Christian Theology and Key Controversies: Salvation, Christ, and Revelation

Doctrine

Belief or set of beliefs taught by the church

Soteriology

Doctrine of salvation

Incarnation

A person who embodies in the flesh a deity, spirit, or abstract quality

Logos

The Word of God, a divine principle, identified in John

Docetism

The doctrine, important in Gnosticism, that Christ's body was not human but either a phantasm or of real but celestial substance, and therefore only his suffering was apparent

Arianism

An influential doctrine denying the divinity of Christ, originating with the Alexandrian priest Arius (c.250-c.336)

Apollinarianism

A 4th-century heresy that claimed Jesus Christ had a human body and soul but his human rational mind was replaced by the Divine Logos

Homoousios

Of the same substance

Hypostatic union

Central Christian doctrine defining Jesus Christ as one person who is simultaneously fully divine and fully human

Original sin

The tendency to sin innate in all human beings, held to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall

Humanism

A democratic and ethical life stance that affirms human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives

Ad fontes

Back to the sources

Ransom theory

The process of restoring harmony, trust, and friendly relations after a period of conflict, estrangement, or hurt

Fishhook theory

Christ baited Satan, Jesus, human, subjected to Satan, could die, he does, Satan thinks he wins, BUT Jesus can't be held in death

Christus Victor

Christ is victor, Christ wins decisive victory over the forces of sin and death

Satisfaction theory

Jesus Christ died in order to pay back the injustice of human sin and to satisfy the justice of God

Justification

Being set right with God, being made righteous in God's sight, forgiveness viewed as the heart of the gospel

Sanctification

The theological process of being set apart for God's purpose and progressively made holy

Imputation

To ascribe something to someone, to treat something as belonging to someone

Impartation

The act of communicating, granting, or bestowing something from one person to another

Alien righteousness

A Reformation doctrine developed by Martin Luther, referring to the righteousness of Christ that is credited to a believer

Simil justus et peccator

Simultaneously righteous and a sinner

Divine accommodation

A theological principle stating that an infinite God condescends to human limitations

Inspiration

God breathed

Providence

The doctrine that God unceasingly cares for the world and is leading it to its appointed role

Transubstantiation

The doctrine that, during the Mass, the bread and wine change into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ

Consubstantiation

The doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine coexists with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist

Memorialism

A Christian theological view of the Lord's Supper that interprets the bread and wine as strictly symbolic representations

Enlightenment

The 'omnicompetence of reason', how we understand the world, calls into question the necessity or purpose of theology

Scandal of particularity

Reason was understood as universally accessible path of knowledge

Liberal Protestantism

Sought to reconstruct the Christian faith in light of modernity

Pluralism

All religious traditions are equally valid points to the same core of religious reality

Inclusivism

Christianity is the true understanding of God, but salvation is possible to those who belong to other religions

Particularism

Only those who hear and respond to the gospel may be saved

Eschatology

The study of end times