McCormack on Justification

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am by Peter Leithart

McCormack on Justification 2017-09-07T00:10:44+06:00 Peter Leithart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Bruce McCormack?s article on justification, alluded to in an earlier post, is quite good. He rightly points out that ?the term ?justification?Ehas its home in the judicial sphere,?Ebut equally rightly points out that God?s judgments are different from human judgments: ?God?s verdict differs in that it creates the reality it declares. God?s declaration, in other words, is itself constitutive of that which is declared. God?s word is always effective. When it goes forth, it never returns to Him void. So a judicial act for God is never merely judicial; it is itself transformative.?EFaith thus does not ?receive the divine verdict?Ebut ?is itself produced by that verdict. Imputation is itself regenerative.?EHe cites Calvin’s statement that “whomever . . . God receives into his grace, on them he at the same time bestows the gift of the spirit of adoption . . . , by whose power he remakes them in his own image,” and concludes that Calvin teaches that justification is here “logically prior to regeneration.” It is through the verdict of the divine Judge that the sinner is enabled to believe and through that verdict that the sinner is constituted as righteous.

This enables McCormack to deflect the charge that Protestant doctrines of justification are based on a legal fiction, the “accounting” of someone righteous who is manifest not so. But to further respond to the charge, McCormack also places imputation and justification in the framework of election and eschatology. Because God eternally decided to enter into covenant partnership with “the human race” (hmm), “the decision registered in the divine imputation is not a novum, but the manifestation of the eternal decision of the triune God to redeem God’s people on the basis of Christ’s work.” Eschatologically, “the regeration, which flows from justification as its consequence, is the initiation of a work that is completed only in the eschaton, only in the glorification of the saints. Hence, God’s pronouncement of a sinner as innocent takes place with a view toward the final purification of the sinner in the eschaton. And that has to mean that God does not simply clothe us in Christ’s righteousness in advance of the completion of his work but does so with a view towards that consummation.”

All this may make it sound as if McCormack is trying to split the difference between Protestant and Catholic views on justification, but he is definitely attempting to work with the materials provided by Protestant theology. Rather than confusing the “external” verdict with the “internal” nature, he is challenging the whole paradigm that would treat the “essence” of man as something other than God’s naming and declaration concerning him. How, he asks, do we characterize the continuous “me” that endures through all the changes of my life? What is my enduring “essence”? He argues that it is crucial to attempt a theological account of human essence, so as to avoid becoming wedding to a particular (and changing) philosophical account. His theological account is grounded in election and justification: “What is the unchanging ‘essence’ of the human? The ‘essence,’ I would argue, is not to be found in some kind of metaphysical substratum, something ‘beneath’ the empirical, psychological self. Indeed, the ‘essence’ of the human is not to be found ‘in us’ at all. The ‘essence’ of the human ?Ethe ‘essence’ of every individual human ?Elies in the divine act of relating to that individual in the covenant of grace.” God writes our names in the book of life, and in doing that “God was granting us an identity that was fixed and unassailable when none of us existed yet. That God does this at all is indicative of the fact that it is he who holds our ‘personal identity’ in his hands, who makes us to be who we are ?Eboth as a ‘race’ of human beings and as individual members of it.”

Thus, our essence is what God chose us to be before entering into covenant with us. Ultimately, this “essence” is realized eschatologically, as we are conformed to Chirst: “Only in Christ do we see the perfect conjoining of human ‘essence’ (defined as that which we were chosen to be) and human existence . . . . In us, ‘essence’ and existence (or ‘nature’) tend to fall apart and will continue to do so until the final consummation. But in those moments in which we respond to God’s call in faith and obedience, in those moments in which our lived existence is brought into conformity to Christ’s ?Eour existence conforms to our ‘essence.’” Or, put another way, “we are what we truly are (and what we will be in the eschaton) in those moments when our humanity is conformed on the level of lived existence to the humanity inaugurated in time by Christ’s life of obedience. We are what we will be through correspondence.”

Justification fits into this paradigm: “Justification . . . is itself regenerative. The faith and obedience by mean of which my humanity conforms to the humanity of Jesus Christ is the effect of the divine declaration given in the justification of the ungodly. Nothing could make clearer the fact that, at its heart, forensicism is deeply ontological. At the very root of forensic thinking lies the recognition that human being is the function of a decision which gives rise to a willed relation. Human being is the function of a decision God made in eternity past in his electing grace. And it is a function of the decision God makes in time in justifying the ungodly.”

Justification is for McCormack a trinitarian act: “The Father pronounces the verdict registered in justification on the basis of the Son’s righteousness in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit is the power of the divine declaration which gives rise to faith and obedience.”

This is all very fine, but I have some questions about McCormack’s treatment of Calvin. He raises questions about the compatibility of Calvin’s strictly forensic notion of justification and his emphasis on union with Christ. As McCormack puts it in a set of class lectures (generously supplied to me by Scott Collins-Jones), Calvin creates problems by talking about justification and sanctification as the “double grace of our union with Christ”: “If justification is what Calvin says it is, if it is (as he insists) a forensic act which is carried out by means of imputation, then union with Christ could not possibly precede it. For if union with Christ did precede justification, then we would be giving a very different answer to the question of how the righteousness of Christ is made to be our own than the answer given by Luther and Calvin. No longer would Christ’s righteousness be made ours by an act of positive imputation; it would be made ours by some kind of ‘participation’ in Christ Himself. To the extent that imputation still had a role to play, it would only be the negative role of insisting upon the non-imputation of sin due to our union with Christ. But the role played in positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness would have been suppressed and, finally, eliminated. And to just that extent, the entire problem that Luther was trying to solve would have come back with renewed force. The temptation to find the basis of the divine declaration in what God does in us rather than in the alien righteousness of Christ alone would be virtually inescapable. And with that turning away from Christ alone as the basis of our justification to the work of God in us as the basis, we would have turned out attention (ever so subtly, at first) to ourselves.”

He states the problem starkly: “EITHER uni

on with Christ is itself the consequence of the declarative act of God in justification (it being understood that the declarative Word of God is creative in the absolute sense, that it never returns to God void but always produces what it declares to that union with Christ is produced by God’s justification of the sinner) OR union with Christ precedes justification and justification is seen to flow from that union as its proximate cause. If we answer the dogmatic question in favor of the first option, then Calvin’s order of presentation is wrong and must be corrected. If, on the other hand, we answer in favor of the second, we abandon the Protestant understanding of justification.”

McCormack considers some options for “getting Calvin off the hook,” but finally concludes that Calvin is simply inconsistent. In the Reformed confessions, he argues, the Protestant understanding of justification was upheld and the emphasis on union with Christ suppressed, thus resolving the contradiction in Calvin: “There is no Reformed confession that sets forth a distinct locus on union with Christ and none that treats union with Christ above and prior to the locus of justification.”

Let me start a response with this last point. Though it is true that union with Christ does not have a separate locus in the Westminster tradition, it is not quite true that union with Christ is not treated as prior to justification. Shorter Catechism question 30 says that the “redemption purchased by Christ” is applied to us by the Spirit who “unites us to Christ in our effectual calling.” Question 32 makes it clear that justification, along with adoption and sanctification, are among the benefits that come to believers who are effectually called. Thus, the sequence is: effectual calling unites to Christ, and those who are united to Christ in effectual calling are justified and adopted. The Larger Catechism has the same sequence in questions 66-70. Question 69 is more explicit even than the Shorter Catechism: “The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ” includes “partaking of the virtue of his mediation,” which results in justification, adoption and sanctification, all of which are described as manifesting “their union with him.”

On McCormack’s other criticisms: I don’t see that imputation and union with Christ are incompatible notions. God might “account” someone righteous, positively “imputing” Christ’s righteousness to him, because of his real participation in Christ. I’m inclined to think that Calvin’s “inconsistency” arises partly because the line between Protestant and non-Protestant views of justification has been misplaced. Though “imputation” became the crux of the Protestant doctrine, it was not necessarily so; Luther, for instance, could talk about Christ Himself as the righteousness that indwells the believing soul and shares His righteousness with the believer (“Freedom of a Christian”). This is not imputation, and the righteousness that Luther talks about is a righteousness “in us.” But this is clearly not a Catholic doctrine, since the righteousness is “alien” and is not based on anything the human being has done. I’d suggest that the line between Catholic and Protestant views had more to do with conceptions of grace; Catholics had constructed an elaborate machinery of created grace and habits of grace, while Protestants insisted that grace was nothing but the favor of God expressed in His self-gift to His people. I admit that this is not always evident in Protestant polemics and teaching, but it helps to account for “eccentric” views of righteousness in Luther and the “inconsistencies” in Calvin.

Yet, the problem of order remains, and this is a central point of McCormack’s criticisms: Does the declaration of justification follow on the fact of union with Christ; or does the declaration of justification effect the union with Christ? Perhaps we can bring election into play here, arguing that the declaration effects a union in time, but also is based on an eternal choice of the sinner “in Christ” before the foundation of the world. But that would mean that the decree of justification would effect the union IN TIME.

I don’t know that the question of logical order is resolvable, but I think that McCormack is right to attempt a resolution as he does, in the direction of an effective, transformative declaration in justification. This too is a challenge to much Protestant soteriology, but it seems a sensible challenge. It seems exactly right to resolve the question of order by emphasizing that justification is not merely a verdict but a verdict that effects the vindication of the sinner.

Theology - Soteriology

Previous Post

December 22, 2004

Perichoresis Overload?

Next Post

December 23, 2004 Ahab and David

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1-2 Samuel 1968 Abelard Abortion Abraham Acedia AD 70 Adam Smith Addiction Advent Advertising Aeneid Aesthetics Africa African Christianity African Church African religion Age Aging Agriculture Airline industry Alabama Alasdair MacIntyre Albania Alcohol Allegory Alms Alternative Medicine Ambrose America American Christianity American culture American economy American Evangelicals American Foreign Policy American history American Literature American Military American Politics American Religion American Revolution Anagogy Analytic Philosophy Anamnesis Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient history Ancient Near East Ancient Religion Angels Anglican Church Anglicanism Animism Anointing of the Sick Anselm Anthropology Anthropomorphism anti-Catholicism Antiquities Antonio Lopez apocalypse Apocalyptic Apocalyptic language Apostles Creed Aquinas Archeology Architecture Arianism Aristotle Ark of the Covenant Art Art History Ascension Aseity Assurance Athanasius Atheism Athens atonement Attention Attributes Augustine Austin Farrer Authority autonomy Avant-garde Awe Bach Ballooning Balzac Banking Bankruptcy Baptism Baptists Baseball Basketball Bavinck Beatitudes Beauty Behavioral Economics Being Benedict XVI Benjamin Benjamin Franklin Beowulf Berkeley Bernie Sanders Bertrand Russell Bestiary Bible Bible - criticism Bible - NT Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians Bible - NT - 1 John Bible - NT - 1 Peter Bible - NT - 2 Corinthians Bible - NT - 2 Peter Bible - NT - Acts Bible - NT - Colossians Bible - NT - Ephesians Bible - NT - Galatians Bible - NT - Gospels Bible - NT - Hebrews Bible - NT - James Bible - NT - John Bible - NT - Jude Bible - NT - Luke Bible - NT - Mark Bible - NT - Matthew Bible - NT - Paul Bible - NT - Philippians Bible - NT - Revelation Bible - NT - Romans Bible - NT - Thessalonians Bible - NT - Timothy Bible - OT Bible - OT - Amos Bible - OT - Chronicles Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Deuteronomy Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes Bible - OT - Esther Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Ezekiel Bible - OT - Ezra-Nehemiah Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Habakkuk Bible - OT - Hosea Bible - OT - Isaiah Bible - OT - Jeremiah Bible - OT - Job Bible - OT - Joel Bible - OT - Jonah Bible - OT - Joshua Bible - OT - Judges Bible - OT - Kings Bible - OT - Lamentations Bible - OT - Leviticus Bible - OT - Malachi BIble - OT - Micah Bible - OT - Nehemiah Bible - OT - Numbers Bible - OT - Pentateuch Bible - OT - Proverbs Bible - OT - Psalms Bible - OT - Ruth Bible - OT - Samuel Bible - OT - Song of Songs Bible - OT - Torah Bible - OT - Zechariah Bible - OT - Zephaniah Biblical Law Biblicism Billy Graham biography Biology Biololgy Biotechnology Blasphemy Blindness Blog news Blogging Blogroll Bloomsbury Group Bob Dylan Body Body symbolism Boethius Boko Haram Bonhoeffer Book of Common Prayer Books Botany Boundary Brexit Britain British History British Politics Bruce Springsteen Buddhism Bureaucracy Burial Business C. S. Lewis C. S. Peirce Calendars Caliphate Calvin calvinism Camille Paglia Canon Capitalism Cappadocians Carl Schmitt Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Catholicity Causation cemeteries Cervantes Charism Charismata Charity Charles Dickens Charles Hodge Charles Simeon Charles Taylor Charles Williams Chaucer Chermistry Chess Chesterton Chiasm children China Chinese Exclusion Act Chivalry Chopin Chretien de Troyes Christendom Christian Democracy Christian reconstruction Christianity in Britain Christianization Christmas Christology Chronology Church church and state Church architecture Church Calendar Church history Church of England Church Year Cicero Circumcision Cities City of God Civil Religion Civil Society Civil War Civility Classical Theism Classics Climate Change Clothing Coleridge Colloquy of Marburg Colonialism Color Comedy Comenius Commodity Communio Communism Community Comparative religions Computer Science Confederacy Confessionalization Conflict Congregations consciousness Consecration Conservatism Constantine Constitution consumerism Contra Faustum Conversion Coriolanus Cormac McCarthy Cosmology Cosmopolitanism Council of Trent Counter-culture Counter-insurgency Courage Courtly love Covenants Crafts Craftsmanship Cranach Creation Creativity Creator-creature Credit Crime Crime and Punishment Crisis Critical scholarship Criticism Cross Cubism Cultural theory Culture Culture War Dance Daniel Dennett Dante Darwin Dave Eggers David David Foster Wallace David Hume David Jones Deadly sins Death Debt Dechristianization Decolonization Deconstruction Defoe Deja vu Democracy Denis de Rougemont Denominationalism Derrida Descartes Developmental psychology Devils Diocletian Discipleship Disenchantment Disgust Diversion Diversity Divine energies Divine Impassibility Divine Simplicity Divine Warrior Doctrine dogma Dominion Donald Trump Dostoevsky Douglas Campbell Douglas Farrow Dreams Dualism Durkheim Dystopia E.M. Forster Early Christianity Early Modern Europe Easter Eastern Europe Eastern Orthodoxy Ecclesiology Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Eden Edgar Allan Poe Edmund Spenser Education Egypt Election Elites Emergence Emma Emotion Empire England English History English Reformation Enlightenment Entertainment Entrepreneur environmentalism Envy Epic Epiphany Episcopals Epistemology Epistles Equality Erasmus Ernst Kantorowicz Eros Eschatology Eternity Ethics Eucharist Europe Evangelicalism Evangelicals and Catholics Together Events Evil Evolution Exile Face Fairie Queene Fairy Tales Faith family Family and Marriage Fantasy Farming Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Fear Femininity Feminism Fertility Fetishization Feud Feudalism Feuerbach Fiction Figs Film Finance Finland Fire Flag Flags Flannery O'Connor Flood myths Folly Food football Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Foreknowledge Forgiveness Foucault Fracking France Francois Mauriac Franz Rosenzweig free will Freedom Freedom of God French Revolution Freud Funerals Future G. K. Chesterton Gambling Gaming Gay Marriage Gender gender identity Genealogy Geography George Berkeley George Eliot George Herbert; Poetry George Romanes Gerald Manley Hopkins Germany Gethsemane Gift Gifts Giorgio Agamben Global Christianity Global economics Globalism Globalization Glorious Revolution Gnosticism God's sovereignty Gods Goethe Golf Good Friday Gospel Gospels Gothic Gothic architecture Grace Grammar Gramsci Gratitude Greek Literature Greek Philosophy Greek Religion Greek Science Gregory of Nyssa Guillermo del Toro H. Richard Niebuhr Haiku hair Hamann Hamlet Handicap Handles Hands Hans Urs von Balthasar Happiness Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harvest healing Heaven Heavenly treasure Heavenly treasure Hebrew Bible Hebrew language Hegel Heidegger Hell Hellenism; Judaism; Revelation Henri de Lubac heresy Herman Dooyeweerd Hermeneutics Herod Heroic Heroism Hesiod Hidegard of Bingen Hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch Historicism Historiography History History - Early Modern History - Middle Ages Hoaxes Hobbes Holiness Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Home Homeless Homer Homosexuality Honor hope Horror Hospitality Housing Hugh of St. Victor Human Rights Humanism Humor hylomorphism Hymns Hypocrisy. Iago Iconoclasm Identity Ideology Idleness Idolatry Iliad Images Imagination Immigrant churches Immigrant Religion Immigration Imperialism Improvization Imputation Incarnation Incest India Individualism Indonesia Inequality Inerrancy Infant Baptism Infant mortality Infanticide Ingratitude Innovation Inspiration Institutions Insult Intellectual History Intellectuals Intelligent Design International Politics Internet Intimacy IQ Iran Iran-Iraq War Iraq Ireland Irony Islam Islamic State Islamism Ismail Kadare Israel Ivan Illich J. Gresham Machen J.N. Figgis Jacob Jacques Lacan James Bond James Jordan James Joyce James KA Smith James Wood Jane Austen Jane Jacobs Jealousy Jed Perl Jeff Koons Jeroboam Jesus Jewish War 66-70 AD Jihad Johann Georg Hamann Johannine Epistles John Ashbery John Behr John Bunyan John Calvin John Donne John Frame John Howard Yoder John Knox John Milbank John Milton John Owen John Rawls John Ruskin John Stuart Mill John the Baptist John Webster John Wesley John Williamson Nevin Jonathan Edwards Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Conrad Joseph Ratzinger Journalism Joy Judaism Judaize Judgment Judith Butler Jurgen Moltmann Justice Justification Kalevala Kant Karl Barth Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Rahner Kazakhstan Kazuo Ishiguro Kenneth Lonergan Kierkegaard King Lear Kingdom of God Kitsch Knighthood Knowledge Korea Labor movement Lactantius Lamech Lament Landscape Language Latin America Laughter Law Law and Punishment Leftism Lent Les Murray Levi-Strauss Levites Leviticus Liber Mundi Liberal arts Liberal Theology Liberalism Light Lighthouse Linguistics LIstening Literacy Literary structure Literature Liturgics Liturgy Locke Logic Love Luther Lutheran Lutheranism Lying Lytton Strachey Macbeth Machiavelli Machines Madness Mainline Manhattan Manicheanism Manners Manufacturing Manuscripts Mao Zedong Maps Marcion Marilynne Robinson Marketing Marriage Martha Nussbaum Martin Bucer Martin Chemnitz Martyrdom Marx Marxism Mary Mary Douglas masculinity Mass Materialism Mathematics Maundy Thursday Max Weber Media Mediation Medication Medicine Medieval Church Medieval exegesis Medieval Literature Medieval theology Medieval Thought Medievalism Memory Merchant of Venice Mesopotamian Religion Messianic Metaphor Metaphysics Methodist Mexican-American War Michel de Montaigne Michel Faber Middle Ages Middle East Midwifery Mikhail Bulgakov Military Millennium Mind Miracles Miscellaneous Mission missionaries Mixed constitution Modern self modernism Modernity monasticism Monotheism Monroe Doctrine Monsters Montaigne's Essays Moral philosophy Mormonism Moses Mother Teresa Motherhood Motive Mount of Olives Movies Multiculturalism Murder Music Musicals Mutability Mutability Mystery Mysticism myth N. T. Wright Narrative Nation-State Nationalism Natural Law Natural-Supernatural Nature Nature and culture Nature and Grace Nazi Nazirite Necrophilia Nero Nestorianism Neuroscience Nevin Lectures New Atheism New Testament New York City Newbigin News NGOs Nibelungenlied Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Lyra Nietzsche Nigeria Nihilism Nobel Prize Nobility Nominalism Norbert Elias Norman MacCaig nostalgia Novels Numerology Obama Objectivity and subjectivity Occasionalism Odysseus Oil Old Testament Oliver O'Donovan Ontology Origen original sin Orthodoxy Othello Owen Barfield Pacifism Pactum salutis Paedocommunion Paganism Pain Painting Paleoconservatism Palm Sunday Pannenberg Parenting Pascal Passions Passivity Pastoral Care Pastoral theology Patrick Modiano Patristics Patronage Paul Peace of God Peace of Westphalia Penal substitution Pentecost Pentecostalism Perichoresis Pericles Persecution Person Peter Peter Enns Petrarch Philip K. Dick Philip Melanchthon Philosophy Philosophy of Action Philosophy of History Philosophy of language Philosophy of science Phone booth Photography Physics Pictures Pierre Bourdieu Place Planned Parenthood Plants plato Play Plot Plotinus Pluralism Pneumatology Poetics poetry Poetry & Stories Poland police Political Philosophy Political theology Political Theory Politics Pop Culture Pope Francis Popular Culture Populism Pornography Porphyry Post-Colonial Theory Post-Structuralism Postmodernism Postmodernity Potential Poverty Power Practice Pragmatism Prayer Preaching Predestination Prediction Prehistory Premillennialism Presbyterian Priesthood Prince Charles Prison Reform privacy Private Prodigal Son Progress Progressivism Property Prophecy Prophet Propitiation Prosperity gospel Prostitution Protectionism Protestantism Providence Prudentius psalms Pseudo-Dionysus Psychological Warfare Psychology Public intellectual Public Life Public Philosophy Public Theology Publishing Punk Rock Pure nature Puritanism Purity Pushkin Putin Pythagoreanism R.J. Rushdoony Race Racism Radical Orthodoxy Rape Rationality Reactionary reading Realism Reason Red State Blue State Reformation Reformational Catholicism Reformational Philosophy Reformed theology refugees reinhold niebuhr Relationality Relativism Relics Religion Religion and science Religions Religious Freedom Religious Liberty Religious Right Renaissance Rene Girard Republican Party Resurrection Resurrection. Revelation Revelations Revenge Revivalism Revolution rhetoric Richard Flannagan Richard II Richard III Richard Wagner Richard Wilbur Righteousness Ritual Robert Frost Robert Herrick Robert Jenson Robert Mugabe Robert Spaemann Robinson Crusoe Rock n' Roll Rod Dreher Rodin Roman Catholicism Roman Empire Roman Religion Romance Romanticism Rome Rootedness Rosenstock-Huessy Rousseau Rowan Williams Rural America Russia Russian literature Russian Orthodoxy Rusty Reno Rwanda S. Y. Agnon Sabbath Sacrament Sacramental theology Sacraments Sacred Sacred Space Sacrifice saints Salt Sam Harris Same-sex marriage Sanctuary Satan Satire Saudi Arabia Scapegoat Scarcity Schism Schleiermacher Scholarship Science Science and Theology Science Fiction Scopes trial Scotland Scott Adams Scott Cairns Scottish Reformation Scotus Scripture and tradition sculpture Sea Second temple Secularism Secularization Self-Help Self-trust Semiotics Semper reformanda separation of church and state Sermon on the Mount Sex Sex Trafficking Sexual abuse Sexual Politics Sexual Revolution Sexuality Shakespeare Shame Culture Shema Sherlock Shopping Silence Simone Weil Simplicity Simpsons Sin Sincerity Sixties Skepticism Slavery Slavoj Zizek Sleep Sloth Social capital Social change Social Imaginary Social Science Socialism Socialization Sociology Sociology of Knowledge Sociology of Religion Sola scriptura Sonnets Sophocles Soteriology Soviet Union Space Spain Speculation Spinoza Spirit Sport Sports Star Trek State State-formation Stephen Masty Steven Bannon Strangers Structuralism structure Subject-object Substitution Suburbs Suffering Suicide Super-Rich Superheroes Supersessionism Supplication Supreme Court Surveillance Symbol Synagogue Taberancle Tabernacle Tax Taxes Tears Technology Teens Teleology Television Temple Ten Commandments Terence Terrence Malick Terrorism Thanksgiving The South The West Theodore Roosevelt Theogony Theological Education Theological Language Theology Theology - Anthropology Theology - Christology Theology - Covenant Theology - Creation Theology - Ecclesiology Theology - Eschatology Theology - Liturgical Theology - Pneumatology Theology - Soteriology Theology - Trinity Theology proper Theopolis Theopolis Institute Theosis Theresa May Thomas A. Clark Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas Mann Threshing Thucydides Time Tocqueville Tolerance Toleration Tolstoy Tom Wolfe Tools Torah Torture Toscanini Totalitarianism Trade Tradition Tragedy Transhumanism Translation Transubstantiation Travel Trees Trinitarianism Trinity Trinity House Tristan Troilus and Creysede Trump Trump Truth Turkey Twelfth Night Two Kingdoms Typology Ukraine Ulysses Uncanny Uncategorized Uniform Union with Christ United States Unity University Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Value Vatican II Vengeance Vico Victorian Age Victorian Literature Vienna Violence Virgil Virgin Birth Virginia Woolf Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Solovyev Vladimir Solovyov W.H. Auden Walls Walt Disney Walt Whitman Walter Benjamin Walter Lippmann War Wars of Religion Washington DC Wealth Weddings Will William Carlos Williams William Gilpin William Golding Wine Wisdom wonder Word of God Wordsworth Work Works World Council of Churches World History World War I World War II Worldview Worship Wrath Writing Youth Youth Ministry Yuja Wang Yves Congar Zimbabwe Zwingli Zygmunt Bauman

Select a Month January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did the Israelites do when Moses was gone too long on the mountain?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Made a golden calf Built a city Hid in fear Left Egypt again