Conclusion

3

Christian Creeds and Beliefs

Christianity is not simply about religious and devotional practices, or about the cultivation of ethical behavior. It is also about a “big picture” of reality – an understanding of God, the world, and human identity and purpose. While individual Christians generally understand this “big picture” in different ways, there is a clear family resemblance between their outlooks. This way of understanding the world is usually framed in terms of “beliefs” or “doctrines” (from the Latin word doctrina, meaning “teaching,” “body of beliefs/views”). In the present chapter we shall look at some of these Christian beliefs, including disagreements within Christianity on some matters of importance – for example, the nature of baptism or the identity of the church.

Some writers present Christian beliefs as if they were isolated ideas, disconnected from others. It is easy to see how this approach arises. Textbooks and lecture courses on Christian doctrines tend to deal with beliefs in separate chapters, creating the impression that each doctrine is like a hermetically sealed compartment. Yet it is important to realize that Christian doctrines are interconnected. Doctrines are not self-contained, watertight compartments, each one of which may be mastered without reference to anything else. They are more like a web with intersecting nodes.

For example, in thinking about the doctrine of creation, it is important to appreciate its interconnectedness with other leading themes of faith. To consider the Christian doctrine of creation leads into reflection on the nature of God, the identity of Jesus Christ, the role of the Holy Spirit, the nature of salvation, or sacramental theology – to mention just the more obvious themes; others can easily be added to these. There is a sense in which to study any single doctrinal theme is actually to study the whole web of faith, the grand narrative of the gospel or the big picture of faith, as it intersects at this node, or as it focuses on this theme.

Faith is a principled conviction that a certain way of thinking is trustworthy, reliable, and relevant. It is a way of seeing things that cannot be proved to be right, yet proves to be reliable. Faith is about entering into this way of thinking and allowing it to become a way of living. It is about embracing a “big picture” of reality, which is capable of catching the imagination, illuminating the reason, and creating an ethical vision for how we should live in the world. What draws some people to Christianity is this “big picture,” rather than the individual arguments that lead to it. While science takes things apart so that we can see how they work, faith puts them back together again, so that we can see what they mean.

This “big picture” of faith sketched in the creeds, amplified in theology textbooks, and applied in and through sermons helps to shape the Christian view of the world. Faith leads to the consequence that the Christian community of faith sees the world in its own distinct manner. The philosopher and social scientist Charles Taylor terms this kind of consequence a “social imaginary,” understood as

the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.

In this chapter we shall present an overview of basic Christian beliefs. So where should we start? Perhaps the most obvious question to consider is why Christianity, in marked contrast with other major world religions, has creeds. So how did Christianity come to develop them? And why?

The Emergence of Creeds

Early Christian statements of faith were often very short – for example, the simple confession that “Jesus is Lord!” (Romans 10: 9; 1 Corinthians 12: 3). Yet the New Testament also contains a number of slightly longer creed-like statements, such as the following:

There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

(1 Corinthians 8: 6)

I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

(1 Corinthians 15: 3–4)

[Jesus Christ] was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.

(1 Timothy 3: 16)

Yet these and other similar statements are scattered throughout the biblical texts and are not integrated into a greater whole. The creeds gather these threads together and express them in more systematic forms. These statements of faith were easily memorized through constant repetition in public worship or private instruction, allowing new Christians to confess and summarize their faith. They are an expression, not the cause, of faith. The early Christians regarded the creeds as being like ancient aqueducts – channels through which water is directed and flows, but not the life-giving water itself.

For the first three centuries Christians had to manage without any formal creeds. At that point Christianity was still an illegal religion within the Roman empire; believers were thus forced to meet in secret to worship. There was no way in which Christian leaders could meet together to discuss developing a common set of beliefs. The risk of arrest by the Roman authorities was simply too great. As a result, there were no agreed universal public norms of faith throughout the Christian world.

Yet a remarkable degree of consensus appears to have emerged within and across the Christian world of the late second century. For reasons that are not fully understood, Christians throughout the Roman empire were beginning to converge on a specific group of texts that they read aloud in public worship and regarded as authoritative in matters of life and thought, and on a set of basic shared beliefs. While there were local variations, collections of texts very similar to the modern New Testament and “confessions of faith” very similar to the modern Apostles’ Creed (quoted in Box 3.1) were taking shape by about 190.

These collections of texts and “confessions of faith” were used by individual congregations and seem to have been spread primarily through the movement of Christians across imperial frontiers. The leaders of Christian communities in the metropolitan cities – such as Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome – developed their own distinct ways of teaching the faith, and this gave rise to prototypes of the creeds. Those used in Rome were especially significant on account of the status of Rome as the Eternal City, the capital of the empire.

Box 3.1 The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

Given imperial hostility toward Christianity, admission to Christian worship was a serious and solemn matter in the first three centuries. New Christians were only admitted once they had been carefully vetted (they might, after all, be Roman spies) and thoroughly instructed in the basics of their faith. At their baptism, which marked formal admission into the Christian community, believers were asked to confirm their faith by responding to three questions:

These questions were sometimes asked in more extended and elaborate forms; the basic threefold pattern, however, was widely used in both western and eastern churches. The answers given to these three questions were not seen as representing full accounts of the Christian faith, but simply as summaries of its most important themes. By answering “I believe” to each of these questions, the person who was about to be baptized was affirming her commitment to the overall Christian way of thinking rather than to three of its components.

From the end of the second century, documents that are clearly recognizable as having the form of creeds began to be used by leading churches and Christian leaders as convenient summaries of their personal and corporate faith. Although slightly different forms of words were used across the Christian world, their shared features are more obvious than their minor divergences. The Latin phrase regula fidei (“rule of faith”) came to be widely used to refer to these statements. Tertullian (c. 160–c. 225), a Latin-speaking theologian writing in the late second and early third century, provided his own statement of this “rule of faith.” Christians, Tertullian declared, believed

that there is one only God, the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through his own Word, who was sent forth first of all; that this Word is called his Son, and, under the name of God, was seen “in diverse manners” by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets, was brought down by the Spirit and power of the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ; he then preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of heaven, and worked miracles; having been crucified, he rose again on the third day; having ascended into the heavens, he sat at the right hand of the Father; sent in his place the power of the Holy Spirit to guide those who believe; will come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises.

Although there are some obvious differences with what is later found in the Apostles’ Creed, there are remarkable similarities between Tertullian’s personal “rule of faith” and this later creed.

These “rules of faith” were adopted by individual churches and Christian leaders; they were not imposed upon them by any centralized authority. They commanded respect on account of their merits and were adopted and adapted over a period of several generations, until a degree of consensus emerged. The Apostles’ Creed was the final outcome of a long process of reflection and refinement across the Christian world, a process leading to a “rule of faith” that commanded assent not on account of any external authority, but because of its internal qualities.

But why is this document known as the Apostles’ Creed? What role did the apostles have in drawing it up? In the Middle Ages it was widely believed that this creed was written by the twelve apostles, each apostle contributing one of its short statements. This suggestion, which is found as early as the fourth century, is best regarded as a pious legend. Around AD 390, the Council of Milan referred to a “Symbolum apostolorum” (“Creed of the Apostles”), urging believers to recognize its importance and to use it as a summary of faith. There is no doubt that the material included in this creed is authentically apostolic, in that it is deeply rooted in the New Testament. Perhaps it might be referred to as the “Apostolic Creed” rather than “Apostles’ Creed.” Indeed, many earlier Christian writers used the Latin formula symbolum apostolicum to make this point.

So what of the Nicene Creed? To understand the development of this document, we need to appreciate Christianity’s radical change in status in the early fourth century, as a result of the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine. We shall consider this matter in more detail in our discussion of early Christian history (pp. 129–131). Christianity was now a legal religion. Its laity and its leaders were no longer subject to any form of state harassment, victimization, or persecution. Christian worship no longer had to take place in secret. Christian leaders were free to meet and travel.

As Christianity moved toward becoming the state religion of the Roman empire, Constantine made it clear that he expected it to fulfill the functions of classical Roman religion – above all, by acting as a unifying force within the empire. Divisions within Christianity had to be sorted out, so that the church could offer the world a model of the unity that Constantine wished to see prevailing across his realm.

There were several debates within Christianity at this time, and one of them concerned the status of the great metropolitan bishops – in other words, the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Which of these bishops took priority within the empire? Who was the most senior bishop? And there were other divisions too, most notably over the best way of expressing the identity and significance of Jesus Christ.

Constantine wanted these issues sorted out, and he summoned a council of Christian bishops to express a consensual theological framework that would bring religious harmony to his empire. They met in AD 325 at the town of Nicaea, not far from the great new imperial city of Constantinople. Agreement was reached, and a new creed was developed on that basis. What we now know as the “Nicene Creed” is actually a later development of the creed of 325, agreed upon at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This creed was longer than the Apostles’ Creed and included additional material clarifying how Christians should think about the divinity and the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth.

Yet there is another difference between the two creeds presented so far (Box 3.1 and Box 3.2). The Apostles’ Creed was a product of Christian communities, which took shape over many generations and commanded wide assent and support. The Nicene Creed was developed by a committee of bishops, in response to the Roman emperor’s demand for religious consensus. There has always been a sense in which the Apostles’ Creed is a “people’s creed,” whereas the Nicene Creed is a “bishop’s creed.”

Having reflected on how the creeds arose, we may now turn to consider their contents – beginning with the notion of “faith” itself.

Box 3.2 The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

What Is Faith?

The Christian creeds open in the language of faith: “I believe in God ….” Before we begin to reflect on what it is that Christians believe in, we need to ask what it means to “believe.” What is faith? Christian writers down the ages have distinguished two senses of the word “faith.” First, it designates a “faith by which we believe” – that is to say, the act of trust and assent that says “yes” to God and reaches out to hold fast to God as the secure ground of life and thought. Second, it designates a “faith that we believe” – that is to say, a set of beliefs. In this second sense of the word, “faith” refers to the content of what Christians believe rather than to the act of believing and trusting. Although these two senses of the word “faith” are inseparable – they are like two sides of the same coin – it is nevertheless helpful to distinguish between them. Creeds relate mainly to faith in the second sense of the word – that is, they are a publicly agreed summary of the main points of Christian belief.

It is helpful here to make a distinction between “faith” (which is generally understood relationally) and “belief” (which is generally understood cognitively or conceptually). Faith primarily describes a personal act of trust, a relationship with God that is characterized by trust, commitment, and love. For Christians, to have faith in God is to place one’s trust in God, believing him to be worthy of such trust.

Beliefs represent an attempt to put into words the substance of that faith. One has to admit that words are often not up to the task of representing what they describe, yet one has also to recognize the need to try to entrust to words what they ultimately could not contain. Words, after all, are of critical importance in communication, argument, and reflection. It is simply unthinkable for Christians not to try to express in words what they believe. The eleventh-century theologian Anselm of Canterbury made this point succinctly through the Latin phrase fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”). Yet these creedal formulations are, in a sense, secondary to the primary act of trust and commitment.

The Christian faith is not a checklist of beliefs. In a sense, Christianity is a profoundly relational faith, which rests on the believer’s trusting acceptance of a God who has been proved worthy of such trust in the first place. As the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) once remarked, “faith is not an accuracy of logic, but a rectitude of heart.” Yet, despite this relational emphasis within Christianity, there remains a cognitive dimension to faith. Christians do more than simply trust in God or in Christ. They also believe certain quite definite things about them. We shall be looking at some of those beliefs later in this chapter. For the moment, however, we focus on the idea of faith.

So, when the creeds declare that Christians “believe in God,” what do they mean? A useful starting point is this: to believe in God is to trust in God. This is not an adequate definition of faith, but it is an excellent starting point for further exploration. God is the one who may be trusted in the midst of life’s turbulence, confusion, and ambiguities. Trusting someone leads to commitment. As William Temple (1881–1944), a former archbishop of Canterbury, put it in his opening speech at the Second World Conference on Faith and Order at Edinburgh in 1937, “faith is not only the assent of our minds to doctrinal propositions: it is the commitment of our whole selves into the hands of a faithful Creator and merciful Redeemer.”

This pattern recurs throughout the narratives of calling and response that we find in the Christian Bible. One of the great examples of faith is Patriarch Abraham. Abraham trusted God and left behind his family home in order to go to a distant land (Genesis 15; 17). To believe in God is to believe that God may be trusted, which leads us to entrust ourselves to God. To believe in God goes far beyond the mere factual acceptance of God’s existence; it is to declare that this God may be trusted. It is a familiar theme, and it has been explored by just about every major Christian writer down the ages.

Similarly, to believe in Jesus of Nazareth goes far beyond accepting his historical existence. In its full-blooded sense, faith in Jesus is about recognizing Jesus as one who may be trusted. When Jesus of Nazareth asked a man whom he had just healed whether he “believes” in the Son of Man (John 9: 35), the healed man was quite clear that he was not being asked whether he believed that Jesus existed. He knew that he was being asked whether he was ready to trust Jesus and to commit himself to him.

It is therefore no accident that the gospels of the New Testament go to such length to illustrate why Jesus of Nazareth may be trusted and what shape this trust would take. The calling of the first disciples is of especial importance here. In Mark’s account of this dramatic event (Mark 1: 16–20), Jesus spoke these simple words: “Come, follow me.” No explanation or elaboration is offered. Yet the fishermen left everything immediately and followed Jesus. No reason is given for their decision to follow this stranger who has so dramatically entered into their lives. Mark leaves us with the impression of an utterly compelling figure, who commands assent by his very presence. They abandon their nets – the basis of their meager existence as fishermen – and follow Jesus into the unknown. He does not even tell them his name. Yet they choose to entrust themselves to him.

This is where their faith in Jesus Christ began; it is not where it ended. For the gospels enable us to see the disciples growing in their faith, as they gradually come to understand more about the identity and significance of Christ. To begin with, they trusted him; as time passed, they also came to understand something of who he was and why he mattered. Even in the New Testament, this leads to supplementing personal trust in God and Christ with beliefs concerning their identity – in other words, with doctrinal or creedal statements. For example, John’s gospel provides an account of the things that Jesus said and did; and it does this in order to bring its readers to the point at which they can commit themselves to him, both personally and intellectually. The narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus has been written so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20: 31).

Faith and reason

The rise of an Age of Reason in western culture, which most historians suggest is to be dated roughly to the two hundred years between 1750 and 1950, saw religious faith regarded with suspicion. Thinkers of the Enlightenment regarded faith as little more than belief unsupported by evidence – lacking any real warrant or logical basis. The Age of Reason led to a new confidence in the capacity of unaided human reason to explain and master the world. Reason, it was argued, was capable of deducing anything that needed to be known about God. There was no need to propose divine revelation. We could rely totally upon reason instead.

This position is generally known as “rationalism” and is still encountered today in some quarters. However, its credibility has been severely shaken by the growing realization that different cultures have different understandings of rationality. Reason, it turned out, was not the universal quality that many rationalists believed it to be. As the noted French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) put it: “Reason’s final step is to realize that there are an infinite number of things which lie beyond it. It is simply feeble if it does not get as far as realizing that.”

The worldview of the Enlightenment is increasingly regarded with suspicion by postmodern writers, who see it as highly limiting and restrictive, in effect as confining humanity to the very narrow world of what can be proved by reason. Strictly speaking, it limits human knowledge to the realms of logic and mathematics. For the literary critic Terry Eagleton, this view shuts down serious discussion of all major religious, moral, social, and cultural issues. “We hold many beliefs that have no unimpeachably rational justification, but are nonetheless reasonable to entertain.”

The mainstream Christian tradition takes a critical yet positive attitude toward human reason. Faith goes beyond what is logically demonstrable, yet it is nevertheless capable of having a rational motivation and a foundation. The truths of Christianity may lie beyond reason’s ability to discover them. Yet, when they are disclosed, their rationality is grasped. Thus faith is to be seen as a form of motivated or warranted belief. It is not a blind leap into the dark, but a discovery of a bigger picture of things. Faith is not irrational; it simply transcends the limits of reason.

One of the most important recent discussions of the relation of faith and reason is contained in Pope John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical letter Fides et ratio (Faith and Reason). In the opening to that letter John Paul II (Karol Josef Wojtyla, 1920–2005) sets out the classic Christian approach to this question as follows:

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.

This rich statement deserves close attention. The basic idea is that human beings long to know the truth and are constantly searching for it. “In the far reaches of the human heart there is a seed of desire and nostalgia for God.”

So: Can reason alone lead humanity to this truth? John Paul II pays a handsome tribute to philosophy as the legitimate object in the human quest for truth. Philosophy is “one of noblest of human tasks” and is “driven by the desire to discover the ultimate truth of existence.” Yet unaided human reason cannot fully penetrate to the mystery of life. It cannot answer questions such as “Why are we here?” For this reason, John Paul II argues, God graciously chose to disclose through revelation those things that would otherwise remain unknown. “The truth made known to us by Revelation is neither the product nor the consummation of an argument devised by human reason.”

The letter stresses that faith is not blind trust opposed to the evidence presented by the world. Rather it points out that the world – which Christians see as God’s creation – is studded with hints about God’s existence and nature. John Paul II appeals to Paul’s sermon preached on the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17), arguing that it is entirely reasonable to infer the existence of God from the wonders of nature and from a human sense of divinity within us. These do not count as “proofs”; they are, however, confirmation or corroboration of the basic themes of faith.

But what about “proofs” of God’s existence? What role do they play in any account of the Christian faith? And is God’s existence something that can be proved in the first place? We shall consider these questions in the next section.

Can God’s existence be proved?

The mainstream Christian attitude to proofs for the existence of God can be set out as follows:

In what follows we shall explore the question of proofs of God’s existence in a little more detail, focusing on Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) – probably the most famous and influential theologian of the Middle Ages. Born in Italy, he achieved fame through his teaching and writing, at the university of Paris and in other northern universities. His name is chiefly associated with the Summa theologiae, a treatise composed toward the end of his life and not totally finished at the time of his death. However, he also wrote many other significant works, particularly the Summa contra Gentiles, which represents a major statement of the rationality of the Christian faith and of the existence of God.

Aquinas believed that it was entirely proper to identify pointers toward the existence of God – pointers drawn from general human experience of the world. His “five ways” represent five lines of argument in support of the existence of God, each of which draws on some aspect of the world that “points” to the existence of its creator.

So then, what kind of pointers does Aquinas identify? His basic line of thought is that the world, being created by God, mirrors God as its creator – an idea that is given more formal expression in Aquinas’ doctrine of the “analogy of being.” Just as an artist might sign a painting to identify it as her handiwork, so God has stamped a divine “signature” upon the creation. What we observe in the world – for example, the signs of its ordering – can be explained if God was its creator. If God both brought the world into existence and impressed a divine image and likeness upon it, then something of God’s nature can be known from the creation.

So where in creation might we look to find evidence for the existence of God? Aquinas argues that the ordering of the world is the most convincing evidence of God’s existence and wisdom. This basic assumption underlies each of his five ways, although it is of particular importance in the case of the argument often referred to as the “argument from design” or the “teleological argument.” We shall consider the first and the last of these ways to illustrate the issues.

The first way begins from the observation that things in the world are in motion or change. The world is not static but dynamic. Examples are easy to list. Rain falls from the sky. Stones roll down valleys. The earth revolves around the sun (incidentally, this fact was unknown to Aquinas). This kind of argument is usually referred to as the “argument from motion”; however, it is clear that the “movement” in question (motus in Aquinas’ Latin) should be understood in very general or basic terms, so that the word “change” would be more appropriate as a translation of motus at many points.

So how did nature come to be in motion? Why is it changing? Why isn’t it static? Aquinas argues that everything that moves is moved by something else. For every motion, there is a cause. Things don’t just move; they are moved by something else. Hence each cause of motion must itself have a cause. And that cause must have a cause as well. And so Aquinas argues that there is a whole series of causes of motion lying behind the world as we know it. Now, unless there is an infinite number of these causes, there must be a single one right at the origin of the series. All motion is ultimately derived from this original cause of motion. This is the starting point of the great chain of causation, which we see reflected in the way the world behaves. Thus, from the fact that things are in motion, Aquinas argues for the existence of a single original cause of all motion. And this cause, he insists, is none other than God.

In more recent times, this argument has been restated in terms of God’s being the one who brought the universe into existence – which is why it is often referred to as the “cosmological argument” (the Greek word kosmos meant “universe,” but also “order,” hence the world as an ordered system). The most commonly encountered statement of the cosmological argument runs along the following lines:

The argument basically assumes that the existence of the universe is something that requires explanation. It will be clear that this type of argument relates directly to modern cosmological research, particularly to the “big bang” theory of the origins of the cosmos.

Aquinas’ fifth and final way is known as the teleological argument, which takes its name from the Greek word telos, meaning “purpose” or “goal.” Aquinas notes that the world shows obvious traces of intelligent design. Natural processes and objects seem to be adapted to life with certain definite objectives in mind. They seem to have a purpose; they seem to have been designed. But things don’t design themselves: they are designed by someone or something else. Arguing from this observation, Aquinas concludes that it must be conceded that the source of the natural ordering of processes and objects is God.

How useful are these arguments? The great French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal had two major concerns about the kind of approach adopted by Aquinas. First, he found it difficult to accept that the rather abstract philosophical “god” who resulted from such arguments was anything like the living God of the Old and New Testaments. It is a point with which many would agree. As Pascal put it, “the metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are so remote from human reasoning, and so complex, that they have little impact.”

But, second, Pascal argued that these “proofs” assumed that God was known primarily through reason. For Pascal, the human heart also had its reasons for believing (or not believing!) in God. “We know the truth, not only through our reason, but also through our heart.” God’s appeal for the human condition extended far beyond any resonance between the world as we know it and the ideas of the Christian faith. It went right to the deep-seated longing for God that Pascal held to be the culmination of the human quest for meaning and significance.

In more recent years, new interest has developed in “inductive” arguments for the existence of God – arguments that are based on the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of things. Here the criterion of assessment is how well a system can make theory and observation fit in with each other. Although this approach is developed by many philosophers, for instance Richard Swinburne, its most accessible statements are found in more popular writings, particularly those of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) and G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936).

After losing faith in his early agnosticism, Chesterton published a newspaper article explaining why he and many others now regarded Christianity with intense intellectual seriousness. “We have returned to it because it is an intelligible picture of the world.” Chesterton realized that testing a theory meant checking it out against observation. “The best way to see if a coat fits a man is not to measure both of them, but to try it on.” Let Chesterton himself explain what he has in mind.

Numbers of us have returned to this belief; and we have returned to it, not because of this argument or that argument, but because the theory, when it is adopted, works out everywhere; because the coat, when it is tried on, fits in every crease … We put on the theory, like a magic hat, and history becomes translucent like a house of glass.

Chesterton’s argument is that it is the Christian vision of reality as a whole – rather than any of its individual components – that proves so compelling. Individual observations of nature do not “prove” Christianity to be true; rather Christianity validates itself through its ability to make sense of those observations. “The phenomenon does not prove religion, but religion explains the phenomenon.”

For Chesterton, a good theory – whether scientific or religious – is to be judged by the amount of illumination it offers and by its capacity to accommodate what we see in the world around us and experience within us. “With this idea once inside our heads, a million things become transparent as if a lamp were lit behind them.” The same idea is also expressed in Lewis’s famous statement: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Thus far we have briefly explored some of the issues relating to faith and the creeds, looking especially at the rationality of faith. We now need to begin to engage with some specific items of belief. Let’s begin by looking at the opening statement of the creeds: “I believe in God.”

The Christian Understanding of God

God lies at the heart of the Christian faith. But which God? Is it the same God as that of Judaism or Islam? And what is this God like? It is clear that the little word “God” needs considerable expansion, if we are to understand what it means. Israel’s reflections on the identity of its God – which it styled by using phrases such as “the Lord God of Israel” – took place against a background of polytheism. Each nation in the region had its own god; many had highly developed pantheons, recognizing many different gods, each with its own distinctive function or sphere of influence. Simply talking about “God” was thus not particularly informative. It invited the question: Which of these gods do you mean? Part of the task of Christian theology is to identify the God in which Christians believe.

This process of clarifying the identity of God can be followed in both the Old and New Testaments. For the Old Testament prophets, Israel knew and worshipped the God who had brought them out of Egypt and led them into the promised land. In the New Testament, we find this idea picked up and developed further. Christians believe in the same God as Abraham; this God is, however, finally and fully disclosed in Jesus of Nazareth (pp. 87–89). Thus Paul speaks of “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 1: 3). By this, Paul means both the God in whom Jesus of Nazareth believed, and the God who is revealed in Jesus’ words and deeds.

The New Testament teaches that Christians worship and know the same God as Israel. Nevertheless, they hold that this God is supremely and finally revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Thus the letter to the Hebrews opens by declaring that the same God who spoke to Israel “in many times and in various ways” through the prophets has now “spoken to us through a Son,” who is to be recognized as the “exact representation” of God (Hebrews 1: 1–3). This point is of great importance, as it demonstrates how the Christian understanding of God is linked with the person of Christ. As a second-century Christian writer put it, “we must learn to think of Jesus as of God” (1 Clement 1: 1).

So what do Christians believe about this God? The opening words of the Apostles’ Creed state that Christians believe in a God who is “the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” We shall turn to explore the very rich and powerful theme of creation in the following section. To begin with, we shall look at the idea of God as “Father Almighty.” We can break this down into two segments, each of which really deserves a chapter to itself. However, limits on space mean that we will have to consider them both briefly, beginning with the question of what it means to speak of God as “Father.” How are we to understand this analogy?

Perhaps the best starting point is to reflect on the way in which Christian theology uses analogies as a way of grasping God in manageable and imaginatively engaging forms.

Christian analogies for God

One of the most noticeable and interesting things about the biblical representation of God is that extensive use is made of images. We may begin by considering one of the most familiar of these analogies and images: “The Lord is my shepherd’ (Psalm 23: 1). This image of God as a shepherd is encountered frequently in the Old Testament (e.g., Isaiah 40: 11; Ezekiel 34: 12) and is taken up in the New Testament to refer to Jesus, who is declared to be the “good shepherd” (John 10: 11).

To speak of “God as a shepherd” is to affirm that “God is like a shepherd.” In other words, the image of a shepherd is analogical, helping us to think about the nature of God. It does not mean that God is identical with a human shepherd. Rather it means that some aspects of a human shepherd help us think about God more effectively, engaging both the reason and the imagination.

So then, is every aspect of this human analogy to be carried over to God? After all, every analogy breaks down at some point, if it is taken too far. How far can we press this analogy before it ceases to be reliable? To explore the issue, we could draw up a brief list of things that are true about shepherds.

The first three aspects of the analogy can clearly be carried over to thinking about God. God cares, protects, and leads. In all these respects the analogy of the shepherd works well and illuminates the character of God.

Yet shepherds are ultimately human beings. So is this aspect of the analogy also to be carried over? It is quite clear that we are not meant to think of God as a human being. Christians do not think that God is a human being. This, it would seem, is one aspect of the analogy that we are not meant to press too far.

With these points in mind, let us return to think about the analogy of “God as Father.” What does it convey about God? And what are the limits of this analogy?

God as Father

The Christian tradition is saturated with language about God as Father – for example, the Lord’s Prayer opens with the words “Our Father.” If Jesus of Nazareth referred to God in this way, this element is clearly of major importance to Christian faith. But how are we to interpret this image? What does it mean to speak of God in this way? In particular, do Christians think that God is male? Does speaking of God as “father” mean that Christianity believes in a male deity?

Box 3.3 The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. (Matthew 6: 9–13; see also Luke 11: 2–4)

What does the analogy of God as Father convey? The following ideas might come to mind, and we shall explore each of them briefly.

The first of these characteristics is clearly not meant to be transferred to our thinking about God. As we saw in the case of the shepherd analogy, this is the inevitable consequence of using language drawn from the created order when we refer to the creator.

The second is clearly important. Christians believe that God is our originator. Without God we would not be here. Both the Old and the New Testament stress the complete dependence of humanity upon God, from beginning to end. We shall explore the theme of God as creator in more detail later in this chapter (pp. 78–82).

The third aspect of the analogy is also clearly applicable to God. There can be no doubt that the analogy of God as father conveys – and is intended to convey – the idea of care. The Old Testament in particular often compares God’s relation with his people to a father’s relationship with his young son. When the son is very young, he is totally dependent upon his father for everything, and their relationship is very close. But, as the son grows older, he gradually comes to exercise his independence and to break away from his father, so that the relationship becomes more distant.

The Prophet Hosea used this illustration to help his readers grasp how Israel has become a virtual stranger to the God who called it into existence:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals, and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms, but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with the cords of human kindness, with ties of love.

(Hosea 11: 1–4)

This aspect of the analogy is also picked up by Jesus of Nazareth in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7: 9–11). Human fathers want to give their children good things. So how much more will God, as a heavenly father, want to give good things to those who ask for them in prayer?

Yet it is the fourth aspect of this analogy that has generated most interest and needs further discussion. Both the Old and the New Testament use male language about God. The Greek word for “god” (theos) is unquestionably masculine, as are most of the analogies used for God throughout Scripture – such as father, king, and shepherd. Does this mean that God is male?

This question needs to be answered in the negative. To begin with, we need to note that the Bible also uses female imagery to refer to the love of God for humanity. Just as a mother can never forget or turn against her child, so God will not forget or turn against his people (Isaiah 49: 15). There is a natural bond of affection and sympathy between God and his children, simply because he has brought them into being. Thus God loved us long before we loved God (1 John 4: 10, 19). Psalm 51: 1 refers to God’s “great compassion.” Interestingly, the Hebrew word for “compassion” (rachmin) is derived from the word for “womb” (rechmen). God’s compassion toward his people is that of a mother toward her child (cf. Isaiah 66: 12–13). Compassion, so to speak, stems from the womb.

The statement that a “father” is a good analogy for God in ancient Israelite society is not equivalent to saying that God is male. To speak of God as father is to say that the role of the father in ancient Israel allows us insights into the nature of God. It is not to say that God is “male” in human herms. As we have noted, the Old Testament also uses mothers in analogies for aspects of God’s love for Israel. Although the cultural context of the ancient world means that there are many more references to paternal role models than to maternal, there is no doubt that both fathers and mothers function as analogies for God in the Bible.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church thus stresses the manner in which parental imagery – both of fatherhood and of motherhood – brings out some central themes of the Christian faith:

By calling God “Father,” the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man.

Yet there is a more important point here, grounded in the doctrine of creation. Neither male nor female sexuality is to be attributed to God. For Christians, God creates both male and female. Yet this does not mean that God is either male or female. Sexuality is seen as an attribute of the created order; it does not correspond to any such polarity within the creator God.

In fact the Old Testament completely avoids attributing sexual functions to God, on account of the strongly pagan overtones of such associations. Thus Canaanite fertility cults emphasized the sexual functions of both gods and goddesses, whereas the Old Testament refuses to endorse the idea that God’s gender and sex(uality) are a significant matter, or to think of the act of creation in sexual terms – for example, as the mating of a god and goddess.

This leads us to another important theme in Christian thinking about God: the concept of a personal God, to which we now turn.

A personal God

Down the ages, theologians and ordinary Christian believers alike have spoken and thought about God in strongly personal terms. Christianity thinks and speaks of God in terms of divine love, trustworthiness, and purpose, which have strongly personal associations. Many spiritual writers have pointed out that the Christian practice of prayer is partly modeled on the relationship between a child and a parent. Prayer expresses a gracious relationship of trust and dependency.

Similarly, one of Paul’s most important ways of thinking about salvation – reconciliation – is modeled on the dynamics of human personal relationships. The transformation, through faith, of the relationship between God and sinful human beings is like the reconciliation of two persons – say, an alienated husband and his wife.

For early Christian writers, the word “person” expressed the individuality of a human being as seen in his or her words and actions, especially in social relationships. A person is someone who plays a role in a social network. “Individuality” does not imply social relationships, whereas “personality” relates to the part played by an individual in a web of relationships – a part by virtue of which that person is perceived by others to be distinctive. Our identity is expressed partly through our relationships. The basic Christian idea of “a personal God” is that of a God with whom believers can be in a relationship analogous to any relationship with a human person.

It is helpful to consider the overtones of the phrase “an impersonal God.” There are strongly negative overtones to the idea of “impersonal,” and they have passed into Christian thinking about the nature of God. “Impersonal” suggests a God who is distant or aloof, who deals with humanity in general terms, who pays no heed to human individuality. On the contrary, having a personal relationship with God, such as love, suggests a reciprocal dimension to God’s dealings with believers. This idea is incorporated into the notion of a personal God, but not into impersonal conceptions of the nature of God.

Personal relationships establish the framework within which such key biblical themes as “love,” “trust,” and “faithfulness” have meaning. Both the Old and the New Testament make frequent reference to the “love of God,” the “trustworthiness of God,” and the “faithfulness of God.” “Love” is a word used primarily to refer to personal relationships. Furthermore, the core biblical themes of promise and fulfillment are given their proper context within personal relationships. This can be seen in the covenant between God and Israel: “I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31: 33). The basic underlying idea is that of God’s personal commitment to God’s people and of God’s people’s commitment to their God.

A twentieth-century philosophical analysis of what it means to speak of a “person” is also helpful in clarifying what it means to speak of a personal God. In his major work I and Thou (1927), the Jewish writer Martin Buber (1878–1965) drew a fundamental distinction between two categories of relations: “I–Thou relations,” which are understood to be “personal,” and “I–It relations,” which are impersonal.

How does Buber’s philosophy help us understand and explore the idea of God as a person? First, his approach affirms that God cannot be reduced to a concept – or to some neat conceptual formulation. According to Buber, only an “It” can be treated in this way. For Buber, God is the “Thou” who can, by its nature, never become an It. That is, God is a being who escapes all attempts at objectification and transcends all description. Theology must learn to acknowledge and wrestle with the presence of God, realizing that this presence cannot be reduced to a neat package of contents.

Second, the approach allows valuable insights into the Christian idea of revelation. For Christian theology, God’s revelation is not simply a making known of facts about God, but a self-revelation of God. Revelation of ideas about God is to be supplemented by the revelation of God as a person. Revelation includes knowledge of God as an “it” and as a “Thou.” We come to know things about God; yet we also come to know God. Similarly, “knowledge of God” includes knowledge of God as both “it” and “Thou.” To “know God” is not to have access to data about God, but to have a personal relationship with God.

Buber’s approach helps us encompass the spectrum of understandings of God encountered within Christianity. The idea of God as an “I” lies at the heart of Christian prayer and worship, which are often taken in terms of a personal relationship with God. Yet some forms of Christian mysticism prefer to think of God more impersonally, believing that the use of personal language about God fails to do justice to divine immensity or to the complexity of the human experience of God.

God as almighty

The Apostles’ Creed goes on to speak of God as “almighty.” What do Christians mean when they say that God is “almighty”? At first sight, this might seem to be a rather pointless question. The meaning of the word “almighty” is perfectly obvious in everyday language: “capable of doing anything.” So to say that “God is almighty” is to say that “God can do anything.” What more is there to say?

Yet it is not quite as simple as this. We have to consider whether the word “almighty” might take on a somewhat different meaning when applied to God. To explore this, let’s consider the statement in greater detail: “To say that God is almighty means that God can do anything.”

On the face of it, this definition seems fairly straightforward. Yet it runs into some difficulties at an early stage. Consider the following question: “Can God draw a triangle with four sides?” It does not take much thought to see that this question has to be answered in the negative. Triangles have three sides; to draw something with four sides is to draw a quadilateral, not a triangle.

However, on further reflection, it is not clear that this question causes problems for the Christian understanding of God. Four-sided triangles do not and cannot exist. The fact that God cannot make such a triangle is not a serious issue. It just forces us to restate our simple statement in a more complicated way. “To say that God is almighty means that God can do anything that does not involve logical contradiction.” Or we could follow Thomas Aquinas, who remarked that it was not that God could not do such things; it was simply that such things cannot be done.

Yet the real issue concerns the Christian understanding of the nature of God. We can begin to engage with this important matter by considering this question: “Can God break promises?” There is no logical contradiction involved in people breaking promises. It happens all the time. It may be regrettable, but there is no intellectual difficulty here. If God can do anything that does not involve a logical contradiction, God can certainly break a promise.

Yet, for Christians, this suggestion is unacceptable. The idea of a “covenant” between God and Israel is grounded on God’s faithfulness and commitment. Christians hold that God remains faithful to what has been promised. If God cannot be trusted, whom can anyone trust? The suggestion that God might break a promise contradicts a vital aspect of the Christian understanding of God’s character – namely God’s faithfulness and truthfulness. One of the great themes of both the Old Testament and the New is the total trustworthiness and reliability of God. Humans may fail; God remains faithful.

The point here is that there is a tension between power and trust. An all-powerful cheater could easily make promises – but those promises cannot be trusted. Yet the Christian faith focuses on a God who could do anything – but who chose to act in certain ways. God did not need to enter into a covenant with Israel – but God chose to do so, and having done so, remained faithful to this promise. God does not act arbitrarily or whimsically; God acts reliably and faithfully.

God as spirit

The Christian tradition makes extensive appeal to the Holy Spirit. Christian baptism invokes the name of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28: 17–20). The recent rise of Pentecostal and charismatic movements (pp. 212–213) throughout the Christian world has seen a new emphasis given to the role of the Holy Spirit, particularly in worship and personal experience. So what is meant by the “Holy Spirit”?

The English language uses at least three words – “wind,” “breath,” and “spirit” – to translate a single Hebrew term regularly used to refer to the Holy Spirit: ruach. This important Hebrew word has a depth of meaning that makes it is virtually impossible to reproduce in English. Ruach, traditionally translated simply as “spirit,” has a range of associations, each of which casts some light on the Christian notion of the Holy Spirit.

Yet the Old Testament does not offer much in the way of clarification concerning the manner in which the prophets were inspired, guided, or motivated by the Holy Spirit. In the period before the Israelites were exiled to Babylon, prophecy was often associated with ecstatic experiences of God and linked with wild behavior (1 Samuel 10: 6; 19: 24). Nevertheless, this kind of activity gradually became associated with the message rather than the behavior of the prophet. The prophet’s credentials rest upon being endowed with and by the spirit (Isaiah 61: 1; Ezekiel 2: 1–2; Micah 3: 8; Zechariah 7: 12); such endowment authenticates the prophet’s message – a message that is usually described as “the word [dabhar] of the Lord.”

But is the Holy Spirit divine? This question was discussed extensively in early Christianity. Leading writers such as Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373) and Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379) argued that the formula that had become universally accepted for baptism implied the full divinity of the spirit. Since the time of the New Testament (see Matthew 28: 18–20), Christians were baptized in the name of “the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Athanasius argued that the baptismal formula clearly pointed to the Spirit sharing the same divinity as that of the Father and the Son. This argument eventually prevailed.

However, early Christian writers were hesitant to speak openly of the Holy Spirit as “God,” on the grounds that this practice was not explicitly endorsed by the Christian Bible – a point discussed at some length by Basil of Caesarea in his treatise on the Holy Spirit (written in AD 374–375). Even as late as AD 380, Gregory of Nazianzus conceded that many Orthodox Christian theologians were uncertain as to whether to treat the Holy Spirit as a creator, as an activity, or as God.

This cautiousness can be seen in the final statement of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit formulated by a council meeting at Constantinople in AD 381. The Holy Spirit was there described not as “God,” but as “the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, and is worshipped and glorified with the Father and Son.” This indicates that the Holy Spirit is to be treated as having the same dignity and rank as the Father and the Son, even if the term “God” is not used explicitly. This language is reflected in the Nicene Creed.

With the full recognition of the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the fourth century, the scene was set for the final development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Yet the place of the spirit within the Trinity would become the subject of controversy between the eastern and western churches. The issue concerned how the spirit related to the Son. While the theologians of the Greek-speaking church were struggling to express the nature of the Son's relationship with the Holy Spirit, the theologians of the Latin West quickly came to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. This debate is often referred to as the filioque controversy (meaning “from the Son” in the Latin sequence ex patre filioque, “from the Father and from the Son”). Tensions simmered over this matter, especially when western versions of the Nicene Creed were developed that included this phrase.

Theologians remain divided as to how important this distinction is and how best the point at issue might be expressed. Historically, however, this disagreement contributed to the growing tensions between the eastern and the western churches, eventually leading to the Great Schism of 1054 (pp. 138–139).

The doctrine of the Trinity

For many, the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most baffling areas of Christian theology. How can one God be “three persons”? Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), the third president of the United States of America, was severely critical of what he termed the “incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic.” Why should Christians speak about God in this convoluted and puzzling way? Surely this compromised the simplicity of faith?

The best way of understanding this core Christian doctrine is to suggest that it is the inevitable and legitimate way of thinking about God that emerges from a sustained engagement with the biblical witness to the words and works of God. The doctrine of the Trinity can be regarded as the outcome of a process of critical reflection on the pattern of divine activity revealed in the Bible and continued in Christian experience. This is not to say that the Bible explicitly sets out a doctrine of the Trinity; rather it is to say that the Bible bears witness to a God who is to be understood in a trinitarian manner.

At first sight, there are only two biblical verses that are open to a trinitarian interpretation: Matthew 28: 19 and 2 Corinthians 13: 14. The first commands the first disciplines to baptize people “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”; the second speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the familiar words of “the grace.” Both these verses have become deeply rooted in the Christian consciousness, the former on account of its baptismal associations, the latter through the common use of the formula in Christian prayer and devotion. Yet these two verses, taken together or in isolation, cannot be considered to state a formal doctrine of the Trinity.

The ultimate grounds of the doctrine of the Trinity are not to be sought in these two verses, but in the pattern of divine activity to which the New Testament bears witness. The Father is revealed in Christ through the spirit. There is the closest of connections between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament writings. Time after time, New Testament passages link together these three elements as part of a greater whole. The totality of God’s saving presence and power are expressed by involving all three elements (for example, see 1 Corinthians 12: 4–6; 2 Corinthians 1: 21–22; Galatians 4: 6; Ephesians 2: 20–22; 2 Thessalonians 2: 13–14; Titus 3: 4–6; 1 Peter 1: 2).

The starting point for Christian reflection on the Trinity is the New Testament’s witness to the presence and activity of God in Christ and through the spirit. For Irenaeus of Lyons, who wrote in the second century, the whole process of salvation, from its beginning to its end, bore witness to the action of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Irenaeus made use of a phrase that would feature prominently in future discussions of the Trinity: “the economy of salvation.” The use of the term “economy” here needs a little explanation. The Greek word oikonomia basically means “the way in which one’s affairs are ordered” (the relation to the modern sense of the word “economy” will thus be clear). For Irenaeus, the “economy of salvation” meant the way in which God has ordered the salvation of humanity in history.

At the time, Irenaeus was under considerable pressure from gnostic critics, who argued that God the creator was quite distinct from (and inferior to) God the redeemer. As we noted earlier (p. 48), the second-century writer Marcion of Sinope had argued that the Old Testament God was merely a creator God, totally different from the redeemer God of the New Testament. As a result, the Old Testament should be shunned by Christians, who should concentrate their attention upon the New Testament. Irenaeus vigorously rejected this idea. He insisted that the entire process of salvation, from the first moment of creation to the last moment of history, was the work of one and the same God. There was a single economy of salvation, in which the one God – who was both creator and redeemer – was at work to redeem the creation.

In his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, Irenaeus insisted upon the distinct yet related roles of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the economy of salvation. He thus affirmed his faith in

God the Father uncreated, who is uncontained, invisible, one God, creator of the universe; this is the first article of our faith … And the Word of God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ … who, in the fullness of time, in order to gather all things to himself, he became a human being amongst human beings, capable of being seen and touched, to destroy death, bring life, and restore fellowship between God and humanity. And the Holy Spirit … who, in the fullness of time, was poured out in a new way on our human nature in order to renew humanity throughout the entire world in the sight of God.

This passage brings out clearly the idea of the Godhead, according to which each person is responsible for an aspect in the economy of salvation. Far from being a rather pointless piece of theological speculation, the doctrine of the Trinity is grounded directly in the complex human experience of redemption in Christ and is concerned with the explanation of this experience.

Figure 3.1 One of the most famous attempts to represent the Trinity: Andrei Rubljov’s icon of 1411, depicting the three angels with Abraham, widely interpreted as an analogue of the Trinity. Illustration: Rubljov, Andrei c. 1360/70–1427/30, The Holy Trinity (The Three Angels with Abraham) (1411). Icon painting. Moscow, Tretjakov Gallery.

Source: AKG Images.

The real difficulty for most Christians lies in the visualization of the Trinity. How can anyone make sense of such a complex and abstract idea? St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is rumored to have used the leaf of a shamrock to illustrate how a single leaf could have three different elements. The fourth-century writer Gregory of Nyssa used a series of analogies in his letters to help his readers grasp the reality of the Trinity, for example:

More recently, the American theologian Robert Jenson (born 1930) has argued that the trinitarian formula “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” can be thought of as a proper name – a shorthand way of identifying exactly what God Christians are talking about. The doctrine of the Trinity is a summary of the story of God’s dealings with Israel and the church. It narrates how God created and redeemed humanity, affirming that it is the story of the one and the same God throughout. Jenson develops this approach in a fresh and helpful direction, offering a creative restatement of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity.

Jenson thus argues that “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is the proper name for the God whom Christians know in and through Jesus Christ. It is imperative, he argues, that God should have a proper name – a name that Christians can use in prayer and in worship. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is a proper name, which we are asked to use in naming and addressing God. As Jenson put it: “Linguistic means of identification – proper names, identifying descriptions, or both – are a necessity of religion. Prayers, like other requests and praises, must be addressed.”

Jenson also points out that ancient Israel was set in a polytheistic context, in which the term “god” conveyed relatively little information. It was necessary to name the god in question. A similar situation was confronted by the writers of the New Testament, who were obliged to identify the god at the heart of their faith and to distinguish this god from the many other gods worshipped and acknowledged in the region, especially in Asia Minor.

The doctrine of the Trinity thus identifies and names the Christian God – but identifies and names this God in a manner consistent with the biblical testimonial. It is not a name that we have chosen; it is a name that has been chosen for us and that we are authorized to use. The Trinity is thus an instrument of theological precision, which forces us to be explicit about the God under discussion. Christians do not believe in a generic god, but in a very specific God who is known in and through a series of actions in history.

The doctrine of the Trinity plays a major role in contemporary Christian worship, spirituality, and theology. It explains the trajectory of revelation and salvation: God is revealed through Jesus Christ, and that revelation is interpreted by the Holy Spirit. God redeems humanity through Jesus Christ, and that salvation is applied to humanity through the agency of the Holy Spirit. It is an explanation of the pathway to knowledge of God and to fellowship with God. Christians believe in a saving encounter with God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

At one level, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity emphasizes the sheer immensity of God. The fallen and finite human mind is unable to comprehend the fullness of God. At another, it provides a framework both for making sense of, and deepening the quality of, Christian worship. Christians pray to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. This trinitarian trajectory identifies the goal of Christian prayer and worship as God; the medium or means through which this goal is achieved as the risen Christ; and the power that inspires and elicits these actions as the Holy Spirit.

In the past, Christian theologians were primarily concerned with rebutting rationalist criticisms of the doctrine of the Trinity that held it to be incomprehensible nonsense. The influence of rationalism is now on the wane and the twentieth century has seen a massive recovery of confidence in the doctrine, largely through the pioneering theological work of Karl Barth and Karl Rahner. Yet the fading of rationalism must be set against the increasing importance of a new critic of Christian theology, especially at this point. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to Islamic criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity. The three great monotheistic faiths of the world – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam – share a belief that there is only one supreme being: the Lord and creator of the universe. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6: 4). Islamic critics of Christianity regularly criticize Christians, however, for deviating from this emphasis upon the unity of God (to which they often refer through the Arabic word tawhid) in the doctrine of the Trinity. Muslim writers argue that this doctrine is a late invention that distorts the idea of the unity of God and ends up teaching that there are three gods.

The teaching of the Qu’ran on what Christians believe is not quite as clear as might be hoped for and has led some Christian interpreters of Islam to suggest that, according to the Qur’an, Christians worship a Trinity consisting of God, Jesus, and Mary (see Qu’ran 5.116). Although there are reasons for suspecting that Muhammad may have encountered heterodox forms of Christian belief in Arabia, including unorthodox statements concerning the Trinity, it seems more likely that the doctrine has simply been misunderstood as implying that Christians worship either three gods or a single God with three component parts. Christian responses to this Islamic criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity argue that it fails to appreciate the Christian emphasis upon the unity of God, or the Christian experience of the complexity of God’s engagement with the world – which leads Christians to formulate the doctrine of God in this particular way. Clarification of this point will unquestionably help the relationship between Christianity and Islam in the contemporary world.

God as the creator

The creeds depict God as the creator of the world. How is this to be understood? What models or analogies illuminate this belief? Before we consider this question, we need to note that Christian writers quickly came to the conclusion not simply that God created the world, but that the world was created from nothing (ex nihilo in Latin). Various forms of gnosticism, developing an idea found in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus, held that creation was merely the assembly of preexisting matter. Christian theologians held that God brought the world into being from nothing, and gave it shape and form.

The manner in which God acts as creator has been the subject of intense discussion within the Christian faith. Three models of, or ways of picturing, the manner in which God is to be thought of as creating the world have been particularly influential. Each one casts some light on the complex and rich Christian understanding of the notion of “creation.”

Figure 3.2 William Blake’s watercolor “The Ancient of Days” (c. 1821), depicting God in the act of creating the world. Blake, William (1757–1827), “The Ancient of Days,” frontispiece of Europe: A Prophecy (c. 1821). Relief etching, pen, and watercolor. Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, UK.

Source: Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge/Bridgeman Art Library.

Sayers, one of England’s finest novelists of the period between the two World Wars, used the analogy between God creating the world and an author writing a novel in order to make two important points. First, the act of creation is a work of love. Sayers here sums up the wisdom of the Christian tradition down the ages. Love is the motivation for God’s creation of the world. The creation is the expression of God’s fundamental character. It is about bringing into being something that is valuable, something that really matters. Yes, it expresses the mind of its creator; but it is also something that is important in its own right. It matters partly because it is not identical with its creator, possessing instead its own distinct God-given identity.

Second, the creation has its own distinct integrity. It originates from God and reflects God’s nature and character, but it is different from God. Sayers explores this point by asking us to imagine how an author creates and develops a character in a novel. Unless she respects the integrity of a character, he is likely to remain a two-dimensional and unreal fictional invention that readers will find difficult to take seriously.

The image of creation as “artistic expression” is helpful in that it supplements a deficiency of both models noted earlier – namely their impersonal character. The image of God as artist conveys the idea of personal expression in the creation of something beautiful, which reflects something of the creator. Once more, potential weaknesses need to be noted: for example, the model could easily lead to the idea of creation from preexisting matter, as in the case of a sculptor carving a statue from an already existing block of stone. However, the model offers us at least the possibility of thinking about creation from nothing, as in examples like the author who writes a novel or the composer who creates a melody and harmony. It also encourages us to seek for God’s self-expression in the creation and adds theological credibility to a natural theology. There is also a natural link between the concept of creation as “artistic expression” and the highly significant concept of “beauty.”

Now what are the implications of the belief in God as creator, as set out in the Christian creeds? Three implications may be noted.

First, a distinction must be drawn between God and the creation. A major theme of Christian theology, from the earliest of times, has been that of resisting the temptation to merge the creator and the creation. The theme is clearly stated in Paul’s letter to the Romans, the opening chapter of which criticizes the tendency to reduce God to the level of the world. According to Paul, there is a natural human tendency, as a result of sin, to serve “created things rather than the creator” (Romans 1: 25). A central task of a Christian theology of creation is to distinguish God from the creation, while at the same time to affirm that it is God’s creation. Many scholars believe that this distinction was of importance in shaping an intellectual framework within which the natural sciences could emerge.

In the second place, creation implies God’s authority over the world. There is a characteristic biblical emphasis on the notion that the creator has authority over the creation. Humans are thus regarded as part of that creation; they have special functions within it. The doctrine of creation leads to the idea of human stewardship, which is to be contrasted with a secular notion of human ownership of the world. The creation is not ours; we hold it in trust for God. We are meant to be the stewards of God’s creation, and we are responsible for the manner in which we exercise that stewardship. This insight is of major importance in relation to ecological and environmental concerns, in that it provides a theoretical foundation for the exercise of human responsibility toward the planet.

In the third place, the doctrine of God as creator implies the goodness of creation. This point is made in several places throughout the creation accounts of the Old Testament: “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1: 10, 18, 21, 25, 31). (Incidentally, the only thing that is “not good” about creation is that Adam was alone. Humanity is created as a social being, and humans are meant to exist in relation with one another.)

There is no place in Christian theology for the gnostic or dualist idea of the world as an inherently evil place. Christians holds that the world remains God’s good creation and is capable of being redeemed and renewed. Affirming the goodness of creation also avoids the suggestion, unacceptable to most theologians, that God is responsible for evil. The constant biblical emphasis upon the goodness of creation is a reminder that the destructive force of sin is not present in the world by God’s design or permission.

This is not to say that the creation is presently perfect. An essential component of the Christian doctrine of sin is the recognition that the world has departed from the trajectory upon which God placed it in the work of creation. It has become deflected from its intended course. It has fallen from the glory in which it was created. The world as we see it is not the world as it was intended to be. The existence of human sin, evil, and death are themselves tokens of the extent of the departure of the created order from its intended pattern. For this reason, most Christian reflections on redemption include the idea of some kind of restoration of creation to its original integrity, in order that God’s intentions for it might find fulfillment. The Christian doctrine of salvation sets out some aspects of this theme, and we shall return to discuss it further later on (pp. 92–101).

The Christian Understanding of Humanity

“What are human beings, that you are mindful of them?” (Psalm 8: 4). From the beginning of history, people have wondered about their place in the greater scheme of things. Why are we here? What is our destiny? What is the meaning of human existence? The doctrine of creation offers the beginnings of an answer. It helps us to deepen our understanding and appreciation of the world in which we find ourselves placed.

Figure 3.3 Michelangelo’s fresco The Creation of Adam (1511–1512) from the Sistine Chapel, Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). Fresco, 280 × 570 cm. Rome, Vatican, Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel), 4th image.

Source: Erich Lessing/AKG Images.

The Christian understanding of God’s creation is that humanity is part of it. Yet, although humanity is part of the created order, this does not mean that people are indistinguishable from the remainder of creation. Human beings have been set a little lower than the angels and have been “crowned with glory and honor” (Psalm 8: 5). Men and women are created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1: 27). In what follows we shall explore this idea further.

Humanity and the “image of God”

The brief yet deeply significant phrase “image of God” opens the way to a right understanding of human nature and of the overall place of humanity within the created order. Although humanity is not divine, it possesses a relationship with God that is different from that of other creatures. Humanity bears the image of God. For some, this is a statement of the privileged position of humanity within creation. Yet, for most Christian thinkers, it is above all an affirmation of responsibility and accountability toward the world in which we live.

So how are we to understand this relationship with God? How can we visualize it? What does it mean to speak of “being made in the image of God”? A number of models have been developed within Christian theology, of which we may note three.

First, the “image of God” can be seen as expressing the authority of God over humanity. In the ancient Near East monarchs would often display images of themselves as an assertion of their power in a region (see, for example, the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar, described in Daniel 3: 1–7). To be created in the “image of God” could be understood there as being owned by God or as being accountable to God.

This idea seems to be reflected in an incident in the ministry of Jesus Christ (Luke 20: 22–25). Challenged as to whether it was right for Jews to pay taxes to the Roman authorities, Jesus requested that a coin be brought to him. He asked: “Whose image and title does it bear?” Those standing around replied that it was Caesar’s. Christ then tells the crowd to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. While some might take this to be an evasion of the question, it is actually a challenge to those who bear God’s image – that is, to humanity – to dedicate themselves to God.

Second, the idea of the “image of God” can be taken to refer to some kind of correspondence between human reason and the rationality of God as creator. On this understanding of things, there is an intrinsic resonance between the structures of the world and human thought. This approach is set out with particular clarity in Augustine of Hippo’s major theological writing On the Trinity:

The image of the creator is to be found in the rational or intellectual soul of humanity … [The human soul] has been created according to the image of God in order that it may use reason and intellect in order to apprehend and behold God.

For Augustine, humanity is created with the intellectual resources that allow people to find God by reflecting on the creation.

A third approach suggests that being made in the “image of God” affirms a human capacity to relate to God. On this understanding, to be created in the “image of God” is to possess the potential to enter into a relationship with God. The term “image” here expresses the idea that God has created humanity with a specific goal – namely in order for it to relate to God. Humanity is thus meant to exist in a relationship with its creator and redeemer. Augustine expressed this idea in a famous prayer: “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”

Blaise Pascal argued that the human experience of emptiness and yearning is both a reflection of the absence of such a relationship and a pointer to the true destiny of humanity. It illuminates human nature and discloses its ultimate goal – which, for Pascal, is God.

What else does this longing and helplessness show us, other than that there was once in each person a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?

Nothing and no one other than God is able to fill this “abyss” – a profound, God-shaped gap within human nature, implanted by God as a means of drawing people back to him.

This approach was developed further in the twentieth century by C. S. Lewis. Following Pascal, Lewis argues that there is a God-shaped gap within humanity that only God can fill. And in the absence of God people experience a deep sense of longing – a longing that is really for God, but is misunderstood as a longing for things within the world. And these things can never satisfy. If humanity is made for God, and God alone, then there is nothing else that will ultimately satisfy it. And, as Lewis argued, this God-given sense of longing provided a key to answering the great questions of life with which humanity has wrestled.

Yet the Christian understanding of human nature is not totally determined by the idea of being made in the image of God. Important though this idea may be, it needs to be supplemented with the idea of sin.

Humanity, the fall, and sin

For Christianity, humanity is sinful – that is, alienated from God; and, as a result of this fundamental disruption of its identity, it is alienated from society, from itself, and from the environment. What is sin? Although in everyday language the word “sin” means something like a “moral failing” or an “immoral act,” the term has a more precise theological meaning. The fundamental sense of “sin” is something that separates humanity from God. Salvation is the breaking down of the barrier of separation between humanity and God on account of Christ.

Sin is thus the antithesis of salvation. It is quite simple to develop a list of fundamental New Testament concepts related to salvation and to link them to corresponding concepts related to sin. Some examples will help make this point.

Sin

Salvation

Alienation

Reconciliation

Captivity

Liberation

Guilt

Forgiveness

Condemnation

Vindication

Illness

Healing

Being lost

Being found

We shall explore some of these themes further, when we come to look at the Christian understanding of salvation later in this chapter (pp. 92–101).

Two narratives from the book of Genesis are often cited as illustrating some Christian insights into the profound contradictions within human nature – namely eating the fruit of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and the construction of the Tower of Babel. The first of these Genesis narratives relates how Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of paradise and given complete freedom to eat of all its trees – except one (Genesis 2: 15–17). This limitation on their freedom proves too much for them. If they were to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would become like God himself, determining what is good and what is evil (Genesis 3: 1–5). We long for autonomy; we do not want to be accountable to anyone. As the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky pointed out in his novel The Devils (1871–1872), if there is no God, people are able to do as they please. This was one of the great themes of the golden age of atheism, which began with the French Revolution in 1789.

Much the same theme is found in the second Genesis narrative – the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1–9). Karl Barth (1886–1968), one of the twentieth century’s greatest Christian writers, saw in this narrative an illustration of one aspect of sinful human nature: the desire to assert human authority and power in the face of God. Barth suggested that the Tower of Babel could be interpreted as a symbol of our human longing to be able to have knowledge of God on our own terms. Yet this desire for human control contained within itself the seeds of its own negation. Like many, Barth was traumatized by the catastrophe of World War I, which discredited the optimistic progressivism of the Age of Reason. When humans take charge, Barth noted, they seem to mess things up.

Figure 3.4 Karl Barth (1886–1968).

Source: Ullstein Bild/AKG Images.

Over the years, Christian thinkers have developed two fundamental images to help make sense of this puzzling human predicament: defection and deflection. The first is more characteristic of the Latin-speaking western church; the second, of the Greek-speaking eastern church.

The western view is found in the writings of Augustine of Hippo. For Augustine, humanity has defected from its true calling. Instead of using their God-given freedom to love God, human beings used it to advance their own self-centered agendas. As a result, they are now caught in a trap of their own making. Augustine argues that they are unable to break free from their entanglement with sin. Held captive by in-dwelling sin, human beings prove unable to do the good that they would like to do; instead they do the bad things they do not want to do (see Romans 7: 17–25). For Augustine, the freedom to love that ought to have led to fellowship with God – as Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden of Eden – led instead to self-love and to a desertion of God for the lesser good.

Augustine uses a series of images to illuminate how humanity has become trapped by sin in this way. It is like becoming ill and being unable to find a cure. It is like having fallen into a deep pit and being unable to get out. The essential point he wants to make is that, once sin – which he conceives of as an active force in human lives – has taken hold of people, they are unable to break free from its grasp. To use a modern analogy, it is like being addicted to heroin and unable to break the habit. Only God is able to heal this illness and to break the bonds that imprison humanity.

The eastern view can be found in the second-century writer Irenaeus of Lyons, who argued that humanity has been deflected from its true path by sin. Humanity has lost its way and needs to be helped back onto the right road. Irenaeus tends to see humanity as weak and easily misled. Humans were created as mere infants, not as mature beings, and they must learn and grow. Asked why God did not create humanity already endowed with perfection, Irenaeus replied that they were simply not ready to cope with it. “A mother is able to offer food to an infant, but the infant is not yet able to receive food unsuited to its age.”

This way of thinking remains characteristic of churches that trace their roots back to the eastern, Greek-speaking part of the Mediterranean. Eastern and Russian Orthodoxy, for example, do not follow the western church in speaking of a “fall” but tend to think more in terms of a “wrong turn” or failure, which can be corrected through God’s grace.

Yet, despite their differences, much the same insight lies beneath these two different ways of thinking about the human situation. On the Christian understanding of things, both eastern and western, human nature was intended to be the height of God’s creation, but is now in need of radical remodeling and internal renewal. Like a once great palace fit for a king, it has fallen into disrepair and decay. Yet the situation can be redeemed. God’s living presence within human nature could bring about the renewal, restoration, and repristination of what is now languishing in sin and death. If God were to enter into the human situation, the latter could be transformed from within. We can see here the prefiguring of a doctrine of the incarnation – the idea that God entered into our world and our history as one of us, in order to take us to heaven.

And this brings us to what many see as the central theme of Christian belief: the identity and significance of Jesus of Nazareth as the savior and redeemer of fallen humanity.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of the Christian faith. Christians have always insisted that there was something special, something qualitatively different about Jesus, which sets him apart from other religious teachers or thinkers. But what exactly is it that is special about him? This question is addressed in the area of Christian theology traditionally known as Christology. If theology can be understood as trying to make sense of God, then Christology is about trying to make sense of Jesus Christ.

The creeds insist that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person, who lived and died. Jesus was a first-century Jew who lived in Palestine in the reign of Tiberius Caesar and was executed by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, the prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26 to 36. As we saw earlier (p. 1), the Roman historian Tacitus refers to Christians deriving their name from “Christ, who was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.” The Christian faith certainly holds that Jesus existed as a real historical figure and that he was crucified.

Yet the Christian faith is not limited to the mere facts that Jesus lived in the Roman province of Judaea and was crucified by the Roman authorities. The interpretation of his life and death is of critical importance. The creeds weave together the leading themes of the New Testament’s interpretation of the identity and significance of Jesus of Nazareth. Christian doctrine can be seen as the outcome of an extended and ongoing process of reflection on these biblical ideas and themes, including:

In the present section we shall consider how Christian theology wove these various insights into a coherent understanding of the person of Christ, culminating in the concept of incarnation. As background to the definitive statement of this idea at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), we shall explore some aspects of the process of reflection on the New Testament within the earlier Christian tradition.

Early Christian approaches to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth

As we have seen from our analysis of the view of Jesus found in the New Testament (pp. 21–25), the first Christians believed that they were confronted with something so novel in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that they were obliged to employ a whole range of images, terms, and ideas to describe it. There was simply no single term or concept available that could capture the richness and profundity of their impressions and experience of Jesus. They were forced to use a whole variety of terms – many borrowed from Judaism – to illuminate the different aspects of their understanding of him. Taken together, these terms combined to build up an overall picture of Jesus.

At times, early Christian writers drew on ideas or concepts whose origins lay outside Judaism to try and build up this picture. For example, it is often thought that the opening section of John’s gospel (John 1: 1–18), with its distinctive emphasis on the “Word” (Greek logos), is trying to explain how Jesus occupies the same place in the Christian understanding of the world as the idea of the Logos in secular Greek philosophy.

Yet this does not mean that Christians invented their understanding of Jesus’ significance just because they happened to read a few textbooks of Stoic philosophy. Rather, they noticed an analogy or a parallel and saw the obvious advantages in using it to express something they already knew about. This use also went some way to make Christianity more understandable to an educated Greek audience. Even at this early stage in the Christian tradition, we can identify a principled determination to make the gospel both intelligible and accessible to those outside the church. The gospel was thus expressed using ideas and concepts that helped to bring out its central themes and to make them understandable to non-believers.

Two early viewpoints were quickly rejected as heretical. Ebionitism, a primarily Jewish sect that flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era, regarded Jesus as an ordinary human being, the human son of Mary and Joseph. This weak Christology soon came to be regarded as totally inadequate and passed into oblivion. More significant was the diametrically opposed view, which came to be known as docetism, from the Greek verb dokein (to “seem” or “appear”). This approach – which is probably best regarded as a tendency within theology rather than a definite theological position – argued that Christ was totally divine, and that his humanity was merely an appearance. The sufferings of Christ are thus treated as apparent rather than real. Docetism held a particular attraction for the gnostic writers of the second century, during which period it reached its zenith. By this time, however, other viewpoints were in the process of emerging, and they would eventually eclipse the docetic tendency.

The first period in the development of Christology centered on confirming and clarifying the best way of understanding the divinity of Jesus. That Jesus was human appeared to be something of a truism to most early patristic writers. What required explanation about Jesus concerned the manner in which he differed from other human beings rather than the ways in which he was similar to them. What was different about him? What was additionally true about him, that was true of no other person?

One debate proved to be of decisive importance in catalyzing the growing consensus within the Christian community about the best manner of conceptualizing the identity of Jesus of Nazareth: the Arian controversy of the fourth century.

The Arian controversy and the incarnation

One of the greatest challenges faced by the early church was the weaving together of the threads of the New Testament’s testimonial to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth into a coherent theological tapestry. Christians gradually came to realize that no existing analogy or model was good enough to meet their needs in expressing the significance of Jesus of Nazareth. The concept of the incarnation began to emerge as one of central importance to the church’s understanding of Jesus Christ.

While the idea was developed in slightly different ways by different writers, their core theme was that of God entering into history and taking on human nature in Jesus of Nazareth. This idea caused considerable philosophical difficulties for the prevailing schools of Hellenistic philosophy. How, many asked, could an immutable God enter into history?

Arius (c. 270–336), a priest in one of the larger churches of the great Egyptian city of Alexandria, argued that the best way of making Christianity’s ideas about the identity of Jesus of Nazareth more attractive and credible to Hellenistic culture was to declare that he was not divine in any meaningful sense of the term. He was “first among the creatures” – that is, preeminent in rank, yet unquestionably a creature rather than a divine being. Now, Arius was careful to emphasize that the Son is not identical with other creatures; he argued that there is a clear distinction of rank between the Son and other human beings. Yet the basic idea was as clear as it was simple: Jesus of Nazareth was a human being and could not be regarded as divine in any meaningful way.

Arius’ most important critic was Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 293–373). To Athanasius it seemed that Arius had destroyed the internal coherence of the Christian faith, rupturing the close connection between Christian belief and worship. Athanasius insisted that only God can save. God, and God alone, can break the power of sin and bring humanity to eternal life. The fundamental characteristic of human nature is that it requires to be redeemed. No creature can save another creature. If Christ is not God, he is part of the problem, not its solution. The New Testament and the Christian liturgical tradition alike regarded Jesus Christ as the savior. Yet, as Athanasius emphasized, only God can save. So how are we to make sense of this? How can Jesus of Nazareth be our savior, if he is not divine? How can he save, if he is understood in a way that declares he is not able to save?

The only possible solution, Athanasius argued, was to accept that Jesus of Nazareth is none other than God incarnate. Salvation, for Athanasius, involves divine intervention, which he saw affirmed in a critically important biblical text: “the Word became flesh” (John 1: 14). God entered into the human situation, in order to change it.

In the end, the approach advocated by Athanasius triumphed, although it was some time before it achieved full acceptance in the Chalcedonian definition of the incarnation –called so because it received definitive formulation at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. In what follows we shall consider this landmark in more detail.

The incarnation: The Chalcedonian definition

The Christian doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ is often discussed in terms of “incarnation.” “Incarnation” is a difficult yet important word, deriving from the Latin term for “flesh” and setting out the basic Christian belief that Jesus Christ is both divine and human. The doctrine of the incarnation declares that Jesus of Nazareth acts as God and for God in human history. Jesus is understood to be enabled and authorized to disclose God and to make promises in God’s name.

The doctrine of the incarnation makes explicit what is implicit in the biblical affirmation that the “word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1: 14). The Greek word translated here as “lived” more accurately means “pitched his tent.” As Christians travel on the journey of faith, they find a new tent pitched in their midst. God himself has come to dwell among them. The doctrine of the incarnation thus solidifies one of the great themes of the Christian faith: that God truly cares for humanity – not as a passive distant observer, but as an active fellow traveler on the road of human life.

The classic Christian understanding of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth is often summarized in the “doctrine of the two natures” – that is, the view that Jesus is perfectly divine and perfectly human – which was definitively stated by the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. This doctrine laid down a controlling principle for classical Christology that has been accepted as definitive within orthodox Christian theology ever since. Chalcedon simply stated definitively what the first five centuries of Christian reflection on the New Testament had already established by using a variety of ways of speaking and thinking. The section of the Nicene Creed dealing with the identity of Jesus – which was modified and authorized by the Council of Chalcedon – reads like this:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

Figure 3.5 Mosaic depicting Jesus Christ, in the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, c. 1260. Istanbul/Constantinople (Turkey), Hagia Sophia, North Gallery. Deesis (Christ with Mary and John the Baptist). Mosaic, Byzantine, c. 1260.

Source: Erich Lessing/AKG Images.

The point being made here is that Jesus of Nazareth is to be understood as both God and a human being. To make this point absolutely clear, the Council of Chalcedon used a technical term, already well established by this time. This is the Greek term homoousios, which is usually translated into English as “of one substance” or “of one being.” Although this term was not itself biblical, it was widely regarded as expressing a thoroughly biblical insight. Jesus is “of one substance” with God, just as he is “of one substance” with humanity. In other words, Jesus is the same as God; it really is God who is encountered in Jesus, and not some messenger sent from God.

An important minority viewpoint must, however, be noted. The Council of Chalcedon did not succeed in establishing a consensus throughout the entire Christian world. A minority viewpoint emerged during the sixth century and is now generally known as monophysitism – literally, the view that there is “only one nature” (Greek monos, “one, single” and phusis, “nature”) in Christ. The nature in question is understood to be divine rather than human. The intricacies of this viewpoint lie beyond the scope of this volume; the reader should note that the view itself remains normative within most Christian churches of the eastern Mediterranean world, including the Coptic, Armenian, Syrian, and Abyssinian churches.

Jesus of Nazareth as mediator between God and humanity

As we noted earlier, the doctrine of the incarnation established that Jesus Christ was to be thought of as perfectly human and perfectly divine. Important though this idea may be, it is not easy to visualize. So what models or analogies may be helpful as we try to visualize the place of Jesus of Nazareth on the Christian map of divine and human possibilities? In this section we shall explore one New Testament title for Christ that has been explored in some detail by Christian theologians – namely that of mediator: the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is a mediator between God and humanity at several points (Hebrews 9: 15; 1 Timothy 2: 5).

First, Jesus of Nazareth is able to mediate by transmitting knowledge of God to humanity. As someone who is both divine and human, Jesus can be thought of as a bridge or channel between God and humanity’s knowledge of God. Second, Jesus is able to mediate between God and humanity, to re-establish the relationship between them. What was broken by sin can be repaired by grace.

This point is developed by many Christian theologians. A good example is found in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559). Jesus Christ mediates between God and humanity. In order to act as a mediator, Calvin argues, Jesus Christ must be both divine and human. Since it was impossible for humans to ascend to God on account of their sin, God chose to descend to humanity instead. “The Son of God became the Son of Man, and received what is ours in such a way that he transferred to us what is his, making that which is his by nature to become ours through grace.”

So what is mediated? Two complementary answers are given by the New Testament and by the long tradition of Christian theological engagement with Scripture: revelation and salvation. Christ mediates both knowledge of God and fellowship with God. This theme is expressed by many Christian writers, including Dorothy L. Sayers. She is perhaps best known for her crime novels, which featured Lord Peter Wimsey as an amateur aristocratic sleuth. However, she also developed a considerable interest in Christian theology, which is evident in works such as The Mind of the Maker and Creed or Chaos? In this second work Sayers argues that it is not good enough to agree that Jesus was a good teacher with some useful ideas, unless we have good reasons for asserting that there is something distinctive about Jesus that requires us to take those ideas with compelling seriousness. Hence, Sayers argues, the great questions of Christology are inevitable and must be addressed.

Having made this point, she then turns to consider the issue of mediation. Under what conditions is mediation between God and humanity possible? And in what way is Jesus capable of acting in his capacity as mediator? Her answer is that the “two natures” – in other words, the doctrine that Jesus is both truly human and truly divine – safeguard this idea.

The central dogma of the Incarnation is that by which relevance stands or falls. If Christ was only man, then He is entirely irrelevant to any thought about God; if He is only God, then He is entirely irrelevant to any experience of human life.

We now turn to consider an especially significant response to Jesus, which has a particularly important place in today’s world: that of Islam.

Islamic criticisms of the Christian understanding of Jesus of Nazareth

The growing global importance of Islam makes the question of how Muslims view Jesus of increasing significance to Christianity. Islam acknowledges that Jesus was a prophet and a messenger of God. The name “Jesus” (Arabic isa) is used 25 times. In most cases, this name is linked with the title “Son of Mary” (ibn Mariam); it is less frequently linked with that of Moses. Although the New Testament makes it clear that the name “Jesus” means “God saves” (Matthew 1.21), the Qu’ran offers no explanation of the name isa. The related term “Messiah” (al masih) is also used in the Qu’ran. Again, the rich Old Testament associations of this term as “God’s anointed” do not seem to be understood. It is not clear why the Qu’ran should refer to Jesus as the “son of Mary.” This title is used very rarely in the New Testament (Mark 6: 3). It is also unusual (but not unknown) in the Semitic world for any major figure to be named after his mother rather than father. The Qu’ran also refers to Jesus using quite elevated language. Thus he is described as the “word of God” and the “spirit of God,” formulae that give him a place of honor within the Islamic understanding of the progression of revelation. This progression is held to reach its definitive climax in the revelation to Muhammad, which is committed to writing in the Qu’ran.

The Islamic view of the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus is somewhat complex. Although there are points where the Qu’ran refers to the death of Christ, indicating that it was in accord with the will of God, the precise manner and significance of his death remains unclear. One passage seems to teach that Jesus was neither killed by the Jews nor crucified by his enemies, “although it seemed so to them.” Rather Jesus was translated to heaven, some other unnamed person taking his place on the cross. The phrase “it seemed so to them” would thus bear the sense of either “the Jews thought that Jesus died on the cross” or “the Jews thought that the person on the cross was Jesus.”

Perhaps most significantly, the idea of the incarnation is completely unacceptable to Islam. The Christian belief that Christ is the Son of God is seen by Islamic writers as a reversion to some form of paganism, characterized by the idea of God having physical children. The distinctively Christian notion of what the phrase “son of God” entails appears not to have been fully grasped at the time of the composition of the Qu’ran. It therefore must be stressed, in this context too, that the orthodox Christian doctrine of Jesus as the “Son of God” in no way means that God physically fathered Jesus. Muslims generally regard this description as an instance of the heresy of ittakhadha, by which Jesus is acknowledged to be the physical Son of God. This is not a correct perception. The point of using the title “Son” is fundamentally relational: it is an affirmation of the unique status of Jesus in relation to God, and hence of the unique role of Jesus within the Christian tradition as a bearer of divine revelation and as the agent of divine salvation.

The Christian Understanding of Salvation

A central theme of the Christian message is that the human situation has in some way been transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This change is often described as “salvation.” Although the word “salvation” has a very specific meaning, it is often used in a more general sense. To begin with, let us reflect on some of the analogies or images of salvation that are found in Paul’s letters in the New Testament. These have proved deeply influential on Christian reflection on what some theologians call “the benefits of Christ” – in other words, on the difference that Jesus of Nazareth made to humanity through his life, death, and resurrection.

New Testament images of salvation

The term “salvation” does not necessarily have any specifically Christian reference. It can be used in a thoroughly secular manner. For example, it was common for Soviet writers, especially during the late 1920s, to speak of Lenin as the “savior” of the Russian people. Military coups in African states during the 1980s frequently resulted in the setting up of “councils of salvation,” which would try to restore political and economic stability. Salvation can thus be a purely secular notion, concerned with political emancipation or the general human quest for liberation.

Even in the realm of religion, salvation is not a specifically Christian idea. Many – but, it must be stressed, not all – of the world’s religions have concepts of salvation. They differ enormously, both in their understanding of how salvation is achieved and in the shape or form that salvation is supposed to take.

In turning to explore the Christian notion of salvation in more detail, we need to engage with two questions. First, there is the question of how “salvation” itself is to be construed. In what way is the Christian understanding of the nature of salvation distinctive? We shall consider some ways of thinking about salvation in the present section.

Second, there is the question of how salvation is possible, and in particular how it is grounded in the history of Jesus Christ. Or, to put this another way: What is the basis of salvation, according to Christian doctrine? Both these questions have been the subject of intense discussion throughout history, and in the next section we shall consider some themes that emerge from this discussion.

We begin by considering how salvation is to be understood. Throughout his letters in the New Testament, Paul uses a rich range of images to illuminate and clarify what benefits Christ secures for believers. He clearly assumes that his readers will be able to grasp what these analogies are meant to convey. In what follows we shall explore some of these images and try to appreciate their importance.

The first image is that of salvation itself. The term has a number of meanings, including release from danger, captivity, or some form of fatal illness. Notions such as “healing” and “liberation” can be seen as being encompassed into the sphere of this important Pauline term. Augustine of Hippo suggested that the church was like a hospital, in that it was full of people who were in the process of being healed. Paul sees salvation as having past (e.g., Romans 8: 24), present (e.g., 1 Corinthians 1: 18), and future (e.g., Romans 13: 11) dimensions. Thus the word “salvation” can refer to something that has already happened in the past, to something that is happening in the present, and to something that will happen in the future.

Many Christian preachers use narratives to make this point. One favorite is the response of a Salvation Army officer to a child who asked whether the officer was saved. The reply makes the point perfectly: “I have been saved from the guilt of sin. I am being saved from the power of sin. And I shall finally be saved from the presence of sin.”

A second image of importance is that of adoption. At several points, Paul speaks of Christians as having been “adopted” into the family of God (Romans 8: 15, 23; Galatians 4: 5). It is widely thought that Paul is here drawing on a legal practice, common in Greco-Roman culture (yet, interestingly, not recognized in traditional Jewish law). According to many interpreters of Paul, to speak of “believers” having been adopted into the family of God is to make the point that believers share the same inheritance rights as Jesus Christ, and hence will receive the glory that Christ achieved (although only after first sharing in his sufferings).

A third image is that of “justification.” At the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century (pp. 151–154), many Protestant writers came to place particular importance on the image of justification. Especially in those letters dealing with the relation of Christianity to Judaism (such as Galatians and Romans), Paul affirms that believers have been “justified through faith” (e.g., Romans 5: 1–2). This is widely held to involve a change in a believer’s legal status in the sight of God and in his or her ultimate assurance of acquittal before God, despite his or her sinfulness. The noun “justification” and the verb “to justify” thus came to signify entering into a right relationship with God, or perhaps being made righteous in the sight of God.

A fourth image is that of redemption. This term primarily bears the sense of “securing someone’s release through a payment.” In the ancient world, which acted as the backdrop to Paul’s thought, ”redemption” could be used to refer to the liberation of prisoners of war or to securing liberty for those who had sold themselves into slavery, often to pay off a family debt. Paul’s basic idea appears to be that the death of Christ secures for believers freedom from slavery to the law or to death, in order that they might become slaves of God instead (1 Corinthians 6: 20; 7: 23).

A fifth image is that of reconciliation – the restoration of a broken relationship. Paul speaks of God having “reconciled us to himself through Christ,” and he declares that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5: 18–19). Paul uses the same word elsewhere in his writings to refer to the restoration of a fractured human relationship, asking husbands to be reconciled to their alienated wives. This strongly relational way of thinking about salvation is particularly accessible in modern western culture.

In more recent times, theologians and preachers have tried to translate these ideas into concepts that connect up easily with present cultural concerns. For example, some speak of salvation in terms of political liberation; others in terms of securing personal fulfillment. The basic theme, however, remains essentially the same: salvation is about God enabling humanity to become what it was really meant to be, despite its deflection and defection through sin (pp. 84–85).

We must now turn to the second of our questions about salvation. How are we to understand the manner in which the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth fit into God’s transformation of the human situation? This field of Christian thought is often referred to as “theories of the atonement.” In what follows we shall look at a number of ways in which Christians understand how Jesus is the ground for salvation. These are best seen as complementary perspectives on a complex subject, or multiple layers of a stratified reality. We begin by reflecting on the theme of the victory of Jesus of Nazareth over death and sin.

Christ the victor: The defeat of death and sin

“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15: 57). The early church gloried in the triumph of Jesus of Nazareth upon the cross, and in the victory he won over sin, death, and Satan. The gates of heaven had been thrown wide open through the conquest of Calvary. The powerful imagery of the triumphant Jesus rising from the dead and being installed as “ruler of all” (Greek pantokrator) seized the imagination of the Christian East. The cross was seen as the focal point of a famous battle, comparable to the great Homeric epics, in which the forces of good and evil engaged, the good emerging victorious.

The early church seems to have been rather more concerned to proclaim Christ’s victory over the enemies of humanity than to speculate over precisely how it came about. Jesus’ resurrection and his triumphant opening of the gates of heaven to believers was something to be proclaimed and celebrated rather than subjected to theological analysis.

The Roman cultural context of early Christianity suggested one way of thinking about such a triumph. The victory of Jesus over his enemies was depicted as being like the great triumphant processions of ancient Rome, marking the achievement of Rome’s military leaders. In its classical form, the triumphal parade proceeded from the Campus Martius through the streets of Rome, finally ending up at the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. The parade was led by the triumphant general’s soldiers, who often carried placards with slogans that described the general and his achievements, or showed maps of the territories he had conquered. Other soldiers led carts containing booty that would be turned over to Rome’s treasury. A section of the parade included prisoners, often the leaders of the defeated cities or countries, bound in chains.

Figure 3.6 A triumphal procession in Rome celebrating Titus’ victory over the Jews in AD 70; carved on the Arch of Titus, triumphal arch in the Forum Romanum erected in AD 81. The New Testament portrays Jesus of Nazareth as a triumphant victor over sin and death. Rome (Italy), the Arch of Titus, section of the left internal relief: Triumphal procession with the seven-armed candlestick from the Temple of Solomon.

Source: Erich Lessing/AKG Images.

It was a small step for Christian writers to use this imagery as a way of portraying Jesus of Nazareth’s triumph over his enemies – such as sin and death. This powerful symbolism was firmly grounded in the New Testament, which spoke of the victorious Jesus as “making captivity a captive” (Ephesians 4: 8). While this theme can be found in some Christian art of this early period, its most dramatic impact was upon the hymns of the period. One of them portrays Christ’s triumphant procession and celebrates his defeat of his foes.

The royal banners forward go,

The cross shines forth in mystic glow;

Where he in flesh, our flesh Who made,

Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.

Christ the harrower of hell: Atonement as restoration

A further development of this theme of victory over death depicts Jesus of Nazareth as extending the triumph of the cross and resurrection to the netherworld. The dramatic and colorful medieval idea of “the harrowing of hell” holds that, after dying upon the cross, Jesus descended to hell and broke down its gates in order that the imprisoned souls might go free. The idea rests (rather tenuously, it has to be said) upon a biblical text (1 Peter 3: 18–22) that speaks of Jesus “preaching to the spirits in prison.”

The hymn “You Choirs of New Jerusalem,” written by Fulbert of Chartres (c. 970–1028), expresses this theme in two of its verses, picking up the theme of Christ as the “lion of Judah” (Revelation 5: 5) defeating Satan, the serpent (Genesis 3: 15):

For Judah’s lion bursts his chains

Crushing the serpent’s head;

And cries aloud through death’s domain

To wake the imprisoned dead.

Devouring depths of hell their prey

At his command restore;

His ransomed hosts pursue their way

Where Jesus goes before.

The idea rapidly became established in popular English literature of the Middle Ages. One of the most important pieces of Christian literature of this period is Piers the Plowman, traditionally attributed to William Langland. In this poem the narrator tells of how he falls asleep and dreams of Jesus of Nazareth throwing open the gates of hell and addressing the following words to Satan:

Here is my soul as a ransom for all these sinful souls, to redeem those that are worthy. They are mine; they came from me, and therefore I have the better claim on them. … You, by falsehood and crime and against all justice, took away what was mine, in my own domain; I, in fairness, recover them by paying the ransom, and by no other means. What you got by guile is won back by grace. … And as a tree caused Adam and all mankind to die, so my gallows-tree shall bring them back to life.

It is clear that this highly dramatic understanding of the way in which Christ threw open the gates of death and hell, allowing their imprisoned masses to escape and enter into the joys of heaven, made a potent appeal on the imagination of the readers of Piers Plowman.

Figure 3.7 The Harrowing of Hell, as depicted in Jean de Berry’s Petites Heures (14th century). Harrowing of Hell, folio 166 from Jean de Berry’s Petites Heures.

Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, BNF Lat 18104.

Such is the power of this image that it lingers, often unrecognized, in later writings. A particularly striking example can be found in C. S. Lewis’s children’s tale The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The book tells the story of Narnia, a land discovered by accident by four children as they rummage around in an old wardrobe. In this work we encounter the White Witch, who keeps the land of Narnia covered in a perpetual wintry snow. As we read on, we realize that she rules Narnia not as a matter of right, but by stealth. The true ruler of the land is absent; in his absence, the witch subjects the land to oppression. In the midst of this land of winter stands the witch’s castle, within which many of the original inhabitants have been imprisoned as stone statues.

As the narrative moves on, we discover that the rightful ruler of the land is Aslan, a lion. As Aslan advances into Narnia, winter gives way to spring and the snow begins to melt. The witch realizes that her power is starting to fade and moves to eliminate the threat posed to her by Aslan. Aslan surrenders himself to the forces of evil and allows them to do their worst with him – yet by so doing he disarms them. Lewis’s description of the resurrection of Aslan is one of his more tender moments, evoking as it does the deep sense of sorrow so evident in the New Testament accounts of the burial of Christ and the joy of recognition of the reality of the resurrection. Lewis then describes how Aslan – the lion of Judah, who has burst his chains – breaks into the castle, breathes upon the statues, and restores them to life before leading the liberated army through the shattered gates of the once great fortress – to freedom. Hell has been harrowed, and its inhabitants liberated from its dreary shades.

Christ the redeemer: Atonement as satisfaction

A third approach to the meaning of the death of Christ integrates a series of biblical passages that deal with notions of judgment and forgiveness. The understanding of the work of Christ outlined in the previous sections has enormous attractions, not least on account of its highly dramatic character. However, it also has some serious weaknesses. For the eleventh-century writer Anselm of Canterbury, two were of particular importance. In the first place, it failed to explain why God should wish to redeem us. And, in the second, it was of little value in making us understand how Jesus of Nazareth was involved in the process of redemption. Anselm felt that more explanation was required.

To meet this need, he developed an approach to the achievement of Jesus of Nazareth that stressed the fact that God redeemed humanity in a way that is consistent with the moral ordering of the creation, which reflects God’s own nature. God cannot create the universe as an expression of his own will and nature and then violate its moral order by acting in a completely different way in the redemption of humanity. God must redeem humanity in a way that is consistent with his own nature and purposes. Redemption must in the first place be moral, and in the second place be seen to be moral. God cannot employ one standard of morality at one point and another later on. God is therefore under a self-imposed obligation to respect the moral order of the creation.

Having established this point, Anselm considers how redemption is possible. The basic dilemma can be summarized as follows. God cannot restore humanity to fellowship without first dealing with human sin. Sin is a disruption of the moral ordering of the universe. It represents the rebellion of the creation against its creator. It represents an insult and an offense to God. The situation must be “made right” before the fellowship between God and humanity can be restored. God must therefore “make good” the situation in a way that is consistent with both divine mercy and divine righteousness. Anselm thus introduces the concept of “satisfaction” – a payment or some other action that compensates for the offense of human sin. Once this satisfaction has been brought, the situation can revert to normal. But this satisfaction must first be achieved.

Yet human beings do not have the ability to bring this kind of satisfaction. It lies beyond their resources. They need to do it – but they cannot. Humanity ought to render satisfaction for its sins, but it is unable to. God is under no obligation to bring satisfaction – but God could do it, if that were appropriate. Therefore, Anselm argues, if God were to become a human being, the resulting God-person would have both the obligation (as a human being) and the ability (as God) to render the necessary satisfaction. Thus the incarnation brings a just solution of this dilemma, leading to the transformation of the human situation. The death of Jesus of Nazareth upon the cross demonstrates God’s total opposition to sin, while at the same time providing the means by which sin could be really and truly forgiven and the way opened to a renewed fellowship between humanity and God.

The basic idea is that the value of the satisfaction thus offered had to be equivalent to the weight of human sin. Anselm argued that the Son of God became incarnate in order that he, as God incarnate, should both take on the human obligation to bring satisfaction and possess the divine ability to pay a satisfaction of the magnitude required for redemption. This idea is faithfully reproduced by Mrs Cecil F. Alexander (1818–1895) in her famous nineteenth-century hymn “There Is a Green Hill Far Away”:

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven, and let us in.

But how does the death of Jesus of Nazareth upon the cross affect us? In what way do we share in the benefits of his death and resurrection? Anselm felt that this point did not require discussion, and so he gave no guidance on the matter. Later Christian writers, however, felt that it needed to be addressed. Three main ways of understanding how believers relate to Christ in this respect may be noted.

The death of Christ as a perfect sacrifice

The New Testament draws on Old Testament imagery and expectations, in presenting the death of Jesus of Nazareth upon the cross as a sacrifice. This approach, which is especially associated with the letter to the Hebrews, interprets Christ’s sacrificial offering as an effective and perfect sacrifice, which was able to accomplish what the sacrifices of the Old Testament were only able to intimate. Paul’s use of the Greek term hilastērion, often translated as “mercy seat” (Romans 3: 25), is important here, as it is drawn from Old Testament sacrificial rituals related to the purging of sin.

This idea is developed subsequently within the Christian tradition. In order for humanity to be restored to God, the mediator must sacrifice himself; without this sacrifice, such restoration is simply impossible. Writing in the fourth century, Athanasius of Alexandria argues that Christ’s sacrifice was superior in several respects to those required under the Old Covenant:

Christ offers a sacrifice which is trustworthy, of permanent effect, and which is unfailing in its nature. The sacrifices which were offered according to the Law were not trustworthy, since they had to be offered every day, and were again in need of purification. In contrast, the Saviour’s sacrifice was offered once only, and was accomplished in its entirety, and can thus be relied upon permanently.

This point was developed further in Athanasius’ Festal Letters, written annually to celebrate the feast of Easter. In these letters Athanasius develops the New Testament idea that there is an important analogy between the death of Christ on the cross and the sacrifice of a lamb during the Jewish festival of the Passover, which commemorates Israel’s deliverance from Egypt:

[Christ], being truly of God the Father, became incarnate for our sakes, so that he might offer himself to the Father in our place, and redeem us through his offering and sacrifice. … This is he who, in former times, was sacrificed as a lamb, having been foreshadowed in that lamb. But afterwards, he was slain for us. “For Christ, our passover, is sacrificed”.

(1 Corinthians 5: 7)

Augustine of Hippo brought a new clarity to the whole discussion of the nature of Christ’s sacrifice through his crisp and highly influential definition of a sacrifice, set out in City of God: “A true sacrifice is offered in every action which is designed to unite us to God in a holy fellowship.” On the basis of this definition, Augustine has no difficulties in speaking of Christ’s death as a sacrifice: “By his death, which is indeed the one and most true sacrifice offered for us, he purged, abolished, and extinguished whatever guilt there was by which the principalities and powers lawfully detained us to pay the penalty.” In this sacrifice Christ was both victim and priest; he offered himself up as a sacrifice: “He offered sacrifice for our sins. And where did he find that offering, the pure victim that he would offer? He offered himself, in that he could find no other.”

These themes remain important to Christians, as can be seen from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), which sets them out as follows:

After agreeing to baptize [Jesus of Nazareth] along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel’s redemption at the first Passover. Christ’s whole life expresses his mission: “to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Christ the lover: Atonement and the enkindling of love

A leading theme of the New Testament’s understanding of the death of Christ is that this act demonstrates the love of God for humanity and elicits a matching love in response. This theme is developed in Christian theology in terms of God stooping down to enter the created world and becoming incarnate in Christ. Augustine of Hippo was one of many patristic writers to stress that one of the motivations underlying the mission of Christ was to demonstrate God’s love for us. The love of God for a wounded humanity is thus focused on an act of divine humility: the act of God’s leaving the glory of heaven to enter the poverty and suffering of the created order and finally to suffer death upon the cross.

The recognition of the fact that Christ’s death can be seen as a demonstration of divine love surfaces at the earliest stages of Christian thinking. The third-century writer Clement of Alexandria pointed out how the incarnation of Christ, and especially his death, represents a powerful affirmation of the love of God for humanity and a demand that humanity demonstrate a comparable love for God.

For [Christ] came down, for this he assumed human nature, for this he willingly endured the sufferings of humanity, that by being reduced to the measure of our weakness, he might raise us to the measure of his power. And just before he poured out his offering, when he gave himself as a ransom, he left us a new testament: “I give you my love” (John 13: 34). What is the nature and extent of this love? For each of us he laid down his life, the life which was worth the whole universe, and he requires in return that we should do the same for each other.

Such thoughts have proved a powerful stimulus to the Christian imagination. This theme is developed in an imaginatively powerful way in one of the most reflective Spanish spiritual writers of the Renaissance. Juana de la Cruz (1481–1534) is remembered particularly for her Book of Consolation, which was widely admired during the Spanish Golden Age. Her discussion of the passion of Christ is notable in several respects, particularly her explicit use of feminine images to unlock its theological significance. The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth is here compared to a woman giving birth. For Juana, reflecting on the pain and sorrow that Jesus suffered in order to give life to the children of God is a powerful affirmation of the love of God for humanity – a love that is here expressed using strongly maternal imagery.

Christ gave birth to us all with very great pains and torments at the time of his cruel and bitter passion. And since we cost him so dearly and the labor through which he gave birth to us was so grueling that it made him sweat drops of blood, he can do nothing but pray and plead for us before the Father, like a very compassionate mother, desiring that we should be saved and that our souls should be enlightened, so that he might not have suffered his pain and torment in vain.

Salvation and the “threefold office of Christ”

At the season of Epiphany (p. 239), the Christian churches recall the visit of the Magi (usually translated as “wise men”) – the rulers from the East, who came to visit the infant Jesus at Bethlehem (Matthew 2: 1–12). These mysterious visitors brought three gifts with them: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So might these three gifts tell us anything about how they understood the significance of this infant?

Early church writers believed that they did. Each of these gifts was appropriate for a certain kind of person. They were valuable items, appropriate as gifts for a king in the ancient world: gold was a precious metal, frankincense was a perfume or incense, and myrrh was anointing oil. Indeed, these same three items were apparently among the gifts that King Seleucus Callinicus offered to the god Apollo at the temple in Miletus in 243 BC.

Yet early Christian writers regarded these gifts as more than honorific. Each one disclosed something of the true significance of Jesus of Nazareth. Gold was appropriate for a king, expressing his authority; frankincense was appropriate for a priest, who would make sacrifice in the temple; and myrrh was a sign of his forthcoming death, in that he would be wrapped in clothes soaked in this oil.

This way of thinking eventually developed into what is usually called “the threefold office of Christ,” which became particularly influential in reformed theology during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (although its ideas can be traced back much earlier than this). Christ, it is argued, brought to fulfillment the three great “offices” or “roles” of the Old Testament – the prophet, the priest, and the king.

These three categories were seen as a convenient summary of all that Jesus of Nazareth had achieved in order to redeem his people. Jesus is a prophet (Matthew 21: 11; Luke 7: 16), a priest (Hebrews 2: 17; 3: 1) and a king (Matthew 21: 5; 27: 11), bringing together in his one person the three great offices of the Old Testament. Jesus is the prophet who, like Moses, will see God face to face (Deuteronomy 17: 15); he is the king who, like David, will establish a new people of God and reign over it in justice and compassion (2 Samuel 7: 12–16); he is the priest who will cleanse his people of its sins. Thus the three gifts brought to Jesus by the Magi were to be seen as reflecting or prefiguring these three functions. The great nineteenth-century Princeton theologian Charles Hodge declared that fallen humanity needed “a Savior who is a prophet to instruct us; a priest to atone and to make intercession for us; and a king to rule over and protect us.”

Grace

A central theme in the Bible is that God’s choice of a people or of individuals is not determined by their merits but by God’s love and that it comes about through God’s will. This can be seen particularly in God’s decision to choose Israel as his people. The Old Testament regularly affirms that Israel was chosen not because of anything it had to offer, but solely through the grace of God (Deuteronomy 7: 7; Isaiah 41: 8–9; Ezekiel 20: 5). This, of course, was not understood to abrogate Israel’s responsibility to live up to its responsibilities as God’s people. Many of the Old Testament prophets stressed the conditionality of Israel’s election. Unless Israel behaved in ways appropriate to its identity and calling as God’s chosen people, that status would be revoked.

Our attention in this section focuses on the idea of God’s being gracious and generous. Salvation is not understood to be the consequence of human merit or achievement. This idea is often expressed through the concept of “grace.” For Paul, Christians are saved through grace, not through works (Ephesians 2: 1–10). In other words, their salvation does not depend upon their achievements but upon the generosity and graciousness of God. Through grace, salvation is made possible for those who have neither the merit nor the intrinsic capacity to secure it for themselves. Hence grace affirms God’s sheer generosity and goodness.

Such ideas were developed and clarified in the long process of wrestling with the Bible within the Christian church. Initially this process of reflection focused on the person of Christ and on the doctrine of the Trinity. The question of what it means to speak of a “gracious God” did not receive detailed attention until the late fourth and early fifth centuries. One especially important debate helped crystallize Christian perceptions of how best to systematize the New Testament’s teaching on grace: the Pelagian controversy of the early fifth century.

The Pelagian controversy of the fifth century

The central figure in the controversy was Augustine of Hippo. Augustine had been converted to Christianity after a long struggle with a series of questions concerning the meaning of life – such as the origin of evil and how the good life may be lived out in practice. In Augustine’s view, humanity was totally dependent upon God for its salvation. Human nature is frail, weak, and prone to becoming lost; it needs divine assistance and care if it is to be restored and renewed. Grace, according to Augustine, is God’s generous and quite unmerited care for humanity, through which this process of healing may begin. Human nature requires transformation through the grace of God, so generously given. An integral aspect of Augustine’s thinking at this point is the idea of “original sin” – that is, the idea that humanity was contaminated by sin from the moment of its first appearance.

For Augustine, humanity is universally affected by sin as a consequence of the fall. The human mind has been darkened and weakened by sin. The human will has been weakened (but not eliminated) by sin. Using the gospel’s analogy of Christ as the physician, Augustine argues that Jesus of Nazareth both diagnoses the human situation (sin) and offers humanity a cure that it cannot secure by itself (grace). It is through the grace of God alone that this illness is recognized for what it is and that a cure is made available.

So what are the implications for our understanding of human nature? For Augustine, humanity is now imperfect: it is wounded and has been robbed of grace. God may have made humanity perfect; as a consequence of sin, humanity is now diseased and needs to be healed. One of the symptoms of sin that Augustine discusses in detail is the captivity of the human free will. For him, human freedom has been compromised by sin. Our desires and longings, which should have been directed toward God, are misdirected toward things of the world. “We look for happiness not in you,” Augustine wrote in a prayer, “but in what you have created.” The human free will has been weakened and incapacitated – but, to repeat, not eliminated or destroyed – through sin. In order for that free will to be restored and healed, the operation of divine grace is required.

In order to explain this point, Augustine uses the analogy of a pair of scales with two balance pans. One balance pan represents good, and the other evil. If the pans were properly balanced, the arguments in favor of doing good or doing evil could be weighed and a proper conclusion drawn. But, asks Augustine, what if the balance pans are loaded? What happens if someone puts several heavyweights in the balance pan on the side of evil? The scales will still work, but they are seriously biased toward making an evil decision. Augustine argues that this is exactly what has happened to humanity through sin. The human free will is biased toward evil. It really exists, and it really can make decisions – just as the loaded scales still work. But, instead of giving a balanced judgment, it is seriously biased toward evil. Using this and related analogies, Augustine argues that the human free will really exists in sinners but is compromised by sin.

Augustine’s essential point is that humanity ultimately does not have control over its own behavior and abilities. He understands humanity to be born with a sinful disposition; an inherent bias toward acts of sinning is part of human nature. Augustine develops this point with the help of three important analogies: original sin as a “disease,” as a “power,” and as “guilt.”

The first analogy treats sin as a hereditary disease, which is passed down from one generation to another. As we saw above, this disease weakens humanity and cannot be cured by human agency. Christ is thus the divine physician by whose “wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53: 5), and salvation is understood in essentially sanative or medical terms.

The second analogy treats sin as a power that holds humanity captive and from whose grip people are unable to break free by themselves. The human free will is captivated by the power of sin and may only be liberated by grace. Christ is thus seen as the liberator, the source of the grace that breaks the power of sin.

The third analogy treats sin as an essentially judicial or forensic concept – guilt – which is passed down from one generation to the next. In a society that placed a high value on law – such as the late Roman empire, in which Augustine lived and worked – this was regarded as a particularly helpful way of understanding sin. Jesus of Nazareth thus comes to bring forgiveness and pardon.

But some were deeply uneasy about Augustine’s ideas, feeling that they downplayed, or possibly even denied, human freedom and responsibility. The Pelagian debate centered on these themes. Augustine’s opponent in this debate was Pelagius, a British Christian who had settled in Rome in the late fourth century. Pelagius was disturbed by the moral laxity of Roman Christians and argued vociferously against Augustine’s doctrine of grace, which, he argued, failed to acknowledge the need for Christians to actively seek perfection. For Pelagius, there was nothing wrong with human nature. If God told people to be perfect, they were capable of being perfect. Where Augustine argued that sinfulness frustrated the human desire to be good and to do good, Pelagius argued that real problem was a lack of commitment.

In AD 413 Pelagius wrote a lengthy letter to a Roman woman of high birth named Demetrias, who had recently decided to turn her back on wealth in order to become a nun. In this letter Pelagius made clear the consequences of his views on human nature and free will. God has created humanity and knows precisely what it is capable of doing. Hence all the commands given to us can be obeyed, and are meant to be obeyed. It is no excuse to argue that human frailty prevents these commands from being fulfilled. God has made human nature, and only asks of it what it can manage.

Pelagius went on to make the somewhat uncompromising assertion that, since perfection is possible for humanity, it is obligatory. As things turned out, the moral rigor of this position and its unrealistic view of human nature served only to strengthen Augustine’s hand, as he developed the rival understanding of a tender and kindly God attempting to heal and restore a wounded human nature.

Perhaps the sharpest contrast between Augustine and Pelagius is the one concerning the basis of salvation. What do people need to do to in order be saved? The two writers offer very different answers. To summarize them briefly: Augustine emphasizes trusting God’s promises and receiving what fruit; Pelagius emphasizes living a good life and securing salvation through moral integrity and good works.

For Augustine, humanity is saved through an act of grace: even human good works are to be seen as the result of God’s working within fallen human nature. Everything leading up to salvation is the free and unmerited gift of God, given out of love for sinners. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, God is enabled to deal with fallen humanity in this remarkable and generous manner, giving us what we do not deserve (salvation), and withholding from us what we do deserve (condemnation).

For Pelagius, on the contrary, humanity is justified on the basis of its merits: human good works are the result of the exercise of the totally autonomous human free will, in fulfillment of an obligation laid down by God. A failure to meet this obligation opens the individual to the threat of eternal punishment. Jesus of Nazareth reveals, by his actions and teaching, exactly what God requires of the individual if that individual is to be saved. Salvation is thus the result of following the moral example of Jesus.

The Reformation debates of the sixteenth century

In the end, the western church opted for Augustine’s approach. Many historians suggest that the basic issues of the Pelagian controversy are regularly replayed throughout the history of the church. The Reformation of the sixteenth century is widely regarded as taking up the basic issues of the Pelagian debate; but this time the language of “justification by faith” rather than that of “salvation by grace” is being used.

Earlier Christian theologians – such as Augustine – had given priority to those New Testament texts that use the language of “salvation by grace” (e.g., Ephesians 2: 5). However, Martin Luther’s wrestling with the issue of how God was able to accept sinners led him to focus on those passages in which Paul spoke primarily of “justification by faith” (e.g., Romans 5: 1–2). Although it can be argued that the same fundamental point is being made in both contexts, the language used to express that point is different.

Martin Luther’s program of reform for the church was based largely on his belief that the church had lost sight of any meaningful notion of grace. For Luther, the great question of life was, fundamentally, “How can I find a gracious God?” As a younger man, being terrified of hell and convinced of his own sinfulness, Luther gave an answer that was widespread in the popular Christian culture of his day: if you want to get right with God, make yourself into a good person. Humanity has the capacity to make itself righteous; when this happens, God endorses this transformation and accepts the transformed person into a relationship with him. This only happens through the institution of the church, which provides the God-given structures that lead securely and inevitably to salvation.

Yet Luther changed his mind and moved away from these early views. He developed a doctrine of justification through faith alone, which offered a radical alternative to the popular idea of making yourself good in order to secure divine acceptance. Luther came to the view that, when Paul speaks of the “righteousness of God” being revealed in the gospel, he does not mean that humanity is told what standards of righteousness it must achieve in order to be saved. Rather God provides the righteousness required for salvation as a free, unmerited gift. God’s love is not conditional upon human transformation; it is rather the other way round – personal transformation follows divine acceptance and affirmation.

More radically still, Luther insisted that the believer was “at one and the same time a righteous person and a sinner” (simul iustus et peccator). While Luther admired Augustine for his emphasis on the unconditional love of God, he suggested that Augustine had become muddled when it came to the location of the gift of righteousness. Augustine considered this gift to be located within humanity, as a transforming reality; Luther argued that it was located outside us, being “reckoned” or “imputed” to humanity – not imparted. Humanity is like a patient under the care of a wise physician and on the way to recovery.

This approach was developed by other Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century, particularly by Philip Melanchthon and John Calvin. Two themes became characteristic of Protestant understandings of justification in the sixteenth century:

This understanding of justification differed at important points from that offered by Catholic writers; in consequence the doctrine of justification became a major source of disagreement between Protestant and Catholic writers. It is often seen as the great issue that divides these two major branches of Christianity, although this is probably a simplification of a complex situation.

Yet both sides in this debate affirmed that salvation is based on divine grace, not on human achievement. The divergence between them concerned what they meant by “justification” and how they thought it best to think about “justifying righteousness.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes a statement about grace that most Christians would have little difficulty in accepting: “Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favour, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.”

The Church

The Apostles’ Creed includes a clause that declares that Christians believe in the church. What is meant by this? How is the church to be defined, and what is its purpose? This area of Christian belief is traditionally designated “ecclesiology” (from the Greek word for “church,” ekklēsia, which originally meant “gathering” or “assembly”). Although Christianity appeals to individuals, it is important to note the strongly communitarian aspects of the Christian faith. Christians prefer to gather together for worship rather than worshipping God individually at home.

So what do Christians understand by this word, “church”? The best way of exploring this theme is to pick up a statement of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” These four adjectives – “one,” “holy,” “catholic” (or universal), and “apostolic” – are often referred to as the “four notes” or “four marks” of the church. What do they tell us about Christian thinking on the nature of the church? In what follows we shall explore this matter.

The unity of the church

The New Testament actually uses the word “church” in two somewhat different senses. At many points it designates individual Christian congregations – local visible gatherings of believers. For example, Paul wrote letters to churches in the cities of Corinth and Philippi. The book of Revelation makes reference to the “seven churches of Asia,” probably meaning seven local Christian communities in the region of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). These would almost certainly have been “house churches” – clusters of believers who met in a home, being unable to meet in public for fear of arrest.

Yet at other points in the New Testament, especially in the letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, we find the term “church” being used in a wider, more general sense, meaning something like “the total body of Christian believers.” The distinction between the local and the universal senses of “church” is of considerable importance and needs careful examination. How could both aspects be maintained?

Traditionally, this tension is resolved by arguing that there is one universal church, which is embodied or disclosed in local communities. On the basis of this approach it is possible to argue that there is one universal church, which consists of all Christian believers but takes the form of individual local churches in any given region.

One influential way of conceiving this distinction is due to the sixteenth-century writer John Calvin (1509–1564), who drew a distinction between the “visible” and the “invisible” church. At one level, the church is the community of Christian believers – a visible group. It is also, however, the fellowship of saints and the company of the elect – an invisible entity. In its invisible aspect, the church is the invisible assembly of the elect, known only to God; in its visible aspect, it is the community of believers on earth. The former consists only of the elect; the latter includes both good and evil, elect and reprobate.

The importance of this way of thinking (and of others like it) is best appreciated by considering the following question. How can anyone talk about “one” Christian church, when there are so many different Christian denominations? Faced with an apparent tension between a theoretical belief in “one church” and the observable reality of a plurality of churches, Christian writers have developed a number of approaches designed to allow the later to be incorporated in the framework of the former.

Some have adopted a basically Platonic approach, which draws a fundamental distinction between the empirical church (that is, the church as a visible historical reality) and the ideal church. Others have favored an eschatological approach. On this understanding, the present disunity of the church will be abolished on the last day. The present situation is temporary and will be resolved on the day of judgment. This viewpoint lies behind Calvin’s distinction between the “visible” and “invisible” churches, which we considered above.

Some have found a biological approach helpful: they compared the historical evolution of the church to the development of the branches of a tree. This image, proposed by the eighteenth-century German Pietist writer Nicolas von Zinzendorf and taken up with enthusiasm by Anglican writers of the following century, allows the different empirical churches – for example the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Anglican – to be seen as possessing an organic unity, despite their institutional differences. The various churches are thus seen as branches on the same root – that is, as having a fundamental unity despite their diversity.

The holiness of the church

One of the most interesting debates over the doctrine of the church concerns whether its members are required to be holy. The debate is seen to be at its most intense during the Donatist controversy of the fourth century, which focused on the question of whether church leaders were required to be morally pure. Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian (284–313), the Christian church was subject to various degrees of persecution. The origins of the persecution date from 303; it finally ended with the conversion of Constantine and the issuing of the Edict of Milan in 313. Under an edict of February 303, Christian books were ordered to be burned and churches demolished. Those Christian leaders who handed over their books to be burned came to be known as traditores – “those who handed over [their books].” One such traditor was Felix of Aptunga, who later consecrated Caecilian as Bishop of the great North African city of Carthage in 311.

Many local Christians were outraged that such a person should have been allowed to be involved in a consecration, and they declared that they could not accept the authority of Caecilian. The new bishop’s authority was compromised, it was argued, on account of the fact that the bishop who had consecrated him had lapsed under the pressure of persecution. The hierarchy of the Catholic church was tainted as a result of this development. The church ought to be pure; it should not be permitted to include such people. By 388, when Augustine of Hippo – destined to be a central figure in the controversy – returned from Rome to North Africa, a breakaway faction had established itself as the leading Christian body in the region, with strong support from the local African population.

The Donatists believed that the entire sacramental system of the Catholic church had become corrupted on account of the lapse of its leaders. How could the sacraments be validly administered by people who were tainted in this way? It was therefore necessary to replace these people with more acceptable leaders, who had remained firm in their faith under persecution. It was also necessary to rebaptize and re-ordain all those who had been baptized and ordained by the lapsed leaders. The faction that Augustine found on his return was larger than the church from which it had originally broken away.

Augustine responded by putting forward a theory of the church that he believed was more firmly grounded in the New Testament than the Donatist teaching. In particular, Augustine emphasized the sinfulness of Christians. The church is not meant to be a “pure body,” a society of saints, but a “mixed body” (corpus permixtum) of saints and sinners. Augustine finds this image in two biblical parables: the parable of the net that catches many fishes; and the parable of the wheat and the weeds (or “tares,” to use an older English word familiar to readers of the King James Bible). It is this latter parable (Matthew 13: 24–31) that is of especial importance and requires further discussion.

The parable tells of a farmer who sowed seed and discovered that the resulting crop contained both wheat and weeds. What could be done about it? It would be foolish to attempt to separate the wheat and the weeds while both were still growing, as the farmer would probably damage the wheat while trying to get rid of the weeds. But at harvest all the plants – whether wheat or weeds – could be cut down and sorted out, thus avoiding any damage to the wheat. The parable suggests that the separation of the good from the evil takes place at the end of time, not in history.

For Augustine, however, this parable refers to the church rather than the world. The church must expect to find itself comprising both saints and sinners. To attempt a separation in this world is premature and improper. That separation will take place in God’s own time, at the end of history. No human can make that judgment or separation in God’s place.

So then, in what sense is the church holy? For Augustine, the holiness of the church is not that of its members, but that of Christ. In this world the church cannot be a congregation of saints, because its members are contaminated by original sin. However, the church is sanctified and made holy by Christ – a holiness that will be perfected and finally realized at the last judgment. In addition to this theological analysis, Augustine makes the practical observation that the Donatists failed to live up to their own high standards of morality. Donatists, Augustine suggests, were just as capable as Catholics of getting drunk or beating people up.

Yet the Donatist vision of a “pure body” remains attractive to many. As so often happens in theological debates, the evidence is never entirely on one side of the argument. A strong case continues to be made for the idea of the church as a “pure body,” especially in denominations that trace their identity back to the more radical wing of the Protestant Reformation, often known as “anabaptist.” The radical Reformation conceived of the church as an “alternative society” within the mainstream of sixteenth-century European culture. For Menno Simmons, the church was an assembly of the righteous, at odds with the world, and not a “mixed body,” as Augustine argued.

It will be clear that there are strong parallels with the Donatist view of the church as a holy and pure body, isolated from the corrupting influences of the world and prepared to maintain its purity and distinctiveness by whatever disciplinary means prove to be necessary.

Other writers have pointed out how “holiness” is often equated with “morality,” “sanctity,” or “purity,” which often seem to bear little relation to the behavior of fallen human beings. Yet the Hebrew term kadad, which underlies the New Testament concept of “holiness,” has a rather different meaning, bearing the sense of “being cut off” or “being separated.” There are strong dedicatory overtones: to be “holy” is to be set apart for, and dedicated to, the service of God.

A fundamental element – indeed, perhaps the fundamental element – in the Old Testament’s idea of holiness is that of “something or someone whom God has set apart.” The New Testament restricts the sphere of holiness almost entirely to personal holiness; it applies “holy” to individuals, declining to pick up the idea of “holy places” or “holy things.” People are “holy” in that they are dedicated to God; and they are distinguished from the world on account of their calling by God. A number of theologians have suggested a correlation between the idea of “the church” (the Greek word for which can bear the meaning of “those who are called out”), and “holy” (that is, those who have been separated from the world on account of their having been called by God).

To speak of the “holiness of the church” is thus primarily to speak of the holiness of the one who called that church and its members. The church has been separated from the world in order to bear witness to the grace and salvation of God. Therefore the term “holy,” taken in this sense, affirms both the calling of the church and of its members and the hope that the church will one day share in the life and glory of God.

The catholicity of the church

The Christian creeds refer to the church as “universal” or “catholic.” The term “catholic” derives from the Greek phrase kath’ holou (“wholly, in its entirety”). The Greek words subsequently found their way into the Latin adjective catholicus, which came to have the meaning “universal” or “general.” (The word “universal” is now often used as an alternative to “catholic,” particularly within Protestant denominations.) This sense of the word is retained in the English phrase “catholic taste,” which means “wide-ranging taste” rather than “taste for things that are Roman Catholic.” Older versions of the English Bible often refer to some of the New Testament letters (such as those of James and John) as “catholic epistles,” meaning that they are directed to all Christians (unlike those of Paul, which are generally directed to the needs and situations of individually identified churches, such as those at Rome or Corinth).

The developed sense of the word is perhaps best seen in the fourth-century catechetical writings of Cyril of Jerusalem. In his eighteenth catechetical lecture, Cyril teases out a number of senses of the word “catholic”:

The church is thus called “catholic” because it is spread throughout the entire inhabited world, from one end to the other, and because it teaches in its totality [katholikōs] and without leaving anything out every doctrine which people need to know relating to things visible and invisible, whether in heaven and earth. It is also called “catholic” because it brings to obedience every sort of person – whether rulers or their subjects, the educated and the unlearned. It also makes available a universal [katholikōs] remedy and cure to every kind of sin.

It will be clear that Cyril is using the term “catholic” in four ways, each of which deserves comment a little further:

The apostolicity of the church

Fourth and finally, the church is declared to be “apostolic.” What does this mean? The fundamental sense of the term is “originating with the Apostles” or “having a direct link with the Apostles.” This epithet is a reminder that the church is founded on the apostolic witness and testimony. In the New Testament, the word “apostle” has two related meanings:

In declaring the church to be “apostolic,” the creeds emphasize the historical roots of the gospel, the continuity between the church and Christ through the Apostles whom he appointed, and the continuing evangelistic and missionary tasks of the church.

The church can therefore be thought of as being “apostolic” in three ways, each laying emphasis on a different aspect of the church’s history, calling, and function.

Among the tasks passed down to the apostles’ successors is Christ’s command to do certain specific things, both as a reminder of his life, death, and resurrection and as a celebration and proclamation of his ongoing presence in the church. In view of the importance of these “sacraments” to the life of the church, we may consider them in some detail.

The Sacraments

The word “sacrament” is widely used to refer to certain acts of worship that are understood to possess special importance in maintaining and developing the Christian life. The term derives from the Latin word sacramentum, which originally meant “sacred oath,” such as the oath of obedience that a Roman soldier might swear to the people and Senate of Rome. The third-century theologian Tertullian used this parallel as a means of bringing out the importance of sacraments in relation to Christian commitment and loyalty within the church. Baptism, for example, can be seen as a sign both of allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth and of commitment to the Christian community.

There has been considerable debate within the Christian community over the identity and function of sacraments, as well as over what to call them. The fundamental Christian practice of using bread and wine to recall the Last Supper is referred to in different ways by different Christian groups. The most commonly encountered descriptions are the mass, the eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, and the Holy Communion. Generally speaking, Protestantism tends to accept only two sacraments – baptism and the eucharist – where Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy recognize seven. The seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church are generally grouped together in three categories: the sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, and the eucharist), the sacraments of healing (reconciliation or penance, and the anointing or “unction” of the sick), and sacraments of vocation (marriage and ordination). The Greek Orthodox church also recognizes these seven sacraments, while using the term “chrismation” in place of confirmation.

What is a sacrament?

Although earlier Christian writers often refer to the sacraments, we find relatively little reflection on what determines whether something is a sacrament or not. The word was used somewhat uncritically, without any attempt to achieve theological precision on what the concept entailed. Augustine of Hippo is generally regarded as having laid down the general principles relating to the definition of sacraments. These principles can be set out as follows:

These definitions, though useful, are still imprecise and inadequate. For example, does it follow that every “sign of a sacred thing” is to be regarded as a sacrament? Augustine himself understood by “sacraments” a number of things that are no longer regarded as sacramental in character – for example, the creeds and the Lord’s Prayer. As time passed, it became increasingly clear that the definition of a sacrament simply as “a sign of a sacred thing” was inadequate. It was during the theological renaissance of the earlier Middle Ages that further clarification took place.

In the late twelfth century, the Parisian theologian Peter Lombard developed Augustine’s definition, giving it a new clarity and precision. Peter’s definition in his widely used and authoritative theological textbook The Four Books of the Sentences takes the following form:

A sacrament bears a likeness to the thing of which it is a sign. … Something can properly be called a sacrament if it is a sign of the grace of God and a form of invisible grace, so that it bears its image and exists as its cause. Sacraments were therefore instituted for the sake of sanctifying, as well as of signifying.

This definition embraces each of the seven traditional sacraments noted above and excludes such things as the creed.

The rise of Protestantism ended this consensus within the western church. Martin Luther challenged this way of thinking about the sacraments, insisting that there were three basic elements that were essential to the definition of a sacrament: a physical sign; a divine promise; and an explicit command from Jesus of Nazareth that this physical sign should be used in this way. Luther’s more radical definition limited the list of sacraments to two: baptism and the eucharist.

The function of sacraments

What do sacraments do? From what has already been said it can be seen that, in Christian theology, sacraments have universally been understood as signs. Sacraments thus signify divine grace. But this is only a partial answer. Do sacraments do more than simply signify the grace of God? Are the sacraments merely signs, or are they a special kind of sign – such as an effective sign, which causes what is being signified?

Traces of this view may be found in the second century. Ignatius of Antioch declared that the eucharist was “the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die, but live for ever in Jesus Christ.” The idea is, clearly, that the eucharist does not merely signify eternal life, but is somehow instrumental in effecting it. This approach was developed subsequently by many writers, and especially by Ambrose of Milan in the fourth century (c. 340–397). Ambrose argued that, in baptism, the Holy Spirit “coming upon the font or upon those who are to be baptized, effects the reality of regeneration.”

In medieval theology a distinction was carefully drawn between the “sacraments of the Old Covenant” (such as circumcision) and the “sacraments of the New Covenant” (such as baptism). Early medieval theologians held that the sacraments of the Old Covenant merely signified spiritual realities, whereas the sacraments of the New Covenant actualized or caused what they signified. The thirteenth-century Franciscan writer known as St. Bonaventure (Giovanni di Fidanza, 1221–1274) made this point as follows, using a medical analogy:

In the Old Law, there were ointments of a kind, but they were figurative and did not heal. The disease was lethal, but the anointings were superficial. … Genuinely healing ointments must bring both spiritual anointing and a life-giving power; it was only Christ our Lord who did this, since through his death, the sacraments have the power to bring to life.

These views remain characteristic of modern Catholicism. Sacraments are understood to convey or enact the grace that they represent. However, many theologians add a qualifier here, noting that it is possible for an individual to resist this grace by placing an obstacle in its path. Thus the Second Vatican Council, while continuing to emphasize the effective causality of sacraments, noted the importance of believers’ responding appropriately to them:

Because [sacraments] are signs, they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen and express it. That is why they are called “sacraments of faith.” They do indeed confer grace, but in addition the very act of celebrating them most effectively disposes the faithful to receive this grace to their profit, to worship God duly, and to practise charity.

Protestantism found itself divided over the question of what the sacraments achieved. Luther was prepared to allow that sacraments caused what they signified. In his Shorter Catechism (1529) he made it clear that baptism brought about both the signification and the causation of divine forgiveness:

Question

Answer

These views remain generally characteristic of Lutheranism to this day.

Other Protestant writers, however, were suspicious of such an approach, which they regarded as coming close to a magical view of sacraments. The Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli insisted that sacraments were signs, and nothing more:

Sacraments are simply the signs of holy things. Baptism is a sign which pledges us to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Remembrance shows us that Christ suffered death for our sake. They are the signs and pledges of these holy things.

Zwingli therefore argues that both baptism and the eucharist (which he here refers to as “the Remembrance”) are external signs of spiritual realities, which have no power in themselves to bring about what they signify. Baptism is thus a sign, but not a cause, of God’s forgiveness of sins. This viewpoint remains influential within parts of modern Protestantism, and is especially found in modern evangelicalism.

Yet a third Protestant approach was set out by John Calvin and his successors in the reformed tradition. Calvin’s approach can be seen as a mediating approach, roughly halfway between Luther’s causative view and Zwingli’s representationalist view of the sacraments. Calvin defines a sacrament as “an external symbol by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good will towards us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith.” Yet, although the sacraments are external signs, he argues that there is such a close connection between the symbol and the gift it symbolizes that we can easily pass from one to the other. The sign is visible and physical, whereas the thing signified is invisible and spiritual – yet the connection between the sign and the thing signified is so intimate that it is permissible to apply the one to the other. Calvin was thus able to maintain the difference between sign and thing signified, while insisting that the sign really points to the gift it signifies.

In what follows we shall explore some questions linked to each of these sacraments that continue to be debated and discussed within Christian circles.

Debates about baptism

Should children be baptized? Matthew’s gospel records Jesus Christ as commanding his disciples to go and make disciples and to baptize them (Matthew 28: 17–20). But what about children? Does this command extend only to adults, or does it include infants? The New Testament makes no specific references to the baptism of infants. However, it does not explicitly forbid the practice either, and there are also a number of passages that could be interpreted as condoning it – for example, references to the baptizing of entire households, which would probably have included infants (Acts 16: 15, 33; 1 Corinthians 1: 16). Paul treats baptism as a spiritual counterpart to circumcision (Colossians 2: 11–12). So if Jews were able to mark their male children as belonging to the household of faith in this way, why should not Christians also mark their children – male and female – by baptism?

Most mainline Christian churches accept that the baptism of infants is a valid practice, with roots in the apostolic period. Martin Luther and John Calvin, though severely critical of the Catholic church over many points of doctrine and practice, held that infant baptism was an authentic biblical practice. The reasons given for infant baptism vary. Augustine of Hippo argued that, since Christ is the savior of all people, all people require salvation. As baptism is a recognition both of the need for human salvation and of God’s gracious willingness to provide it, all should be baptized. After all, he argued, little children were as much in need of salvation as adults.

Another line of defense of the baptism of infants can be found in the Old Testament, which stipulated that male infants born within the bounds of Israel should have an outward sign of their membership of the people of God. The outward sign in question was circumcision – that is, the removal of the foreskin. Infant baptism was thus to be seen as analogous to circumcision. It was a sign of belonging to a covenant community.

Writers such as Huldrych Zwingli argued that infant baptism affirmed publicly the more inclusive and gentle character of Christianity. The more inclusive character of Christianity was publicly demonstrated by the baptism of both male and female infants; Judaism, in contrast, recognized only the marking of male infants. The more gentle character of the gospel was publicly demonstrated by the absence of pain or blood shedding in the sacrament. Christ suffered – in being circumcised himself, in addition to his death on the cross – in order that his people need not suffer in this manner.

But not all are persuaded by the case for infant baptism. Many Baptist writers reject the traditional practice of baptizing infants. Baptism was to be administered only when an individual showed signs of grace, repentance, or faith. The practice of baptizing infants is held to be without biblical foundation. It may have become the norm in the post-apostolic period, but not in the period of the New Testament itself. It is also argued that the practice of infant baptism leads to the potentially confusing idea that individuals are Christians as a result of their baptism, thus weakening the link between baptism and Christian discipleship.

Debates about the eucharist

At the Last Supper Jesus commanded his disciples to remember him through bread and wine. It is clear that this was done from the earliest of times. The New Testament itself makes reference to the first Christians obeying Jesus Christ’s command to remember him in this way (1 Corinthians 11: 20–27). This act of celebration and remembrance is referred to in different ways in the Christian churches: the mass, the Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, and the eucharist (this last term derives from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”).

An important debate within Christianity concerns whether, and if so in what manner, Christ may be said to be present at the Lord’s Supper. This issue is often linked with the words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper. Taking the bread, he told his disciples: “this is my body” (Matthew 26: 26). What does this mean? The majority opinion within global Christianity is that Christ’s words can only mean that, in some sense, Christ’s body is present in the bread of the Lord’s Supper.

One way of understanding this idea is the doctrine of “transubstantiation,” which was formalized in 1215. This doctrine holds that the outward appearance of the bread remains unchanged, whereas its inward identity is transformed. In other words, the bread continues to look, taste, smell, and feel as if it were bread; at its most fundamental level, however, it has been changed. By a similar argument, the wine is held to have become the blood of Christ. This position is often stated using the Aristotelian distinction between “substance” (that which gives something its inward identity) and “accidents” (mere external appearances). On this view, the substance of the bread and wine is changed, but their accidents remain unaltered. Although this position is especially associated with the Catholic church, related viewpoints can be found in eastern Orthodoxy.

Martin Luther developed a somewhat different idea, often known as “consubstantiation,” which holds that the bread remains bread but is additionally the body of Christ. Luther illustrated this notion by pointing to how a piece of iron, when placed in a hot fire, becomes red-hot. Although remaining iron, it has heat added to it. In the same way, the bread of the Lord’s Supper remains bread, but additionally contains or conveys the body of Christ.

Not all Christians take this position. Some, following John Calvin, argue that the bread is an “efficacious sign.” In other words, although the bread is not the body of Christ, it represents it in such a way that what is signified is effectively conveyed. Others follow the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, who argued that the bread symbolized Christ’s body. The bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper are there to help believers recall the events of Calvary and to encourage them to recommit themselves to the church, to God, and to each other. Others still adopt another approach of Zwingli’s, sometimes known as “memorialism,” which holds that there is no objective change in either the bread or the wine. Any change that occurs is subjective, taking place in the mind of the beholder, who now “sees” the bread as a sign of Christ’s body and as a reminder of his sacrifice upon the cross.

These, of course, represent only a few positions that Christians have defended. Nevertheless, they illustrate the ongoing debates within Christianity over how best to interpret both the biblical witness to the Last Supper and the long Christian history of repeating the actions Christ commanded, as a “reminder” (Greek anamnēsis) of him.

The Christian Hope

Finally, we come to the theme of the Christian hope – an idea often expressed through the phrase “the last things” (Greek ta eschata, from which derives the word “eschatology,” meaning “understanding of the last things”). Christianity is a religion of hope, which focuses on the resurrection of Jesus as the ground for believing and trusting in a God who is able to triumph over death and to give hope to all those who suffer and die. Cyprian of Carthage (died 258), a martyr bishop of the third century, tried to encourage his fellow Christians in the face of suffering and death at times of persecution by holding before them a vision of heaven in which they would see the martyrs and the apostles face to face. More than that; they would be reunited with those whom they loved and cherished.

Cyprian here conceives of heaven as the “native land” of Christians, from which they have been exiled during their time on earth. The hope of return to their native land, there to be reunited with those whom they knew and loved, was held out as a powerful consolation in times of trial and suffering.

We regard paradise as our native land … Many of our dear ones await us there, and a dense crowd of parents, brothers, children, is longing for us, already assured of their own safety, and still longing for our salvation. What gladness there will be for them and for us when we enter their presence and share their embrace!

Cyprian himself was martyred for his faith in 258, presumably being consoled by precisely the ideas with which he sought to console others.

The word “heaven” is traditionally used to refer to the hope of dwelling in the presence of God forever. It is not understood geographically or spatially, as if it referred to a country or a region of the world. Its dominant sense is relational – that is, the word is used to designate the state of dwelling with God, without any particular understanding of precisely where this dwelling is located.

The Christian vision of heaven is shaped by a number of controlling images or themes, of which two are particularly important: the New Jerusalem, and the restoration of creation. A radical transformation of all things will bring about a new order, reversing the devastating effects of sin upon humanity and upon the world. The image of resurrection conveys the ideas of both radical change and continuity: the new order of things, though utterly different from what we currently know and experience, nevertheless demonstrates continuity with the present order. The present age will be transformed and renewed, just as a seed is completely transformed in becoming a living plant.

In this closing section we shall focus on Christian beliefs concerning heaven, the most important of these “last things.”

The New Testament and Christian hope

The eschatology of the New Testament is complex. However, one of its leading themes is that something that happened in the past has inaugurated something new, which will reach its final consummation in the future. The Christian believer is thus caught up in this tension between the “now” and the “not yet.” In one sense, heaven has not yet happened; in another, its powerful lure already impacts upon life in a dramatic and complex fashion, as Christians are at one and the same time excited at its prospect and rendered dejected by knowing that they are not yet there.

The term “heaven” is used frequently in the Pauline writings of the New Testament to refer to Christian hope. Although it is natural to represent heaven as a future entity, Paul’s thinking appears to embrace both a future reality and a spiritual sphere or realm, which coexists with the material world of space and time. Thus “heaven” is referred to both as the future home of the believer (2 Corinthians 5: 1–2; Philippians 3: 20) and as the present dwelling-place of Jesus Christ, from which he will come in final judgment (Romans 10: 6; 1 Thessalonians 1: 10; 4: 16).

As we shall see, one of Paul’s most significant statements concerning heaven focuses on the notion of believers being “citizens of heaven” (Philippians 3: 20) and in some way sharing in the life of heaven in the present. The tension between the “now” and the “not yet” is evident in Paul’s statements concerning heaven, which make it very difficult to sustain the simple idea of heaven as something that will not come into being until the future or cannot be experienced at all in the present. For Paul, the hope of heaven impacts upon life in the here and now, even though heaven, in all its fullness, remains to be consummated in the future.

The image of the “New Jerusalem” has exercised a decisively important influence over Christian reflection on heaven down the centuries. The origins of this image lie primarily in the book of Revelation, the closing book of the Christian Bible. Its powerful imagery has saturated Christian hymnody and theological reflection on how heaven is to be visualized. The consolation of heaven is here contrasted with the suffering, tragedy, and pain of life on earth. “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21: 1–5).

The theme of the New Jerusalem is here integrated with motifs drawn from the creation account – such as the presence of the “tree of life” (Revelation 22: 2) – suggesting that heaven can be seen as the restoration of the bliss of the garden of Eden (Genesis 2), when God dwelt with humanity in harmony. The pain, sorrow, and evil of a fallen world have finally passed away, and the creation is restored to its original intention.

Probably the most helpful way of construing the New Testament’s affirmations concerning heaven is to see the latter as a consummation of the Christian doctrine of salvation, in which the presence, penalty, and power of sin have all been finally eliminated and the total presence of God in individuals and in the community of faith has been achieved. This idea is clearly expressed in the vision of heaven set out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfilment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.”

The New Testament parables of heaven are strongly communal in nature. Heaven is here portrayed as a banquet, a wedding feast, or a city – the new Jerusalem. Eternal life is thus not a projection of an individual human existence, but is rather to be seen as sharing, with the redeemed community as a whole, in the community of a loving God.

The nature of the resurrection body

What do resurrected individuals look like? To put this is somewhat simplistic terms, what sort of people will walk the streets of the New Jerusalem? Many early Christian writers argued that the “citizens of heaven” would be naked, re-creating the situation of human innocence in paradise. This time, however, nakedness would give rise neither to shame nor to sexual lust, but would simply be accepted as the natural and innocent state of humanity. Others, however, argued that the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem would be clothed in finery, which would reflect their status as citizens of God’s chosen city.

It was clear to many writers that the final state of deceased believers was not of material importance to their appearance in heaven. The issue emerged as theologically significant during a persecution of Christians in Lyons around the years 175–177. Aware that Christians believed in the resurrection of the body, their pagan oppressors burned the bodies of those they had just martyred and threw their ashes in the River Rhône. This, they believed, would prevent the resurrection of these martyrs, in that there was now no body to be raised. Christian theologians responded by arguing that God was able to restore or reconstitute the bodies of believers, especially those who died violently or whose corpses have been destroyed by burning.

Methodius of Olympus (died c. 311) offered an analogy for this process of reconstitution that would prove highly influential in discussing the question. The resurrection could, he argued, be thought of as a kind of “rearrangement” of the constituent elements of humanity. It is as if a statue were melted down and reforged from the same material – yet in such a manner that any defects or damage are eliminated.

A similar argument is found in the Four Books of the Sentences, the masterpiece of the great twelfth-century theologian Peter Lombard. This book, which served as a core textbook for just about every medieval theologian, took the view that the resurrected body was basically a reconstituted humanity from which all defects had been purged.

A final question that has caused considerable debate among Christian theologians concerns the age of those who are resurrected. If someone dies at the age of 60, will she appear in the streets of the New Jerusalem as an old person? And if someone dies at the age of 10, will he appear as a child? This issue caused the spilling of much ink, especially during the Middle Ages. By the end of the thirteenth century an emerging consensus can be discerned. As each person reaches his or her peak or perfection around the age of 30, each person would be resurrected as (s)he would have appeared at that time – even if (s)he never lived to reach that age or died long afterwards. Peter Lombard’s discussion of the matter is typical of his age: “A boy who dies immediately after being born will be resurrected in that form which he would have had if he had lived to the age of thirty.” The New Jerusalem will thus be populated by men and women as they would appear at the age of 30 (the age, of course, at which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified) – and with every blemish removed.

Christian burial or cremation?

A further issue concerning the form of the resurrection body became especially important during the twentieth century, when the practice of cremation was increasingly common among Christian nations, partly on account of the prohibitive cost of burial. Was cremation inconsistent with belief in the resurrection? Was our resurrection to eternal life dependent on being buried intact? The question, as we have already noted (p. 119), had been debated in earlier periods. Christian theologians argued that God would not be troubled by this inconvenience. God would still be able to reconstitute the bodies of those whose bodies have been dismembered or destroyed.

For centuries cremation was expressly forbidden by the Catholic church. Two reasons were often invoked. In the first place, cremation was seen as a pagan practice that denied the doctrine of the resurrection. Second, the body was believed to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. However, some significant changes in the Catholic practice took place in the twentieth century. In 1963, the Vatican lifted the ban on cremation for Catholics. Still, no allowance was made for any prayer or rituals to be used with the cremated remains. This meant that all funeral services were to occur in the presence of the body, while cremation was to take place afterwards. In 1997 the Vatican granted permission for the cremated remains of a body to be brought into church for the liturgical rites of burial. It is still, however, the official church’s preference for the funeral rites to take place in the presence of the body and for cremation to follow afterwards.

In Protestant circles perhaps the most influential answer to this question was offered by the famous American evangelist Billy Graham in a nationally syndicated newspaper column:

In Corinthians 5, Paul makes the contrast between living in a tent, a temporary home that can be pulled down and put away, and living in a permanent home that will last forever. Our bodies are our temporary tents. Our resurrected bodies will be our permanent homes. They are similar in appearance but different in substance. Cremation is therefore no hindrance to the resurrection.

Graham’s point was clear: the Christian hope of resurrection is grounded in the trustworthiness of the divine promises, not in the precise circumstances of a person’s funeral arrangements. These ideas are important in a number of respects, not least in relation to Christian funeral services. We shall consider these services in a later chapter.

Conclusion

This brief overview of Christian beliefs is little more than a sketchy map of a complex and fascinating landscape, which deserves much more extensive exploration and discussion. Happily there are many guides available to you, if you wish to explore this field further. Some suitable starting points are noted in the Further Reading section, which will help you take things further.

We now turn to provide an overview of Christian history. The next chapter surveys some of the major themes in the history of Christianity, from the apostolic age to the present day.

↑ Back to top