Christian Virtue and “Meta-virtues”

2019 ◽  
pp. 185-208
Author(s):  
Gifford A. Grobien
Keyword(s):  
Golden Rule ◽  
Community Setting ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Good Works ◽  
The Church

The new character of the life in union with Christ and formed in the worship of the Church nourishes the fundamental virtues of faith and love. Having established the theological underpinnings of the Christian character and the community setting in which it comes into existence and grows, this chapter considers the virtues of this Christian character and argues for a particular understanding of virtue in view of Luther’s teaching on virtue and good works. Although Luther’s criticism of Aristotelian philosophy was so strong that he rarely even used the term “virtue,” he speaks of “good works” as inclinations that grow out of faith and love. Faith inclines a person toward worship, thanks, and praise of God. Love inclines Christians to see themselves in the place of their neighbors in accordance with the Golden Rule and to act according to the neighbor’s benefit.

scholarly journals Martin Luther and Justification

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli-Pekka Vainio
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Essential Question ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Media ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Well Function ◽  
The One

The doctrine of justification is an account of how God removes the guilt of the sinner and receives him or her back to communion with God. The essential question concerns how the tension between human sin and divine righteousness is resolved. Luther’s central claim is that faith alone justifies (that is, makes a person righteous in the eyes of God) the one who believes in Christ as a result of hearing the gospel. This faith affects the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that covers the sins of the believer. In contrast to medieval doctrines of justification, Luther argues that Christ himself, not love, is the form, or the essence, of faith. Love and good works are the necessary consequences of justification even if they are not necessary for justification. However, the inclination to love and perform good works is present in the believer through Christ, who is present in faith, but these characteristics do not as such, as renewed human qualities, have justifying power. Luther’s doctrine of justification cannot be classified with simplistic categories like “forensic” and “effective” (see the section “Review of the literature” below). Often these terms are used to refer to differing interpretations of justification. However, several recent traditions of scholarship perceive this categorical differentiation as simplistic and misleading. Instead, these terms may well function to designate different aspects of God’s salvific action. In the narrow sense, justification may refer to the forensic and judicial action of declaring the sinner free from his or her guilt. A broader sense would include themes and issues from other theological doctrines offering a holistic and effective account of the event of justification, in which the sinner believes in Christ, is united with Christ’s righteousness, and receives the Holy Spirit. Depending on the context, Luther may use both narrow and broad definitions of justification. Here Luther’s doctrine of justification is approached from a broader perspective. On the one hand, justification means imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness to the believer without merits. On the other hand, faith involves effective change in the believer that enables one to believe in the first place. This change is not meritorious because it is effected by Christ indwelling in the believer through faith. Thus, Christ gives two things to the sinner: gratia, that is, the forgiveness of sins, and donum, that is, Christ himself. The media through which Christ offers his mercy are the word and sacraments. Thus, Luther’s sacramental theology, Christology, and soteriology form a coherent whole. Because justification involves union with Christ, which means participation in Christ’s divine nature, Luther’s doctrine of justification has common elements with the idea of deification.

Formation in Christian Worship

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-184
Author(s):  
Gifford A. Grobien
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Marie Chauvet ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
The Church

In conversation with Oswald Bayer, Bernd Wannenwetsch, and Louis-Marie Chauvet, this chapter explains comprehensively the power of Christian worship ethically to form Christians in union with Christ. Language and ritual theories explain the power of speech and ritual to institute forms or orders of life. Christians who have been united to Christ through God’s justifying word are inaugurated into the ecclesial form of life. In this communion, they are formed by the Holy Spirit to act in accordance with the speech of God and the institution of the Church. Furthermore, as grace-filled speech, preaching and the sacraments form Christians also by the supernatural “inscription” of the Holy Spirit. The particular power of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to unite Christians to Christ and to each other, and to form Christians ethically, is explored in Luther’s and Philip Melancthon’s writings.

scholarly journals COUNSELS OF PERFECTION AND REFORMATION POLITICAL THOUGHT

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-330
Author(s):  
SARAH MORTIMER
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Reformation Theology ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Theological Critique ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe debate over counsels of perfection was a crucial aspect of the formation of political and ethical thought in the sixteenth century. It led both Protestants and Catholics to consider the status of law and to consider how far it obliged human beings, rather than simply permitting particular actions. From Luther onwards, Protestants came to see God's standards for human beings in absolute terms, rejecting any suggestion that there were good works which were merely counselled rather than commanded, and therefore not obligatory. This view of ethics underpinned the Protestant theological critique of Catholic doctrines of merit but it also shaped the distinctively Protestant account of natural law. It enabled Luther and his allies to defend magisterial control over the church, and it also formed a crucial element of Protestant resistance theory. By examining the Lutheran position on counsels, expressed in theological and political writings, and comparing it with contemporary Catholic accounts, this article offers a new perspective on Reformation theology and political thought.

Georgian Churchmanship Reconsidered: Some Variations in Anglican Public Worship 1714–1830

1985 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. C. Mather
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Good Works ◽  
High Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Public Worship

Current evaluation of the Church of England under the first four Georges follows in the main the assessment made by Norman Sykes in his monumental Church and State in England in the Eighteenth Century, published in 1934. According to that view the Church, which was lastingly cleared of the universal slackness previously imputed to it, exhibited a pervasive Latitudinarianism sympathetically portrayed by Sykes as ‘practical Christianity’, an emphasis on cdnduct and good works to the neglect of ‘organised churchmanship’ and the ‘mystical element’ in religion. R. W. Greaves detected similar features in the concept of ‘moderation’: suspicion of popery and friendship towards dissenters, a cult of plainness in theological explanation and a very general contempt of whatever was medieval. Historians have been willing to acknowledge as exceptions to this ‘mild’ quality of Anglican churchmanship the early Methodists and ‘small Evangelical and High Church minorities’, but only the two former have been taken seriously. Piety of a more traditional kind - rubrical, sacramental, Catholic - has been identified, only to be discounted. The Establishment has been seen in the light of the judgement recently summarised by Dr Anthony Russell: ‘Certainly the temper of the eighteenth century which favoured reason above all else, and was deeply suspicious of mysticism and the emotions, was against any form of sacramentalism.’

The Pier Luigi Farnese Scandal: An English Report

1962 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-200
Author(s):  
George B. Parks
Keyword(s):  
Good Works ◽  
Fellow Student ◽  
The Church

Though a discredited scandal might best be forgotten, its reverberations may still have meaning. In 1537 England was cut off by the break with the Roman church from its Italian contacts outside of Venice; yet a scandal which was the talk of Rome and Florence in hat and following years not only made its speedy way to England but was soon recorded in print there.Cosimo Gheri, Bishop of Fano, died in Fano of an apparent long standing malaria or other fever in September 1537. A young man of twenty-four, he owed his bishopric to his late uncle, his predecessor as bishop. He was praised for both learning and devotion and was well known from his recent student days at Padua to many of new eminence in the church—Contarini, Cortese, Sadoleto, Pole, Cervini. A laudatory account of him was written on January 1, 1538, for Venetian friends by his fellow-student Ludovico Bcccadelli, then in the famiglia of Cardinal Contarini in Rome, and his good works in the short year of his incumbency at Fano have been recorded by the local historian.

scholarly journals The economic ethics of Calvinism. The reconciliation of piety and wealth

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Lucyna Chmielewska
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Religious Ethics ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Nature And Grace ◽  
The World ◽  
Secular Power ◽  
The Church

The doctrine of predestination in the Lutheran and Calvinist theology, along with the assumption of a radical separation of nature and grace as well as the material and spiritual realm, had a significant impact on social life. The salvation of the soul, the soteriological dimension of human destiny, remained dependent on the grace of God (predestination), undeserved and unfathomable. The earthly reality, the institution of the Church and good works could in no way contribute to the salvation of the soul. Martin Luther, especially at the initial stage of his reformation activities, focused on private spirituality, considering the earthly dimension of reality to be the domain of the secular power. John Calvin and his successors justified in their teachings a different attitude manifested in the interest in the earthly world based on religious ethics. The doctrine of predestination, therefore, did not result in, as one would expect, quietism but in activism. The Calvinists believed that predestination was not manifested in single good deeds but in a certain methodology of systematised life based on religious ethics. Religiousness was supposed to be expressed through activity in the world and was meant to show the glory of its Creator. Work, thrift and honesty were supposed to lead to the rebirth, i.e. “sanctification” of the world, and were the essence of what Max Weber called the spirit of capitalism. Calvinism led to changes in the approach to such economic issues as money lending at interest, work or enrichment.

Intellectual Humility and the Community of the Sacraments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Macaskill
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers the role that the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist play in fostering a proper attitude of intellectual humility within Christian community. The sacraments dramatically enact the union with Christ that we have argued in previous chapters to define Christian intellectual humility, embodying the truth that our intellectual identities are not autonomous, but are dependent upon the constitutive identity of Jesus Christ and are located within the community of the church. Both baptism and Eucharist are understood within the New Testament to communicate the eschatological identity of the church, and therefore the distinctive character of our relationship to the reality of evil. The chapter will pay particular attention to the way that Paul directs his readers to think differently in response to the significance of the sacraments. It will also consider the close connection of the command to ‘love one another’ to the sacraments.

scholarly journals The ministry of women among early Calvinistic Baptists

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 402-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Birch
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Women Preachers ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Congregational Participation ◽  
The Church

AbstractAlthough there is considerable documentation of women preachers during the English Civil War period and the Interregnum, it is clear that such activities were not encouraged among English Calvinistic Baptists, and most especially among Particular Baptists. Yet there was a tension in even the most restrictive Baptist teaching on this subject. For since Baptists had opened the door to congregational participation in the public ministry of the church, they were faced with the problem of partially closing that door in order to restrict the ministry of women to that ofdiakonia, and good works. Nevertheless, a small number of women have been identified as both prophets and Particular Baptists, and the nature and context of their ministry illustrates the role of women in early Baptist communities.

Swiss Brethren and Dutch Mennonites

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-187
Author(s):  
Esther Chung-Kim
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Criminal Punishment ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Clear Sign ◽  
Forced Migrations ◽  
Stable Family ◽  
The Church

Severe persecution and frequent migration threatened the survival of various Anabaptist groups and their leaders who lacked a salary or benefits, unlike magisterial Protestant reformers or Catholic clergy. Voluntary leaders like Menno Simons had to sacrifice a stable family life because of traveling visitations and forced migrations. Considered outlaws in most places, Anabaptists could not rely on any state support. The forms of poor relief among Swiss Brethren (including south German and Austrian Anabaptists) and Dutch Mennonites emerged out of a biblical rationale that the church of true believers practiced mutual aid out of love and obedience to Christ’s precepts and example. Anabaptist leaders relied a great deal on the networks of scattered Anabaptist communities, even though any aid to wanted Anabaptist fugitives could lead to criminal punishment. Mutual aid became a defining characteristic of the Anabaptists as a clear sign of faith and good works.

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