's unity is a unity of order, of pattern, of intentionality. In it an inconceivable diversity of elements initiate and respond, give and receive, act and rest in a complexity of overlapping and intertwining far surpassing our imagination.

Yet through all this the essential character and purposes of God never diminish or vary, but are ceaselessly affirmed and expressed. God's unity is a dynamic unity among an unimaginable diversity of elements. Only if God's unity is like this will God be the truly living God. Only then will salvation be an energizing transformation of creation, not an escape from its activity and multiplicity into a passive, undifferentiated realm. Only so will the eschatological experience and hope of transformation truly penetrate to the center of human nature, of revelation, salvation, the church, and of all else with which theology deals.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Anderson, Ray. Historical Transcendence and the Reality of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

Araya, Victorio. God of the Poor. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1987.

Berkouwer, C. G. Divine Election. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951.

Burrell, David. Analogy and Philosophical Language. New Haven: Yale, 1973.

Craig, William. The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.

Farley, Edward. The Transcendence of God. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

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Ford, Lewis. The Lure of God: A Biblical Background for Process Theism. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978.

Frame, John. The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987.

Hartshome, Charles. Ommipotence and Other Mistakes. Albany: State University of New York. 1984.

Jantzen, Grace. God's World, God's Body. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984.

Jewett, Paul, Election and Predestination. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.

Jügel, Eberhard. God as the Mystery of the World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Kaufman, Gordon. The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981.

Mascall, Eric. Existence and Analogy. New York: Longmans, 1949.

McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology. Phildelphia: Fortress, 1982.

__________. Models of God. Philadephia: Fortress, 1987.

McWilliams, Warren. The Passion of God: Divine Suffering in Contemporary Protestant Theology. Macon, Ga.: Mercer, 1985.

Mollenkott, Virginia. The Divine Feminine. New York: Crossroad, 1983.

Soskice, Janet. Metaphor and Religious Language. Oxford: University, 1985.

Stever, Axel, and McClendon, James, ed. Is God GOD? Nashville: Abingdon, 1981.

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Scripture Index

Genesis

15 II, 66

13 II, 44, 66, 100, 104, 108, 418

12 II, 102-104, 108, 408, 426n

1:12:4 II, 411n

1:1 II, 409

1:2 II, 429

1:21 II, 409, 426

1:26-30 II, 20, 30n

1:26 II, 21n, 102, 108

1:27 II, 102, 409, 426

1:28 II, 52

1:31 II, 427

25 II, 102n

2:3-4 II, 409

2:4 II, 426n

2:7 II, 107-108

2:9 II, 108

2:15 II, 102, 108

2:18-20 II, 103, 108

2:20a II, 102

2:21-25 II, 103

2:22 II, 102n

2:23 II, 117

2:24 I, 222;

II, 104

3 II, 139, 144, 147

3:3-4 I, 138;

II, 144

3:6 II, 146n

3:16 II, 104

3:17-19 II, 108

3:19 I, 138

4:8 I, 167

4:10-11 I, 334

4:23-24 I, 167

5:2 II, 409, 426

5:12 II, 102

6:2-4 II, 148

6:3 II, 429

6:19 II, 102

8:22 II, 416n

9:1-3 II, 102

9:5-6 I, 334

9:6 II, 20, 27

11:1-9 I, 167;

II, 249

12:2-3 I, 198, 215, 272

12:3 I, 350

15 I, 197

15:6 I, 216

15:8-21 I, 343

15:13-16 I, 216

17:8 I, 216

17:17 I, 198

17:20 I, 216

18:12 I, 198

20:1-11 I, 252

21:22ff. I, 344n

22 I, 344

24:45 II, 122

26:26ff. I, 344n

26:28 I, 344n

28:12-16 I, 197

31:51-54 I, 343n

37:27 II, 117

46:1-2 I, 343n

Exodus

3:1-17 I, 197

4:1 I, 197

4:10 I, 197

4:22-23 II, 444

4:31 I, 218

7:4 II, 417

7:17 I, 199n

9:16 I, 199n

12 I, 344

12:8-11 I, 315

Page 510

12:12 II, 409, 417

14:18 I, 199n

14:23-28 I, 148

15:20 II, 100n

16:7 I, 199

16:10 I, 199

18:11 II, 409, 417

1924 I, 344

19:4-5 II, 409

19:5-6 II, 94n, 264n

19:7-20 I, 344

19:8 I, 344

19:9 I, 344

19:11 I, 344

20:1 I, 344

20:2 I, 199;

II, 95n

20:20 I, 344

21:8-10 II, 100n

21:14, 21ff. II, 27

23:6-11 I, 272;

II, 174

24:3-8 II, 395n

24:3 I, 344

24:7 I, 344

24:8 I, 344

24:9-11 I, 315, 344

24:15-18 I, 185, 199

24:16-17 II, 496

29 I, 315

29:21 I, 344

29:37 I, 344

29:43-45 I, 344

31:3 II, 132

32:30 II, 147

35:31 II, 132

40:34-38 I, 185, 199

Leviticus

4:3, 14 II, 147

6:27 II, 495n

7:11 I, 315

9:6 I, 344

9:23-24 I, 344;

II, 496

11:44-45 II, 427

12:8 II, 474

12:18 I, 286

1415 I, 315

16 I, 344

17:11 I, 315

18:28 II, 109

19:9-10 I, 272

19:15 II, 174

19:36 II, 174

20:22 II, 109

24:17-18 II, 122n

25 I, 272, 287n

25:1-7 II, 109

25:23-24 II, 109n

25:39-43 II, 99

25:42 II, 109n

26 II, 109

26:3-13 II, 94, 256n

26:34-35, 43 II, 109

Numbers

11:4 II, 214

11:17-29 II, 132n

12:7 II, 178

14:11 II, 178

15:3 I, 343n

16:28-35 I, 148

16:41-50 I, 328

16:42-50 II, 496

23:1-5 I, 343n

25:1-13 I, 328

Deuteronomy

1:16-17 II, 174

1:32 II, 178

3:24 I, 199n

4:5-8 II, 264n

4:6-8 I, 252

4:6 II, 99

5:6 II, 95n

5:14-15 II, 99

6:20-24 I, 13;

II, 408

9:23 II, 178

11:11-17 II, 109

12:23 II, 122n

15:7-11 I, 272

15:12-15 II, 99

17:14-20 I, 272

21:22 II, 147

23:25 I, 285n

24:1-4 I, 222;

II, 100n

24:10-22 I, 272

25:4 I, 223n

25:6-9 I, 13

25:15 II, 174

26:5-10 II, 408

27:1-8 I, 343n

28 II, 109

28:1-14 II, 256n

29:10ff. I, 344n

29:12 I, 344n

29:14 I, 344n

29:21 I, 344n

32:8-9 II, 150

32:8 II, 66n

32:43 I, 223n

Joshua

3:5 I, 218

7:24-26 I, 148

9:15-20 I, 344n

22:34 I, 343n

24:2-13 I, 13;

II, 408

Judges

2:11-19 I, 328

3:10 II, 132

45 II, 100n

4:4 II, 100n

5:11 II, 175

5:20 II, 150n

6:19-24 I, 343n

6:34 II, 132

11:30-31 I, 343n

13 I, 197

13:15-20 I, 343n

20:26 I, 343n

21:4 I, 343n

1 Samuel

1:15 II, 122

2:24-28 I, 343n

6:14-16 I, 343n

6:19 II, 495n

7:9-10 I, 343n

8:10-18 I, 272

10:6 II, 132

11:7 I, 344n

12:7 II, 175

13:8-12 I, 343n

17:45 II, 150n

19:23-24 II, 383

22:14 II, 178

24:6 II, 122n

Page 511

25:24 II, 147

27:1 II, 122

28:8-15 I, 138n

2 Samuel

5:1 II, 117

6:6-9 II, 495n

6:17-18 I, 343n

7:14 I, 223n

8:15 II, 174

14:2-20 II, 100n

17:10 II, 122

20:16-22 II, 100n

21:1-9 I, 328

22:3 II, 397

23:3-4 II, 174

24:10 II, 122n

24:16 II, 150n

24:21-25 I, 343n

1 Kings

3:15 I, 343n

4:29-34 II, 122

8:5 I, 343n

12:26-28 II, 122

20:13 I, 199n

20:28 I, 199n

22:19-23 II, 150

2 Kings

2:9-15 II, 132n

3:27 I, 343n

11:1-5 II, 100n

11:4 I, 344

13:5 II, 397

16:3 I, 158

19:35 II, 150n

21:6 I, 158

22:12-20 II, 100n

1 Chronicles

1:1 II, 66n

21:1 II, 150

2 Chronicles

32:8 II, 117

Ezra

1:5 II, 132

Nehemiah

5:5 II, 117

6:14 II, 100n

9:6-37 I, 13;

II, 150

9:27 II, 397

Job

12 II, 150

1:5 I, 343n

1:6-12 II, 150

2:6-12 II, 150

26:7, 12 II, 411n

31:33 II, 66n

33:22 II, 150n

34:14-15 II, 117, 132, 429n

38:4-11 I, 249

38:8 II, 150

41 II, 410

42:8 I, 343n

Psalms

2 II, 393

2:7 I, 223n;

II, 444

9:8 II, 256n

9:14 II, 474

9:18 I, 273n

12:5 I, 273n;

II, 256n

18:10 II, 150

19:1-6 II, 416n

19:1-4 I, 250

21:2 II, 122

27:6 I, 343n

31:18 II, 176n

33:6 II, 429, 435n

35:5-6 II, 150n

36:5-10 II, 179

37:14 I, 273n

40:9-11 II, 179

40:12 II, 122

40:17 I, 273n

42:1-2 II, 122

45:6-7 I, 223n

50:5 I, 343n

50:9-12 I, 315n

51:10-12 II, 132

51:19 I, 343n

65:2-3 II, 117

66:13-15 I, 343n

69:30-31 I, 315n

70:5 I, 273n

72:4-14 II, 256n

72:4-13 I, 273n

74 I, 13, 273

74:12-17 II, 410

74:14-17 I, 249

74:21 I, 273n

77 I, 13, 273

77:14-15 I, 199n

77:16-20 II, 410

78:4-9 II, 150n

78:8, 32, 37 II, 178

82 II, 150n

82:3-4 II, 256

82:6 I, 221

84:2 II, 116

88:3-13 I, 138n

89 II, 178

89:6-8 II, 150, 179

89:9-13 II, 410

89:10-11 II, 179

89:14 II, 179

89:22-24 II, 178

89:27 II, 178, 399n, 444

89:33 II, 178

89:37 II, 444

89:49 II, 178

90:12 II, 122

94:21 II, 176

96:5 II, 176

96:12-13 II, 176

9799 I, 145

97:6 I, 199

97:7 II, 150, 176

97:9 II, 150

98:1-3 I, 199;

II, 176

98:7-9 I, 199;

II, 176

102:24-27 I, 223n

102:25-27 II, 416n

102:26 I, 157

103:11-14 II, 486n

103:14-16 II, 416n

103:19-20 I, 157

104 I, 249

104:4 I, 223n;

II, 150

104:10-30 II, 416n

104:29-30 II, 107, 132, 429n

Page 512

104:30 II, 434

106:8-12 I, 199n

107 II, 94

107:22 I, 315n, 343n

110 I, 114n

110:1 I, 223n

111 II, 94

116:17-18 I, 315n, 343n

119:18 II, 411n

130:3 II, 175

143:2 II, 175

148:5 II, 409

Proverbs

3:16 II, 256n

3:19 II, 403n

8:1-21 II, 403

8:22-31 II, 403n, 411n

8:22 II, 445n

8:30 II, 403, 428

11:28 II, 256n

12:10 II, 174n

13:4, 19 II, 122

13:12 II, 122

14:24 II, 256n

14:31 II, 256n

16:8 II, 256n

16:18 II, 132

18:14 II, 132

18:15 II, 122

21:1 I, 84

21:26 II, 174n

22:14 II, 256n

22:16 II, 256n

29:7 II, 174n

31:1, 26 II, 100n

Ecclesiastes

7:8 II, 132

Isaiah

1:2 II, 147

1:21 II, 176

4:5 II, 411n

5:18 II, 147

5:23 II, 176n

6 I, 185, 197

6:1-7 II, 496

6:3 I, 199

6:9-10 II, 126n

7:2 II, 122

8:3 II, 100n

8:19 I, 138n

9:7 II, 174

10:2 I, 273n;

II, 256n

11:9 I, 158, 200n;

II, 94, 447

14:9-16 I, 138n

14:30 I, 273n;

II, 256n

16:15 II, 179

19:21 I, 343n

22:23, 25 II, 178

24:21 II, 150

25:6-9 I, 168

25:6-8 II, 338

26:6 I, 273n;

II, 256n

27:1 II, 411n

29:4 I, 138n

31:3 II, 429

32:7 I, 273n;

II, 256n

32:15-18 II, 177n

33:5-6 II, 177

33:16 II, 178

34:2, 4 II, 150

37:22 II, 474

40:5 I, 199

40:25 II, 495

40:26-28 II, 410

41:2, 10 II, 176n

41:8-10 II, 98

41:11-24 II, 417

41:17 I, 273n;

II, 256n

41:18-20 II, 410

41:26 II, 176

42:1-7 I, 292n

42:1-4 I, 292

42:2-3 I, 335n

42:5 II, 132, 429

42:14-26 II, 486n

43:7 I, 218

43:9-21 II, 417

43:9-13 I, 351

43:9 II, 176

43:11 I, 199

43:18 II, 410

43:20-25 I, 145

43:25 I, 149

43:26 II, 176

44:1-2 II, 98

44:6-8 I, 351

44:21 II, 98

44:24 II, 410

45:3 I, 199n

45:4 II, 98

45:6 I, 199n

45:8 II, 176n

45:11 II, 495n

45:12 II, 410

45:13 II, 176n

45:18 I, 249;

II, 410

45:19-23 I, 357

45:20-21 I, 351;

II, 176

45:21 II, 397

45:22-23 I, 351;

II, 176

45:23 II, 397

46:12-13 II, 176n

48:6-7 II, 410

48:18-19 II, 177n

49:1-13 I, 292n

49:4 II, 177

49:5-6 II, 98

49:7 I, 335

49:8-13 II, 417

49:23 I, 199n

49:26 I, 199n;

II, 397

50:4-9 I, 292n;

II, 108

50:6 I, 335n

50:7-9 II, 177

51:5-8 II, 176n

51:9-11 II, 410

51:9 I, 249

52:1353:12 I, 292n, 295, 315, 335-336, 345;

II, 98

53:4 I, 358

53:12 I, 355

54:14-17 II, 177

56:1 II, 176

57:15 II, 453

58:8 II, 177

59:1-15 I, 366

59:16-17 II, 176n

61 I, 287

61:2 I, 287n

61:10-11 II, 177

62:1-4 I, 145;

II, 176

63:1 II, 176n

Page 513

65:17-25 II, 411n

66:22-23 II, 411n

66:24 I, 160

Jeremiah

1 I, 197

2:29 II, 147

3:14 II, 474

4:23-26 II, 410

5:22-24 II, 416n

5:22 I, 249

6:20 I, 314n

7:22-23 I, 314n

14:12 I, 314n

15:18 II, 178

17:9-10 I, 300

22:16 I, 273n;

II, 256n

23:29 I, 51

30:14-15 II, 147

31:31-34 I, 300;

II, 126n

31:31-33 I, 273

31:33 II, 123

31:35-36 I, 249

34:18-20 I, 344n

51:11 II, 132

51:39-40 I, 148

Lamentations

2:5 II, 474

Ezekiel

1 I, 197

6:1-4 II, 109

10:19 I, 343n

11:19 II, 123

16 II, 474

16:8 I, 344n

16:59 I, 344n

17:18 I, 344n

17:33ff. I, 344n

18:5-9 II, 174n

36:1-8 II, 109

36:16-17 II, 429n

36:26-27 I, 273;

II, 123, 132

37:5-10 II, 429n

37:14 I, 273, 429n

39:7 II, 495n

39:28 I, 199n

Daniel

7:13-14 II, 392n

9:7 I, 84

10:13, 20-21 II, 150n

12:1 II, 150n

Hosea

2:4 II, 474

6:6 I, 314n

11:3-4 II, 486n

11:8-9 I, 149;

II, 486n

11:9 II, 495n

Joel

2:23 II, 177n

Amos

1:32:7 I, 252

2:6 II, 176

4:4 II, 147

4:13 II, 150

5:2 II, 474

5:21-24 I, 314n

Micah

6:4 II, 100

6:5 II, 175

6:6-8 I, 314n

Habakkuk

2:4 II, 188n

2:14 I, 158, 200n;

II, 94

2:20 II, 495

Zephaniah

3:14 II, 474

Zechariah

3 II, 150

Wisdom

7:22 II, 403n

7:26 II, 403, 428n

8:4-6 II, 403n

Sirach

51:23-30 II, 403

51:23-27 II, 403

Jubilees

2:2 II, 148

4:15 II, 148

11:2-7 II, 148

15:31 II, 148

1 Enoch

6:40-71 II, 148n

8 II, 148

15 II, 148

42:2 II, 403

60:11-24, 82 II, 148

69 II, 148

2 Enoch

29:4-5 II, 148n

31:3-6 II, 148n

40:7 II, 148

Life of Adam and Eve

12-17 II, 148n

4 Ezra

13 II, 392n

Ethiopian Eunuch

46; 4849; 52; 62; 69; 71 II, 392n

Matthew

1:20 I, 353

1:21 II, 397n

2:1-3 I, 296

2:12 I, 296

2:14 I, 296

2:18-20 II, 388

2:20 I, 296;

II, 123

2:22 I, 296

3:2 I, 279n

3:4 I, 297n

3:9 II, 345

3:11 II, 345, 346n, 496

3:13-17 I, 197

4:1-11 (& par) I, 322;

II, 152

4:3-10 II, 217

4:4 I, 222n

4:7 I, 222n

4:10 I, 222n

Page 514

4:17 I, 157, 279, 287

4:23-24 I, 293n

4:27 I, 279n

5:3-12 II, 395n

5:3 I, 284

5:11 I, 295n

5:16 II, 323n

5:17 II, 301

5:21-48 II, 394

5:21-30 I, 300

5:22 II, 114, 210n

5:23-24 II, 219

5:25-26 I, 285

5:28 II, 125, 210n

5:29-30 I, 148

5:37 I, 295n

5:39 I, 295n

5:40-42 I, 286

5:44-45 II, 78n

5:44 I, 295

6:1-18 II, 152

6:1-6 I, 357

6:6 II, 217

6:10 I, 157, 366

6:12 I, 287n

6:13 I, 295n

6:16-18 II, 217

6:19-21 I, 286

6:20 I, 284

6:24-34 II, 416n

6:24 I, 286

6:25-33 I, 288;

II, 109

6:28-33 I, 286

7:29 II, 114

8:5-13 (& par) I, 283n

8:5 I, 283

8:11-12 (& par) I, 283;

II, 338

8:20 I, 285

9:15 II, 217

9:35 I, 279n

10:1 I, 293n

10:5-6 I, 282

10:7 I, 279

10:10-12 I, 290

10:15 (& par) I, 283

10:17-31 I, 281

10:22 (& par) II, 197n

10:23 I, 282

10:26 I, 196

10:28 I, 148

10:34-38 I, 290;

II, 106n

11:2-11 I, 280n

11:2-6 (& par) I, 351

11:2-5 I, 272n

11:4-5 I, 286

11:10 I, 222n

11:12-14 (& par) I, 285n

11:18 I, 297n

11:19 II, 403

11:22 (& par) I, 283n

11:23-24 I, 158

11:23 I, 148

11:26 II, 399

11:27 II, 113, 435

11:28-30 II, 403

12:16 I, 292

12:18-21 I, 292^1

12:18 II, 399n

12:22-32 (& par) I, 294, 322

12:28 I, 280n;

II, 114, 388

12:34 II, 125

12:38-40 I, 285;

II, 152

12:41-42 I, 280n, 283n

13 I, 114, 279;

II, 109

13:14-15 (& par) II, 126n

13:25 I, 295n

13:28 I, 295n

13:30 I, 152

13:31-32 I, 289n

13:40-42 I, 148

13:42 I, 158

13:49-50 I, 148

13:49 I, 295n

13:57 II, 475

14:2 I, 297

14:13 I, 297

15:21-28 (& par) I, 283n, 289

15:24 I, 283n

16:1-4 (& par) II, 152

16:13-14 I, 272n

16:18-19 II, 231

16:18 I, 158, 161;

II, 266n

16:23 (& par) I, 322

18:15-18 II, 260n

18:15-17 II, 361, 374

18:18 II, 231

18:19-35 II, 219

18:23-25 I, 285n

19:4-5 I, 222

19:8 I, 224

19:9-10 I, 290

19:12 II, 106

2025 I, 279

20:10-12 II, 106n

20:28 I, 308, 316

21:13 I, 222n

22:2-10 I, 287

22:16 I, 297

22:37, 39 II, 74

22:40 II, 74

23:5-7 I, 357

23:6-12 I, 288

23:24-26 II, 403

23:25-28 II, 152

23:27-28 I, 357

23:29-36 I, 334n

23:33 I, 148

23:35 I, 341n

23:37 I, 289n;

II, 403n

24:48-49 I, 285n;

II, 125

25 I, 144

25:1-13 I, 172

25:14-19 I, 285n

25:30 I, 148

25:31-46 I, 286;

II, 220

25:41-43 I, 148

25:46 I, 160

26:11 I, 284

26:26 II, 339n

26:31 (& pars) I, 222n

26:52-53 I, 297

27:24-25 I, 334

1 Erroneously printed as Matt. 12:28-31 on p. I, 292.

Page 515

27:37-44 (& par) I, 322

27:40 II, 398

27:41-42 I, 298

27:43 II, 398

27:62-66 I, 363

27:64 I, 359-360

28:18-20 I, 114;

II, 349n

28:19 II, 327n

Mark

1:1-10 (& par) I, 297

1:4 II, 345

1:6 I, 297n

1:8 (& par) I, 353;

II, 437

1:10 (& par) I, 353;

II, 388

1:11 (& par) I, 291, 330;

II, 444

1:12 I, 353

1:14-15 I, 287

1:15 I, 37, 112n, 221, 279, 351, 388

1:16-17 (& par) I, 286

1:18 (& par) I, 354n

1:21-27 I, 294

1:24 I, 292

1:25 II, 394

1:34 I, 292

1:35 II, 216

1:36-38 I, 299

1:39 I, 293n

1:43 I, 293n

1:44-45 I, 299

1:44 I, 293

1:45 I, 294, 299n

2:5-11 II, 394

2:5-7 II, 114

2:6-8 (& par) II, 151

2:6-11 I, 293n

2:14 I, 286;

II, 212

2:15-18 II, 152

2:16-17 I, 293n

2:17 (& par) II, 78

2:18-22 (& par) I, 293

2:23-28 (& par) I, 285n

2:24-28 I, 293n

3:2-5 I, 293n;

II, 109

3:6^2 I, 358

3:7-8 I, 283

3:10 I, 293n

3:12 (& par) I, 292;

II, 394

3:14-15 I, 293n

3:16 I, 297

3:19-21 II, 475

3:22-30 (& par) II, 394

3:22-27 (& par) I, 279

3:31-35 (& par) I, 293n;

II, 106n, 475

3:31-33 (& par) II, 400

4 I, 279

4:15 (& par) I, 295n

4:19 (& par) I, 286

4:31 I, 227

4:39 (& par) II, 394

5:1-20 I, 283n

5:7 (& par) I, 292

5:14 I, 297

5:25-34 (& par) I, 289

5:29 I, 293n

5:34 I, 293n

5:43 (& par) I, 293, 299n

6:2-5 (& par) I, 294

6:2-3 I, 293n

6:4 II, 475

6:7 I, 293n

6:8-9 I, 286

6:12-13 I, 293n

6:31-37 II, 109

6:46 II, 216

7:5-15 I, 293n

7:6 II, 126

7:17-23 I, 293n;

II, 125

7:20-23 I, 300;

II, 151

7:248:7 I, 283

7:24 I, 299n

7:34-35 I, 293n

7:36 I, 294, 299n

8:7 (& par) I, 330

8:11-12 (& par) I, 293n, 294;

II, 398

8:15 I, 297

8:26 I, 299n

8:27-33 (& par) I, 295;

II, 213

8:27-30 I, 293n

8:29-33 II, 95n

8:30 I, 299n

8:31-33 I, 293n

8:33 (& par) II, 394

8:35-38 (& par) II, 123, 212, 219n

8:38 II, 392

9:2 (& par) II, 399n

9:7 I, 291

9:9 I, 299n

9:12-13 I, 222n

9:25 (& par) I, 292

9:30-32 I, 295

9:30 I, 299n

9:31-32 II, 95n

9:38-40 I, 293n

9:43 I, 160

9:48 I, 160

10:2-9 I, 293n

10:10-12^3 I, 290

10:13-16 I, 293n

10:17-22 I, 293n

10:21-28 (& par) I, 286

10:28-30 I, 290

10:30 II, 254n

10:32-34 I, 295;

II, 95n

10:35-44 I, 295

10:35-41 (& par) I, 293n, 333

10:38 II, 343n

10:42-44 II, 370

10:43-45 (& par) I, 358;

II, 219

10:44 (& par) II, 74

10:45 I, 308, 310, 316

11:15-18 I, 294

11:23 II, 125, 126n

2 Erroneously printed as Mark 2:6 on p. I, 358.

3 Also erroneously cited as Matt. 10:10-12 on p. I, 290.

Page 516

11:27-33 I, 293n

12:1-12 (& par) I, 283, 334

12:6 II, 399n

12:10-12 (& par) I, 222n

12:13-17 I, 293n

12:13 I, 297

12:18-27 I, 293n

12:35-37 I, 114

12:41-44 (& par) II, 152

12:41-42 I, 285

13:1-2 I, 293n

13:12-13 II, 106n

13:19-20 (& par) I, 163

13:19 I, 170

13:20 I, 167

13:21-22 (& par) I, 171

13:31 I, 157

13:32-36 I, 172

14:3-9 I, 293n

14:6 (& par) I, 290

14:7 I, 284

14:22 II, 339n

14:24 (& par) I, 309, 316

14:25 (& par) II, 338

14:32-42 (& par) I, 139;

II, 95n

14:35-36 (& par) I, 297

14:36 II, 324n

14:38 (& par) I, 297

14:47 (& par) I, 297

14:48-49 (& par) I, 222n

14:62 I, 157

15:34 I, 340;

II, 400

15:40-41 (& par) I, 290n

16:1-8 (& par) I, 290

Luke

1:1-4 I, 278

1:6 II, 182n, 474

1:26-38 I, 197

1:31-32 I, 296

1:35 I, 353;

II, 477

1:38 II, 471

1:47 II, 397n

1:48 II, 474

1:51-53 I, 287

1:51-52 II, 474

1:52 I, 296

1:67-79 II, 326n

1:68-78 II, 474

1:71-73 I, 287

1:71 I, 296

1:74 I, 296

2:7 II, 474

2:11 II, 397n

2:23 I, 286

2:24 II, 474

2:25 II, 474

2:26-35 II, 326n

2:35 II, 388

2:36-38 II, 100n

2:37 I, 288

2:38 II, 474

2:48-50 II, 475

2:49 II, 471

2:51 II, 125

3:3 II, 345

3:8 II, 345

3:10-14 II, 345

3:11-14 I, 287

3:15 II, 345

3:19 I, 297

3:38 II, 66n

4:1 II, 388

4:5-8 I, 279

4:11 II, 394

4:14 I, 292;

II, 388

4:16-17 II, 329n

4:18-19 I, 287n;

II, 388n

4:18 I, 292

4:24-29 I, 287n

4:25-26 I, 288

4:26-27 I, 283n

4:31-36 I, 294

4:34 I, 292

4:35-41 I, 293

4:35 I, 292

4:36 II, 114

4:41 I, 292

4:43 I, 279n

5:15 I, 294

6:12 II, 216n

6:17-38 II, 395n

6:20-25 I, 287

6:22 I, 295n

6:27-38 I, 287

7:9-13 I, 293n

7:12-15 I, 288

7:12 II, 444

7:25 I, 297n

7:35 II, 403

7:36-50 (& par) I, 289;

II, 152

7:42 II, 203

7:47 II, 114

7:48-49 II, 394

8:1-3 I, 290n

8:1-2 I, 293n

8:1 I, 279n

8:17 I, 146

8:42 II, 444

9:1-2 I, 293n

9:1 II, 114

9:2 I, 279

9:7 I, 297

9:17-19 I, 293n

9:18 II, 216n

9:38 II, 444

9:51-56 I, 283

9:60 I, 279

10:7 I, 223n

10:9-11 I, 278, 280

10:14-15 I, 158

10:21 II, 388

10:22 II, 399

10:23-24 (& par) I, 280

10:25-37 I, 283

10:38-42 I, 289

11:4 I, 287n;

II, 219

11:20 I, 280

11:27-28 I, 290;

II, 475

11:31-32 I, 280

11:47-51 I, 334

11:49-51 II, 403

12:8-9 II, 392, 435

12:11 II, 86n

12:16-34 I, 288

12:18-30 I, 280n

12:19 II, 123

12:34-36 I, 144

12:35-40 I, 172

12:50 II, 343n

12:51-53 I, 290

1314 I, 279

13:10-16 I, 293n

Page 517

13:31-33 I, 297

13:34-35 I, 289n

14:7-11 I, 288;

II, 152

14:12-13 I, 288

14:15-24 I, 288;

II, 338

14:26-27 I, 290

15:6-10 II, 78

15:8-10 I, 289n

15:17 II, 126n

16:16 I, 280

16:19-31 I, 288

16:23 I, 158

17:11-19 I, 283

17:18 I, 283

17:30 I, 196

18:1-8 I, 288

19:8 I, 288

20:13 II, 399n

21:15-16 (& par) I, 297

21:19 II, 123

21:28 II, 180n, 187n

21:34-36 I, 144

21:36 I, 172

22:2-3 I, 297

22:3 I, 293

22:19 II, 339n

22:25 (& par) I, 357;

II, 152

22:31-32 II, 232

22:53 I, 293, 297

23:35-39 (& par) II, 152

23:37 I, 298

24:11 I, 290

24:13-27 I, 332

24:25-26 I, 222n;

II, 126n

24:27 II, 349n

24:30-31 I, 120;

II, 338n

24:35 II, 340

24:36-43 II, 338n

24:44-49 II, 349n

24:44-48 I, 332

24:46-47 I, 222n

John

1:1-18 II, 402, 411

1:1-14 I, 105

1:1-5 II, 428

1:1-4 I, 15

1:1 II, 389

1:3 II, 404, 434n, 446n

1:5-9 II, 159n, 404

1:10 II, 158

1:11 II, 403

1:12 II, 346

1:13 II, 386n

1:14-18 II, 428

1:14 I, 219n;

II, 203n, 399n, 402n, 444

1:16 I, 343n

1:17 I, 219n;

II, 203

1:18 II, 389, 399n, 402n, 428, 444

1:19-22 I, 272n

1:29 I, 310n

1:36 I, 310n

2:3-5 II, 475

2:18-22 I, 332

2:18 I, 294;

II, 152, 398

3:3-8 II, 386, 411

3:3-5 II, 345n, 346n

3:16-17 II, 158, 271

3:16 II, 399n, 444n

3:17 II, 401

3:18 II, 399n, 444n

3:19 I, 143

3:21 I, 219

3:22 II, 349

3:34 II, 435

4 I, 289

4:1-2 II, 349

4:4-44 I, 283

4:13-15 I, 332

4:31 I, 219n

5 II, 435

5:8, 9 II, 399

5:16-18 II, 394

5:17-32 II, 399, 435

5:19 I, 330;

II, 93, 447

5:20 II, 435

5:21-29 I, 352n

5:22 II, 435

5:23 II, 435

5:24 I, 138

5:28-29 I, 137

5:30 I, 330;

II, 93

5:32, 37 II, 435

6:14-15 I, 299

6:30 I, 294;

II, 152, 398

6:32-58 I, 315

6:32-52 I, 332

6:38 II, 93

6:39 II, 128n

6:40 I, 137

6:54 I, 137

6:65 II, 128n

7:3-8 II, 475

7:11-12 I, 272n

7:18 I, 219n

7:19-20 I, 294

7:28 I, 219n

8:12 II, 159n

8:13-16 I, 219n

8:16 II, 93

8:21 I, 322n

8:23 II, 158

8:24 I, 322n

8:26 I, 219n

8:34 I, 322n;

II, 158

8:44-48 I, 294, 322n

8:44 II, 158, 161n

8:47 II, 158n

8:58 II, 114

9:4-5 II, 159n

10:1-18 I, 53

10:1-6 I, 332

10:11 I, 309n

10:14-15 II, 125

10:15 I, 309n

10:19-21 I, 294

10:22-23 II, 231

10:24 II, 123

10:27-29 II, 221n

10:27 II, 221

10:34-35 I, 221

10:41 I, 219n

11:1-37 I, 289

11:9-10 II, 159n

11:24-25 I, 136

11:32-36 II, 109

11:48 I, 297

12:7-17 I, 171

12:14-16 I, 222n

12:24 II, 219n

12:31 I, 293, 322n;

II, 158

12:39-41 II, 126n

Page 518

12:46 II, 158, 159n

13:2 I, 293, 297;

II, 125

13:14-15 II, 349n

13:14 II, 74

13:18-19 I, 222n

13:27 I, 293, 297, 322n

13:34-35 II, 74

14:2-3 I, 138, 140

14:16-28 I, 162

14:16 I, 355;

II, 437

14:17 I, 219n;

II, 437

14:20-23 II, 435

14:23-36 II, 386

14:23 II, 437

14:25-26 I, 354n;

II, 384n

14:26 I, 355;

II, 388, 437

14:28 II, 435

14:30 I, 293, 322n;

II, 158

14:31 II, 93, 435

15 II, 159

15:1-11 II, 437

15:1-7 II, 384

15:8-10 I, 289n

15:9-13 II, 159

15:10 II, 435

15:12-13 I, 309n, 317n;

II, 74

15:18-25 I, 163n;

II, 158n

15:18-19 II, 272

15:26 I, 219n, 354n, 355;

II, 384n, 388, 437

15:37-38 I, 309n

16:6 II, 125

16:7 I, 355;

II, 388, 437

16:11 I, 293, 322n;

II, 158

16:13-16 I, 354n;

II, 384n

16:13-15 II, 382, 388, 435, 437

16:13-14 I, 257

16:13 I, 219n

16:14 II, 387n

16:33 I, 171;

II, 158

17:5 II, 158, 428

17:12 I, 222n

17:14-17 I, 163;

II, 158n

17:14-16 II, 272

17:15 I, 322n;

II, 158

17:20-23 II, 233

17:24 II, 158, 428

18:36 II, 158n

19:15 I, 298

19:25-27 II, 475

19:35-36 I, 219n

20:28 II, 389

20:30 I, 239n

21:9-14 II, 338n

21:12 I, 120

21:13 II, 340

21:15-17 II, 232

21:24 I, 219n

21:25 I, 239n

Acts

16 II, 251

1:2-3 II, 252, 349n

1:2 I, 354n;

II, 384n, 388

1:4 II, 345

1:5 I, 121n, 354n;

II, 251

1:6 I, 222n

1:8 I, 121n;

II, 251

1:14 II, 250

1:21-26 II, 369

1:24 II, 126n, 327n

2:1-4 II, 251, 345

2:2-4 II, 496

2:4 I, 121n;

II, 341

2:5-11 I, 121;

II, 249

2:13 II, 322

2:14-36 II, 252n

2:14-21 I, 13

2:14-19 I, 36n

2:16-36 II, 217

2:16-21 II, 251

2:17-18 I, 121n;

II, 250, 341

2:17 II, 367, 437

2:21 II, 327n

2:22-25 I, 36

2:22-24 I, 13

2:22 II, 345n

2:23 I, 335;

II, 128n, 402n

2:24-27 I, 352

2:24 I, 139

2:25-36 I, 13

2:26 II, 322

2:27 I, 158, 162

2:28 II, 322

2:31 I, 158, 162, 352

2:32-36 II, 339

2:32-33 I, 364

2:32 I, 352n, 365

2:33 I, 37, 121n, 136, 161, 322, 354n;

II, 251, 341, 346n, 388, 437

2:34-35 I, 114n

2:36 I, 36, 362;

II, 393, 398, 436, 445n

2:37-41 II, 345

2:37 I, 335

2:38-41 II, 345n

2:38 I, 37, 121n;

II, 293, 341, 346n, 387

2:40 II, 346n

2:41 II, 249

2:42-47 II, 339

2:42 I, 120;

II, 249, 252, 329, 338n, 340

2:43-47 II, 250

2:43 II, 123, 251n

2:44-47 II, 327

2:44-45 I, 121

2:46-47 I, 120;

II, 220, 249, 322

2:46 II, 338n, 340

2:47 I, 121;

II, 250

3:6 II, 387

3:8 II, 322

3:10 II, 251n

3:12-26 II, 252n

3:12-14 I, 13

3:13-15 I, 322, 335

3:13 I, 335;

II, 97n

3:15 I, 352;

II, 76, 412

3:16 II, 251n, 387

3:18-26 I, 13

3:20-21 I, 36

3:21 I, 143, 157

Page 519

3:22-26 I, 36

3:23-26 I, 36n

3:26 I, 335;

II, 97n

4:4 II, 249

4:7-12 II, 252n

4:8 I, 121n

4:10-12 I, 36n

4:10 I, 335;

II, 345n, 387

4:11 I, 36

4:16 II, 251n

4:24-31 II, 252n, 322

4:25 I, 121n

4:27 I, 335;

II, 97n

4:28 II, 128n

4:29-30 II, 327n

4:30 I, 335;

II, 251n, 387

4:31 I, 121n

4:325:11 I, 121

4:32-37 II, 250

4:32 II, 125

4:33 II, 203n, 250

5:1-11 I, 324;

II, 250

5:3 I, 121n

5:4 II, 257

5:14-16 II, 251n

5:14 II, 250

5:16 I, 324

5:28 I, 335

5:30-32 I, 36n;

II, 252n

5:30-31 I, 36, 322

5:30 II, 345n

5:31-32 II, 293

5:31 I, 36, 322, 352, 364;

II, 76n, 397n

5:32 I, 37, 121n, 365;

II, 388n

5:41-42 II, 322

5:41 II, 387

5:42 I, 120

6:1-6 II, 250, 367

6:1 I, 122;

II, 249, 339

6:4 II, 250

6:5-6 II, 376

6:7 II, 94n

6:87:60 II, 367

6:8 II, 251n

7:2-55 II, 252n

7:23 II, 125

7:51 II, 126n

7:52 II, 345n

7:56 II, 393

7:59 II, 327n

7:60 I, 141

8:1 I, 123;

II, 253

8:3 II, 250

8:4-26 II, 249

8:4-8 II, 264n

8:7 I, 324

8:9-24 I, 324

8:12-17 II, 345

8:12-13 II, 387

8:12 II, 250

8:16 II, 346n

8:17-19 II, 376

8:22 II, 125

8:26-39 II, 249

8:27-35 I, 222n

8:32-35 I, 336n

8:32-33 I, 335

8:36-39 II, 345n

8:39 II, 322

9:2 II, 250

9:14 II, 327n

9:16 II, 387

9:17-18 II, 345n

9:21 II, 327n

1011:18 II, 249

10 I, 123

10:34-43 I, 278

10:35 II, 252

10:36-43 I, 36n

10:36-41 I, 13, 36

10:38 I, 322

10:40-41 I, 365;

II, 259n, 338n

10:40 I, 352n

10:41 I, 322, 360, 362

10:42 I, 36, 143;

II, 393

10:43 I, 37

10:44-48 II, 264n

10:45-48 II, 345

10:47-48 II, 387

10:48 II, 346n

11:16 I, 354n

11:19-26 I, 123

11:20 II, 249

11:27-30 II, 256

11:27 II, 367n

11:30 II, 367

12:17 II, 362n

13:1 II, 123, 266, 367n, 372

13:2-3 II, 376

13:2 II, 327n

13:6-12 I, 324

13:14-16 II, 329n

13:16-41 I, 13

13:17-41 I, 36n

13:23-31 I, 36

13:23 II, 397n

13:27-30 I, 322

13:27 I, 322, 332;

II, 402n

13:30-33 II, 444

13:31 I, 365

13:32-37 I, 36

13:33 I, 352n

13:35-37 I, 352

13:48-50 II, 253n

14 I, 253

14:1-6 II, 253n

14:1, 4 II, 369

14:11-18 I, 41^4

14:15-18 II, 304, 416n

14:15-17 I, 14, 251

14:17 II, 125

14:22 I, 123, 171

14:23 II, 367

15 II, 249

15:2 II, 367

15:8 II, 126n

15:13 II, 362n

15:32 II, 367n

15:37-41 II, 255n

16:6-10 II, 264n

16:11-15 II, 257

16:14-15 II, 345n

16:16-18 I, 324

4 Erroneously printed as Acts 13:15-17 on I, 41.

Page 520

16:18 I, 324

16:33 II, 345n

17 I, 253

17:2-3 I, 222n

17:4, 12 II, 257

17:18-31 I, 14, 41

17:22-31 II, 304

17:23 I, 251

17:28 I, 251

17:30-32 I, 251

17:31 II, 393

17:34 II, 257

18:1-4 II, 257n

18:8 II, 345n

18:18 II, 257n

18:24-28 II, 372

18:26 II, 257n, 367

19:1-6 II, 345

19:5-6 II, 387

19:5 II, 346n

19:6 II, 376

19:11 I, 324

19:13-19 I, 324

19:17 II, 387n

20:4 II, 256

20:7, 11 II, 338n

20:17 II, 361n, 362, 367

20:24 II, 123

20:28 I, 310n, 336;

II, 361n, 362, 371

21:8 II, 372

21:9 II, 257, 367

21:10 II, 367n

21:18-20 II, 371

21:18 II, 362n, 367

22:10 II, 327n

22:16 II, 327n, 346n

23:1 II, 124n

23:6-9 I, 229

24:16 II, 124n

24:17 II, 256

26:12-18 I, 197

26:17 I, 324

26:22-23 I, 222n

28:26-27 II, 126n

Romans

15 II, 186

14 II, 184

1:1-4 I, 36n

1:2-3 I, 36

1:2 II, 402n

1:3-4 I, 13

1:3 II, 118n

1:4 I, 36, 37, 38n, 136, 322, 353n, 362;

II, 386, 389, 393n, 436

1:5 II, 74n, 94n, 187n

1:14 II, 255

1:17 I, 143, 222n;

II, 187, 188n

1:183:20 II, 180, 185

1:18-32 II, 185

1:18 I, 143

1:19-23 II, 125

1:19-21 I, 250

1:19-20 I, 14

1:213:20 I, 14

1:24 II, 86, 125

1:25 II, 323

1:26 II, 86

1:28 II, 86

1:32 II, 182n

2 II, 185

2:5-10 I, 14

2:5 I, 148, 196

2:8 I, 148

2:10 II, 93

2:14-16 I, 14, 252, 255

2:15-16 I, 159

2:15 II, 124

2:16 I, 36, 36n, 143, 322;

II, 393

2:17 II, 93

2:26 II, 182n

2:28 II, 118

2:28-29 II, 126

3:1-4 I, 170

3:1-3 II, 185

3:2-9 II, 193

3:2 II, 186

3:3-8 I, 219;

II, 185, 187n

3:4 I, 222n

3:58:39 I, 170

3:9-19 I, 366

3:10 I, 222n

3:19 II, 180

3:21-26 I, 143;

II, 180-181, 186-187

3:21

3:23-25 I, 310

3:24-26 I, 316

3:24 II, 191

3:25-26 I, 345;

II, 181, 186-187

3:25 II, 193

4 I, 14;

II, 187-188, 189, 192

4:1-8 II, 181, 188

4:1 II, 118n

4:12 II, 187n

4:16 II, 187n

4:17-25 II, 188

4:17 I, 364;

II, 188, 412

4:18-25 II, 412

4:19-21 II, 188

4:22 II, 188

4:24-25 II, 193

4:24 I, 353n;

II, 188

4:25 I, 355;

II, 182n, 188

58 II, 86, 182-184, 189-190

5 II, 182-183, 189

5:1-10 II, 12

5:1-6 I, 163n

5:1-5 I, 163

5:1-4 II, 207

5:2-4 II, 189

5:2 II, 189

5:3-11 II, 254

5:3 I, 171;

II, 189

5:5-6 I, 354;

II, 189

5:5 II, 384

5:6-11 I, 165n

5:6-10 I, 346;

II, 193

5:7 II, 78

5:8-10 I, 317;

II, 78, 93, 197, 396

5:9 I, 148, 172, 310n;

II, 189

5:10 II, 189

5:12-21 I, 138;

II, 66, 74, 154, 181

5:12 II, 204

5:15 II, 189, 204

5:16 II, 181, 190

Page 521

5:17-18 I, 148

5:17 I, 323, 352;

II, 189, 193

5:18 I, 149;

II, 182, 190

5:19 I, 338;

II, 93, 187n

5:20-21 I, 149

5:21 I, 323;

II, 193

68 II, 186

67 I, 14

6 II, 119, 134, 155, 182

6:3-7 II, 346

6:3-5 II, 346n

6:4 I, 352n;

II, 436n

6:6 II, 119

6:7-10 I, 353n

6:11 II, 188n

6:12-13 I, 323;

II, 118-119

6:13-23 II, 119, 154

6:13 II, 193

6:16-22 II, 134

6:16-19 II, 121

6:16-17 II, 94n

6:19 II, 193, 427

6:22 II, 427

7 II, 22, 66, 154-156, 158, 189

7:1-4 I, 353n

7:5-25 I, 138;

II, 134

7:5 I, 323;

II, 118n

7:6 II, 23, 118n, 156, 386

7:7-11 II, 155-156, 214n

7:12 I, 323;

II, 157

7:14-23 II, 154-155

7:18 I, 323, 155

7:24 II, 23, 119, 155

7:25 II, 155

8 I, 14;

II, 119, 133-134, 155, 190, 383

8:1-3 II, 189

8:2 II, 134

8:3-9 I, 323;

II, 119

8:3 I, 309n;

II, 401, 444

8:4 II, 182n, 190n

8:5-8 II, 383

8:6-8 II, 134

8:6 II, 386n

8:10-11 II, 386

8:11 I, 353n;

II, 119, 389, 429, 436

8:13 II, 119, 134

8:14-17 II, 388n

8:14 II, 134, 383

8:15-17 II, 134, 136, 401

8:15-16 II, 383

8:15 II, 324

8:16 II, 133

8:17 II, 119

8:18-39 I, 163

8:18-25 I, 163

8:18-23 I, 107;

II, 119, 193

8:18-19 I, 196

8:18 I, 163n;

II, 188n, 189

8:19-25 I, 172;

II, 109

8:19-23 I, 123;

II, 113, 385, 429, 477

8:21-23 II, 263, 297

8:21 II, 119, 133-134, 189

8:22-27 II, 438

8:22-23 II, 386n

8:23 I, 123, 355;

II, 120, 180n, 187, 189, 385

8:24 II, 189

8:25-27 II, 327n

8:25 II, 189

8:26-27 I, 355;

II, 126n, 189, 383

8:28 II, 289, 504

8:29-30 II, 128n, 207, 221, 222

8:29 II, 444

8:31-39 I, 163n, 317

8:31-32 I, 346;

II, 193

8:32-39 II, 396

8:32-35 II, 189

8:32 I, 341;

II, 444

8:33-34 II, 188, 190

8:34 I, 36, 36n, 322, 352n;

II, 189-190, 437

8:35-39 I, 354;

II, 189-190

8:36 I, 222n;

II, 188n, 190

8:37-39 I, 323

8:38-39 I, 141, 341;

II, 157n

8:38 II, 86

911 I, 170;

II, 128, 185, 190

9 II, 186

9:3 II, 118n

9:4-5 II, 118n, 186

9:5 II, 323, 389

9:6 II, 185

9:14, 19 II, 185

9:17 I, 223n

9:20-21 II, 185

9:22-23 I, 222n

10:1 II, 125

10:6-10 II, 126

10:8-9 I, 36n, 37

10:9-10 II, 188

10:9 I, 38n, 322, 352n

10:13-14 II, 327n

10:16 II, 187n

11 I, 115, 170, 186

11:1 II, 185

11:2 I, 170

11:3 II, 123

11:5-6 II, 203n

11:8 I, 222n

11:13 II, 369

11:14 II, 118

11:22 II, 222

11:26 I, 222n

11:29 II, 221

11:33-36 II, 323

12 II, 85

1216 I, 14;

II, 85

12:1 I, 315n;

II, 118, 327

12:2 II, 85, 158n

12:3-16 II, 85

12:4-8 II, 118, 230, 244, 357n

12:4-5 II, 230n

12:6-8 II, 367

12:8 II, 371

12:9-10 II, 85

12:1413:14 II, 84

12:1413:10 I, 14;

II, 85

13 II, 27, 87, 127n, 157n

13:1-7 II, 71, 85-88

13:1 II, 85n, 87, 285n

Page 522

13:8-11 II, 85

13:8 II, 85

13:11-14 II, 85

13:14 II, 118

14 II, 75, 259

14:115:7 II, 85, 261

14:9 I, 36n

14:10-13 I, 144

14:11 I. 222n

14:15 I, 309

15:1-2 II, 75

15:3 II, 75

15:7 II, 75

15:8 I, 219;

II, 187n

15:9 I, 222n

15:13 II, 133

15:18 II, 187n

15:19-20 II, 387

15:21 I, 222n

15:25-27 II, 256

15:26 I, 315n

16:1-2 II, 257n

16:3 II, 257n

16:5 II, 263, 266, 385n

16:6 II, 257

16:7 II, 257n, 369n

16:12 II, 257

16:20 I, 322n;

II, 157n

16:25-26 I, 170;

II, 402n

16:26 II, 74n, 94n, 187n

1 Corinthians

1:2 II, 327n, 387

1:4-7 II, 253

1:5-7 I, 123

1:7 I, 198

1:82:5 I, 276

1:8 I, 147

1:10 II, 125

1:172:5 II, 253n

1:18-29 II, 403

1:19 I, 222n

1:20-28 II, 158n

1:20 I, 219n;

II, 158n

1:23 I, 36n, 123

1:24 II, 403

1:27-28 II, 189

1:28-30 II, 402

1:28 I, 364;

II, 412

1:30 II, 180n, 187n, 403

2:2-5 I, 36n, 123

2:6-9 I, 323;

II, 85n, 87, 157n, 158n, 404

2:7 I, 170, 332;

II, 403

2:9 I, 222n

2:10-16 II, 136

2:10-14 II, 383

2:12-13 I, 354n

2:13 I, 223n

2:14 II, 123n

2:15 II, 197

3:1-15 I, 123

3:1-4 II, 260n

3:3 II, 119

3:11-15 I, 146

3:12-15^5 I, 159

3:12 II, 158n

3:13 I, 196

3:16-17 II, 386

3:18-21 II, 260n

3:18 II, 158n

3:19-20 I, 222n

4:1 II, 188n

4:4-5 II, 124n

4:4 II, 428n

4:5 I, 146, 153, 196, 366;

II, 125

4:6 II, 428n

4:8 I, 123;

II, 253

4:9-16 I, 123

4:9-13 II, 254

4:9 II, 369n

4:10-11 I, 352n

4:21 II, 133

5:1-5 II, 260n

5:6 II, 375n

5:7 I, 310n

6:1-8 II, 157n

6:1-3 II, 87n

6:2 II, 87, 197

6:3 II, 87

6:9-11 II, 346n

6:11 II, 345n, 346, 385

6:16 II, 118

6:17-20 II, 386

6:20 I, 310

7:5 I, 322n;

II, 157n

7:6-16 II, 106

7:23 I, 310

7:31 II, 158n

7:37 II, 125

8 II, 125n, 261

8:1-7 II, 124

8:4 II, 124

8:5-6 I, 44;

II, 308, 397

8:6 I, 38n;

II, 385n, 389, 404, 434n, 446n

8:7-12 I, 252

8:11 I, 136, 309;

II, 124

8:12 II, 124

8:19-24 I, 136

9:1 II, 369

9:19 II, 97n

9:27 II, 221n

10:1-12 II, 347

10:1-2 II, 343n

10:12 II, 221n, 260n

10:16-17 I, 315;

II, 230

10:16 II, 340

10:17 II, 340

10:20-21 I, 323n;

II, 157n

10:23-29 II, 124

10:31-33 II, 323n

1114 II, 322

11:2-16 II, 258n

11:2 I, 239n

11:4-5 II, 329

11:20-22 I, 123;

II, 255, 339

11:23-33 II, 339

11:23-32 II, 255

11:23-30 I, 123

11:23-25 II, 339

11:26 I, 123

11:30 II, 253

12 II, 367

12:3-13 II, 341

5 Erroneously printed as 2 Cor. 3:12-15 on p. I, 159.

Page 523

12:3 I, 38n;

II, 387n

12:4-31 II, 219

12:4-13 I, 123;

II, 230n

12:4-11 II, 244, 357n

12:4-6 II, 385n

12:4-5 II, 327

12:7 II, 330

12:8-10 II, 329, 367

12:8 II, 367n

12:12-31 II, 118

12:12 II, 230

12:13 II, 267n, 345n, 347, 386

12:14 II, 230

12:21-31 II, 230

12:28 II, 266n, 267n, 357n, 367

13 II, 259

14 I, 123

14:6 II, 329

14:12 II, 330

14:15 II, 326n, 327n

14:16 II, 324

14:26-33 II, 260, 328

14:26 II, 326n, 329-330

14:29-31 II, 329

14:31 II, 330

14:34-35 I, 228;

II, 71

14:34 II, 258n

14:37 I, 223n;

II, 259n

15 I, 136

15:1-7 I, 36n, 41

15:3-7 I, 363

15:3-4 I, 36, 222n;

II, 402n

15:3 I, 322

15:4 I, 352n

15:5-9 I, 362

15:5-8 I, 360

15:5-7 I, 365

15:8-9 I, 362;

II, 369

15:9 II, 266n

15:12-19 I, 41, 107

15:18 II, 253

15:20 I, 123, 354;

II, 203, 263, 385

15:21-22 I, 352

15:22 I, 148, 149;

II, 66n

15:23-34 II, 133

15:23 I, 123, 136, 354, 362;

II, 263, 385

15:24-28 II, 438

15:24-26 I, 323;

II, 157n

15:24 II, 85, 87n

15:25 I, 114n;

II, 293, 437

15:26 I, 138, 323;

II, 155

15:27-28 II, 468

15:27 I, 200

15:28 I, 159, 160;

II, 447

15:35-44 I, 362

15:38 II, 118n

15:39 II, 118

15:44-53 II, 476

15:44-49 II, 123n, 133

15:45-50 II, 66

15:45-49 II, 411

15:45-47 II, 401n

15:45 I, 222n, 352, 66;

II, 385, 387n

15:50 II, 118

15:51-58 I, 107

15:53 II, 133

15:54-57 I, 139

15:54-56 I, 138

15:56 I, 323;

II, 155

16:1-4 II, 256

16:9 II, 266

16:15 II, 263, 385n

16:19 II, 257n

16:20-24 II, 329n

16:22 I, 37n,6 121n, 158

16:23 II, 249n

2 Corinthians

1:4-6 II, 254

1:17 II, 118

1:20 II, 323

1:22 I, 123;

II, 345n, 385-386

1:232:11 II, 375n

2:7, 10 II, 203

2:10-16 II, 133

2:11 I, 322n;

II, 157n

2:13 II, 118, 133

2:14 II, 133

3:2-3 I, 51

3:6 II, 386n

3:17-18 II, 387n, 388n

3:17 II, 133, 385

3:18 II, 385, 436n, 445

4:2 I, 219

4:4 I, 322n;

II, 105, 157n, 158n, 161n, 411, 445

4:5 I, 255-256;

II, 97n

4:6-15 II, 388n

4:6 II, 445

4:7-17 II, 254

4:7-11 II, 12

4:8-11 II, 254

4:10-12 II, 118

4:10 I, 140

4:13 I, 222n;

II, 133

5:1-9 I, 140

5:1-2 I, 138

5:4 I, 140, 157, 166;

II, 477

5:5 I, 123;

II, 385, 386n

5:6-8 I, 138

5:10 I, 144

5:11 II, 124n

5:12 II, 126

5:17 II, 402, 408, 412

5:21 I, 309

6 II, 119

6:7-8 I, 219

6:15-16 I, 323n;

II, 119, 157n

6:17, 19 II, 119

7:5 II, 118, 133

7:8-13 II, 375n

7:9-10 II, 158n

8:7 II, 257

8:9 II, 75, 219n, 401n

8:13-15 II, 256

8:19 II, 323n

8:23 II, 369n

6Erroneously printed as 1 Cor. 16:23 on p. I, 37n.

Page 524

9:6-15 II, 219n

9:11-15 II, 256, 328n

9:11-14 II, 75

9:11-13 II, 323n

10:2 II, 188n

10:5-10 II, 259n

10:7 II, 188n

10:11 II, 188n

11:3 I, 322n;

II, 66n, 157n

11:5 II, 369n

11:13-15 II, 376

11:13-14 I, 322n;

II, 157n

11:14-15 I, 171, 357;

II, 161n

11:18 II, 119

11:22-33 II, 254

12:1 II, 369n

12:7 I, 322n;

II, 157n

12:8 I, 121n;

II, 327n

13:14 II, 133

Galatians

1:1 I, 353n;

II, 369

1:2 II, 266

1:3-4 I, 36

1:3 I, 322

1:4-5 II, 323

1:4 II, 155n, 158n

1:5-6 I, 219n^7

1:6-9 I, 41

1:7-8 I, 223n

1:8-9 II, 259

1:13 II, 266n

1:19 II, 362n, 369n

1:22 II, 266

2:4 II, 133

2:5 I, 219

2:7-10 II, 255n, 256, 265

2:11-21 II, 156

2:12 II, 362n

2:14 I, 219

2:16 II, 186

2:19-20 I, 353

2:20 I, 165n, 317n, 346;

II, 182n, 186n, 396

3:1 I, 36n, 277;

II, 253n

3:2-5 II, 386

3:2 II, 186, 346

3:3-4 II, 156n

3:3 II, 188n, 155

3:5 II, 186, 346

3:6 I, 216

3:8 I, 223n

3:10 I, 222n

3:11 II, 186n, 188n

3:13 I, 222n, 310, 340

3:14 II, 346

3:16 II, 230n

3:20 II, 155n

3:22 II, 186n

3:23-26 II, 186n

3:23-24 II, 156

3:23 I, 323n

3:26-29 II, 437

3:26-27 II, 346

3:27 II, 346n

3:28-29 II, 230n

3:28 I, 228;

II, 71, 258n, 265n, 347

4 II, 401n

4:1-5 I, 323n;

II, 23, 156

4:3-9 I, 323n;

II, 156

4:4-6 II, 428

4:4 II, 401

4:5 I, 310

4:6-7 II, 133-134, 136, 383

4:6 I, 36n, 37, 354n, 355;

II, 324, 401, 437-438

4:8-9 I, 323n, 156

4:10 II, 156

4:12-14 I, 277

4:13-14 I, 123;

II, 253n

4:13 II, 118

4:22-31 II, 133, 155, 156n

4:27 I, 222n

4:30 II, 384

5:1 II, 133

5:5 II, 386n, 438

5:13 II, 97n, 133

5:16-25 II, 386n

5:16-24 II, 155

5:16-18 I, 323;

II, 118, 133-134

5:16 II, 214n

5:17 II, 119

5:19-21 II, 260

5:19-20 II, 119

5:24 I, 323;

II, 118, 214

5:25 II, 386n

6:1 II, 133

6:2 II, 74

6:8 I, 323;

II, 386n

6:12-13 II, 156n

6:13 II, 118n

6:14 II, 158n

6:17 II, 118n

6:18 II, 133

Ephesians

13 II, 81

1:4 II, 202

1:7 I, 310n;

II, 180n

1:9-10 II, 402

1:10 I, 148, 157;

II, 433

1:11-13 II, 327n

1:11 II, 128n

1:13 II, 345n, 346n, 386n

1:14 I, 123;

II, 180n, 187n, 385

1:16-23 II, 327n

1:19-21 I, 102

1:20-22 I, 323;

II, 87n, 157n

1:20 I, 114n

1:21 II, 81, 85n

1:22-23 II, 81

1:22 II, 267

1:23 II, 267n

2:2-3 I, 322n;

II, 118

2:2 I, 157;

II, 85n, 86n, 157n, 158n

2:3 II, 214n

7Appears to be the wrong citation on p. I, 221.

Page 525

2:5 II, 197n

2:6 II, 81

2:8-9 II, 197n

2:8 II, 346

2:10 II, 128, 202

2:11-22 II, 255, 265n

2:11-19 II, 81

2:14-16 I, 323;

II, 156

2:15 II, 23

2:16 II, 267n

2:20-22 II, 81

2:20 II, 367-368

2:22 II, 386

3:3-4 I, 170

3:3-6 I, 171

3:4-11 II, 265n

3:4-6 II, 402n

3:6-10 II, 255

3:6 II, 267n

3:9-11 II, 267n

3:9 II, 433

3:10 I, 157, 323n;

II, 81, 84, 85n, 157n, 285

3:11 II, 402n

3:12 II, 186n

3:14-21 II, 323, 327n

3:16 II, 436n

3:17 II, 346

46 II, 81

4:1 II, 202

4:2 II, 81

4:4-16 II, 81

4:4-11 II, 267n

4:4-6 II, 230n, 327

4:4-5 II, 345n

4:4 II, 202

4:7-16 II, 230

4:7-13 II,

4:9-10 I, 157

4:11-16 II, 260, 265, 374

4:11 II, 357n, 361n, 365, 367, 372

4:13 II, 99, 186n, 211-212

4:15-16 II, 210n, 212, 267

4:17-23 II, 125

4:21-25 I, 219

4:27 II, 210n

4:28-32 II, 346n

4:30 II, 180n, 187n, 345n

4:325:2 II, 81

4:32 II, 75

5:1-2 II, 75

5:2 I, 315n

5:14 II, 326n

5:186:9 II, 80

5:18 II, 326n

5:19 II, 326

5:216:9 II, 80-81, 88

5:22-29 II, 71

5:23 II, 397

5:26 II, 346n

5:27 II, 347

5:29-31 II, 118

6:5 II, 118

6:10-20 I, 163, 322n;

II, 81, 157

6:11, 12 II, 157n

6:12 II, 85n

6:18 II, 327n

Philippians

1:1 II, 362, 371

1:6 II, 220, 221n

1:7 II, 125

1:11 II, 323n

1:21 II, 182n

1:23 I, 137, 141

1:27-30 I, 163n;

II, 123n, 133

1:29-30 II, 254

2 II, 468

2:3-4 II, 74

2:5-8 II, 75n

2:6-11 II, 326n, 397, 401n

2:6-8 II, 467

2:6ff. I, 38

2:6 II, 401n, 445

2:7 II, 97n, 401n

2:8 I, 338;

II, 74, 93

2:9-11 I, 38n, 322;

II, 87n, 436, 468

2:10-11 II, 346n

2:10 II, 285

2:11 I, 38

2:12 II, 197

2:17 I, 315n

3:3-7 II, 119

3:3 II, 387n

3:6 II, 266n

3:8-11 II, 254

3:10-14 II, 12

3:10 II, 125

3:19 II, 186

3:20-21 I, 141, 158;

II, 120, 438

3:20 II, 397

4:2-3 II, 258

4:8 II, 328n

4:20 II, 323n

4:23 II, 133

Colossians

1:13-20 I, 323n

1:13-17 II, 402n, 428

1:14 I, 310n;

II, 180n

1:15-20 I, 105;

II, 326n

1:15-17 II, 389

1:15 II, 105, 428n, 434, 444-445

1:16-20 II, 157n

1:16 I, 157;

II, 85n, 87n, 285, 404, 408, 417, 434n, 446n

1:18-20 II, 404

1:18-19 II, 267n

1:18 II, 444

1:19 II, 389

1:20 I, 148, 149, 157;

II, 87n, 157, 285-286

1:24 II, 254, 267n

1:26-27 II, 402n

2:2 II, 125, 389, 402n

2:8-9 II, 156

2:8 I, 323n

2:9-13 II, 437

2:9 II, 389

2:10 II, 85n, 157n

2:12 II, 346

2:14-15 I, 323;

II, 23, 156

2:15 I, 323, 359;

II, 85n, 157n

Page 526

2:18-23 I, 323n;

II, 118, 156

2:19 II, 267

2:23 II, 156n

3:1-4 I, 352n

3:1-3 I, 140

3:1 I, 114n

3:10-14 I, 365

3:10 II, 125

3:11 II, 255, 265n

3:16 II, 326n, 329

4:6 II, 329n

1 Thessalonians

1:1 II, 266

1:6 II, 253n

1:7 I, 196

1:10 I, 36, 36n, 143, 148, 158, 172, 352n

1:17 II, 322

2:2 II, 253n

2:4 II, 126n

2:6 II, 369n

2:8 I, 196

2:13 II, 259n

2:14-15 II, 253n, 254

2:18 I, 322n;

II, 157n

3:5 I, 322n;

II, 157n

3:12 I, 121n

4:1-2 I, 239n

4:2 I, 223n

4:5 II, 214

4:13 I, 107;

II, 253

4:145:3 I, 144

4:14-17 I, 163

4:14 I, 223n

4:15 I, 141

4:16-17 I, 172

4:185:11 I, 107

5:2-7 I, 163

5:8-9 II, 197n

5:9 I, 172

5:10 I, 309

5:23 I, 147

5:27 II, 329n

2 Thessalonians

1:5 II, 254

1:6-10 I, 144

1:7 I, 170

1:8-9 I, 148

1:9 I, 160

2 I, 119

2:3-11 I, 163, 170, 323;

II, 157n

2:13-14 I, 239n

2:13 II, 385n, 386n

3:2-5 I, 121n

3:3 I, 322n;

II, 157n, 221n

3:6 I, 223n

3:12 I, 223n

3:14 II, 259n

1 Timothy

1:1-2 II, 71

1:5 II, 124

1:16 I, 153

1:17 II, 323

1:19 II, 125n

2:4 I, 148, 149, 150, 219n

2:6 I, 300

2:9-15 II, 71

2:11-15 II, 66n, 258n

2:12-15 I, 228

3:2 II, 362

3:7 I, 43

3:8-13 II, 362, 368

3:9 II, 124

3:11 II, 368n

3:15 II, 186n

3:16 I, 322, 353n, 355n;

II, 326n, 386, 389, 436

4:2 I, 252;

II, 124n

4:10 I, 148, 149

4:13 II, 329

4:14 II, 376

5:17 II, 368, 371

5:18 I, 223n

5:22 II, 376

6:8-10 II, 216n, 256

6:16 II, 323

6:17-19 II, 257n

2 Timothy

1:6 II, 376

1:9-10 II, 402n

1:9 II, 197n, 203n

1:10 II, 398

1:12 II, 221n

2:10-12 I, 219n

2:11-12 II, 254n

2:15 I, 219n

2:18 I, 219

3:1-13 I, 163n

3:12 II, 254n

3:16 I, 220, 230

4:1-6 I, 163n

4:5 II, 372

4:8 II, 221n

4:18 II, 323n

4:19 II, 257n

Titus

1:2-3 II, 402n

1:3-4 II, 398

1:5 I, 252;

II, 361n, 368, 371

1:7 II, 361n, 362, 368

1:15 II, 124n

2:5 II, 197n

2:11-13 II, 368

2:12-13 I, 172

2:13 II, 389, 397-398

3:1 II, 85n, 157n

3:3-7 II, 346n

3:4-7 II, 398

3:5-7 II, 346

3:5 II, 345n

3:6 II, 346n

Philemon

2 II, 266, 329n

16 II, 118

25 II, 133

Hebrews

1 I, 105

1:2-4 II, 404

1:2-3 II, 389, 402n, 428

1:2 II, 404, 408, 434n, 446n

1:3-4 II, 404

1:3 I, 114n;

II, 326n, 428n, 434, 445

1:5-13 I, 223n

Page 527

1:5-6 II, 444

1:8-9 II, 389

1:13-14 II, 285

1:13 I, 114n, 223n

2:10 I, 324, 352;

II, 76n

2:14-15 I, 139, 324, 340;

II, 442

2:14 II, 386, 402

2:17 I, 309-310, 316n, 324, 402

2:18 I, 324

3:2 II, 76, 94, 445n

3:6 II, 76, 94

3:124:1 II, 221n

3:14 I, 324;

II, 386

4:12 I, 51, 232;

II, 125

4:14-16 II, 341

4:14 I, 38n

4:15 I, 324

4:16 II, 203n

5:1 I, 309n

5:3 I, 309n

5:5 II, 444

5:7-9 I, 324

5:7 I, 139

5:8-9 I, 338;

II, 76

5:9 II, 94

6:1-6 II, 345n, 347

6:4-6 II, 221n, 222

6:4 II, 386

6:7-8 I, 152

7:3 II, 396n

7:25 I, 355;

II, 341, 437

7:27 I, 309n;

II, 395

8:8-12 II, 126n

9:1, 10 II, 182n

9:9 II, 124

9:12 I, 310n;

II, 395

9:14 I, 252, 342, 353;

II, 124, 389, 395, 400, 436, 448

9:15-22 II, 395n

9:15 I, 310n;

II, 180n

9:16-17 II, 396n

9:16 II, 395n

9:19-20 II, 395n

9:24 II, 341

9:26 II, 395, 402n

10:6 I, 309

10:8 I, 309

10:10 II, 395n

10:12-13 I, 114n

10:12 I, 309n

10:16-17 II, 126n

10:18 I, 309n

10:19 I, 310n

10:22 I, 252;

II, 124n, 346n

10:26 I, 19n, 309n

10:29 II, 384

11 II, 76, 188n

11:8 II, 94n

11:13-16 I, 216

11:17 II, 444n

11:19 II, 188n

11:28 I, 310n

11:35 II, 180n

11:38 II, 188n

12:1-4 II, 76, 95n, 254n

12:2 I, 114n, 324, 352;

II, 76n, 78, 94, 188n, 213, 436

12:10 II, 427

12:23 II, 266n

12:24 I, 310n

13:11 I, 309

13:15-16 I, 315n

13:16-17 II, 328n

13:18 II, 124n

13:20-21 II, 323

James

1:9-11 II, 76n, 256

1:14-15 II, 214n

1:18 I, 219n, 355;

II, 264, 385n, 402, 411

1:21 II, 123

2:1-7 II, 76n

2:1-5 II, 256

3:14 II, 125

3:15 II, 123n, 133

4:135:6 II, 76n

5:1-5 II, 256

5:8-9 I, 172

5:13 II, 326n

5:14 II, 371

1 Peter

1:1 II, 83

1:2 II, 94n, 327n

1:4 I, 352n

1:5-13 I, 196

1:5 II, 197

1:6-7 II, 82n

1:8 I, 165

1:9 II, 197

1:12 I, 223n;

II, 388n

1:13-16 II, 210n

1:13 II, 82n

1:14-17 II, 495

1:17 II, 83

1:18-19 I, 310n

1:20 II, 402n

1:21 I, 352n

1:22 I, 219;

II, 94n

2 II, 85, 87

2:2 II, 197

2:5 I, 315n;

II, 83n, 262, 328n, 386

2:9-10 II, 264n

2:9 I, 315n;

II, 262

2:11 II, 83

2:12 II, 82

2:133:12 II, 82

2:13-17 II, 71

2:13-14 II, 27, 82

2:13 II, 82, 88

2:15 II, 82

2:183:7 II, 71, 83

2:18-20 II, 82, 88n

2:19 II, 127n

2:21 II, 76

2:21-25 II, 84

2:22-23 II, 83

2:23 II, 76

3:1-7 II, 82, 88n

3:4 II, 125

3:8 II, 83n

3:9 II, 76

3:12 II, 346n

3:15-16 I, 323n;

II, 84

3:16 II, 124n, 127n

3:18-19 I, 353n

3:18 II, 386, 389, 436

3:19-22 I, 323n

3:19 II, 84

Page 528

3:20-21 II, 343n

3:22 I, 38, 322;

II, 84, 85n

4:1-4 II, 260

4:1-2 II, 254n

4:1 II, 76n

4:3 II, 214

4:4-7 I, 144

4:6 I, 323n;

II, 386n

4:7 I, 11;

II, 82n

4:8-10 II, 83n

4:10 II, 203n

4:11 II, 323

4:12-14 II, 12

4:13 I, 196

4:14 II, 387, 436n

4:17-18 I, 144;

II, 82n

4:17 II, 83n, 94n

5:1-2 II, 361n

5:1 I, 196

5:2-5 II, 83n, 88n

5:8 I, 323-324;

II, 84

5:10 II, 82n

5:11 II, 323n

5:21 II, 371

2 Peter

1:1 II, 389, 398

1:4 I, 260

1:5-7 II, 207

1:17 II, 399n

1:21 I, 220, 230

2:1 I, 310

2:2 I, 148, 150

2:4 I, 323n

2:6-9 I, 172

2:8 II, 123

2:10 I, 107

2:15-17 II, 158

2:17 I, 291

3:2-3 II, 259n

3:7-10 I, 157

3:7 I, 148

3:9 I, 148, 149, 150

3:14 I, 147

3:15 II, 197

3:16 I, 223n

1 John

1:1-3 II, 402n, 411

1:1-2 II, 402

1:5-8 I, 219;

II, 159n

2:1-4 II, 159

2:1-2 I, 355

2:1 II, 437

2:2-6 II, 214n

2:2 I, 309, 316n

2:5-11 II, 159, 219

2:8 I, 219n

2:14 II, 158n

2:15-19 I, 163n;

II, 214n

2:15-17 II, 272

2:18-23 II, 259n

2:18 I, 171

2:22 I, 38n

2:28 II, 159

2:29 II, 386n

3:2 I, 165;

II, 438

3:4 I, 91;

II, 144, 159

3:5-9 II, 158, 210

3:8-10 II, 158n

3:9 II, 386n

3:13 I, 163n;

II, 158n

3:14-15 I, 322n

3:14 I, 138

3:16-17 II, 73

3:16 I, 309n, 317n, 346;

II, 396

3:18-19 I, 219

3:19-22 II, 159

3:22-24 II, 159

3:24 I, 354;

II, 384, 386

4:1-6 I, 163

4:2 II, 388n, 390

4:3 I, 171

4:7-11 II, 491

4:7 II, 386n

4:9-14 II, 401

4:9-11 I, 165n, 309n, 316;

II, 73

4:9-10 I, 346;

II, 396

4:9 II, 158, 444n

4:10 I, 309;

II, 159

4:13 I, 354;

II, 384, 386

4:14 II, 158

4:15 I, 38n

4:17-18 II, 159

4:19 II, 399n

4:205:1 II, 219

5:1-4 II, 386n

5:2-3 II, 159

5:4-5 II, 158

5:4 II, 411

5:6-7 II, 388n

5:7 I, 219n

5:8 I, 310n

5:18-20 II, 158n

5:18-19 I, 322n

5:18 II, 386n, 411, 445

5:19 I, 163;

II, 158

5:20 I, 219n;

II, 389

5:26 II, 445

2 John

7 I, 171;

II, 390

Jude

7 I, 160

8^8 I, 148

14 II, 66n

19 II, 123n, 133

20-21 II, 327n

23^9 I, 148

24-25 II, 323

Revelation

1:2 II, 77

1:3 II, 329n

1:4 II, 325

1:5-6 II, 323

1:5 I, 310n;

II, 77, 444

1:6 I, 315n

1:8 I, 158;

II, 325

1:10 II, 325n

1:18 I, 162

8 Erroneously printed as Judges on p. I, 148.

9 Erroneously printed as Judges on p. I, 148.

Page 529

2:1 II, 266, 362n

2:2 II, 369n

2:8, 12 II, 362n

2:13 II, 77n

2:18 II, 362n

2:23 II, 126

3:1, 7 II, 362n

3:10 I, 172

3:14 I, 219n;

II, 77, 323, 362n

4 II, 496

4:2 II, 325n

4:5 II, 325n

4:8 II, 325

4:11 II, 325

4:17 II, 325

5 II, 324n

5:6 II, 325n

5:8 II, 326

5:9 I, 149, 310n;

II, 325

6:8 I, 158, 161

6:9 II, 77n

6:10-11 I, 141

6:10 I, 334

6:16-17 I, 148

7:1-3 II, 345n

7:9-17 II, 255n

7:9 II, 255

7:10-12 II, 324n

7:15-17 II, 326

11:7 II, 77

11:18 I, 148;

II, 326n

12:10 II, 326

12:11 II, 77

12:17 II, 77

13 I, 324

13:1-10 I, 170

13:11-18 I, 170;

II, 376

14:3-5 I, 310

14:4 I, 355;

II, 264, 385n

14:9-11 I, 159

14:12-13 II, 255n

14:12 II, 77

14:13 I, 141

15:3-4 II, 326n

15:4 II, 182n

16:4-7 II, 326n

16:6 I, 334

16:17-21 I, 148

1718 I, 324

17:6 II, 77n

19 II, 324n

19:1-9 II, 255n

19:1-3 II, 326n

19:2 I, 148

19:8 II, 182n

19:1120:3 I, 173

19:11-21 I, 173

19:11-16 I, 219n

19:11 I, 173

20 I, 108, 161, 173-174

20:4 II, 77

20:7-10 I, 115

20:10 I, 158, 159

20:13-14 I, 158

20:14 I, 158, 161

2122 II, 411, 447

21:122:6 I, 173

21:3-4 II, 326

21:8 II, 260

22:6 I, 173

22:13 II, 325

22:17 II, 324n, 386n

22:18-19 II, 259n

22:20-21 II, 324n

22:20 I, 37n;

II, 249

Didache

10:6 I, 37n;

II, 249n

Page 530

Author Index^1

A

Abbot, Walter II, 233

Abelard, Peter I, 311

Achtemeier, Paul I, 221n, 224n

Adams, Jay I, 174n

Aland, Kurt II, 342n

Alsup, John I, 361n

Althaus, Paul I, 279n;

II, 25n, 26n, 143n, 169n, 202n, 235n, 236n, 276n, 329n, 332n, 333n

Ambrose II, 472n

Anderson, Wilhelm II, 251n

Anderson, Bernard II, 409n, 411n

Anderson, George II, 173n, 190n

Anderson, Gerald II, 251n

Anderson, Philip II, 374n

Anderson, Phoebe II, 374n

Anselm of Canterbury I, 304-307, 311-314, 317, 321, 332, 347, 385n

Aquinas, Thomas I, 19-21, 27, 62-64, 67, 68, 71, 75-76, 136n, 151, 179-180, 207, 258n, 305;

II, 17-27, 30-31, 39, 42-45, 49, 60n, 61, 91-92, 102, 116, 117n, 140-141, 144, 162, 166-168, 200, 214, 277, 332n, 335, 473n, 484n

Aristotle I, 19-21, 24, 31, 49, 63-64, 179-180;

II, 18, 78, 420

Arius II, 445n, 451n

Armour, Rollin II, 343n

Athanatius I, 241n, 260n

Augustine I, 17, 23, 25, 26, 113;

II, 129, 140, 199-200, 286n, 334n, 342-343, 427n

Aulèn, Gustav I, 262n, 318-321, 323n, 337n;

II, 23n

Aune, David II, 369n

B

Baille, John I, 180n, 181n

Bainton, Roland II, 25n, 168n, 235n

Banks, Robert II, 374n

Barbour, Ian I, 51n, 52n, 128n, 129n, 130n, 166n

1Names included in ''Suggestions for Further Reading" at the end of each chapter have not been included. If an author is mentioned in the text and also in a footnote on the same page, the footnote reference is not listed.

Page 531

Barclay, Robert I, 86n;

II, 205n

Barr, James I, 201n, 203n

Barrett, C.K. II, 368n

Barth, Karl I, 28, 31, 94-97, 146n, 151, 185n, 186, 190, 229n, 232, 248, 253, 264-265, 267, 300, 305n, 358n;

II, 16n, 38, 44, 47, 67n, 97, 102-106, 110n, 303, 307, 334n, 439, 445n, 473n, 492n, 497n

Barth, Markus I, 145n, 344n, 355n;

II, 81, 156n, 185n, 186n

Bass, Clarence I, 109n

Batey, Richard I, 285n

Baum, Gregory I, 207n

Beachy, Alvin I, 87n;

II, 204n

Beasley-Murray, George I, 173n;

II, 345n, 346n

Beegle, Dewey I, 226n

Beker, J. Christiaan II, 184n

Bender, Harold II, 237

Benko, Stephen II, 471n, 475n

Berkhof, Hendrikus I, 38n, 359

Berkhof, Louis I, 89n;

II, 202n, 221n, 363n, 364n, 482n, 491n

Berkouwer, Cornelius I, 146n, 148n, 196n, 237n, 254n

Best, Ernest I, 293n;

II, 84n

Betz, Hans Dieter II, 155n

Beyerhaus, Peter II, 251n

Bieler, Andre II, 34n

Black, Max I, 51n

Bloesch, Donald I, 178n

Bohr, Niels I, 128n

Boettner, Loraine I, 115n, 164n

Boff, Leonardo I, 269-271, 346;

II, 240-242, 244, 267, 342n, 356-357, 359

Bornkamm, Gunther I, 281-284, 287, 291n, 296

Bousset, Wilhelm I, 37n

Braaten, Carl II, 275n, 307n

Brauch, Manfred II, 184n

Brenz, Ernest I, 19n

Bright, John I, 272n

Brinton, Howard II, 205n

Brown, Dale I, 65n, 86n, 87n, 88n

Brown, Raymond II, 394n, 471n, 475n

Brunner, Emil I, 28n, 148n, 184n, 185n, 186, 190, 210, 262;

II, 110n, 307n, 439n, 442n

Buber, Martin I, 183n

Buchanan, James II, 168n

Bühlmann, Walbert II, 301n

Bultmann, Rudolf I, 37n, 71-74, 77n, 82, 95n, 105, 110-114, 118-119, 124, 126, 131, 136-137, 183-184, 187, 190, 195n, 210, 280-283, 285, 288n, 291n, 296, 361;

II, 28, 38, 68n, 107n, 121n, 123n, 125n, 397n, 430

Burgess, Joseph II, 173n, 190

Burgess, Stanley II, 207n, 210n

Burmanus, Fransiscus II, 170n, 494n

Burrell, David II, 484n

Burtt, E.A. II, 420n

Bury, J.B. I, 26n

Bushnell, Horace I, 311-314, 329n, 331, 346

C

Caecilian II, 342

Caird, G. B. II, 150n

Calvin, John I, 23, 24, 26, 80-93, 96, 144, 180-181, 248, 251, 254-255, 258n, 263-264, 279n;

II, 14n, 22, 28-34, 48, 70, 92, 102, 129-131, 142-146, 161, 169, 202-204, 235, 236, 281, 304, 329, 332, 336, 344, 348, 349n, 364n, 365-366, 414n

Carol, Juniper II, 472n

Caspary, Gerard I, 319n

Charles, R.H. I, 112n

Chesnut, Roberta II, 390n

Childs, Brevard I, 13n, 197n, 200n, 214-216

Christ, Carol II, 54n

Chrysostom, John II, 335

Clement of Alexandria I, 16, 241n, 261n

Cobb, John II, 79n, 415n, 417n, 491n, 499n

Cohen, I. Bernhard II, 420n

Colwell, Ernest II, 83n

Cone, James I, 76n, 77n, 208-209

Congar, Yves I, 236-242;

II, 50n

Constantine II, 286n, 443

Conze, Edward II, 310n

Conzelmann, Hans I, 335n

Cooke, Bernard II, 333n

Copi, Irving I, 129n

Cranfield, C.E.B. I, 284n, 299n

Cullmann, Oscar I, 37-38, 101n,

Page 532

120n, 121n, 138n, 295n, 297n;

II, 86n, 87n, 285n, 338n, 389n, 392n, 396n, 397n, 398n, 401n

Cyril of Alexandria I, 261n

Cyril of Jerusalem I, 241n

D

Darby, John I, 108

Darwin, Charles II, 422

Davis, Stephen I, 226n, 228n

Dayton, Donald I, 26n

de Chardin, Teilhard I, 207

Delling, Gerhard II, 327n

Denck, Hans II, 214n

Denziger, Henry II, 167n, 200n, 231n

Descartes II, 52

de Vaux, Roland I, 145n

Dewart, Leslie I, 207n

Dodd, Charles I, 36-37, 38, 46n, 118, 278n, 280n, 292n, 309n;

II, 97n

Driver, Tom II, 312n

Dulles, Avery I, 51n, 201n, 207n, 236n;

II, 261n, 329n

Dunn, James I, 224n, 231n;

II, 345n, 346n, 385n, 388n, 392n, 399n, 401n, 403n

Durnbaugh, Donald I, 86n;

II, 237n

Dyck, C.J. II, 204n

E

Eagleson, John II, 242n, 243n

Ebeling, Gerhard II, 24n

Eichrodt, Walther I, 138n, 328n;

II, 175n, 176n, 177n

Eldredge, Niles II, 423n

Eller, Vernard II, 216n, 338n, 340n

Elliot, John II, 83, 84n, 88n

Engelsman, Joan Chamberlain II, 403n

Erasmus II, 23n

Erickson, Millard I, 113n, 114n, 171n, 174n, 178n, 218n

Eusebius I, 241n

Evans, Mary I, 289n;

II, 100n

F

Fagerberg, Holsten, II, 23n

Ferre, Frederick I, 51n;

II, 484n

Finger, Thomas I, 40n, 68n, 104n;

II, 111n, 443n, 453n

Feinberg, Paul I, 50n, 218n, 224n

Finnerty, Adam II, 216n

Fletcher, Verne I, 355n

Foote, Arthur II, 374n

Foster, Richard II, 215n, 217n, 218n, 220n

Fox, Richard II, 283n

Francke, August I, 65n

Frankfort, Henri I, 328n;

II, 148n, 149n

Freiday, Dean II, 204n

Friedmann, Robert I, 87n;

II, 238n

Freiere, Paulo I, 76n

Frend, W.H. II, 390n

Freyne, Sean I, 285n

Frye, Roland II, 419n

Fuchs, Ernst I, 291n

Fuller, Daniel I, 228n

Fuller, Reginald I, 37n, 121n, 361n, 364n;

II, 392n, 397n, 398n, 401n, 403n

G

Gager, John I, 285n

Gamow, George II, 421n

Garrett, James II, 237n

Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald II, 472n

Geisler, Norman I, 50n, 224n

Gilkey, Langdon I, 200-201;

II, 419n, 420n

Gilson, Etienne I, 180n

Godfrey, Laurie II, 422n, 423n

Gonzales, Justo I, 25n

Gogarten, Friedrich I, 94

Goldberg, Michael II, 67n

Goodall, Norman II, 251n

Goodfield, June I, 127n

Gould, Stephen J. II, 423n

Graham, Fred II, 34n

Grant, Frederick I, 284n

Gray, George I, 315n

Gregory of Nyssa I, 321, 333

Griffin, David II, 79n, 415n, 417n, 491n, 499n

Grillmeier, Aloys II, 458n

Gundry, Robert I, 110n, 171n

Gutierrez, Gustavo I, 76n, 182n;

II, 49-53, 55-56, 96, 111, 146n, 213, 243, 279n, 291, 342n, 409n

Guzie, Tad II, 332n

H

Haering, Bernard II, 19n

Hall, A. Rupert and Marie I, 127n

Hamerton-Kelly, Robert II, 401n

Page 533

Hanson, A.T. II, 368n

Hanson, Anthony I, 143n

Harland, Gordon II, 283n

Harnack, Adolph I, 262n

Hart, Ray I, 207n

Harvey, A. E. I, 295n

Hays, Richard II, 186n

Hegel, G. W. F. II, 52-53

Heidegger, Martin II, 39, 107n, 121n

Heim, Mark II, 314n

Heisenberg, Werner I, 128n

Hengel, Martin I, 298n, 340n

Hendrikson, William I, 173n

Heppe, Heinrich I, 24n, 25n, 137n, 181n, 238n, 278n, 279n;

II, 30n, 131n, 132n, 170n, 171n, 482n, 494n, 495n, 503n

Heron, Alasdair II, 332n, 334n, 335n

Hertz, Karl II, 275n, 276n

Hesse, Mary I, 51n

Hewitt, Thomas II, 222n

Hick, John II, 313, 314n

Hill, David II, 369n

Hitler, Adolph II, 283

Hodge, Charles I, 25n, 89-93, 96, 114, 129, 137n, 181n, 258n, 263n, 278n, 279n, 310n;

II, 29-30, 102, 129-131, 144-145, 162, 170-171, 181n, 182n, 495n, 504-505

Hoekema, Anthony I, 160n, 173n, 174n

Holifield, E. Brooks II, 56n

Holl, Karl II, 276n

Holmes, Arthur I, 50n, 52n

Hooker, Morna I, 292n, 336n

Hordern, William I, 184n, 191n

Horton, Walter II, 162

Hoyle, Frederick II, 422n

Hoyt, Herman I, 109n

Hubmaier, Balthasar II, 343n

Hume, David I, 249n

Hunt, George II, 34n

Hunter, Archibald I, 278n

Hurley, James I, 289n;

II, 103n

I

Ignatius II, 340n

Innes, William II, 34n

Irenaeus I, 16, 179, 241n, 320, 334n, 337n;

II, 260n, 335, 471

Iwand, Hans I, 352n

J

James, E.O. I, 315n

Jeremias, Joachim I, 283-284, 285n, 287n, 292n, 296n;

II, 324n, 342n, 399n

Jeschke, Marlin II, 374n

Jewett, Paul I, 228;

II, 103n

John of Damascus I, 19;

II, 449

Johnson, Luke T. II, 186n

K

Kallas, James I, 293n, 322n;

II, 190n

Kant, Immanuel I, 68n, 184n, 252n, 268, 346-347;

II, 38, 52, 61, 381, 415n

Käsemann, Ernst I, 291n;

II, 184n, 185n, 192n

Kaufman, Gordon I, 41n, 104n;

II, 499n

Kelly, J.N.D. I, 304n;

II, 84n, 368n, 445n, 458n

Kierkegaard, Søren I, 32n;

II, 60n

Kilby, Clyde I, 161n

Klaassen, Walter II, 214n, 330n, 342n

Knight, George A.F. II, 417n, 474n

Knitter, Paul II, 302n, 307n, 312n, 314n

Kofahl, Robert II, 426n

Kraemer, Hendrik II, 303-307, 309

Kramer, Werner II, 401n

Kuhn, Thomas I, 129n

Küng, Hans II, 16n, 173n, 192n, 261n, 311, 356-359, 369-370, 371n

Kuyper, Abraham II, 33n

L

Ladd, George I, 112n, 137n, 140n, 157n, 173n, 280n, 282n;

II, 96

Lane, William I, 284n;

II, 396n

Langford, Thomas II, 207n

La Rondelle, H.K. II, 207n

Leenhardt, F.J. II, 338n

Leith, John II, 363n, 366n

Letts, Harold II, 276n

Lewis, C. S. I, 161n

Lietzman, Hans II, 329n

Lindsell, Harold I, 220n

Littell, Franklin II, 238, 343n

Locke, John II, 227-228, 363n

Lohse, Eduard I, 296n

Lombard, Peter I, 19, 20, 31, 62;

II, 332

Lossky, Vladmir I, 19n, 180n

Page 534

Luther, Martin I, 22, 23, 25, 26, 188, 279n, 319, 323n;

II, 22-33, 46n, 70, 72, 80, 92, 129, 143, 155, 157-158, 161, 168-169, 180, 202n, 204, 234-236, 266, 274-276, 285, 329n, 330, 333, 335-336, 344, 360

M

Macintosh, D. C. I, 50n

Mackey, J. P. I, 210n

Macquarrie, John I, 111n, 183n, 189n, 190n;

II, 39-46, 48-49, 52-53, 60-61, 66, 78n, 92, 107n, 109n, 111, 116, 120, 121n, 124, 127, 130, 135, 141, 154, 160, 198, 414n, 440

Malina, Bruce I, 357n

Manson, T. W. II, 98n

Mantzaridis, Georgios I, 260n

Maritain, Jacques I, 248n;

II, 50n

Marshall, I. Howard II, 222n

Marshall, Paul II, 34n

Martin, James I, 144n

Martin, Ralph II, 326n, 329n, 401n

Martyr, Justin I, 15, 20, 179, 318-320;

II, 334n

Marx, Karl II, 52

Mascall, Eric II, 484n

van Mastricht, Petrus II, 494n

McClain, Alva I, 109n

McCool, Gerald II, 39n, 45n

McFague, Sallie II, 484n, 491n, 499n, 500

McNeill, John II, 34n

Meeks, Wayne I, 121n;

II, 257n

Meeter, H. Henry II, 32n, 33n

Melanchthon, Philip I, 22, 24, 84

Meland, Bernard I, 50n

Mercadante, Linda II, 258n

Merkley, Paul II, 283n

Methodius I, 241n

Metz, Johannes II, 279n

Meyendorff, John I, 19n

Mickelsen, Alvera II, 258n

Mienitz, Milton II, 421n

Miguez-Bonino, Jose I, 75n, 76n, 102n, 219n;

II, 243n

Minear, Paul I, 51n;

II, 75n, 76n, 261, 263n

Moehler, Johann I, 237n

Mollenkott, Virginia I, 289n

Moltmann, Jürgen I, 101n, 102n, 103n, 125n, 126n, 149n, 196n, 201n, 272n, 273n, 274n, 295n, 341-342, 352n, 363n;

II, 95n, 135, 324n, 325n, 381, 393n, 400n, 426n, 427n, 434n, 438n, 441n, 443n, 449n, 452n, 453n, 467n, 492-493, 497n

Monsma, Stephen II, 34n

Moo, Douglas II, 258n

Morris, Henry II, 419n, 425n, 426n

Morris, Leon I, 308n, 310n, 328n, 334n;

II, 175, 177n

Morrison, Clinton II, 86n, 87n

Morrison, Frank I, 360n

Mottesi, Osvaldo II, 53n, 213n

Moule, C.F.D. II, 338n

Mounce, Robert I, 173n

Mouw, Richard II, 34n

Müller, Christian II, 185n, 186n

Muñoz, Ronaldo II, 242, 243n

Murphy, Austin II, 173n, 190

Murray, John II, 86n, 180n, 181n, 182n, 189

N

Nazianzus, Gregory I, 241n, 320-321, 337;

II, 458n

Neill, Stephen II, 308n

Nestorius I, 261n;

II, 458, 462

Newbigin, Lesslie II, 308n

Newton, Isaac I, 126-127

Nicole, Roger I, 224n, 309n

Niebuhr, H. Richard II, 273, 275, 277, 278n, 281

Niebuhr, Reinhold II, 59-63, 71n, 92, 96, 142, 143n, 146, 161, 162n, 281-283, 285, 288-289, 291

North, Christopher I, 292n

Nygren, Anders II, 78n, 79n, 86n, 184n, 190n, 282n

O

Oden, Thomas II, 162n

Oesterly, W.O.E. I, 315n

Origen I, 16, 20, 27, 45, 179, 241n, 318-319

Osborne, Grant I, 361n, 363n

Oosterbaan, J.A. II, 204n

Otto, Rudolf I, 187-188, 210n

Outka, Gene II, 79n

Overman, Richard II, 414n

Owen, John II, 222n

P

Pache, Rene I, 172n

Page 535

Padgett, Alan II, 258n

Paley, William I, 249n

Palmer, Paul II, 331n, 334n, 335n

Panikkar, Raimundo II, 311n

Pannenberg, Wolfhart I, 197n, 205-206, 211, 363n, 364n;

II, 40n, 392n, 394n, 458n, 459n, 462-463, 465, 468n, 470n

Pauck, Wilhelm I, 22n

Pawlikowski, John II, 312n

Payne, Philip II, 258n

Pedersen, Johannes I, 145n

Pelagius II, 199, 205

Pelikan, Jaroslav I, 18n, 19n, 260n;

II, 129n, 199n, 200n, 342n, 445n, 458n

Pentecost, J. Dwight I, 109n

Peterson, Erik II, 444n

Pfleiderer, Otto I, 316n;

II, 182-183

Pinnock, Clark I, 221n, 223n, 224n, 226n, 227n, 236n

Piper, John II, 187n

Plaskow, Judith II, 54n

Plato I, 31, 63;

II, 78

Powers, Joseph II, 333n, 336n, 337n

Preus, Robert I, 24n

Pun, Pattle II, 423n, 426n

R

Radbertus, Paschasius II, 332n

Radmacher, Earl I, 108n, 110n

Rahner, Karl I, 148n, 237n;

II, 39-42, 44-45, 47, 50, 52-53, 60, 92, 95-96, 123, 127, 135-136, 142, 201n, 209, 228, 231n, 233n, 299-303, 310, 333n, 334n, 355n, 356-357, 443n, 460-463, 465, 468n, 470n

Ramm, Bernard II, 426n

Ramsey, Ian I, 43n, 51n

Ramsey, Paul II, 68-71, 79n, 80

Rauschenbusch, Walter I, 115n, 285n, 329-331, 334n;

II, 162n, 172n, 173n, 360n, 391n

Reicke, Bo I, 323n;

II, 84n

Reimarus, H.S. I, 360n

Reist, Benjamin I, 182n

Rentdorff, Rolf I, 197n, 198n, 199n, 200n

Reumann, John II, 409n, 411n

Ricoeur, Paul II, 15n

Ringgren, Helmer II, 149n

Ritschl, Albrecht I, 27n, 69-72, 74, 76, 83, 88, 89, 93-95, 105, 156, 181, 184n, 262n, 267-269, 278n, 304n, 311, 314, 329n, 346;

II, 38, 113, 172n, 173n, 183n, 274, 391, 465

Robinson, H. Wheeler II, 98n

Robinson, James I, 293n, 294n

Robinson, John A.T. II, 121n, 230n, 393n

Rogers, Carl II, 56-58, 146, 162n

Ross, Albert I, 360n

Rowley, H.H. I, 112n, 315n

Ruether, Rosemary I, 208n;

II, 55n, 146n

Runia, Klaus I, 232n

Russell, Letty I, 75n, 76n, 77n

Rust, Etic I, 131n

Ryrie, Charles I, 108n, 109n, 110n

S

Saiving, Valerie II, 54

Sanders, E.P. II, 185n

Sanders, James I, 214-216

Sanders, Thomas II, 34n, 275n, 281n

Saucy, Robert I, 108n;

II, 72n

Schillebeeckx, Eduard II, 333n

Schleiermacher, Friedrich I, 28n, 65-74, 77, 82, 83, 88, 89, 93-95, 105, 156, 181, 184, 187, 210n, 211, 265-269, 311-313, 329n, 360;

II, 37, 67n, 172-173, 380, 465

Schlier, Heinrich II, 163n

Schlink, Edmund I, 25n

Schmid, Heinrich I, 24n, 25n, 137n, 181n, 238n, 278n, 279n;

II, 132n, 171n

Schneer, Cecil I, 127n

Schonfield, Hugh I, 360n

Schopf, T.J.M. II, 423n

Schoun, Frithjof II, 311, 312n

Schüssler-Fiorenza, Elisabeth I, 289n, 290n;

II, 80n, 403n

Schweitzer, Albert I, 11n, 279n, 280n;

II, 184n

Schweizer, Eduard I, 335n;

II, 212n, 214n, 395n

Scott, C. Anderson I, 322n;

II, 190n

Seagraves, Kelly II, 426n

Segundo, Juan I, 76n

Selwyn, E. G. II, 84n

Shenk, Wilbert II, 266n

Sider, Ron II, 216n

Page 536

Simpson, George Gaylord II, 423n

Smart, Ninian II, 309n

Smith, George II, 201n, 229n, 230n, 231n, 232n

Smith, W. Robertson I, 315n

Smith, Wilfred C. II, 309n, 312n

Snaith, Norman II, 176n, 495n

Snyder, Graydon II, 340n

Sobrino, Jon I, 269-271, 298;

II, 240n, 243n, 244

Southern, R.W. I, 306n, 308n

Spener, Philipp I, 65n

Sproul, R.C. I, 220n

Stone, Ronald II, 283n

Straus, David I, 360n

Strong, Augustus I, 89n;

II, 359n, 360-363, 365, 366n, 370-371, 495

Stroup, George II, 67n

Stuhlmacher, Peter II, 185n

Suenens, L.J. II, 472n

Suggs, M. Jack II, 403n

Swidler, Leonard I, 289n

T

Tappert, Theodore II, 336n

Tertullian I, 241n;

II, 443

Theissen, Gerd I, 285n

Theodore of Mopsuestia I, 261n (misspelled as "Mosupestia")

Thielicke, Helmut II, 23n, 24n

Thurian, Max II, 474n

Tillich, Paul I, 41n, 183, 188-190, 207, 210;

II, 41n, 198n, 414n, 415n, 440-442

Torrance, Thomas II, 30n

Torres, Sergio II, 242n, 243n

Toulmin, Stephen I, 127n

Toynbee, Arnold II, 309n

Tracy, David I, 104n

Trible, Phyllis II, 102n, 103n

Troeltsch, Ernst I, 182n;

II, 28n, 71n, 227

Turner, H.E.W. I, 262n

Turtullian II, 439

V

Vicedom, Goerg II, 251n

Voetius, Gisbertus II, 170n

von Rad, Gerhard I, 145n;

II, 175n, 177n

W

Wagner, C. Peter II, 266n

Wainwright, Geoffrey II, 342n

Walvoord, John I, 109n, 110n, 172n

Ward, C.H.S. II, 310n

Warfield, Benjamin I, 220-224, 228n;

II, 210n

Weber, Max II, 32n

Weber, Otto I, 28n

Weiss, Johannes I, 11n, 279n, 280n

Welch, Claude I, 26n

Wells, David I, 236n

Wenham, Gordon I, 308n

Werner, Martin I, 119n

Wernle, Paul I, 229n

Wesley, John I, 87;

II, 204-207, 210, 218n

White, William I, 161n

Whitehead, Alfred I, 55-56, 129-130;

II, 414-415, 417n, 453n

Wieman, Henry I, 50n

Wikenhauser, Alfred I, 354n

Wilckens, Ulrich II, 394n

Wiles, Geoffrey II, 286n

Williams, Colin II, 206n, 207n, 215n, 218n

Williams, Sam II, 186n

Willis, Geoffrey I, 18n

Wilson, John II, 149n

Wink, Walter II, 190n

Wolff, Hans Walter II, 99n, 107n, 116, 122n, 123n, 132n

Wrede, Wilhelm I, 299n

Wright, G. Ernest I, 13n

Y

Yoder, John I, 285n, 287n, 292n, 296n, 297n;

II, 77n, 83n, 88n, 156n

Young, Davis II, 426n

Young, Norman II, 409n, 411n

Z

Zaehner, R.C. II, 312n

Zwingli, Ulrich II, 335-336, 340

ten Zythoff, Geritt II, 210n

Page 537

Subject Index

A

Agape; see Love

Anabaptism I, 22-23, 84-88, 180-181;

II, 12, 25, 204, 235, 237-240, 330, 342, 343-345, 360, 365

Anthropology I, 94-96;

II, 15-164

Body I, 138-140, 165, 175, 359-364;

II, 19, 43, 116-121, 141, 155, 340

Cohumanity II, 105-107, 110-112, 120, 126, 153, 366, 377

Conscience I, 251-255;

II, 19, 24, 26, 42, 59-60, 122-128, 205, 209, 239

Conscientization I, 76, 208;

II, 100, 280

Dependence II, 107-108, 110-112, 128-129, 134-135, 328

Heart II, 122-128, 151, 152, 215-216, 328

Humanization I, 76, 265-266, 271;

II, 16, 27, 29, 65, 94-96, 100-102, 136, 211, 264, 284, 298, 348-349

Image of God (Imago Dei) II, 20, 23, 30-34, 43-44, 48-49, 59, 63, 102-112, 135, 303-304, 315, 455, 487

Obedience II, 74, 76, 93-96, 252, 328, 399, 470

Oversight of Nature II, 32, 44, 108-112, 120

Reason II, 20, 59-60, 117, 122-128, 217, 326, 328; see also Revelation, and Reason

Servanthood; see Servanthood

Soul I, 137;

II, 19, 29-30, 43, 122-128, 133; see also Eschatology, Resurrection

Stewardship II, 110, 252, 328

Transcendence II, 18, 23n, 30-31, 39-41, 59-63, 94-96, 110-112, 126-128, 134-136, 460-462, 468-471

Will I, 150-152;

II, 59, 63, 467

Bondage and/or Freedom of I, 18, 25, 86-87, 347;

II, 19, 22-23, 29, 32, 40-42, 57-58, 61, 95-96, 101-102, 111, 128-136, 154, 199-209, 221, 472-476, 497

Apocalyptic I, 119-120, 280

Page 538

Distinguished from Prophetic and Eschatological I, 111-112

Apologetics I, 14-15, 59

B

Baptism II, 235, 342-350

Bible

Literal Interpretation of I, 108-110, 198

Propositional Truthfulness of; see Revelation, Propositional Dimension of

Relation of New & Old Testaments I, 15, 215-217, 250, 279-280; see also Promise and Fulfillment, and Revelation, Historical Dimension of

and Revelation; see Revelation

Role and Authority in Theology I, 13-14, 22-24, 28, 35-38, 53-55, 57, 59-60, 69, 81, 85-86 89-90; 96, 104-105, 118-120, 177-179, 196-201, 213-233, 240-243;

II, 65-68, 289, 303, 389-390

Blood I, 310, 315, 333-334, 344;

II, 73, 180, 186-187, 337, 340-341, 395

Body; see Anthropology

C

Canon I, 214, 240-242

Canonical Context I, 214-217, 223-224

Church; see Ecclesiology

Confessions II, 365, 375

Earliest Christian I, 37-38, 322

Historic Creeds I, 17, 262;

II, 443, 445n, 459

Conscience; see Anthropology

Conscientization; see Anthropology

Context of theology; see Kerygma, and Apologetic Context

Creation I, 16, 363-364;

II, 52, 284-286, 402-404, 407-430, 434-435, 441, 447, 483, 502

Creeds; see Confessions

D

Death; see Powers of Evil

Demythologizing I, 110-111, 131, 280-281, 291, 298-299, 318

Discipleship I, 87-88, 271;

II, 66-67, 72-77, 79-89, 92-102, 211-220, 237-238, 253-254, 263-264, 287-289, 292-293, 374

Dispensationalism; see Eschatology, Schools of

Divinization; see Salvation

Donatism I, 18;

II, 342-343

E

Ecclesiology I, 68, 70, 83, 238-243, 267;

II, 14, 166, 212, 225-377; see also, Holy Spirit

Authority II, 228, 231-233, 236, 238-244, 267, 268-269, 355-371, 373-37

Ordination II, 232, 236, 355, 357-358, 363, 376-377

Body of Christ II, 119, 121, 229-230, 265-267, 340, 354

Discipline II, 231, 259-260, 264-266, 361, 365-366, 374-375

and the Earliest Community I, 121;

II, 248-261

Fellowship I, 121;

II, 81, 156, 218-220, 234, 238, 243-244, 249-250, 265-267, 288-289, 292, 318, 321, 330-331, 347, 369

Marks of True Church II, 230, 233, 236, 238, 240, 245, 255-260, 268-269, 354

Mission I, 121, 282-284;

II, 226, 238, 248, 250-251, 254, 262-264, 268, 271-318, 321, 358, 450

Offices II, 231-233, 236, 244, 265, 355, 357-359, 361-377

Teaching (Doctrinal) function I, 40-48, 235-243;

II, 231, 236, 239, 252-253, 259, 262, 266, 268, 354-355, 362, 365, 372, 375-376

Worship II, 220, 279, 321-350, 450; see also Sacraments

Early Christian I, 121, 164-165;

II, 248-249, 255, 260, 322-329, 339-340

Preaching I, 96;

II, 235, 329-331, 365, 371

Economics; see Poverty and Wealth

Enlightenment I, 26, 32-34, 57, 65, 77, 127, 144, 181, 260, 268,

Page 539

346;

II, 47, 58, 95, 205, 228

Eros; see Love

Eschatology I, 100-102, 107-176, 274, 299, 350-351;

II, 52, 68-72, 88-89, 98-99, 212, 279, 315, 338-342, 345-348, 381-382, 438, 476, 484, 487, 503, 507

Antichrist I, 109, 115, 169-170

Apocalyptic, relation to; see Apocalyptic

Conversion of Israel I, 109, 115, 169-171

Delay of the Parousia I, 118-120, 124, 137;

II, 71, 82, 88, 397

Great Tribulation I, 109, 111, 169-171

Heaven I, 156-159, 161-162, 166, 175;

II, 150, 447

Hell I, 111, 158-162

and Justification I, 143;

II, 184-190, 193-194

Intermediate State I, 140-141, 173-174

Language of I, 107, 110, 111, 113, 125

Last Judgment I, 111, 143-147, 169, 175, 196, 274-275, 350;

II, 392-393

Millenium I, 109, 111, 168-176

New Age I, 39, 112-113, 121-124, 144-145, 164, 352-355;

II, 66, 248, 267-294

Purgatory I, 147, 175

Resurrection I, 136-142, 157, 165, 168-169, 175, 196, 229, 274, 363; see also Jesus Christ, Resurrection of

and Immortality of the Soul I, 137-140, 143

Return of Jesus Christ I, 39, 143-144, 157-158, 162-176, 196

Rapture of the Saints I, 109, 169, 171-172

Universalism I, 96, 148-153, 342n;

II, 299-301

Schools of

Amillenial I, 168-169, 173-175

Existential I, 110-113, 280-282

Dispensational Premillenial I, 108-110, 171-173, 198;

II, 72

Historic Premillenial I, 108, 167, 169, 173-176;

II, 287

Postmillenial I, 113-115, 120, 164, 167, 170, 174;

II, 274, 286-287

Ethics I, 59, 63-64, 68-72, 251-253, 268, 270, 280-281, 284-291, 312-313;

II, 27, 46, 68-89, 121, 313-314

Evil I, 151-153;

II, 22, 141, 415-416, 426-427, 442, 500;

see also Powers of Evil

Evolution II, 44, 413-426, 460, 463

F

Faith (and Faithfulness) I, 63, 67, 73, 82, 92, 200, 218, 228-230, 366;

II, 22-23, 94, 113, 160, 165-194, 177-179, 181, 184, 185-189, 192-193, 198, 200, 202, 222, 241, 293, 323-324, 344, 346-347, 356-357, 359-360, 395-396, 506

Freedom; see Anthropology, Will, and God, Freedom

G

God I, 67, 207;

II, 379-508, 414-415

Attributes of I, 20, 63, 248-255;

II, 31-32, 467-468, 478, 481-507

Eternity II, 503-504

Freedom II, 497-498

Glory I, 199-200;

II, 31, 496

Holiness I, 187-188;

II, 495-496

Immutability II, 457, 463, 482, 505-506

Infinity II, 502-504

Intentionality II, 493-495, 505

Love; see Love

Omnipotence II, 130, 497-498, 504-505

Omnipresence 502-503

as Parent (Father, Mother) II, 324, 383, 398-401, 435, 453, 461, 464-465, 485-490, 492

Righteousness I, 145, 274-275, 350-352, 365-367;

II, 170-177, 180-194, 494-496

Transcendence (and

Page 540

Immanence) I, 187-188;

II, 417, 486, 495-496, 498-501

Unity II, 443-444, 448-450, 507

Decrees of (esp. Predestination) I, 24-25, 28, 83, 86, 91, 96;

II, 31, 129-132, 135, 493, 504-505

Doctrine of II, 379-508

in Order of Theology I, 103-105, 259;

II, 14, 67, 113, 115, 136-137, 380-382, 389-390, 481-482, 506

Existence of I, 20, 62-63, 248-255;

II, 40

Initiative of I, 94-95, 100, 105, 117, 183-185, 192, 201-202, 263-264, 331, 345;

II, 95, 101, 113, 190-192, 197-198, 207-209, 213-214, 409, 416, 473

Knowledge of; see Revelation

as Personal I, 165, 186-192;

II, 163, 216, 383-384, 417, 440-442, 453, 462-463, 466-470, 489

as Trinity I, 259, 340-342, 352-354, 366;

II, 102-103, 327, 380-382, 387-389, 428-430, 433-455, 478-479

Grace I, 27, 87;

II, 21, 167, 197, 199-209, 212-213, 232, 278, 299-300

Common II, 33

and Nature I, 64;

II, 18-19, 44-46, 49-51, 111, 278-280, 413, 430

Prevenient I, 87;

II, 200, 204-208

Greek Worldview I, 15-17, 63, 138, 156, 261;

II, 427

H

Heaven; see Eschatology

Hell; see Eschatology

History; see Promise and Fulfillment, and Revelation, Historical Dimension of

Holy Spirit I, 353-355;

II, 119, 132-137, 155, 212, 382-389

in the Church II, 241-245, 249-252, 254, 259, 262, 267, 322-328, 336, 341, 345-347, 356, 376, 384

Deity of II, 136-137, 382, 384-387, 450-451

and Revelation I, 81, 85-86, 178-181, 236-238, 256;

II, 239

Spirit of New Age I, 39, 121-123, 136;

II, 476-478

Trinitarian relations of I, 353-355;

II, 136-137, 212, 382-383, 387-389, 398-400, 404-405, 428-430, 433-455, 466, 486, 490, 501

Hope I, 102, 107, 125, 140, 142-143, 153, 168, 175-177, 273;

II, 11-12, 42, 135-136, 160-161, 167, 193, 221, 324-325, 504, 507

Humanization; see Anthropology Illumination; see Revelation

I

Immortality; see Eschatology, Resurrection

Inerrancy; see Revelation, Propositional Dimension of

J

Jesus Christ I, 257-367;

II, 389-405, 457-479

Ascension of I, 36-38, 364-365, 401, 437

Birth of I, 95, 286, 353;

II, 471-479

Call of II, 213-214

Death of I, 123, 264-265, 270, 298, 303-348, 351-352;

II, 73, 77, 253-254, 282, 389, 399-400, 412, 435-436, 452

Deity of; see Person of

Incarnation of I, 261, 263, 319-320, 324, 341-342, 353;

II, 229, 262, 333, 458-459, 464-465, 483

Intercession of I, 355;

II, 437

Lordship of I, 39, 40, 43, 121, 221-223, 322, 364-365;

II, 271, 289, 396-397, 405

Ministry of I, 270, 278-301, 307-308, 320, 325, 338-339;

II, 243, 262-263, 388-389, 393-394, 435

Offices of I, 82, 87, 92, 96, 264-265, 278;

II, 231

Page 541

Person of I, 17, 96, 258, 261, 263, 269, 271, 307, 312;

II, 112-114, 211-214, 382, 389-405, 451-453, 457-479

Recapitulation I, 319-320, 324, 334n, 339, 353;

II, 76, 471

Resurrection of I, 95, 136, 270-271, 308, 319-320, 349-367;

II, 241-242, 322, 389, 412, 436, 462;

see also Eschatology, Resurrection

Return of; see Eschatology

Work of I, 264-348;

II, 65-89, 391-404

Christus Victor Model I, 304-305, 317-324, 326-359;

II, 86-87, 160, 179-180, 287-288, 396, 405

Moral Influence Model I, 310-317, 327, 329-331, 338-339, 346;

II, 179, 395, 497

Substitutionary model I, 304-310, 313-314, 327, 329-332, 338, 344-347, 356;

II, 171, 179, 187, 395-396, 497

Judgment I, 145, 199-200, 318, 327-331, 334, 351-352, 357-359;

II, 392-393

Last; see Eschatology

Justice I, 144-146, 274, 306, 313, 336-338, 355-357;

II, 166, 282-284

Original Justice (or Original Righteousness) II, 21, 61-62, 140-141

Justification I, 143;

II, 165-194, 200, 206, 234-235;

see also Judgment

K

Kerygma I, 36-37, 39-40, 54, 100-101, 118-120, 309, 322, 334-336, 352;

II, 66, 197-198, 248, 292-293, 299, 317

and Apologetic Context I, 40-42, 47, 61-62, 79-80, 100-101, 242, 260;

II, 13, 16, 66, 226, 390, 418

and History I, 39, 119, 203-204

Kingdom of God I, 37, 70, 108-110, 112, 113-115, 267, 268-270, 272, 278-301, 326, 333, 351, 366;

II, 33-34, 96-97, 151, 154, 391

and the Church II, 252, 264-265, 289-292, 308, 315-317, 353

and Kingdom of this World II, 25-28, 70-72, 274-276, 360, 413

L

Law I, 314, 337-338, 355-357;

II, 22-28, 494-495

and Sin I, 91, 323

and Society I, 92-93

Natural II, 20, 46, 62, 127, 274-278

as a Power II, 23, 155-156

Logos I, 15, 179;

II, 402-404, 445-446, 459

Lord's Supper I, 120-121, 123, 315;

II, 230, 255, 332, 334-342, 348-350;

see also, Sacrament/s and Sacrifice

Love I, 165, 311-318, 341;

II, 69-70, 73-79, 167, 169, 182-183, 192, 276, 396, 405, 428, 435, 490-494

as Agape or Eros I, 191;

II, 46n, 77-89, 101, 111, 153, 259, 281-283, 293-294, 429-430, 441-442, 454, 491-493, 500

M

Marriage I, 289-290;

II, 105-107, 332, 348-350

Marxism I, 254, 287, 316

Millenium, all Millenialisms; see Eschatology

Miracles I, 131-132, 165-167, 228-229, 249-250, 298-300, 364;

II, 413, 415-426, 477-478

Mission; see Ecclesiology

Models; see Theology, Reasoning in

N

Nature; see Anthropology, Oversight of Nature; Grace; and Science

New Age; see Eschatology

O

Obedience; see Anthropology

Ordination; see Ecclesiology, Authority Perfectionism II, 203, 206-207, 210

P

Perseverance II, 201, 203, 206, 220-222

Page 542

Philosophy I, 15-16, 20, 62-64, 179-180, 206, 248-255;

II, 39-42, 505

Politics I, 15, 18, 23, 46, 71, 75-77, 83-84, 88, 93, 97, 186, 204, 281, 288, 295-298, 308, 318-319, 328-330, 357-358;

II, 20, 25-28, 33-34, 49-51, 62-63, 82-89, 148-149, 227-228, 235, 271-294, 344, 347, 443, 455

Poverty and Wealth I, 280-281, 284-287, 301;

II, 75, 216-217, 243, 250, 255-257, 474

Powers of Evil I, 38, 46, 291-298, 317-324, 326-342, 357-359, 367;

II, 84-88, 147-163, 189-190, 285, 316, 394, 416-417

Death I, 138-140, 319, 323, 340-342, 352-353, 367;

II, 42, 153-155, 157, 400

Flesh (sarx) II, 116-121, 155, 157, 160, 214, 347

Law; see Law, as a Power

''World" II, 158, 272, 284-289, 347, 375

Praxis; see Theology, Reasoning in

Prayer II, 216, 327

Preaching; see Ecclesiology, Worship

Predestination; see God, Decrees of

Promise and Fulfillment I, 197-205, 216, 218, 272-275, 343-344, 349-351, 365;

II, 12, 52, 135, 304-305, 344, 506

Prophecy; see Apocalyptic

Providence II, 413, 414, 416, 423-425

Psychotherapy II, 56-58, 61, 100-101, 128, 146, 161-162

R

Ransom I, 308-309, 310, 316, 320-321, 331-332, 336-338, 341n, 356

Recapitulation; see Jesus Christ Recital I, 13-14, 28, 35, 105, 203-204;

II, 408

Religions, non-Christian II, 148-151, 155-157, 298-318, 381, 409, 458, 485-486

Resurrection; see Eschatology; see also Jesus Christ, Resurrection of

Revelation I, 177-256; see also Holy Spirit, and Revelation

and the Bible I, 23, 80-82, 85-86, 96

General I, 179-180, 184, 205-212, 245-255;

II, 127n, 286, 300-301, 303-304, 316-317

Historical Dimension of I, 39, 77, 178, 182, 195-212, 216, 218-219, 228-230, 243-247, 343, 357, 365;

II, 66-67, 94, 99-100, 147-151, 174-179, 262, 382, 387-391, 408-412, 434-438

and Illumination I, 178

Personal Dimension of I, 81, 85, 96, 177-205, 218-219, 243-247, 357

Propositional Dimension of I, 24, 92, 178, 180, 192, 198, 202-204, 213-233, 243-247, 254;

II, 375, 377

and Reason I, 20, 27, 62-63, 179-180, 224-226

Righteousness; see God, Attributes of Sacrament/s I, 261;

II, 106-107, 201, 219, 220, 232-233, 242-243, 264, 279, 331-350, 366, 376, 377, 405, 430, 454-455, 503;

see also Baptism, Ordination, Lord's Supper

S

Sacrifice I, 308-310, 314-315, 334, 343-346;

II, 180, 186-187, 395-396

and the Lord's Supper II, 232, 335, 340-341

Salvation I, 162, 180, 263, 265, 267, 275, 367;

II, 51, 165-222, 309-310, 384-387, 397-398, 400, 408-413, 452, 454-455, 471-476

as Divinization I, 261-262, 271, 319-320, 353-354;

II, 299, 454, 460, 477, 494

as Liberation from evil Powers I,

Page 543

264, 317-348, 351-352, 354

Sanctification I, 88;

II, 24, 191-192, 197-222, 260-261, 374

Science I, 20, 49, 51, 68, 69-72, 89, 125-132, 165-167, 179-180, 228-231, 250-251, 298-300, 364;

II, 39, 121, 407-408, 412, 413-426, 477-478

Servanthood I, 291-292, 295, 315, 333, 335-336, 339, 345;

II, 96-102, 107, 151-152, 218, 252, 366, 370, 387, 451-452, 466

Sin I, 67, 82, 86-87, 91, 266, 300-301, 306-307, 319, 323, 327-331;

II, 21, 42-43, 47-49, 53-55, 60-61, 63, 139-163, 203-204, 218, 287, 428;

see also Powers of Evil

Soul; see Anthropology

Suffering I, 87-88, 123, 141-142, 170-172, 300-301;

II, 12, 135, 253-255, 263, 310, 325-326

Sym-pathy I, 339, 354;

II, 94, 254, 455, 503

T

Theology

Contextual I, 61-77;

II, 13-14

Criteria of I, 19, 31-32, 41-46, 55-56, 130n, 227-230

Divisions of

Biblical I, 57, 224

Historical I, 58

Practical I, 58-59, 141-142;

II, 215-222, 317-318, 488-490

Experiential I, 22, 27, 66-68, 265-267

Kerygmatic I, 79-97;

II, 13

Natural I, 20, 27, 62-63, 76, 80, 85, 90, 95, 179-180, 184, 248-255;

II, 17-19, 39-42, 91, 280

Norm of I, 54-55;

II, 289

Objective Dimension of I, 122, 123, 125-132, 178, 304, 336, 362-364;

II, 13, 229, 245, 251, 331-333, 341, 347-349, 366, 377

Definition of I, 118n

Reasoning in I, 41-42, 49-53, 66-67, 267, 305, 338, 355-357

Adduction I, 50-51. 53, 104-105, 225-230, 325-326-327, 332;

II, 261

Deduction I, 49, 52, 90-91, 104-105, 160, 181, 220-221, 225, 230, 308, 314, 346-348;

II, 20, 68, 129-130, 144-145, 198, 299-300, 310-311, 460

Induction I, 49-50, 52-53, 75, 89, 105, 221-222;

II, 68, 198, 261, 380-381

Use of Models I, 50-51, 53, 89, 128-129, 148, 174, 227-230, 253, 260, 303, 325-327, 332, 338, 343, 347-348;

II, 209, 261, 265, 273, 424-425

Relation to praxis I, 75-76, 85, 177-178, 271;

II, 198, 214, 243, 255, 275;

II, 12-13, 198, 208-222, 243, 245, 247-248, 272, 285-294, 297-298, 308-309, 314-318, 321-322

Schools of

Anabaptist; see Anabaptism

Believers' Church I, 25, 84-88, 180-181;

II, 12-13, 204-207, 215, 236-240, 268

Biblical Theology movement I, 13n, 197, 200-201, 214n

Black I, 74-77, 208-209, 212

Catholic II, 471-473

Contemporary I, 76, 207, 210-211, 237-243;

II, 39-49, 140-142, 299-302, 336-337, 356-359;

see also Theology, Schools of, Liberation

Traditional I, 62-64, 179-180, 248;

II, 17-21, 49-50, 140-142, 166-168, 200-201, 228-233, 277-278, 354-355

Eastern Orthodox I, 18-19, 180n, 260-262

Empirical I, 50

Existential I, 71-74, 110-113, 148, 183-192, 280-282, 361;

II, 28, 41-44

Feminist I, 74-77, 208n, 212,

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