lacuna: a gap or omission.
lambanein (λαμβάνειν): to take or grasp hold of; e.g., Mark 14:22.
lapis lydius: Lydian stone, touchstone, standard, or benchmark; originally a hard black flint used by the ancients to test the purity of gold and silver according to streaks left on the stone when rubbed by the metals, by extension a standard and invariable test of quality. Scripture is thus frequently referred to as lapis lydius.
lapsus: fall, lapse; specifically, the fall of Adam and Eve from original righteousness (iustitia originalis, q.v.) and away from the terms of paradisiacal law (lex paradisiaca, q.v.) and the covenant of works (foedus operum, q.v.). The fall is usually described as the result of the sin (peccatum, q.v.) of pride (superbia; see septem peccata mortalia). In this primary instance, sin must be viewed as a privation (privatio, q.v.) or, specifically, a privation of the good (privatio boni, q.v.) made possible by the free choice (liberum arbitrium, q.v.) of a will created good but mutable, acting according to the liberty of one’s nature (see libertas naturae). See homo; peccatum originale.
lapsus memoriae: lapse or failure of memory.
latè: loosely, with latitude. See proprie; strictè.
latria (from the Greek λατρεία, latreia): worship; usually contrasted with dulia, reverence or veneration. In medieval theology the distinction was made between the latria due to God and Christ as the Son of God and the dulia due to the saints. Even the Virgin Mary, exalted above the saints as Mother of God, is not worthy of latria. After Albertus Magnus, it was customary to distinguish the high veneration, or hyperdulia, of Mary from the dulia due to saints. In Protestantism, worship of God continued to be described as latria, but dulia was excluded, since the veneration of saints and of Mary was denied. Christ is worthy of worship, but the basis of that worship or adoration is his divine nature. Prayer is not offered to the human nature of Christ.
leges naturae: laws of nature. In the traditional sense, common to the medieval and early modern orthodox theologies and philosophies, the laws of nature are identical with the divine providential governance of the creation, grounded on such biblical texts as Job 28:25–27. As distinct from the concept of natural law (lex naturalis, q.v.), the concept of laws of nature does not indicate a standard of conduct, but rather the ordained and maintained ordering of the universe. A significant shift in usage and meaning occurred in the mid-seventeenth century, largely in response to the argumentation of Descartes’s Principia philosophiae, in which the laws of nature explain local motion in extended substance. The laws of nature were considered to belong primarily to natural philosophy or physics (physica, q.v.); the task to discover them and employ them in the explanation of the natural order became increasingly distinct and ultimately separate from the question of divine providence and its operation. See potentia ordinata; providentia.
leitourgia (λειτουργία): service; specifically, a ritual, priestly, or sacrificial service; by extension, the high-priestly office of Christ; e.g., Hebrews 8:6.
lex: law; following a division of the topic found in Aquinas, the Protestant scholastics typically distinguish law into four related categories or types: eternal law (lex aeterna, q.v.), natural law (lex naturalis, q.v.) or law of nature (lex naturae), divine law (lex divina) or law of God (lex Dei, q.v.), and human law (lex humana, q.v.). The term law is also used in several senses in Scripture, as interpreted among the Protestant orthodox. In the most general sense, indicating what has been manifest by God, law can indicate the entirety of Scripture (Ps. 1:2; 19:7–8). It can also indicate the Old Testament (John 10:34; 1 Cor. 14:21); the books of Moses, or the Pentateuch, in distinction from the Prophets and Psalms (Luke 16:16; 24:44; Rom. 3:21); the covenant of works (Rom. 6:14–15); divinely given precepts in general (Ps. 119:1–8); God’s commands as known to the conscience (Rom. 2:14–15); the ceremonial law (Lev. 15; Acts 6:14); the civil and personal law of ancient Israel (Exod. 21–23; Acts 6:14); and the Decalogue (Exod. 20:1–17; Deut. 5:1–21). See lex ceremonialis; lex Mosaica; lex positiva.
lex aeterna: eternal law; the archetypal law that is reflected both in the natural law in human law and in the Decalogue. The eternal law is prior to and greater than the natural law and human law and is analogically related to them as the eternal idea, or form, of law in the mind of God. See lex; lex Dei; lex naturalis.
lex ceremonialis: ceremonial law; specifically, the ceremonial or religious regulations given to Israel under the Old Testament, alongside the moral law of the Decalogue and the civil law of the Jewish nation, such as the Levitical Code. Whereas the lex moralis (q.v.) remains in force after the coming of Christ, the lex ceremonialis has been abrogated by the gospel. See lex Mosaica.
lex Christi: law of Christ; a term used by the Arminian theologians of the late seventeenth century to indicate the precepts of the gospel (see praecepta caritatis) as the full revelation of the law of life. According to the Arminians, the lex Christi was equivalent to the natural law known to Adam before the fall and adumbrated both in the Decalogue (lex Mosaica, q.v.) and in the ethics of the great philosophers. This view of the gospel conforms to the synergistic principles of Arminian theology and is rejected by the Protestant scholastics, Reformed and Lutheran alike.
lex Dei: the law of God, or lex divina, divine law; in Edward Leigh’s definition, “the Law of God is that rule of life which he hath enjoyned to man, his reasonable creature, for the ordering of his actions to his own and the common good, and the glory of the maker of all.” The law of God can also be distinguished into (1) the lex archetypa, or archetypal law, namely, the eternal law (lex aeterna, q.v.), which is the holiness and righteousness of the divine essence itself and which is the righteous ground of all the opera Dei ad extra (q.v.) and of all the promulgated or ad extra laws of God; and (2) the lex ectypa, or ectypal law, which God promulgates in nature and in various forms throughout the history of the world for the use of his rational creatures, for the sake of directing them beyond nature to a supernatural end. The lex ectypa is therefore never an arbitrary law lacking an ultimate, objective foundation, but rather a reflection of the righteous nature of God himself. The lex ectypa can be further distinguished into the natural law (lex naturalis, q.v.) and the positive law (lex positiva, q.v) as well as the law of paradise (lex paradisiaca, q.v.), the law of Moses (lex Mosaica, q.v.), and the law of Christ (lex Christi, q.v.). See lex; lex ceremonialis; lex moralis; usus legis.
Lex est Deus accusans et damnans: The law is God accusing and damning. See lex; lex Mosaica; lex naturalis.
lex humana: human law; namely, law or laws established by human beings, as distinguished from divine law (lex divina, q.v.), law or laws established by God. In its most general sense, human law is the rule of obedience, the norma faciendorum et fugiendorum, the norm governing things to be done and things to be avoided, or the regula morum, the rule of human actions. Law can therefore be defined as the expression of the will of a ruler or legislator that defines the duty of a subject and serves the common good: its efficient cause (causa efficiens, q.v.) is the legislator; its form (forma, q.v.) or formal cause (causa formalis, q.v.) is the will of the legislator; its matter (materia, q.v.) or material cause (causa materialis, q.v.) is the duty of the subject; and its goal or final cause (causa finalis, q.v.) is the common good. See causa; lex; lex Mosaica; lex naturalis.
lex moralis: the moral law; specifically and preeminently, the Decalogus, or Ten Commandments; also called the lex Mosaica (q.v.), as distinct from the lex ceremonialis (q.v.) and the lex civilis, or civil law. The lex moralis, which is primarily intended to be the rule of morals (regula morum), is known to the synderesis (q.v.) and is the basis of acts of conscientia (q.v.). In substance, the lex moralis is identical with the lex naturalis (q.v.), but unlike the natural law, it is given by revelation in a form that is clearer and fuller than what is otherwise known to the reason. In addition, in its revealed form, the law is connected to distinct promises and sanctions designed to induce righteousness and prevent sin. A lex moralis primordialis is sometimes distinguished from the Sinaitic lex moralis, or lex Mosaica, on the assumption that God directly revealed the law to Adam and Eve in a lex paradisiaca (q.v.). See lex; usus legis.
lex Mosaica: Mosaic law; the moral law, or lex moralis (q.v.), given to Israel by God in a special revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. In contrast to the moral law known in an obscure way to all rational creatures, the lex Mosaica is the clear, complete, and perfect rule of human conduct. The Protestant scholastics argue for its completeness and perfection from its fulfillment, without addition, by Christ. Since the law does promise life in return for obedience, the Reformed argue that in one sense it holds forth the abrogated foedus operum (q.v.), or covenant of works, if only as the unattainable promise of the righteous God and the now humanly unattainable requirement for salvation apart from grace. As a statement of the divine covenant in creation, or the covenant of works, the Decalogue is also a witness to the natural law (lex naturalis, q.v.).
In addition, the Reformed can argue that Christ’s perfect obedience did fulfill the covenant of works and render Christ capable of replacing Adam as federal head of humanity. Primarily, however, the Reformed view the law as belonging to the Old Testament dispensatio (q.v.) of the foedus gratiae (q.v.), or covenant of grace. It is the norm of obedience given to God’s faithful people to be followed by them with the help of grace. As a norm of obedience belonging to the foedus gratiae, the law remains in force under the economy of the New Testament. Thus the distinction between law and gospel (evangelium, q.v.) is not identical with the distinction between the Old and the New Testament. Lutheran orthodoxy, which does not follow the covenant schema typical of the Reformed, also views the law as the perfect standard of righteousness and the absolute norm of morals, which requires conformity both in outward conduct and inward obedience of mind, will, and affections. In the Lutheran system, however, the law appears not so much as an adjunct of the gospel but as a standard over against the gospel and in dialectical tension with it: whereas the gospel is promise, the law is threat. The law leads to Christ by humbling the sinner through its condemnation of evils rather than by being subsumed under the promise. This difference between the Lutheran and Reformed views is most apparent in the discussion of the use of the law, the usus legis (q.v.).
lex naturalis: natural law; also lex naturae: law of nature; the divinely given order or rule of the creation and, accordingly, the universal law either impressed by God upon the minds of all rational creatures or immediately discerned by the reason in its encounter with the order of nature. Its principles are among the common notions (notiones communes, q.v.) known to all human beings as things either to be done or to be avoided, accompanied by sanctions of reward or punishment. Just as the more Thomistically inclined of the orthodox writers argue that created beings exist by participation in the divine being, they also hold that the natural law exists in the mind or reason by participation in the eternal law and is essentially God’s eternal law (lex aeterna, q.v.), given in an ectypal form. The natural law, like the moral law (lex moralis, q.v.) and the law of Moses (lex Mosaica, q.v.), rests on the righteous and utterly holy divine nature—and is good because God is good, in contrast to the positive law (lex positiva, q.v.) of God, which is good because God has commanded it. The principles and precepts of the natural law are among the common notions (notiones communes, q.v.) understood in the most rudimentary way by all rational creatures. The lex naturalis is sometimes defined as a participation in the eternal law (lex aeterna, q.v.).
The natural law was therefore available even to those pagans who did not have the advantage of the Sinaitic revelation and the lex Mosaica, with the result that they were left without excuse in their sins, convicted by conscientia (q.v.). The scholastics argue for the identity of the lex naturalis with the lex Mosaica or lex moralis quoad substantiam, according to substance, and distinguish them quoad formam, according to form. The lex naturalis is inward, written on the heart (Rom. 2:14–15) and therefore obscure, whereas the lex Mosaica is revealed externally, written on tablets, and thus of greater clarity. See lex; lex ceremonialis; lex Christi; lex Dei; lex paradisiaca.
lex non scripta: unwritten law. See lex; lex naturalis.
Lex orandi est lex credendi et agendi: The rule of prayer is the rule of belief and of action; a maxim usually attributed to Pope Celestine I (422–32); sometimes simply, Lex orandi, lex credendi: The rule of prayer [is] the rule of belief.
lex paradisiaca: law of paradise; viewed by most Protestant scholastics as identical with the lex naturalis (q.v.) and therefore, by extension, with the Decalogue. In their elaboration of the doctrine of the foedus operum (q.v.), the Reformed tended to argue that Adam’s violation of the lex paradisiaca implied the violation of virtually the whole Decalogue—except the prohibition of adultery—since it involved denial of God’s sovereignty, a potential blasphemy, a violation of worship, disrespect to God as Father, murder understood as suicide and the communication of death to all his descendants, covetousness, and intended theft. The Lutherans argued differently, assuming that the command not to eat of the tree was an additional stipulation beyond the Decalogue written on the heart. The Lutheran opinion rests on the status of the divine command not to eat as an imperium dominicum, a lordly command, designed to test obedience and not as a representation of the lex naturalis; the Reformed agree as to the status of the command, but they interpret the offense in terms of the law known to the first pair inwardly. See homo.
lex positiva: positive law; viz., a law commanded by a power or authority. In theology the lex positiva is a law commanded by God and resting purely on his right to command, without any implication of good or bad in a moral sense. God’s positive law, then, exemplifies the divine freedom inasmuch as it belongs entirely to the free will of God to command, suspend, or not command. The precepts of the positive law are good simply because God has commanded them. This positive law can be further distinguished into symbolic law (lex symbolica) and ceremonial law (lex ceremonialis, q.v.), the former being exemplified by God’s commands to Adam (Gen. 2:16–17), the latter by the ceremonial law of the Old Testament.
Lex praescribit, evangelium inscribit: The law prescribes, the gospel inscribes; viz., the law prescribes obedience and points the way toward righteousness, but effects neither; the gospel effects obedience and righteousness by inscribing them on the heart.
lex scripta: the written law; the law as embodied in statutes and regulations, as opposed to the lex non scripta, the unwritten or customary law.
libare sanguinem Christi: to partake of the blood of Christ. See coena sacra; communicare Christo.
liber naturae/gratiae/gloriae: the book of nature/grace/glory; a figurative way of speaking of the three sources of knowledge of God: nature, grace, and the final vision of God’s glory.
libertas: freedom, liberty.
libertas a coactione: freedom from coaction or coercion; in scholastic thought, the basic requirement for freedom of action or freedom of choice (liberum arbitrium, q.v.). In other words, an individual is considered free to act or choose even if under a necessity of nature (necessitas naturae, q.v.), since the act or choice, though self-determined or inwardly determined, is in no way the result of external compulsion or externally imposed constraint. Freedom from coaction or coercion, however, does not assume either freedom of contradiction (libertas contradictionis, q.v.) or freedom of contrariety (libertas contrarietatis, q.v.) and therefore, although requisite to free choice, is also compatible with certain forms of determinism. The issue is whether free choice consists simply in freedom from coaction and a fundamental spontaneity of the will, as argued by Hobbes, Jonathan Edwards, and other determinists—or whether freedom of contradiction and freedom of contrariety are also required, as held by the majority of thinkers in the older tradition, including the Reformed orthodox. See necessitas coactionis.
libertas a necessitate bruta et physica: freedom from brute and physical necessity; a freedom characteristic of rational beings, distinguishing them from brute animals, which act on instinct. This liberty is not lost in the fall.
libertas a servitute: freedom from slavery or servitude, a freedom belonging to unfallen humanity that was lost in the fall; opposed to the necessity of servitude (necessitas servitutis, q.v.) to sin, to which human beings are subject following the fall. The libertas a servitute is therefore also freedom from sin and from the misery of sin.
libertas contradictionis: freedom of contradiction; the freedom to will something or to reject it, namely, to not will something; also identified as the libertas exercitatis, freedom or liberty of exercise.
libertas contrarietatis: freedom of contrariety; the freedom to will something (A) or, in its place, something else, namely not-A but B, C, or D; also identified as libertas specificationis, freedom or liberty of specification. This freedom is broader than and entails the freedom of contradiction (libertas contradictionis, q.v.), inasmuch as if one is incapable of not willing A, one will also be incapable of willing B, C, or D in place of A.
libertas exercitatis: liberty of exercise. See libertas contradictionis.
libertas independentiae: freedom of independence; i.e., the utter freedom of God as the only being not dependent on any other, in contrast to the necessity of dependence characteristic of all finite beings. See necessitas dependentiae.
libertas naturae: the freedom or liberty of nature; viz., the liberty that is proper to a being given its particular nature. No being, not even omnipotent God, can act contrary to its nature. In human beings, this libertas naturae can be distinguished into four distinct categories or states: (1) the libertas Adami, or freedom of Adam, before the fall—this is the ability or power not to sin, potentia non peccandi, and Adam and Eve are described, in the traditional Augustinian terminology, as posse non peccare (q.v.), able not to sin; (2) the libertas peccatorum, or freedom of sinners, a freedom that is proper to and confined within the limits of fallen nature and is therefore an absolute impotentia bene agendi, inability to do good or to act for the good, with the sinner described as non posse non peccare (q.v.), not able not to sin; (3) the libertas fidelium, or freedom of the faithful, a freedom of those regenerated by the Holy Spirit that is proper to the regenerate nature and is characterized by the potentia peccandi et bene agendi, the ability to sin and to do good; the regenerate, because of grace, can be described as posse peccare et non peccare, able to sin and not to sin; (4) the libertas gloriae, or liberty of glory, a freedom proper to the fully redeemed nature of the beati (q.v.), who as residents of the heavenly kingdom, as in patria (q.v.), are now characterized by impotentia peccare, inability to sin, and as non posse peccare, unable to sin. See homo; libertas a coactione; necessitas naturae.
libertas specificationis: liberty of specification. See libertas contrarietatis.
libertatis imperfectio: imperfection of freedom. See liberum arbitrium.
liberum arbitrium: free choice, judgment, decision, or adjudication; often loosely rendered “free will,” in early modern sources, although the word for will, voluntas (q.v.), is not present in the term and the issue of libera voluntas was seldom debated. Neither, however, is the Latin word for choice, electio (q.v.), present in the term. Arbitrium (q.v.) specifically references a judgment, adjudication, or decision, thus by extension a choice, inasmuch as an adjudication or judgment implies alternativity. Lutherans and Reformed agree that the faculty of will, the voluntas, is itself free and uncoercible, and that the bondage into which humanity has fallen is not a bondage of the faculty of will as such. No human being is compelled to sin; the will is thus free from external constraint (coactio) and from an imposed necessity (necessitas coactionis, q.v.), having a freedom from coercion (libertas a coactione, q.v.). The human predicament is therefore defined neither as the loss of the faculty of will nor as the loss of the inward freedom, or libertas (q.v.), of the will. What has been lost is not the freedom of choice in general but, specifically, the ability freely to choose the good in the sense of meritorious goodness before God and the ability freely to avoid that which is evil. The libertas voluntatis essentialis (essential freedom of will) remains intact, but the will itself is fallen and suffers from the defect and stain of sin (see macula). People are accordingly free to will according to their nature, the nature being determined by the human condition, whether unfallen, fallen into sin, in grace, or in glory. In every state of humanity, moreover, people are subject to a necessity of dependence (necessitas dependentiae, q.v.), inasmuch as they are finite, contingent creatures.
Free choice, or liberum arbitrium, is typically defined in terms of the interaction of the faculties of intellect (intellectus, q.v.) and will (voluntas), and it is therefore only improperly rendered “free will” and “free choice.” Many early modern writers define the freedom (libertas) involved in free choice as arising from the will, and the choice or judgment (arbitrium) as arising from the intellect: the intellect renders its judgment concerning an object, and the will freely engages the object. Others divide the case differently, placing both the libertas and the final arbitrium in the will, raising the question of whether the will can reject the last determinate judgment (iudicium, q.v.) of the practical intellect (intellectus practicus, q.v.). Still others identify a certain freedom in the ability of the intellect to make its judgments—and indicate that the will necessarily, albeit freely, follows the last determinate judgment of the practical intellect.
The Lutheran scholastics argue further that liberum arbitrium can be defined in terms of a freedom of contradiction (libertas contradictionis) and a freedom of contrariety or specification (libertas contrarietatis; libertas specificationis); i.e., the freedom to choose one object and to reject another on the assumption that the will itself is not predetermined or predisposed toward any specifics. This freedom can also be stated as a freedom of exercise (libertas exercitii), or a freedom to act or not act. The fall can therefore be understood as removing the basic indifference of the will toward sin, with the result that all choices of the will become sinful and the free choice of the good is no longer a possibility. Arbitrium has been enslaved to sin and can now be called, as Luther termed it, the servum arbitrium, or bound choice.
The Reformed similarly maintain the freedom of the faculty of will and the liberum arbitrium apart from the disposition of fallen human beings to sin. Since, moreover, the choice of sin is not the result of an external compulsion but of the inward disposition of the individual resulting from the corruption of one’s nature, even the choice of sin can be described as liberum arbitrium, though in a restricted sense. The Reformed disagree with the Lutheran view of free choice as arising out of an operative indifference of the will or out of a freedom to act or not act (i.e., a suspension of willing). In the Reformed view, an original indifference to good or evil would have been a defect in the creature. Adam was not therefore indifferent to good and evil but was created good and upright, with the ability to continue in the good. Adam’s freedom was a freedom to be obedient, not a freedom to obey or refuse to obey, i.e., not a freedom of acting or not acting. It was a freedom to do the good apart from external compulsion, with the will itself as the sole efficient cause of its choice. Nevertheless the will itself and its power of choice were mutable, capable of rejecting the grace of God, and therefore capable of evil.
The Reformed argue, then, that the operation of the will is never utterly or simply indifferent, either before or after the fall, and that, consequently, the fall did not result simply from the liberum arbitrium. The fall arose neither out of an original imperfection of freedom (libertatis imperfectio) nor out of a resident possibility of enslavement (possibilitas servitutis) but rather from the mutabilitas voluntatis, or mutability of will. Still, as Turretin and other Reformed writers indicate, there is a legitimate sense in which indifference plays a role in the proper understanding of will: whereas the will is not indifferent in its act of willing, namely, in actu secundo, it can be understood as indifferent in actu primo, namely, in itself prior to operation, prior to presentation of objects by the intellect. More important, unlike natural causes, the will has potency to more than one effect prior to its operation, in actu primo; in other words, the human will is characterized by a simultaneity of potencies (simultas potentiae, q.v.) but not by a capacity to exercise contrary potencies simultaneously. In its reception of intellective judgments concerning possible objects, the will does necessarily determine one. Therefore, even after the fall, there remains to the human will both a freedom of contradiction (libertas contradictionis, q.v.) and a freedom of contrariety (libertas contrarietatis, q.v.) with reference to objects presented by the intellect, including moral choices, albeit not the choice to act against its fallen nature and refrain from sinning. See actus primus; actus secundus; in actu; libertas a coactione.
lignum vitae: tree of life; a synonym for arbor vitae (q.v.).
limbus: literally, border, limbo; in Roman Catholic doctrine, a place of the dead bordering on hell and purgatory to which are consigned those souls that have not been redeemed by grace but that nonetheless cannot be classed either as pagans or as reprobate sinners. Limbus can be distinguished into (1) the limbus infantum, or borderland of infants, into which unbaptized children who die in infancy are placed, and (2) the limbus patrum, or borderland of the patriarchs, in which the saints of the Old Testament must wait until their redemption is completed by Christ, specifically in and through the descensus ad inferos (q.v.), or descent into hell. The medieval scholastics argued that neither limbus was a place of torment. Children consigned to the limbus infantum or limbus puerorum (limbo of children) are subject to the poena damni, or punishment of the damned, which is the denial of the visio Dei (q.v.), or vision of God, but not the poena sensus, or punishment of the senses, inflicted on damned sinners. The patriarchs, moreover, were awaiting only the final announcement of salvation; their limbus was considered distinct from the limbus infantum and was further still from the pains of hell and purgatory. It was often referred to as “the bosom of Abraham.” Protestantism rejects the concept of limbus, just as it rejects the doctrines of degrees of merit and of sin. The limbus patrum is explicitly rejected in the orthodox Protestant treatment of the descent into hell. The Protestant scholastics regard all the postmortem receptacula animae, or receptacles of souls, viz., purgatorium, limbus puerorum or limbus infantum, and limbus patrum as inventions or fabrications of Rome.
localis inclusio: local inclusion; specifically, the inclusion of the body and blood of Christ locally in the bread and wine of the sacrament. See consubstantiatio; impanatio; praesentia localis.
localis subsistendi modus: a local mode or manner of subsisting; i.e., the way in which any corporeal being subsists or comports itself, having a local presence (praesentia localis), as distinct from a repletive presence (praesentia repletiva, q.v.) or a definitive presence (praesentia definitiva). In Christology, the term references the mode of subsisting characteristic of Christ’s body during his earthly life and of Christ’s body in its heavenly exaltation when considered according to its own properties, or idiomata. The Reformed scholastics insist that this is the sole modus subsistendi (q.v.) that can be attributed to Christ’s human nature. The Lutherans, however, on the basis of their view of the communicatio idiomatum (q.v.), or communication of proper qualities, argue also for an illocalis subsistendi modus, or illocal mode of subsistence, which belongs to Christ’s human nature. The illocalis subsistendi modus explains both Christ’s appearance to the disciples after the resurrection “when the doors were shut” (John 20:19, 26) and the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the sacrament. See praesentia; praesentia illocalis sive definitiva; ubiquitas.
localiter: locally; i.e., a way of being present that is defined spatially. See praesentia; praesentia illocalis sive definitiva.
loci communes: commonplaces; the collection of basic topics, or loci, in any field of study; in theology, specifically scriptural loci, their interpretations, traditionary topics, and debates into an ordered body of Christian doctrine; a standard title for such systems of doctrine. See corpus theologiae; erōtēma; loci communes; medulla; syntagma; theologia acroamatica.
locus: place, topic; pl., loci: places, topics; thus (1) the predicate or accident of “place” among the standard categories of predication; (2) an indicator of a place in the most general sense, whether geographical, local, or topical; (3) a crucial text or place in a document (locus classicus, q.v.); (4) a specific place or locus classicus in Scripture as the basis of a particular Christian doctrine; hence, the topical discussion of the doctrine, a chapter in a theological system. See loci communes; praedicamenta.
locus classicus: a standard or classic passage; literally, a “classic place”; a place or passage in a text, frequently Scripture, traditionally used as the primary ground of an idea or doctrine. See dicta probantia; loci communes; sedes doctrinae.
locutio exhibitiva: exhibitive locution; viz., a way of speaking that manifests or shows forth something; specifically, the form of speech used by Christ at the Last Supper in the words “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” by means of which Christ exhibits his body and blood without reference to the bread and wine. In other words, Christ holds forth the visible means, or visible elements, but refers to and manifests the invisible, heavenly elements. See coena Domini; praesentia illocalis sive definitiva; res sacramenti; sacramentum; signum.
logistikōs (λογιστικῶς): in word or thought, as distinct from in act or in deed.
Logos (Λόγος): word or reason; specifically, the Second Person of the Trinity, both in his person, as the perfect image of the Father, and in his office, as the revealer and revelation of the Father and as the creative Word uttered by the Father. See Verbum Dei.
Logos asarkos (Λόγος ἄσαρκος): the Word, or Logos, without the flesh; a term derived from the fathers used to distinguish the Second Person of the Trinity in his preincarnate state and mediation from the Word “incarnate,” or Logos ensarkos (Λόγος ἔνσαρκος), namely, the Word having been made flesh. The term rests on John 1:1–2. See ensarkos; incarnandus/incarnatus; incarnatio; Logos endiathetos / Logos prophorikos.
Logos endiathetos / Logos prophorikos (Λόγος ἐνδιάθετος / Λόγος προφορικός): the immanent Logos / the Logos brought forth; a distinction similar to that between the Word without the flesh (Logos asarkos, q.v.) and the Word enfleshed (Logos ensarkos), used first by the second-century apologists to indicate the distinction between the Word, or Logos, as eternally immanent in the Godhead and the Word brought forth as the firstborn of all creation (cf. Col. 1:15). The sending or bringing forth of the Logos does not, however, imply the loss or evacuation of the immanent Logos, inasmuch as God always is in possession of his own Word. Thus, whereas Logos asarkos can indicate either the immanent Logos or the preincarnate Logos in the work of creation and preincarnate mediation, the Logos endiathetos invariably references the immanent Logos apart from any divine works ad extra.
Logos non extra carnem: The Logos is not beyond the flesh; a postulate of seventeenth-century Lutheran orthodoxy opposed to the extra calvinisticum (q.v.) of the Reformed. The phrase arises out of the distinctive Lutheran view of the communicatio idiomatum (q.v.), specifically, the genus maiestaticum. As early as Brenz’s Christology the Lutherans argued that there is no place where the Logos is present and not also united to the human nature. Since the Logos is omnipresent, the human nature must be everywhere with the Logos; or more precisely, the Logos—by virtue of its own omnipresence, which has been communicated to the human nature according to the genus maiestaticum—has the human nature illocally present to it everywhere. Therefore the Logos is not beyond or outside of the flesh. See omnipraesentia intima sive partialis; praesentia; praesentia illocalis sive definitiva; ubiquitas.
longanimitas: long-suffering; the patient bearing of an offense, particularly over a long period of time; thus the willingness of God to endure the offense of sin rather than immediately annihilate the world in its wickedness. The longanimitas Dei is the affection of the divine will, according to which God, for the sake of human salvation, wills to await repentance and to allow millennia to elapse between the fall and the final judgment. Longanimitas is virtually synonymous with patientia, indicating the height of patience.
lumen naturae: light of nature; also lumen naturalis: natural light; a term most frequently used as a synonym for reason, typically as exercised in grasping the revelation of God in nature, but also sometimes used as a synonym for natural revelation. See revelatio.
lumen naturae/gratiae/gloriae: the light of nature/grace/glory; the threefold light by which human beings learn of God, the first two pertaining to this life, the last to the heavenly life. See liber naturae/gratiae/gloriae; theologia beatorum.
lux Dei: the light of God; occasionally considered a divine attribute, according to which God is defined as absolute light, in which there is no darkness at all. Theologically, the lux Dei indicates the truth, wisdom, holiness, and purity of God, and also, preeminently, the divine self-sufficiency. God is light unto himself and the ultimate source of all light, just as he is also the ultimate source of all life. Lux Dei is therefore a scriptural predication that indicates the aseitas (q.v.), or self-existence, of God; the omnisufficientia (q.v.), or all-sufficiency, of God; and the essential necessitas of God.
luxuria: lust. See septem peccata mortalia.
lytron (λύτρον): ransom; a term favored by both the Lutherans and the Reformed as a reference to Christ’s work on the cross, since the term is found only in Jesus’s own words, “The Son of Man came . . . to give his life a ransom [λύτρον] for many” (Mark 10:45; Matt. 20:28).
lytrōsis (λύτρωσις): redemption; payment of a ransom; e.g., Hebrews 9:12.