For Further Reading: Hoover, Fallacies of Evolution,
70-72; Henry, Christian Personal Ethics, 397; Geiger, ed.,
The Word and the Doctrine, 413-18; DeWolf, Responsible
Freedom, 203-8. RICHARD S. TAYLOR
RANSOM. To ransom (verb) is to set free from captivity, slavery, or sin. The price paid or means of release is the ransom (noun). In the OT, ransom describes (1) payment to free a slave (Lev. 25:47-48; (2) restitution for injury or damages (Exod. 22:10-12); (3) redemption (buying back) of family property (Lev. 25:24-28); (4) assessments substituted for a man's life (Exod. 21:30); (5) God's deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage (Deut. 7:8; Isa. 51:11).
NT usage reflects a centering of focus on Jesus' death. The key text is Mark 10:45 (cf. Matt. 20:28). Here Jesus describes the offering of His life as "a ransom [lutron] for many" (similarly, 1 Tim. 2:6 and Titus 2:14). Word for word, this description echoes Isa. 53:10-11. A substitution is implied: God's Servant gave himself (as a guilt offering), He died for us (as sinners), in our place.
RAPTURE—RATIONALISM
437
Through His death, we have been brought back to God, set free from servitude to sin.
To whom did Christ pay the ransom for our redemption? The Early Church fathers (especially the Greeks) were much exercised over this question. They interpreted the Cross as a stratagem by which God hoodwinked Satan in bargaining for the souls of men. Some theologians today (e.g., Kittel) argue the opposite conclusion: God was the recipient of the ransom. Most scholars dismiss the question as unbiblical. Certainly there is no hint that Christ's life was paid to Satan. We are reminded, however, that our ransom was costly (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; cf. Acts 20:28). The biblical emphasis is on the deliverance itself, from the thraldom of sin, not on a "deal" or transaction with a third party.
See redeemer (redemption), atonement.
For Further Reading: Jeremias, NT Theology,
1:292-94; Richardson, Theology of NT, 218-23; Kittel,
4:340-56. wayne G. McCOWN
RAPTURE. The term Rapture is used to refer to Paul's teaching concerning what shall happen to living believers at the second coming of Christ. In 1 Thess. 4:14-17, he explains that, in addition to the resurrection of the righteous dead, "we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (tlb). The Vulgate (Latin version) rendered the word translated "caught up" as rapio, hence Rapture. Two other passages are directly related to this idea, since they describe the change which will take place in believers at the Second Coming (Parousia): 1 Cor. 15:51-53 and Phil. 3:20-21. According to 1 Cor. 15:51 the Rapture is a mystery—that is, a divine truth which has previously been hidden but is now made known. Since OT writers did not envision a second coming, they spoke only of a resurrection of the dead. The fate of the living did not come within their purview.
In recent times, dispensationalist theology has developed the idea of a "secret Rapture." This relates to their view that there will be a definable seven-year period of intense persecution of the Jews, called "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jer. 30:7). In order for this to occur, the Church must be removed from the earthly scene; consequently dispensationalists structure their eschatology to include a "pretribulation Rapture" which is secret in nature and separated, by the "Tribulation," from the Parousia. That this is a presupposition not explicitly taught in Scripture, honest dispensationalists freely admit.
All that one can legitimately affirm from Scripture itself is that the righteous, both living and dead, will be transformed at Jesus' parousia; and as a result of the transformation, they will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so be ever with Him. See second coming of Christ, tribulation, dis-
pensationalism. premillennialism.
For Further Reading: Ladd, The Blessed Hope; Erickson, Contemporary Options in Eschatology.
H. Ray Dunning
RATIONALISM. Rationalism holds to the supremacy of reason (ratio = "reason"). This means human reason is sufficient to solve solvable problems. Rationalistic attempts at discovering truth are often associated with the philosophies of such thinkers as Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza. The common base from which all rationalists operate is just this: the self-sufficiency of reason; in other words, that reason is the source of all knowledge.
The school of empirical rationalism leans on sensory data for knowledge, and men like Francis Bacon, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, to name but three pioneers, built the foundation for what today we know as the scientific method. Without that method modern technology would be impossible. The scientist's laboratory is the most obvious symbol in our society of the empirical methodology used in the verification of truth.
Theological rationalism means dependence on what man's natural abilities teach him. Revelation is an impossibility; that is, no outside source can inform us. Naturalism, humanism, and liberalism share this with rationalism: man's native abilities constitute the one single instrument for arriving at truth and the structure of belief. We are here dealing with the doctrine of the full competence of human reason. The province for gathering data, then, is exclusively that of ordinary or so-called verifiable experience.
This leaves little place for any such otherworldly phenomenon as mysticism, not to speak of miracles or anything at all connected with the Bible's supernatural religion. Rationalism explains biblical religion developmentally; indeed, all religious experience is seen to grow from primordial beginnings to maturation, from superstition and animism to a sane and balanced grasp of reality.
Great men and movements in the history of the church have challenged naturalistically oriented authority. The 18th-century evangelical revival was one such thrust. Our own day is another such period: the advent of the Billy Graham movement; before that, the theology of
438
RATIONALITY—REALISM
Barth and Brunner (their mission: to show the validity of revelation); the current dissatisfaction of man with his own ability to solve his problems; and the accompanying move toward biblical religion.
See REASON, REVELATION (NATURAL AND SPECIAL), HUMANISM, SUPERNATURAL (SUPERNATURALISM), RATIONALITY.
For Further Reading: James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 73-74, 428; Lewis, A Philosophy of the Christian Revelation, see "Rationalism" in Index; Loomer, "Reason," A Handbook of Christian Theology, 293 ff.
Donald E. Demaray
RATIONALITY. Man, like God, is a rational being (cf. Gen. 1:26). Rationality is the ability to reason, to know and communicate logically organized truth through the higher cognitive powers of the mind.
It is important to distinguish between rationalism and rationality. Rationalism regards human reason as the ultimate judge and only reliable means of ascertaining truth. It places reason above Scripture. Evangelicals believe biblical revelation must necessarily precede and supercede human reason. Since the Fall affected the mind (as all other faculties), man cannot know God rightly by the "unaided exercise of reason" (cf. 1 Cor. 2:4-16; 3:20).
We affirm rationality while rejecting rationalism. Man should love God with all the vigor of a redeemed mind. He should train the mind and be reasonable in all things. He should endeavor to interpret Scripture accurately, while refusing to permit reason to sit in judgment on Scripture as a higher authority.
Human rationality is limited: "I know in part" (1 Cor. 13:12). Some mysteries of life remain (Rom. 11:33) and await the unfolding of life yet future when we "shall know fully" (1 Cor. 13:12). The complexity of truth may appear self-contradictory to finite rationality (e.g., paradox). We must avoid being "wise in our own eyes" (cf. Prov. 3:7), and heed the command to bring "into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).
See REASON, RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, FAITH, RATIONALISM.
For Further Reading: Baker's DT, 435-36; ERE, 7:370-73; Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion, 17-32.
J. Wesley Adams
REAL PRESENCE. There are in general three doctrinal views concerning the Lord's Supper. The Roman Catholic view is known as transub-stantiation, the view that the substance of the bread and wine are literally transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Luther's view is that of consubstantiation, viz., that the elements when consecrated remain substantially unchanged, but that the real body and blood of Christ are present in, with, and under the consecrated bread and wine. The unbelievers who take the elements are taking into their mouths Christ, but unto their condemnation, not their consolation. Thus, it is in the use of the elements by faith, and not in the elements per se, that Christ is present.
The view held most commonly among Protestants is that Christ is present in the Lord's Supper spiritually through the Holy Spirit, not in any sense physically. The elements of bread and wine are symbolic and the ritual is memorial in purpose and nature. This does no injustice to the confidence that the observance, when sincere and contrite, is also a means of grace.
See LORD'S SUPPER, SACRAMENTS, SACRAMENTARI-ANISM, MEANS OF GRACE.
For Further Reading: Baker's DT, "Lord's Supper," 330-32; Burtner and Chiles, A Compend of Wesley's Theology, 262-68; Wiley, CT, 3:189-208; ZPEB, 3:978-86; Augsburg Confession; Formula of Concord.
Charles W. Carter
REALISM. Realism denotes the doctrine that universal (general concepts) have an existence which is in some sense independent of the particular things (individuals) that appear to the senses. The term has its origin in philosophical speculation but takes on technical meanings in such areas as politics, law, morality, education, and theology. The question whether universals have real and transcendent existence is especially important for the two main fields of philosophy known as ontology (the study of being and existence), and epistemology (the study of thought and knowledge). In philosophy, metaphysics and epistemology are logically interdependent.
Realism had early beginnings in Hindu thought many centuries before its appearance in the Platonic Academy and the Aristotelian Lyceum in Athens. The idea of Brahman as the neuter world soul, a monistic world view, and a pantheistic conclusion are its main features.
Greek speculation came under the influence of this thinking and with modifications found statement in the writings of Plato and his student, Aristotle. Plato's doctrine of real transcendent universals stems from the Socratic view that only through the concept, or universal idea, is it possible to obtain real knowledge. Thus Platonic realism is the doctrine that universals have in some sense an independent existence to their particular individuations which appear to us in sense
REALISM AND NOMINALISM
439
perception. These universals are the real forms, and appearances are merely imperfect, transitory, and inadequate representations.
Aristotle, on the other hand, contended that these universal forms found their reality only in the case of concrete individuals and partook of no real substantial being apart from them. The objects of nature are but loci of determinate potentialities that become actualized through the activity of these forms. In short, the concept of "horseness" in general can only become real in the individual horse, such as "Old Dobbin" or "Old Paint."
Until medieval times the position of Plato, and more especially Neoplatonism as set forth by Plotinus, was the influential philosophy for Christianity through the writings of Augustine and others. But with the rediscovery of Aristotle's complete works and their influence upon the thinking of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotelianism became primary in Christian teaching. Not without considerable debate, however. For the speculations passed from transcendent ontology into dialectics and theology, touching off a grand controversy during the Scholastic period over the essential character of genera and species, as to whether they are corporeal or incorporeal, and whether they are separable from particulars or existent only in perception. This argument concerning the nature of universals divided thinkers into hostile camps and led to passionate controversies, throwing all society into intellectual and religious turmoil.
At this juncture most of us wish to raise the question, So what? But we must remember that these metaphysical (ontological) stances have marked implications for such theological problems as creation, God, man, faith, reason, the Trinity, the Incarnation, original sin, redemption, and Christian holiness. Space limitations do not allow explanations of its implication for each. The apostle Paul seemed to believe that the unseen behind things transient and visible is what partakes of eternal reality (2 Cor. 4.18).
So: Realism is the belief that a general idea in the human mind refers to something beyond the mind as real as things individual. It is the contention that the realm of essence (possible universals) is every bit as real as the realm of existence (actualities); and that the former is prior to the latter (versus modern existentialism).
See platonism, thomism, realism and nominalism, modern realism, realism in theology, representative theory.
For Further Reading: "Hinduism," ER, 337 ff; Bright-man, An Introduction to Philosophy (rev.), 271-88; Person and Reality, 190-98; Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowl-
edge. Ross E. Price
REALISM AND NOMINALISM. These terms represent an apparently endless debate going back to Plato (realism) and Aristotle (nominalism) over principles of theological discourse generally, and specifically over the nature of universals— by which are meant general ideas or class terms, the opposite of particulars. Only the context of the debate changes.
Medieval or classical realism was akin to modern metaphysical idealism, while nominalism corresponds to modern realism.
For theology, these terms became prominent in medieval Scholasticism, roughly a.D. 1000-1350, among scholars and schools struggling with concepts of faith and reason (or knowledge), seeking to interpret all of life in terms of theology. The presuppositions of Platonic realism (universal forms or ideas) had largely dominated theology, including Augustine's, until the revival of Aristotle in the 12th century, a fact which led in turn to the revival of nominalism in the church.
Realism held that universals, which transcend space and time, have real existence apart from all particulars—which are mere transient things expressing the universal form. Indeed, universals are the foundation of individual existence. They are ante rem: before the particulars; e.g., humanity subsists as an essence quite apart from individual persons.
Nominalism stated that universals are merely names or symbols describing individuals. They are post rem: after the particulars. Only particulars are real; e.g., humanity does not exist, but only individual persons.
There was a moderate realism; e.g., humanity exists as a structure embodied in particular human beings, but not independently. It is in re: in the particulars.
In connection with realism the contributions of John Scotus Erigina (c. 810-77) and Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), both in the Platonic tradition, were important. Roscellinus (1070-1125) was a thorough nominalist, while William of Ockham (1300-1350), 200 years later, espoused nominalism in connection with valid claims to knowledge on empirical grounds. Peter Abelard (1079-1142), Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) who attempted to synthesize Aristotle with Christian faith, and Duns Scotus (1265-1308) each represent different forms of moderate realism.
Certain tendencies or trends may be observed. Realism, inasmuch as reality transcends space
440
REALISM IN THEOLOGY
time experience, was congenial to the idea that "faith leads to understanding," rather than the opposite view. In doctrine, the idea of humanity as a single reality with each individual within the universal essence, made possible certain views of the origin of souls and of original sin in Adam. On the other hand, nominalism questioned the view of a universal church deriving its reality from the hierarchy, and opposed transub-stantiation (that the real body and blood of Christ are present in the Eucharist) among other controversies. Nominalism stressed individual development rather than community or collectives. The emphasis on the data of sense experience gave impetus to the scientific method. Starting from particulars to solve problems tended to a loss of absolutes and to humanistic answers. In Ockham there was a separation of "valid" knowledge from matters of faith.
The extreme forms of either position tend to be destructive of rational thought and thus call for some mediating position.
See philosophy, theology, thomism, platonism,
realism in theology.
For Further Reading: Burkill, The Evolution of Christian Thought; Tillich, A History of Christian Thought; Gonzales, A History of Christian Thought, vol. 2.
Arnold E. Airhart
REALISM IN THEOLOGY. As related to theology, the exponents of realism may be separated into three classifications.
Extreme Realism. Hinduism's speculation as to the nature of reality suggested that it is one single generic nature, partaking throughout of one common life-principle. With its idea of Brahman as the neuter world soul, it set forth a monistic world view and resulted in a sort of dynamic pantheism in both philosophy and theology. Brahman is the life principle and source whence all things proceed, by which all things are sustained, and to which all things return. Material existence in nature and man (individuals in matter) is a movement away from true reality. Concrete existence is therefore evil and illusory.
Salvation was deemed possible through knowledge of the identity of the finite self with the self of the universe. To this must be added knowledge of the total unreality of material existence. All is sheer illusion.
This salvation through acquired understanding called for a process of highly disciplined meditation under the most favorable physical conditions possible. Thus one might achieve the highest religious state when all desire for existence is gone and the finite soul is reabsorbed into the absolute real being of the infinite world soul. Later, Buddhism would refer to this re-absorption as Nirvana, using the Sanskrit term indicating "a blowing out, or extinction."
Holding as it does to a single generic nature in which individuals have no real (only illusory) separate existence, and are mere modes or manifestations of the one neutral world substance, extreme realism amounts to pantheism. Therefore it can have no place in Christian theology, and most Christian theologians dismiss its consideration with but a sentence or two. Yet we must acknowledge it as one of the three forms of theological realism. Shades of such realism reappear in the Scholastic period in the teachings of Amalric and John Scotus, who suggest that as the world of phenomena has come from God, so it will return to Him and abide in Him as one unchangeable individual eventually. We might surmise that neorealism's conception of neutral entities may be borrowed from Hinduism and its neutral world soul.
The Christian theologian will argue that substance is more than that which takes its stance in a subway below experience in the form or classification of neutral entities. Substance is "experienced efficient cause." It is what endures and what acts; it is not a blind abstraction; it has potentiality, and though it may be either simple or complex, it is dynamic reality. This is its basic essence.
Moderate, or Higher Realism. One of the chief exponents of this type of realism is the Calvinistic theologian William G. T. Shedd. He holds that species are individualized by propagation but partake of one unitary generic nature. He would allow that nominalism is true for non-propagatable entities such as inkstands, which, though making up a general concept, have no common nature. Species, he contends, have a specific nature, an invisible dynamic principle, which is a real entity, not a mere concept.
It is the belief of this type of realism that the species has inlaid (inherent) in it all that evolves from it. It contains all the individuals that may come from it by propagation. Its specific nature has a real, not nominal, existence. When a specific vital substance is in view, then realism is true. When a nonspecific (inorganic substance) is in view, then nominalism is correct. Inkstands are not propagated from a common nature. The concept is but a general term partaking of no transcendent reality. Its only reality is in some particular model.
On the other hand a species contains a primitive, invisible, and propagatable substance. It is
REALISM IN THEOLOGY (cont.)
441
created as a single nature and exists as such prior to its distribution by means of propagation.
The chief concerns of theological realism are to explain: (1) the racial nature of mankind; (2) the racial nature of human depravity; (3) the racial nature of death as sin's penalty; and (4) the racial nature of mankind's redemption through Christ.
Human nature is racial. Man is the manifestation of the general principle of humanity in union with a given corporeal organization. Human nature as a general principle existed antecedently (chronologically and logically) to individual men. It is a res, an essence, a substance, with a real objective existence in time and space. John and Mary are the revelation and individualizations of this general substance which is the species or genus. Each is only a subsequent modus existendi, human nature being the essence of each.
What God created was not an individual man, but the species homo, generic humanity—an intelligent, rational, and voluntary essence. As such it manifests itself in a multitude of individuals. Thus each human is an individualized portion of the race. The species as a single nature was created and existed prior to its distribution by means of propagation.
Human sin is corporate. The sin of Adam and his generic complement, Eve, was the sin of this generic substance which thus became the subject and bearer of guilt and depravity. Numerically it was the same substance which constitutes each of us individual men and women.
Thus all men have sinned in Adam. "In Adam's fall, we sinned all." God contemplates all men as actually one with Adam in his sin. And since the whole race was involved in Adam's sin, the whole race is punished for that disobedience so that all must die. Furthermore, hereditary depravity in each human is truly and properly sin, involving guilt as well as pollution. These are passed on to successive generations through propagation. Shedd affirms that the soul is originated by psychical propagation even as the body is by physical propagation. So each man "received and inherited the corruption that was now in human nature, and subsequently acted it out in individual transgressions" (Dogmatic Theology, 2:89). "The individual man derives and inherits his sinful disposition from his immediate ancestors but originated it in his first ancestors" (94).
With the exception of C. A. Strong, not many theologians have subscribed to this higher realism.
Lower Realism. According to this theory individualizations always characterize seminal and germinal essences of their species, as they exist in aggregate in their progenitors. They have their germinal existence in a racial progenitor. So the contention is that the human race had its germinal existence in Adam. It therefore identifies Adam's posterity with himself in the one original (first act of) sin. This rudimentary existence of all men in Adam included the soul as well as the body.
The aim of lower realism is the same as that of higher realism, i.e., so to identify the offspring of Adam in a real oneness with him in the primitive transgression that they may be justifiably charged with a guilty participation in that sin. Thus the common guilt is charged to the account of seminal existence in Adam when he committed the first sin.
This lower realism is open to the doctrine of seminal guilt, guilt for all ancestral sins; and the denial of any share in Adam's personal repentance on the part of his offspring.
Whether the souls of all his offspring so existed in Adam is open to question by many theologians. Augustine was in serious doubt of it. Calvin rejected it, and in his rejection was followed by most of the Reformed thinkers. If in the nature of Adam there existed such an aggregate of individuals, then he must have lacked the unitary essence of a single personality. It must also be remembered that sin can be predicated only of persons.
The common reaction to this realistic involvement of all of Adam's descendants in his personal guilt is twofold: (1) No one believes that he acted thousands of years before he was born. To act before one exists is impossible. So unless one adopts the theory of multiple incarnations and the transmigration of souls, and the karma of one or many previous existences, he wants to reject guilt for Adam's transgression. (2) One wishes to ask why the descendants of Adam are responsible for, and guilty because of, his first act of sin and not for his subsequent sins. Shedd's answer is that his postlapsarian sins were mere violations of the moral law, not of the human race's probationary law (2:88).
Against theological realism it may be argued that the human race has no such cohesion in entity. Mankind is not to be regarded as a racial thing. It has no actual coalescence like that of a body of water where the individual drop is swallowed out of meaning and existence. This is not to deny that the race originated in one human pair, and carries a common human nature in all of its individuals. Nor is it to deny the basic fact