Definition...

If you happened to catch my earlier, and now deleted, post... you know that I am suffering from gravity overload. Rather than bore you with the whiny details, and since it is such a lovely stinking cold and rainy day, I thought I would just shout out some definitions - courtesy of "The Christian Theological Reader" (edited by Alister McGrath). This was a book from my seminary days that I hadn't looked at in a long time. Here are some random samplings:

Anthropomorphism - The tendency to ascribe human features (such as hands or arms) or other human characteristics to God.

Beatific Vision - A term used, especially in Roman Catholic theology, to refer to the full vision of God, which is allowed only to the elect after death. However, some writers, including Thomas Aquinas, taught that certain favored individuals - such as Moses and Paul - were allowed this vision in the present life.

Catechism - A popular manual of Christian doctrine, usually in the form of question and answer, intended for religious instruction.

Doxology - A form of praise, usually especially associated with formal Christian worship. A "doxological" approach to theology stresses the importance of praise and worship in theological reflection.

Existentialism - A movement which places emphasis on the subjectivity of individual existence, and the way in which this is affected by one's environment. The theological development of this approach is especially associated with Rudolf Bultmann and Paul Tillich.

Fundamentalism - A form of American Protestant Christianity, which lays especial emphasis upon the authority of an inerrant Bible.

Hypostatic Union - The doctrine of the union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, without confusion of their respective substances.

Incarnation - A term used to refer to the assumption of human nature by God, in the person of Jesus Christ. The term "incarnationalism" is often used to refer to theological approaches which lay especial emphasis upon God's becoming human.

Justification by faith, doctrine of - The section of Christian theology dealing with how the individual sinner is able to enter into fellowship with God. The doctrine was to prove to be of major significance at the time of the Reformation.

Kenoticism - A form of Christology which lays emphasis upon Christ's "laying aside" of certain divine attributes in the incarnation, or his "emptying himself" of at least some divine attributes, especially omniscience or omnipotence.

Liberal Protestant - A movement, especially associated with nineteenth-century Germany, which stressed the continuity between religion and culture, flourishing between the time of F.D.E. Schleiermacher and Paul Tillich.

Modalism - A Trinitarian heresy, which treats the three persons of the Trinity as different "modes" of the Godhead. A typical modalist approach is to regard God as active as Father in creation, as Son in redemption, and as Spirit in sanctification.

Neo-Orthodoxy - A term used to designate the general position of Karl Barth (1886-1968), especially the manner in which he drew upon the theological concerns of the period of Reformed Orhtodoxy.

Orthodoxy - A term used in a number of senses, of which the following are the most important: Orthodoxy in the sense of "right belief," as opposed to heresy; Orthodoxy in the sense of the forms of Christianity which are dominant in Russia and Greece; Orthodoxy in the sense of a movement within Protestantism, especially in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, which laid emphasis upon need for doctrinal definition.

Postmodernism - A general cultural development, especially in North America, which resulted from the general collapse in confidence of the universal rational principles of the Enlightenment.

Quadriga - The Latin term used to refer to the "fourfold" interpretation of Scripture according to its literal, allegorical, tropological moral, and analogical senses.

Reformed - A term used to refer to a tradition of theology which draws inspiration from the writings of John Calvin (1510-64) and his successors. The term is now generally used in preference to "Calvinist."

Synoptic Problem - The scholarly question of how the three Synoptic Gospels relate to each other. Perhaps the most common approach to the relation of the three Synoptic Gospels is the "Two Source" theory, which claims that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source, while also drawing upon a second source (usually known as "Q"). Other possibilities exist: for example, the Grisebach hypothesis, which treats Matthew as having been written first, followedy by Luke and then Mark.

Theotokos - Literally, "the bearer of God." A Greek term used to refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, with the intention of reinforcing the central insight of the doctrine of the incarnation - that is, that Jesus Christ is none other than God. The term was extensively used by writers of the eastern church, especially around the time of the Nestorian controversy, to articulate both the divinity of Christ and the reality of the incarnation.

Vulgate - The Latin translation of the Bible, largely deriving from Jerome, upon which medieval theology was largely based.

Zwinglianism - The term is generally used to refer to the thought of Huldrych Zwingli, but is often used refer specifically to his views on the sacraments, especially on the "real presence" (which for Zwingli was more of a "real absence").