Theology beacon dictionary of theology

In reference to animals or to human frailty, compassion may take the form of pity. The para­ble of the unmerciful servant is an excellent illus­tration: "Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?" (Matt. 18:33). When the believer has compassion on or pities someone, he not only sympathizes, he empathizes.

The implications of the above are important when we move from the human to the divine-human realm. The compassion of God is a result of the infinite greatness of His love. Seeing the misery of creation, the Creator sympathized, pit­ied, and conspicuously displayed His empathy in the gift of His Son (John 3:16). Jesus is the Cre­ator's embodiment of compassion, and by His life that embodiment teaches His followers that the Christian way of life is one of compassion.

See mercy. love, agape, good works, benevo­lence.

774. W. Stephen Gunter

This method of doing theology was found to be particularly helpful in reconciling religious truths which from certain perspectives appear to be cast in opposite molds. Examples of such truths are as follows: law and gospel, faith and works, doctrine and morality, rationalism and mysticism, Christianity and culture, Arminian­ism and Calvinism.

Rigid adherence to the particulars of one em­phasis to the exclusion of equal attention to a complementary or corresponding truth was a dangerous procedure in Fletcher's estimation. To pit one truth against another was to do damage to both. The seeming contradictions were never considered by Fletcher to be irreconcilable.

His position was that one truth complemented the other. He spoke of the "harmonious opposi­tion of the Scriptures" and the "golden mean." The Checks to Antinomianism which he wrote in the course of the controversy display the kind of balance which his complementarianism pro­duced. In the words of Charles L. Feinberg, Fletcher found the "key to true theology."

See dialectic, checks to antinomianism, wes­leyan synthesis.

For Further Reading: Knight, "John Fletcher's Influ­ence on the Development of Wesleyan Theology in America," WTJ, 13:13-33; Mattke, "John Fletcher's Meth­odology in the Antinomian Controversy of 1770-76," WTJ, 3:38-47; Stott, Balanced Christianity, 7-10.

Robert A. Mattke

CONCEPTUALISM. Conceptualism is the philo­sophical theory that general ideas separated from particular objects exist in the mind. It is close to realism but differs from it by insisting that gen­eral ideas are mind-dependent; it is contrasted with nominalism which denies that general ideas exist independently of particulars. None of these positions is directly related to theological issues. Historically conceptualism was used to buttress a certain view of the Church, especially in the Middle Ages. Against nominalists who tended to see the Church as the totality of believers from whom the hierarchy receives its authority, it saw the Church as a celestial reality that is not de­pendent on men for its authority. The connection between the philosophical theory and the theo­logical inference is precarious, to say the least. So-called nominalists like William of Ockham were in fact realistic conceptualists and yet were excommunicated. Theologians simply tended to use the philosophical theory at this point as a cipher for theological convictions that had other sources and warrants.

In modern times conceptualism has fallen on very hard times. The question to which it is an answer is still discussed; philosophers still want to know how general words have meaning. But conceptualism presupposes that they have meaning only because they must refer to or name some entity. This theory of meaning has been abandoned. Words have many functions rather than simply a naming function. General words, on this alternative view, are logical constructions generated by the actual or possible occasions of their employment. To have a concept of a "man" or a "cat" is to be able, say, to distinguish a man or a cat from other entities. Because of this change in theory of meaning, conceptualism is now of historical interest only, both theologically and philosophically.

Such actions subsequently constituted the ba­sis for all conciliar movements within the church. The successes of the early 15th-century concil-iarists in restoring the unity of the church never­theless proved to be the downfall of the principle itself. The new pope, with the support of the Cu­ria who had always rejected the movement's claims, quickly reasserted papal authority. From the 15th century onward, the papacy has re­tained firm control over all subsequent church councils.

Some effort was made at Vatican II to broaden the exercise of authority in the Roman Catholic church through greater emphasis upon the prin­ciple of collegiality shared by the bishops; how­ever, nothing substantive resulted. The pope continues to legitimize legislation of the general councils by reserving to himself alone the final approval of all their decrees and disciplinary canons.

See catholicism (roman).

Both Calvin and Luther subscribed to the Au­gustinian doctrine of concupiscence and denied the possibility of true sanctification specifically on the basis of this view.

The fundamental error of the doctrine is the notion that the Fall resulted in a metaphysical change in human nature which can be reversed only by glorification. Wesley returned to a pre-Augustinian understanding of original sin and is free from the taint of this doctrine.

See sin, original sin, marriage, sex (sexuality), desire.

It is impossible to reconcile this view with the clear teaching of Jesus Christ as found in Matt. 25:46; Mark 3:29; Luke 16:19-26; and John 3:36, and in other passages such as Isa. 66:24; Acts 1:25; and Rev. 20:10. Furthermore, annihilation does not allow for degrees in punishment as Jesus taught in Luke 12:47-48, nor can it be re­garded as a proper punishment for sin.

See immortality, eternal punishment, eternal life.

For Further Reading: Buis, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, 123-26; Boettner, Immortality, 117-24; ERE, 3:822-25; Wiley, CT, 3:360 ff.

William M. Arnett

CONFESSION, CONFESSIONAL. The word "con­fess" (homologed) has the basic idea of "agree" and is the common word for making a legal con­tract. The concept broadens to "promise," "as­sure," "admit," "confess," "declare publicly," "acknowledge," and "praise." Etymologically, it means "to say the same thing as." Jesus is re­vealed as the Christ, the Son of God, and the Lord. To confess Him is to profess Him by saying the same thing as God has said and by acting consistently with the words. To deny Caesar (as Lord) and to confess Jesus (as Lord) was the for­mula that led to martyrdom in the Early Church.

Early Christian literature used the noun and verb to indicate the content of the confession more than the act of confessing. Thus arose the early confessions, from which were developed the creeds. "In the early church the content of the gospel was understood to be Jesus Christ himself, and the verb has as its direct object Christ, Jesus, Jesus and the resurrection, or Son of God" (Neu-feld, The Earliest Christian Confessions, 21). The earliest confessions (among Jewish believers), as seen in the Gospels, were "Jesus is the Christ [or Messiah]" and "Jesus is the Son of God." Later, as the gospel spread throughout the Roman world, the third Christian confession emerged as an ex­plicit affirmation of universal sovereignty in the profession "Jesus is Lord."

The term confessional is sometimes used of a church or institution which teaches that the pro­fession of certain basic dogmas is (1) essential to salvation, or (2) at least required for membership in that group. Confessional also may refer to the place where confession of sins is made to a priest.

See confession of faith, testimony, creed, re­pentance, restitution, confession of sins.

In the OT the believer's confession usually fo­cused on trust in and praise to God for His re­deeming love and acts on behalf of Israel or his own life. In the NT the believer's confession of faith centers in Jesus Christ. The believer con­fesses Jesus to be the Messiah (John 9:22, 38), the Son of God (1 John 4:15), that He came in the flesh (v. 2), that He is Lord, evidenced by His resurrection/ascension (Acts 2:31-36; Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:11).

Confession of Christ is linked closely to con­fession of sin. To confess Christ is to confess that we are sinners, that He "died for our sins" (1 Cor. 15:3), and that we trust Him for forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:4—2:2).

Also, to confess Christ is to openly acknowl­edge Him before men (Luke 12:8; 1 Tim. 6:12). Confession in this sense always accompanied baptism in the Early Church. Although it be costly or risky, public confession of faith was and is essential. Unless we confess Christ before men, He will not acknowledge us before the Father (Matt. 10:32-33). Confessing Christ is the op­posite of denying Him.

The believer's confession of faith is made pos­sible by the Holy Spirit's enablement (1 Cor. 12:3; 1 John 4:2-4; John 15:26). It involves not just ver­bal avowal of faith in Christ, but also visible obe­dience to Christ in one's whole life. When total obedience is absent and one settles simply for understanding of and knowledge about salva­tion, "it is equivalent to denial, which Jesus will 'confess', when he says in judgment, T never knew you'" (Matt. 7:23) (D. Fiirst).

See confession, testimony, christian, disciple, discipleship.

It is also clear that for the Catholic doctrine of confirmation, like the Wesleyan doctrine of en­tire sanctification, there is "prescribed" a time lapse between "these two separate, yet related, anointings" (ibid., 63). The definitive nature of this subsequent work of grace is such that it cannot be repeated for any baptized believer be­cause it has to do with the perfection of char­acter, and if one's character is perfected in confirmation, there can be no need for further confirmation. Hence confirmation, like entire sanctification, is a second definite work of grace in the life of the Christian believer, though the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification does not absolutize the concepts of crisis and sub-sequency.

Another significant comparison between Catholic theology of confirmation and the Wes­leyan doctrine of entire sanctification is that it is the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit which effects "Christlikeness" in the life of the baptized be­liever. Baptism with water signifies that one has become an "adopted son of God," whereas con­firmation signifies that the baptized believer has received the fullness of the Spirit of Pentecost (ibid., 63).

John Fletcher, the first Methodist systematic theologian and John Wesley's personally desig­nated successor as leader of the Methodist move­ment, defended Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection by appealing directly to the Anglican rite of confirmation (which was essentially the same as the Catholic doctrine). Among the Meth­odists, Fletcher was the first to make explicit the connection between Christian perfection and the fullness of the Spirit. Fletcher referred to the rite of confirmation as substantiating Wesley's view of the doctrine of entire sanctification. The Sa­maritans' experience (Acts 8) and the Ephesians' experience (Acts 19) of the Spirit are used by

Fletcher as examples of entire sanctification. However, instead of arguing for these biblical passages as supporting the rite of confirmation, Fletcher (and Wesley) refers to these as sanc­tifying experiences. It can thus be said that the genius of John Wesley and John Fletcher was not that they created a doctrine of entire sanctifi­cation, but that they gave it a more evangelical rather than a high sacramentarian interpretation. For all practical purposes Wesley ignored the rite of confirmation in his writings, probably because he wanted to get away from a purely formalistic understanding of grace. Wesley's stress was upon an "experimental religion"—that is, a religion of the heart.

See baptism with the spirit, entire sanctifica­tion, sacramentarianism.