Category: Theology

Posted on

The Later Erlangen School on Atonement and Christology

Regarding Christology and atonement, the later Erlangen school represented by Paul Althaus (1888-1966) and Werner Elert (1885-1954) was in many ways more conservative than its nineteenth predecessors.  The nineteenth-century Erlangen school had taken over from Lutheran Pietism and Friedrich Schleiermacher the concept that that along with the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions, Christian experience was a valid source of theological authority.  By contrast, under the influence of their teacher Ludwig Ihmels, Elert and Althaus affirmed that Scripture was the supreme theological authority to the exclusion of religious experience.  Similarly, both Althaus and Elert abandoned Johannes von Hofmann and Gottfried Thomasius’s metaphysically problematic belief in kenotic Christology in favor of a fairly traditional understanding of the two natures in Christ.

Both Elert and Althaus took an interest in responding to the historical skepticism concerning the identity of Christ and the historicity of the Gospels that marked the work of figures like Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976).  Both Erlangen theologians held that Christianity would be meaningless and invalid if the Gospels were false and if Jesus was not true God and man.  In order to push back against theological Liberalism and historical skepticism, Elert and Althaus offered a series of common arguments in their respective works.

First, in his early and shorter dogmatics, Elert partially adopted Hofmann’s line of reasoning by insisting that the development of the Church and the reality of the contemporary Christian community would make little sense if the events of the Bible (including the life of Christ) had not occurred generally as reported.  Analogously, contemporary Americans are not vexed about whether there was an American Revolution since the US government and other American institution would not exist if it had not happened.  So too the Church as an embodied community would make little sense as it exists now if the history salvation as described by the Bible had not occurred.

Secondly, both Elert and Althaus argued that Jesus was an absolutely unique personality that could never be a mere invention of early Christians.  Even if a detail here or there in the Gospel records might be inaccurate (it should be noted that neither believed in the full inerrancy of Scripture), the utterly uniqueness of Jesus’s personal character impressed itself upon the apostles and is reflected in the New Testament witness.  The biblical and ecumenical doctrine of the two natures in Christ could be justified by pointing to the fact that the utterly unique personality of Christ presented in the Gospels contained both divine and human elements. 

Both Althaus and Elert also very zealously defended the biblical and confessional doctrine of penal substitution.  In his seminal work, The Theology of Martin Luther, Althaus vigorously argued against Gustaf Aulén and his attempt to claim Luther for the Christus Victor atonement motif.  Likewise, in his work Law and Gospel (which primarily a response to Barth’s theology of grace and ethics), Elert outlined and defended his affirmation of the doctrine of penal substitution. 

According to Elert, in the post-lapsarian world, humanity lives a “nomological” existence wherein humans are constantly enveloped by the experience of the condemnation of the law.  Jesus came into the world as the embodiment and fulfillment of divine grace and judgment.  He exposed the hypocrisy of those who claimed not to be sinners, while forgiving and having fellowship with the moral outcasts.  He not only gave forgiveness, but taught an ethic of forgiveness that transcends the law.  Jesus’ ethic of non-retaliation and forgiveness transcends the law because the logical final fulfillment of the law is retribution and retaliation (lex talionis).  In order to make divine forgiveness and the Christian ethic of non-retaliation an actuality, Christ had to end the retribution of the law by bringing it to a completion by his death.  The cross is thus a final retributive punishment for sin that ends all retribution.  This was the fulfillment of divine wrath against sin and is an act of pure law.  By contrast, the resurrection is act of pure grace, since it reveals God’s forgiveness won by the cross.

Image from Jeff Davis, “Contemporary Issues in the Christological Methods,” Life Giving Words of Hope & Encouragement by Jeff Davis, May 17, 2017, https://jeffdavis.blog/2017/05/17/contemporary-issues-in-the-christological-methods/.

Posted on

First Thesis on Justification

My new book entitled Justification by the Word: Restoring Sola Fide with Lexham Press will make the case for seven theses on justification. Here’s the draft of the first one:

1.     Justification is the center of Christian theology.

Justification is the center of Christian theology because the salvation of sinners is the goal of God’s revelation in the Bible (scopus Scripturae) and the ministry of the Church.  In saying this, we do not mean to suggest that justification exhausts the content of the Christian faith.  Obviously without doctrines such as the Trinity, the divine essence and attributes, creation, and so-forth, justification would be incoherent and meaningless.  Neither are we claiming that all other doctrines are deduced from the single doctrine of justification, as in so-called “Central-Dogma” theory.  Rather, what we mean in stating that justification is the central doctrine of Christianity is that the ultimate goal of all of God’s revelation is to clarify and promote the proclamation of the doctrine of justification in the midst of the Church.

Image from the Institute of Lutheran Theology, @InstituteLutheranTheology

Posted on

The Fulfillment of the Law and Active and Passive Righteousness

Perhaps one helpful way of conceptualizing how the law can be fulfilled and abrogated coram Deo, while remain a rule of life coram mundo, is through Luther’s distinction between two (active and passive),[1] or in some cases three (civil, imputed, sanctified),[2] kinds of righteousness.[3]  Coram Deo, humans are righteous or unrighteous not on the basis of what they do, but through what they receive.  We passively receive our sinful nature from our parents, which in turn colors everything we do or leave undone.  Likewise, faith is created by a monergistic act of the Holy Spirit, and we receive the gift of imputed righteousness and a renewed heart passively.  This passive gift of righteousness completely abrogates the law coram Deo.  From the perspective of this relational horizon, the law as condemnation moves to the gospel as freedom from condemnation.  Once the gospel has arrived, the law no longer holds sway since it is completely fulfilled.

In terms of our external person coram mundo, humans are good or bad based on what they do (i.e., active righteousness).  Under the first use of the law, the unregenerate can make better or worse decisions and likewise be judged as just or unjust based on what they do.  A person is defined as a good spouse, parent, or citizen based to what extent to which they behave well in these roles.  Indeed, as far as active and civil righteous is concerned, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas are essentially correct.  One can indeed train himself to act in a habitually correct way within his roles in society.  Likewise, under the gospel and the third use of the law the regenerate can cooperate with the Holy Spirit and can listen to and obey the commandments of God through specific external actions.  The faithful do this both as an act of gratitude for the gifts of creation and redemption that they have received, as well as restrain the wicked impulses which remain present in them this side of the eschaton. 

It should be noted that fallen humans tend to reverse these two kinds of righteousness.  Rather than being judged by who they are before God (children of Adam, or redeemed sinners in Christ), humans desire to be righteous on the basis of their works.  As a result, humans have created the various world religions (which work on the basis of the opinio legis),[4] as well as rationalistic/moralistic schemes of theodicy.[5]  Coram mundo, humans desire not to be judged righteous and worthy of status on the basis of what they do, but on the basis of who they are. Likewise, human desire to judge others on the basis of their identities.  In human history, this has given rise to the sins of racism, sexism, and classism, among others. 

[1] LW 26:7-8, LW 31:297-306.

[2] WA 2:43-7.

[3] See Charles Arand, “Two Kinds of Righteousness as a Framework for Law and Gospel in the Apology,” Lutheran Quarterly 15, no. 4 (2001): 417–439; and Robert Kolb, “Luther on the Two Kinds of Righteousness: Reflections on His Two-Dimensional Definition of Humanity at the Heart of His Theology,” Lutheran Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1999): 449–66.

[4] Chris Marantika, “Justification by Faith: Its Relevance in Islamic Context,” Right with God: Justification in the Bible and the World, ed. D.A. Carson (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 228-242; Sunand Simithra, “Justification by Faith: Its Relevance in Hindu Context,” in Right with God, 216-27; and Masao Uenuma, “Justification by Faith: Its Relevance in Buddhist Context,” in Right with God, 243-55.

[5] Gregory Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997); and idem, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001); Gottfried von Leibniz, Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard (New York: Cosmo Classics, 2010).

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

Image from R. J. Grunewald, “Two Kinds of Righteousness,” Grunewald, accessed May 24, 2021, https://www.rjgrune.com/blog/two-kinds-of-righteousness.

Posted on

The Marriage Debate: Why Christians Lost the Argument Before it Began

https://spiritualdirection.com/2014/02/17/must-catholics-marry-in-catholic-ceremonies

Throwback Post:

I think the question of the continuing deification of the state in modern life is an interesting one.  Ultimately, winning the argument about traditional marriage (by which I mean both the belief in man-woman marriage and also the indissoluble nature of marriage- i.e., no divorces aside from Jesus’ single exception) is a daunting task for modern Christians.  It is a daunting task because even before the debate begins, Christians are faced with the fact that nearly everyone (including Christians themselves) already have a distorted understanding of marriage.

Prior to the modern era, the basic conception of marriage in Judeo-Christian culture was as an Order of Creation and an economic relationship.  Since all property was tied up in land, and land was owned by families, marriage was a way of ensuring intelligent and rational means of wealth transference and (depending on the status of the family) political alliances.  Theologically speaking as well, love was secondary in the definition of marriage.  In Luther’s commentary on Genesis and in the Catechisms, he understands marriage as an Order of Creation established by God that defines the human self in this age.  Here Luther echoed Jesus in Matthew.   

Luther writes that God designed the world to function according to three estates after the Fall: marriage / family (including economic or civil life), the Church, and the government to curb evil.  Everyone has vocations within these estates.

Similarly, the Roman Catholic Church understands marriage as both an something rooted in creation, and elevated by the order of grace.  Though I may disagree with the Roman Catholic definition theologically, the commonality between it and the Lutheran one is clear: marriage is a reality rooted in legal, creational, and economic relationships.  It isn’t about the subjective feelings or personal preferences of the participants.  People in the pre-modern world, of course, did experience romance and love (it’s a universal human phenomenon), but such realities had only an incidental relationship to marriage.  For perspective on this, read some of the medieval chivalric romances: the authors actually assume that love and romance are only incidental to marriage, or in very extreme versions, very nearly impossible within marriage.   

Things changed in the 19th century.  Since capitalism made wealth transference and generation possible without handing it down through kinship, western European and American society developed a new rationale for marriage.  This rationale was companionship and romance, and marriage was therefore redefined as a public ratification of one’s subjective romantic feelings.  After this, divorce became more common. Why?  Because if one no longer experiences affectionate companionship with one’s spouse then the whole relationship ceases to serve its function.  Hence, why not just move on?  Of course there were still legal barriers to divorce, but after the 1960s and the advent of no-fault divorce, rates of divorce went off the charts.  Moreover,  the theory of companionship marriage also made same-sex marriage and other martial arrangements thinkable in new ways.  If companionship and romance are the rationale for marriage, then why shouldn’t individuals of the same sex get married since they can obviously experience love and companionship as well as an opposite-sex couple?

This is why the same-sex marriage argument is so powerful in our context, even though at best it’s an exercise in the logical fallacy of “begging the question.”  In other words, what advocates for same-sex marriage already assume is that same-sex relationships are the equivalent to heterosexual relationships. Consequently, denying gay men and lesbians the ability to marry is an act of discrimination.  Same-sex marriage is a a matter of “marriage equality.”  Nevertheless, the question remains: why can the advocates of same-sex marriage assume that there is an equivalency and appeal to this equivalency with such success?  Because most assume that marriage is a public ratification of subjective feelings about another person- i.e., companionship marriage.  Since most heterosexual individuals in our society already assume this, such an appeal works.  If one, for example, believes that marriage is an Order of Creation and tied to specific heterosexual activities, then the argument doesn’t work.  Also, if one assumes that marriage ordains certain goods that are tied to the sexual diversity of the persons involved and that these goods remain good irrespective of the subjective feeling of the partners, then the argument also falls apart. 

But almost no one still sees marriage as an Order of Creation, and that’s why the same-sex marriage debate is not winnable for Christians in this society: we abandoned the correct understanding of marriage a long time ago. As a result, we can’t appeal to a model of marriage that even conservative Christians unconsciously don’t ascribe to. 

This is a revised version of thoughts first posted May 14, 2013.

Image of Luther and the Three Estates from Bryan Wolfmueller, “Thinking Like a Lutheran: The Three Estates (Quotation Collection Post),” World Wide Wolfmueller, July 30, 2016, https://wolfmueller.co/threeestates/.

Posted on

The Pattern of Flight from Condemnation to Grace

God’s wrath is revealed to all outside the garden (that is, outside the sphere of divine grace and promise) through his creaturely masks. Indeed, God’s “invisible attributes [i.e., including his holiness and wrath], namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20, Emphasis added).[1] 

Nevertheless, God established a new word of promise in the form of the protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15.  The grace of the protoevangelium took on an even more definite form in the corporate life and history of Israel through the promise God attached to Abraham’s “seed” (Gen. 22:18).  This effective Word of promise pushed the history of Israel inexorably along to its fulfillment in the person of the Messiah, even in the face of human opposition.  Nevertheless, the movement of the divine Word toward its final fulfillment could often appear as a failure even as it succeeded.  When Moses pronounced the divine Word “Let my people go,” it appeared ineffective to both the Egyptians and Israelites.  Indeed, Pharaoh was apparently unmoved by the pronouncement of the divine deed-word and, in turn, increased Israel’s labor (Exod. 5).  Nevertheless, it was through Pharaoh’s very obstinacy that God worked his redemption and was finally able to bring a plague so horrific that Egypt expelled Israel.[2]  God likewise told Isaiah to speak a word of repentance to Israel that they would ignore, thereby ensuring their suffering in Babylon (Isa. 6:9-13).  But Israel’s destruction was be the occasion for their true repentance, something that would prepare them for the grace of restoration and the coming of the Messiah (Isa. 40).  Finally, God’s Word of redemption found ultimate fulfillment in the opposition and murder of Jesus by his opponents.  By killing God himself, Jesus’ enemies brought about the fulfillment of the very Word of God that they sought to thwart.  As Luther’s theology of the cross shows, God works under the form of his opposite.  

God fulfills his Word under the outward appearance of it having failed.

Likewise, throughout the history of Israel, God’s pattern of attaching his dual words of condemnation and grace to created masks continued.  By doing so, the Lord bid his covenant people to flee from the word of condemnation to that of grace.  Although Jacob is attacked by God in the night, he demands the name of the shadowy attacker and thereby hearkened back to the promise of blessing that God had made to him at Bethel (Gen. 32:22-32).[3]  Moses is also attacked by God on his return to Egypt but flees to the promise of grace found in circumcision of his son (Exod. 4:24-26).[4]  God threatened with death those who came near Mt. Sinai, the mountain where he gave his law (Exod. 19:10-13), but promised forgiveness and a share in his personal holiness to those who approached him through the sacramental channels of the Tabernacle/Temple at Mt. Zion.[5] 

This pattern of fleeing from condemnation to grace also continued in the life of Christ.  In the crucifixion, God designated Jesus and the sacraments of the New Testament, which flowed from his side (Jn. 19:34) on the hillock of Golgotha, as the new place of grace. Likewise, he designated the Temple mount and works connected with it as a place of condemnation (Gal. 4:25-6).  In his resurrection, Jesus insisted that the women flee his tomb (the place of death and condemnation) and instructed them to tell his disciples to meet him in Galilee.  In Galilee, Jesus told the disciples look for him now not in the tomb, but in the word and sacrament ministry of the Church (Mt. 28:8-10, v. 16-20).

[1] Steven Paulson, Lutheran Theology (New York: T & T Clark International, 2011), 70-4.

[2] Steven Paulson, Luther’s Outlaw God: Hiddenness, Evil, and Predestination, vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), 229-43

[3] LW 6:122-55.

[4] Paulson, Luther’s Outlaw God: Hiddenness, Evil, and Predestination, vol. 1, 17-8.

[5] See good description in: John Kleinig, Leviticus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2003).

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

Image: Gustave Doré, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1855.