Common Places in Christian Theology: A Curated Collection of Essays from Lutheran Quarterly

By Mark C. Mattes

Common Places in Christian Theology invites readers to discover the rich and complex world of Christian theology. Sponsored by the journal Lutheran Quarterly and written by some of the finest contemporary Lutheran theologians, this collection of essays helps Christian teachers understand and explain the grammar and inner logic of faith.

Exploring everything from scriptural authority to salvation and justification and the last things, these writers provide a unique and compelling introduction to Lutheran theology. As you receive the essentials of each topic, you will also consider contemporary concerns, whether in theology, or from the natural sciences, social sciences, political theories, or hermeneutics.

Whether you are a seasoned preacher looking to sharpen your understanding of faith or a curious Christian seeking to better articulate your relationship with God, Common Places in Christian Theology will challenge and inspire you to think through your faith and share it with others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 1517 Publishing
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781956658231

Book preview

Introduction

A Christian theologian’s most important calling is to explain the faith so that when the gospel is preached and taught it is life-giving. That is exactly what Philip Melanchthon sought to do when he authored what could well be called the first Protestant treatise in systematic theology, the Loci Communes (Common Places) in 1521. Between his own immersion in the scriptures, especially Paul’s letter to the Romans that provided the topics for his work, his wide-ranging reading in the major theologians of the faith, the new insights which he learned from Luther, and his own collaboration with Luther, Melanchthon explored those most important topics shared by all Christians which described the path to eternal life. ¹ The following essays present the work of seventeen Lutheran theologians charged with examining theological topics shared by all Christians pivotal for understanding the basics of the Christian faith. They are offered here precisely to help pastors and teachers cut their teeth on good theology and thus be able to preach and teach authoritatively, engagingly, and persuasively. They aim at what Luther in the Small Catechism called delivering the word clearly and purely. ²

This volume originated in a series of articles from Lutheran Quarterly which examined classical theological topics with the goal of honoring the tradition and addressing contemporary concerns. In presenting a locus, each essayist sought loyalty not only to a distinctively Lutheran approach, but also relevance for how it bears upon both current issues and the life of the church. Although the combined efforts of these essayists fall short of a thoroughly comprehensive and coherent systematic theology, the characteristically Lutheran flavor of each is unavoidable and inviting. These essays are designed to help you, a preacher, teacher, or interested lay person, grow in your awareness of the contours of and prospects in each topic and the impact that such attention can make in your ministry.

The Purpose of This Volume

As a whole, the volume falls short of a comprehensive systematic theology. In order to achieve comprehensiveness, the essayists would have had to agree upon a shared or common framework for the articulation of evangelical faith and then situate their essay within that framework. That is not the case here. To be sure, all the essayists share two foundational commitments: (1) the scriptures are the chief or final authority for all matters in Christian faith and life and (2) the Lutheran Confessions offer a true interpretation of the scriptures. But they represent no single Richtung (direction) agreed upon in advance. That said, the following essays are no mere patchwork lacking continuity. Rather, each essayist owes fealty to the scriptures and the Lutheran theological tradition, loves them, owns them, and wants to pass them on to future generations.

Throughout these essays we find a deep appreciation for Lutheran distinctives: (1) the catholic confession of the one God as triune and the one person of the Son of God as composed of two natures, divine and human, (2) the Son of God seen not in terms of an "extra-Calvinisticum, in which the Logos as such transcends or is uncontained by his incarnation in Jesus Christ but instead an infra-Lutheranum," in which the Logos is wholly and inseparably embodied in Jesus Christ, ³ (3) the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone as central for an evangelical understanding of the gospel, (4) the priority of grace with respect to God’s relationship with humans in contradistinction to accentuating or highlighting a human response to God, (5) a passion for the proper distinction between law and gospel when seeking to deliver this grace to sinners, (6) an affirmation that God works through two regiments or two kingdoms, the secular world as the place of God’s ongoing creativity and the church as offering the saving word and the means of grace, and (7) the sacraments as effectuating grace and not merely testifying to grace.

The essays all transcend a fundamentalist versus modernist divide. This divide is a result of Enlightenment assumptions. Countering these assumptions, they refuse to anchor truth to matters of math and science, which then buoys matters of faith in an autonomous morality (the legacy of Kant) [1724-1804], or in a feeling of absolute dependence (Schleiermacher [1768-1834]), or the cosmic sweep of history in which God becomes Absolute Consciousness (Hegel [1770-1831]). Instead, each author is comfortable with the truth that God reveals himself both in the book of nature and in the book of scripture, with the latter serving as the compass by which to decipher the former and all other matters. While the overall project presented here may lack the cohesion found in the systematic theologies of either a single theologian or group of theologians committed to a single Richtung, it will offer instead commonalities based on a family resemblance that all confessional Lutherans can be expected to share as well as a willingness to venture forth into uncharted waters that not all systematicians committed to a certain school can do.

This volume is unlike the two-volume Christian Dogmatics, edited by Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, a collaborative endeavor published in 1984 by theologians hailing from those groups which would form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1987). ⁴ This volume offers a wider range of perspectives and is less tethered to a synod. Likewise, it differs from the more recent Confessing the Gospel: A Lutheran Approach to Systematic Theology, an effort of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod theologians to update Francis Pieper’s century-old three volume classic. ⁵ The authors of these essays are affiliated with several synods and are beholden to different visions of theological method. They do not always voice the stance of their own synod. If this work has a precedent, it would be What Lutherans Are Thinking, a collection of essays on theological loci edited by Edward Fendt in 1947 which featured authors of different synodical backgrounds existent at that time. ⁶ The advantage to this kind of work is that the essayists explore new directions relevant to their loci all the while maintaining confessional loyalty. Many of the authors rub shoulders with non-Lutheran Christians, and so write with an ecumenical awareness. Readers can expect their thinking to be enriched and provoked here, but what they will not find is a comprehensive theological system. That is, not every particular issue germane to a theological topic, particularly an extensive history of how the church has thought about the topic throughout the centuries and across confessional traditions. Such matters are touched upon but due to the constraints of each article’s length are not developed as thoroughly as a longer work would do.

All humans are theologians, whether or not they are aware of this, though not all are good theologians. This volume is offered to help its readers, whether clergy or laity, improve their theological skills. The essays found here are accessible to literate laity. They also can be a great help for pastors seeking to expand their abilities in preaching, teaching, and pastoral care and counseling. Pastors need to be on top of things theologically. Given the toolkit of skills learned in the seminary, pastors will find these essays powerful resources to help them in discernment of how to present the word to their congregants, catechumens, and the unchurched.

Most of the essays indicate the biblical roots of their chosen loci, indeed, a few essays are largely exposition of scripture without much elaboration on how the wider catholic and evangelical tradition bears upon the topic. Yet, even in those essays rooted in biblical exegesis, there hovers in the background a loyalty to the Lutheran Confessions, the theology of Luther, and the best interpreters of the Lutheran tradition across the centuries, all the while engaging ecumenical voices one way or another. Our essayists have first of all listened to the scriptural and confessional heritage before they have spoken. Much wisdom is to be found here. All these essays will help pastors and laity be more faithful in their witness, grow in their knowledge of God and his ways with humans, and become more adept in the grammar of faith.

First Things First

We start, naturally enough, with general matters related to prolegomena, a setting forth of the scope and tasks of systematic theology. Naturally this includes a general essay about how to think as a systematic theologian as well as an essay on the authority of scripture. R. David Nelson offers the first contribution to prolegomena. Straight away he sets forth the liability with which he deals. The chapters in this volume were not originally published seriatim in the topical order or overall structure in which they are presented in this book. Instead, they were published as they were received. Nor, as mentioned earlier, did the authors agree on an overall preestablished direction that each would develop. Apart from a preestablished architecture, devised to construct a theological system, Nelson must therefore take a more generic approach. Honoring a theology of the cross, he claims that we must also acknowledge that the content of the scriptures cannot be reduced to a theology of the cross, as pivotal as it is in salvation history. Nor should we shy away from philosophical categories. Many ancient Christians embraced philosophy insofar as it provided vocabulary and syntax to understand matters like the incarnation. Appropriating Johann Gerhard’s (1582-1637) distinction between archetypal theology, God’s own self-knowledge, and ectypal theology, human reasoning about theological truth based on God’s sharing his own self-knowledge with creatures, theologians should do theology both doxologically, in praise of God, and as a form of discipleship, thinking about God in light of the truth God has given them. Thereby they participate in divine pedagogy. Systematic theologians uphold an aesthetic criterion in their work: they seek to maintain a fittingness, an order and evenness, in the presentation of loci, in proportion to the whole. All Lutheran theologians will appreciate a historical approach to biblical exegesis, honor the distinction between law and gospel, situate justification by grace alone through faith alone as pivotal, and uphold sacramental realism (affirm that finite things are capable of presenting the infinite).

Vítor Westhelle notes that the premodern assumption that Jesus Christ fulfills Old Testament prophecy and that miracles factually happened have undergone significant critique in the modern world. In response, Christian fundamentalists have dug in their feet, and, ironically, like moderns, have accepted a view of truth that prioritizes the quantifiable or the factual as opposed to the symbolic or evocative. Yet, such efforts fail to make the faith credible to secularists. In contrast, theological liberals have looked to a foundation other than but somehow congenial to scripture, such as Kant’s categorical imperative (act on that maxim which you can at the same time will to become a universal law), religious experience (such as Schleiermacher’s feeling of absolute dependence, or Paul Tillich’s ontology-focused ground of being, or other similar proposals. Both fundamentalism and foundationalism feed off Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s (1729-1781) conviction that the accidental truths of history can never become the proof of the necessary truths of reason. Fundamentalism tilts towards the truths of history while foundationalism towards the truths of reason.

Westhelle undermines this dichotomy. He unmasks the dispute as dealing not with logic but instead with power: who controls evangelical rhetoric? Lutherans traditionally designated scripture alone as the formal principle while justification by faith alone is the material principle of theology. This was said in opposition to the Catholic and Gnostic tendency to say that scripture is obscure and so needs either an external authority or additional practices handed down in the tradition to interpret scripture. Luther’s retort is scriptura sui ipsius interpres, the scripture is in itself the interpreter. Unraveling our worries about the facticity behind the scriptural narrative, the scriptures instead unmask the foolish assumption that we can barter with God. Our reason cannot fathom that we sinners receive eternal life in exchange for nothing we on our end can offer. Both fundamentalism and foundationalism fail to see scripture as an agent in its own right, powerful enough to unmask our self-righteousness. Instead, we prefer to accord it some kind of value. But this strategy is wrong. The scriptures exceed our expectations and surpass any set of conditions or requirements offered to interpret them. What speaks through the scriptures is the law that both orders life, and yet also accuses us of our sin, and the gospel which gives Christ freely to broken, needy sinners. Scripture is not only sufficient to engender new life, but is also more than enough since it offers a plethora of examples to guide believers to trust ever more in Christ.

God, Creation, and Law

The next set of essays explore matters related to God, creation, and law. Oswald Bayer shows that while Luther’s understanding of God was based on his prayerful encounter with the scriptures, it was also deeply experiential. Luther acknowledged that, within nature, God is frustratingly and terrifyingly hidden, at least when not connected to preaching. The Bible also witnesses to this hiddenness: the blazing light of God is intolerable to humans (Exodus 33:20). Not surprisingly, then, finite humans are completely incapable of knowing the infinite God. No one can claim disinterested turf on which God’s attributes be neutrally comprehended and outlined. Nor are we sinners uninterested, for we are rebels, caught up in a power struggle with God. So, our relationship with God is never wholly objective. Bayer notes that the Platonic tradition transmitted via Pseudo-Dionysius affirmed the unknowability of God, and, at least as Luther experienced it, was unsatisfying, devoid of Christ, and so uncanny, uncomforting, and indeed threatening.

That said, not only human limitations, but also human sinfulness camouflage God, obscure his presence, since sinners are ever trying to avoid or escape God’s accusation of their sinfulness. That God is our judge is revealed to us by God himself in his law. This truth exposes our sinfulness to ourselves, makes us unable to escape its truth. However, there is another hiddenness than what has been discussed so far. As weak, forsaken, and burdened with the sin of others, God is hidden in Jesus Christ. Hidden in weakness, as we learn from Paul, God’s power to save is present in the cross of Jesus Christ. Through such weakness the world is redeemed. That God is an electing God and that his election is hidden from our eyes also raises a threat to sinners. Thankfully, God offers mercy to all who turn to him.

Charles Arand wisely cautions that an adequate doctrine of creation will not reduce the topic to the dispute between creationism and evolution. Instead, the theological roots of the doctrine of creation must be spelled out. When they are, creation is seen as a gift. It is a gift which establishes humanity’s vocation: to serve under God as nature’s stewards. Since God creates out of nothing, he is the unbounded creator while we creatures are bounded, limited by space and time, situated within the plethora of other creatures for whose well-being we are responsible as they are for ours. No preexisting blueprint existed for God to consult as he created all things. Instead, all things express his goodness and care. God does not need creatures, but instead, as self-subsisting, he generously wants to share his life with them. As bounded, we are unable to peer into God’s mind and see the Big Picture. But we can rest assured that God delights in what he has made and what he continues to make. That we have some capacity to understand the intelligence within all things, however limited, is ever a source of wonder.

Taking up theological anthropology, Oswald Bayer notes that, for Luther, philosophy falls short in its attempts to define humanity. It limits its definition of the human to matters of reason, sensations, and the body. Theology is able to get after a more wholistic perspective and sees the true definition of the human as, surprisingly, justification by faith. Indeed, faith is at the core of all humans whether or not they recognize that their faith properly should be placed in the triune God. Humans are first of all creatures. Secondly, they are perverted due to sin, that is, they misplace their trust by trusting in themselves instead of God. Lastly, they can be made righteous in Christ. To be human is to be in relation, first of all to God, and, secondly, to one’s fellow humans and all other creatures. Indeed, God speaks to humans through other creatures, calling us to be responsible, holding us accountable, and providing for our well-being. That God gives everything to us from moment to moment, sustains us in being, means that we experience everything as a categorical gift. To be human is neither to be a self-creator nor a co-creator but instead a fellow worker with God. Humans, unfortunately, are defined by a predicament. They are sinful. Human sin is not to be understand first off as misdeeds but instead as mistrust. We believe that we can be our own gods for ourselves and do a much better job than God ever could do. Even so, that humans (including zygotes and embryos) have a dignity is not disestablished by human sinful endeavor.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson reexamines the traditional law and gospel distinction in Lutheranism and makes a case that, as usually conceived, it is too narrow. For Hinlicky Wilson, the distinction between law and gospel must be interpreted through the prism of two senses, a relational and an instructive sense. The former is that aspect of the law that names and punishes sin while the latter offers the content that guards, shapes, cultivates, and nourishes creatures. It is, as Luther put it, the best of things in all the world. The law as instructional would have aided human growth and flourishing even if there had been no sin. Hence, law is no mere patching up of God’s way with humanity but instead is part and parcel of humanity’s creatureliness. Wilson explains that Christians’ observance of the law indicates that they possess the life-giving Spirit. Christ sets us free from the law as accusing but does not free us from the task to order our lives for the sake of the common good.

Luther often spoke of Christian love as spontaneous, but as Hinlicky Wilson notes, it is never just dreamed up. Believers as such can dispense with the relational sense of the law (though the old being must always be hounded by it), but, as regenerate, can embrace the instructive sense. At least, this accords with the way that Luther explained the role of the law in the Christian life in the Large Catechism. Nor should we assume that God’s law is tantamount to the false laws prevalent in culture. She cautions us that there is no mechanical relation that exists between how the law and the gospel relate in believers’ lives, in which we must presume that law only and ever precedes gospel, and she illustrates this point with several scenarios. The upshot: Luther loved the law as much as the gospel and Lutherans should follow him in this.

Jesus Christ, Human Fallenness, and Redemption

The next section focuses on Jesus Christ, the Fall, and Redemption. Not so dissimilar to Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, Piotr Malysz challenges the traditional linear approach to law and gospel, where accusation precedes the comfort of God’s promise of forgiveness. Malysz contends that unless the gospel is related to the disclosure of sin, and not just the law, the Reformer’s insight about sin’s radicalness will be compromised. That would minimalize not only sin but also grace. True enough, Luther challenged a meritorious approach to good works because he was against self-congratulation and pride. But sin cannot be confined to mere transgression of the law. This is because at its core sin is unbelief. Misdeeds grow out of mistrust. Hence, the opposite of sin is not virtue but instead faith. Sin is not so much a transgression of the law as much as a denial of the gospel. It is not against the law, be it God’s law or natural law; sin is against God’s goodness. It takes place not in the context of an ethical framework but flies in the face of the self-giving God. (p. 155) Sin becomes sin only in the face of God’s goodness. For Malysz, the linear approach to distinguishing law and gospel undermines the truth of the primacy of grace.

Robert Kolb offers a thorough overview of Lutheran understandings of the person of Christ from Luther through the formulation of the Formula of Concord (1577). Luther understood the person of Christ by means of the communications of attributes (communictio idiomatum) in which the characteristics of each nature belong to that nature alone. Nonetheless, because the attributes of each are communicated within this one, unique person to the entire person and thus to the other nature, both natures exercise and are described with the characteristics of the other as well as its own. Precisely because Jesus Christ is the unique theandric person can he fully sympathize with sinners in the distress and take on and defeat those foes, sin, death, and the devil, which oppress sinners. Likewise, he is capable of being present in the Lord’s Supper wherever it may be administered and at whatever time in his human nature just as he has promised to be. Melanchthon and Luther, though, were not on the same page with respect to the communication idiomatum. For the preceptor of Germany, the communication of attributes was adverbial, a verbal expression, that did not apply to general ontological principles but only to the person of Christ, without detailing how the attributes are communicated. (p. 173) Melanchthon was far more influenced than Luther by the Humanist tradition and its latent Platonism which wanted to keep as separate as possible the divine and the human in Christ. Hence, this led to much debate among early Lutherans. These debates were resolved with the Formula of Concord which through the efforts of Martin Chemnitz allowed Luther’s voice to prevail.

Jack Kilcrease explores how similar and different Martin Chemnitz’s (1522-1586) Christology is from that of Aquinas. Lutheranism has a history of intense debates over Christology, with both Roman Catholic and Reformed theologians, over the question of how it is possible for things finite, such as Christ’s human nature or the elements in the Sacrament of the Altar, to bear the infinite, God’s own gracious presence. Chalcedonian Christology teachers that the Logos incorporates a non-personal or enhypostatic human nature into his own pre-existent hypostasis. Christ’s humanity lacks nothing essential to human nature, but, unlike each of us, it is not constituted by a distinctive individual person. The Logos himself is the person of God incarnate.

Drawing on the Christological debates that Luther had with Zwingli and other Reformed theologians, Chemnitz articulated three genuses that apply to Christ. First, the genus idiomaticum says that the properties of both natures must be attributed to the total theandric person of Christ. Second, the genus apotelesmaticum says that the communication of activities between the divine and the human in Christ happens within the hypostatic union. This union between the two natures is concrete, that is, spoken of each nature unified in the incarnate Logos. This truth allows preachers to say that when Jesus died, the Logos died. The divine nature abstracted from the incarnate Son of God surely cannot suffer or die. But suffering can be attributed to the divine as it is concretely united with the human nature. Conversely, due to this genus, preachers can affirm that the man Jesus created the universe. Finally, the genus majestaticum says that the humanity of Jesus possesses the fulness of divine attributes in the abstract.

It is proper to say this because even when considered in itself the human nature possesses no reality apart from its subsistence in the person of the Logos. Therefore in the abstract, its reality can only be thought of as it exists in union with the Logos. When understood properly this is simply an explication of the implications of the fifth ecumenical council, which taught that the human nature possessed its center of identity in the person of the Logos (it is anhypostasis within the hypostasis of the Logos). Since the Father eternally communicates the fullness of his glory in begetting the person of the Son, the anhypostatic participation of human nature in the Son logically leads to a reception along with that person of the fullness of the divine glory. For this reason, Chemnitz asserts (in contrast to Aquinas) that because of this full participation in the person of the Logos, the humanity of Jesus is also worth to receive the fullness of divine worship (latria), even when considered in the abstract. (pp. 207-208)

Early in his career, Chemnitz thought that Christ does not exercise his capacity for omnipresence at all times and places but instead where he wills to do so (multivolipresence). Later however he came to believe in the absolute omnipresence as specified in the Formula of Concord. Aquinas is unable to affirm the communication of glory to the human nature maintained by both Luther and Chemnitz.

Steve Paulson and Nicholas Hopman take a very different angle on the relationship between law and gospel than either Hinlicky Wilson or Malysz. They maintain that the gospel is only properly presented if it is distinguished from a legal scheme. The legal scheme is not only a theological perspective that reduces the divine and human relation to that of a ladder on which humans are invited ever to grow godlier (and so justify themselves), but it is also embedded in secular life through human attempts for self-fulfillment or security. Paulson and Hopman are adamant: Christ is no Moses. The law cannot make a person new. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. As self-giving, Christ breaks through the confines of the law. The law is primarily an enemy and never a friend. In contrast to an Anselmic approach to the atonement, where Christ is a payment to God on behalf of human sinfulness, Paulson and Hopman write:

Death is the last, greatest enemy, but the law is the strangest enemy. Because of the resurrection, atonement is neither an objective fact like a payment for debt accomplished on Calvary, nor is it a subjective knowledge, assent or faith-work of those merely affected by the cross. Resurrection is not simply a harder miracle to believe in than the cross, which is accomplished becomes the reason for salvation’s reward. Christ’s resurrection unleashes a preaching in the present that forgives sinners, and by doing so puts them to death and creates them new. (p. 248)

Justification and the Gospel

Having presented topics related to Christology, the next group of articles covers a related topic, justification by faith, and the gospel, Christ in action to save. R. David Nelson raises a challenge to those who would reduce justification by grace alone through faith alone as having a criteriological function in theology, a precedent over other theological topics which would then be accountable to justification. Such a stance, he contends, is not true to Paul. He builds a case that, for Paul, justification originally had been a peripheral matter but in Galatians, for the sake of responding to his opponents, he altered his stance. He took on his opponents’ contention that sinners can secure their justification before the divine tribunal by means of works such as circumcision. He turns his opponents’ argument on its head. The establishment of any law as necessary for justification in effect obliges perfect lawfulness, and so, such an attempt accuses all self-righteousness sinners of their need for Christ. The law cannot regenerate people, unlike faith in Christ. God’s righteousness given in Christ then is unlike the righteousness established in human courts. Paul was influenced, to a degree, by apocalypticism and so saw the current age as a fulcrum between the old age of sin and death and the new age of Christ’s righteousness. That perspective situates the law within both an historical and an apocalyptic context and so re-situates us to see the law as pedagogical, a preparation for the gospel.

Oswald Bayer takes a different stance and does regard justification by grace alone through faith alone as a criteriological standard for theology. Far from offering a reductionistic approach to theology, justification offers both existential depth, an encounter with God, and social and cosmic breadth, allowing humans to appreciate their ecological interconnectedness with the rest of creation. Not only is it a starting point for theology but it influences all other theological topics. In his Small Catechism, Luther shows that the article of justification bears upon how we understand creation since we are given the gift of life apart from merit or worthiness. The fact that everything in our experience is a gift bears on our interpersonal relationships. We need not be obsessed over whether or not we are adequately compensated for our contributions to others since, as Paul Gerhardt put it, the Creator has already repaid anyone who gives precisely because one’s own existence is neither earned nor deserved. Hence, the old adage do, ut des, I give so that you will give back, is blown away. Many of our contemporaries neither fear God as the Judge nor observe his law. This makes them to be like Atlas and bear responsibility for their world that they construct. In contrast, the gospel affirms that God alone is responsible for each of us, and, in God’s care, we are free.

Steve Paulson and Jerome Klotz take on the topic of predestination, the presupposition of both justification and Christology. They develop Luther’s case for unconditional grace in the Bondage of the Will and argue that, while the old Adam finds God’s election of the ungodly offensive, it rings true to the gospel and God’s own character since God does nothing contingently. But God’s election happens in no abstract, heavenly realm but instead occurs concretely, as the preaching of the gospel which is not merely information but a message delivered for the wellbeing of each sinner. The authors walk through the debates between Johann Pfeffinger (1493-1573), for whom God never coerces but only incites people to come to grace, and Nicholas von Amsdorf (1483-1565), for whom the will is captivated to sin and we are completely dependent on the agency of the Holy Spirit if we are to possess faith in Christ. Against Nicholaus Hunnius’ (1585-1643) contention that God elects in view of faith (intuitu fidei), they argue that no one comes to faith unless the Holy Spirit imparts the faith through the proclamation of the word.

The Holy Spirit, the Church, and the Means of Grace

The next section deals with the agency of the Holy Spirit to establish the church which offers the means of grace. Lois Malcolm notes that charismatic Christianities worldwide are on the rise. She presents her locus on the Holy Spirit by interpreting the biblical text and avoiding abstract concepts. The Spirit is creative, effectuating both creation and new creation. In agreement with other contributors, the law is impotent to quicken, but the Spirit quickens believers by calling what is non-existent into existence (since self-righteousness can never save), and unites us to Christ. Thereby the Spirit frees us in Christ and calls us to love our neighbor and God’s creation. The Spirit teaches us to pray aright: even our groanings become a prayer when within the Spirit’s grasp as we ourselves hunger for the new world that God will make.

Cheryl Peterson offers an interpretation of the church which avoids the pitfalls of an earlier generation of Lutheran scholarship that pitted the church seen as an event of the Spirit’s agency from that of the church as an ontological expression, a kind of embodiment of the Spirit across time by means of a hierarchical apostolic succession. In other words, we are to avoid reducing the church either to an existential event or an ontology. Instead, we are to honor the church as an institution guided by the narrative of the gospel, a spiritual community receiving its identity from the word, since it is, after all, a creature of the word, grounded neither in a subjective experience nor in a priestly estate as such. The church is the means whereby the Spirit effectuates new life in the world. Peterson appropriates Luther’s seven marks that properly distinguish the church: 1. baptism, 2. The sacrament of the altar, 3. The office of the keys, 4. The holy ministry, 5. Prayer, 6. Praise, and 7. The cross. The word empowers the church for mission and upholds it as it resiliently passes on the faith across generations.

Gordon Jensen offers two helpful essays on the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Jensen notes that baptism, understood in an evangelical way, is no human work, not dependent on one’s conscious confession of faith, but is instead a work of the Holy Spirit to regenerate. Luther eschews Zwingli’s attempt to disassociate Spirit baptism from water baptism which transforms baptism into an outward sign of an inner renewal. Instead, for Luther, baptism is truly sacramental, offers a word that, in tandem with water according to our Lord’s command, regenerates the person baptized. Baptism unites with Christ and empowers those baptized to serve as Christs in their various callings. The Lord’s Supper is Christ’s last will and testament, conferring the benefits of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. We receive Christ in this sacrament, a means whereby Christ himself consumes the evil that is part and parcel of our old nature. The same body and blood of Christ which was given on our behalf on the cross is given each time we feast at the Lord’s Supper but not in the same form or in the same mode, due to the sacramental union of Christ with the earthly elements. John Pless presents the rite of confession as comfort for those who despair due to their sinfulness. The absolution offered in the rite is no hypothetical information but an actual granting of forgiveness from God through the voice of the pastor. With this absolution, no one can accuse a sinner any longer of anything. It is in fact the verdict of the last day, not guilty or absolved, rendered in the present moment.

The Christian Life and the Last Things

Finally, we look at the Christian Life and Eschatology. Robert Benne notes that Luther affirmed that God was masked in creation, present not only in hidden ways, but also as sustaining creation and bringing order and stability to it. Developing Luther’s three estates of family, state, and church, later Lutherans expanded these categories as God’s work within marriage and the family, work, public life, and church. Benne claims that the theology of the cross positions Lutherans to have a healthy rapport with respect to the secular world. Lutherans live under no illusion of the world’s perfectibility. That said, their faith does not exist to protect them from the secular world, which in truth, is an aegis of God’s ongoing creation. The church as such is not primarily to be coopted as a political actor but instead exists primarily to preach the gospel. That said, it occasionally must take a stand for some policies, specifically to stand for God’s law in the world. Lutherans are neither utopian nor cynical. Karlfried Froelich describes Luther’s affirmation of callings in the secular world. He did not eliminate priests, as many would think, but laity. All are involved in holy callings whatever their station or trade might be. Mary Jane Haemig interprets Luther’s view of prayer as conversation between God and ourselves, one which God starts and in which he allows himself to be prevailed upon and even subordinate his will to ours. Luther pointed his listeners away from contemplating or questioning—or even being overawed by—the mysteries of God and rather encouraged them into active interaction with God—interaction that can include pleading with God and boldly asking him to change his will. (pp. 314-5)

As the last item here, Jeffrey Silcock presents the doctrine of the last things, death, judgment, hell, and eternal life. Hell is not beyond God’s communication; he still speaks to people albeit in wrath. The new creation is no mere restoration but a novum begun even now and perfected with the return of Christ. The Lord’s Supper witnesses to the heavenly banquet which the saved will enjoy with God throughout eternity. Silcock draws out a theology of hope based on the proverb attributed to Luther, If I knew the world was to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today!:

This proverb enshrines belief in God the Creator and hope for the downfall of the perverted world when grace wins its final victory. For now, everything is fragmentary and provisional, and many things appear contradictory because, this side of eternity, our understanding is only partial. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we shall see face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). This also gives us the perspective from which to approach the puzzles and anomalies of world history. There is no clear causal nexus between guilt and retribution. History often does not repay evildoers for the crimes they have committed and evil remains the winner. There are countless injustices that wait to be put right in the final reckoning, and precisely because there is a judgment that is external to world history, we are not forced to think, with Hegel, that the history of the world is the judgment of the world. Paul reminds us that on the last day, God will right all wrongs and make reparations for those who have suffered unjustly (2 Cor. 5:10). (p. 499)

Acknowledgements

This volume exists because the authors contributed their expertise and took time off from their busy teaching and publication schedules to offer their essays for what Lutheran Quarterly originally called its loci project. I am grateful for the energy and passion which the authors have brought to their topics indicating the rootedness of the topic in the history of doctrine as well as situating it to address the current academic climate and the needs of the church. Robert Kolb has especially helped in securing the value of this book in the last stages of assembling this compilation by providing an overarching Lutheran understanding of Christology which considers not only Luther and Melanchthon but also those thinkers who formulated the Formula of Concord.

Both Paul Rorem and Bud Thompson are to be thanked for helping me edit each essay making them suitable for publication. Bud Thompson has not only copy-edited and proof-read these and all Lutheran Quarterly essays before they first appeared in print but also has tended quietly and professionally to all the business aspects of the journal since its first volume in 1987. As the Managing Editor for all these years, he has made authors look good and kept Lutheran Quarterly running. For over a quarter century Paul has contributed tirelessly toward making Lutheran Quarterly the flagship journal of Lutheran theology and history in the English-speaking world. Each essayist, along with me, shares gratitude for Paul and Bud for their important work which not only raises a banner signaling the value of Lutheran theology and history but also provides a community and forum for the exchange of perspectives in this field. As editor of this volume, I dedicate it to both Paul and Bud in honor of their commitment to the mission of Lutheran Quarterly and the outstanding work they have done in carrying on the vision of Oliver Olson who in the late 1980s revived it from its decade-long hiatus.

Conclusion

Take and read was the directive Augustine heard that lead him to turn to Romans and become fully committed to the Christian faith. That is the invitation given to you in this volume: take and read. Seek to wrestle with foundational Christian truths, the Lutheran understanding of them given here, and their relevance for your ministry. Counter to Paul and the author of Hebrews who had to give milk and not solid food to their audience (1 Cor. 3:2 and Heb. 5:12), may you find this volume to be solid food which sustains and satisfies you.

Notes

1. For Melanchthon’s first edition of the Loci Communes, see Philip Melanchthon, Commonplaces: Loci Communes 1521, trans. Christian Preus (St. Louis: Concordia, 2014). For a translation of the significantly expanded third edition, see Philip Melanchthon, The Chief Theological Topics: Loci Praecipui Theologici 1559, trans. J. A. O. Preus, 2d ed. (St. Louis: Concordia, 2011). For Melanchthon’s influence on Luther, see Heinz Scheible, Luther and Melanchthon, Lutheran Quarterly 4 (1990): 317-339 and Timothy J. Wengert, Luther and Melanchthon—Melanchthon and Luther, Lutherjahrbuch 66 (1999):55-88.

2. The Small Catechism in The Book of Concord, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 356:5.

3. "The quarrel between Lutherans and Reformed has centered on a concept known as extra-Calvinisticum. For example, the Reformed Heidelberg Catechism stated: ‘Since the Godhead is incomprehensible and everywhere present, it must follow that it is indeed beyond the bounds of the manhood which it has assumed, and yet is nonetheless within it as well, and remains personally united to it.’ The Lutheran position was dubbed the infra-Lutheranum because it held that the Son of God is totally within the flesh and never outside it (neque logos extra carnem, neque caro extra logon). In the incarnation God will be known in the flesh, never apart from it. Looking for God outside of his self-enfleshment struck Luther as the kind of blasphemy Christians should seek to avoid." See Carl E. Braaten, Principles of Lutheran Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 94.

4. Christian Dogmatics. Two Volumes, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).

5. Confessing the Gospel: A Lutheran Approach to Systematic Theology. Two Volumes (St. Louis: Concordia, 2017). Independently of the seminaries and national headquarters of the Missouri Synod, the Luther Academy sponsors the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics Series with six volumes already in print and seven more planned. The goal of this series is to supplement Pieper and address contemporary theological issues, but in strict fidelity to scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.

6. What Lutherans Are Thinking: A Symposium on Lutheran Faith and Life, ed. E. C. Fendt (Columbus, Ohio: The Wartburg Press, 1947). These essays were the fruit of the first free conference of Lutheran theological professors in the United States and Canada. Fendt notes, There has been no attempt to ‘harmonize’ divergent opinions of various writers. that there are differing opinions within the Lutheran Church on many questions in theology is a fact not to be concealed, but that there is also an inner unity in the varied approaches used and in the conclusions reached by Lutheran scholars will also be evident to the reader of these chapters. See p. 5.

Prolegomena to Lutheran Theology

by R. David Nelson

The prolegomena for any scholarly enterprise typically consist of critical reflections upon the scope, tasks, methods, problems, and goals of the work at hand. As first words, ¹ prolegomena set an intellectual endeavor in motion by clarifying the conditions, cautions, prerogatives, and restrictions which ought to guide the work as it unfolds throughout its regions of rational investigation and construction. Prolegomena are formal, stating up front the principles, commitments, and constraints that determine both the organization and articulation of the work’s material claims. This present exercise advances theological first words for a distinctively Lutheran enterprise in Christian dogmatics. As such, the task of these prolegomena is to articulate various methodological principles and considerations pertaining to the discharge of an orderly and comprehensive account of doctrine in a Lutheran key. ²

Several important and interrelated qualifications must be registered here at the outset. These prolegomena are prepared for inclusion in this journal’s Loci series, and, while not written or published first among the assigned articles, they logically—or so it would seem—precede the other essays. After all, in any field, the exercise of writing first words suggests that other words are to follow, and that some organic unity obtains among all the words disclosed throughout the work. As such, grouping these prolegomena together with the other Loci essays would appear to signify that the principles and other considerations discussed below extend laterally throughout the series. Just here, though, the present prolegomena face a dilemma of no small significance; for they are asserted independently of the other Loci essays. Although linked in a literary relation with the other components of the series, these first words hardly engender the words that follow. Further, if theological prolegomena essentially anticipate subsequent treatments of theological topics, here that anticipatory character is necessarily absent. To put it another way, in a critically important sense, these prolegomena cannot be the first words of the Loci project, for, though they might be placed in first position, they cannot and do not lay claim upon anything that follows. If they truly count as first words to a Lutheran dogmatics, that program of dogmatics—that is, the rest of the words—is unavailable to the reader.

It is, likewise, unavailable to the author! The discharge of theological prolegomena at least presupposes that the author is able to envisage subsequent treatments of theological topics. While, in great works of dogmatics or systematic theology, the prolegomena may be and, in fact, often are written and published separately from and prior to the topical analyses, an awareness of the lateral relations between prolegomenal principles and subsequent theological material is critical, both for the integrity of the entire system and for the words with which the system commences. To borrow a metaphor to which we will repeatedly return: a sense of the architecture of the theological system is essential for the assertion of its first words. ³ We might conceive an analogy between prolegomena and a dossier for a construction project, which would contain, among other things, the blueprint reflecting the building’s realized design. Here, though, there is no blueprint, since, at least at the present time, I have not planned to write any words integrally subsequent or organically connected to these first words—that is, a comprehensive theological system burgeoning from these prolegomena, and thus, apart from occasional musings, have not forecasted how treatments of the topics might subsequently unfold. Three interconnected caveats emerge with just this point. First, the reader should know that these prolegomena undoubtedly would look rather different had they been composed in the context of the construction of a comprehensive theological system. Second, because no subsequent words of my own will follow, the principles set forth in these prolegomena necessarily will remain untested. By consequence, third, I do not have the luxury of, as it were, reading backwards from material claims to formal principles, revising the prolegomena once the entire system has run its course.

The foregoing qualifications highlight the inherent limitations of my assignment. Ineluctably, these are dangling prolegomena; first words without other words in tow; the commencement of a discourse which never, in fact, proceeds toward its end(s); basic principles which do not directly or deliberately unfold into concrete claims. However, I do not aim to encumber these pages with throat clearing, but will endeavor to maintain an assertive theological voice within the assignment’s limits. Indeed, it will become apparent in the following that these prolegomena are funded by a nexus of commitments concerning the character of Lutheran theology. I will address several of these commitments as principles of Lutheran theology in the section bearing that heading, below. Here, in these first first words, it seems appropriate to make plain, at least in shorthand, some of the basic positions which give way to my subsequent moves.

First, Christian theology is curricular; that is, acquired over time through concentrated and sustained intellectual labor. Theology, that is, is never sheerly spontaneous or interruptive, but develops as the upshot of prayerful and contemplative study. As such, theological discourse necessarily involves the concerted employment of the human faculty of reason. While specific inquiries concerning the theology of human reason might find expression within the analyses of particular theological topics (such as the relation of reason and revelation within the exposition of the knowledge of God; the fallenness or misuse of human reason within the doctrine of sin; the sanctification and good use(s) of human reason within the exposition of the Christian life; etc.), in asserting these first words I am committed to the position that reason is ingredient to any theological effort, never otherwise.

Second, I am neither as anxious about nor allergic to metaphysics and ontology as many Lutheran theologians have tended to be at least since the time of Ritschl, whose celebrated essay Theology and Metaphysics remains the quintessential Lutheran manifesto against Aristotelianism in favor of an epistemology restricted to Christology. ⁴ To the contrary, in these prolegomena I am committed to the position that, as the sanctified use of human reason for thinking about God, theology is not only capable but in fact obliged to make metaphysical decisions concerning God’s being and attributes. Holy scripture, which positively states many things about God’s inner life and predicates, offers theology a ready guide for doing so. To be certain, the theologian must stand on guard against unwarranted and syllogistic speculatio, which is the yield of undisciplined theological reason. On the other hand, the theologian need not fear scripturally disciplined speculation, which lends itself to the acknowledgement of God as related causally to the economy as Creator. Numerous significant decisions unfold from this ordering.

Third, I will say much in these prolegomena about sequence and structure in Christian theology, and such comments reflect a commitment to the systematicity of theological discourse. These first words presuppose that first principles extend laterally through the theological topics, that the architecture of a theological system has definitive shape which accords with its commitments, and that differing topical regions are interconnected, with certain doctrines acquiring a distributive function within the system.

These stated commitments to rationality, metaphysics, and systematicity in theology, refracted through my own reading of the developments, key moments, major texts and figures, themes, and future of Lutheran dogmatics, such as it is, may likely elicit allegations of Neo-Scholasticism, especially from those beholden to other approaches to what it means to be a Lutheran theologian today. Such, I concede, would be a legitimate charge, as I view some retrieval of Thomistic and Orthodox Protestant categories as potentially offering a way forward through today’s thickening morass of theological options. However, I do not wish to champion a naïve rush into Protestant scholastic ressourcement. Unchecked flirtations with Aristotle and Thomas and metaphysics and first theology and whatnot can lead to grave theological dangers: the habit of proof texting, the exaggeration of reason at the expense of faith and praxis, the dislodging of theology from preaching, and so on. Alongside an acknowledgement of such pitfalls, I concede the point that, in the idiom of J. Louis Martyn, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ unleashes an epistemological crisis ⁵ upon what is self-evidently known through the exercise of reason about God and all things in relation to God. But, as these prolegomena suggest, I am not convinced that giving the cross its due attention and systematic weight necessitates the eclipse of the metaphysical tradition. On the contrary, it is demonstrable that a fully-orbed Christology, encompassing a strong account of the crucifixion, is ingredient to Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy, with its marriage of biblical exegesis and philosophical deliberation. ⁶ A theology of the cross is not the antipode of this orthodoxy, but rather its establishment.

These first words follow a deliberate sequence of exposition. It is useful at the outset to comment briefly and selectively upon the historical development of the genre of theological prolegomena, as the foregrounding of prolegomena during particular periods in the history of Christian theology has much to reveal to us. We then consider the relation of God’s self-knowledge to human knowledge of God, a topic of considerable importance for apprehending the discursive character, rationality, and systematicity of theology. This discussion gives way to a brief account of order and structure in theology, including some remarks on the peril of theological dis-order. Having up to this point treated prolegomenal themes which I take to be generally pertinent, in the next section we direct our attention to questions residing in the groundwork of Lutheran dogmatics; in particular, the sources and formal principles of a distinctively Lutheran approach to the topics of Christian doctrine. We conclude by regarding the person of the theologian, highlighting the intellectual and moral virtues essential for theological thinking, writing, and practicing.

On the Necessity of Theological

Prolegomena—A Segmentary Genealogy

It is beyond the scope of the present essay to trace the historical evolution of theological prolegomena in unabridged detail. Rather, here we will focus briefly on two key periods from the history of the genre—the scholasticism of the high middle ages and the Protestant scholastic renaissance of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These two periods, which mark the salad days of the discipline of theological first words, are instructive for understanding the contexts and warrants for prolegomena in Christian theology.

As a distinct mode of theological discourse, prolegomena to theology emerged concomitantly with the rise of the universities in the high middle ages. ⁷ To be sure, numerous works of theology appearing during the first millennium of the development of Christian doctrine feature usually brief prefatory remarks on methodological concerns. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, mark a significant transition in the understanding of the nature of theology, and this resulted in a prioritization of introductory commentary on the warrants, sources, tasks, and ends of theological works. In particular, it was the shift toward the idea of theology as a science, residing alongside the other Aristotelian sciences, ⁸ which precipitated the evolution of theological prolegomena. The retrieval of Aristotle’s philosophy as the basis for theoretical knowledge, which commenced and was hotly debated in the mid-twelfth century, brought with it an emphasis on rationes necessariae, the foundational axioms which ground scientific claims. Such axioms were conceived as ingredient to any given scientific enterprise, and especially to theology as the highest science. Early theological prolegomena from the period consist of short, informal statements of the rational bases and organizational agendas for the work at hand. From the mid-thirteenth century onward, the prolegomena for scholastic works of theology evolved rapidly in terms of complexity, as the growing influence of Aristotle on theological scientia engendered strong interest in theological method and the philosophical grounds for Christian doctrine. The genre of theological prolegomena continued to flourish during the medieval period, even as the idea of theology as a science recurrently received challenges from within the discipline, most notably from Duns Scotus, who rejected the claim that the proofs of theology are available to human reason, ⁹ and from Ockham, who likewise, though with different problems in mind, argued that theoretical knowledge of God cannot be established through rational demonstration. ¹⁰

Early sixteenth-century Protestant theologians did not preoccupy themselves with writing prolegomena to theology, not least because of the complex development and variegated character of early Protestant theological literature. For instance, the absence of elaborate formal theological prolegomena in Martin Luther’s works, particularly the critical texts from the late 1510s and 1520s, is due less to his putative aversion to late medieval metaphysical commitments than it is to the occasional nature of most of his writings. As a rule, Luther and other first-generation reformers produced and published exegetical and thematic treatises, short tracts on timely theological issues, and sets of theses and proofs from public disputations—all genres of theological writing which hardly beg the forefronting of methodological concerns. This is not to suggest that the early reformers were untroubled by questions of method. Rather, a distinctively Protestant approach to the sources, tasks, and ends of theological work does indeed emerge in the writings of Luther and his earliest associates and sympathizers. Such materials, though, are integrated into the discourse, rather than sequestered into first words. This tendency obtains throughout the first half of the sixteenth century, from the Reformation’s infancy to subsequent phases marked by political and ecclesial organization and by the development of Protestant confessional literature. Even early Protestant systematic theologies appearing during the movement’s first few decades, such as Melanchthon’s Loci Communes Theologici and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, are short on first words, incorporating methodological considerations into the main text. ¹¹

With the flowering of Protestant scholasticism in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the genre of Protestant theological prolegomena reached its zenith. As during the high middle ages, the most significant factor in this development is the double theme of the function of theological education in the life of the university and, vice versa, the role of the university in the dissemination of Christian theology. As Muller puts it, around the turn of the seventeenth century, European Protestantism undergoes a transition toward institutionalization and toward the disciplined academic teaching of theology. Consequently, the theological prolegomena of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are, arguably, the most exhaustive and most finely tooled prolegomena in the history of theology. The intense polemics of the century following the Reformation forced all parties in the theological debate to examine, clarify, and defend their presuppositions more carefully than ever before. ¹²

Martin Chemnitz’s Loci, which appears early on in this trajectory, illustrates this shift toward Protestant university theology and serves as a harbinger of the grand summae of the seventeenth century. ¹³ In his prolegomenal remarks on The Use and Utility of Theological Topics, ¹⁴ Chemnitz unfurls what is essentially a historical survey of theological compendia, observing that brief summaries of doctrine recur throughout the Old and New Testaments, giving way in the post-apostolic era to a literary trajectory of creedal, expository, and systematic epitomes of Christian theology. Having thus established the necessity of theological summarization due to its currency in scripture and tradition, in the Special Cautions Chemnitz resolves to clarify, in nine interrelated principles, what deserves particular attention within each locus . . . so that we will always perceive the entire body of doctrine in each of its articles. ¹⁵ With Johann Gerhard three decades later, the bourgeoning Protestant interest in theological basic principles and in correlations between topical regions takes a significant step forward toward comprehensiveness and ornamentation. Preus notes that in Gerhard’s short prolegomena are contained the elements of practically everything that was to be considered under prolegomena for the next hundred years. ¹⁶ The prefatory unit for his Loci Theologici On the Nature of Theology ¹⁷ contains thirty-one philosophical articles on the nomenclature, existence, causes, form, content, ends, objects, and adjuncts of theology, and concludes with distillation of the definition of theology as (systematically and abstractly) the teaching drawn from the Word of God that instructs man in true faith and pious living for eternal life and (conditionally and concretely) the God-given condition conferred on man by the Holy Spirit through the Word, which instructs the individual in the divine mysteries and enables the individual to participate in them. ¹⁸ Gerhard’s summary of theological principles proved influential during subsequent milieus of high and late Lutheran orthodoxy, as theologians such as Calov and Hollatz riffed on Gerhardian themes to develop robust statements of theological method. Throughout the entirety of this period, prolegomena were undertaken by the orthodox theologians with urgency and eloquence, as the foregrounding of theological method and the philosophical foundations for theological claims was deemed necessary for Christian theology’s pedagogical responsibilities and status in the university.

How this situation evolved over the course of the next two centuries, especially in the wake of the European Enlightenment and with the rise of the modern research university, ¹⁹ transcends our present task. For our purposes here, the foregoing segmentary history reveals some essential attributes of theology, which themselves animate theological first words. In particular, for the scholastic theologians of the high middle ages and of the milieu of Protestant orthodoxy, Christian theology is both curricular—that is, acquired as knowledge over a deliberate course of study and thus well-suited for the practices and good habits of pedagogy—and rational—that is, the yield of reason’s labor and compliant with the rules of