The Nature and Extent of Regeneration
The Nature and Extent of Regeneration Even greater than the differences over the order and time is the disagreement existing in dogmatics over the nature of rebirth or regeneration. As stated above,59 the word "rebirth" is also used outside of Scripture and in very different senses. Sometimes it was used to denote the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation), which, coming perhaps from India, penetrated
Greece and found ardent advocates in Pythagoras and his school. When, from the end of the eighteenth century onward, the literature of India became known in Europe, Oriental wisdom began to exert strong influence on Western thought.
Buddhism and theosophy penetrated Christianity, and along with them the doctrine of metempsychosis was welcomed by many, under the name "rebirth," as noble divine wisdom.60 But this Indian rebirth has nothing in common, other than the name, with the Christian doctrine of rebirth. Whereas Scripture means by rebirth an internal, spiritual, and moral transformation that only indirectly influences the body,
Buddhism construes it as a countlessly repeated incorporation of souls in a series of different bodies without it effecting any change in the soul itself. And to Buddhists, this repeated reincarnation is not an object of hope and eager expectation but, on the contrary, an object of fear and dread from which they seek to free themselves by the suppression of their consciousness and will.61 This doctrine of metempsychosis, accordingly, does not belong in this section but will be treated later, in the doctrine of the last things.62 That is also the case with the meaning of the word "rebirth" (παλιγγενεσια), which occurs, among other places, in Matthew 19:28. The world renewal referred to there can most certainly be described with the word "rebirth" and is also closely associated with the internal, spiritual rebirth of believers, but is nevertheless distinct from it. It is no longer implied in the word "rebirth" as it
is ordinarily used today and will be discussed later in the locus of eschatology.63
The Greeks, furthermore, spoke of initiates in the mysteries as the "born-again," and the Jews similarly described proselytes.
This usage seems also to have been followed by Christian authors when they repeatedly applied the word "rebirth" to the act of converting to Christianity and specifically to baptism, the rite in which this passage became visible to all.64 In this connection one cannot tell either whether, and to what extent, the meaning of the word included an inner renewal of the heart.
In the early years of the church the sign and the thing signified always went hand in hand and were not so clearly differentiated as was the case later. In any case, the internal change also automatically implied an external, visible turnabout, the abandonment of Judaism or paganism, and the act of joining the Christian church by baptism. Even today such an objective sense is occasionally attached to "rebirth." Bishop Waterland, for example, said that regeneration is not "a change of mind" but "a change of stand," so that even Simon Magus, though he remained in "the gall of bitterness," could be called
"regenerate."65 Ritschl, too, spoke of a "state" or "stand" of rebirth ["Stand der Wiedergeburt"].66
Akin to this is the view of regeneration held by those who regard the human will as not at all corrupted, or merely weakened, by sin. In that case, as in the thinking of Pelagius, no internal grace is needed or, as in the case of the semi-Pelagians, only an ancillary, cooperating kind of grace. And regeneration, accordingly, need not consist in a renewal of the faculties of intellect and will, in an infusion of new dispositions, but only concerns the operations of those faculties. This was the view of regeneration presented by Socinians, Remonstrants, and rationalists. They were even more or less averse to the word, emphasizing, when they continued to use it, that it was a "figurative way of speaking, whose elements are not to be
pressed, unless we want to fall into many absurdities."67
Rebirth is a figurative expression for the "reformation of life as previously lived, according to the teaching of our Lord Jesus"; it only relates to the habits and actions of life. Actually regeneration and conversion are one and the same thing, viewed in the former case from God's perspective and in the latter from the human perspective.68
According to others, regeneration consists in a renewal of the human consciousness. But here again we must distinguish two distinct tendencies. Reformed theologians, like their Catholic and Lutheran counterparts, taught that regeneration not only brought about a change in the actions but especially also in the faculties of a person. As a result of the psychological view that the will always and automatically follows the latest pronouncement of the practical intelligence and with a view toward maintaining the moral nature of humans also in conversion, John Cameron [1580–1625], who for a short while was a professor at Montauban, adopted the view that in regeneration the enlightenment of the mind was sufficient since in consequence the will would automatically be guided in the right direction.69 The Reformed in the Netherlands almost unanimously opposed this view and stuck with the pronouncement of the Synod of Dort that in regeneration the Holy Spirit not only enlightens the mind but also infuses new qualities into the will.70 Still, Cameron exerted great influence on the school of Saumur (Amyraut, Cappellus, Pajon) and by his ideas laid the groundwork for the later rationalism.71 Here, accordingly, regeneration is equated with the illumination that precedes faith. It is also possible, however, to equate regeneration with the renewal of the consciousness that arises from faith or coincides with it. Luther, for example, saw regeneration one moment as the gift of faith and another as the change effected in the consciousness by faith and consisting in comfort, joy, peace, and so forth. "Where the forgiveness of sin is, there is life and blessedness."72 This terminology is also
followed in the Lutheran confessions: one moment regeneration is a benefit distinct from Justification and then again the two are equated.73 Ritschl and his disciples appealed to the latter meaning of the word "regeneration" when they accepted no other rebirth than that which originates by faith. In the Christian, a new life begins with the birth of faith. This faith brings with it a fundamental transformation of the mind, a life in the power of God in place of the incapacity that prevailed till then.74 And not only the Göttingen school promoted this doctrine but others as well, especially H. Cremer, E. Cremer, and Althaus, who, having adopted it, defended it with vigor.75
Overlooked here, however, is the fact that Luther and his followers often speak of regeneration in a different sense and distinguish it from Justification. When they do, it is not just an elevation and renewal of the consciousness resulting from the exercise of faith but specifically an infusion of spiritual energies preceding faith. Catholics in this connection spoke of "infused grace."76 Lutheran theologians spoke of "the gift of spiritual life," "a generous bestowal of the powers of believing and of saving faith," or "the illumination of our mind and the arousal in our heart of trust,"77 and the Reformed express themselves along similar lines. But they stressed even more vigorously that not just the actions and not even the faculties alone but also the whole person with all one's capacities, soul and body, heart, intellect, and will, is the subject of regeneration. Regeneration, therefore, consists in dying to the "old man" that must not only be suppressed but also killed and in the rising of a totally new person created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.78
But it struck many that not even this concept of regeneration is deep enough. According to Gnosticism, true redemption consists in the deliverance of the inner self from the bonds of matter. On account of its corruptibility, the body is not susceptible to redemption, and also the soul, which is most intimately bound
up with the body, cannot be purged of its many defects.
Redemption, therefore, has a bearing only on the spirit (πνευμα) and is obtained by humans, first of all, through knowledge, but second, also by means of the mysteries, among them particularly a threefold baptism with water, fire, and spirit. These mysteries free the spirit, protect it from evil angels, impart to it heavenly and divine powers, and make it a partaker of the divine nature.
Rebirth, accordingly, is at the center of doctrine and cultic worship but is at the same time, as it is in the pagan mysteries, transmuted into a physical process.79
Similarly, in Neoplatonism people sought a most intimate union with the deity by way of purification, illumination, and contemplation; the soul (or the spirit), we are told, is by nature divine but is oppressed by the external world (matter, observation, conceptual imagery, and so forth) and hindered from becoming one with the deity. But when it frees itself from all earthly ties, suppresses all its conceptual images, kills consciousness and will, and turns inward to its own deepest being, it finds God himself there and enters into full communion with him. On this sublime level there is no longer any barrier between God and the soul. The soul has become pure luminosity, spiritualized and divinized. All distinction and separation is gone: God and the soul are one.80
These ideas, which are essentially characteristic of all mysticism, also penetrated the Christian church, primarily through the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. In part they were taken over and standardized by Rome in the doctrine of the superadded gift, of habitual grace, and of the vision of God in terms of being (per essentiam); and they return in all mystics in Protestantism as well as in Catholicism. Of course, by that time they have all been given a Christian coloring, elaborated by some in a more theistic direction, by others in a more pantheistic direction. But in all cases, they insist on claiming a higher knowledge of God and a more intimate fellowship with God than those that are attainable by the ordinary believer. According to this position,
regeneration becomes an essential participation in the divine nature, a substantial union of the soul with the deity. This reality is expressed in various ways: God voices his eternal word in the soul; he brings forth his Son in us; Christ himself is born in us, just as he was once conceived in Mary; he is born and brought forth in us just as the Son was eternally born of the Father; God so accomplishes the creation of the new creature that he gives up
Adam's flesh and blood into death and offers a new heavenly flesh and blood in its place; Christ changes us, not by reparation but by annihilation; he does not bestow another set of qualities but another nature and another being; and to be born again is to become truly Spirit.81
When regeneration is thus traced back from the actions to the faculties, and from the faculties to the soul itself, and from the soul to its essence and substance, it naturally and necessarily has to take place in the unconscious. Now in the past, in psychology and hence also in the locus on regeneration, little notice was taken of the unconscious. Factually it was assumed, for the benefit of regeneration was also granted to small children before they became self-conscious. The Holy Spirit, it was said, could also work in their hearts apart from the Word preached.
And "although our children do not understand these things, we may not therefore exclude them from baptism, since they are without their knowledge partakers of the condemnation in Adam, and so again are received unto grace in Christ."82
Moreover, against the Anabaptists it was stated that believers did not have to know, and could not always know, the time of their regeneration.83 Rebirth as such, it was said, was not a matter of experience but of faith. "This birth is neither seen nor apprehended but only believed."84 But ever since Leibniz "the unconscious" has become of great significance both in philosophy and in psychology. The term, however, is unclear and can be taken to mean very different things. If we leave out of account, as being irrelevant here, those workings of our biological, physiological, and negative functions that occur
completely outside of our consciousness and can be known only by intentional scientific research, there still remain essentially two areas that may be treated under the heading of the unconscious.
In the first place, one can list under this heading all those impressions, ideas, passions, desires, and so forth, that at any given moment are not present in our consciousness but that, surrounding it on all sides or more or less dimly hidden beneath the threshold of it, may return to it on some occasion or other by recollection, association, and so forth. Belonging to this storehouse are all those impressions we have accumulated since our early childhood, as well as all those skills and abilities we have acquired by long practice and training. In the second place, the unconscious may also be associated with all those intuitions that strike the consciousness like lightning, have such weighty significance in the lives of geniuses, heroes, prophets, and seers, and also assert themselves in clairvoyance, somnambulism, telepathy, and a wide range of occult phenomena. In the opinion of many people, these phenomena point back to mysterious forces hidden in the human mind or to another spiritual world with which humans are, or can be, in touch.
Depending on whether the unconscious was viewed in the former or the latter sense, modern psychologists of religion presented a different version of regeneration or conversion. In the first case, regeneration was said to occur when concepts, impressions, experiences, and so forth sometimes dating back to one's earliest years, gradually or suddenly returned to one's consciousness as a result of some shocking event, drove out the up-until-then-dominant conceptions and desires, and brought into existence a whole new world of thoughts and ideals. In that case regeneration essentially meant a transformation of one's consciousness. But others found this explanation unsatisfactory, not because it was contradicted by the facts, but because it would deprive religious phenomena of all their validity and
value. Hence they assumed the presence in these phenomena, specifically in conversion, of the operation of an objective supernatural factor that guarantees not indeed the form but the content of these phenomena. All people, after all, interpret the experiences they have in their own way, in their own language and concepts. But the experience itself arises from contact, from a connection, with the supreme reality we call God. And from that connection there comes to people new energy, a new, broader, and richer life. They feel united with that Being, who works throughout the universe and saves both themselves and all the world.
Both explanations of regeneration (conversion) appear to be new and original but are reminiscent of those that have been given to it throughout the centuries, by rationalism on the one hand and mysticism on the other. The former is more deistic, the latter more pantheistic. The former explains everything in terms of the working of the word; the latter goes back behind the word and speaks of the spirit. In the former, regeneration has a purely moral character; in the latter, it is the revelation of a supernatural power. Both interpretations, however, bring out the serious weaknesses inherent in the psychology of religion. If, in accordance with its original intent, this science seeks to be totally unbiased and does not wish to be guided by any a priori conviction, it can, at least to some extent, observe and describe the religious phenomena in question, but it cannot penetrate their inner nature, nor, in the absence of any norm, pronounce itself on their validity and value. It remains embarrassed and powerless as it faces the question of truth. It may perhaps clarify a good many things psychologically, but it has no answer based on logic. Inasmuch as it cannot be content with such a negative outcome—since every science after all is in pursuit of truth—in pursuing its investigations it very soon comes into conflict with the impartiality it initially adopted, views the phenomena in light of certain religious or philosophical convictions, and attempts to offer an explanation that is composed on the basis of