God's Laws

God is, among other things, a legislator. God has issued laws throughout history. The first laws He gave were to Adam and Eve. After that, He gave other laws to other people, notably Noah. It is not wise to attempt exact dates for these, but we can safely assume that laws were issued to Adam and Eve sometime prior to 4000 B.C., whereby the phrase 'sometime prior to' can cover years, centuries, or even a couple of millennia. It is also prudent to refrain from attempting an exact dating for Noah, but rather we might note that laws were given to Noah sometime after they were given to Adam and Eve, and sometime before God spoke to Abraham. Abraham we may posit as living around 1950 B.C., give or take a century.

But God's most prolific legislative activity occurred during the life of Moses. We will assign a date of 1400 B.C. to the activities of Moses, again allowing a century in either direction for approximation. To Moses God gave many laws - 613 by traditional rabbinical count - and these laws attract considerable interpretive attention, among Christians, among Jews, and among skeptics.

One claim made by the skeptics runs along these lines: modern Christians seem to pick and choose from among God's laws. Christians assert the validity of, and make earnest if flawed attempts to adhere to, regulations like "you shall not commit adultery" and "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18) and "Do not deny justice to your poor people" (Exodus 23:6). Simultaneously, however, Christians feel free to ignore laws like "Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material" or "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard" (both found in Leviticus, chapter 19). The skeptic will note that the Christians seem arbitrary in their choices: these laws are found in the same texts, often within the same passage or subsection within that text, yet one is diligently enforced and the other dismissed. The skeptic asserts that there is no rational choice here, and that the Christian is picking and choosing within the text according to his personal preference, not according to any logical axiom.

Such debate is not new, of course, and the Christians have standard replies to such allegations. One common response is to say that the laws can be logically, historically, and textually divided into a number of categories. For example, one might say that some of the laws are ceremonial, and apply to the cult and the rituals of the Israelites during their Tabernacle phase or during their Temple phase; other laws might be regarded as civil laws, to govern the nation-state which existed from the time that the land was occupied under the command of Joshua, around 1400 B.C., up until the last captives were taken to Babylon, around 588 B.C., those dates defining a continuous legal tradition and the continuous existence of a geo-political entity governed by such laws; a third and final category contains timeless moral laws which are understood to govern all humans.

Having sorted the laws into these categories, some modern Christians think that they have answered the skeptic's challenge, by arguing that they are obliged to follow only those laws in the third category, the timeless moral laws. The laws in the first two categories, the civil laws and the ceremonial laws, applied only to the historically-conditioned nation-state of Israel as it existed during Old Testament times.

A similar procedure can be applied to New Testament laws; some are dismissed as historically or culturally conditioned, while other are seen as timeless spiritual precepts.

The debate will go at least another round, however. The skeptic argues that the Christian may be making arbitrary assignments in placing various laws in various categories. First, it can be noted that the text has scattered and mixed these laws among each other, and neither mentions any system of categorization nor assigns laws to categories. Second, even if the skeptic grants for the sake of argument the existence of such categories, the assignation of any specific law to a particular category becomes an interpretive ambiguity: is the command to "Stand up in the presence of the aged" a civil law of ancient Israel, or a timeless moral law for all humanity? Is the Sabbath command to "Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest" a ceremonial law, a civil law, or moral law? A few minutes of reflection will reveal that nuanced arguments can be made for conflicting categorization of such laws. A third proposition which the skeptic can use is this: it is theologically attractive to the Christian to assert that God's laws are all timeless and eternal; it seems at least disrespectful, and at most blasphemous, to assert that God's laws, or at least some of them, have expired.

The third objection raised by the skeptic can, however, be turned by the Christian to his defense.

Acknowledging that all of God's laws are timeless and eternal, the Christian can then dispense with the categories of civil, ceremonial, and moral. Instead the Christian can reply thusly: every law given by God is still in full effect and will remain so; the question is not whether the law has expired, but rather whom the law is intended to govern. Some of God's laws are given specifically to the Jews; others were given to all mankind.

There is textual evidence to support this approach: the laws given to Adam and Eve, and the laws given to Noah, can arguably be read as given to all humanity; the Noahide covenant, extrapolated from Genesis (chapter 9), can be understood as a relatively clear foundational statement of commonly accepted morality in Western Civilization, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and European culture. Likewise, much of the New Testament's legislation is universal. By contrast, Mosaic law can be understood as applying to Judaism, narrowly construed. Thus the modern Christian need not be bound by dietary and ceremonial laws, although they are still in full effect for the modern Jew.

This discussion of God's laws can, and in some situations has, gone on for a few more - or many more - rounds. The danger in this debate, however, is that one can finally lose sight of the bigger picture: God's laws are only a part of God's Word.

To think only of God's laws, or even to think primarily of God's laws, is to lose sight of God's nature. God is above all else loving. The beginning of time and space, the beginning of matter and energy, was God's creation of the universe - time and space being called into being by the One Who existed outside of them. This beginning of all things was an act of love. God created in order that He might love. At the end of all time, God awaits His creatures, freely offering unearned and unmerited forgiveness and inviting those creatures to enjoy an eternal life in peace and joy after the end of time. Between the beginning of time and the end of time, God's chief activity is loving His creatures - providing for them, guiding them, encouraging them.

Remembering that the Hebrew vocabulary items translated into English as 'law' - the word Torah is chief - can also be rendered as 'instruction' or 'direction' or 'guidance' or 'training' or 'coaching', manifests the loving motive behind the issuance of the law.

It is in this larger context of God's love that His laws must be viewed. It is good and important that we analyze His laws and try to understand them. But it is better and more important that we have a notion of God's activity as a whole. The Formula of Concord notes that

The law has been given to people for three reasons: first, that through it external discipline may be maintained against the unruly and the disobedient; second, that people may be led through it to a recognition of their sins; third, after they have been reborn — since nevertheless the flesh still clings to them — that precisely because of the flesh they may have a sure guide, according to which they can orient and conduct their entire life.

Each of these three purposes can ultimately be understood in the context of the larger theme of God's love. The first use of the law provides for some manner of civil decency and safety: God's desire to form a good environment for His creatures. The second use of the law enlightens humans as to their imperfect natures and their need for God's forgiveness. The third use of the law keeps humans ever aware of their imperfections - as they attempt to live properly and find it continuously impossible - and prevents humans from thinking that their actions might atone for their imperfections. The Formula of Concord continues:

For although they are regenerate and renewed in the spirit of their mind, yet in the present life this regeneration and renewal is not complete, but only begun, and believers are, by the spirit of their mind, in a constant struggle against the flesh, that is, against the corrupt nature and disposition which cleaves to us unto death.

As humans try and fail to live perfectly, the net effect of the third use of the law is to drive them back to the second use of the law. To be sure, the third use of the law also contains the notion of the law as a "guide" to behavior. We might rightly consider that the third use of the law has two distinct points within it. But the entire discussion of God's law, properly considered, serves to continually highlight human imperfection and the impossibility of human obedience. On those rare occasions when we do seem to obey God's law, it is in fact the Holy Spirit acting within us. We are ever reliant on God's grace.

Active vs. Passive

One of the themes to which Christian thought many times returns is that, in matters of justification and salvation, God is active and humans are passive. This paradigm can be seen in the language used to describe salvation - in the relevant languages, verbs have an active voice and a passive voice. They manner in which these verb forms are used is telling.

In the New Testament, Jesus explains that He "came to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10). Jesus is active - He is seeking and saving. The people whom He saves are passive - they are being sought and being saved. Likewise, Scripture tells us that "by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:5 and 2:8). Again the verb is passive.

Likewise, the Old Testament sees salvation as God's activity, in which humans are passive objects. In Psalm 44, the text ascribes to God a great variety of saving activities. Concerning people, it is God who "set them free" and the Psalmist confesses that "it is You who saved us." By contrast, of the people it is true that "not by their own sword did they win," and the author of the psalm admits that "not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me." Thus in both Hebrew and Greek, in the Old Testament and in the New, God's active role, and man's passive role, in salvation is clarified.

Yet, despite the pervasiveness and clarity of the Scriptural exposition of this dichotomy, there are disputes about it. Exactly how far should we apply this active/passive paradigm?

It seems, for example, that when we transition from justification to sanctification, that the argument can be made that humans become at that point active - they are activated by the Holy Spirit. A Pauline expression like "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" leaves some ambiguity.

Theologians of all varieties are drawn into passive language when describing salvation - even those who espouse "decision theology," which is a partial or complete rejection of human passivity in justification. Author J.D. Greear, who advocates for a type of decision theology, writes:

We are "born again" (John 3:1-3); our sins are washed away (Acts 22:16); Christ's righteousness is credited to us (Rom. 4:5); we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (Col. 1:13); we go from being children of death to being beloved sons and daughters of God (Eph. 2:1-4); God's favor replaces His wrath over us (John 3:36); and we are filled with His Spirit and baptized into His body (Acts 10:44; 1 Cor. 12:13).

If we scan that text for verbs, and parse them, the result is a picture of God in action, and humans as the passive recipients of His grace. People "are born" - they don't give birth to themselves; "being born" is a passive verb structure. Our sins are washed away - we don't wash them them away. Righteousness is credited to us - we don't credit it to ourselves. We are transferred into God's kingdom - we don't transfer ourselves. We are beloved children of God - He loves, we receive His love. God's favor replaces His wrath - we don't replace wrath with favor. We are filled with the Holy Spirit - we don't fill ourselves. The pattern of passive verbal structures here is relentless.

To be sure, J.D. Greear uses one active structure - "we go" from being children of death to being alive in Christ. This single exception is not enough to cause the reader to ignore the consistent pattern. The deeper structure of the sentence and paragraph allow us to conceptualize this active "go" as a passive "are moved" from one point to another. While the surface grammar may be active, the deeper semantic signification is passive.

Yet Greear is a proponent of some variety of "decision theology" - note how his verbs change when he expresses his soteriology:

It may have been a subconscious decision, but it was a decision nonetheless. In the same way, there is a moment where you transfer your hope for heaven from your own merits to Christ's substitutionary work.

Now Greear is using active verbs - humans "transfer" their hopes - and talk of a "subconscious decision" reflects a deeper semantic structure which is also active.

It is clear, then, that the active nature of God, and the passive nature of humans, pervades the salvation process so powerfully that even those who embrace "decision theology" - those who therefore seek an active role for humans in the salvation process - find passive language creeping into their texts. The hypothesis that humans are passive in the justification process has plausible and persuasive evidence.

After justification - and here one speaks of both logical and temporal posteriority - the case for an at least partially active humanity is at least possible. Key Pauline texts - Galatians 2:20 - contain enough ambiguity that the slogan "humans are passive salvation but active in sanctification" may be reasonably entertained. While complex discussions about free will may continue eternally without clear resolution, some level of consensus might be garnered for a hypothesis like this: if humans ever do have a free will, it is more likely to happen after justification than before.

Leaving the door open for the possibility that humans might be active in their sanctification, we remain firm in our conclusion that they are utterly passive in their justification. As Martin Luther wrote:

So then, do we do nothing to obtain this righteousness? No, nothing at all. Perfect righteousness is to do nothing, to hear nothing, to know nothing of the law or of works, but to know and believe only that Christ has gone to the Father and is no longer visible; that [H]e sits in heaven at the right hand of [H]is Father, not as a judge, but is made by God our wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption; in short that[H]e is our high priest, entreating for us and reigning over us and in us by grace. In this heavenly righteousness sin can have no place, for there is no law; and “where there is no law there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15).

It might be objected that adopting the view of humans as completely passive in salvation obliges one either to accept a doctrine of universal salvation, or to adopt a doctrine in which God is capricious and arbitrary as He saves some but not others randomly. But the Lutheran - as we may venture to call those who insist on human passivity in justification - need not feel himself confined to either of those two options. One can argue that humans are passive in receiving salvation, but once having received it, are free to actively reject it; this would clear God of the charge of capricious arbitrariness while avoiding the bald assertion of universalism - humans are free to reject God's salvation, because His offer of it creates a moment of free will. Alternatively, the Lutheran can accept some variety of universalism, and seek some variation of universalism which might hope to avoid charges of heresy; bald universalism - the assertion that all are saved - lacks textual evidence to support it. A more nuanced universalist sentiment - the assertion that God wants all to be saved, that it is possible for all to be saved, and that we should work, hope, and pray that all are saved - are more plausibly supported from the text.

What is Marriage?

Marriage has the attention of sociologists, psychologists, theologians, legislators, and culture warriors. There is hand-wringing about the high divorce rate, the low marriage rate, infidelity and adultery, premarital sex and premarital cohabitation, and concern about the misery which might be wrought by so-called 'gay marriage'.

Yet Angst about the aberrations of, and problems with, marriage, while justified, perhaps diverts our attention from concepts which might yield the possible solutions to these problems. Instead of worrying about divorce, adultery, and homosexuality, it might be more instructive, constructive, and productive to consider what marriage is and ought to be.

What marriage is - how 'marriage' is defined - is finally something to be discovered, not invented. It is an independent fact about the universe, not a human construct. It a structural aspect of the cosmos, not a piece of legislation. The more, and the better, it is understood, the greater chance we, as a society, have of choosing healthy and wise courses of action.

In this matter, as in most others, we do not want to idolize the past: there were some bad things in the good old days. Nor do should we condemn the past: tradition carries with it a great wisdom. But we can learn from the past. In this context, Ross Douthat writes:

Before the sexual revolution, a rigorous ethic of chastity and monogamy had seemed self-evidently commonsensical even to many non-Christians. What was moral was also practical, and vice versa; so long as sex made babies, it made sense that the truly safe sex was married. Scripture and tradition supplied the Christian view of marriage, but it was the fear of illegitimacy, abandonment, and disease that made the position nearly universally respected.

The fact that we fail to live up to our ideals should be taken as confirmation that our ideals are correct. Hypocrisy is an inevitable consequence to any attempt to live ethically. To be human is to be imperfect, flawed, sinful, or corrupt. If we strive to live as we ought, we will occasionally fail. This is true of Christians in the past, in the present, and in the future. It is true of most human beings, Christian or not. Our acknowledgement of moral standards is not invalidated by our inability to maintain those standards. Our unavoidable hypocrisy does, however, oblige us to be humble - which is why arrogance is viewed harshly by Scripture.

This respect was granted in the breach as often as in the observance. In 1940 as in 2000, most Americans - male and female alike - didn't go virginal to their marriage beds. But the web of prohibitions rooted in Christian teaching had a real impact nonetheless. Before the sexual revolution, Americans waited longer to have sex, had fewer sexual partners across the course of a lifetime (less than half as many, by some estimates), and were much more likely to see premarital lovemaking as a way station on the road to wedlock rather than an end unto itself. (According to one survey, 45 percent of Americans born around 1940 married the first person they slept with, compared to just 9 percent of Americans born around 1965.) The same pattern held once the marriage was forged: infidelity and divorce were hardly unknown, but in pre-1960s America more married couples made a sustained attempt - and faced sustained social pressure, obviously - to live up to the demanding precepts of the Gospel.

Marriage as an institutional is desirable and valuable. But what precisely is it? The word 'marriage' is commonly used, and most people who utter it are under the impression that they know what it means. Yet there are many misconceptions about it. For example, marriage is not primarily legal: the notion of civil marriage arises in history chronologically after the establishment of marriage. Logically and temporally, civil marriage is posterior to marriage itself. Governmental certification and recording of marriage is an administrative convenience which facilitates inheritance laws, taxation, and civil courtroom proceedings. But a legal marriage certificate is not a marriage. At best, it corresponds to the existence of a marriage and states the existence of that marriage. At worst, which is sadly more often the case, it generates the appearance of marriage where there is no marriage.

A couple can be married with no civil certification or record of the event, but mere civil certification or recording of a marriage does not mean that marriage exists: it does not mean that the couple is in fact married. Some, possibly many, couples aren't really 'married' in the truest sense of the word - i.e., a mutually supportive, respectful, and affectionate relationship with unconditional commitment to set the other's interest ahead of one's own. Such couples may well have a valid marriage license from the government, enjoy the legal, civil, and social status of a married couple, and have a grand wedding celebration in a church. But if a covenant relationship does not exist between husband and wife, and if that covenant is not understood as divinely instituted, then there is no marriage.

Marriage cannot be understood as a human construction, because humans are essentially imperfect and finite. The grade scale of the marriage covenant necessitates that it be superhuman in origin. In his commentary on the second chapter of Genesis, Martin Luther, contrasting the breeding of farm animals to human marriage, writes:

But among men the nature of marriage is different. There the wife so binds herself to a man that she will be about him and will live together with him as one flesh. If Adam had persisted in the state of innocence, this intimate relationship of husband and wife would have been most delightful. The very work of procreation also would have been most sacred and would have been held in esteem. There would not have been that shame stemming from sin which there is now, when parents are compelled to hide in darkness to do this. No less respectability would have attached to cohabitation than there is to sleeping, eating, or drinking with one's wife.

While Luther, in his idiosyncratic fashion, perhaps overstates the concept of shame in relation to sexuality, his points that sex, prior to the fall, is a holy and honorable activity, and that marriage has been damaged by the fall, stand. Sexual activity, in the context of a true marriage, is still honorable and holy; but the imperfection of the world and of the people in the world makes it persistently difficult for the human mind, heart, and will to conceptualize marital love and sex as that pure and holy thing. The mind of man is perpetually tempted to view marriage and sex through the lens of lust, and thereby see it as a shameful thing. In a fallen world, marriage can only exist through divine intervention.

Eve is brought to him by God Himself. Therefore just as God's will is ready to establish marriage, so Adam is ready to receive Eve with the greatest pleasure and innocency. Thus even now the bridegroom has a surpassing affection for the bride, yet it is contaminated by that leprous lust of the flesh which was not present in righteous Adam.

Luther again overemphasizes the fallen aspects of sexual desire. In fallen marriage, there is, to be sure, the danger of a man seeing sexual activity as merely the way in which his desires can be gratified. In the godly concept of marriage, sex is a celebration of the couple's mutual love and affection, and is a gift which each gives to the other.

But it is most worthy of wonder that when Adam looks at Eve as a building made from himself, he immediately recognizes her and says: "This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh." These are words, not of a stupid or a sinful human being who has no insight into the works and creatures of God, but of a righteous and wise being, one filled with the Holy Spirit. He reveals a wisdom hitherto unknown to the world: that the effecting cause of the wife and of marriage is God, but that the final cause is for the wife to be a mundane dwelling place to her husband. This knowledge is not simply the product of intelligence and reason; it is a revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Marriage, like the human soul, was created perfect and sinless, suffered damage in the fall, and is being restored by God. The fallen version of marriage - in which the option exists for one party to exploit or mistreat the other, in which betrayal and infidelity can occur, in which it is possible to be less than fully and affectionately supported and respected - this fallen manifestation of marriage often captures the world's attention, and falsely presents itself as true marriage, whereas it is in fact a damaged and counterfeit image of marriage.

True marriage is something to which no honest and intelligent person could object, and something which no honest or intelligent person, finding himself in such relationship, could want to leave. This is not to say that marriage is mandatory or to be universally required. There are some who are so constructed that lifelong virginity is a good fit for their mentalities. God has constructed each soul uniquely; not everyone should be married and not everyone should be single. It does seem that the overwhelming majority of humans are designed for marriage, and a relatively small percentage for lifelong celibacy.

But the point is this: marriage, properly understood, repaired by God from the damage sustained in the fall, and empowered by God to be something beyond the capabilities of human effort. Who could not find comfort, being in a relationship in which another has unconditionally pledged to devote his being to the effort to aid and assist? A woman who knows that her husband has constructed his life around his pledge to help and care for her; a man who knows that his wife directs her thoughts and activities toward supporting and respecting him; husband and wife know and rely on each other's absolute and unconditional faithfulness - to reject an institution of this nature would be irrational and masochistic.

The marriage of man and woman was divinely ordained. But how deformed it is now after sin! How our very flesh is kindled with passion! And so now, after sin, this union does not take place in public like a work of God; but respectable married people look for solitary places far away from from the eyes of men. Thus we have a body, but what a wretched one and how damaged in various ways! We also have a will and a reason, but how depraved in many ways!

A society or culture which loses this concept of marriage does infinite damage to itself and to its members. The New Testament quotes the Old no less than three times in this singular formulation: "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

Debates and discussions about the all-too-high divorce rate, or about the chimera of 'gay' marriage, are certainly necessary discussions to have. But we miss the point if we assume that merely reducing the divorce rate and avoiding the inhumanity of same-sex marriage is the goal. The goal is better and higher. The goal is to ensure that the institution of marriage is understood and embodied among us.

This begins, not by avoiding divorce, and not by avoiding gay marriage, but with those couples who are widely supposed - by themselves, by the government, and by others - to be married, who may have lived together for years, who may have children, and who may in fact deal with one another in a friendly fashion: this begins by ensuring that what appears to be marriage is in fact marriage. Whether a couple is already married, or whether they intend to be married, instruction about the nature of marriage is necessary; instruction, even better, for those who have not yet even met a potential spouse, instruction about the nature of marriage, so that they have a clear and correct concept of marriage when they do finally meet their future spouses. Problems of adultery and divorce would largely - though not entirely - be avoided by creating healthy and wise marriages in the first place.

The advantages to children of being raised by a truly married couple will be clear to the thoughtful reader; the disadvantages of illegitimate birth likewise obvious.

Those who worry about marriage and the state of society are correct to do so; society will naturally benefit as a consequence when more couples are in a true state of marriage. Instructing young men and women about what marriage is, and what it is not, is a necessary step. Understanding that a good marriage is not possible through human effort alone, but rather requires divine intervention, is also necessary; we may assume that such divine intervention also occurs in marriages among non-believers, or at least state clearly that there is no reason to assume that it does not exist. Addressing the intellect alone does not suffice; the heart and will must also be engaged. To that end, we petition the Holy Spirit.

Hebrew Anthropology and Semitic Mystical Union

When investigating the topic of 'union with God,' encountering heterodox authors is a certainty. Yet we need not shy away from this theme, nor fear perusing the texts of such thinkers. Scripture remains the steady guide, and heterodox authors, by definition, contain elements of truth, and so it is that one sifts the wheat from the chaff.

Christian psychology, on average, is more comfortable with the topic of 'communion with God' than with the topic of 'union' with God. Humans are, after all, something other than, and something separate from, God. To commune with God - to be in community with God - is a straightforward concept, attested by Scripture, the early church, the modern church, and by one's own experience. To be in 'union' with God, however, is a concept so foreign, and so easily twisted into heresy, that one hesitates to entertain it.

In the New Testament, Peter declares, "I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8), emphasizing his otherness, his separation from God, while at the same time confessing Jesus as divine. While doctrines of salvation and justification and sanctification resolve our separation from God, it is not at all clear that they resolve our being 'other' than God. After all, He is the Creator, and we are creatures.

So we explore what scholars have written on the topic. Theologian Frank Seilhamer, while possibly heterodox, conducts careful textual study on the topic, and writes:

Anyone who reads the Old Testament with perception, and comes to grips with Luther's theology, cannot fail to see that for each God is no far-off deity, worshiped at a distance, and operative in his universe and world only as an impersonal Principle! He is a God who is personally, and continually, in touch with man right where man lives.

God is immanent as well as transcendent. As omnipresent, He is everywhere, and so He is in places far from us. As sinless and holy, He is above us and wholly other (Isaiah 55:9). As omniscient, His consciousness are knowledge are greater than ours both in degree and in kind. Yet as omnipresent, He is always with us. As omniscient, He knows our thoughts. As incarnate, He experiences what it is to live in flesh. His indwelling of us - fueled by Word and Sacrament - is the most intense form of His immanence.

The pages of the Old Testament throb with a sense of the nearness of God. Yahweh speaks to man, walks with him, leads him, and at times chastens him. While "Holy," and in many ways "Other," he is a God who has his feet "on the ground" he created. Yahweh is always where man is, rather than spinning around the spheres in splendid isolation.

Yet the phrase 'mystical union' nudges the reader to something more than immediacy or immanence. The marriage metaphor - in the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament Pauline epistles - plays off the phrase 'the two shall become one flesh' (Gen. 2:23, Matt. 19:5, Mark 10:8, Eph. 5:31). The number of times the phrase is used indicates intentionality. Paul explicitly tells us, first, that it is a mystery, and second, that 'it refers to Christ and the church' (Eph. 5:32). Likewise, the pervasive power of the marriage allegory in the prophets begs the reader to render the words into an understanding more direct than allegorical. In a complex passage (Malachi 2:10 through 2:16), the violated marriages of the nation to God and of a man to his wife become so enmeshed with each other that their two separate violations are one. Thus the word 'union' comes into play, describing a relationship between God and man in which God is indeed immanent, but more than immanent.

Luther's writings, too, are filled with the same understanding of God. For the Reformer, God is one who is able to communicate with him within arm's reach. Whether in the Sacrament of the Altar, in the mouths of preachers, or in the middle of a farmer's field, God is never separated from man by distance. God is nearer than hands and feet.

Logically entailed by this relationship is communication. A 'mystical union' with God would mean receiving messages from Him, and immediately so. These messages are not only without mediation, but presumably frequent and rich in content.

Because of this awareness of the presence of God, both the Semites and Luther lived with

the expectation and with the habit of receiving such messages. Dialogue with the Deity would be routine under such circumstances. Believers live with open

ears and opened eyes to hear and watch for the personal activity of God, and its significance for them. Whatever hardships they had to endure, each was undergirded by the belief that God was never out of ear-shot, nor too far away to help. God was an ever-present reality. He was personally involved in his world and their destinies. This assurance added a dimension to their lives that is often missing from the lives of men who think of God as nothing more than a remote "First Cause" or "Eternal Principle," if they think of him at all.

A Semitic worldview rules out both a mind-body substance dualism, like Descartes posits, and a materialism, like Marx posits. It also rules out an idealism like Berkeley's. For the Hebrew, the physical body and the metaphysical soul were not merely related, as in a Cartesian system, but rather were united. This prevents the Semitic thinker from treating the mind separately from the body (or the soul or the spirit or the heart), yet allows an acknowledgement of the distinction between the physical and the metaphysical.

To the primitive Semites, man was conceived of as a physic, and physical, whole. Differing from Platonic philosophy with its dichotomy of body and soul, the ancient Hebrew made no distinction between the psychical and the physical in human personality. As Johs. Pedersen, H. Wheeler Robinson, and Aubrey Johnson have pointed out, in Israelite thought psychical functions have physical basis, so that man is conceived of, not in some analytical fashion as "soul" and "body," but synthetically, as a psychical whole.

Given the nature of the Semitic worldview and the Hebrew metaphysical schema, vocabulary stumbles in translation. The Hebrew word often rendered into English as 'soul' does not comfortably fit into that English-language category. The word is nefesh, and as Seilhamer notes, doesn't easy denote a substance or object which is totally distinct from physical objects.

Thus while the Hebrew refused to divide the nefesh into body-soul categories he did maintain that the nefesh in its "fullness," could extend itself in time and space. Since the Hebrew could not split the personality, wherever the nefesh could be extended there the "whole" man was assumed to be, in all his power, authority, and responsibility. Whether it was his word, his children, his kinsmen, his name, or his possessions, he had a channel through which he himself, as a person, not a disembodied "soul," could be present to act and be acted upon.

Having conceptualized the human soul as something which doesn't easily fit either into the category of physical objects, or into the category of metaphysical objects, and which yet somehow (not easily) fits into both categories, it is not surprising that the Semites thought that God Himself likewise might be not exactly metaphysical, and not exactly physical, and yet somewhat both. In this murky Hebrew ontology, notions like a 'mystical union' seem more possible - if less intelligible - than in the metaphysics of Thomist Scholasticism.

What the Hebrews believed about the extendibility of the human nefesh was paralleled by a like concept about the extension of the divine Personality. Holding to the premise that God had created man in his image, they found nothing incongruous in applying to God attributes and characteristics that were common to themselves.

The notion of a 'mystical union' is made possible, in part, by the fact that the Semitic worldview sees God as so closely connected with His creation that He does more than use it to achieve His goals; He inhabits His creation, and the actions performed by His creation are extensions of His actions. The creation is more than an implement or tool, used in an instrumental fashion by God. It is a garment worn by God. One can veer dangerously close to pantheism in such thoughts; so let us deliberately state that we are not dabbling in pantheism. But one walks a tightrope over a sea of heresy when one explores the topic of a 'mystical union' with God.

Thus, as the nefesh of man was able to reach beyond the contours of the body, God was able to extend himself through various media. Whatever he created could be, and often was, a vehicle through which the Creator manifested himself to his creation. God was not an impersonal, static, far-off "concept" or "idea." The "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" was a personal, dynamic, ever-present, ever-working, ever-speaking deity who was constantly involved in the activity of the men he made!

Language both limits and forms our concept of God and of our relation to Him. God is "with" us, and He is "in" us. We are "in" Him. Prepositions are originally and primarily spatial, but in such discourse, the meaning is not spatial, or at least not primarily so. God is not "in" me the way my sandwich, which I ate five minutes ago, is "in" me. I am not "in" God in the same manner in which I am "in" my house. God is "with" us, but not as our fellow hikers are "with" us on a hike through the countryside.

Whether the Hebrews were in Egypt or Babylonia, whether they were were sojourning in the desert or settled in Canaan, whether they were were in bondage or free, Yahweh was where they were. In objects, people, even the declaration of his name in the benedictions pronounced over the people, the Lord made himself present with his people. Though no object could be said to "hold" God in the sense that the creation could capture Yahweh and make the Creator synonymous with the creation, nevertheless, in as many ways as there were creations God could, and did, draw near and stand personally before, and among, his own family. Be it the Ark, the Tent of Meeting, the prophets and judges of Israel, or angels, the Hebrews were sure that God could make his power and presence known and real. However different God might be in essence from man, God always was personally with man, whatever his lot and wherever he lived it.

Understanding our presence with God, and God's presence with us, and our communion with each other, is a step on the road to understanding a 'mystical union' with Him.

To understand the theology of Luther one must inevitably come to grips with his concept of the "Word of God." For the doctrine of the "Word" is the centerpole around which his entire theological system resolves. It has been said that the "Word" is the integrating principle for all his writings and thought. Indeed, one prominent scholar has said that, "he lived by the 'Word of God' he lived for the 'Word of God.' It is no mistake, the, when interpreters of Luther take his doctrine of the 'Word of God' as one of the most important keys to his theology."

Returning to the linguistic focus, the preposition 'in' occupies a central role in Scripture's explanation of its own role: the Christian is "in" God's Word (John 8:31), and God's Word is "in" the Christian (John 15:7). This same preposition is likewise central to the conceptualization of the Sacraments: the Body and Blood of Jesus are, in Luther's famous formulation, "in, with, and under" the bread and wine, and that Presence is in the believer who has received the Sacrament.

So, in the Sacraments as in the Scriptures and in the ministry of preaching, Luther sees God himself personally present, operative, saving, enlightening and strengthening man. That God chooses to use these varied "masks" to impart his own undivided Majesty can only be attributed to the Divine generosity and love, which employs as many avenues as necessary to carry out his work. Wherever the "Word" is "spoken," through whatever "mask," it is the same God who "speaks," and in each case, the content of his "speaking" is the same, God himself stands before man.

Entailed by the Semitic refusal to draw a clear boundary between the physical and the metaphysical, the Hebrew worldview deliberately blurs the line between the concept of God and the physical active presence of God.

For both the ancient Hebrews and Luther God was no static academic "concept." When they spoke of the "word" of this God they were referring to nothing less than the amazing creative, redemptive activity of Yahweh himself among his people. The "word" was a vital, rich, dynamic Presence that undergirded all that existed. The "word" was the one, true, all-powerful, all-loving God in action.

Whether or not one goes so far as to say that the Semitic ontology is monist, or whether one wishes merely to say that the Hebrew worldview refuses to make a clear distinction between the physical and the metaphysical, or between the concept of God and the physical actions undertaken by God, its anti-Platonism sets the stage for the concept of a 'mystical union' between God and the believer. A Platonic scheme would not only make the union impossible, it would make it unintelligible. Joseph Stump writes:

There is a mystical union of God and the believer, which is taught in the Scriptures and experienced by the Christian, but which is difficult to describe. Chronologically its beginning coincides with regeneration and justification; logically it follows upon them, and forms the next stage in the order of salvation. It is not to be interpreted as simply an activity of God in us, but possesses the nature of a personal fellowship (I John 1:3). God lives in the believer, and the believer in God. It is the starting point and living source of that progressive sanctification which begins in the justified man and continues to be end of his earthly life.

Again, close reading of Scripture draws our attention to the language of relation. Joseph Stump reviews the evidence from the text: the preposition 'in' continues to play a central role, but 'with' is also important:

The Scriptures teach not only that by faith man is justified and forgiven, but that Christ dwells in him, and through Christ the Holy Trinity. St. Paul declares of Christians that they are in Christ (Rom. 8:1) and again that Christ is in them (Gal. 2:20). They live in fellowship or communion with God (I John 1:3). Not only does the Holy Spirit dwell and work within them, so that they have the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts (I Cor. 1:22), the witness of the Spirit that they are God's children (Rom. 8:16) and the sealing with the Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13), but the Father and the Son also come to believers and take their abode in them (John 14:23). Christ is in the believers (Col. 1:27) and they in him (Rom. 8:1). As many as have been baptized into Him have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27) and are in the Lord (Rom. 16:11) and are made nigh because they are in Him (Eph. 2:13) and are free from condemnation (Rom. 8:1). They are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:30), members of Christ (I Cor. 6:15) and partakers of the divine nature (II Pet. 1:4). Christ lives in them (Gal. 2:20) and dwells in their hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17), is in them (Rom. 8:10), and is to be formed in them (Gal. 4:19). The believers are members His body (Rom. 12:4,5); they are united with Him as the branch with the vine (John 15:5), and their life is His life flowing through them.

The mystical union, precisely because it is mystical, defies, according to Stump, precise formulation. Prepositions like 'in' or 'with' and other parts of speech are approximations, metaphors, or allegories. Just as a word like 'beauty' or 'harmony' cannot fully transmit the experience of viewing a painting or hearing a song, respectively, so also the mystical union cannot be fully communicated in words.

This union, as its name indicates, is a mystery. It is experienced by the believer, but cannot adequately be put into words. The fullness of the experience is proportioned to the degree of faith and sanctification. The union is established when the sinner comes to faith and is justified, and grows more close, intimate, and strength-giving as his sanctification increases. The spiritual life which he leads has its source and vitality in Christ. Believers live in Christ, and He in them, and His life flows into and through them. Without Him they can do nothing (John 15:5).

Perhaps precisely because it defies formulation, dogmatic and systematic theologians have avoided detailed discussion of the mystic union. Anticipating Wittgenstein, they are silent about it, and by describing carefully everything else, reflect in their careful omissions what it is. Sometimes more is revealed in what is not said than in what is said.

This doctrine is not contained in the Augsburg Confession or in the Apology; and the Formula of Concord barely touches it. It was developed by the later dogmaticians, Calovius, Quenstedt, Koenig and Hollazius, to guard against the pantheistic conceptions of the mystics, and at the same time to do justice to the partial truth contained in false doctrines of Schwenkfeld, Weigel and Osiander. The Formula of Concord does not develop the idea of the mystical union, but has this to say: "For although in the elect, who are justified by Christ and reconciled with God, God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, who is eternal and essential righteousness, dwells by faith (for all Christians are temples of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, who also impels them to do right); yet this indwelling of God is not the righteousness of faith of which Paul treats and which he calls the righteousness of God; but it follows the preceding righteousness of faith, which is nothing else than the forgiveness of sins and the gracious acceptance of the poor sinner alone for the sake of Christ's obedience and merit" (579, 54). It rejects the teaching "that not God Himself but only the gifts of God dwell in the believer" (581,65). The mystical union is defined by Hollazius as "the spiritual union of the Triune God with the justified man, by which He dwells in him as in a consecrated temple with a special presence, and that a substantial one, and operates in him by a gracious influx" (p. 932)

Transitioning from the theologians to the mystics, we look at San Juan de la Cruz - also known as 'St. John of the Cross' - and his writings. In his book The Ascent of Mount Carmel, which takes the form of a commentary on another his works, The Dark Night of the Soul, he describes a process in which the soul becomes that which participates in a mystical union. As the soul rejects anything which competes with God for its loyalty, as the soul cleanses itself of any traces which those idolatrous competitors with God might have left in it, and as it attains to a new understanding of and love for God, it becomes so close to God that it might become a reflection of Him — as Leibniz might say, the identity of indiscernibles. To be sure, the soul cannot 'cleanse itself' - God must cleanse it. But we will interpret him charitably:

By these three things it is signified that any soul that will ascend this mount in order to make of itself an altar whereon it may offer to God the sacrifice of pure love and praise and pure reverence, must, before ascending to the summit of the mount, have done these three things aforementioned perfectly. First, it must cast away all strange gods — namely, all strange affections and attachments; secondly, it must purify itself of the remnants which the desires aforementioned have left in the soul, by means of the dark night of sense whereof we are speaking, habitually denying them and repenting itself of them; and thirdly, in order to reach the summit of this high mount, it must have changed its garments, which, through its observance of the first two things, God will change for it, from old to new, by giving it a new understanding of God in God, the old human understanding being cast aside; and a new love of God in God, the will being now stripped of all its old desires and human pleasures, and the soul being brought into a new state of knowledge and profound delight, all other old images and forms of knowledge having been cast away, and all that belongs to the old man, which is the aptitude of the natural self, quelled, and the soul clothed with a new supernatural aptitude with respect to all its faculties. So that its operation, which before was human, has become Divine, which is that that is attained in the state of union, wherein the soul becomes naught else than an altar whereon God is adored in praise and love, and God alone is upon it.

The mystical union with God, then, might be seen in Jeremiah's imagery of the potter, or in Isaiah's image of refining: as the soul of the believer is continually sanctified, it becomes ever more Christlike. As it becomes more like Jesus, it shares His characteristics, and sheds qualities which He does not have. Although not a strict ontological union, the soul which has been so formed and reformed will be so much in harmony, so much in sync, with God that it will indeed feel - the word word 'feel' reflects the experiential nature of the concept of the mystical union - a unity with God.

Does Democracy Self-Destruct?

Under the ambiguous but ubiquitous phrase 'a democratic society' one generally understands tolerance - extending the respect to the other's freedom in allowing him to say or do something which is wrong. Freedom means giving the other the permission to do as he pleases - within limits, limits designed to protect civil society - even when it means allowing the other to make mistakes. To parallel Lincoln's famous question, can a society based on tolerance long exist?

If we extend tolerance, will we ultimately give fertile ground to anti-Christian views, and will those views eventually choke out the cultural impact of Christianity - the very Christianity which alone makes such tolerance possible? Does Democracy bite the hand that feeds it? Does Democracy eat its own children?

The question is posed, does a representative democracy require a Christian culture to remain viable? As worded, the question seems to ask more about democracy as a political procedure than a society. It also speaks of a Christian culture, which is perhaps something separate from true Christian faith. We are speaking here about the cultural impact of Christianity, not about the personal faith of the individual, nor about the individual's interaction with God. Professor David Loy writes:

The claim is often made that representative democracy requires a Christian culture to remain viable because it arose on the soil of Christendom. The claim, however, is hotly contested. To address that debate the Catholic Academy of Bavaria invited two high-profile German intellectuals to give addresses on January 19, 2004. Jürgen Habermas, one of the most influential German philosophers of the past century, represented the secular claim that democratic regimes can - indeed, should - function without any religious commitments. Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, argued that democratic regimes require a pre-political moral foundation.

Ratzinger argues “that democratic regimes require a pre-political moral foundation.” This seems like a safe statement; any government requires a modicum of morality among its citizens – honesty and a dose of goodwill – even the most ruthless and perverse dictatorship relies on the presence of such things. A democracy seems to require more of these moral qualities than other forms of government. But are they necessarily linked to a Christian culture? We have seen, in history, example of the ‘noble savage’ and the ‘moral pagan’ - and even met such people ourselves. Christians sometime succumb to temptation and fail to offer the moral qualities which a democracy needs. Can we say that, on average, citizens in a ‘Christian culture’ will offer more moral fiber? Yet Paul’s epistles tell us that God’s law is written on the hearts of all men.

Jimmy Carter vs. Jesus Christ

Former United States President Jimmy Carter made a public break with his life-long church body, the Southern Baptist Convention. In a written statement, he identified the Baptist view of gender roles as the reason for his departure. Carter's assertions are mixed: some are accurate, and some are not. Sorting his truths from his errors is instructive. He writes about the order of creation; the organization's

leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

Carter objects to the word 'subservient' as apparently used by some leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, given that he places it in quotation marks. A statement written in 2008 by Richard Land notes that

the Southern Baptist confessional statement does not state that "women are to be subservient to men."

In either case, there is no textual evidence to suggest that Christianity demands that women be "subservient" to men. No Greek or Hebrew word which is commonly rendered into English as 'subservient' is applied to women in the New Testament. Whether or not the Southern Baptist Convention has applied, or does apply, that word to women is a matter to be investigated. If it has so used that word, Carter is right to decry such usage.

By contrast, the New Testament does use the word 'submit' which is semantically nearer in flavor to 'support' than to 'be subservient'. The use of 'submit' has long been a source of discomfort to interpreters. Perhaps it is best understood that marriage is a relationship - a exceptional one, to be sure, but a relationship among others nonetheless - and Christians are supportive of those with whom they are in relationship: spouses, siblings, friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc. Why the New Testament specifically underscores this call to support on the part of the woman and not of the man, is a good question. Why does Carter not applaud or encourage the desirable quality of supportiveness?

To understand Eve as solely or even primarily responsible for original sin is also textually not plausible. Adam and Eve share responsibility for original sin; this much is clear in the Hebrew text. God, e.g., gives Adam a consequence for sin before He gives a consequence to Eve, and it is to Adam, not Eve, that God asks the ominous question, 'what have you done?' There is also a plausible argument to made, which would assert that Adam might bear more than half of the responsibility for original sin. If, in fact, the Southern Baptist Convention assigns more than half the blame to Eve, Carter is correct to question it. Whether or not the Southern Baptist Convention did or does so, is a matter for investigation.

On balance, Carter makes points worth considering. Whether or not they are accurate requires further investigation, and whether or not they are significant is questionable, given that they find fault not with Christianity, but rather only with one particular organization, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Herein lies perhaps Carter's greatest weakness, inasmuch as he has busied himself with questions of what the Southern Baptist Convention might have done, instead of questions about what the Christian faith in fact does. Specific questions about statements from the Southern Baptist Convention belong to the minutiae of Church History studies. Such questions might be interesting and valuable to scholars, but the significant questions about what the living Christian faith does are the questions by which one evaluates that faith.

This error on Carter's part is compounded by a reading public which is all too inclined to confuse churches with the Christian faith. Churches are flawed, imperfect, and sinful organizations, populated by flawed, imperfect, and sinful human beings. One expects churches to fall short of the high standards they profess; indeed, they expect it of themselves. Christianity, by contrast, is something alien - it is not a human product. It is the infinite manifesting itself among the finite. It is a self-disclosing glimpse given by a perfect and sinless God - a glimpse of loving compassion, stern justice, and superlative power.

Carter first broke with the SBC in 1993. He released a statement at that time explaining his move; he released similar statements in 2000 and 2009, each time announcing his departure from the denomination: re-wordings of the previous statement. In the most recent statement, he writes that he is disappointed with the SBC leadership because it

prohibited [women] from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

As in the political world - despite combat roles for women in the military, there is still no consensus about units like the Navy's SEALs, the Army's Rangers, and the Green Berets - and in the sports world, intelligent and honest people disagree about the roles of women in the institutional church. Carter raises a real issue. But the issue, though real, is not one which touches the Christian faith. It may be a valid reason for leaving the SBC, but it is not a relevant bit of data by which to evaluate Christianity.

Much of what Carter says as a critique of the institutionalized church is valid, and it is utterly appropriate that he, as a practicing Christian, make that critique. The distinction is between the Christian faith and the church, and for two millennia, Christians have subjected the church to relentless criticism. In this sense, Jimmy Carter is a minor figure in a long line of reformers, from Jan Hus to Martin Luther, from Athanasius of Alexandria to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

A critique from a practicing Christian, directed at the institutional church, is however not a critique of Christianity; to the contrary, it is a support and defense of Christianity, because the very basis of its critique is to find those points at which the church fails to measure up to Christianity.

It is at this point that Carter's denunciation of the SBC goes awry, because he is smart enough to know his audience, and knows that it will be taken as a critique of Christianity. Faithful Christians who wish to reform and improve the church will read Carter's complaint thoughtfully; they may agree with some or all of it, or they may disagree with some or all of it. But Carter's writing will come, and has come, before the eyes of those who attack not only the church, but also, and primarily, the Christian faith. Those who, deliberately or accidentally, fail to distinguish between an all-too-human organization and the Rabbi from Nazareth - they will understand Carter's attack as an attack on Christianity itself, or they will deliberately misunderstand it as such.

Entering the discipline of comparative religious studies, Carter notes that

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths.

Seeming uncomfortable, Carter intimates, but does not directly state, that women have fared better in those cultures which were largely formed by the Christian faith. To cite one example, it was first in those nations that women obtained full franchise and suffrage in the political process. The Territory of Wyoming granted full voting rights to women in 1869; by around 1920, women in the United States, Canada, and most European countries had the vote. By contrast, in those nations whose cultures were shaped by Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other traditions lagged significantly, and there are still states on this planet in which women are denied the vote, primarily Muslim states. Carter hints at this, but does not make the point explicitly:

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

It was in those same nations - those shaped by the Christian worldview - that marriage began to be understood as volitional: women were not sold into marriages, and arranged marriages declined in number until they disappeared. Likewise, violence against women was seen as a moral evil: to use a coarse phrase, "wife beating" became socially stigmatized and eventually illegal.

Carter's statements raise valid questions, and are worth reading. The timing of the statements, and he periodic re-issuing of the statements, is clearly politically motivated, some of the statements being timed to correspond to major elections - he issued another statement in 2012 - and his willingness to subordinate the spiritual to the political is saddening. As a principle, a proposition articulated by a faithful Christian in a critique of the institutional church may also be true when an anti-Christian asserts that same proposition in a critique of the Christian faith, but while it is equally true in both cases, the critiques are not therefore equally valid.

Carter, wittingly or not, formulated theses and implied others, which are then picked up by those who would attack the faith he professes. He is smart enough to know better. He was willing to offer ammunition to those attacking the faith, if it was the price for supporting his party or one of its candidates. Carter's character is brought into question if he is willing to expose his faith to abuse for the sake of bringing glory to his party.

(In the interests of full disclosure, the author of this blog is neither a member of the SBC nor a supporter of Mr. Carter's candidacies.)

Sent to Hell?

Does God send some people to Hell? Although this question is uncomfortable, it needs to be asked. Although it is sometimes insincerely asked - posed more to annoy than to seek the truth - it needs to be answered. Perhaps the best answer is "I don't know."

Some would answer with "yes" - followed by "and He is justified in doing so" or "because they earned it" or by the conclusion that God is unjust.

Others would answer with "no" - explained as "God doesn't send anyone to Hell" or "He doesn't send them, they get there on their own effort."

In the long history of detailed academic debate about this question, various nuanced positions have been developed, explained, attacked, and defended. These competing explanations, of course, are one source of the divisions which have given rise to competing churches, denominations, and schools of Christian theology.

In America, with its penchant for oversimplifying questions, one is familiar with seeing questionnaires which pose questions about religion. If one answers yes to the question "Christian?" then one is usually next confronted with the query, "Protestant or Catholic?" Although it is part of common knowledge that there are a great variety of Protestant churches, the simplification of the question to "Protestant or Catholic?" does justice to nobody, not even the Roman Catholics, who also know well that not all non-Catholic denominations can be lumped into one basket.

Merely because a Christian is not Roman Catholic is no reason to apply the label "Protestant" to her or him. On a global level, we are aware of Coptic Christians in Egypt and Syriac Christians in other Arabic countries, whose roots are more ancient than either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants. Even in Europe, the label 'Protestant' applies perhaps most accurately to some Calvinistic or 'Reformed' churches. Many serious and educated Lutherans respond to the question "Protestant or Catholic" with "neither," seeing themselves belonging to a third category. Theologian Joseph Stump writes:

Protestantism split into two great branches, the Lutheran and the Reformed. For Lutheranism the determining principle was faith; for the Reformed or Calvinistic branch it was the absolute sovereignty of God. This principle of Calvin and the rationalizing principle of Zwingli, who sought to banish all mystery and to make every doctrine completely intelligible, explain the course taken by Reformed theology.

The Zwinglian hyper-rationalist tendency to create a logical explanation for any bit of dogma leads some Reformed churches to intellectually contorted positions.

Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism agree in maintaining the Formal and Material Principles of the Reformation; namely, the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Lutheran Church is conservative and permits the retention of those traditions which are not contrary to the Scriptures; while the Reformed Church is inclined to reject all traditions which are not actually commanded in the Bible. Zwinglianism, being averse to the acceptance of mysteries and insisting on comprehending the doctrines of Scripture, seeks to explain away what it does not understand. Lutheranism, on the other hand, accepts the teachings of Holy Writ, even which it cannot comprehend them. Calvinism, basing all on the absolute sovereignty of God, lands in arbitrary divine predestination, and thus restricts the scope of the Gospel and efficacy of the Means of Grace. Reformed and Lutheran Protestantism differ more or less widely on the doctrine of the Word of God, Predestination, the Person of Christ, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

Attempting to cure Reformed thought of its tortured postures, some rejected predestination, but landed in another odd position, having rejected the efficacy of pure grace along with predestination. The Arminians, then, arrive at a naked works-righteousness.

Some of the Reformed Churches have, however, rejected the Calvinistic position, e.g. the Arminians.

Pure grace, taken as a principle, is God's inclination, translated into God's actions, of giving to humans something better than what they deserve. Grace is a feature of God's personality. Humans are passive, God is active. If faith saves, that faith was inserted into the believer by the Holy Spirit, with no effort or cooperation on the part of the believer.

The Reformed Churches separate the working of God from the Means of Grace, and conceive of God as working directly, or as adding His working to the Means - a thing which He is supposed to do, however, only in the case of the elect. The Lutheran Church, on the other hand, regards the Means of Grace as never disjoined or separated from the power of God, but as always accompanied by it, and as the means employed by God for the accomplishment of His gracious purposes.

Calvin, by contrast, sees humans as passive, not in salvation, but in damnation. God alone is active in decreeing eternal torment for some humans.

Calvin says (Institutes, Book III, Ch. 21, Sec. 5): "Eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for the one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestined either to life or death." Calvin distinguishes (Book III, Ch. 24, Sec. 8) between the merely external call which God intends for the non-elect as "a savor of death and an occasion of heavier condemnation" and the special call through which "by inward illumination of His Spirit He causes the Word preached to sink into the hearts of the elect." In the case of the sons of Eli (Book III, Ch. 24, Sec. 14) Calvin declares that “though the Lord was able to soften their hearts, yet they were left in their obstinacy because His immutable decree had predestinated them to destruction.”

While Lutherans cling to God's grace, which drags them into Heaven despite themselves, Calvin sees God's wrath as damning others preemptively. The will of the human is bound in either case. For Lutherans, the will is incapable of free choice, or morally right choice, until it is justified and sanctified; the Lutheran will cannot get itself into Heaven, but it can always get itself into Hell. Calvin's will, like the Lutheran will, cannot get itself into Heaven, but unlike the Lutheran will, it can't even get itself into Hell.

The doctrine of grace is closely connected with that of the free will. The Greek Church regards grace as meant to assist human freedom, and not to create a new spiritual life. Pelagius taught that we can live a holy life by the mere power of our own determination to do so, without the aid of the supernatural grace of the Holy Spirit. Augustine conceived of grace as a new creative principle, but taught an absolute predestination and the irresistibility of grace, thus doing violence to the universality of God's grace on the one hand and to the moral nature of man on the other. Semi-pelagianism regarded grace as the power which assists man's natural powers. The scholastics taught that grace is a superadded gift, which simply completes man's nature. Protestantism returned to the doctrine of Augustine. But while Calvin carried out Augustine's doctrine to its logical consequences, Lutheranism rejected his doctrine of absolute predestination and of irresistible grace. According to the Lutheran conception man can by his natural powers resist the grace of God, but he can and does accept that grace only by means of powers which grace itself bestows upon him. Roman Catholicism regards grace as being infused into the soul and producing an ability to do good, so that, as a consequence, justification is regarded as a making righteous, and not as a declaring righteous.

The process is powered by God's grace from start to finish: even after justification and the beginning of sanctification, it is still divine gifts, not human efforts, which do all good in the life of the believer:

The old dogmaticians, following the example of Augustine, distinguished between the following kinds of grace: Prevenient grace, which offers the benevolence of God and the merit of Christ through the Word, removes the natural incapacity, and invites, excites, impels and urges to repentance; Preparing grace, which restrains the natural resistance, imbues the mind with the letter of the Gospel and bruises the will through the law, so that it is more and more disposed to accept salvation by faith; Operating grace, which confers the power of believing and kindles justifying faith (regeneration, justification, mystical union); Cooperating grace, which concurs with the justified man in the promotion of sanctification and good works; Conserving grace, by which faith and holiness are conserved and confirmed.

From the outside, grace acts upon us. Even on the inside, our efforts at sanctification turn out to be alien things planted inside us by God.

Quenstedt distinguishes between assisting grace and indwelling grace. The former works on man from the outside, and includes incipient, preparing, exciting, operating, and perfecting grace. The latter is the grace which dwells in the believer, and which cooperates with him in his sanctification.

Even the intellect is powered by grace. Our knowledge of God, of Scripture, of doctrine, of good, of evil, etc., is created in us, not by our own power.

The activity of the Holy Spirit is described by the later dogmaticians as constituting four offices: the elenchtical, to awaken a knowledge of sin; the didactic, to give a knowledge of the way of salvation; the pedagogical, to convert the sinner; the paracletic, to console and strengthen the converted.

While Lutheranism stresses that God's grace is for everyone, Calvinism and Arminianism see grace as only for some. Michael Horton writes:

Everyone who takes the Bible seriously must believe in election in some sense; it is a prominent theme throughout Scripture. The real difference (especially between Arminianism and Calvinism) emerges over whether the elect are chosen unto faith or in view of their faith. In order words, is election unconditional or conditional? Does God choose who will be saved, apart from their decision and effort, or does he choose those whom he knows will trust and obey? Another view, called corporate election, holds that God has chosen the church as a whole rather than electing individuals to belong to it.

It is again Zwingli's hyper-rational demand for logical explanations, in place of acceptance of mysteries, which drives these churches to the inevitable conclusion of a God who actively yet arbitrarily damns. Roger Olson writes:

Many scholars consider the real founder of the Reformed tradition to be Ulrich Zwingli, who wrote a lengthy essay entitled On Providence. This essay came to be influential on Calvin and, through him, on the whole Reformed tradition (although many Reformed people, especially the ones I have labeled "revisionists," have come to reject much of it). Zwingli defined providence as God's "rule over and direction of all things in the universe. For if anything were guided by its own power or insight, just so far would the wisdom and power of our Deity be deficient." Zwingli continued his exposition by denying that anything in the world is "contingent, fortuitous or accidental" because God alone is the "sole cause" over everything, such that all other so-called causes are merely "instruments of the divine working."

The Zwinglian taste for rational explanation is so strong that it swallows even the idea of a God who chose and carried out, not only the random damnation of numerous individual humans, but also the fall of the entire human race:

Calvin sums up his whole doctrine of God's providence thus: “No wind ever arises or increases except by God's express command.” In other places, he argues that God's providential governing of history cannot be expressed by means of permission; God does not merely permit anything but ordains it and brings it about most certainly. For Calvin, this is seen most clearly in the fall of Adam, which was foreordained by God.

Zwingli demands rational explanations above all else. Calvin takes Zwingli's desire for reason and adds its overriding central focus on God's sovereignty; the mix of the two lands Calvin in the situation of absolute predestination - the "double predestination" in which God not only predestines some to Heaven, but He also predestines others to Hell. Luther, by contrast, understands God's personality to be essentially gracious - and by 'grace' Luther understands the agape or 'love' of the New Testament. Luther tells us that Jesus paid the price for all humans and offers eternal life to all humans. The Holy Spirit works to bring all humans to Jesus, because they cannot bring themselves. If individual humans find their way into Hell, it will be because they used the free will, given to them by the Holy Spirit, to resist the Holy Spirit. To the question 'how?' in all of this, the Lutheran accepts the concept of mystery, the concept that human reason cannot answer all questions.