Practicing Christian Doctrine - Terminology Study Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcard guide covering core definitions and terms across the Introduction, Chapters 1-4, and Chapters 6-8 of Practicing Christian Doctrine by Beth Felker Jones.

Practising doctrine

Putting Christian teaching into lived practice; beliefs and actions belong together.

Evangelical theology

Theological work centred on the euangelion, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Ecumenical theology

Theological reflection that takes the unity and breadth of the worldwide Christian church seriously.

Bebbington Quadrilateral

Historian David Bebbington's four characteristics of evangelicalism: biblicism, conversionism, activism and crucicentrism.

Eschatological practice

Christian life lived in light of God's final purposes for creation and the promised new creation.

Theology

The study of the things of God; theos means God and logos means word, speech or reason.

Lex orandi, lex credendi

Latin expression meaning 'the law of prayer is the law of belief'.

Doctrine

An organised set of Christian teachings about important themes in Scripture and Christian life.

Dogma

Christian teaching at the highest level of authority and trustworthiness, shared ecumenically across Christian communities.

Dogmatics

The theological discipline that examines and articulates Christian doctrine and asks whether church teaching faithfully corresponds to God's revelation.

Queen of the Sciences

A traditional description of theology because it considers all areas of knowledge in the light of God and God's Word.

Orthodoxy and heresy

Orthodoxy is right Christian belief; heresy is teaching judged by the church to be contrary to Scripture.

Rule of faith and creeds

The rule of faith is an early summary of essential Christian teaching; ecumenical creeds are concise statements of key scriptural beliefs.

Wesleyan Quadrilateral

A model associated with John Wesley identifying Scripture, tradition, reason and experience as resources for theology.

Sola Scriptura

The Reformation principle that Scripture alone is the ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice.

Divine revelation

God's gracious act of making Godself known, uncovering what would otherwise remain hidden and inviting people into relationship.

General revelation

God's self-disclosure through creation and human conscience, available broadly to humanity.

Special revelation

God's particular self-disclosure in the history of Israel, in Jesus Christ and in Scripture.

Inspiration

The Holy Spirit's work in and with the human authors in the writing of Scripture.

Illumination

The Holy Spirit's continuing work in readers, helping individuals and the church understand and live faithfully by Scripture.

Canon

The collection of books received as Scripture; canon means 'measure' or 'rule'.

Inerrancy

A claim that Scripture, as God's Word, is truthful and does not err.

Infallibility

A claim that Scripture is unfailing or trustworthy in accomplishing its purpose of leading people to salvation and guiding Christian life.

Faithful interpretation

Reading Scripture in its whole biblical story and seeking to understand its unity, context and witness to the one God.

Trinity

The one God eternally exists in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Person and essence (ousia)

Person identifies the Father, Son or Spirit in their distinct relationships; essence or ousia refers to the one divine being or nature.

Homoousios

Greek term meaning 'of the same substance/essence'; the Son is of the same divine essence as the Father.

Perichoresis

The mutual indwelling of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Tritheism

The belief that there are three gods.

Modalism

The view that Father, Son and Spirit are merely different modes, roles or appearances of one person, rather than distinct persons.

Arianism

The view that the Son is a created being, even if the highest and greatest creature, and is not eternal or fully God.

Adoptionism

The view that Jesus was an ordinary human who became God's Son by adoption because of his obedience.

Subordinationism

A view that places the Son or Spirit below the Father in divine status or nature.

Creation

All that exists is made by God and belongs to God.

Creatio ex nihilo

Creation out of nothing: God brings all that exists into being without using pre-existing independent material.

Creaturely dependence

Created things do not possess existence independently; they depend on God for their being and continued existence.

Providence

God's ongoing care, sustaining and governing of creation and history.

Natural laws and miracles

Both ordinary patterns in nature and extraordinary divine acts occur within God's providential care.

Theodicy

The attempt to explain or justify God's action in light of the existence of evil and suffering.

Christology

The doctrine and theological study of the identity and person of Jesus Christ.

Incarnation

The eternal Son of God became truly human in Jesus Christ.

Chalcedonian Christology

Jesus Christ is one person in two complete natures, fully divine and fully human.

Hypostatic union

The real, unbreakable union of the divine and human natures in the one person of Jesus.

Communicatio idiomatum

The communication of attributes: what belongs to either nature can be truthfully predicated of the one person Jesus.

Apollinarianism

A rejected Christological view that does not give Jesus a complete human nature, especially a full human rational soul.

Eutychianism

A rejected view in which Christ's divine and human natures are confused or blended, so their distinction is lost.

Nestorianism

A rejected view that divides or separates Christ's divine and human natures too sharply, effectively treating them as two persons.

Soteriology

The doctrine of salvation and the saving work of Jesus Christ.

Atonement

The work by which Jesus Christ deals with sin and restores people to relationship with God.

Christus Victor

A model of atonement that understands Christ's work as victory over the powers that enslave humanity, including sin, death and evil.

Satisfaction model

An account of atonement associated with Anselm, in which Christ's work addresses the disorder and debt caused by human sin and restores what is owed to God.

Moral exemplar

An atonement model associated with Peter Abelard, emphasising Christ's perfect love, especially on the cross, as an example that moves people to love.

Justification

God's act of forgiving sinners and making them right with God.

Imputed righteousness

The righteousness of Christ is credited or reckoned to believers.

Sanctification

God's gracious work of making believers holy, godly and more like Christ.

Legalism / works righteousness

The error of treating human works or moral achievement as the basis of being accepted by God.

Antinomianism

The error of acting as though God's law and moral instruction have no relevance to Christian life.

Sacraments: baptism and communion

Central, communal and formative practices that signify God's saving work; Jones describes them as outward and visible signs of grace.

Pneumatology

The doctrine or theological study of the Holy Spirit; pneuma means breath or spirit.

Personhood of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit is a divine person, not an impersonal force or merely a symbol of God's activity.

Full divinity of the Spirit

The Holy Spirit is fully God, sharing the one divine essence with the Father and the Son.

Life-giving work

The Spirit gives and sustains life throughout creation and salvation history.

Indwelling

The Holy Spirit makes a home within believers; their bodies become temples of the Spirit.

Sanctifying grace

The Spirit's gracious work of forming believers into holy people who reflect Christ.

Spirituality and embodiment

Christian spirituality involves the whole embodied person, not merely private inner feelings or the soul separated from the body.

Spiritual but not religious

A phrase Jones critiques when it assumes spirituality is purely private and inward and therefore unrelated to bodily or communal life.