Ss

sacerdos impeccabilis: sinless or impeccable priest; i.e., Christ in his priestly work of self-sacrifice, which required that he be a sinless offering given for the sins of the world. See anamartēsia; sacerdotium.

sacerdotium: priestly work or priestly office; either the priestly office in the nation of Israel under the old covenant or the priestly work of Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament office and his complete priestly and sacrificial offering for the sins of humanity. When applied to Christ, the sacerdotium or munus sacerdotale is one aspect of the threefold office (munus triplex, q.v.). The Protestant scholastics divide the sacerdotium into two functions: the satisfactio Christi, or satisfactio vicaria (q.v.), and the intercessio. The former term refers to the character of Christ’s death as a propitiatory and expiatory work, performed for the sake of appeasing the anger of God against sin and bearing the divine wrath in the place and on behalf of believers. The latter term refers to Christ’s prayers on behalf of believers—prayers both on earth (John 17) and now in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. See intercessio Christi; obedientia Christi; sufficientia.

sacramentaliter: sacramentally. See praesentia illocalis sive definitiva.

sacramentum: sacrament; in churchly usage, a holy rite that is both a sign and a means of grace (see media gratiae; organa gratiae et salutis). The sacraments are also defined by the scholastics as the visible Word of God, distinct but not separate from the audible Word or Holy Scripture. In the traditional Augustinian definition, a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace. The Reformers and the Protestant scholastics reject what they saw as the loose and improper view of sacraments held by the medieval doctors and the Roman Church and therefore reject also the medieval scholastic doctrine of seven sacraments. Properly and strictly (proprie et strictè) sacraments must have three characteristics: they must (1) be commanded by God (a Deo mandata), (2) have visible or sensible elements prescribed by God, and (3) apply and seal by grace the promise of the gospel (promissio evangelicae).

This strict definition applies to only two rites of the church: baptism (baptismus, q.v.) and the Lord’s Supper (coena sacra, q.v.). Other rites considered sacraments by Rome—confirmation, penance, ordination, and extreme unction—do not have the mandatum Dei, while marriage, also counted a sacrament, lacks the promissio evangelicae.

Protestant orthodoxy therefore defines a sacrament as a sacred action (actio) instituted by God that employs an external sign (signum) or element to confer on believers and seal to them by grace the promise of the gospel for remission of sins and life eternal. The Reformed orthodox develop this definition, together with the basic Augustinian definition cited above, in terms of a distinction between the visible signs and the thing signified (res signata), or thing of the sacrament (res sacramenti). Thus the visible sign points to Christ, the thing signified. This language is reflected in the Reformed view of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper as a spiritual presence (praesentia spiritualis), according to which the body and blood of Christ, now in heaven, are mediated to believers by the power of the Spirit. Such language, however, is not acceptable to the orthodox Lutherans inasmuch as it allows a separation of the signa and the res signata. Lutheran theologians prefer a distinction between the visible and invisible elements of the sacrament or between the external or earthly material and the heavenly material (materia coelestis, q.v.) of the sacrament. Christ is not merely represented and sealed but rather presented under the visible elements. The Reformed do insist on a sacramental union (unio sacramentalis) between sign and thing signified and can argue that, sacramentally, Christ is truly and substantially (substantialiter) given, but they also insist that Christ’s body remains locally in heaven.

Although the Reformers and Protestant orthodox theologians allow the practice of only the two New Testament sacraments instituted by Christ, they acknowledge a series of sacraments found in the Old Testament that are either nonrepeatable or specifically given to the Old Testament people of God and therefore not to performed in the Christian church. Thus, by identifying sacraments as visible signs of invisible grace and following the patristic tradition, the trees in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:16–17; 3:22)—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (arbor scientiae boni et mali, q.v.) and the tree of life (arbor vitae, q.v.)—are to be considered sacraments. So also is the rainbow that was given to Noah as a sign of the covenant (Gen. 9:12–17). Circumcision and Passover not only are sacraments specific to Israel but also are figures for baptism and the Lord’s Supper. See consecratio; forma sacramenti; Nihil habet rationem sacramenti extra usum a Christo institutum; praesentia illocalis sive definitiva; praesentia spiritualis sive virtualis; res sacramenti; sedes tropi; signum; unio sacramentalis; verbum institutionis.

sacramentum confirmationis: the sacrament of confirmation or confirmatory sacrament; in orthodox Protestant theology, the Lord’s Supper. See coena sacra; sacramentum initiationis.

sacramentum initiationis: the sacrament of initiation; i.e., baptism, as distinct from the sacramentum confirmationis, the sacrament of confirmation, by which Protestant theology indicates, not the ritual of confirmatio (q.v.), or confirmation, but the Lord’s Supper. Thus baptism marks the beginning of one’s life as a member of the church and is the necessary prerequisite for participation in the Lord’s Supper, while the Lord’s Supper itself serves, not as the initial means of grace, but as the continuing means, or medium, of grace that strengthens and confirms, by grace, the faith and the justification of the Christian before God. See coena sacra.

sacramentum regenerationis: sacrament of regeneration; i.e., baptism. See baptismus; sacramentum initiationis.

sacrarium: sacrarium or sacristy; viz., a place where holy or sacred things are kept; specifically, the place where the consecrated bread remaining after the celebration of the Eucharist is reserved for adoration. This usage is directly connected with the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation (transubstantiatio, q.v.) and is condemned by Protestants, Lutherans and Reformed alike.

sacrificium intellectus: sacrifice of the intellect.

sacrificium propitiatorium: propitiatory sacrifice; i.e., the death of Christ considered as a sacrifice that appeases or conciliates God. See obedientia Christi; satisfactio vicaria.

saeculum: age or era; the Latin equivalent of αἰών (aiōn). See consummatio saeculi.

salus aeterna: eternal salvation.

Salus extra ecclesiam non est: [There is] no salvation outside of the church; a famous maxim from Cyprian of Carthage. See Extra ecclesiam non sit salus.

Salvator: Savior; also Salvator mundi, Savior of the world, a title of Christ.

sanctificatio: sanctification; viz., the gracious work of God, accomplished in believers by the grace of the Spirit, following and resting on faith and justification, by means of which believers are drawn out of their corruption toward holiness of life. Sanctification is therefore distinct from iustificatio (q.v.), or justification. Whereas the medieval scholastics did not distinguish iustificatio from sanctificatio and viewed the former as consisting in both the reckoning righteous and the making righteous of believers (see iustitia infusa), the Reformers’ teaching of justification by grace alone through faith and apart from works led orthodox Protestantism toward a strictly forensic concept of justification and toward the conclusion that actual righteousness or holiness in believers and the resultant good works are not part of justification but belong to a distinct aspect of the ordo salutis (q.v.), sanctification. Sanctification, then, represents an actual change in a person, indeed the renewal and renovation (renovatio, q.v.) of the person according to the imago Dei (q.v.), or image of God. Thus the scholastic Protestants describe the sinful corruption of the image as sanctification’s terminus a quo, or beginning, and the restoration of the imago as sanctification’s terminus ad quem, or end. Sanctificatio, therefore, begins with conversio (q.v.), or conversion, and continues throughout the life of the believer. The mortification and vivification that belong to conversio also belong to sanctificatio as the basic form of Christian life, dying to the world and living the new life in Christ. Since it is the continuation of regeneration or conversion, sanctification is sometimes called conversio continuata (q.v.).

The Protestant scholastics further distinguish between sanctification broadly and strictly defined: (1) Sanctificatio latè dicta, or sanctification loosely considered, indicates the entire gracious work of the Spirit in the believer. (2) Sanctificatio strictè dicta, or sanctification strictly defined, refers directly to the problem of the corrupted imago Dei and the old Adam in believers and is defined as the negative renovation (renovatio negativa), according to which believers daily die to sin and set aside the old Adam. (3) Sanctificatio strictissime dicta, or sanctification most strictly considered, is the actual renewal of the imago Dei or positive renovation (renovatio positiva) of the Christian, according to which the believer is actually made holy and, by the grace of the Spirit, cooperates willingly in the renewal of life and willingly does good works (bona opera). The Protestant orthodox, Lutheran and Reformed, are unanimous in their teaching that perfect or total sanctification does not occur in this life. See terminus.

sanctio foederis: the sanction or ratification of the covenant; in Reformed federalism, the divine stipulations of salvation in return for obedience and judgment in return for disobedience. See confirmatio foederis; foedus gratiae; promulgatio foederis.

sanctitas: sanctity, holiness, inward or intrinsic righteousness; the sanctitas Dei, or holiness of God, refers to the absolute goodness of God’s being and willing. It is a sanctitas positiva, or positive holiness, both intrinsically, in the essential goodness and righteousness of God, and extrinsically, in the goodness and righteousness of God’s will toward his creatures, specifically in his will that all rational creatures be holy as he himself is holy. It is also a sanctitas negativa, or negative holiness, in the sense that the goodness and righteousness of God remain inviolate and eternally separate from all that is sinful or tainted in the created order. See iustitia Dei.

sanctus, -a, -um (adj.): holy.

Sanctus Spiritus: Holy Spirit; the Third Person of the Trinity. See Deus; Trinitas.

sanguis: blood, associated with the sanguinary disposition, one of the four primary bodily fluids in the older physiology and medicine. See humor.

sanguis Christi: the blood of Christ. See coena sacra; praesentia; sanguis corruptus.

sanguis corruptus: corrupted blood; a term used to describe fallen humanity in contrast with the uncorrupted and cleansing sanguis Christi, or blood of Christ, which is the λύτρον (lytron) redemptionis, or redemptive ransom, of corrupt humanity.

sapientia: wisdom; the Latin equivalent of σοφία (sophia). In scholastic philosophy and theology, sapientia denotes a knowledge of first principles and the conclusions that can be drawn from them, particularly a knowledge of the good and the true. It is, with intelligentia (q.v.), scientia (q.v.), ars (q.v.), and prudentia (q.v.), one of the natural virtues. Thus sapientia is the basis of distinctions between true and false in any specific body of knowledge. Sapientia is also numbered among the divine attributes. See omnisapientia; virtus.

satisfactio: satisfaction; a making amends or reparation; specifically, the making amends for sin required by God for forgiveness to take place. The work of satisfaction manifests the constancy of God’s justice or righteousness (see iustitia Dei) while at the same time revealing God’s mercy in the fact of forgiveness. Satisfactio has two meanings: (1) the satisfaction made by individual sinners according to the Roman Catholic sacrament (sacramentum, q.v.) of penance (poenitentia, q.v.), and (2) the all-sufficient satisfaction of Christ (satisfactio Christi), or vicarious satisfaction (satisfactio vicaria, q.v.) made by Christ on the cross for sin. The former meaning was held by the medieval church and its doctors but rejected by the Reformers on the ground that Christ’s obedience (obedientia Christi, q.v.) was sufficient payment for both guilt (culpa, q.v.) and punishment (poena, q.v.). In the medieval scholastic and Roman Catholic doctrine, however, Christ’s satisfaction remits the guilt of sin and the eternal punishment, leaving temporal punishment to be met by works of satisfaction imposed in the sacrament of penance.

satisfactio Christi: the satisfaction of Christ. See satisfactio vicaria.

satisfactio vicaria: vicarious satisfaction; viz., Christ’s work of propitiation and expiation considered as payment for sin made for the sake of believers and in their place. The scholastics define satisfactio as vera debiti solutio, true payment of debt. It is vicarious because it is performed in the place of the satisfaction that otherwise would have been required by God of all human beings in return for the forgiveness of sin, and because Christ stands in the place of believers and bears the full wrath of God against sin. It is characteristic of the Reformers and of the orthodox that they depart from the medieval scholastic theory of a satisfaction made for the sake of the divine honor and rest their views of satisfaction on the justice or righteousness of God (iustitia Dei, q.v.), who is angry and wrathful against sin. Thus Christ’s satisfaction includes and implies the obedientia Christi (q.v.), through which Christ both fulfills the law for us vicariously and then accepts, vicariously, the punishment for sin required under the law, which is death.

The Lutheran and Reformed scholastics agree, against the Socinians, that a satisfaction must be made for all sin if there is to be redemption and reconciliation. It is no contradiction of the gratuitous character of redemption to make satisfaction for sin under the law, since God is not simply a merciful creditor but also the just judge of sin. According to the Protestant orthodox, the doctrine of a vicarious satisfaction alone meets the requirements of the biblical view of God as both merciful and just, both gracious and righteous. Justice and righteousness are satisfied, and yet, in the vicarious nature of the work, mercy and grace are manifest. Since God cannot set aside his own iustitia (q.v.), satisfaction is necessary. In further describing Christ’s work as a satisfactio vicaria, the Lutherans and the Reformed both draw on the medieval satisfaction theory. Against the patristic ransom theory, the scholastics argue that sin is a violation of God’s law and that payment must therefore be made to God. The payment must, moreover, be made by a human being, inasmuch as sin is the sin of human beings. Yet the assault of sin against infinite God demands infinite punishment and can be satisfied only through an infinite payment. Such payment cannot be made by a mere human being, but only by a being with infinite powers, namely, God. The one who makes satisfaction must therefore be the God-man, Christ. Because the divine nature concurs with the human in the work of redemption, the merit of the work is infinite. It should be noted that Calvin had credited the all-sufficiency of Christ’s merit (meritum Christi, q.v.) to the divine decree, a doctrine more in accord with the Reformed Christology than the scholastic Reformed view that the source of Christ’s infinite merit was the infinite value of his divine-human work. The Lutheran view of Christ’s merit as infinite can draw directly on the second and third genera of the communicatio idiomatum (q.v.). The infinite merit of the satisfactio Christi renders it the sufficient payment for all sin. Here the agreement between Lutherans and Reformed ends. The Lutherans interpret the sufficientia satisfactionis as a universal payment for all sins, which has as its object the personal salvation of each and every sinful person. If this sufficient payment does not become efficient for all, the cause of the inefficiency lies only in the failure of some sinners to believe in Christ. The Reformed hold the sufficientia satisfactionis but argue for the efficiency (efficientia/efficacia) of Christ’s satisfaction for the elect only, thus resting the inefficiency or nonapplication of Christ’s work on the divine decree rather than on human sin.

Finally, we note that the concept of satisfactio vicaria, or satisfactio Christi, is the central issue in the orthodox discussion of the officium Christi, or work of Christ. Satisfactio (q.v.) has been inappositely rendered into English as “atonement.” The imprecision of the word “atonement” is exacerbated when the Reformed view is characterized as “limited atonement.” The Reformed never claim a limited sufficiency of the value of Christ’s satisfaction, nor do the opponents of “limited atonement,” either Lutheran or Arminian, ever imply an unlimited application or efficacy of Christ’s satisfaction. The issue is that the Reformed argue for the limitation of efficacy to the elect, whereas the Lutherans and the Arminians place the limitation in human unbelief, the Lutherans holding on to the paradox of salvation solo gratia (q.v.), the Arminians abandoning the solo gratia to synergism. In the late seventeenth century, the Reformed also argue for a distinction between the worthiness of Christ’s death (see meritum Christi, q.v.) and the will and intention of Christ in the accomplishment of his work. The former is infinite, since it corresponds with the sufficiency of Christ’s work; the latter is limited to the elect, since it corresponds with the efficiency of Christ’s work.

The Reformed answer to the question “For whom did Christ die?” was complex and the subject of considerable confessional debate in the seventeenth century. If the question is answered simply in view of the efficacy or application of Christ’s work, clearly, Christ did not die for all but only for the elect. If, however, the question is asked from the perspective of the divine intentionality in relation to the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, several answers are found among the Reformed, all of which acknowledge that Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient payment of the price for all sin. There were two answers to the question represented at the Synod of Dort, and the Canons were written so as to accommodate both the assumption of a limited intention in Christ’s satisfaction and the assumption of a hypothetically universal value of Christ’s satisfaction. The former view understood the divine intention in the sacrifice of Christ as the salvation of the elect only, denying any hypothetical divine will to extend Christ’s work to all people on the condition of their coming to belief. In this view, all who believe—specifically those who persevere in faith to the end—will be saved, but such belief is found only among the elect. The latter view, developed in the thought of John Davenant, critiqued the foregoing as “mere” or “bare sufficiency” (sufficientia mera or sufficientia nuda) and held that Christ’s satisfaction ought to be characterized as embodying an “ordained sufficiency” (sufficientia ordinata) resting on a divine willingness (velleitas, q.v.) that, if all human beings would believe, all would be saved. This divine willingness was specifically defined as neither a decree nor an effective will: the effective application of Christ’s satisfaction was reserved for the elect. A third view, associated primarily with the theologians of the Academy of Saumur, became the subject of debate after the Synod of Dort. According to this view, not only was the divine intention in Christ’s satisfaction that all might be saved on condition of belief; there was also an antecedent, hypothetical divine decree that, if all would believe, all would be saved. This third view was widely opposed, identified as in error by the Formula Consensus Helvetica (1675), but never condemned as a heresy. See expiatio; impetratio; sufficientia; universalismus categoricus; universalismus hypotheticus.

scandalum: a stumbling block; hence, something that causes offense or is a source of temptation or an inducement to sin.

schēma (σχῆμα): form or shape; pl., schēmata; e.g., 1 Corinthians 7:31; Philippians 2:7.

schetikos (σχετικός): incidental or nonessential; used by the fathers with reference to the union of believers with God by grace and, pejoratively, with reference to the Nestorian view of the union of the two natures in Christ.

scibilia: knowables, knowable things.

scientia: knowledge; in the most general sense of the term, synonymous with cognitio (q.v.) and notitia. It indicates knowledge generally, whether simple or complex, latent (habitualis) or actual, immediate (intuitiva) or mediate, infused or acquired. More specifically, however, scientia is one of the natural virtues and, as such, indicates a knowledge acquired by demonstration and resting on self-evident first principles (principia per se nota). In this restricted sense, moreover, scientia clearly cannot be predicated of God, since God’s knowledge is not acquired. It is in precisely this sense, however, that a definable body of human knowledge is called scientia, because it is a certain and evident knowledge (notitia certa et evidens) that is acquired by logical demonstration. Human scientia can be further distinguished into primary sciences, or bodies of knowledge that rest on their own self-evident principles, and secondary or subalternate sciences, which rest on principles derived from a primary science. Because of its basis in logical demonstration, scientia is also to be distinguished from other varieties of knowing, viz., art (ars, q.v.), wisdom (sapientia, q.v.), understanding (intelligentia, q.v.), and prudence (prudentia, q.v.). See practicus; speculativus; virtus.

scientia definita: definite knowledge; viz., a knowledge of things that have a definite existence, namely, actual things, as distinct from scientia indefinita, indefinite knowledge, or the knowledge of indefinites or indefinite things, unactualized possibles. The ultimate divine knowledge of all possibles is indefinite knowledge; the visionary or free knowledge of God that follows the divine will is a definite knowledge of actuals. See scientia Dei.

scientia Dei: the knowledge of God; i.e., the attribute of knowledge predicated of God, which is the knowledge, identical with the divine essence, according to which God knows himself and all his works most perfectly. The divine essence, albeit simple, contains the ideas or exemplars of all things and accordingly knows the entire range of possibility. See causa exemplaris; essentia; exemplar; idea; possibilia.

The scholastics distinguish two basic categories of divine knowing: (1) the scientia simplicis intelligentiae, or knowledge of unqualified intelligence, and (2) the scientia visionis, or visionary knowledge. In opposition to the Lutheran and Reformed orthodox, the Arminians follow the Jesuits in adding a third category in between the scientia simplicis intelligentiae (q.v.) and the scientia visionis (q.v.): the so-called scientia media (q.v.), or middle knowledge. These distinctions concerning categories of divine knowing relate to and serve to explain the movement of things from pure possibility to actuality, but they do not indicate a process of divine deliberation; instead, they indicate a logical sequence of nontemporal momenta in the scientia Dei.

The first category, scientia simplicis intelligentiae seu naturalis et indefinita (q.v.), also called simply scientia necessaria (q.v.) or scientia naturalis (q.v.), is the uncompounded, unqualified, absolute, indefinite, or unbounded knowledge that God has necessarily according to his nature and by which God perfectly knows himself and the whole range of possibility. It is indefinite because its objects are merely possible. This is an antecedent eternal knowledge that logically precedes the eternal decrees and thus also precedes the free exercise of the divine will or divine power ad extra. This absolute knowledge of all possibility therefore stands in relation to the divine absolute power (potentia absoluta, q.v.), according to which God can actualize any of the infinite possibilities that are known to him in his essence. By way of contrast, the scientia visionis (q.v.) is a consequent knowledge resting upon the divine will, a definite knowledge (scientia definita, q.v) or voluntary or free knowledge (scientia voluntaria sive libera, q.v.) of actual things that are to be brought into existence by the divine will operating within the range of possibility perfectly known to God. This consequent knowledge of all that God wills to exist correlates with the ordained power (potentia ordinata, q.v.) of God. The effect of this conception of divine knowing is to rest all divine knowledge, including the divine foreknowledge of contingent events and free choices and acts of rational creatures, upon the divine will, which alone can actualize what is possible. Nothing falls outside of the divine knowing because all things rest on the will of God (voluntas Dei, q.v). Contingent events are known to God as belonging to the realm of his permissive willing and providential concurrence (concursus, q.v.).

Against this view, in the attempt to create an area of radically free willing and moral responsibility beyond the control of the divine will, the Jesuit theologians Pedro de Fonseca and Luis Molina proposed a category of middle knowledge, or scientia media. The scientia media underlies their synergistic theory of salvation and was adopted in the seventeenth century by the Arminians for the same purpose. Middle knowledge is a conditioned and consequent knowledge of future contingents by which God knows of an event because of its occurrence. In other words, it is a knowledge eternally in God consequent on, and causally independent of, events in time. Such events are outside of the divine willing. The effect of such a doctrine upon soteriology is to allow an area of human choice, prior to the effective operation of divine grace, the results of which condition the divine activity or operation ad extra. God can elect individuals on the basis of his foreknowledge of their freely willed acceptance of the promises given in Christ, and this election will be grounded upon no antecedent willing or operation of God. The acts ad extra of the divine will and the scientia libera or scientia voluntaria will rest, then, in certain instances on a foreknowledge of future contingents that is consequent on and conditioned by the contingents themselves. Both the Lutheran and the Reformed orthodox reject the idea—the Reformed with vehemence. At best, the scientia media limits divine control to the circumstances surrounding an event and provides a certain knowledge of events that lie outside of divine control; at worst, it hypothesizes an uncertain knowledge of contingents on the part of God. In either case it limits the sovereignty of grace in the work of salvation. See instantes naturae; momentum; omniscientia.

scientia experimentalis: experimental knowledge; knowledge gained inductively from sense experience.

scientia habitualis: habitual knowledge; i.e., knowledge present to the intellect as a capacity or disposition but not actually in use; the opposite of scientia actualis, actual knowledge, or knowledge being used. See scientia.

scientia libera: free knowledge; the knowledge by which God knows what actually exists because of his will. This knowledge is free (libera) because it rests on the freedom of the divine will, as distinct from the scientia necessaria, which rests on the nature of God himself (see necessitas naturae; scientia necessaria). It is the voluntarist analogue of the scientia visionis (q.v.), visionary knowledge, since it represents the direct divine contemplation of all that is. Finally, it is definita, definite or defined, since it is a knowledge of actual things. Because it rests on the divine will, the scientia libera is also called scientia voluntaria. See scientia Dei.

scientia media: middle knowledge; a term used to describe a category in the divine knowing according to which God has a conditioned or consequent, rather than an absolute and antecedent, foreknowledge of future contingents. See scientia Dei.

scientia metaphysica: metaphysical knowledge; metaphysics. See metaphysica.

scientia naturalis: natural knowledge; i.e., the knowledge that belongs to an intelligent or rational being according to its nature. In God, scientia naturalis is more frequently termed scientia necessaria (q.v.) or scientia simplicis intelligentiae seu naturalis et indefinita (q.v.). See scientia Dei.

scientia necessaria: necessary knowledge; viz., the knowledge that God, according to his nature, must necessarily have infinite and perfect knowledge both of the divine being itself and of all possibilities. In the typical pairings of modes of divine knowing, it is juxtaposed with scientia voluntaria sive libera (q.v.). Scientia necessaria is basically synonymous with the intellectualist term scientia simplicis intelligentiae seu naturalis et indefinita (q.v.), but it is the term preferred by the voluntarist tradition inasmuch as, paired with scientia voluntaria sive libera, it identifies what God knows by necessity and what he knows by the free act of his will. See scientia Dei; theologia archetypa.

scientia simplicis intelligentiae seu naturalis et indefinita: knowledge of uncompounded or unqualified intelligence, or natural and indefinite knowledge; viz., that knowledge by which God knows himself and the entire realm of possibility infinitely and perfectly, albeit indefinitely, given that it is not actualized. This knowledge is simplex, i.e., uncompounded, unqualified, or absolute because it is not conditioned in any way by externals but is itself the condition, in an absolute sense, for all things ad extra. Since it is one with the divine essence, it must be uncompounded or noncomposite. It is a natural knowledge (scientia naturalis, q.v.) since it belongs to the very nature of God. It is indefinite because unqualified and unconditioned; it includes all possibility and is logically prior to the definite knowledge of created (or creatable) actuality. In the typical pairings of modes of divine knowing, it is juxtaposed with scientia visionis sive definita (q.v.). Roughly synonymous with its voluntarist analogue, scientia necessaria, this scientia simplicis intelligentiae is the term preferred by the intellectualist tradition, inasmuch as, paired with scientia visionis (q.v.), it refers to the objects of the divine understanding (intellectus Dei, q.v.) as known both absolutely in the mind of God and actually in the divine vision of all things. See scientia Dei; theologia archetypa.

scientia visionis: visionary knowledge; also scientia visionis sive definita: visionary or definite knowledge; the mode of divine knowledge by which God sees as definite objects both the order of all things that he creates and all things and events in the order. In the typical pairings of modes of divine knowing, it is juxtaposed with scientia simplicis intelligentiae seu naturalis et indefinita (q.v.). See scientia Dei.

scientia voluntaria sive libera: voluntary or free knowledge; i.e., the mode of divine knowledge by which God knows the effects of his free willing. In the typical pairings of modes of divine knowing, it is juxtaposed with scientia necessaria. See scientia Dei.

scintilla animae: a spark of the soul; a term typical of late medieval mysticism indicating a divine spark deep within the soul, more profound than either intellect or will, that provides the point of union between God and man in the exercise of mystic detachment from externals. The scintilla animae is, in effect, an uncreated spark of the divine intellect within the soul, an “interior fortress” of the unsullied divine within the human being. Because of the tendency of such a concept to deny the radicality of the fall and to deny the need for an alien righteousness (iustitia aliena) in justification, the concept is attacked by Protestantism. The presence of similar ideas in Protestant mystics like Boehme (Jakob Böhme) led to their condemnation in the systems of the Protestant scholastics.

scintilla conscientiae: spark of conscience. See conscientia; synderesis.

Scriptura Sacra: Sacred or Holy Scripture. The Protestant scholastics elaborated the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura into an entire dogmatic locus in which Scripture was defined as one of the principia theologiae (q.v.) and then described according to its attributes: dignity (dignitas, q.v.), clarity (perspicuitas, q.v.), authority (authoritas, q.v.), truth (veritas, q.v.), holiness (sanctitas, q.v.), and sufficiency (sufficientia, q.v.). In addition, they follow the Reformers in defining Scriptura Sacra strictly, as consisting in the Old Testament (Vetus Testamentum) and the New Testament (Novum Testamentum), to the exclusion of the Apocrypha or apocryphal books (libri apocryphi). These latter are not considered inspired but may be read for edification. See authoritas Scripturae; norma.

Scriptura Sacra locuta, res decisa est: Holy Scripture has spoken, the issue is decided; a maxim indicating the final authority of Scripture in all matters of faith and practice.

Scripturam ex Scriptura explicandam esse: Scripture is to be explained from Scripture; one of several forms of a maxim employed by both Lutheran and Reformed orthodox to indicate the normative authority and self-authenticating character of Scripture over against the Roman Catholic contention that the church has absolute authority to explain the text. The orthodox grant that Scripture cannot be interpreted outside of the church, but they insist that the authority of the church derives from Scripture and not the authority of Scripture from the church’s testimony. Since Word, as such, is authoritative and effective, it must be its own standard of interpretation. Other versions of the maxim include the following: Scriptura Scripturam interpretatur; Scriptura seipsam interpretatur; Scriptura sui interpres.

secundum quid: literally, according to something or according to something else; viz., relatively. Consideration of a thing secundum quid is consideration in a certain respect or in a restricted and related sense, as opposed to consideration of a thing absolutely, or simpliciter (q.v.). A distinction can therefore be made between a thing considered in se, in itself or absolutely, and a thing considered secundum quid, as relative to something else or as understood in a restricted manner in terms of a particular property or predicate.

The fallacy secundum quid indicates an improper logical shift applying a general or absolute rule to a partial or relative case, namely, an improper movement a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, from the simple or absolute to the relative statement. In Scotist usage, secundum quid indicates dependent existence as opposed to simpliciter, indicating unqualified or absolute being. See in se; simplicitas.

secundum se: according to itself or in relation to itself; as distinct from secundum aliud, according to another (thing). See alius/aliud; secundum quid.

secundum usum: according to the established practice or custom.

sedes doctrinae: a seat of doctrine; the particular text of Scripture used as the primary foundation of a doctrine.

sedes tropi: seat of the figure; viz., the word or group of words in which a figure of speech is said to lie. Against the literal reading of the words of institution, “This is my body” and “This is my blood”—Hoc est corpus meum and Hic est sanguis meus—as taught by the Lutherans, the Reformed argued that the words contained a figure, or trope, and variously located the trope in the copula est and/or in the words corpus and sanguis.

semen fidei: seed of faith; the ground or beginning of personal faith, brought about or implanted by the work of the Spirit in regeneration. Some of the Protestant scholastics use semen fidei as a synonym for the disposition of or capacity for faith, the habitus fidei (q.v.); others make the semen fidei more basic and regard the disposition, or habitus (q.v.), of faith as a fully developed capacity arising out of the seed, or semen.

semen impurum: impure seed; a basis of the propagatio peccati (q.v.).

semen religionis: seed of religion; i.e., the rudimentary knowledge of God that arises in every human being because of the objective revelation of God in his work of creation and providence, and because of the subjective reality of a remnant of the image of God (imago Dei, q.v.) in each person. Because of the fall, however, the semen religionis gives rise, not to true religion, but to idolatry and error in the name of God.

semina virtutum: the seed of virtue; viz., an inherent capacity to do good; denied by the Protestant scholastics inasmuch as it implies a person’s ability, unaided by grace, to perform righteous or meritorious acts. See donum superadditum; peccatum originale; status purorum naturalium.

Semipelagiani: semi-Pelagians; sometimes also Demipelagiani; a term probably originating in Protestant works of the sixteenth century as a reference to those who ground predestination in the divine foreknowledge of something achieved or performed by individuals, whether works or faith. By extension the term can refer to the synergistic proponents of the late medieval theory of the performance of proportionate merit (meritum de congruo, q.v.) prior and preparatory to saving grace. By further extension, the term can mean the non-Augustinian writers of late patristic controversy. See facere quod in se est.

semper: always; semper idem: always the same.

sensus accommodatitius: the accommodated sense; i.e., the sense of a text of Scripture as interpreted, not literally, but with a view toward the reconciliation of problematic statements with historical-critical discoveries. The term refers, therefore, to the impact of rationalist exegesis and is denied by all the Protestant orthodox as applicable to Scripture. See accommodatio.

sensus allegoricus: allegorical sense, allegorical meaning; a figurative sense, often of a narrative according to which the narrative itself is intended as a metaphor. It is one of the three spiritual senses of Scripture according to the medieval fourfold exegesis, or quadriga (q.v.). Allegory concerns the credenda, the things to be believed, namely, Christian doctrine. See allegoria.

Sensus allegoricus non est argumentativus: The allegorical meaning is not argumentative or conclusive. See allegoria; quadriga; Theologia symbolica non est argumentativa.

sensus anagogicus: anagogical sense, anagogical meaning; specifically a spiritual or mystical sense of a word or term. It is one of the three spiritual senses of Scripture according to the medieval fourfold exegesis, or quadriga (q.v.). Anagoge concerns the speranda (q.v.), the things to be hoped for, namely, mystical and eschatological meanings.

sensus compositus: composite or compounded sense. The term has two applications. (1) A logical application, as distinguished from a divided or isolated sense (sensus divisus). In the composite sense (in sensu composito), a subject is understood in necessary connection with or as conditioned by its predicates or attributes; in the divided sense (in sensu diviso), the subject is understood in a hypothetical or contingent relationship to its predicates or attributes. Thus in the composite sense, it is necessary that a blind man cannot see or that a man who is running is in motion; whereas in the divided sense, a man is now blind, but it is possible that he could see; a man is now running, and it is possible that he stand still. The sensus compositus can be used to indicate a necessity of the consequent thing (necessitas consequentis, q.v.), while the sensus divisus can be used to indicate a contingency, namely, a necessity of the consequence (necessitas consequentiae, q.v.). And (2) a rhetorical or exegetical application, also identified as the sensus literalis compositus: composite or compounded literal sense; viz., either the literal meaning understood as a figure or type, with the allegorical, mystical, or moral sense embedded figuratively in the text as part of the literal meaning, or the literal sense of a larger unit as distinguished from the sense of an individual term, particularly in cases where one term is in itself unclear or subject to multiple interpretations but capable of a clear, unitary sense in its context. When the composite sense of a text rests on figurative meaning or on a type that is fully understood only with a view to its antitype, the Protestant exegesis stands in positive relation to the medieval quadriga (q.v.), albeit capable of denying multiple meanings. See allegoria; sensus divisus; sensus literalis; simultas potentiae.

sensus divinitatis: sense of the divine; viz., a basic, intuitive perception of the divine existence; it is generated in all persons through their encounter with the providential ordering of the world. The sensus divinitatis is therefore the basis both of pagan religion and of natural theology. Because of the fall, the religion that arises out of this sense of the divine, or seed of religion (semen religionis, q.v.), is idolatrous and incapable of saving or of producing true obedience before God. Our sensus divinitatis, thus, is capable only of leaving us without excuse in our rejection of God’s truth.

sensus divisus: the divided sense; i.e., the meaning of a word or idea in itself apart from its general relation to other words of a text or apart from its logical relation to another term or thing; the opposite of sensus compositus (q.v.).

sensus irae divinae: the sense or experience of divine wrath; i.e., the poena sensus, or punishment of the senses, to which the damned are subjected. See poena.

sensus latus: the general, loose, or broad meaning or sense; as opposed to sensus strictus, the strict sense, or sensus proprius, the proper sense.

sensus literalis: literal sense; the fundamental literal or grammatical sense of the text of Scripture, distinguished into (1) sensus literalis simplex, the simple literal sense, which lies immediately in the grammar and the meaning of the individual words; and (2) sensus literalis compositus, the constructed or compounded literal sense, which is inferred from the Scripture as a whole or from individual clear and therefore normative passages of Scripture when the simple literal sense of the text in question seems to violate either the articuli fidei (q.v.) or the praecepta caritatis (q.v.). See historicus; quadriga.

sensus mysticus: mystical sense, mystical interpretation; also called the sensus spiritualis: spiritual sense; viz., as distinct from the literal reading of a text, the reading or interpretation that in the words of the text finds types, signs, figures, tropes, or symbols of meaning not literally stated in the text. The Protestant orthodox favor a literal reading of Scripture (see sensus literalis) but allow a mystical or spiritual reading of texts that either cannot bear a purely literal construction or are clearly intended to shadow forth a deeper, usually prophetic, meaning. The federal school of Reformed theology founded by Johannes Cocceius was given to excessive typological reading of the Old Testament and was, on that account, attacked by Reformed and Lutherans alike in the name of literal exegesis. Protestant orthodox exegesis also engaged in a restricted use of allegory in the sense of identifying doctrinal truths standing beyond the purely literal sense of specific texts, as, e.g., in the case of christological meanings in the Old Testament. See allegoria; quadriga.

sensus proprius: the proper sense or meaning; as opposed to sensus latus, the general meaning.

sensus strictus: the strict sense; i.e., the precise meaning, or proper sense (sensus proprius, q.v.), as distinct from the general, loose, or broad sense, sensus latus (q.v.).

sensus tropologicus: tropological sense, tropological meaning; one of the three spiritual senses of Scripture according to the medieval fourfold exegesis, or quadriga (q.v.). Tropology concerns the agenda (q.v.), the things to be done, namely, Christian teaching concerning morality.

sententia: sentence, sense, meaning. The term can indicate a sentence or conclusion concerning an issue, a judgment, decision, or opinion about something, or a series of words or a discourse having a particular meaning or significance. These several meanings conjoin in the title of the famous compendium of theology by Peter Lombard, the Libri quattuor sententiarum (Four Books of Sentences), where doctrinal problems are stated in the form of distinctions and a decision is made dogmatically concerning each problem or set of distinctions. See veritas sententiae.

septem peccata mortalia: seven deadly (mortal) sins; i.e., the seven categories of sin into which the medieval doctors divided the mortal sins (peccata mortalia, q.v.): superbia (q.v.; pride), avaritia (q.v.; greed), invidia (q.v.; envy), gula (q.v.; gluttony), luxuria (q.v.; lust), ira (q.v.; anger), and acedia (q.v.; sloth). Superbia, pride, is the direct opposite of humilitas, humility, and may be defined as an inordinate valuation of self or an inordinate love of self (amor sui). The scholastic doctors of the Middle Ages viewed superbia completa, utter or total pride, as the identifying characteristic of the entire genus peccata mortalia and as the sin at the root of the fall insofar as pride, in the extreme, sets the individual higher than all other goods, higher even than God, the highest good (summum bonum, q.v.). Such is the pride that would know good and evil, that would be as God. Such is the pride of the devil. Superbia is sometimes therefore called omnium peccatorum mater, the mother of all sins. It is characterized by vainglory or vanity (vana gloria or vanitas, q.v.), ambition (ambitio), and presumption (praesumptio). In the Augustinian language of rightly and wrongly directed love, superbia may be seen as the love of self as an end in itself (see frui). Avaritia, avarice or greed, is the opposite of the virtue liberalitas, or liberality, since it represents an inordinate appetite or desire for temporal goods (appetitus inordinatus bonorum temporalium), expressed both as the excessive desire to retain what one already has and as the excessive appetite to gain new possessions. Invidia, envy or jealousy, is opposed to caritas, love or self-giving love, and may be defined as sorrow over the good of another person arising from a prideful estimation of self. Gula, gluttony, is simply an inordinate appetite for food and drink, as opposed to the virtues of abstinence (abstinentia) and sobriety (sobrietas). Luxuria, or lust, strictly defined as one of the mortal sins, is the inordinate appetite for or indulgence in sexual activity. Ira, or anger, is the opposite of mildness or gentleness (mansuetudo or clementia) and may be defined as an inordinate appetite for revenge or simply as vengefulness, which manifests itself in aversion (aversio) to others and rancor (rancor) or indignation (indignatio) toward others. Finally, acedia, sloth, is understood by extension as apathy or despair in the face of the goodness, grace, and friendship (amicitia) of God, a rejection of the love of God (amor Dei, q.v.). See appetitus inordinatus.

septem vitia capitalia: seven deadly sins. See septem peccata mortalia.

sermo: word; synonymous with verbum (q.v.).

servitudo, also servitus: servitude, slavery. See necessitas servitutis.

servum arbitrium: enslaved or bound choice. See liberum arbitrium.

servus: servant, slave.

sessio Christi: Christ’s sitting, or act of sitting, at the right hand of the Father (ad dextram Patris); the Lutheran and the Reformed have basic agreement that the sessio Christi is the highest exaltation of Christ as the God-man and that the expression Sedet ad dextram Patris, He sits at the right hand of the Father, is figurative; yet the sessio Christi marks a point of fundamental christological opposition between Lutheran and Reformed. The Lutherans emphasize the biblical usage of “right hand of God” as a figurative description of the exercise of divine power. Since the power of God is exercised everywhere, the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God is an indication of Christ’s ubiquitas (q.v.) according to his human nature, which is the subject of the exaltation. The Reformed deny this communication of a divine attribute to Christ’s humanity and argue from the ascension of Christ in coelis that the heavenly session indicates the removal of Christ’s human nature from the earth. The Reformed interpret the figurative usage ad dextram Patris, the highest exaltation of Christ as God-man, as an indication that Christ in his humanity now participates in the divine majesty and rule—not as though the right hand of God indicates a place (ubi), but rather it signifies an honor conferred on Christ. For the Reformed, however, the heavenly sessio indicates ubietas, or “whereness,” specifically the location of Christ’s finite humanity in heaven. See communicatio idiomatum; praesentia illocalis sive definitiva.

seu (conj.): or. See sive.

Si homo non periisset, Filius Hominis non venisset: If man had not perished, the Son of Man would not have come; a maxim drawn from Augustine, Sermon 174. The saying and the argument behind it are important in the history of the doctrine of the incarnation and its relation to the doctrines of Christ’s work and of the imago Dei (q.v.), or image of God. During the Middle Ages in the teaching of Rupert of Deutz, Albert the Great, and Duns Scotus, and during the Reformation in the teaching of Andreas Osiander (the Elder), the argument was put forth that the incarnation was necessary, apart from the problem of sin, as the crowning glory of the divine work of creation. Christ, as the last Adam and as the imago Dei in which humanity was originally created, must be incarnate as the actualization of the divine will for human beings and their fellowship with God. Thus the predestination of Christ (praedestinatio Christi) to be the God-man is viewed as an unconditional, or absolute, predestination, and only the predestination of Christ to die for the sins of the world is a conditioned or consequent will of God (see praedestinatio; voluntas Dei). Furthermore, it would be entirely inappropriate for sin to become the reason for the fulfillment of revelation in Christ, inasmuch as the entire essence of God and the ultimate purpose of God exclude sin. Over against this view, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and in the Reformation both Lutheran and Reformed theologians argue that Scripture teaches only one purpose of the incarnation, viz., the redemption of humanity, and moreover in no way implies a work of Christ other than the work of mediation between God and fallen creatures. It is the work of mediation on which the union of the natures in Christ is predicated. Both Lutheran and Reformed orthodox explicitly reject the Scotist and the Osiandrian views as speculative excess. See praedestinatio.

sic: thus.

sic et non: thus and not, i.e., yes and no; historically, the title of Peter Abelard’s collection of seemingly contradictory statements from Scripture and the church fathers.

signa diei novissimi: signs of the last day. See dies novissimus.

signa temporis: signs of the times. See dies novissimus.

signum: sign; particularly in contrast to res (q.v.), a thing. A signum is defined as a thing, i.e., an object or a word, that points beyond itself to another thing. Res, in this sense, is a thing considered in and of itself. Since anything in the finite universe can become a sign, the mind must make an interpretive judgment each time it encounters a thing. In the exegetical model proposed by Augustine (Christian Doctrine 1.2), each word is a sign of something, but the thing signified by the word may also be a sign. If the latter is the case, then interpretation cannot rest with the literal meaning but must ask the question of significance by moving toward the allegorical or tropological reading of the text. See quadriga.

The distinction between signum and res also obtains in sacramental theology, where the elements of bread and wine are the signum, and the body and blood of Christ are the things signified. See materia coelestis; res sacramenti; sacramentum.

signum voluntatis: sign or indication of the (divine) will. See voluntas Dei.

Similia similibus percipiuntur: Similar or like things are perceived by similar things; i.e., there must be some common ground or analogy of being (analogia entis, q.v.) between the knower and the thing known.

similitudo: likeness, similitude. See imago Dei.

simplex: uncompounded, simple, absolute. See simplicitas.

simplicitas: simplicity or absoluteness; i.e., having an uncompounded or noncomposite nature, such as belongs to all spiritual beings, whether God, angels, or souls. Thus (1) the simplicitas Dei, according to which God is understood as being absolutely free of any and all composition, includes not merely physical but also rational or logical composition. God, in contrast to the lesser simplicity of angels and souls, is most simple actuality (actus simplicissimus) of being, given that his simplicity excludes composition of essence and existence, actuality and potency. Thus God is not the sum of the divine attributes (attributa divina, q.v.); the attributes are understood to be identical with and inseparable from the essentia Dei (q.v.). The scholastics observe that if God were even logically or rationally composite, God would necessarily be viewed as a result and in some sense contingent. Simplicity is the guarantee of the absolute ultimacy and perfection of God, so much so that it frequently appears in scholastic systems as the first divine attribute on which a right understanding of all other divine attributes depends. And (2) the lesser simplicity of angels and souls, which as spiritual are uncompounded or noncomposite, but which can mutate rationally and morally, namely, not in substance but in accidents or incidental properties. Therefore neither an angel nor a soul is actus simplicissimus but nonetheless actus simplex, inasmuch as they are not composites of matter and form. See actus; aeviternitas; anima; forma; materia; simpliciter.

simpliciter: simply or absolutely; viz., understanding something as such or in itself (in se, q.v.) as opposed to relatively (relative) or secundum quid (q.v.).

simul iustus et peccator: at once righteous and a sinner; Luther’s characterization of the believer justified by grace through faith. Since faith, not works, is the ground of our justification (iustificatio, q.v.), and since justification is not an infusion of righteousness that makes a sinner righteous in and of oneself, the sinner is both righteous in God’s sight because of Christ and a sinner as measured according to one’s own merits.

simultas naturae: simultaneity of nature. See prioritas naturae.

simultas potentiae: simultaneity of power or potency; as distinguished from a potentia simultatis, a power or potency of simultaneity. In scholastic analyses of free choice, the rational agent is understood to have a simultas potentiae, a simultaneity of potency to more than one effect, in contrast to purely physical or brute agents, which have potency to one effect only. Thus a rational agent, simultaneously, has the potency of choosing either A or not-A. What the agent lacks, however, is a potentia simultatis, a potency of simultaneity to bring about contrary acts at the same time. The rational agent, then, is able in the divided sense (sensus divisus) to choose either A or not-A but incapable of doing so in the composite sense (sensus compositus, q.v.): in other words, it is possible in sensu diviso, when a rational agent chooses A, that the agent might choose not-A; but it is not possible in sensu composito for the agent to choose not-A while also choosing A. The classic example is of Socrates running and Socrates sitting. It is possible, in the divided sense, for Socrates to run and for Socrates to sit, inasmuch as Socrates is capable of both, i.e., simultaneously he has the potency of either running or sitting. Yet it is not possible in the composite sense for Socrates to run and sit, i.e., to be running and sitting at the same time: he does not have a capability or potency of simultaneity. Put in another way, it is necessary that Socrates sits and not runs while he sits, and runs and not sits while he runs, but it is not absolutely necessary that Socrates either sit or run: he has potency to do either and the potency to refrain from both. See liberum arbitrium; necessitas consequentiae; potentia.

simultas temporis: simultaneity in time; at the same time. See prioritas temporis.

sine mensura: without measure.

sine qua non. See conditio sine qua non.

sive (conj.): or; in pairs, either. . . or; synonymous with seu.

sola fide: by faith alone; also per solam fidem: through faith alone; and sometimes ex fide: by faith. See iustificatio.

Sola fides in Christum membra ecclesiae constituit: Only faith in Christ can establish the members of the church; i.e., the foundation or basis of membership in the church is faith.

sola gratia: grace alone; by grace alone; viz., the teaching of the Reformers and of their scholastic successors that grace alone is the ground of salvation and that individuals are justified by grace alone through faith. The term allows only grace to be the active power in justification and leaves nothing to the human will or to human works. Synergism (synergismus, q.v.), or cooperation between human beings and God, is therefore effectively ruled out of the initial work of salvation. Even faith (fides, q.v.) is a result of grace and cannot be considered as the result of human effort. See gratia; iustificatio; ordo salutis.

sola Scriptura: Scripture alone; the watchword for developing Protestant theology in its establishment of the basis for a renewed and reformed statement of Christian doctrine—albeit not a term used by the earliest Reformers. We find, certainly, the concept of sola Scriptura, Scripture alone as the primary and absolute norm of doctrine, at the foundation of the early Protestant attempts at theological system in the form of exegetical loci communes (q.v.), or commonplaces. In the orthodox or scholastic codification of Lutheran and Reformed doctrine, the sola Scriptura (still without the term) of the Reformers was elaborated as a separate doctrinal locus placed at the beginning of theological system and determinative of its contents. Scripture was identified as the principium cognoscendi, the principle of knowing or cognitive foundation of theology, and described doctrinally in terms of its authority, clarity, and sufficiency in all matters of faith and morals. Finally, sola Scriptura was never meant as a denial of the usefulness of the Christian tradition (traditio, q.v.) as a subordinate norm in theology and as a significant point of reference for doctrinal formulas and argumentation. The views of the Reformers developed out of a debate in the late medieval theology over the relation of Scripture and tradition, one side of the debate viewing the two as coequal norms, the other side of the debate taking Scripture as the sole source of necessary doctrine, albeit as read in the church’s interpretive tradition. The Reformers and the Protestant orthodox followed the latter understanding, defining Scripture as the absolute and therefore prior norm, but allowing the theological tradition, particularly the earlier tradition of the fathers and ecumenical councils, to have a derivative but important secondary role in doctrinal statements. They accepted the ancient tradition as a useful guide, allowing that the trinitarian and christological statements of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon were expressions of biblical truth, and that the great teachers of the church provided valuable instruction in theology that always needed to be evaluated in the light of Scripture. At the same time, they rejected recent human traditions (traditiones humanae, q.v.) as problematic deviations from the biblical norm. What the Reformers and the orthodox explicitly denied was coequality of Scripture and tradition and, in particular, the claim of unwritten traditions as normative for practice. We encounter, especially in the scholastic era of Protestantism, a profound interest in the patristic period and a critical but often substantive use of ideas and patterns enunciated by the medieval doctors. See authoritas Scripturae; principia theologiae; traditio.

Soli Deo, non diabolo lytron [λύτρον] persolvendum erat: The ransom was paid, not to the devil, (but) to God alone, a maxim adapted from Quenstedt. The maxim encapsulates the central difference between the satisfaction theory of atonement held by both the medieval and the Protestant scholastics and the patristic ransom theory, according to which the ransom was paid not to God but to the devil.

soli Deo gloria: glory to God alone.

solus, -a, -um (adj.): only, alone.

solutio: solution, explanation, payment. In the doctrine of the death of Christ, a distinction is sometimes made between regarding his payment for sin as a solutio idem or solutio eiusdem, a payment in the same kind, namely, an exact or precise payment; or a solutio tantundem or solutio tantidem, a payment of the same value, namely, an accepted equivalent. Thus, in the first case, the solutio idem or eiusdem, Christ’s death would be regarded as a full satisfaction, effective in and of itself because it is understood to be the same (idem) as the debt. In the second case, the solutio tantundem or tantidem, as proposed by Grotius and some of the Reformed, Christ’s satisfaction is willed by God as an acceptable payment, albeit not absolutely identical to the offense but of the same value. The concept of a solutio tantundem was crucial to Grotius’s defense of the doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction against the Socinians, who had argued the unacceptability of satisfaction theory on the ground that Christ’s suffering was not the same as the penalty of death for sin. Whereas Grotius can be read as viewing the tantundem as an acceptation of Christ’s death as equivalent, Reformed advocates of this solution typically insisted on the tantundem as fully equivalent in value. See acceptatio; acceptilatio.

sorites (from the Greek σωρείτης, sōreitēs): sorites; viz., a linked argument found in logic and rhetoric, from the Greek σωρεύω, sōreuō (to pile things up one on another). Strictly constructed, a sorites will take the form of a series of syllogistically constructed propositions or enthymemes in which the predicate of one proposition is used as the subject of the next until the final proposition, in which the predicate is the subject of the first proposition, thus completing the chain of argument. See armilla aurea.

sōstikōs (σωστικῶς): savingly; in a saving way.

species: species; viz., either a group of individual things exhaustively identified as a group by a common concept or universal, or the universal itself as predicated of a group of individual things, the essence of which it fully or exhaustively identifies. See genus; idea; intellectus; species impressa; universalia.

species impressa: impressed species or concept; i.e., the idea or universal of a thing that identifies its “kind,” or species (q.v.), which is abstracted from a sensory image (phantasma, q.v.) and impressed on the intellective or mental substratum, the possible intellect (intellectus possibilis, q.v.) impressed by the active intellect (intellectus agens, q.v.). See intellectus; phantasia.

specula: a watchtower or high place, an eminence; thus also spectator: an observer or examiner; from the verb specto, to observe carefully or to contemplate.

speculativus, -a, -um (adj.): speculative; related to the noun specula (q.v.), a watchtower, not to the noun speculum (q.v.), a mirror; often used synonymously with contemplativus. A speculative or contemplative discipline, as distinct from a practical discipline, emphasizes the careful observation of its materials, figuratively speaking, from a high place. A concept can be identified as speculative or contemplative when it is considered as an end in, of, and by itself. Similarly, a discipline is called speculative when its truths are grasped in and for themselves and not for the sake of gaining a goal or end that is beyond the discipline in question. See practicus; theologia.

speculum: a mirror or looking glass; from the verb specio, to look at or behold.

speculum electionis: mirror of election; a term used by Calvin in describing Christ as the one in whom individual election can be known and assurance of salvation can be found.

speranda: things to be hoped for; viz., the eternal or eschatological goals of Christian hope; speranda are both eternal objects or gifts hoped for in the present and eschatological blessings hoped for in the future. See agenda; caritas; credenda; fides; quadriga; spes.

spermatikos (σπερματικός): spermatic; i.e., like a seed; particularly, in patristic usage, the Logos spermatikos, or seed of the Logos, which is in the human soul and accounts for the truths of the universe known even to pagan philosophy.

spes: hope; with faith (fides, q.v.) and love (caritas, q.v.), one of the three theological virtues, as in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Also the virtue related to speranda (q.v.), things to be hoped for, one of the three spiritual categories of biblical teaching identified in the medieval fourfold interpretation of quadriga (q.v.).

spes meliorum temporum: the hope of better times; a phrase associated with the so-called chiliasmus subtilis or subtilissimus of the era of declining orthodoxy and pietism. The spes meliorum temporum is the hope for a gradual betterment of the world through the progress of God’s grace, i.e., the gradual dawn of a millennial age. See chiliasmus.

sphragides (σφραγίδες; sg., σφραγίς, sphragis): seals; specifically, seals that confirm or authenticate something; thus the sacraments as seals of the grace of God. See baptismus; coena Domini.

spiratio: spiration or procession; the personal property (see proprietas) of the Spirit and his personal relation (relatio personalis q.v.) to the Father and the Son, strictly defined as the inward act by which the Father and the Son simultaneously and eternally produce the Spirit from their own substance, without division of substance, and entirely within the one divine essence. The scholastics also distinguish between spiratio activa, which is the activity of the Father and the Son spirating, and spiratio passiva, which is the movement of the Spirit being spirated. See filiatio; generatio; notiones personales; Trinitas.

spiritualitas: spirituality; i.e., immateriality of substance, an attribute of spiritual beings. See spiritus.

spiritus: spirit; immaterial or nonmaterial substance; any being whose substance is not material. The term spiritus can therefore be applied to God generally, to the Third Person of the Trinity specifically, to angelic beings, and to the soul. See anima; pneumata leitourgika; spiritus completus; spiritus incompletus.

spiritus completus: a complete spirit; i.e., a spirit complete in itself as spirit, the subsistence of which does not imply union with a material substance; a term applied to angels, but not to the human soul, which is spiritus incompletus (q.v.).

spiritus incompletus: an incomplete spirit; i.e., a spirit not complete in itself, requiring for its proper subsistence a union with a material substance; a term applied to the soul, but not applied to angels, since a soul, in order to perform its function, must be united to a body. Although they distinguish body from soul, the scholastics cannot be viewed as dualists, since they assume the incompleteness of either body or soul considered in abstracto (q.v.) and argue for the integrity of the human being as a creature of body and soul. The soul is the forma corporis, or form of the body. See anima; entelecheia; status animarum a corpore separatarum.

Spiritus Sanctus: the Holy Spirit; the Third Person of the Trinity. See Deus; Trinitas.

sponsio: guarantee, surety; specifically, a solemn promise between two parties. The term comes from Roman law and was adopted by the Reformed federalists as a designation for the promise made by God the Son to God the Father in the covenant of redemption, or pactum salutis (q.v.). The term was used by some synonymously with fideiussio (q.v.), which has the connotation of bond, or bail.

status animarum a corpore separatarum: the state or condition of souls separated from the body; viz., the so-called intermediate state. The Protestant scholastics, Lutheran and Reformed, are in agreement in their delineation of possible solutions to this question and in their doctrinal conclusions. They reject as error the teaching that the soul sleeps and is oblivious to all things, neither thinking nor feeling, i.e., psychopannychia, the soul sleep, inasmuch as it contradicts Luke 23:43, “Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.” They also reject the view that the soul enters a state of lethargy (refrigerium), during which it has a foretaste of blessedness to come. The orthodox affirm a full and consummated blessedness of the souls of believers in which they experience the vision of God (visio Dei, q.v.) and have an immediate apprehension of God and God’s truth (cognitio Dei intuitiva, q.v.). This blessedness falls short of the absolute consummation of the end time (see dies novissimus) only because the soul itself is not complete, i.e., in union with the body (see Spiritus incompletus). The place in which the souls of the blessed (beati, q.v.) await the end is paradise (paradisio, q.v.). The souls of the wicked also enter a conscious state after the death of the body, but it is a state of punishment in Hades (q.v.). See anima; iudicium particulare et occultum; psychopannychia; purgatorium.

status controversiae: state of controversy; frequently, a term for the section of a doctrinal locus in which debate over theological issues is surveyed. It occurs immediately before the statement of doctrinal conclusions.

status exaltationis: state of exaltation; i.e., the state or condition of the exalted Christ. The Lutheran orthodox begin the status exaltationis with Christ’s descensus ad inferos (q.v.), or descent into hell; the Reformed begin it with Christ’s resurrectio (q.v.), or resurrection. The remaining degrees of the state of exaltation are the ascension, the sitting of Christ at God’s right hand (see sessio Christi), and the final judgment (iudicium extremum, q.v.). The status exaltationis, according to the Reformed, is a state or condition that follows the status humiliationis (q.v.), or state of humiliation. The Lutheran orthodox, however, on the ground of their doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum (q.v.) and of the consequent possession (ktēsis, q.v.) of the divine attributes by the human nature of Christ, must regard Christ’s humanity as always exalted, though in a hidden way during the status humiliationis. For Lutheran orthodoxy, therefore, the status exaltationis is the manifestation of the full exercise of the divine attributes in and by Christ’s humanity, which begins with the descensus ad inferos. The Reformed not only allow no concurrence of the two states but also view the status exaltationis as a heavenly state of Christ. The Lutherans argue for the sessio Christi ad dextram Patris to indicate the omnipresence of Christ’s humanity.

status gloriosus: glorious condition; also status coelestis: heavenly state or condition; viz., the state or condition of Christ after his ascension, with particular reference to the exaltation and glorification of his human nature. See status exaltationis.

status gratiae: the state or condition of grace; also status pacis: the state or condition of peace.

status humiliationis: state of humiliation, sometimes called status exinanitionis: state of self-emptying; a term, together with its counterpart, the status exaltationis (q.v.), state of exaltation, belonging to the christological concept known as the two states of Christ, based on Philippians 2:5–11 and used as a basic structural feature in the Lutheran and the Reformed Christologies. The doctrine was first developed by the Lutherans as a reflection on the earthly suffering and humiliation of Christ in relation to the communicatio idiomatum (q.v.). In scholastic Lutheran theology, the incarnation itself is not considered to be an act of self-renunciation or self-emptying. Kenōsis, or exinanitio, is predicated of the God-man and not of the Word or of the Word’s act of assuming flesh, since the status humiliationis, and not the incarnation itself, is what ends in the status exaltationis. The subject of the humiliatio or exinanitio is therefore Christ’s human nature in union with the divine person, not the divine person itself. In a formal sense, the humiliatio consists both in the sufferings of Christ’s humanity as such and in the renunciation, nonuse, and concealment of the divine attributes that belong to Christ’s humanity as a result of the communicatio idiomatum. The Lutheran view is also distinctive in its termination of the status humiliationis with Christ’s death and burial, and in its considering the descent into hell (descensus ad inferos, q.v.) as the first stage of the status exaltationis.

In determining the beginning of the status humiliationis, or exinanitionis, the Reformed make a distinction between exinanitio, or kenōsis, and humiliatio, or tapeinōsis (ταπείνωσις). The exinanitio, or preliminary stage of the status humiliationis, refers to the incarnation itself and the acceptance of servant form by the Word. Nevertheless, since the Word in and of itself is in no way diminished in incarnation and since the incarnation remains in the status exaltationis, the humiliatio proper refers to the economy of ministry, earthly life, and suffering of the Incarnate One. Thus the Reformed disagree with the Lutherans by including the kenōsis and incarnation in the status humiliationis. The Reformed argue for a withholding of the use of the divine attributes by Christ’s divine nature from the kenōsis to the moment of resurrection. In addition, the Reformed view the descensus ad inferos as the final stage of the status humiliationis. See anthrōpopatheia; exinanitio; kenōsis; ktēsis; occultatio.

status integritatis: state of integrity; the state or condition of human beings before the fall, when still in full possession of the qualities of original righteousness and wisdom, and living in the true knowledge of God in both perfect fellowship and godly service. See foedus operum; imago Dei.

status originalis: original condition or state; specifically, the original created condition of human beings and angels before the fall. See foedus operum; iustitia originalis; status integritatis.

status purorum naturalium: the purely natural condition; i.e., the condition of human nature unaided by grace. The concept of a status purorum naturalium and a resident capacity of human beings to move toward God on the basis of, or out of, purely natural abilities (ex puris naturalibus) was typical of the semi-Pelagian tendency in late medieval theology and was at the basis of the concept of human merit rejected by the Reformers (see meritum de congruo). The Protestant orthodox, both Lutheran and Reformed, follow the Reformers in rejecting the theology of merit and specifically argue that there could be no status purorum naturalium even before the fall, since even then human capacity for the good rested upon the grace of God. In this denial of a status purorum naturalium, and in the denial of the concept of a donum superadditum (q.v.), or superadded gift, of grace bestowed on human beings because of a meritorious act performed ex puris naturalibus prior to the fall, the orthodox stand on the fully Augustinian side of the scholastic tradition. The human nature of Adam and Eve, according to the Protestant scholastics and their Augustinian predecessors in the Middle Ages, received grace as an aspect of its original condition. See donum concreatum.

stipulatio: stipulation or condition; particularly, the stipulatio foederis, the legal foundation or condition for the covenant of grace. See foedus gratiae.

strictè: strictly; the opposite of latè (q.v.), loosely. Strictè and latè are frequently used by Protestant scholastics as characterizations of definitions: strictè with reference to precise definition, latè with reference to general or colloquial definition. There is a parallel distinction between proprie and improprie. See proprie.

suapte natura: in its own nature; namely, how a thing is or acts in and of itself, according strictly to what it is. Thus, e.g., a contingent thing or cause is something that suapte natura could be otherwise or act otherwise than it is acting. See contingentia; in rerum natura; natura; quod non potest aliter se habere.

sub gratia: under grace. See oeconomia salutis; sub lege.

sub lege: under the law. See ante legem; oeconomia salutis.

sub specie aeternitatis: under the aspect or form of eternity; viz., the viewing of a thing or idea in terms of the essential or universal principle that defines it; therefore, in accord with God, who is the essential or ontological ground of all things, the eternal measure of his creation.

sub specie boni: under the aspect of the good.

subiectum: subject; anything of which either substance or any of the several categories of accident or adjunct can be predicated. Thus the maxim Extincto subiecto, tollitur adjunctum: The subject having been annihilated, the adjunct is abolished. In philosophy, the subiectum is that in which attributes inhere, i.e., a substance; thus also subiectum inhaesionis, the subject in which something inheres. A subiectum inhaesionis could be an object in which properties inhere or the human understanding considered as the knowing subject in which ideas of things are lodged. In logic or discourse, a subject is the topic of predication, that about which the affirmation or denial is made in any proposition; thus the term subiectum circa quod, the subject about or concerning which, namely, a subject or object of consideration. See accidens; obiectum; praedicatio; substantia.

subiectum convertendum: the converted subject; viz., the individual believer considered as the subiectum quod, or passive subject, of conversion. See conversio; subiectum quo / subiectum quod.

subiectum quo / subiectum quod: the subject by which / the subject which. The former term indicates an active subject or involvement of the subject in an activity; the latter term indicates an essentially passive subject. Thus Christ’s human nature is the subiectum quo of his sufferings, whereas the divine-human persona (q.v.) is the subiectum quod of the suffering.

subsistentia: subsistence or subsistent; indicating a particular being or existent, an individual instance of a given essence. In this latter sense, it is the Latin equivalent of hypostasis and a more technical and philosophically adequate term than persona (q.v.) for indicating the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Trinity. See modus subsistendi.

substantia: substance; etymologically drawn from the Latin sub, under, and stare, to stand, a substance is the individual thing, whether material or spiritual, that provides the foundation in which both essential and incidental properties inhere. A substance, understood in its primary sense, is the individual or that which exists: a being or thing subsisting of itself as an independent entity, the subject of properties. The qualification “subsisting of itself” refers specifically to the independence of the thing as existing not in another subject. That which exists in a subject is a property or accident (accidens, q.v.). Properties or accidents, which of their nature cannot exist by themselves, inhere in substances. Emphasis here is on concrete reality as distinct from essentia (q.v.), which indicates simply what a thing is. A distinction can therefore be made between primary and secondary substance. Primary substance is the individual understood as something that does not exist in another subject, that cannot be said about (or predicated of) a subject but is identified with the subject, such as Alexander or Bucephalus: one would not say that Alexander is an Alexander or that Bucephalus is a Bucephalus. Secondary substance is the essence, genus, or species of a thing, as that which can be said about (or predicated of) a subject, such as man or horse: Alexander is a man; Bucephalus is a horse.

In the Aristotelian perspective, substantia indicates a union of form and matter. Form (see forma; universalia) is the idea or actuality (actus, q.v.) of a thing; matter (materia, q.v.) is the underlying corporeal substratum. Neither matter nor form by itself is a thing (res, q.v.) or a substance. The substantia is the actual individual thing, whereas form by itself an abstract genus, and matter by itself is an unidentifiable and indeterminate materiality (see materia prima). Thus substance is distinguished from essence, since it is not a universal and is not considered in the abstract. Nonetheless, substantia can indicate the formal and material reality held in common by all members of a genus as well as the formal and material reality of an individual.

The new rationalisms of the seventeenth century undermined the concept of substance as the individual. From the Cartesian perspective, the notion of a being or thing subsisting of itself as an independent entity was problematic inasmuch as it could be applied only to God, namely, to an utterly independent being as distinct from a caused and in some sense dependent being. Descartes’s critique of the traditional definition led to his redefinition of substance as either thought or extension. Spinoza carried the argument further, defining substance as that which is or exists in itself and which can be conceived of as utterly independent, a definition that could be applied only to God or, indeed, to Nature as identical with God. Finite things that neither exist nor can be conceived as utterly independent are reduced to modes of the one substance. Corollaries of this definition of substance are that one substance cannot be produced by another, that substance is necessarily infinite, and that there can be only one substance. This redefinition of substance issued in a radical pantheistic determinism that includes the loss of the traditional emphasis on the individual and the possibility of arguing the case for freedom of choice in a traditional sense. It also undermined the traditional application of language of substance to the doctrines of God, Trinity, and the person of Christ.

substantia cogitans: thinking substance; also actus substantialis cogitandi or actus cogitandi: the substantial actualization of thinking or the actuality of thinking; terms used as synonyms for soul in those few late seventeenth-century Reformed authors influenced by the Cartesian dichotomization of all substance into thought and extension, the former being the basic Cartesian identification of the soul.

substantia individua intelligens: an individual, intelligent substance; a synonym for persona (q.v.).

sufficientia: sufficiency, adequacy; specifically, the sufficientia Christi, the sufficiency or adequacy of Christ’s death or satisfaction as the price or payment for sin. Given the assumption that Christ’s death was sufficient payment for all the sins of the world and that not all human beings will ultimately be saved, the Reformed orthodox have recourse to the traditional distinction between the sufficientia and the efficientia (q.v.), the efficiency or efficacy of Christ’s death: specifically, Christ died sufficiently for all (sufficienter pro omnibus) and effectively for the elect only (efficaciter tantum pro electis). Alternatively, a similar distinction can be made between Christ’s accomplishment (impetratio) of redemption and the application (applicatio) of his work to those who are saved. See impetratio; meritum Christi; obedientia Christi; satisfactio Christi; satisfactio vicaria.

suggestio verborum: the suggestion of words; a term used to clarify the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of Scripture, indicating that not only the minds of the amanuenses (q.v.), nor only the ideas in the text, but also the very words of the text are inspired, having been given to the amanuenses by suggestion of the Spirit. See inspiratio; perfectio integralis; Scriptura Sacra; theopneustos.

summa: the main point, principal issue, substance; hence, a textbook or compendium that gathers together in summary form the substance or principal issues of a discipline; thus summa theologiae, the sum, substance, or compendium of theology.

summum bonum: the highest good; i.e., God as the source and end of all good. See bonitas Dei; bonum; felicitas; fons omnium bonorum.

summus princeps: supreme ruler or sovereign; a term applied to God as sovereign of the created order.

superadditum: something superadded; viz., something granted or given above and beyond the original constitution of a thing; also used as an adjective. See donum superadditum.

superbia: pride. See septem peccata mortalia.

suppositum: supposit; a self-existent or self-subsistent thing; specifically any primary substance or individual. See individuum; persona; substantia.

suppositum intelligens: a thinking, self-subsistent being; i.e., a person. See persona.

supra lapsum: above or prior to the fall; as opposed to infra lapsum (q.v.). Two basic views of predestination emerged from the development of Reformed doctrine in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: (1) the supralapsarian view, sometimes referred to as full double predestination (election and reprobation being coordinate, albeit not causally parallel, aspects of the decree); and (2) the infralapsarian view, which can indicate either a double or a single predestination (in which election alone is identified as a positive divine willing). Both views arise out of consideration of an eternal, logical order of the things of the decree, or ordo rerum decretarum (q.v.), in the mind of God: neither view, in other words, argues for a temporal relationship of divine willing to the fall, as either before or after it in time. The distinction between the supra- and infralapsarian definitions lies in their understanding of the human objects of the eternal divine willing.

According to the supralapsarian view, the election or reprobation of individuals is logically prior to the divine ordination to permit the fall and, in many formulations, prior also to the divine decree to create. The human objects of divine willing are, accordingly, understood as possibilities that are either creatable or as to be created and as capable of falling. Various of the Reformed indicate that the supralapsarian view rests on an apex logicus (q.v.), or point of logic, viz., that the goal or final cause of any process, although temporally subsequent to the means used to reach it (including formal and material causality), must be logically prior. If the final cause or goal of God’s predestination is the manifestation of his mercy in the elect and his justice in the reprobate, then creation and fall are understood as means to that end, and the eternal decree of electing and reprobating must be prior. In one typical form of the supralapsarian definition, in the divine mind, the human subject of election and reprobation is thus conceived as creabilis et labilis, creatable and fallible, i.e., as a possibility for creation and as capable of falling. As early as the late sixteenth century, in the work of Francis Junius, the supralapsarian model indicated that, given the modes of divine knowledge (see scientia Dei), God eternally knows his human creatures as creatable (creabilis), to be created or made (condendus), created or made (conditus), and fallen (lapsus, q.v.). Some supralapsarian definitions identify the human objects of divine willing in all of these modes; others focus on election and reprobation as referring foundationally to human beings as creabilis or condendus or conditus, logically prior to referencing them in their fallen state. In all of the supralapsarian definitions, the prior purpose of God is the manifestation of his glory in the mercy of election and the justice of reprobation, while the creation itself and the decree to permit the fall are secondary purposes, or means to the end, of election and reprobation. The breadth of the supralapsarian definitions serves to explain how theologians holding this view were consistently viewed as in conformity to the various Reformed confessions, notably the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort, which include infralapsarian definitions: as defined by Junius and others, the supralapsarian model includes the infralapsarian and accepts it as God’s knowledge of the objects of his willing according to the scientia voluntaria sive libera (q.v.).

The infralapsarian view, which is the confessional position of the Reformed churches, places the divine will to create human beings with free will and the decree to permit the fall prior to the election of some to salvation. Thus, in the divine mind, the human object of election is viewed in eternity as creatus et lapsus, created and fallen. In this view, the prior purpose of God is the creation of human beings for fellowship with himself, and the decree to elect some to salvation appears as a means to the end of that fellowship, while reprobation stands as a just divine willing not to elect some of the fallen descendants of Adam. The infralapsarian perspective is frequently called single predestination because some of its formulations represent God as electing some for salvation out of the fallen mass of humanity and then not positively decreeing reprobation but passing over the rest, leaving them in their sin to their own damnation. It more typically, however, takes the form of a double predestination, with election and reprobation as coordinate decrees. The infralapsarian doctrine of predestination arises out of the problem of the fall and salvation by grace, whereas the supralapsarian teaching arises out of a more abstract consideration of the eternity and omnipotence of God, of the fullness of divine knowledge, and of the priority of God’s ends over the means employed to achieve them. See causa; infra lapsum; ordo intentionis / ordo executionis; praedestinatio; reprobatio.

Sursum corda: Lift up (your) hearts; a phrase from the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper. It is especially important to the Reformed as an explanation of the union (see unio sacramentalis) between the participant in the Lord’s Supper and the resurrected Christ. Rather than argue for the presence of Christ’s body in the elements, the Reformed will assert, in effect, the spiritual union of the believer with the exalted Christ, a participation in the thing signified (see res sacramenti) by means of faithful participation in the sign (signum, q.v.), and the concomitant operation of the Spirit that joins together by grace the uplifted heart of the believer and the person of Christ with all its benefits. See praesentia spiritualis sive virtualis.

sustentatio: preservation, providential sustenance; synonym, conservatio. See creatio continuata; providentia.

syllogismus practicus: the practical syllogism; a logical construction used by the Reformed in order to establish the certitudo electionis, or certainty of election, in and for an individual. Stated bluntly, it seems to rest certainty of election on the outward fruits of faith; in its usual form, however, it recognizes the exclusion of works from the causality of salvation and respects the doctrine that election occurs in Christ alone, and therefore states the logic of assurance in terms, first, of the scriptural promise, and second, of the inward, spiritual fruits of the application of Christ’s work by the Holy Spirit. As for the syllogism itself, the orthodox Reformed clearly state that the major premise must be read in Scripture, the external Word (Verbum externum), and that the minor, the internal Word (Verbum internum) of the Spirit, must be “read” in the heart. This formulation of the problem specifically avoids the possibility of an empirical syllogismus practicus and looks to inward fruits of the Spirit. The basic form of the syllogismus (here taken from Francis Turretin) is as follows: Quisquis vere credit et resipiscit electus sit; Atqui ego credo etc.; Ergo electus sum: “Whoever truly believes and becomes of a right spirit is elect; But in fact I believe etc.; Therefore I am elect” (Institutio theologiae elencticae 4.13.4). This basic logical form, in a multitude of varieties drawn from studies of the problems and temptations of daily life, is also found in the Puritan casuistry of “cases of conscience,” all of which were developed specifically for the sake of self-examination and personal assurance of salvation. See certitudo et gratiae praesentis et salutis aeternae; conscientia; incrementa fidei; terrores conscientiae.

synaïdios (συναΐδιος): coeternal; used by the fathers to indicate the coeternity, and therefore the equality, of the Father and the Son. See Trinitas.

synaphē (συναφή): attachment, connection, union; more commonly synapheia (q.v.).

synapheia (συνάφεια): union, conjunction; the term perhaps most often used by the fathers to indicate a union, both in trinitarian and christological statements and in statements regarding the union of believers with Christ and with one another.

synchōrētikōs (συγχωρητικῶς): forgivingly; having to do with forgiveness or concession.

synderesis, also syntērēsis (συντήρησις): the innate habit of the understanding that grasps basic principles of moral law apart from the activity of formal moral training; a concept from Aristotle, used by the medieval scholastics as a synonym for the patristic term scintilla conscientiae (q.v.). Alexander of Hales viewed synderesis as a habitual potency (potentia habitualis) that belongs to the intellect and the will; Bonaventure placed it in the will alone in order to distinguish it from the conscience (conscientia, q.v.), which he placed in the practical intellect as an innate habit. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas differed from the Franciscans, particularly with the more voluntaristic approach of Bonaventure, and placed the synderesis in the intellect. Furthermore, if one follows the Thomistic line of argument, synderesis can be distinguished from conscientia in that the latter is viewed as an act of the intellect (actus intellectus) while synderesis is a habitus (q.v.), or capacity. Debate over these definitions continued into the early modern era and among the Protestant scholastics in their analyses of the conscience. Ames explicitly distinguishes between the synderesis as a capacity and the conscience as an act of the intellect, arguing specifically that the synderesis, as a capacity, is the principle of the conscience, whereas the conscience is an exercise based on the principle.

Also following out a Thomistic line of argument, the synderesis can be distinguished into natural and acquired capacities. As a natural habitus it is a resident light in the understanding that assents to principles known by nature; as an acquired habitus it is an assent to more developed understanding. This definition implies a direct relationship between natural law and the synderesis, the natural law being the law of God universally written in the human heart and the object of a person’s apprehension or knowledge; the synderesis being the inward apprehension of the object (Ames, Cases of Conscience 1.2.2–4).

syneidēsis (συνείδησις): conscience. See conscientia.

synergismus: synergism; i.e., a working together; the term συνεργός (synergos) is frequently employed in the Pauline literature to indicate a “fellow worker” or “coworker” in the propagation of the gospel (cf. Rom. 16:3, 9, 21), and even a “coworker for God” (cf. 1 Thess. 3:2 NRSV), but never to indicate a cooperation of the individual person with the grace of God in the work of salvation. When the orthodox Lutheran and Reformed theologians apply the term to the doctrine of cooperation between God and a human being before the grace of regeneration, they do so with the intention of indicating an unorthodox and unbiblical doctrine. A distinction ought also to be made between the Melanchthonian and Arminian forms of synergism. Melanchthonian synergism, as debated in sixteenth-century Lutheranism and excluded by the Formula of Concord, argues for a coincidence of the Word, the Spirit, and the human will not refusing God’s grace. This form of synergism emphasizes the coincident work of Word and Spirit and the openness of the will to Word and Spirit but does not set will prior to grace as an active power or faculty capable of applying grace to the individual (facultas se applicandi ad gratiam, q.v.). Melanchthon’s teaching is synergistic, but it does not deserve to be called semi-Pelagian. The Arminian view, however, supposes not only the cooperation of the will with Word and Spirit but also the ability of the will to apply or attach itself to grace. In the Arminian view, the will is the effective ground of salvation. This perspective is not only synergistic but also fully semi-Pelagian. See cooperatio; intuitu fidei; praevisa fides; regeneratio.

synergoi (συνεργοί): fellow workers, coworkers.

syntagma (σύνταγμα): a gathering, collation, or collection; as, e.g., Amandus Polanus’s Syntagma theologiae christianae, a gathering of theological topics and arguments into a set of loci communes (q.v.), or body of doctrine (corpus doctrinae, q.v.); or Pierre Gassendi’s Institutio logica, et philosophiae Epicuri syntagma, an instruction in logic, with a gathering or collation of the philosophy of Epicurus. See corpus theologiae; erōtēma; loci communes; medulla; theologia acroamatica.

syntaxia (συνταξία): a collection or arrangement.

systema (σύστημα): a composition or composite whole, a system; in theology, a composite whole or gathering of theological topics probably shorter than a corpus but longer than a medulla (q.v.). See corpus doctrinae; corpus theologiae; loci communes; syntagma.