Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Texts: Isaiah 55:6-9 and Matthew 20:1-16

            Beloved in Christ, God made us in His image. And for millennia now we have been returning the favor and trying to make God in our own image.

            I don’t mean that as a compliment. When God created us in His image, He was bestowing upon us good gifts. He was endowing us with reason, so that we would not have to live purely by instinct. More importantly, He gave us holiness and righteousness, so that all our actions would be noble and praiseworthy and so that we would live a life of trust in Him. But what did we do? We threw away that gift. Instead of holiness we pursued sin. Rather than being governed by reason, we often follow our basest desires and do so unthinkingly. But to top it all off, we started trying to create God in our own image. We pretended that He was exactly like one of us—more powerful than us, to be sure—but otherwise indistinguishable from you and me.

            We cut God down to our size by calling Him “the Man Upstairs,” as if He were a slightly older human being, but with all our foibles and quirks. We assume that He is as fickle as we are, and that He has basically the same moral outlook we do. Indeed, whatever we happen to think about a particular subject, we assume that it is His view as well, for we are smart, reasonable beings and God must certainly be like us if He is worthy of the name God.

            But then we are confronted with those words from today’s Old Testament reading: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD.” We may try to get God to conform to our expectations and our way of doing things, but we won’t succeed. God will remain God, not a creation of our imagination.

            Therefore, when we come to the Scriptures, we shouldn’t expect to see the LORD God confirming our preconceptions about Him. We are selfish people; the LORD God isn’t. We are tainted by sin; the LORD God is holy. We are limited in our understanding; the LORD God knows all things. Therefore, we should actually be expected to be surprised when we read the Scriptures and learn more about the LORD. This is especially true if we haven’t been Christians all that long or if we have read very little of the Scriptures or if we have read the Bible very superficially. We should expect that the LORD will surprise us when He tells us exactly what He is like.

            And so we should expect that God will demand something greater of us in the way of morality than we would. After all, we are looking for the easiest way out. We are looking for ways to justify our selfish behavior. But if the LORD God is holy and wants us to be holy too, He will have to ask for more out of us. You see, we take the saying “no harm, no foul” and recraft it as “no blood, no sin,” as if you have to harm someone badly enough that they end up in the hospital before it counts as a sin. And since we haven’t done anything that horrible, or done so only very occasionally, we look pretty good.

            But God tells us to get a deeper morality than that. Sure, He forbids us to murder others, but He also tells us not to be angry with them or call them names. Sure, He forbids us to commit adultery, but He also orders us not to look at others with lust in our eyes. Our words and our thoughts are as much subject to His scrutiny as the crassest of our deeds, and they must pass inspection no less than our actions.

            But God’s thoughts are about more than mere morality. That is one of the ways that His thoughts are so much higher than ours. The best we can think to come up with is a mediocre morality. But God wants to establish a relationship with us that is based on something even better than morality: His love, mercy, and forgiveness.

            We see that in today’s Gospel. There we see a man who hires a crew of workers at the beginning of the day and promises to pay them a denarius, which was more than fair pay for a day’s work. Three hours into the workday he realizes that he will need more workers and so he hires some more. He does so again at the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Finally, at the eleventh hour, one hour before quitting time, he hires a final batch of workers. He then pays everyone a denarius. The people who were hired first don’t like it. I suppose that neither would several federal agencies today. Sure, we would allow him to pay the last group of workers a denarius, but only if he upped the pay for the first group of workers to twelve denarii.

            Why do we instinctively have a problem with what the man in the parable? It is because we do not understand grace, that is, when God gives us something that we don’t deserve and couldn’t in fact earn. We look at God as if He were our boss, and anything we get from Him as our wages. If we work hard, we expect to be highly compensated. If we are good people, living upright lives, we expect God to give us high-paying jobs, prestige in society, a great family, and a pleasant life. And if we or someone else messes up and violates one of God’s commandments in a serious way, we expect some misfortune to strike. When it comes to our salvation, we do things the old-fashioned way: we earn it.

            And so we are scandalized by the idea that God would forgive sins, that He would give people something better than what they deserve. We ignore the fact that, if God truly paid people the wages they deserved, everyone would be condemned to hell, for all people have sinned against Him. But let’s say that we were able to live a perfect life and received as our due wages eternal fellowship with God in heavenly bliss. Now imagine that God gives the same gift of eternal life to someone who hasn’t been perfect. We would consider it grossly unfair, especially if that person wasn’t even close to our level of perfection. We would complain that we were being cheated somehow.

            But the man in the parable asks some pertinent questions. He told the workers who worked all day, “Did you not agree with me for a denarius?” Whatever the man gave the other workers, he had not violated his agreement with them. By the same token, God promises that all who are perfectly obedient to Him will receive the rewards of heaven. That agreement is not violated simply because God decides to show mercy to sinners. The man in the parable goes on to ask, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” And that is what it boils down to: We have no right to begrudge God’s generosity. If He wants to show mercy, we have no right to complain, as if we were being robbed somehow or another.

            Far from being cheated, we ought to realize exactly how generous God is, for even the best of us are more like the workers hired near the end of the day than those hired at the very beginning. We will enter heaven not based on our works, but as a free gift received from the LORD God, paid at the great cost of Christ’s suffering and death.

            Now this parable usually leads people to ask the question: If we all can get the same free gift of salvation regardless of whether we trusted in Christ early in life or late in life, then why should we become a Christian early in life and take the faith seriously and strive to live a godly life, when we could turn to God on our deathbed and equally be saved? There are two answers. First of all, you might not have the chance to lie on your deathbed and mull over your life and consider returning to the LORD God. You might die quite suddenly, when you least expect it, without a chance to repent. That is why the Scriptures state repeatedly: “Today is the day of salvation.” There may not be a tomorrow. But there is another reason: we don’t want to miss out on fellowship with God. You see, we embrace the Christian faith not as something laborious but as a gift from God. Or more accurately: where God Himself is the gift.

            It is not a burden to hear the invitation, “Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.” It is not a burden because we know that “He [will] have compassion on” us and “will abundantly pardon.” Therefore, beloved in the Lord, let us rejoice that God’s thoughts are higher than ours, and let us ponder what He has revealed about Himself. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Epiphany 4C, January 31, 2016

Text: Luke 4:31-44

            Beloved in Christ, when God’s Word is preached, it changes things. We see this quite clearly in today’s Gospel. When our Lord preached, it opened the way for demons to be expelled from people and for the sick to be healed. Even today, wherever Jesus Christ is proclaimed as our divine Savior, the devil is put on the run and healing comes to people burdened with disease and illness. That is because Christ comes to restore both soul and body to wholeness.

            Now I and my fellow pastors do not have exactly the same authority that Christ does. Christ is the Son of God. In His very nature He has power over the entire universe. Just as the Father and the Holy Spirit have absolute divine power, so does He. Just as they exude life and bring life wherever there is death, so does He. Christ doesn’t have to go up the chain of command to see if possibly it would be okay to vanquish Satan or bring the fullness of life into a particular situation. He can act on His own initiative. But that is not true of me, my fellow pastors, and Christians in general. To be sure, Christ entrusted pastors with the task of teaching His Word. He gave them authority “to forgive the sins of those who repent and to withhold forgiveness from those who refuse to repent.” In fact, he calls all Christians to proclaim the good news of salvation to all who do not know it and to encourage those who do. But our authority comes from Him, not from ourselves. It is not my holiness or my sacrifice or my power that will rout the devil or heal the sick. Whatever my prayers or your prayers can accomplish comes from Christ, not us. That is why ever since Christ ascended into heaven, Christians have prayed, read the Scriptures, and explained them to people who were troubled by the devil and his temptations or who were battling some kind of disease. We do so, confident that God hears us, but also knowing that healing is not always quick or automatic.

Jesus Heals a Deaf Man Possessed by a Demon,
Originally placed in the City Hall of Ulm

            But let us consider the two forms of healing—in soul and in body—that our Lord came to bring. Let us begin with the healing that takes place in the soul. The man with an unclean demon called out, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” That is how Satan and every demonic being talks to the Son of God. They recognize Him for who He is: “the Holy One of God.” But they also want to have nothing to do with Him. They want Him to stay out of their little world, for they know that He will turn it inside out, if given a chance.

            But it is not just demons that talk this way. Everybody is born with an attitude that would like to cry out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Even believers in Christ struggle with a part of themselves that would still try to keep Christ out of the picture. We may welcome Christ’s presence in some corners of our life, but there are other areas where we say that He has nothing to do with us. We may welcome Him on Sunday mornings when dressed in our best and surrounded by upstanding people whose approval we want. But on Monday through Saturday we may say, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” When He wants to speak to us about the sort of ethics we should have at our workplace, we want to say, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” When He says that there is a right way and a wrong way to treat other people in your life, we want to say, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” When He wants to talk about such matters as our egos, our selfishness, our lust, our pride, our anger, and the like, we want to say, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

            But, beloved in Christ, do not talk that way. Submit yourself humbly to the LORD God. When you resist His so-called meddling, you are resisting the Physician who alone can heal you. You are delighting the devil and his wicked angels, who seek only to enslave and destroy you. You are not helping yourself or bringing yourself any greater happiness. You will in the end bring yourself only misery and despair.

            But what would happen if we brought Christ, the Holy One of God, to our Mondays through Saturdays as well as to our Sundays? We would see that God’s love, forgiveness, and grace extend to those days as well. Christ cleaned the temple on a Monday, taught on a Tuesday, was plotted against on a Wednesday, washed feet on a Thursday, was crucified on a Friday, and lay in the tomb on a Saturday. He did all those things so that He could redeem you from your sins, no matter what day they occur on. He died on the cross, all but naked. Do you think that He will forgive you only on Sundays when you are dressed in your finery? No, He loves you on weekdays when you are dressed in a grease-spotted shirt and muddy jeans.

            God is the one who created work. Don’t you think that He has some wisdom to offer about what is right and wrong in how we work? Don’t you think that His love could bring healing to what troubles you most on the job? God created other people and loves them as much as He loves you. Don’t you think that He wants them to be loved by you, even as He wants you to be loved them? Don’t you think that He wants both you and them to experience His love through the way you treat each other? And when He talks about your ego, selfishness, lust, pride, anger, and the like, He does so precisely because these are ways in which you continue to hurt yourself. It hurts to touch those areas, much like it is painful for a doctor to touch an open sore. But it has to be done. The infection has to be dealt with. The more we avoid it, the more the sore festers and the more damage is done. It is painful to have that sore opened, but it is only so that the salve can be poured in. Christ confronts us with our sins in these areas, so that He can proclaim forgiveness for them. When we take that forgiveness to heart, these matters that had long been plaguing us begin to heal. We understand at a deeper level that we are a new creation in Christ. Now the infection of sin will linger and we won’t get rid of it altogether. But we will see that Christ is making a difference as He brings healing to our souls.

            He also brings healing to our bodies, as today’s Gospel reminds us. Now how can I say this, when I know that every founding member of this congregation, including the saintliest, are all dead? How can I say this, when each and every one of us will succumb to disease or injury or old age and die? How can I say this when I know that many in our church suffer from chronic medical conditions or are homebound?

            The key to understanding this is that Christ’s holy life, death, and resurrection has secured perfect healing in body and soul for all who believe, but we are only given a taste of that now. We have been given complete forgiveness and victory over sin, and we will experience that fully in the resurrection. But now we still struggle with sin, and it is only the forgiveness of sins that enables us to keep moving forward. In the same way, Christ has won for us perfect healing in our body, and we will experience that fully in the resurrection. But for now we still struggle with disease and injury. It is only God’s love and grace and forgiveness that enable us to keep moving forward, despite our physical struggles.

            But consider how He continues to heal. We have all had dozens of colds, scrapes and bruises, lumps and bumps. Any one of those things could have killed us, if God had not given us a healthy body able to mend itself. The common cold or some other simple disease could kill us if we did not have a healthy immune system. Likewise, the smallest of wounds could become infected and lead to loss of limb or life. We may take all these things for granted, but we shouldn’t. The fact that we recover from illness, that medicines and vaccines work, that doctors can diagnose things—all of these things are blessings from God.

            But also consider how God comes to us in the midst of our illness and supports us and comforts us. The medical condition may remain, but we know that we have not been abandoned. We recognize that God loves us and is listening to us as we pray. We know that other Christians are praying for us, and their prayers encourage us, too. The burden becomes easier to bear.

            And so, beloved in Christ, may you experience the healing Christ comes to bring through His Word. Let Him be the Good Physician for both your soul and body, and look forward to His return when you will be completely whole in body and soul. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sermon for Pentecost 19 (Proper 22B), October 4, 2015

Text: Mark 10:2-16

            Beloved in Christ, oh, my! We have to talk about marriage, divorce, sex, and all that. Couldn’t we have a root canal instead? Anyone with half a brain knows that these are topics where the old-fashioned views of the church run completely counter to the way that our society thinks. Maybe we do believe in the old-fashioned ways, but we may find it uncomfortable to talk about our beliefs because we know how out of whack we are with the majority of people in this country and even with our loved ones. Or maybe we’re tired of hearing “No” all the time and we are glad that the Sexual Revolution occurred so that we can go and do our own thing. Or maybe we’re somewhere in between. We realize that our world has become quite scuzzy and we don’t entirely approve, but we don’t want to be complete prudes either. We want to give in just a little bit and compromise with the world. So, no, we won’t pick up strangers at a bar—that would be skanky—but maybe we could still do some things that an older generation would have disapproved of, such as living together without being married, as long as we are committed to each for a time.

            Even in traditional circles, marriage and sex are a mess. No one can feel quite comfortable that their lives and our Lord’s words will line up. And so we wish that the topic would just be swept underneath the rug. But the truth of the matter is that Jesus was asked about it and He talked about it—and so we have to, as well, at least if we are covering all the topics important to our Lord. Now I acknowledge that the Christian message is about something more than sex and marriage. That is why most of my sermons are about other topics. Nonetheless, the Christian message does have something to say about sex and marriage, and we do well to listen to it. Furthermore, we do so as God’s beloved children whom He has redeemed through Christ Jesus. Even when we are reminded of our sins in this area, we still hear our Lord’s words, for He is our Savior. And so, come like the little children who were brought to Jesus to be held in His arms. Let Him embrace you even as He tells you about this difficult topic.

            I would like to do three things in this sermon. First, I would like to look at what Jesus has to say about marriage and where He gets His ideas on that topic. Next I would like to look at the practical reasons for this law. And finally I would like to show how this commandment relates to the gospel, the good news of the forgiveness of our sins.

            So what does Jesus have to say about marriage and where does He get His ideas? You have to acknowledge that our Lord is quite traditional on this matter. Some people like to portray Jesus as being very loosey-goosy with the law and that it was only later Christians who formulated rigid rules. But that view doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, at least not on matters of sex and marriage. In His day Jews were divided over to what extent divorce was permitted. Some argued for a no-fault divorce; they believed that any reason was a good enough reason for the divorce to occur. Others took the same line as Jesus: divorce was permitted only when something like adultery had negated the marriage vows. They acknowledged that Moses permitted divorce if a man found a fault with a woman, but they understood the “fault” to refer to something like adultery.

            But where does Jesus get His ideas? He goes back to the Scriptures. He starts with the Books of Moses, as did His opponents. But His opponents looked only at the civil law given to Israel. And that was the wrong place to start. You see, the civil law always deals with people as they are, while trying to bring a degree of order into the midst of chaos. God knew that if there were no divorce, wives would either be murdered by their husbands or would be unceremoniously dumped and forced to fend for themselves. It was better that civil society allow for a woman to be divorced legally so that she could get remarried. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than the alternatives. But Christians don’t get their morality from the civil law, but from the eternal, unchanging moral law. We don’t ask, “Is it legal?” but rather, “Is it moral?” The state can pass all sorts of laws it wants, permitting all sorts of bad behaviors, but that doesn’t mean Christians will do those evil deeds.

            Instead, we go back to the very moral foundations that God laid. Before God commands anything, He first gives us a good gift. The commandments are simply an explanation about how to use that gift. God first created a physical world with stunning beauty and immense natural resources. And then He said such things as “Have dominion over it, that is, be a steward of it” and “Don’t steal, that is, don’t take for yourselves a portion of creation that you have no right to manage.” The same thing happens with marriage. God first of all created human beings to be male and female. He did this so that human beings would not be alone and also so that they could partake in His blessing of being fruitful and multiplying. Eve was taken out of Adam. The two of them were meant to be that close to each other. Therefore, it would have been entirely inappropriate for Adam to dump Eve or vice versa, for they were one flesh. And even though men do not marry a woman taken out of their ribs anymore, the same principle still holds true: in marriage we are given someone as dear to us as our own flesh and blood.

            So that is what Jesus teaches and where He got that idea. But God’s law is always practical. There are always good reasons for anything that God commands, even when it seems not to be the case at first glance. We expect there to be good reasons why God wants sexual intercourse to be confined to marriage, and married couples to be faithful to each other and not to divorce except for the gravest of reasons. You could state the matter quite simply by saying God wants families to be stable households. This is especially for the sake of children. After all, whenever there is sex, there is always the possibility of children being born as a result. Children need a mom and a dad, living in the household and interacting daily with them. Yes, there may be other men and women in the children’s lives, but there is nothing like having a mom and a dad doing the intense parenting work. You need a mom who can kiss the boo-boo when you fall down and scrape your knee. And you need a dad who will tell you, “Walk it off!” You need that mixture of compassion and motivation.

            Children need to know that mom and dad are going to be there throughout their lives. We see how children are traumatized when they see one of their parents walking out of the family and ignoring them. Even grownups can be disheartened to see their parents split up. But it is not just the children who benefit from this marriage arrangement. So too do the adults. They have to learn from each other how to get along with someone who is completely different from them. Yes, they may have their differences of opinion, but they need to learn how to argue through them. And, yes, part of the blessing is that marriage forces a man and a woman to come to some means of living together, despite the fact that men and women by their very natures have very different outlooks on life. Two guys may disagree, but still they tend to look at the world in the same way, overall; the same is the case with two women. But in marriage a man and a woman have to take those two very different approaches to life and bring them together to form one family.

            Stable marriages help not only the adults and children, but society as a whole. As we have encouraged divorce and discouraged marriage, as we have promoted pornography and hookups instead of real and lasting relationships, our society has become lonelier and coarser. But where families flourish, so too does society.

            Now you may point out to me that a large part of our congregation is unmarried, including a goodly number who have never married. How does this commandment apply to us? First, we should understand that we are no less loved by God or others, simply because we are unmarried. God has simply not called us to the sort of responsibilities that family life entails. Instead we are given another sort of vocation to follow. But as we pursue our calling as singles, we should not do anything that will undermine the family. That means we cannot have sex outside of marriage, or else we will diminish its importance in marriage. Instead, just as married people have a lot of hard work to do as spouse and parent, so single people have a lot of hard work to do in living a chaste and godly life.

            Now so far I have explained the rules and the practical reasons for them. But there is more. The Christian life is all about the forgiveness of sins that Christ has given us by his holy life, death, and resurrection. And He forgives our sexual sins as well. They are not unpardonable sins, but rather sins for which He died. As He forgives us, He invites us to see marriage and sexuality in general as a way of experiencing and proclaiming the gospel. This is a point commonly overlooked in our discussions. God didn’t just gives rules to make us feel bad. Rather by living chaste and holy lives, whether in marriage or in being single, we participate in the gospel.

            In marriage the man portrays Christ and the woman portrays the church. The love between Christ and the church is eternal. That is why marriage is meant to last a lifetime. God expects His people to be faithful to Him, just as He is toward them. Thus, both husband and wife are to be faithful to each other in order to proclaim the faithfulness of the love between Christ and the church. You can see then why divorce and promiscuity are so anathema. They distort the gospel and proclaim that God loves us and leaves us. And so the best thing husband and wife can do is to receive their spouse’s love as part of the divine love between God and His people—and then to love their spouse as a proclamation of the gospel. Similarly, those who are unmarried can show a chaste love for others. After all, Christ was all about serving us rather than be gratified by us. In the same way, unmarried Christians show by their love for others that they are not in it for the pleasure that could be given to them.

            This is indeed a holy and difficult calling. But our Lord points out that this is part of being a Christian, and so we cannot neglect it. May we take to heart our Lord’s instructions on marriage and sexuality and find in them not just sage advice, but also the gospel lived out here on earth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Is Philosophy Necessary in Theology?

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine (Jack Kilcrease) posted a blog in which he argued that people need to be familiar with Aristotelian philosophy if they are going to understand the arguments of theologians from the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy (latter half of the sixteenth century through the end of the seventeenth century), especially from the time period of John Gerhard (1582-1637) onwards, since all academic endeavors in that era were influenced by the Aristotelian Renaissance. Kilcrease’s argument makes sense, since one must understand the language in which something is written. This is doubly the case when there are precise, technical definitions given to certain words that might be used in a looser, non-technical sense in common parlance today or even in a technical sense that is somewhat different today.

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates

But there is another question that Kilcrease did not explicitly address, although I do not believe that he will differ with the answer I give below. The question is this: does one need to use philosophy or philosophical terminology in theology at all? Granted, one must understand philosophy in order to understand the theological arguments of such ancient thinkers as Gerhard or Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), but do we have to know philosophy in order to do theology today? Should we not just acknowledge that these old theologians have added an unnecessary layer of difficulty to the theological task and that we should be concerned simply with the (non-philosophical) thoughts of the Bible? As one of my Roman Catholic friends has put it, do I need to know Aristotle in order to know Jesus?

When put that way, the only pious answer—indeed the only correct answer—seems to be “No.” Christian theology must be based on the Scriptures and their teachings. They must be grounded in the person and work of Jesus, who was not a Greek philosopher or worked in their categories, but who thought and taught in a Hebrew way that is at times quite foreign to us as well as to the ancient Greek philosophers. We must be careful that we do not adopt a philosophical framework outside of the Scriptures or that taught by our Lord and then try to pigeonhole our Lord’s words into that framework. In other words, theology cannot be placed upon the Procrustean bed of philosophy, ancient or modern.

But how have Lutherans expressed this truth in the past several centuries, yes, even down to the present day? We have said that the gospel is the material principle of theology and the Scriptures are the formal principle of theology—and that philosophy is neither its material nor its formal principle. But, of course, we are using two philosophical phrases that derive ultimately from the works of Aristotle. Thus, even as we deny that philosophy is a governing principle of theology, we use philosophical terms to do so and we use those terms to distinguish two principles that govern theology. (I will omit in this discussion that God is the efficient principle of theology and that the glory of God, knowledge of divine truth, and mankind’s salvation are its final principles, as Gerhard argues.)

Gottfried Eichler, The Last Supper

But why should we distinguish between the Scriptures and the gospel as two different principles in theology? Why should we adopt this language at all? Consider these questions. Is the Scripture important, in fact indispensable, in doing theology? Is the gospel likewise important, in fact indispensable, in doing theology? Well, which is it? Is the Scripture or the gospel of vital importance, the source of all Christian thinking? A genuine Christian who is very knowledgeable about the faith should say, “Both are important, but each plays a different role. The gospel (and by that I mean especially our justification by grace through faith in Christ) is what Christian theology is about. Everything we teach is either predicated upon this fact or leads us to understand this truth. To deny the gospel or to obscure it would be to ruin Christian theology. At the same time, this gospel is not some nebulous idea. It has taken body in the words of the Scriptures—yes, with all their genealogies, historical narratives, letters to ornery churches, and other quirks. You can’t abstract the idea of the gospel apart from the Scriptures without theology going off the rails.”

In short, we are acknowledging that the gospel and the Scriptures play a foundational role in theology, but in different ways. And here it is useful to have some kind of terminology that distinguishes between the various kinds of foundational roles that something might have. To find those terms we look around to grammarians, wordsmiths, or anyone who thinks deeply about these matters. And these people say that there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. About twenty-four centuries ago, a Greek philosopher named Aristotle started asking, “When we say that something is the cause or foundation or source of something”—he would have used the word arche for all three ideas—“what are the possible meanings of that term and how can we distinguish between the various nuances?” He coined several terms that would be refined over the centuries; this allowed people to distinguish (among other things) between a material cause (or principle as it came to be called via the Latin) and a formal cause. Thus, a table has a certain shape given to it because a particular pattern (formal cause) was imposed upon its material, the wood from a tree (material cause). If asked, one could rightly say that a particular piece of furniture was a table or a wooden object, but one wouldn’t make the error of saying that it had the shape of a wooden object or that it was made out of a table.

Since this terminology has been found useful for a long time, we do not feel any need to invent new terms. You could say that the philosophers have done theology a service by being careful linguists and asking what we mean by “cause” or “principle.” It helps us to be more precise than we otherwise would be. And this precision is necessary. When people make the gospel into the formal cause of theology (whether they use that term or not), theology becomes an abstract idea divorced from the real flesh-and-blood history of Christ, Israel, and the apostles. When people make the Bible into the material principle of theology (again, whether or not they use that particular terminology), theology becomes legalistic or moralizing as people overlook what the Scriptures are really all about. And thus it is helpful to acknowledge both the gospel and the Scriptures as foundational principles for theology, but in different senses.

This terminology, I must point out, is not sacrosanct. If we were convinced that it did not adequately express the truth, we would have to invent new terminology that could. The history of Christian theology is full of people doing just that—either inventing new words or tweaking the meaning of old ones and pressing them into the service of Christian doctrine. For example, Christians took over the older philosophical terms essence (ousia) and substrate (hypostasis) and gave them somewhat different definitions, even as they coined new words such as Trinity (Trinitas)—all to explain the relationship of the three divine Persons in one divine Being. They didn’t necessarily take the philosophical language of the day and make Scripture conform to it, but they looked about to see if there was something they could borrow or adapt for their own purposes to make their point clear. And that remains a major task of theology: to make divine revelation clear and precise so that there will be no confusion or as little as possible.