A Mirror for God and for Us: Christology and Exegesis in Calvin's Doctrine of Election

Although John Calvin's doctrine of election is often criticized, it remains seriously under-described in both content and form. By attending to one strand of its content (Christ and election), and one persistently unappreciated aspect of its form (exegesis), this article attempts a substantial construal of the doctrine in Calvin's theology. It aims to show that, for Calvin, Christ is the subject of election in that he is its author, and Christ is the object of election in that he mediates both election itself and the salvation which flows from election. The focus on Calvin's exegesis of election and Christology establishes contact points with some important theological concerns: Karl Barth's reading of Calvin; election and the extra Calvinisticum ; and 'christocentrism' in Calvin's theology.     

Imputation as Attribution: Union with Christ, Reification and Justification as Declarative Word

Calvin's integration of the christological features of the eucharistic controversy with soteriological questions in his refutation of Andreas Osiander marks a critical development in Reformed theology. In this article, that development is extended further in reconsideration of the nature of imputation as a linguistic action. It is argued that imputation is a soteriological corollary of the christological idea of attribution. Imputation thus conceived clarifies not only how it is located within the doctrine of union with Christ, but how that union and imputation provide clarity in ongoing discussions about reification of sin and righteousness as well as the nature of justification as a declarative word.     

Union and Communion: Calvin's Theology of Word and Sacrament

Some scholars consider Calvin's teaching on the sacraments to be an integral part of his theology. Others have challenged the Reformer's consistency in this area, regarding Calvin's eucharistic teaching in particular as a 'foreign, uncongenial element' in his work. My argument in this article is that Calvin's eucharistic teaching, particularly in its 'more nearly patristic' emphases, is neither inimical nor secondary to his system but is in fact an essential and promising outworking of his theology. As with other perspectives, Calvin's understanding of Word and sacrament generates a particular kind of ecclesiology with emphases that remain ecumenically significant and vital for the life and mission of the church.     

Toward the Fullness of Christ: A Catholic Vision of Ecumenism

This article locates the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's recent document Dominus Iesus against the background of great ecumenical advance in North America and elsewhere and a series of highly encouraging ecumenical statements published by John Paul II. Its most contentious statement is a reiteration and clarification of the Vatican II teaching in Lumen Gentium that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. It distinguishes among churches in the proper sense, with valid episcopate and eucharist, and defective ecclesial communities. The church of Christ cannot subsist in them but only in the Catholic Church. The article points out, nevertheless, that since all these bodies are recognized as having elements of the church, the operation of grace is still ecclesial and not individual and secondly that a pneumatologically orientated Christology sees ecumenism as a response in grace to the divine economy.     

Incongruous and Creative Grace: Reading Paul and the Gift with Martin Luther

Paul and the Gift by John Barclay advances an interpretation of Paul’s theology of grace that resonates with Martin Luther’s reading: God’s gift is God’s Son, Jesus Christ, given for and to the unworthy. To imagine Luther reading Paul and the Gift is thus to conjure images of deep and fundamental consensus. But questions remain. Is the law a cultural canon of worth that God’s gift of Christ ignores, or is it, as God’s law, a fixed judgement that God’s grace contravenes? Does God give only ‘without regard to worth’ and thus with a kind of divine indifference to cultural indices of value, or does the gift of Christ contradict the conditions of its receipts and thus come in a way that is actually incongruous? With these questions, Luther might push back against Barclay. With others he would ask Barclay to go further. Is not God’s incongruous grace also and characteristically creative? How is the gift of Christ that God gave present to and for recipients as the gift God now gives? In all these ways, Luther’s theology of the word poses questions to or invites expansions of Barclay’s theology of grace.     

King Ideology — “Urmensch” — “Troonsbestijgingsfeest”

The aim of this article is to show the structural continuity of the idea of justification and grace between the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux and the Augustinian friar and church reformer Martin Luther in a forward reading of the two. Others, such as Peter Manns, the Obermann School and the Finnish Luther research have pointed at some link between Catholicism, including Bernard, and Luther, but they have also pointed to differences, especially as to their understanding of justification and grace. This article goes a bit further, by showing structural similarities between the two theologians, separated by some 400 years, also when it comes to the understanding of faith and grace. By so doing it furthermore questions what has been the dominant view among Lutherans: that Luther broke entirely with his Catholic past, with the exception of Augustine. The article therefore treats of factors that have been decisive for this view, such as the almost hostile perceptions of mysticism and Bernard as a mystic as well as of Mariology and Bernard as a mariolate. It is demonstrated that these labelings, the mystic and the mariolate, are based on a backward reading of Bernard's teaching, and that he first and foremost was a theologian preaching the justification by grace through faith because of Christ. The question is if Bernard, whom Luther evaluated highly as a preacher of Christ, can be seen as a model for Luther.     

Assumption,Union and Sanctification: Some Clarifying Distinctions

In this article I engage with the notion that Christ ought to be understood to have a fallen human nature because Christ sanctifies human nature, and it is fallen humanity that needs sanctifying. In opposition to this line of thought, I argue that the Son of God assumed an unfallen nature, but with the powers of fallenness operative within it, and that this notion is consistent with a distinct account of sanctification. In support of these claims, I develop distinctions between a conjoining union and a transferring union, and between the Chalcedonian union at the incarnation and the extension of that union on the cross. At the assumption a conjoining union occurred, not a transferring union. Christ sanctified his own nature, prior to a transferring union.     

Grace in Nature and History: Luther's Doctrine of Creation Revisited1

Abstract: Interpreting Luther's Trinitarian theology of creation, it is shown how Luther's doctrine of creation is modelled on his soteriology. In his writing Against Latomus(1521) Luther established his famous distinction between the external grace of God (favor dei) and the divine gift (donom): the living Christ. A similar distinction can be re‐constructed from Luther's theology of creation as presented in his catechisms, sermons, tracts, and exegetical writings. Just as Luther makes a distinction between the Christ who takes side for us within God, and the Christ who is dwelling in the heart of the believer, Luther makes a the distinction between the fatherly love toward humankind (benevolentia), and the Father, Son and Spirit, who are at work from within the life of the creatures in God's blessing (benedictio). There is an implicit notion of a pater pro nobis and a pater in nobis, which reflects, in the order of creation, the classic distinction between Christus pro nobis and Christus in nobis. According to Luther's theology of the Eucharist and divine blessing, there exists a union between God and creature, which has a similar structure as the union between Christ and believer. There are distinctions to be drawn as well as correlations to be seen between the order of creation and the order of salvation.     

Scenes and Means of Grace

Abstract : The Word, Baptism, and Holy Communion—key means of grace according to the Lutheran tradition—take place in a web of earthly conditions whenever they are celebrated. Generating their own scenes of grace, the means of grace give voice, sense of place, and creativity where those are otherwise threatened. Other scenes of grace complement the means of grace, similarly bringing voice, place, and creativity in the face of environmental and social injustices. Martin Luther's affirmation of Christ's presence in creation, both in means of grace and throughout God's world, is a strategic and meaningful threshold for Christians to engage environment and justice while continuing to listen and look for the grace in Christ that feeds and shapes them.     

THE ART OF DYING: IN LUTHER'S SERMON ON PREPARING TO DIE

Luther counseled those preparing to die to ponder the three ‘glowing pictures’ of Christ –‘life, grace, and heaven’, as well as the affective ‘sign’ of the sacrament – to drive out the three counterpictures produced by the devil –‘death, sin, and hell’. The proper timing of contemplation before death and the proper orientation of clinging to Christ and his merciful acts on the cross will empower the sufferer to face death with confidence. Before the saving image of Christ, the trilogy produced by evil vanishes of itself without opposition, a psychological phenomenon which incites faith in us and praise of God at this last hour. The annihilating knowledge of the negative images may be useful, therefore, if it drives us into the arms of Christ.     

Stoic and Epicurean? Calvin's Dialectical Account of Providence in the Institute

Abstract: Calvin's account of providence demonstrates an awareness of the widely differing views of classical philosophers, particularly Stoics and Epicureans, on the subject. His own presentation stresses divine transcendence even more than Epicurean teaching had, whilst simultaneously asserting a more intimate involvement of God in the created order than any Stoic managed. The hypostatic union of the divine and the human natures in Christ offers Calvin a way of holding together the two sides of this dialectical teaching.     

On the Doctrine of Justification

The doctrine of the justification of the ungodly is central to the Christian confession. Justification is to be understood through the four Reformation exclusive particles: Christ alone, grace alone, word alone and faith alone. Justification addresses the relationlessness which is produced by sin as limitless self-realization. Related in himself as Trinity, God in Christ and Spirit continues in relation to the godless, thereby establishing a wealth of relation which is righteous. This account of justification is illuminating both for fundamental issues in anthropology and ethics, and for current ecumenical controversies concerning salvation, sacraments and ministry.     

Salvation: Its Forms and Dynamics in the New Testament

Abstract : Salvation takes several forms in the New Testament, including earthly‐historical saving acts by the earthly Jesus and eschatological salvation by God's saving work in Christ. The dynamics of salvation can be considered from both anthropocentric and theocentric approaches. In the former salvation is by works, faith, or grace, but issues can be raised about each. In the latter salvation is spoken of as the act of God in Christ (a theopractic approach) or by the act of Christ on God's behalf (a Christopractic approach). Issues arise concerning canonical contexts, whether something happened at the cross effective for humanity and the cosmos, and the scope of redemption.     

Faustus Socinus and John Calvin on the Merits of Christ

Abstract

Pressed by Laelius Socinus on the apparent contradiction between salvation as literally merited and yet graciously bestowed, Calvin responded that Christ's literal and proper merit procured salvation but did so through God's gracious ordination of Christ as redeemer, thus obviating the apparent difficulty. Yet, in the Institutes Calvin criticizes Lombard for teaching that Jesus merited his own exaltation, arguing that no man, Jesus included, could gain such merit. Calvin concludes that although Christ's exaltation followed his obedience, it did so purely of grace and as an example for us. This study explores how Faustus Socinus picks up the debate, exploiting Calvin's admission of the impossibility of gaining literal merit and pressing what he sees as the devastating consequences of this admission for the orthodox doctrine. Also considered is Faustus's critique of what he regards as Calvin's untenable and contradictory response to the queries of his uncle, Laelius, on the compatibility of grace with merit.     

Body Without End: Biological Mutualism and the Body of Christ

This article argues that the ecological turn towards biological mutualism enlivens our understanding of the eschatological promise contained in Christ’s resurrected and ascended body. I examine the implications of proposing that Christ’s body was not only incarnate as microbiome, but also rose and ascended as microbiome. First, I analyse contemporary approaches to Christology’s relation to creation and Andrew Davison’s theological exploration of mutualism. I then respond via Irenaeus’ defence of Christ’s bodily resurrection and ascension as promise for all flesh. By reading Irenaeus in light of the mutualistic body, we enrich our understanding of this promise: of fruitfulness for all creation, of fullness for human nature, and that fleshly life is no ultimate barrier to union with God. Finally, I propose that this reading also offers renewed insight into the Eucharist: this promise and its implications are also made manifest at the heart of the church, Christ’s body on earth.     

Sola Gratia as Divine Attribute: Resurrecting the God of the Gospel

Can we speak of sola gratia as a divine attribute so as to affirm that all that God does is grace? Traditionally, Western Christian theology has answered that question negatively, placing God's justice in opposition with God's grace and presenting a God whose love does not seem to be unconditional. This has been especially evident in the ways in which Scripture, the work of Christ, justification by faith, and the distinction between law and gospel commonly have been interpreted. By rethinking those traditional interpretations on the basis of an understanding of divine grace as unconditional love, we can indeed proclaim a God of sola gratia and a gospel capable of transforming human lives and responding effectively to the crisis of faith we face today.     

Sin and the Limits of Theology: A Reflection in Conversation with Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther

While the confession of divine transcendence entails that all theological speech faces intrinsic limits, the problem of sin brings theology’s limits into focus in a very particular way. For while Christians confess that God has been uniquely and unsurpassably revealed in Jesus Christ, insofar as they do not claim that even this revelation explains the place of sin in the divine economy, the ongoing mystery of sin and evil presents the theologian with a stark alternative. On the one hand, if the grace of God revealed in Christ is emphasized, less attention will be given to the mystery of sin that remains hidden in God; on the other, if theologians emphasize what is hidden, the light of Christ will be obscured. This article explores the tension between these two alternatives with reference to the Showings of Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.     

Augustine and Descartes: an Overlooked Chapter in the Story of Modern Origins

This essay is intended as a corrective to contemporary accounts of the Cartesian origins of modernity and Augustine's relationship to them. The essay examines the relationship between Augustine's trinitarian theology and his doctrine of grace in order to situate his understanding of the self and the will within the context of the trinitarian beauty manifest in Christ. Then tracing the development of an alternative tradition, from the Pelagian controversy through some features of Christian asceticism, the essay contends that Descartes’res cogitans derives fundamentally not from Augustinian interiority, but from a Stoicism, derived from this tradition and from the Neo‐stoic revival of the Renaissance, which Augustine had once opposed in the name of Christ and the Trinity.     

Order in the house?

Abstract

The notion that human life at Creation had been set into a series of ordered relationships was central for the Lutheran reformers’ understanding of Church, home, and state. Expositors developed this imaginative theological construct primarily out of the narrative of the Creation and Fall, and they used it as a framework for understanding the obligations of humankind in relation to the Creator, as well as for homes and societies rightly ordered. The Christian home, however, did double duty, serving as an archetype not only of life rightly ordered (law) but also of the love and freedom given by Christ in union with the Church (gospel). Lutheran expositors struggled to balance these two, especially when they derived the coercive authority of the state from parental, or paternal power. Could the institution of marriage simultaneously provide the foundation for state authority, and image the love between Christ and the Church?