On the progress to be made in the Christian life A. Robert Jenson After baptism, what do we go on to next? Answers are generally advanced with a bad conscience, since the eschatological nature of the gifts biblically ascribed to baptism, if they are taken seriously, plainly leaves no space for progress or development in […]
Robert Jenson on sacraments The Western catholic tradition has insisted above all on two propositions about sacraments. First, sacraments are signs; they mean something, and that something is the gospel. This proposition has been established above all by the dicta of Augustine. Second, sacraments are events of grace; they accomplish something, and that something is […]
Robert Jenson on the homiletic implications of justification I The Reformation doctrine of justification is not a new attempted description of a process of grace—and when it has been taken for such, sometimes also by would-be champions, the difference between the Reformation and the standard tradition has always promptly become obscure. The doctrine is rather […]
Robert Jenson on good works Most ethical theories and all sensible persons have known that a good act cannot appropriately be done for an ulterior egocentric reason. If I feed my hungry neighbor in order that I may acquire stars for my crown, I thereby lose the claim to any stars. But the mere injunction, […]
On the peccability of the Church A. Lesslie Newbigin The Catholic is right in insisting that the continuity of the Church is God’s will. He is wrong when he suggests that the doing of that will is the condition of our standing in His grace. As for the individual, so also for the Church, there […]
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