[Introduction to Division Two]
§106. The distinctive self-consciousness of one who is taken up into community with Christ in one’s life is presented under two concepts: regeneration and sanctification.
1. The nature of redemption consists in the fact that the previously weak and suppressed God-consciousness in human nature is raised and brought to the point of dominance1 through Christ’s entrance into it and vital influence upon it. Thus, the individual in whom this influence is expressed must attain a religious personal existence2 that the individual did not yet have beforehand. That is, up to that point the individual’s God-consciousness had expressed itself only in occasional sparks, as it were, sparks that kindled no flame because the individual’s God-consciousness was not positioned to determine particular elements of the individual’s life in a steady fashion. As a result, very quickly even particular elements that really were determined by the individual’s God-consciousness were, in turn, constantly being quelled by elements of a contrary sort. A pious personal existence,3 however, is understood to be one in which every predominantly passive element is impacted only through relation to the God-consciousness contained in the Redeemer’s influence, and every active element proceeds from an impulse emitted by this very God-consciousness. Thus, one’s life stands under a different formulation and is consequently a new life; hence come the expressions “new human being” and “new creation,”4 which mean the same as our expression “new personal existence” here. Naturally, however, since a human being, viewed as having a unity of psychical life, remains the same, and since this new life is thus simply engrafted, as it were, onto the old life, in its appearance this new life is also only a life in the process of becoming. Yet, the state in which the new life is in a process of becoming, when related in memory to a state in which it was not yet involved in such a process, could be attached to the previous state and could be joined into the temporal continuity of the selfsame person only by presupposing a turning point. At this turning point the continuity of the “old life” would have stopped and the “new life” would have begun the process of becoming. This turning point, moreover, is what is essential in the concept of “regeneration.”5 Likewise, on the other hand, there is the growing continuity of the new life—wherein the elements appropriate to its formulation fit together more and more and elements representing the old life recur, though more and more weakly and rarely—and this process would be designated by the term “sanctification.”6
Suppose that, given this account, we go back to what we noticed earlier: that Christ’s relationship to the rest of human nature is exactly the same as the relationship in his person of what is divine in it to what is human.7 So too, then, the two concepts correspond exactly to the analogy between the act of uniting and the state of being united.8 The only difference is that, in Christ’s case, a person originated pure at the outset, and after that, the state of being united was also comprised of one uninterrupted continuity and of just as uninterrupted a spreading within human nature. Hence, the same characteristics would have to be the case here as well, were it not for the fact that, by virtue of the identity of the subject with its previous existence as a person, features from the life of sinfulness would repeatedly be present as obstructive factors. Moreover, just as in Christ’s person the act of uniting and the state of being united could not exist without each other, it is no less true here as well that regeneration and sanctification cannot be isolated from each other.
2. Now, if the construction of this division is hereby justified in general terms, only a few remarks are still to be added, having to do with the relation of its positioning to what has already been said.9 This relation can be displayed as follows. To start with, what we have just considered regarding Christ’s kingly office could, in and of itself, have led us in the most natural way to a presentation regarding the new collective life over which he governs. Furthermore, to be sure, just as today stimuli come to each individual only out of this collective life, stimuli from which one’s being taken up into community of life with Christ emerges, and just as an individual’s sanctification also depends on the influences of the whole body on the individual, these two points of doctrine could very well have been treated under the following Section too.10 The reverse arrangement, however, could just as well occur. The reason is that just as Christ’s entrance into humanity is its second creation and humanity thus becomes a new creature11 thereby, one can also view this entrance as the regeneration of the human race, a rebirth that really comes to pass, however, only under the form of the regeneration of individuals. Moreover, just as the community of the faithful, in accordance with its true nature, nevertheless has its existence only out of the totality of those elements of sanctification that are shared by all individuals who are taken up into community of life with Christ, so, in turn, the sanctification of individuals includes within itself all that by which the community is entered into, held together, and extended.12
Now, given this total reciprocity, the present positioning of the doctrines is justified in the following way. At the outset, individuals were seized by Christ; and today, as well, it is still always a working of Christ himself, mediated by his spiritual presence in the Word,13 whereby individuals are taken up into the community of the new life. Above all, however, this positioning of the two doctrines is justified by the fact that their earlier placement is suited more for that content which, on the one hand, refers back to the old collective life of general sinfulness but, on the other hand, underlies the new collective life under grace. Furthermore, this rationale holds true for both of the concepts to be discussed in the present Division. If, for the individual, regeneration is the turning point at which one’s earlier life breaks off, as it were, and the new life begins, for us it thus sets forth the disappearance of the old life, as it is then to be understood only through Christ’s redemptive activity, but only in such a way that the power of the new life must have been implanted in the soul at the same time. Moreover, just as, in this fashion, the treatment of these doctrines looks back to the previous Division, the present Division also contains the foundation for the next Section, in that this power of the new life is, at the same time, also the common spirit,14 which animates15 the whole. Sanctification, however, likewise has two aspects to it. Viewed in the one aspect, its extent is general sinfulness, as it is overcome more swiftly or more slowly in the individual soul. Viewed in the other aspect, its extent is the relationship of the individual soul to the new life in common, as it advances more swiftly or more slowly in the service16 of the collective new life.
1. Herrschaft.
2. Ed. note: religiöse Persönlichkeit. That is, one “religious” in the broadest sense, wherein true piety is not yet sustained. Cf. §104n63 and §105n37.
3. Ed. note: frommen Persönlichkeit.
4. As in 2 Cor. 5:17 and Eph. 4:24. Ed. note: Sermon only on 2 Cor. 5:17–18 (re: Augsburg), Oct. 24, 1830, SW II.2 (1834), 725–38; ET Nicol (1997), 141–54.
5. Wiedergeburt. Ed. note: More literally, “rebirth,” “being born again.”
6. Heiligung. Ed. note: More literally, “being made holy,” made more of a “saint.”
8. Vereinigung … des Vereintseins. Ed. note: At §97, Schleiermacher notes that the two terms correspond to unitio … unio.
9. Above, §§90.1 and 91.2.
10. Ed. note: That is, under §§115–63, on the constitution of the world in relation to redemption (ecclesiology). Thus, the “reverse” would be to treat doctrines regarding the church within the doctrines of regeneration and sanctification.
11. Ed. note: See also the progression in Part One from §63 to §§80–84 and to §87, then to §89 in Part Two on the founding of the “new collective life” as “the completed creation of human nature.”
12. Ed. note: geknüpft, zusammengehalten, und verbreitet. Three phases are thus represented in the church’s or individual’s relation to the world: getting started, sharing in a process, and broadening the new creation that it experiences into the rest of humanity.
13. Ed. note: geistige Gegenwart im Wort. Christ’s mediated presence thus occurs as geistig, “heart, mind, and soul” in the biblical sense, or through all the conscious powers of “spirit” (Geist) among individuals in the community of the faithful—otherwise stated, through the activity of the Holy Spirit among them (see §§121–25). This process occurs by the continual influence of the Word that witnesses to Christ’s own proclamation by word and deed in Scripture and therefrom in the shared ministries of the people congruent with that Word (see esp. §§128–35). So, for Schleiermacher this is not an esoteric “spiritual presence” independent of all these very concrete gifts and graces.
14. Gemeingeist. Ed. note: As is presaged in §106n13 here, the Holy Spirit is later presented as the “common spirit” of the new common life. Cf. Schleiermacher’s deep concern regarding society’s need for “a fresher common spirit” arising “to renew it” in OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 26. The original strictly civil use of “common spirit” (Gemeingeist) is subsequently used to present the spiritual working of Christ whereby God’s Holy Spirit is present to create and develop “new life” for individuals within Christian community. See §105.1 and §106.2 respectively. Already employed several times in Part Two of the first edition (1822), Gemeingeist had greatly expanded usage in Part Two of the second edition (1831). This term is equivalent to the activity of God’s Spirit and through the internal fully Spirit-respondent invisible church, namely, “Holy Spirit.” See §§116.3, 120.P.S. and 121–126, 127.2, 129.2, 133.1, and 144.1, also in the concluding doctrine of the divine Threeness (§170.1, where he also cites §§94 and 123).
15. Ed. note: In this context, beseelt (in the Latinate form, “animates”) could just as well be translated “ensouls,” for in Schleiermacher’s account the Gemeingeist indwells and activates, provides “soul” to the community viewed as a whole.
16. Ed. note: Here Dienst could also be translated “ministry,” for in the common life each and all are in ministry.
[Introduction to First Point of Doctrine]
§107. Being taken up into community of life with Christ, viewed as a human being’s changed relationship to God, is that person’s justification; viewed as a changed form of life, it is the person’s conversion.
1. Here we have to do only with the state of the individual in transition from the collective life of sinfulness to community of life with Christ. Thus, we also have only to explain, on this basis, the necessary congruity between the two elements that are to be designated here. In this context “form of life” is understood to be nothing other than the way in which the two temporal segments of life come into being and line up, and self-consciousness is thus observed in its transition into activity—that is, as the basis of one’s will. Now, in the state that is left behind, the stirrings of self-consciousness, in which stirrings God-consciousness has been coposited, were not determinative of one’s will but were only intermittent, and only sensory self-consciousness was determinative of one’s will. Interconnection with Christ in one’s life, however, engenders a transformation of this relation between the two features, and this process is designated by the term “conversion.”1 We really have a relationship with God only when our self-consciousness is steady, as it holds constant in its being reflected in thought,2 and only insofar as God-consciousness is coposited within it.
Now, we are acquainted with only one relationship of human beings to God’s holiness and justice, as inherent in the condition of sinfulness in our lives, and this is nothing other than the self-consciousness of fault and culpability.3 Now, it is self-evident that this self-consciousness must cease with the onset of community of life with Christ and not, as one might expect, as if only with some degree of completion or another within it, since the two conditions can in no way persist together. Moreover, no true consciousness of being in community with Christ can exist as long as that other consciousness is still operative.
It is also obvious, however, that these two elements of our lives cannot be divorced from each other in such a way that a conversion could be imagined without a process of justification or a process of justification could be imagined without conversion. On the one hand, conversion without justification would then be simply a decision to forgive oneself in view of the fact that sin is unavoidable, so as to bring the old relationship with God to a halt. This would mean that no new relationship would have emerged. Thus, instead of justification there would be a total cessation of God-consciousness within one’s self-consciousness—that is, a hardening.4 This is so, for a new relationship with God can arise only through becoming at one with Christ, which is how conversion also arises. Just as little, on the other hand, is it possible to imagine a new direction of one’s will, proceeding from having become at one with Christ, wherein one’s consciousness of fault and culpability would continue to function. The reason is that the new human being would then have to be one devoid of any consciousness or, to put the point another way, there would have to be a being taken up into the community that shares in Christ’s perfection without being taken up into the community that shares in his blessedness. Instead, wherever this result might seem to have occurred, either the consciousness of fault is simply visualizing something drawn from the past that is illusory or one’s “conversion” is merely a resolve to improve based on one’s own devices, without sharing in any true community of life with Christ.
Now, if these two things, conversion and justification, cannot be divorced from each other, then the two must also be thought of as occurring contemporaneously, and each is a reliable identifying mark of the other.
2. As concerns the terminology for these subjects, a great variety of terms is to be found among teachers of faith-doctrine,5 in that the same expressions are taken by others to have a different meaning, and so the ones chosen here can also seem to be arbitrary. That is to say, first, if one compares the terms “regeneration” and “conversion” used here, no proper indication is present in them to show that conversion should be simply an aspect of regeneration, but one could just as easily suppose the reverse to be true. Second, still less does anything lie in the term “justification” that points to the beginning of a new form of life; moreover, if one considers that the condition coming to an end is that lived under the law, this expression can more easily suggest that such a condition is to continue on rather than to expire. Likewise, third, the term “conversion” permits of pushing to the forefront other expressions that are no less meaningful and just as biblical.6 Given the great richness of mainly biblical7 expressions that the writers of sacred writ make use of for this locus of doctrine, such fluctuation of usage is unavoidable. Recognizing this phenomenon, moreover, then leads more to the task of explaining exactly what is to be thought of in using these expressions than to the task of explaining the choice of the words themselves.
Still, the choice of words made here is justified, on the one hand, by the fact that “regeneration” does most distinctly express the onset of a coherent life and, on the other hand, by the fact that the relation to what has gone before, which is a very recessive element in the general term “regeneration,” is dominant in the two concepts into which exposition of it is divided, namely, “conversion” and “justification.” Regarding the term “conversion,” standing for a turning about, a changing of one’s ways for the better,8 this term immediately makes clear that it refers to the beginning of a new course in contrast to an old one. Yet, “justification”9 also presupposes something in relation to which a given individual is justified; and since no mistake is possible in the Supreme Being, it is assumed that something would have happened to a human being between a previous time and now, by which the earlier divine displeasure would have been overcome and without which that individual could not have become an object of the divine good pleasure. It would not seem advisable, however, to carry still further figurative expressions found in Scripture into the sphere of regeneration. The reason is that without getting overly subtle and bringing useless intricacies into that sphere, it would be possible not to distinguish still further relations within this element, even as a sheer point of departure—quite apart from the fact that the metaphors of “enlightenment” and “renewal” could also just as well be used for the continuing element and thus for the sphere of “sanctification.”
In view of the reciprocity of the relation between the concepts “conversion” and “justification,” the order in which they are presented seems to be of no consequence. However, in several respects it would seem more convenient to start with conversion.
1. Bekehrung. Ed. note: That is, a turning about. See §107n8 below.
2. Ed. note: in unserm ruhenden Selbstbewußtsein, wie es sich im Gedanken reflektiert festhält. See the extended account of this relationship with God in self-consciousness in §§3–6, then cf. §§97 and 102.2. Four explanatory comments are of special importance here. First, this self-consciousness is anything but quiescent or at rest, two other meanings that can be attached to the verb ruhen. Rather, ruhend normally means “continuous,” hence “steady” right along, unintermittent. Second, at its highest stage what self-consciousness reflects, in thought, is its basic, immediate existential relationship with God in feeling, notably represented in the concept “feeling of absolute dependence.” Third, at this stage it is not so much a reflection upon oneself, as such, as an actual reflection of this relationship with God, both in community and within oneself. Fourth, also in this highest, religious stage, self-consciousness is not only carried “in thought” but is also ready for, and expressing itself in, acting. These are both essential ingredients in the experience Schleiermacher calls “piety” or “faith,” though piety cannot validly be reduced to either thought or action. In particular, this is how Christians are obediently to live out their “liberty” as “the children of God” (Rom 8:21; cf. §112.1), versus slavish dependency of any kind.
3. Cf. §§83–84. Ed. note: These propositions concern the affirmations that God is holy and just. Cf. also the larger context of §§79–85.
4. Verstockung. Ed. note: The allusion is to the biblical notion, already prevalent in the Old Testament, of a “hardening of the heart.” Cf. Mark 6:52; John 12:40; Rom. 11:7; and 2 Cor. 3:14. On helping people to avoid such a condition, see esp. the three 1818 sermons on “Christian Child-Rearing,” first published in 1820, then in SW II.1 (1834), 598–639, and (1843), 547–620; ET in Seidel and Tice, The Christian Household, 36–90. See also the sermons on (1) Mark 6:45–56, Nov. 4, 1832, SW II.5 (1835), 340–50; and (2) John 12:36–43, Mar. 5, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 348–61.
5. Ed. note: Schäfer (2003) 2.169 found Glaubenslehrern (teachers of faith-doctrine) occurring in the original manuscript, rather than Glaubenslehren (as in our published text), which would mean “bodies of faith-doctrine,” or dogmatics. The manuscript reading seems to be correct.
6. For example, “enlightenment” [or “seeing the light”] in Eph. 3:9 and 5:14, also Heb. 6:4–6; “renewal” in Eph. 4:23; Titus 3:5; and Heb. 6:6. Ed. note: Sermon only on Eph. 4:23, Sept. 21, 1828, first separately published in 1829, also in SW II.4 (1835), 171–81.
7. Ed. note: biblischer. Without indicating why, Schäfer (2003) 2.170 replaces this word with bildlicher (figurative), possibly because the later word is used below in a phrase that is otherwise the same. However, the first usage seems to have a more general reference than only to figurative expressions in Scripture.
8. Bekehrung … Umwendung, Umkehr zum Besseren.
9. Rechtfertigung. Ed. note: Recht means “right” or “justice,” and being morally “straight,” hence it might well refer to a life under the law. Thus, this derivative term may mean a process of being justified or one of being made “righteous” (gerecht) or a state of being “right with God” because one is considered so in the eyes of God, even if, strictly speaking, one is not altogether so or is only becoming so. For Schleiermacher, being “righteous” (or having “righteousness,” Gerechtigkeit), however, does not nearly approach either being perfect or being morally straight. Rather, it refers to a process of being made all of these things by God and in a particular way, i.e., in community of life with Christ— because one then participates in Christ’s own perfection and blessedness—that involves total and final acceptance by God. See the third and fourth 1830 sermons re Augsburg, “The Relationship of Evangelical Faith to the Law” and “On Righteousness Based on Faith,” in SW II.2 (1834, 1843), 637–65; ET Nicol (1997), 47–78.
§108. First Doctrinal Proposition: Regarding Conversion. In each individual, conversion, viewed as the beginning of the new life in communion with Christ, is manifested through repentance, which consists of the combining of contrition and change of heart, and through faith,1 which consists of a person’s taking the perfection and blessedness of Christ into oneself.
(1) Augsburg Confession (1530) XII: “Now, properly speaking, true repentance (poenitentia) is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow or terror (contritio seu terrores) about sin, and yet at the same time to believe (fides [have faith]) in the gospel and absolution.”2
(2) Apology Augsburg (1531) XII: “In order that we might lead pious conscience out of the labyrinths of the sophists, we have established two parts in repentance, namely, contrition and faith. We will not object if someone wants to add a third part, namely the fruits worthy of repentance. … But, … we here understand repentance as the entire conversion (mutationem totius), in which there are two sides: a putting to death and a raising to life … contrition and faith.”3
(3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XIV: “By repentance we understand the recovery of a right mind in sinful man awakened by the Word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit, and received by true faith, by which the sinner immediately acknowledges his innate corruption and all his sins … and grieves for them from his heart and … before God with a feeling of shame, with indignation abominates them and now zealously considers the amendment of his ways. … And this is true repentance, namely, a sincere turning (conversio) to God and all good, and earnest turning away (aversio) from the devil and all evil. Now we expressly say that this repentance is a sheer gift of God and not a work of our strength.” XV: “Wherefore, in this matter we are speaking … of a living, quickening faith … because it apprehends Christ who is life.”4
(4) Saxon Confession (= Melanchthon, Repetitio Confessionis Augustanae, 1551) (On the calling of faith): “We have demonstrated above that by faith is meant trust (fiducia) finding repose in the Son of God, on account of whom we are received and are acceptable. Faith is reliance on (fiduciam) applying Christ’s benefits to ourselves. Reliance, or trust, is a movement in the will by which the will finds repose in Christ.”5
(5) Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), Loci praecipui theologici (1543–1559) “We desire to retain the matter itself, whatever words the others may wish to use for it.”6
1. Admittedly, the description of the matter given in the confessional writings cited here do not seem to be the same as that given in our proposition. This is so, in that the word poenitentia corresponds only to “repentance,”7 thus only to one aspect, and in the Swiss confession the word conversio, which corresponds to our word “conversion,”8 is supposed to express only one aspect of poenitentia. Moreover, if in a prefatory way we also note that the other aspect, not explicitly present in our proposition, namely, turning away9 from evil, is meant to be implied in it, these two aspects conjoined—turning away from evil and turning to God and to what is good—would still encompass only the aspect that we designate by the term “change of heart.”10 However, although in the Swiss confession these two aspects, conversio and aversio, are together equated with poenitentia, thus with the whole of the matter, also reckoned to this whole beforehand are both the grievous recognition of sin, which has to precede that turning away, and also faith, which has to precede that turning toward, with the result that of themselves the two turnings still do not constitute the whole. In the Augsburg Confession, besides “faith” we find only “remorse,”11 which is simply equivalent to our term “contrition,”12 but in the Apology we find an added concept of changing for the better, which when viewed as a continuing process indeed amounts to sanctification, but viewed as a beginning nonetheless belongs here and then corresponds to our term “change of heart.”
Thus, if one looks at the whole set of features, the confessional writings have entirely the same content as our proposition. However, our general description is sufficiently justified as such by prevailing ascetic13 usage. Moreover, for the purpose “change of heart” is by far to be preferred to the term poenitentia, in German Buße, since this term bears no indication of the actual beginning of a new form of life, and it also sounds very alien to hear of “faith”—a term we obviously use exactly in the way the confessional writings do—specified as an aspect of “repentance.” Accordingly, even elsewhere in the Apology14 the terms “repentance” and “conversion” are used interchangeably.
Another difference is best revealed in other passages in the Apology, where the two main aspects, contrition and faith, are also described as “putting to death” and “making alive.”15 That is to say, if “putting to death” is patently “remorse” or “contrition,” and “making alive” is just as patently “faith,” then what we have called a “change of heart” is left out. Yet, really being affected by Christ in faith is unimaginable without such a change in one’s innermost striving, and without this change even contrition would be simply a transitory stirring; consequently, change of heart is also tacitly coposited in both.
Finally, it is yet to be noted that in ecclesial usage our general term “conversion” and the particular terms “repentance,” “contrition” and “change of heart” as well are all used not alone as descriptors for the onset of the new life but also as descriptors for what occurs in relation to the sin that remains as that new life continues. Yet, based on an earlier discussion here,16 it follows that a considerable distinction must be made between what belongs to a turning away from sin for those who are not yet living in community with the Redeemer and for those who are already doing so. For some among the latter group, their connection with the Redeemer and their correspondingly changed disposition can indeed have become obscure and have become hampered in their efficacy, but neither of these two characteristics will ever have been entirely lost. Hence, for that group no sin will indeed come into consciousness without giving rise to contrition, but they will not ever need to begin the new life over again, nor will they ever have to have a change of heart, viewed in the strictest sense. On the other hand, as concerns faith, it is no doubt quite apparent that faith is a permanently enduring state of mind and heart and that here in the doctrine regarding conversion, strictly taken, what is to be addressed can only be the emergence of faith. This is so, for appropriation or taking possession of Christ17 is a onetime act; in contrast, faith, thought of in its enduring character, is the persistent consciousness of having possession of Christ that begins with that act. Accordingly, if the onset of faith that is divinely effected already essentially exists in conversion but the enduring character of faith is the abiding state on which the new life is grounded, then, at the same time—given the only relative separation of regeneration and sanctification, their necessarily belonging together, and the constancy of the divine working over the entire course of the new creation—focusing on that faith will serve to present a preliminary account of the new life.
In contrast, the Roman church does not reckon faith to be an aspect of conversion but puts in its place confession and satisfaction. Rightly understood, “confession” is already implied in “contrition.” “Satisfaction,” however, is an impossible term. The reason lies partly in the Roman church’s doctrine of the church, partly in the fact that the Roman church uses the word “faith” differently, in that it understands “faith” to mean only information18 regarding human destiny that is divinely communicated and received by us. For this reason the Roman church then also asserts that this faith precedes repentance and conversion.19
Now, this diversity of language usage is indeed disagreeable, because it makes discussion of the points of differentiation more difficult. Likewise, it is also disagreeable that in ordinary life the same word, “faith,” is so often used for a conviction20 that likewise not only includes no movement of will in any case but is also unsatisfactorily grounded. Nevertheless, we should not let the word “faith” go. Rather, given its well-earned right, we must protect it. We must protect it all the more so since, on the one hand, the linguistic appropriateness of our way of using it is easy to demonstrate and since the term has become fully indigenous among us as a translation of the word whereby the original language of Scripture designates that human state of mind and heart which feels itself to be satisfactorily positioned and strong within Christ’s community. We must also protect the word “faith” as, on the other hand, the word has accrued a new historical value for us in our struggle against the orientation to “works” activity within the Roman church.
2. If we consider repentance and faith in their significance to encompass the whole of conversion, then, just as every turning point is, at the same time, the end of one direction taken and the beginning of the direction taken over against it, so too in the two features joined together a person’s being in the collective life of sin must cease and the person’s being in Christ’s community must begin. Accordingly, we can be in a state of both repentance and faith only as persons whose activity is self-initiated, but activities taken in a new direction can only be something we do in a successive manner. In contrast, therefore, the turning point between the two directions itself comprises a twofold lack of activity in the form of a no-more-being-active regarding the first direction taken and a not-yet-being-active regarding the new direction taken. Hence, in lieu of the vanishing activity nothing remains to the subject for supplying one’s spiritually21 animated being except a passive echo of that former activity which is now carried in feeling and which, with respect to the activity not yet begun, is but a longing, viewed as a passive presentiment. Now, the first feature is contrition,22 which is indeed expressive of the collective life of sin. This contrition, however, does not exist as a self-initiated activity, for contrition always takes place only where the condition repented of is rejected. Rather, it exists as the firm retention in one’s self-consciousness of what has passed. In every element that is also to be regarded as simply an approximation to the actual transition yet to occur, this consciousness, in turn, is only expressive of a disturbance of one’s own life and a hindrance to it, thus is experienced as a lack of pleasure. In fact, the contrition which inheres in conversion and which refers to a condition not of the individual as such but to a collective condition that is, moreover, permanently rejected by the individual, is consequently, when considered of itself alone, the purest, most overwhelming lack of pleasure. To be sure, if imagined to mount up without restraint, this state could serve to destroy life itself.23 At this point, moreover, it is to be noted that the contrition which is connected with the knowledge of sin derived from the law cannot be the same thing as the contrition which directly inheres in the process of conversion. That is to say, on the one hand, by its very nature the law separates off the individual, and in this way contrition too can refer only to individual tendencies, not to the collective state of human beings and its innermost ground. On the other hand, in the context of the law there is nothing on the basis of which a countervailing tendency could unfold, and in its continuing development this kind of contrition would thus have to effectuate death or despair. Therefore, however much this brand of contrition may precede it, the true contrition of conversion must always eventually arise from the perception24 of Christ’s perfection, and in this way this onset of rebirth25 too must rest in his redeeming activity. Only on the basis of this presupposition, moreover, is the coinherence of contrition and faith also made understandable, in that both of these features flow from the same source. Christ can awaken only the most complete kind of contrition, in that his self-communicating perfection encounters us in its very truth, a process that happens precisely in the emergence of faith. Further, he can really grasp hold of us with his activity of taking us up only if, as a result of his self-presentation having moved us, our previous condition is entirely rejected.
Now, if contrition and faith appear immediately to interconnect in this manner, then being in a community of life with Christ does indeed also begin in this very same manner. This is so, because in this process we cannot operate differently than the human nature of Christ did in the act of uniting—that is, with the peaceful26 consciousness of one’s being taken up. This peaceful consciousness is not only originally joyful and, in contrast to contrition, uplifting in its effect.27 Rather, through a constant movement forward it also expands to the point of an act of will, in that it already includes a fresh impulse of one’s will on account of which conversion is also completed by the emergence of faith. However, longing28 nevertheless steps in between that peaceful consciousness and one’s real activity. Indeed, this longing is manifested in two concomitant forms: as a continuing rejection of the community of sinful life, itself a lingering trace of contrition, and as a desire to take up whatever impetus proceeds from Christ. Moreover, this twofold radiation of one’s longing comprises the “change of heart”29 effected by Christ, which in combining contrition and the emergence of faith depicts the true unity of conversion. Hence, with equal warrant one can assign this change of heart more to the first, rejecting aspect of this radiation in placing contrition under the concept “repentance,”30 or one can hold more to the positive, receptive aspect of this radiation in associating it with “gaining new life,”31 just as one can set forth this change of heart itself as an intermediate part of the process.
Suppose, however, that we move somewhat farther back into the collective life of sinfulness. Then we will find many sorts of contrition within the domain of Christian religious life itself—for there can be no place for speaking of other sorts outside Christianity or without reference to God-consciousness, for that matter. Accordingly, within this domain these forms of contrition too more or less closely refer back to people’s perception of Christ, and they are not always restricted to some particularity but, instead, they truly demonstrate a displeasure regarding general human sinfulness as this sinfulness is manifested in one’s own person. Yet, they still do not develop into a constancy of inner movements to the point that a living faith emerges. Despite this fact, such stirrings, which proceed from people’s being influenced by the collective life of Christians, are definitely to be regarded as divinely caused. This is true even if they comprise only a disconnected, apparently incidental multiplicity of elements. Moreover, they are actually in connection with that divine ordinance according to which all human beings are to be placed in relationship with the Redeemer, and in this sense such situations are ascribed to prevenient divine grace.32
In the same manner, a change of heart that occurs before any constant connection with conversion is also to be considered a work of preparatory grace.33 This is all the more the case whenever the insight that entails rejection of what a person previously strived after looks back to the figure of Christ and to the teaching of Christ. Further, we do not always find change of heart and contrition in isolation from each other. Rather, instances of contrition and change of heart are also found to relate to each other in such a way that they do not lose their preparatory character on that account. Hence, every more advanced character of these two features can be recognized only in terms of the simultaneous emergence of faith; moreover, the completely efficacious grace of God is made manifest only in the unity of all three features: contrition, change of heart, and faith.
To be sure, such preliminary approximations to faith do also occur, however. That is to say, it would be wrong to regard someone as being permeated by the Redeemer’s perfection—even if that perfection is taken to be purely human. No other wise or divinely gifted human being is any longer positively placed on a par with the Redeemer; and such a delight is taken in his reign that this reign is placed above other human pursuits, such as a summary condemnation of him by human reason. That condemnation of him is wrong in that some presentiment of his higher dignity can already lie hidden therein, and a deeper devotion can be formed there-from. Rather, even this condemnation of Christ is an act of preparatory grace. As a consequence, moreover, it is also true of faith that as it emerges its still higher character is to be recognized only in its union with the other two features distinguished here.
Indeed, since quite easily only an incomplete sense of contrition and change of heart can be combined even with a more elevated notion of the Redeemer that has been engendered in one’s psyche, it obviously follows that in and of itself conversion cannot be distinguished from the effects of preparatory grace or from any particular distinct signs of its effects. Rather, only gradually can one’s own consciousness of that grace gain surety, and only gradually can peace be firmly established in one’s heart. This is the case, for even approximations to faith must already have borne an influence on one’s mode of behavior. This influence is all the less surely to be distinguished from the very first beginnings of sanctification when the true life of Christ within us is initially made known, in accordance with the laws of organic nature, only in weak, intermittent stirrings, and only gradually does a coherent activity form out of those beginnings.
Thus, this same gradual process is that by which we are made aware of steady advances in sanctification, except that we have to take these advances in their entire compass. This very process, moreover, is that by which we are made aware of our participation in the broadening of Christ’s reign. That is to say: on the one hand, by its very nature what is incomplete here mostly wavers in its progress; on the other hand, it is inconceivable that a person would be taken up into unity of life with Christ and in one’s strivings not quickly also prove oneself to be an instrument of his redemptive activity. Hence, when the Redeemer terms the decisive effect of divine grace a “new birth,”34 we also have to understand by this image that, just as when we are born into earthly life, this new birth is not something that springs up all at once. Rather, a hidden, inchoate life already precedes this birth, but then too, precisely like birth into earthly life for the newborn baby, this newborn is not conscious of the life that is to emerge, and only gradually does the child learn to find oneself to be a real person in the new world. Sticking with this image that the Redeemer himself advanced, thereby we can rest assured of the following. First, neither others nor we ourselves may be able to pinpoint the precise beginning of our new life. In fact, generally the time of it can no more be determined than can the place where the wind begins. Second, despite this fact, distinction between the new life and the old holds true, and we also become ever more sure of our participation in that new life.
3. Now, for this reason the conjecture that every Christian has to be able to point out the date and hour of one’s conversion is really a whimsical and presumptuous restriction of divine grace, and it also cannot but bring confusion to our minds and hearts. This thought has reached its most definite form in the claim made by an otherwise estimable party in our church35 that every true Christian must be able to demonstrate the beginning of one’s state of blessedness in a penitential struggle—that is, an upswelling of contrition bordering on hopeless self-loathing followed by a feeling of divine grace that borders on inexpressible bliss—arguing that otherwise all strength of heart would be but delusion and all show of holiness would be but deceitful human work. This view has never gained entry into official doctrine, however, and must also continue to be regarded as a dubious deviation.36
Moreover, two further points can clearly be made in this connection. In the first place, in no way does true change of heart always have to complete the process from contrition to faith by springing from an extravagance of contrition, such that it is filled with a feeling so distressful as to well-nigh break one’s very existence apart. Why not? On the one hand, the spectrum of excitability among people is so varied that what is in fact extreme excitement to one less able to be moved seems minor to one more readily stirred. Even in the same person, moreover, a similar variation is to be found at different times. As a result, it is already impossible on these grounds to forge a summary and definitive statement on the subject. On the other hand, based on innumerable accounts from the lives of religious persons, experience teaches that even if deep convulsions of mind and heart had occurred in them beforehand, which they confidently took to be the instant of conversion, nevertheless afterward not infrequently they could sink, in turn, into such a state of emptiness and uncertainty that the supposed value of those instances would appear totally pointless. As a result, even in such cases strength of heart arises only gradually.
In the end, even in that sort of contrition one must also distinguish pain, viewed as the sensory aspect of contrition, from self-disapproval, which indeed is not itself a sheer judgment but is also a feeling, viewed as the more spiritual aspect of contrition. This is so, in that the two aspects could be combined together in a quite variable relationship, so that the most strict and profound self-disapproval can exist in a mind and heart already practiced in amassing all its sensory impressions and without pain’s arising in equal measure in relationship to it. Indeed, on the one hand, one must take care lest intensity of pain should give an overwhelmingly sensory stamp to this whole situation, whereupon contrition itself would not yet be pure and undefiled and, even in its deepest motives, would not yet be free of all admixture with sensory elements, thus not be suited to have life-giving faith as its immediate result.
Furthermore, on the other hand, the more frequently and strongly such a defective state of contrition has set in prior to conversion, the more readily can the relationship of self-disapproval to pain also take a different shape in one’s actual act of repentance. As a result, what evokes that entire process of self-disapproval, to which faith and the positive pole of one’s change of heart are attached, has to be simply like a recalling of earlier suffering and to be a mere shadow of the pain that one has already experienced. On this basis, we see anew how inadmissible is the claim that everyone should be able to distinguish among the phenomena of consciousness the working of divine grace that initiates the new life from the workings of preparatory grace. In general, therefore, we can admit that some reality is contained in the concept of penitential struggle only to the extent that one understands by it the whole set of changing relationships that extends from the very first summoning and preparatory workings of grace on to the inalterable strengthening of one’s heart in faith. Yet, however longer or shorter the interval within which these workings may be compressed or spread out, and however greatly the particular swing cycles may differ from each other during this period, as well as whether the last turn must be precisely the strongest, will be left wholly undetermined.
The second point that can be established is as follows. If participation in Christ’s blessedness also belongs to community of life with him, then from the very onset on, thus also in the emergence of faith, this participation in Christ’s blessedness would have to be coposited, all the more so because the lack of blessedness that is inherent in contrition can be overturned only by its opposite, namely blessedness. Now, the two chief elements of conversion can also draw quite close to each other, so that even in one’s full experience of contrition, pain would not always be starkly prominent. Thus, a wide range of relationships are also possible between the pain that is present in repentance and the joy that appears in one’s consciousness of community of life with Christ. One of these relationships could be one in which a more glorious outburst of joy occurs quite adjacent to a faint state of sorrow, in which relationship the latter state can thereby become almost indiscernible. Actually, forms of conversion of this sort do undeniably exist, forms that are to be conceived simply as a blissful rescue from despondency. Likewise, forms also exist in which nothing whatsoever of a penitential struggle comes up. Instead, the person senses an almost pure blessing from on high, as it were, almost as if what is painful in one’s contrition can be rolled back, yet without its entirely disappearing.37
4. Although several teachers both in the English and in the German church have recently proposed that generally no conversion is needed for those born in the bosom of the Christian church who as children were already received into its community, in that these persons would already have been members in the body of Christ and would already have attained rebirth38 in baptism, we must refuse agreement with that proposal by virtue of almost everything discussed thus far. This is so, for in and of itself everything that had been indicated earlier as causes for the emergence of sin in human beings is found just as much among those born within the Christian church as among others. As a result, in children born within the Christian church, there also dwells a tendency to pull down what is divine—which certainly does bear influence on them from the Christian community—into the sensory domain. Indeed, one can reasonably say that even in any Christian child, lending a sensory-laden cast39 to what is divine develops of itself—sometimes of the more pagan, recklessly sacrilegious sort and sometimes of the more Jewish, dejectedly anxious sort. Thus, if the might of sin appears in them despite their baptism as infants, they too have need of conversion just as much as those born outside the church do. The only real difference, therefore, that exists between the two groups of children is that among the latter group it is incidental whether and how the summons of the gospel reaches them, whereas the former are already summoned by their already standing in a natural and ordered connection with the workings of divine grace. However, the natural order that is presented here—that is, the sequence of preparatory to life-giving40 grace—is by no means obviated thereby. Wherever this order obtains, however, there a process of conversion is also taking place.
Moreover, the proposal to which we are responding also finds at most a semblance of support in our confessions, whereas they are completely in accord with the position we have presented here. This agreement is recognizable, in part, by the fact that in treatment of the doctrine of conversion, no mention whatsoever is made of a distinction between those born within the church and those born outside it41 and, in part, by the fact that the confessions expressly ascribe to baptism only the beginning of the workings of divine grace.42 However, that this beginning within the church is ever the same, even apart from any previous baptism, is demonstrated by those who are later disposed to be baptized by their own fiat. Other confessional passages, to be sure, do seem to come closer to the proposal that we have examined.43 Yet, when one considers what they say about regeneration in other passages—namely, that in it the Holy Spirit illumines us for the purpose of our understanding the divine mysteries44 and that sanctification begins with regeneration—one can well see that in this way these confessions actually link only the baptism that occurs for adults and their longing for it with regeneration and extend it to infant baptism only by way of consent, as it were. Moreover, nowhere in the confessional writings of these churches is anything intended other than what Calvin45 also said on this subject, which also accords precisely enough with the above-cited confessions, in that what these statements say about the working of baptism can be understood only as “the seeds of repentance and faith.”
Yet, one can all too easily lapse, in turn, into something magical when one associates regeneration with the way we administer the sacrament of baptism. This point will become clear of itself when we then seek to answer the question: How, in accordance with the typus of baptism that is generally set forth among us, does Christ’s activity of taking up persons in that rite and the passive state of the person being taken up relate to each other?
5. Now, as concerns the first of these two features, here again there appears to be a troublesome quirk in our arrangements concerning baptism, in that in our official teaching frequently regeneration is ascribed to the divine Spirit, concerning which we have not as yet treated at all, just as—to call to mind the next topic to be taken up, already announced—the divine activity in justification is customarily attributed to the Father. Yet, here too we must bring to mind the principle that just as the whole process of redemption is the same for all peoples, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, this is true for all times as well, also that the selfsameness of redemption and of Christian community would be endangered if our faith had a different content or were to arise in a way different from the way it did for the first disciples—the second condition and its consequence necessarily dragging the first along with it. If, moreover, faith is to arise in the same way, conversion must also occur in the same way. Now, in the first disciples both of these things were effected by the “Word,” taken in the broader sense—that is, by the total prophetic activity of Christ.46 Further, we must therefore be able to understand this communal feature, as such, in a preliminary fashion—that is, without the doctrine of the Holy Spirit—just as well as the disciples also understood it within their own situation, without that doctrine. Thus, what is continuous is, first of all, that same divine power of “the Word,”47 a term understood as having the same scope as that by which conversion is still effected and faith arises even today. The only difference is that today Christ’s self-presentation is conveyed by those who proclaim him, though since they are appropriated by him as his instruments and consequently the activity of proclamation proceeds from him, this activity is always essentially his own.
Quite definitely and without qualification, most of our confessions also make this claim, though also with reference to the Holy Spirit—a matter that will first become clear to us below.48 Moreover, if other passages seem to be explicable only in a more qualified way,49 they do take note of exceptions that, on closer inspection, turn out to be only seeming ones. This is so, for one need only distinguish the Word itself from what belongs to the official ministry of the Word50 and consider that all Christians are directed to a service to the Word held in common in order boldly to assert that no example can be advanced of a conversion occurring without mediation of the Word. Moreover, there is a justifiable concern as to whether divine omnipotence would be restricted by a strict, unexceptionable claim regarding this content. This is so, for precisely in this way the act of second creation will be recognized as a work of divine omnipotence, such that only through the power manifested in that divine omnipotence would the task of conversion be fulfilled in any and all persons of faith. Moreover, the miracle of Christ’s appearance,51 which could itself become effectual only under the form of the Word, would be insufficient if some would have to be converted differently than through the workings that issue from him, since in that case these persons would not be included in Christ’s high-priestly prayer.52 Suppose, to the contrary, that it were possible for Christ to be revealed directly within some persons apart from the Word. If that were true, then this could also have happened to anyone, which would amount to a redemption by means of the sheer idea of the Redeemer. On that basis, Christ’s appearance would then be superfluous.
For the present day, moreover, this observation is the especially pertinent ground for our claim—in any case resting on the entire practice of the apostles and on the express witness of Scripture53—that our aim is not perchance simply to secure ourselves against certain enthusiasts on the fringe.54 Instead, it is probably only by means of this proposition that we can first get full insight into the perilous nature of such enthusiasm on this point. This is so, for if in the process of conversion, workings of divine grace were received that are not tied to any historical connection with the personal efficacious action of Christ—even positing that they would have come as workings of Christ within one’s consciousness— there would still be no way of being sure that this inner Christ is the same as the historical Christ. Hence, every presentation on this subject that wrests from the Word its unexceptionable right to be included in the conversion process not only oversteps all boundaries, in that in this way anyone can proffer anything, with unlimited arbitrariness, to be Christian and to have proceeded from Christ. It also negates all necessity for community, in that anyone who is illumined55 in a purely internal and original way would also have to be completely self-contained, having no occasion or need for community. All truly separatist tendencies likewise proceed on the basis of similar notions.56
Thus, here Christ’s efficacious action exists only in human communication of the Word, but it also exists only in the indwelling divine power of Christ himself within this communication to the extent that it moves forth by the Word of Christ. In this process, however, that Word is fully commensurate with the truth, on two conditions: if every distinct human intervention disappears from the consciousness of a person going through conversion57 and if Christ is made immediately present to that person strictly in Christ’s redeeming and reconciling activity, extending from his prophetic activity to his kingly activity,58 all of which has taken possession of that person.
Now, in this sense the whole process is Christ’s efficacious action—from the first impression of Christ’s proclamation on one’s mind and heart to one’s strengthening in faith, each aspect simply making a contribution toward conversion. Thus, all these workings of divine grace are supernatural insofar as they rest on God’s being in the person of Christ and also actually proceed from this source. At the same time, however, all these workings of divine grace are also historical and history-forming, thus natural, insofar as they are, in general, naturally bound to the historical life of Christ and also insofar as every particular working of divine grace that grounds a new personal existence also attaches its work to the historical interconnection of all the workings of Christ.
6. Let us now consider the state of the subject itself during conversion, this inasmuch as we regard conversion to be the element in which entrance into community of life with Christ is completed. Suppose, then, that this element is the beginning of a higher form of life and that this higher form of life can be communicated only by Christ because it originally existed in him alone. First of all, it is self-evident that no causality can be attached to the person who is taken up into this higher form of life, just as that higher form of life can in no way arise from the lower level of life on the part of one or more persons who are to be converted. On the other hand, we recognize that in community of life with Christ hereafter, as in the past, the convert does exercise self-initiated activity as an individual possessing one’s intellect and senses, though also persisting in the collective life of sin, also that everywhere, in the entirety of any moment, no living being can exist bereft of all self-initiated activity. Thus, two questions unavoidably arise. The first question is: How do certain naturally existing doings of the subject that are certainly present in the element called conversion relate to Christ’s influence in calling forth one’s change of heart and one’s faith? In contrast, the other question is How does the presupposed passive state during conversion relate to one’s subsequent self-initiated activity, in community with Christ?
With respect to the first question, in this instant of conversion we cannot consider the natural self-initiated activity of human beings as cooperative without diverging from our basic presupposition. To be sure, that which is already placed in a person by preparatory grace is cooperative in the process of conversion, but this activity is itself a part of the divine working of grace and does not belong to the person as one’s own doing.59 What proceeds from one’s own inner being could be cooperative only to the extent that the efficacious action of divine grace were really conditioned by these activities of one’s own. Now, to be sure, some such contingency is not to be denied. That is to say, the Word by which Christ’s influence is mediated can effect this mediation only inasmuch as it makes an impression on a person, for which impression activity both from one’s sense organs and from the internal functions of one’s consciousness are requisite. Hence, precisely inasmuch as the activity of all those functions would depend on a person’s free will, one’s capability for apprehending the Word must also rightly be attributed to a person in one’s natural condition.60 We cannot admit any natural cooperation of a person, however, to what occurs after the Word has made its impression on one’s psyche—that is, to the Word’s attaining its purpose in a person. Even the consent that accompanies one’s reception of the divine Word can be ascribed only to the workings of grace that preceded it, inasmuch as that consent is directed to what is essential and distinctive in that Word.
Suppose, on the other hand, that someone should regard a person’s natural activity during Christ’s exercise of influence on one’s conversion to be that of resistance. Then that natural resistant activity would have to be, if not exactly one of disparagement, then at least one of indifference. That is, a person’s activity would continue to be directed elsewhere and would have a null effect on Christ’s influence. If, however, conversion should take place when a person is in a state of resistance, it would at least not occur by virtue of the Word’s being received in this way. Consequently, an assumption that there is no relation whatsoever between one’s own activity and Christ’s higher influence also leads to no satisfactory result. The remaining task, then, is to find a state of activity that stands in some relation to Christ’s influence and that would nonetheless be neither one of resistance nor one of cooperation.
Now, suppose that we start with the cooperation that we have already granted to be an activity that precedes one’s apprehension of the Word, namely, one of organic functioning, and from a minimum of resistance, namely, a directing of one’s will elsewhere, which we have already discounted. It is evident, then, that the latter activity cannot coexist with the former. Thus, that cooperation of the psyche’s organs to the end of apprehending the Word also already entails concurrence of the will. This concurrence, however, is nothing more than an acquiescence to Christ’s influence or the release of a vital receptivity to it.61 Accordingly, it wholly corresponds to our task to note this intermediate factor—to which we repair in all similar cases and which is a passive state, yet nonetheless includes in itself that minimum of self-initiated activity which belongs to every complete element of experience. Even so, one entirely ruins the resolution of this task if one, in turn, splits receptivity into an active factor and a passive one and would validate only the passive factor.62 This is so, in that one must then still account for yet another simultaneous self-initiated activity, since the same old difficulty then returns.
Now, let us go back to the other question. It is clear, at the outset, that generally the life of the Redeemer, as such, is one only of activity and not passivity at all, because his life is exclusively determined by the being of God in him. Thus, in community of life with him too, no element can be strictly one of passivity, because therein everything that proceeds from him and becomes an impetus is activity, of necessity. Self-initiated activity occurring in community of life with Christ therefore begins, at the same time and without any intervening interval, with one’s being taken up into that life in common. As a result, one can say that conversion is nothing but the evocation of this self-initiated activity in union with Christ. That is, a person’s vital receptivity immediately passes over into enlivened self-activity. Every heightening of that vital receptivity is a work of preparatory divine grace; however, by that grace which effects conversion that receptivity is immediately transformed into enlivened self-initiated activity. Suppose, however, that we trace the first feature further back from the point where it makes its appearance as already heightened by the effects of preparatory grace and ask: In its very first beginnings, then, wherein would the vitality whereby it is distinguished from a state of passivity consist? Then there is surely no alternative but to point out one’s longing for communion with God, which, even if it may press back so close to the boundary of unconsciousness, is nevertheless never entirely snuffed out, a longing that also belongs to the original perfection of human nature. Thus, in that we deem this longing to be the first point of contact for all the workings of divine grace, we exclude only that passivity which is entirely, thoroughly incompatible with human nature, a passivity by virtue of which a human being is said to be like inanimate objects in the process of conversion.63 Thereby, however, we do not take exception to anything that we have already ascribed to the grace of God in Christ within our Christian self-consciousness. This is the case, for sheer longing is no deed; rather, it is simply the anticipatory feeling64 of a possible deed under the presupposition of a stimulus that would come from elsewhere. Indeed, it is simply the same as what is manifested in a person as the felt need for redemption, without which felt need there also could not logically be any lack of pleasure regarding sinfulness in general. Rather, generally at this point there would have to be only self-consolation in the face of sin’s inevitability.
Thus, this longing is simply the ineradicable residual presence65 in the human race of that original divine communication which constitutes human nature. Consequently, this divine communication does not, in and of itself, provide for the contrast between nature and grace; rather, it provides for that contrast only inasmuch as it is raised to the point of being the determinative power. Indeed, the parallel between the emergence of the divine life within us and the Redeemer’s becoming a human being66 is demonstrated here as well. That is to say, the passivity of human nature in that element of our lives would have been just as vital a receptivity for an absolutely powerful God-consciousness—indeed, a longing, as it were, to be grasped and determined by such a consciousness of God as would have changed into a person-forming, self-initiated activity by means of that creative act in Christ. Likewise, then, this longing is raised to the point of self-initiated activity that constitutes a coherent new life by means of Christ’s self-communication in conversion.
1. Ed. note: On the essential Christian view of “faith” and being in community with Christ as communication of his perfection and blessedness, see OR (1821) V, supplemental note 14. See also CF §§89.2, 105.2, 107.1, and index.
2. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 44; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 67. For clearer understanding more text is given here and in the next quotation on this subject, and what Schleiermacher selected is placed in italics.
3. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 191; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 257.
4. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 251f., 257; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 262f., 267. This is the Swiss confession mentioned just below. Cf. note at §37n3. This quotation exactly follows Schleiermacher’s own extensive selection. The final two quotations here also exactly follow his own text.
5. Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice; Latin: CR 28:391; Schleiermacher here refers to the edition in Symbole (1816), 147.
6. Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin: CR 21:749. See §32n16.
7. Buße.
8. Bekehrung.
9. Aversio.
10. Sinnesänderung. Ed. note: That is, change of one’s inner sensibility (Sinn) or disposition (Gesinnung).
11. Zerknirschung.
12. Reue.
13. Ed. note: On ascetic language and practice, see §105n50. For the present context, the “ascetic” part of “devotional” usage seems to be more acceptable compared with that which has strayed from genuine community of life with Christ, which would be more suspect for Schleiermacher.
14. Apology Augsburg (1531) 12: “We must show that Scripture makes them the chief parts in repentance or conversion.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 193; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 259.
15. Apology Augsburg (1531) 12: “Wherever Paul describes conversion, … he almost always distinguishes these two parts, putting to death [mortificationem] and making alive [vivificationem]. … Therefore, these are the two parts, contrition and faith.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 194; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 260.
16. §74.
17. Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 15: “Faith receives Christ.” Ed. note: The statement continues: “Our righteousness … attributes everything to the grace of God in Christ …, for it is the gift of God.” ET Cochrane (1972), 256; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 267. Cf. note at §37n3.
18. Kenntnis.
19. Roman Catechism (Catechismus Romanus, 1566), praefatio q. 27, 8f.: “For since the end that was intended for the blessedness of humankind is higher than can be perceived with the sharpness of the human mind, it was necessary for the human being to receive knowledge of it from God. This knowledge is, in turn, nothing other than faith.” Pars 2, de poenitentia q. 8, 223: “But in whom it causes to repent, faith goes before penitence. It is necessary … and happens from it so that in no way can faith be called a part of penitence.” Ed. note: ET Kienzles. Schleiermacher used a reprint of the first edition: … jussu primum editus, editio iterata (Loewen, 1678), 8f., 223; many revised versions have since appeared. Cf. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1852 ed.), 9, 259. The title is a popular shorthand for an exposition titled Catechismus Romanus ex decreto Concilii Tridentini. The council itself met sporadically from 1543 to 1563. Versions of the initial catechism are numbered differently.
20. Überzeugung. Ed. note: As it is formed, this word certainly suggests some movement or response or other exercise of will, but in the particular usage referred to at this point, it sticks with mere information, or belief, based on instruction.
21. Ed. note: Meanings of the word geistig run through a range from purely “spiritual”—in this instance also joining thinking and acting to one’s basic feeling in repentance and faith—all the way to strongly “intellectual.”
22. Reue. Ed. note: This state can also be variously referred to as regret or remorse, which, as the next note indicates, can rise to a terrifying degree, though it does not have to do so.
23. Apology Augsburg (1531) 12: “Putting to death involves genuine terrors … which nature could not endure unless it were raised up by faith. Thus, what we usually call contrition, Paul (Col. 2:11) calls putting off the body of sins, because in these troubles our natural lust is purged away.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 194; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 260.
24. Anschauung. Ed. note: Or “beholding” or “vision.”
25. Wiedergeburt. Ed. note: In this book otherwise referred to as “regeneration.”
26. Ed. note: Such a consciousness is ruhend: to be regarded as profoundly at rest, restful, almost static in one’s quietly moving only to receive, hence “peaceful.”
27. Apology Augsburg (1531) 12: “Making alive [vivificatio intelligi] should … be understood … as consolation [consolatio] that truly sustains a life that flees [sin] in contrition.” Ed. note: ET: Book of Concord (2000), 194; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 260. Schleiermacher’s own word here is aufrichtendes, which literally means picking one straight up, uplifting; hence, it also figuratively means heartening or putting fresh heart into a person, or, as in the quoted text, it is revivifying or consoling, so that one no longer feels the need to flee from one’s state. All this language, and that which directly follows, reflects an inner state often reported as a recurring characteristic of contemplative experience.
28. Verlangen. Ed. note: As immediately described in two forms, this stretching out of the self seems to be further compounded by a corresponding inner twofold sense of demand and calling, another two meanings of this word.
29. Sinnesänderung. Ed. note: Or the “turning about” of one’s sensibility, a phrase reflected in the term “conversion.”
30. Buße. Ed. note: This word too can mean “penitence,” which would fit well, for example, when the church year includes a special day, Bußund Bettage, as in the German Evangelical churches.
31. Belebung. Ed. note: Or “resurrection,” as at Easter.
32. The expression “prevenient grace” is ever inexact, since in consequence of our general category all divine grace is always prevenient, and so it would be more accurate to say “preparatory” here.
33. Ed. note: “Prevenient” translates zukommende. In §108n32 Schleiermacher has introduced the contrasting concept of “preparatory” (vorbereitende) grace, which he prefers, especially in this context. See the index for uses of this latter concept elsewhere.
34. Ed. note: See John 3:3–8.
35. Ed. note: This unassigned allusion to a requirement of an earlier Halle pietism, taught by August Hermann Franke (1663–1727), is quoted at this spot in the first edition, KGA I/7.2, 123f. Peiter then refers to its source in Walch, vol. 5 (1739), 476–82, 491–503, 553–95, and 910–35.
36. Ed. note: On other qualifications for being dubbed “a Christian,” see OR (1821) V, supplementary note 8. The closest Schleiermacher gets to such a qualification in CF appears here, where the concept “the true Christian” appears, requiring a struggle to reach authentic inner repentance and the emergence as the beginnings of development in inner faith through conversion, and in an account on baptism (§137).
37. Ed. note: This discussion has culminated in an allusion to what Schleiermacher does with the term Wehmut, not directly used here. Translated “tugging sadness and longing” in other contexts, in his view Wehmut tends to be admixed with joy (Freude) in varying degrees throughout the Christian life. The term is used by his character Karoline in Christmas Eve Celebration (1806, 1827) and in several passages of On Religion (1821) II, supplemental note 14, and IV, supplemental note 14.
38. Ed. note: “Rebirth” translates Wiedergeburt, as does “regeneration” in all that follows. These two words for Wiedergeburt are intended to mean the same thing, the first word perhaps in a more obvious, literal fashion.
39. Versinnlichung.
40. Ed. note: Here, for the first time, a term is directly assigned to the grace that succeeds “preparatory” (vorbereitende) grace, namely, that which brings the “new life” of the gospel: belebenden Gnade.
41. In the Apology Augsburg (1531) one may compare its entire treatment of the concepts “penitence” (Buße), “confession,” and “satisfaction” (Genugtuung). Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 12 (Repentance), 183–218; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 152–91.
42. Apology Augsburg (1531) 2: “He (Luther) even added about the material element that when the Holy Spirit is given through baptism, he begins to put concupiscence to death and to create [Schleiermacher adds “(obviously meaning ‘begins to create’)”] new impulses in the human creatures.” 9: “Therefore it is necessary to baptize little children in order that the promise of salvation might be applied to them.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 117, 184; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 154, 247. See also §138.
43. (1) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 20: “All these things are assured by baptism, for inwardly we are regenerated, purified and renewed by God through his Holy Spirit and outwardly we receive the assurance of the greatest gifts,” etc. (2) Gallican Confession (1559) 35: “Although it is a sacrament of faith and penitence, … the children of believing parents should be baptized.” Ed. note: (1) ET Cochrane (1972), 282; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 290. Cf. note at §37n3. (2) ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 379f.; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 338 On these connections between baptism, Holy Spirit, and regeneration, see also §§107.2, 109.2, 121.1–2, 123.2–3, 124, and 136–37.
44. Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 9: “In regeneration the understanding is illumined by the Holy Spirit in order that it may understand both the mysteries and the will of God.” Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 238; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 250. Cf. note at §37n3.
45. Calvin, Institutes (1559) 4.16.20: “Infants are baptized into future repentance and faith, and even though these have not yet been formed in them, the seed of both lies hidden within them by the secret working of the Spirit.” Ed. note: ET Battles (1960), 1343; Latin: Opera selecta 5 (1926), 324, and CR 30:990.
46. Ed. note: Cf. §§102–3 regarding Christ’s “prophetic office.”
47. Ed. note: Later, in treating of “the essential and inalterable basic characteristics of the church” in its relationship to the world (§§127–47), after considering the authority of Scripture he inserts “ministry of” (Dienst, literally, “service to”) “the divine Word” (§§133–35) before discussing the other characteristics: baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the office of the keys, and prayer in Jesus’ name. These are all characteristics of the community of faith, not of the clergy alone.
48. (1) Augsburg Confession (1530) 5: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of preaching, … thereby … as through means, … the Holy Spirit … produces faith … in those who hear the gospel.” (2) Schmalkaldic Articles (Luther, 1537), Part 3.8: “It must be firmly maintained that God gives no one his Spirit or grace apart from the external Word that goes before. [Schleiermacher adds: “And it is to be noted that here communication of the Spirit is described as a result.”] … We say this to protect ourselves from the enthusiasts, … who boast that they have the Spirit apart from and before contact with the Word.” (3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 14: “By repentance we understand the recovery of a right mind in sinful man, awakened by the Word of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit.” 16: “And this faith is a pure gift of God which God alone of his grace gives to his elect. And this he does by the Holy Spirit by the means of the preaching of the gospel.” (4) Gallican Confession (1559) 25: “Now as we enjoy Christ only through the gospel … ” (5) Belgic Confession (1561) 24: “We believe that this true faith, being wrought in man by the hearing of the Word of God and the operation of the Holy Ghost, doth regenerate and make him a new man.” Ed. note: (1) ET Book of Concord (2000), 40; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 57. Schleiermacher’s quotation has “the Holy Spirit awakes, comforts hearts and gives faith.” (2) ET Book of Concord (2000), 322; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 453f. (3) Here Schleiermacher deletes the word “elect.” ET Cochrane (1972), 251, 257f.; Latin alone: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 268. Cf. note at §37n. (4–5) ET Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 374, 410; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 338, 375. Regarding the Holy Spirit, see also §116n1.
49. (1) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 1: “For although ‘no one can come to Christ unless he be drawn by the Father’ (John 6:44) and unless the Holy Spirit inwardly illuminates him, yet we know that it is surely the will of God that his Word should be preached outwardly also. God could indeed, by his Holy Spirit or by the ministry of an angel, without the ministry of St. Peter, have taught Cornelius,” etc. … “At the same time, we recognize that God can illumine whom and when he will, even without the external ministry,” etc. (2) First Helvetic Confession (1536) 14: “This church … is constituted by external signs, customs and ordinances which Christ himself has instituted and ordered by the Word of God as a general, public and orderly discipline … so that no one is numbered to it without these things.” Ed. note: (1) ET Cochrane (1972), 225; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 238. Cf. note at §37n3. (2) ET Tice, drawn from the original German and Latin versions in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 215, cf. Cochrane(1972), 105.
50. Ed. note: Here, as elsewhere, öffentlichen can mean either “official” or “public,” and Dienst can mean either “ministry” or “service” (here “of” or “to the Word”).
51. Ed. note: See also §§41.1 and 103.4 on Christ’s appearance as itself the one great miracle.
52. John 17:20. Ed. note: John 17:20–21 RSV reads: “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” See also §104 on Christ’s high-priestly office.
53. Rom. 10:17; Titus 1:3.
54. Schwärmer. Ed. note: As in some confessional statements from the Reformation period, the specific reference is to certain so-called Anabaptist fanatics who were said to hold a kind of Jesus religion in which Christ was said to communicate directly and personally to people’s inner selves independent of any mediation of the Word. This was called Schwämerei—at best a fringe fanaticism, a dubious and even dangerous brand of “enthusiasm” (as just below). Schleiermacher always expressed respect for churches that were harboring such views, nonetheless. By 1830 he was proposing that they be welcomed into the united Evangelical church.
55. Ed. note: The general allusion here is likely to enthusiast sects making such special claims, to which the name Illuminati (here Erleuchtern, not Erleuchteter) was then and still is applied, particularly to a Masonic brotherhood called Illuminati, modeled by its Jesuit founder Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) after largely Jesuit principles.
56. Ed. note: See Brief Outline §57, where separatism is defined as “a weakening of the impetus to community” and a “disease” of the Christian church. See also its context, within the “polemics” aspect of philosophical theology in §§54–62, and §234 there. In CF see esp. §§87.3, 121.1, and 126.1.
57. Ed. note: On “converting” people, see OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 7, and V, supplementary note 10. See also CF §113.3.
58. Ed. note: See §105. Thus, in the paragraph just below, “the workings of Christ” refers to the “three offices” (munus triplex) of Christ, which are used to explicate his work (§§100–105), and his “personal existence” refers to the exposition of Christ’s person in §§93–99. To preserve the entire reference, the phrase “to his high-priestly activity and finally” could have been added above, for its traditional part in the threesome could be taken for granted. However, the two offices that Schleiermacher cites here are more readily understood, whereas the high-priestly office would require much reinterpretation to be acceptable, in his view.
59. Solid Declaration (1577) 2: “It follows from this … that as soon as the Holy Spirit has begun his work of rebirth and renewal in and through the word and the holy sacraments, it is certain that on the basis of his power we can and should be cooperating with him, though still in great weakness. This occurs not on the basis of our fleshly natural powers but on the basis of the new powers and gifts which the Holy Spirit initiated in us in conversion.” Actually, this claim must apply more to the period after conversion than to the period before it. Ibid.: “By oneself or by one’s natural capacity no human being can confer anything to one’s conversion or affix anything additional to it.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 556, 561; Latin and German Bek. Luth. (1963), 897f., 910. In the final citation the Book of Concord editors insert the following claim instead of Schleiermacher’s quotation found above: “ [Luther says that] human beings conduct themselves in their conversion ‘pure passive’ (that is, they do absolutely nothing at all) but only endure what God effects in them.”
60. Solid Declaration (1577) 2: “People have a free will to a certain extent even after the fall, so that they may … listen or not listen to the Word of God.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 552; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 892.
61. Ed. note: The choice of terms is important here. “Concurrence” translates Zustimmung; “acquiescence” translates Sich-Hingeben (or giving over of oneself, or surrender); “release” translates Freilassen. All of these terms, like “receptivity” (Empfänglichkeit), suggest an altogether passive, yet in the sense indicated somewhat active, state. That is, even in a passive state the psyche’s organs do not shut down.
62. Among others, cf. Johann Gerhard (1582–1637), Loci (1610–1622, ed. 1764) 5, 113, and Solid Declaration (1577) 2: Luther is said “to call this a capacity, not active but passive,” though the latter phrase is not in Luther’s words. Ed. note: ET cf. Book of Concord (2000), 548, where the phrase is omitted, as Schleiermacher notes here, and where an explanatory note indicates that in the final German draft of 1577 the phrase was omitted, but it was present parenthetically in earlier drafts and in the Latin translation of 1584. In parentheses it remains in Bek. Luth. (1963), 882.
63. Solid Declaration (1577) 2: “But before people are … renewed [regeneratur] by the Holy Spirit … they cannot in and of themselves … begin, effect or accomplish [inchoare, operati aut cooperari] anything in spiritual matters, any more than a stone, a block of wood or piece of clay.” Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 548f.; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 882. See also §63.2 on this point.
64. Vorgefühl. Ed. note: Or presentiment.
66. Menschwerdung. Ed. note: In English this word can also mean “incarnation,” though somewhat misleadingly. That is, that Christ “became a human being” does not necessarily imply that he was a preexistent spirit that assumed a human body.
§109. Second Doctrinal Proposition: Regarding Justification. God’s justifying the person who is converting includes God’s forgiveness of the person’s sins and God’s recognizing the person as a child of God. However, this turning about in the person’s relationship to God truly occurs only insofar as the person has genuine faith in the Redeemer.
(1) Augsburg Confession (1530) IV: “Likewise, they teach that human beings cannot be justified before God by their own powers, merit or works, but they are justified as a gift on account of Christ’s sake through faith.”1
(2) Tetrapolitan Confession (1530) III: “Our preachers have taught that this whole justification is to be ascribed to the good pleasure of God and the merit of Christ and to be received by faith alone.”2
(3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XV: “To justify means to remit sins, to absolve from guilt and punishment, to receive into favor, and to pronounce a man just. … Now it is most certain that all of us are by nature sinners … and that, solely by the grace of Christ and not from any merit of ours …, we are justified. … We receive this justification not through any works but through faith …, we therefore teach … that sinful man is justified by faith alone in Christ.”3
(4) Gallican Confession (1559) XVIII: “We believe that all our justification rests upon the remission of our sins, in which also is our only blessedness. … we rest simply in the obedience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us as much to blot out all our sins as to make us find grace and favor in the sight of God.” XX: “We believe that we are made partakers of this justification by faith alone. … Thus, our justification through faith depends upon the free promises by which God declares and testifies his love to us.”4
(5) Belgic Confession (1561) XXII: “However, to speak more clearly, we do not mean that faith itself justifies us, for it is only an instrument with which we embrace Christ our righteousness.” XXIII: “We believe that our salvation consists in the remission of our sins for Jesus Christ’s sake, and that therein our righteousness before God is implied.”5
(6) John 1:12; Gal. 3:26 and 4:5.6
1. Even in their treatment of this particular subject, the language usage of the confessional symbols cited here does not agree exactly, and thus that of our proposition also does not uniformly agree with them all. Some of these writings use “justification” as the broader concept, as we do, while others use “forgiveness of sin” instead, positing therein our entire state of blessedness, and if justification is then still supposed to be a particular doctrine, it has to be subsumed under forgiveness of sin. For all that, it is evident that in and of itself forgiveness of sin is simply the overcoming of something negative in nature and thus cannot be the designation used for the entire state of blessedness. Based even on our standpoint, strictly speaking only a former relationship to God would be overcome by forgiveness of sin, but no new relationship would be set in its place unless it had already existed earlier. This is so, for otherwise, given that the one had forgiven the other, the two would remain just as separated as they were before.
Now, the expression “justification” does have a more positive ring to it when applied to the same procedure in an investigation into someone’s conduct. Yet, here a special reference to one’s having-been-in-the-right is inconceivable. Thus, the expression is already more suitable if a corresponding positive feature is juxtaposed with that negative one, as appears in the Augsburg Confession. Alternatively, it is also more suitable if it designates the whole proceeding and also permits of our expecting a positive feature alongside forgiveness of sin, as is preferred here. The latter designation was preferable, because where sin has to be presupposed, an act of justification, however it might arise, has to include forgiveness of sin in it. However, in that something else is then contained in the act of justification, the remaining task is to show what that other feature is in particular. Several confessions do express this positive feature. The rest express this more positive feature in a rather indefinite and troublesome fashion, at the same time, by saying that people find favor with God by receiving grace.7 The language used is indefinite, because what “being received” contains is not defined. It is troublesome because the same expression, “grace,” which is everywhere used in this region of faith-doctrine for divine activity, is used here only for its result.
Indisputably, our way of designating this positive feature is more definite. Yet, even though the relation of “filiation,” or “adoption,”8 is frequently set forth among teachers of faith-doctrine, it appears so little in this locus within the confessional symbols that we have had to refer to scriptural passages in which such an expression is most definitely grounded and indeed in the same context. Our designation does indeed have one drawback, namely, that linguistically it interconnects neither with the general term “justification” nor with the other, particular term “forgiveness of sin.” This drawback, however, will have disappeared once the facts of the matter are properly discussed.
Talk about “justification” in the Roman church completely diverges from that in the Evangelical church. This is the case, in that the Roman church does not deal with justification as a correlate of conversion and thus does not subsume it with conversion under regeneration; instead, it customarily places justification rather more generally than regeneration, embracing both justification and sanctification at the same time. If we then recall, on the other hand, that in the Roman church faith is placed before conversion, one can see how the two might be thought to belong together, so as to be able to bring faith and justification as far apart from each other as possible. Moreover, that being done, one could all the more readily present the justification of a human being as dependent on one’s sanctification. Yet, even apart from this consideration, it cannot be advisable completely to blot out the distinction between what the divine working9 on a human being is and what the divine working within a human being is. Above all, what is given in experience here is a person’s earlier life without divine influence,10 and thereby we are directed to the task of aptly distinguishing what follows, viewed as grounded in the turning point, from the turning-point itself, viewed as something that is what does the grounding.
2. For a self-consciousness that is resting in contemplation, justification is, nevertheless, the same thing as conversion is for self-consciousness that is passing over into voluntary movement. Thus, an analogy is to be expected between two aspects of the two modes of self-consciousness. Moreover, repentance, viewed as self-consciousness that is moved by one’s consciousness of sin, comes to rest in forgiveness of sin, just as faith, made active by love from its very emergence onward, is in thought one’s consciousness of being a child in relation to God, viewed as the same consciousness as that of being in community of life with Christ. For all that, as our proposition states, this analogy is not to be understood as if forgiveness of sin could also precede faith. Rather, it is to be understood only in such a way that forgiveness of sin marks the ending of one’s former condition, likewise in such a way that repentance and being a child in relation to God corresponds to the character of one’s new condition, just as faith does.
Now, to be sure, both forgiveness of sin and being a child in relation to God, like the two elements of conversion, namely, repentance and faith, depend on the activity of Christ taken as a whole. However, immediately and in themselves forgiveness of sin and being a child in relation to God do, nevertheless, express only the relationship of a person to God. In the collective life of susceptibility to sin, the individual simply as a human being has no relationship to God by virtue of God’s holiness and justice,11 other than one’s consciousness of being indebted to God and deserving punishment.12 It is obvious that this consciousness must then cease once community of life with Christ has arisen through and with faith.13 However, if one were to ask how this happens, the easiest way to answer, to be sure, would be to say that the longer and more uninterruptedly we are prompted by Christ, the sooner do we forget sin. This process would obtain, because sin would no longer appear, and it would not come into consciousness; then, our fault and our deserving punishment would not do so either.
Yet, this answer would mean, first, placing the change in our relationship to God at the very end of the process of sanctification, with the result that consciousness of one’s deserving punishment, consequently of one’s lack of blessedness as well, would have to continue to accompany sanctification. Then, however, to forget one’s fault would not also include consciousness that our sin is forgiven, for even if this forgiveness were simply the overcoming of an earlier consciousness of sin, that consciousness would still be a real one, in which recollection of sin would be an essential component. Thus, if justification and conversion were taken to be simultaneous, then forgiveness of sin would have to be posited as existing in us while sin and consciousness of sin are still there. Yet, to be sure, if the relation of sin to God’s holiness and justice is to cease, sin and the consciousness of sin would have to have become something different.
Now, the new human being is one who has then got taken up into community of life with Christ to the extent that one then is taken possession of by this consciousness of sin; for this person, consciousness of sin and of reception into this community of life comprise one and the same consciousness. Thus, in this new human being sin is no longer functional.14 Rather, it exists simply as an aftereffect or repercussion of the old human being. Thus, the new human being no longer makes sin one’s own and also operates against it as against something alien. Thereby one’s consciousness of fault is thus dissolved.
Herewith, however, it is the case that one’s consciousness of deserving punishment must, in part, already be disappearing. Further, in part, it is the case that within one’s community of life with Christ lies the willingness and right to share in Christ’s suffering, something that might yet arise in uncertain future circumstances immediately. It would be simply irreconcilable with these cases for the new human being to deem social evils, even less to deem natural evils, to be punishments for sin15 or even to fear any punishment yet to come. This is so, since the new human being is indeed also taken up into community with Christ’s kingly office.16 In this way, moreover, on account of one’s faith, consciousness of sin comes to be consciousness regarding forgiveness of one’s sin.17 As concerns this second feature, it is not possible for Christ to live in us unless the relationship he has to his Father is being formed within us as well. Consequently, we participate in Christ’s relationship of Son to the Father, which by the impression Christ makes on us empowers us to be children of God. This empowerment, moreover, includes the guarantee of sanctification. Such is the case, for the right inherent in being children is directed to being reared to free cooperative activity within a household, and the natural law of being a child so reared lies in a likeness to the father also developing in children through that context of life.18
Thus, it is not possible to sever these two features from each other—that is, community with Christ and forgiveness of sin. This is the case, for divine adoption of human beings without forgiveness of sin would be futile, since penal desert would beget fear and fear would beget enslavement.19 Furthermore, no constancy of one’s relationship to God would be obtained by forgiveness of sin without an attendant adoption. However, in this inseparability both features comprise the entire swing of human beings’ relationship to God, which in combination with putting off the old human being is called “forgiveness of sin” and in combination with putting on the new human being is called “adoption.” In addition, the two features are also mutually conditioned by each other, in such a way that one can regard each of the two features, forgiveness of sins and adoption, as occurring before or after the other. That is to say, on the one hand, the feeling one has regarding one’s old life seems to have to be eradicated20 before feeling regarding the offering of the new life can be formed. On the other hand, only in the new life does one have the right and necessary force to cast off the old life.21 Thus, one can quite correctly say that once one’s sins are forgiven one has been taken into being a child of God, and that once one has been taken into being a child of God one obtains forgiveness of one’s sins.
3. This presentation of the matter will not easily be subject to the misunderstanding which holds that each individual would justify oneself. It cannot be misunderstood in this way in that the presentation does indeed refer everything back to Christ. Yet, in that it also draws justification entirely from the process of conversion, it would also seem that this presentation would wholly and fully ascribe justification as well as conversion to Christ, and thus it would entirely correspond to the fact that the two aspects of regeneration relate to each other just as do the communication of Christ’s perfection and the communication of his blessedness thus entirely refer back to Christ himself. This position could also be justified by a confessional symbol.22 At the same time, however, it would, nevertheless, seem to diverge entirely from the now prevailing manner, in which justification goes back to a singular divine activity and in which forgiveness of sins and adoption are ascribed in a special way to God.23 Moreover, these current procedures are also present in what we are predisposed to say, inasmuch as justification is described as an alteration in human beings’ relationship to God. Therewith, of course, the activity involved must belong to God, whereas a human being can be thought to be only in a passive state.24
Now, as regards the latter point, concerning our drawing of the doctrine of justification from the process of conversion, we have already placed our presentation as closely tied to the now-prevailing presentation of doctrine by showing that nothing that has come to belong to it would, as it were, already be ascribed in advance to the self-initiated activity of the one converted, although it might seem that what has been conditioned by Christ and drawn out by his stimulus would apply, as if the process of justification were a part of sanctification or had issued from it. Rather, what we have done is to draw justification based entirely on Christ’s influence, which brings about faith through living receptivity.
As regards the first point, namely, deriving everything from Christ’s influence, we must see how the formulation regarding a divine act of justification relates to formulations set forth earlier.
At this point, the following is clear, first of all, that we cannot think this divine act to be at all independent of Christ’s efficacious action in conversion as if the one could exist without the other. This likewise follows from what has been said, in that we have considered justification of itself and conversion to be conditioned by each other. Ecclesial formulations that present faith as the receptive organ for this divine act also hold to this mutual conditioning. The reason is, if this act were not received, faith would indeed come to nothing.25 Frequently, in ascetic prose and poetry this interconnection is presented in relation to Christ’s advocacy to God,26 as if Christ had indicated to God the one in whom Christ wrought faith and recommended that God now bestow forgiveness of sins and the status of being children of God on that person. In such an account poetic expression would be very conspicuous. That is to say, it would be a strongly sensory matter if we were to imagine Christ’s pointing out something for God to do. Neither in the positive formulation nor in the previous negative one, however, does there lie any sort of dependence of a divine act on Christ’s efficacy or on its outcome, not even in the mediating form of God’s activity having been motivated by Christ. This is so, for we have indeed already reckoned God’s being moved to act, regarding exactly when each individual is to be converted and at what time, not to the reign of grace, thus placing it in dependence on Christ, but to the reign of might27 and in dependence on God, just as precisely this activity indeed does involve the Father’s drawing toward the Son.
Second, suppose that we would want to speak as much as possible without any reliance on sensory material and with keen dogmatic rigor. In that case, we could, as little here as elsewhere, assume a temporal act from God ensuing in a single definitely identified element of life, and we could just as little assume that such an act would be directed at one individual. Rather, what could occur in this case is simply one particular and temporal effect of a divine act or decree, not the act or decree itself. That is, only insofar as that dogmatic treatment were to proceed based on the self-consciousness of an individual human being, and only insofar as this treatment were also to proceed based on self-consciousness regarding an alteration in one’s relationship to God, could we think of justifying divine activity in its relation to just one individual. Furthermore, because everyone would attach this alteration to others who are involved in it, that relation of justifying divine activity to a given individual would appear to be occurring at the very same time as it is occurring in others. Only to this extent and for this purpose would it be granted that such an individualized and temporalized divine activity is taking place. Yet, such a divine activity of justification should not be taken to be something that exists in and of itself, as if justification of each individual were rooted in some isolated divine decree. It should not be so taken even if one were to grasp it as coming from eternity and wanted to present it as entering into reality only at a definitely identified point in time.28 Instead, there is only one eternal and general divine decree regarding justification of human beings for Christ’s sake. This decree, in turn, is the same thing as Christ’s mission;29 otherwise this mission would have to have been thought up and decided by God but without its intended effect. In addition, this decree, in turn, is also simply at one with that decree regarding creation of the human race, inasmuch as the human race first reaches its perfect end30 in Christ. Moreover, since in God thinking and willing, willing and doing are functions not to be divided, all of this ensuing process is simply comprised of one divine act for the purpose of altering our relationship with God, the temporal manifestation of which is begun in Christ’s existence as a human being31 and from which the collective new creation of humanity proceeds. From there on, moreover, the temporal proclamation of this divine act is also truly constant, though in its effect it appears to us as though it were dispersed into many points, all separated from each other. These points are as numerous as may be posited to be the uniting of individual human beings with Christ.
If we now reflect on justification, observed in its two features, we must say, in like fashion, that to assume a particular decree regarding forgiveness of sin and adoption would mean placing God under the contrast between what is abstract and concrete or between what is general and what is particular, in that God’s decree of redemption would indeed be nothing other than a general one in relation to both features. Beyond that identification, however, for a human being, consciousness of fault and of deserving punishment is arranged by God only in relation to redemption. Thus, consciousness of fault and deserving punishment is arranged as a consciousness that is disappearing overall and for each one with the entrance of redemption into one’s life. Thus, no special divine decree or act is needed for cessation of fault and deserving punishment; rather, what is needed is only that consciousness of this cessation arise for the individual, and how this occurs in interconnection with conversion has been presented above. Likewise, with respect to adoption, that the human race is pleasing to God in God’s Son is already contained in the divine decree of redemption or of the new creation of the human race. Accordingly, no individual act that would make the individual a subject of divine love is needed; rather, only the consciousness of this relation has to arise in the individual, and this happens as described above. Hence, what we have to assume is simply one general divine act of justification in relation to redemption, one that is gradually realized in temporal fashion.
Third, our final point is not to be passed over in silence, namely, that this discussion might seem to conceal yet another divergence from the presentation of doctrine prevailing in our church. That is, this doctrine regards the divine act of justification to be declaratory in nature, namely, the one converted is declared by God to be just, and at the same time, there might seem to be no place whatsoever in the present explication of the matter for a contrast between our church’s pronouncement and what is expressed in the Roman church. However, this is how the matter actually stands: First, that expression, to be sure, reverts back to a plurality of acts or decrees of justification, which has been renounced here. The reason is that given the one general decree, one would not easily consider what is declaratory to be separated from it. Second, God would have ordained the Redeemer, because through him sin was to be taken away and human beings were to become children of God; and since in God thought and deed are at one, and God expresses thought by deed and deed propagates thought by means of proclamation, thus, any special act—as we would have to put it, despite all else—by which God would thus express to Godself what God does in yet another act would be something completely empty of meaning. This very form of self-address, frequently present in the Old Testament writings, is simply one of the indigenous anthropomorphisms that are applied to God. More closely observed, however, the form is not different from that applied in other particular declaratory acts. By itself, such a declaratory act could not prevent recurrence of peoples’ consciousness of being involved in breeding sin. By itself, moreover, it would be futile, as a declaration regarding one’s being a child of God would be at that point. The latter declaration, in and of itself, would not be in a position to hinder one’s becoming conscious of being a participant in enmity against God. Thus, it would be something realized only in an interconnection with an influence of Christ evoking conversion. However, if we were also to refer this process of conversion back to what God generally ordains, then the declaration would disappear again within all the arrangements of creation. Yet, one could rightly say that insofar as one’s consciousness of God’s forgiveness of sin and of one’s being a child of God emerges along with one’s faith, every act of conversion within a human being would itself be a declaration of God’s general decree to provide justification for Christ’s sake.
As regards our relationship to the Roman church, it might even seem to be the case that our contrast to it would lie in the declaratory constitution of God’s act of justification and only seem to be the case that the Roman church would scarcely agree to make its declaration in the way we have renounced this constitution of it here. This is so, for here it still continues to be our view that a human being is justified once faith has been wrought in that person.32 The Roman church’s contrary interest lies in its holding fast to the view that one first obtains justification by one’s works.
4. Finally, our being justified by faith is what marks this mode of doctrine as decisively Protestant. That is, the application of that aforementioned general act of divine justification to an individual human being is tied to and is conditioned by the emergence of faith. Viewed in this way, this mode of doctrine is indeed all the more necessary when justification is depicted as a merely declaratory act. This is so, because otherwise redemption of a given human being would easily be construed as an arbitrary act—that is, one directed toward that individual in a groundless manner.33 In any case, even if we were not to separate God’s efficacious act from God’s declaratory act, it would still be necessary to determine the point at which and the way in which justifying divine activity would reach completion in any individual.
Now, our proposition has three things to say on this matter. First, since with forgiveness of sin and becoming a child of God a person is an object of divine good pleasure and of divine love, one does not obtain this status except in one’s taking hold of Christ in faith.34 In no way does this process imply that previously one was an object of divine displeasure or wrath, for there is no such thing. Rather, the expression “overlook,” used in another passage,35 has its distinctive usage here, in that for God, an individual is previously not at all regarded as a person in this specific relation, but is treated only as a part of the whole mass of human beings. Out of this mass an individual first becomes a person36 through the ongoing work of God’s creative act from which the Redeemer himself has come. Since faith arises only through the efficacious action of Christ, the statement is well placed in our proposition that nothing in the natural makeup of a human being, nothing within oneself apart from the entire series of effects formed by means of grace mediated through Christ, alters one’s relation to God and brings about one’s justification. Consequently, it also states that no merit of any kind serves toward this end. It follows therefrom that prior to justification all human beings are equal before God, despite the unevenness of sins and of good works, and, correspondingly, this is surely also consistent with the self-consciousness of anyone who finds oneself in community with Christ when one looks back at one’s prior state within the collective life of sin.
Second, in accordance with what has been set forth above,37 if communication of Christ’s blessedness takes place in the process of justification, just as communication of Christ’s perfection takes place in the process of conversion, and just as nothing more has to be added to faith, then faith makes for blessedness, and indeed in such a way that this blessedness can be increased by nothing added to faith. This is the meaning of the statement that blessedness comes “by faith alone.”38 This is the case, for by any means whereby blessedness could be increased it would also have had to be able to arise. Indeed, this blessedness everywhere belongs to that which least admits of being more or less but remains as nearly uniform as possible. That is to say, union of what is divine with what is human in Christ has remained the same, nevertheless, during all exercise and further development. Thus, our union with Christ in faith always remains the same as well.
On the other hand, third, our presentation of how this matter stands does not, to be sure, lead to the customary formulations that faith would be the causa instrumentalis (instrumental cause) or the organon leptikon (receptive organ) for justification. Moreover, these formulations launch a great many misunderstandings, to be sure, and shed not much light on the subject. This is the case, for an “instrumental cause” does not belong at all, if viewed as something to be employed as an essential component in the course of the entire series of activities being considered here. Rather, having served as it could, it would be laid aside. In contrast, faith ever abides. On the other hand, a “receptive organ” belongs to the natural constitution of human beings. In this formulation it might seem as if faith were something that each individual must already contribute to make divine grace efficacious, whereas the only thing we have to bring along is our living receptivity,39 which is indeed the organ that truly receives grace. Moreover, it is perhaps this very formulation that has led many theologians to set forth the proposition that faith would have to be our own work and that only when it would be brought to completion could the workings of divine grace begin.
1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 39f.; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 56.
2. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 57; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 746.
3. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 257f.; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 266f.; cf. note at §37n3.
4. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 369–70 and 370–71; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 334, 337.
5. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 408 and 409; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 374 and 424.
6. Ed. note: Sermons only on John 1:6–13, May 4, 1823, SW II.8 (1837), 15–28, and John 1:12–17, Dec. 5, 1830, separately published in 1831, later in SW II.4 (1835), 195–208.
7. Durch Gnade-Erlangen zu Gnaden angenommen werden.
8. Kindschaft oder Adoption. Ed. note: The first term can refer to being in a relation of “child” to God or to being adopted as such by God.
9. Wirkung auf … Wirkung in. Ed. note: That is, what God does or effects toward versus in human beings.
10. Einwirkung.
11. Ed. note: Cf. §§83–84, where these divine attributes are discussed as the two attributes in relation to human sin.
12. Verschuldung gegen ihn und der Strafwürdigkeit. Ed. note: The first concept includes a judgment of being at fault or guilty (Schuld) for wrongdoing.
14. Ed. note: nicht mehr tätig—that is, sin has lost the energy it could once bear, its effectiveness as a cause of behavior, its “sting” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:56 RSV: “The sting of death is sin”; also §59.P.S.n34). As will be seen, it would be inappropriate to translate this word to mean no longer “active” at all, because sin is still part of one’s life as one develops in sanctification.
15. Rom. 8:28, 35–39. Ed. note: Sermon on John 15:9, 14–15, regarding the contrast between master and slave, which especially cites Rom. 8:28, Nov. 23, 1806, SW II.1 (1834), 251–65. See other references to this verse in §§84n15 and 104n34.
16. Ed. note: §§105 and 144 are devoted to Christ’s kingly office and participation in its activity by persons of faith. See also §§102, 104.5, and 106.2.
17. Ed. note: Here Christ’s high-priestly office and participation in its activity by persons of faith are also touched upon. See its explanation in §104 (see also §§102 and 141.2). The third office (Amt) of three (see §102) is Christ’s prophetic office, treated especially in §103 (see also §§102 and 133.2).
18. Ed. note: For Schleiermacher, this view of human development includes various models and influences from others as well as the child’s own distinctive individuality. Even in his still generally patriarchal era, this description intends children’s engagement in the household to rise constantly toward fulfilling the principles of equality and of love—most notably love that is benevolent, thus including love that is caring, parentally enabling of growth, respectful of persons, appreciative, and filially grateful. “Child rearing” and “education” chiefly translate the same German term (erziehen, Erziehung). Schleiermacher’s acclaimed, revolutionary views on both activities are expressed in a considerable number of extant teachings on lower and higher levels of education, and in the church his views and attitudes toward people at all levels of development, as in his oft-republished 1818 sermons The Christian Household (first published in 1820, ET 1991).
19. Knechtschaft. Ed. note: Think, literally, of a reduction of a person to a servile, “menial laborer” status, hence the status of mere servitude or slavery, of one who is in bondage to an owner or master. See the 1806 sermon on slave vs. masters, cited in §109n15 above. In this context, one is first enslaved to sin, beyond proper self-control, and is then released into what Paul calls “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).
20. Ed. note: Not surprisingly, this word (getilgt, tilgen) for eradicating also means to be redeemed—that is, released from its old status and replaced as a token of value or worth.
21. Ed. note: Here “cast off “ (entschlagen) can be used, as in Scripture, to refer to one who has died or to one who has renounced one’s old life—that is, “died to sin” and been “freed from sin” (Rom. 6:5, 7). Constantly, in the present doctrinal setting, Schleiermacher is drawing chiefly from a tradition that is generally to be traced back mostly to Paul, yoked here and there with roots that he traces back to what the Gospels (Evangels) record regarding “the Redeemer” (Christ, the Erlöser). Thus, within a generally Evangelical tradition, he is carrying out his announced plan for using the New Testament Scriptures in testimony to God’s work in Christ, though generally not proving text by text as an alternatively “biblical” theology might do.
22. Belgic Confession (1561) 22: “For it must needs follow either that all things which are requisite to our salvation are not in Jesus Christ or if all things are in him that then those who possess Jesus Christ through faith have complete salvation.” Ed. note: ET Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 408; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 374.
23. And this is also biblical insofar as we may presuppose that the term “to justify” as it is defined here corresponds to the Pauline term dikaiw=sai, which is made most strikingly clear in Rom. 8:33. Ed. note: This passage reads: “It is God who justifies.”
24. Ed. note: As always, in Schleiermacher’s discourse this claim of human “passivity” in relation to God’s gracious activity does not entail a complete inability to act as this divine activity proceeds. For him, the healthy human capacity for receptivity is always accompanied by a corresponding capacity for self-initiated activity. Nevertheless, divine grace is therefore to be received as a gift to which we cannot contribute except in our own free and active response. The meeting of the two forces in conversion and all the rest of the Christian life is seen to be reciprocal in this way. God is seen to will, act, thus to initiate by God’s own gift of grace, and then, by that same grace, even to cooperate with us in our own activity—in a relationship of community and communication with us in that subsequent activity. In this respect, Schleiermacher has attempted to keep the boundaries clear, as it were, between God and human beings, notably in his treatment of divine attributes throughout but also in his account of how Christ’s life would have been constituted. Accordingly, and without reservation, in his view we are born to be free—especially to respond to God’s activity of creation and preservation, as of reconciliation and redemption, in a feeling of absolute dependence on God for all that God has initiated and done. However, we can never fully exercise our freedom while in a state of hard-bound dependency such as we can have in regard to sin. He thus seeks, throughout this presentation of doctrine, to keep the general perspective already evidenced in the Introduction clear as a general frame for explication of all distinctively Christian doctrine.
25. Presentations in the confessional symbols also present this character of inseparable connection, though not infrequently in vacillating expressions, from which the facts of the matter clearly emerge only when one assigns oneself the task of balancing them out. Take this passage from the Second Helvetic Confession (1566) 15, for example: “Itaque iustificationis beneficium non partimur partim gratiae Dei vel Christo partim nobis … sed in solidum gratiae Dei in Christo per fidem tribuimus.” Ed. note: This statement was only partially quoted in Schleiermacher’s original note. The Cochrane translation smooths over the difference between vel (or) and in (in), and it is not immediately clear what the object of “faith alone” is supposed to include. Here is the full statement: “But because we receive this justification not through any works but through faith in the mercy of God and in [vel, “or”] Christ, we therefore teach and believe with the apostle that sinful man is justified by faith alone in [in] Christ, not by the law or any works.” ET Cochrane (1972), 256; Latin above: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 267. Cf. §37n3.
26. Vertretung Christi.
27. Reich der Macht. Ed. note: Referring to Almighty God’s omnipotence. See index on divine omnipotence and §§117–20 on election, which does depend on God’s drawing toward and rearing of Christ (Ziehen des Vaters zum Sohne).
28. Cf. Gerhard, Loci (1610–1622, ed. 1764) 4, p. 147.
29. Sendung. Ed. note: More nearly literal: God’s “sending” Christ into this world, which is a major traditional understanding. Schleiermacher’s own understanding of Christ’s mission and work does not require that an actually preexistent human being was sent by God but only that the event itself was to occur at the appropriate time (“when the time had fully come,” as it were, Gal. 4:4). For some, like Schleiermacher, this Christ event only metaphorically, not actually, divided the temporal order with respect to human beings, thus has occurred, as it were, “between the times.” That is, it is at the interpretive center of all time for human beings. As such, the Christ event is a critically important aspect of God’s own mission on behalf of humankind, the missio Dei.
30. Ed. note: vollendet, reflecting Schleiermacher’s meaning for the same term in other parts of speech, translated either “perfect, perfection, perfected, made perfect” or “completed,” etc., in this work. The root meaning is, literally, “fully reaching its intended end or goal,” thus his description of Christianity as a “teleological religion” in §11. For him, Judaism is the other most widely recognized religion of this type and is historically yoked with Christianity in this respect, yet quite separate by virtue of Christianity’s focus on “the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth,” himself a Jew but bringing a new covenant.
31. Menschwerdung Christi.
32. (1) Belgic Confession (1561) 24: “For it is by faith in Christ that we are justified, even before we do good works.” (2) Apology Augsburg (1531) 4: “Faith is the very righteousness by which we are reckoned righteousness before God … because it receives the promise … and because it knows that ‘Christ … God made for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.’” Ed. note: (1) ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 411; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 375. (2) ET Book of Concord (2000), 135; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 178. The quotation from 1 Cor. 1:30 is slightly altered to match Schleiermacher’s use of the Latin.
33. Ed. note: That is, however the individual might take it, such a groundless act would serve no discernibly general purpose on God’s part. This purpose has already been established in earlier subsections.
34. Calvin, Institutes (1559) 3.2.32: “But it is indisputable that no one is loved by God apart from Christ.” Ed. note: Battles (1960), 579; Latin: Opera selecta 4 (1967), 43, and CR 30:424f.
35. Ed. note: See §99.P.S. and Acts 17:30.
36. Augustine (354–430), Enchiridion (423–424) 99: “For it is grace alone that separates the redeemed from the lost, all having been mingled together in one mass of perdition from a common cause leading back to their origin.” Ed. note: ET Fathers of the Church 2 (1947), 452; Latin Migne Lat. 40:278 and Corpus Christianorum Lat. 46 (1969), 102.
38. Ed. note: Throughout the Reformation period and beyond, this statement is distinguished from any that added “good works” to the process of justification either before or after it. One is “made blessed” or “saved” (both translating seligmachend) only once the phase of reception by faith has been completed in conversion and once God has bestowed, at the same time, the gifts just mentioned through Christ’s agency.
39. Empfänglichkeit. Ed. note: This term means to receive an impression or what is impressed upon oneself. Here the term for “receives” is aufnehmende, which literally means “taking up” into oneself. In the present context, both terms bear the same, relatively passive, yet vital living connotation, something far short of being the single human product called a “work.” In Schleiermacher’s view, faith is still God’s work, but for human beings it is first a reception of that divine work in perception and feeling, which then leads to various active responses to God’s work expressed in thought and action. This schema is fully worked out for faith or religion conceived as the built-up nature of all “piety” in the successive three editions of On Religion (1799 to 1821), as well as in Christian Faith §§3–5, then throughout the work, in both editions (1821–22, then 1830–31).