Theology beacon dictionary of theology

Bultmann does not seek to eliminate myth, rather to interpret it, for he insists that all my­thology expresses a truth, although in an obso­lete way. The truth contained in the NT is that of the saving kerygma of Christ, i.e., the announce­ment that God has come to man through Christ in grace to accomplish a radical change in his ex­istence. Bultmann's existential interpretation pre­supposes that the mythologies have their point in the specific self-understanding of man; what is being said about man's existence before God, about his self-understanding in the midst of this world and history.

Bultmann can be criticized from the stand­points (1) of his view of myth in the NT, calling myth what should be identified as history, and (2) of interpretative presuppositions, exchanging the old myth for a new philosophical one of exis­tentialism. Yet the problem of interpretation re­mains in the hermeneutical enterprise.

See myth, hermeneutics, biblical inerrancy in­spiration of the bible.

For Further Reading; Hordern, New Directions in The­ology Today, Introduction, 1:23 ff; Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology; Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing.

Frank G. Carver

DENOMINATION. This is the term most often used for the various organized divisions of Christianity and especially of Protestantism. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (1976) defines the term, in its religious context, as "a religious organization uniting in a single legal and admin­istrative body a number of local congregations." Such a body, or denomination, may be large or very small.

There is some confusion in general usage be­tween denomination and sect. There are two dis­tinctions between these two terms. First, scholars usually use the word denomination to designate organizations with a historical and/or a doctrinal connection to the original church, while the term sect is used to designate groups which are radi­cally divergent from the orthodox church and which have no distinct historical relation to tra­ditional Christianity. A second distinction is that sect is more frequently used with a negative con­notation (as a term of reproach) than is denomi­nation.

While denominationalism grew out of the Protestant Reformation, the term denomination was not commonly used until the 18th century. Denominationalism reached its peak in the 19th century when marked independence and hos­tility became the rule. In the 20th century the mood has changed to cooperation and to moves toward unity.

A climate of religious freedom combined with strong doctrinal, liturgical, and organizational homogeneity for effective ministry and growth, justifies denominationalism in principle. While the Bible rebukes divisions which are carnal in origin and nature (1 Cor. 3:1-11), there is much implied support for organized movements which grow out of an honest desire to preserve and propagate a pure gospel (Gal. 1:6-8; 2 Tim. 4:1-5).

See church, cult, sect division, schism.

For Further Reading: Newman, Manual of Church History, 2:419-21; Brauer, ed., The Westminster Dictio­nary of Church History, 622-23; Mead, Handbook of De­nominations in the U.S. charles L. childers

See total depravity, original sin, prevenient

At this point it should be noted that the En­glish form of the Apostles' Creed is a mistransla­

Some interpreters understand the "descent into hell" to refer to 1 Pet. 3:19—"By which [by the Spirit] also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison."

But plain logic points in still another direction. The ascent was clearly to heaven, 40 days after Christ's resurrection. The descent would there­fore be to earth, in the Incarnation. T. K. Abbott wisely says that "it seems preferable to take 'the lower parts of the earth' as = 'this lower earth.'"

See estates of christ, apostles' creed, as­cension, hades.

For Further Reading: BBC, 9:207; 10:290-91; WBC,
5:409; 6:267 ff. ralph earle

DESIRE. Desire itself (epithumia) is morally neu­tral. Jesus "earnestly desired" to eat the Passover with the Twelve in Jerusalem (Luke 22:15; cf. Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 2:17).

To "desire" is more than to contemplate or to wish for. Epithumia denotes firm resolve and the gathering of literal physical energy to drive for the accomplishment of the vision held in mind. In the later NT the word is used exclusively as synonymous with evil (Jas. 1:14-15; 2 Tim. 2:22; Titus 2:12).

First-century rabbis taught that evil desire and evil action were both condemned. "The eye and the heart are the two brokers of sin," they taught. But their teaching was less sweeping than Jesus' in Matt. 5:28, where "lust" is made the equivalent of "adultery" already committed in the heart.

Part of the curse affecting the woman was said to be that in spite of her greatly multiplied pain in childbearing, and her bringing forth her chil­dren in pain, "yet your desire shall be for your husband" (Gen. 3:16, nasb). This persistent bonding of two who become "one flesh" sur­vived even the Fall. So whether desire leads to intimacy or to exploitation (1 John 2:16) becomes the real question; and the answer to that arises from whether self (lust) or God (affirmation) rules the heart.

See seven deadly sins, temperance, self-control, heart purity, motives. For Further Reading: Vine, ed.

Donald M. Joy

DESPAIR. Despair is basically a lack of hope in relation to some good which one desires. Re­ligious despair may bring one to the point of de­nial of God's mercy, love, and goodness.

Catholic theology looks upon despair as the root of all sin, thus requiring repentance and for­giveness in order to be overcome. And since re­sistance to God and grace is a form of despair, despair is further related to the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Nihilism, with its denial of reality, meaning, and values, is one of modern maris chief strug­gles; and it corresponds to despair. Man is threat­ened by death, condemnation (damnation), and meaninglessness (Tillich), and Maslow suggests that the "ultimate disease of our time is value-lessness." In relation to all of these there may be despair, taking on the particular hue of the spe­cific threat. Contemporary existential philosophy regards the conquest of despair as one of its chief concerns.

To presume to have or be something which one is not is to be at the opposite pole from de­spair. Thinking of oneself soberly, with divinely touched understanding and poise, would be to steer a course between the twin dangers of de­spair and presumption. Each pole may tend to perpetuate itself or to provoke its opposite; i.e., despair may create a real "slough of despond"; or since one can scarcely live in such a dismal world, despair may call forth presumption.

Faith, hope, and courage are biblical qualities which are available to those who seek them. The Bible is replete with examples of persons who were brought to the brink of despair (Job, Jere­miah, and other heroes of faith found in He­brews 11), but who were able to find in God sufficient resources to triumph.

See hope, faith, doubt, unbelief.

For Further Reading: Vine, ed; Baker's DCE; Sacra-mentum Mundi, 2:69-70. R. duane thompson

DESTINY, ETERNAL. The Bible teaches that maris earthly, temporal destiny is probationary and preparatory. The true or ultimate destiny, for which preparation is being made now, is beyond death. This ultimate destiny is predesigned but not predetermined. God's design for man, or his "chief end," is "to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever" (Westminster Shorter Catechism). How­ever, sin thwarts this design in those who die impenitent. The sinner's destiny is not the hap­piness of heaven but the misery of hell. It is ap­parent that in the final analysis each individual is responsible for his own destiny (Rom. 2:1-11).

The fact that man's true destiny was beyond the grave was not always clear. In the days of antiquity Job raised his memorable question, "If a

About 800 years later, in David's time, there came further glimpses of the glory, and of man's accountability in death (Ps. 17:15; 49:15; 73:24-26; 116:15; Eccles. 12:7). Isaiah caught fleeting views of the overthrow of death (25:8; 26:19). It was left to Daniel, however, to give a remarkable summation, mentioning for the first and only time in the OT the eternal quality of life and its alternative (12:2).

The revelation of the full status of man's eter­nal destiny was established only by Jesus, to be restated and enlarged upon by the writers of the NT.

Jesus spoke of a prepared place for believers 0ohn 14:2; 2 Cor. 5:1 ff), a place where He and His Father will be 0ohn 14:2-3; Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1; 1 Pet. 3:22; Rev. 7:15), the eternal home of God's children (Matt. 5:12; 6:20; Heb. 11:10); He spoke of a "kingdom prepared for you from the foun­dation of the world" (Matt. 25:34; Acts 14:22; Jas. 2:4), a place of glory 0ohn 17:24; Rom. 8:18; Jude 24; Rev. 21:11).

Men will be fulfilling the purpose for which they were created as they "serve him day and night in his temple" (Rev. 7:15; Heb. 12:28). Heaven will be a place of growth and progress. By the parables of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30) and the pounds (Luke 19:11-27) Jesus taught that the faithful servant is to be given opportunity to direct to greater tasks the increased powers he has developed by work well done here on earth.

See HEAVEN, HELL, IMMORTALITY, RESURRECTION.

From a Christian perspective God is the pri­mary Cause of all things as their Creator. But man as a secondary cause either has or does not have some initiating powers. If he has such pow­ers, to any extent, he is to that extent free. If man does not have such powers in any sense, then he is determined.

Some determinisms distinguish between a "free" and a "coerced" cause. If someone robs a bank on his own or in cooperation with someone else, then though his nature may not have per­mitted him to do otherwise, he is free even though his action is caused. On the other hand, if a bystander is forced by a robber to drive a getaway car, he is not free, he is coerced.

The difference between soft and hard deter­minism is that soft determinism holds that some acts are free (note preceding paragraph) while hard determinism calls no acts free. But both de­terminisms regard all acts as produced by forces which permit no alternatives. Hard determinism may become fatalism by the addition of the psy­chological and emotional element of inability to change things.

With respect to salvation, determinism pro­motes the view of total depravity with human ability reduced to nothing. Thus man cannot re­spond to God except as God produces the re­sponse in him. Sola fide (by faith alone) and sola gratia (by grace alone) can be understood either as absolute determinism or as placing the ini­tiative on God's part without eliminating human capacity to cooperate and respond.

The Christian view of the Creator God does place all things in a position of dependency upon God. The real issue is whether the relationship is one of total control, or whether grace has pro­vided a degree of independent action on man's part.

Moral issues are raised, because human free­dom is tied in with the very possibility of moral decision, and upon this the very nature of per-sonhood depends. Thus no more critical question can be raised than that of freedom or deter­minism. The fact that God holds man account­able for his actions (from Genesis to Revelation) implies some measure of real freedom and con­tingency.

See CONTINGENT, FREEDOM, MORALITY, PREDES­TINATION, MONERGISM, SYNERGISM.

In spite of the clear biblical evidences urging us to respect developmental differences between adults and children, until recent times the West­ern world has regarded children as miniature adults. It has remained for the 19th and 20th centuries to begin to probe the actual sequences and characteristics of human development. To­day three major theoretical bases are available from which to begin the trek toward understand­ing. They are, in order of their appearance, (1) psychodynamic theory; (2) behavior/learning theory, and (3) cognitive/constructionist theory.

Sigmund Freud (1905) is regarded as the father of psychodynamic approaches to human devel­opment. He worked largely with pathological adult women, and theoreticians since Freud have tended to work largely with adults in institution­al or clinical/psychiatric settings. Psychodynam­ic theory has contributed to our understanding of conscience (the superego) and of the self (ego). The theory regards growth as the passage from one "conflict" arena to another. These have been reconstructed to include "complexes" through which boys and girls pass; the obscenity of the Oedipal and Electra complexes may tell us more about the psychologists and their adult patients than they do about children. Particularly helpful are the psychodynamic contributions of Erik Erikson who traces the "eight stages or crises of human development," each with a positive and a negative option for resolution. R. J. Havighurst elaborates a life span of "developmental tasks." The other developmental theories are indebted to the work of Freud for isolating research areas and for early definitions of problems.

Behavior/learning theory moves on the as­sumption that all learning is acquired; nothing is innate. All children are born as a blank slate. Only behavior can be observed; hence inner at­tributes such as love or personality are only im­portant as certain behaviors may be labeled "loving" or "gracious." Ivan Pavlov's animal stud­ies in Russia (1927) gave us "classical condi­tioning" formulas, but it was B. F. Skinner who developed the model called "operant condi­tioning." "Behavior modification" is a "learning" application of conditioning. "Brainwashing," as in Korean prisoner of war camps, was an applica­tion of conditioning to control behavior. Condi­tioning ahd behavior modification application tend to work well with animals and young chil­dren, less well with reflective adults (not all American prisoners of war "learned" in the brainwashing experience). The theory makes ex­tensive use of animals in research and theorizing; yet humans are capable of going far beyond ani­mals in learning tasks.

Cognitive/constructionist theory is rooted in the work of Jean Piaget (1932) whose imag­ination was triggered by the wrong answers chil­dren gave on a new intelligence test at the Binet Institute in Paris. He went to children playing marbles on the street to begin unfolding his gen­etic epistemology—the science which now helps us understand "how we know what we know." Piaget concludes that the neurological possi­bilities of the human brain, combined with sen­sory processors such as sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, permit the child to receive or assimilate data which is then processed in the brain within the developmental/experiential limits of current structures—ways of organizing data received. As experience overloads the cog­nitive structure, the structure explodes and reorganizes—called accommodation. Thus a per­son is constantly growing as new experiences are transformed into new structures.

Jerome Bruner traces the young child's ways of knowing from "enactive representation" in which gesture is speech, through "iconic repre­sentation" in which images substitute for speech, finally to "symbolic representation" which is speech itself. Noam Chomsky, in studying the transformational nature of language, concludes that every child is born with a "predisposition to speak." He holds that children's speech cannot be accounted for simply by attributing it to mod­eling parent speech (psychodynamic) nor by at­tributing it to rewards/punishments (behavior/ learning). The human brain, Chomsky holds, is predisposed to discover and follow rules of grammar and language. If a child grew up with­out hearing speech, it would invent language all over again. The biblical idea of a speaking God who creates humans in the image of that speak­ing God and finally discloses himself through the Word made flesh and announced by the voice of one crying in the wilderness suggests the

In all developmental theories there is a com­mon thesis: Human development is strongly cu­mulative, but it is not continuous. All past experience is present with us; but we may also arrest, stop, and stagnate. Paul, the track star rac­ing toward the crown of life (Phil. 3:14; 1 Cor. 9:24), also offers the golden formula for moral and spiritual transformation: "We all, with un­veiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord [that is, looking into the face of Jesus], are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18, Rsv).

All of us who work with people use a basic "theory of development," whether we know it or not. If we regard people as incapable of change and use pity, we are essentially influenced by psychodynamic views. If we regard people as manipulable—using prizes, praise, or gimmicks —we are reflecting behavior/learning beliefs about learning and change. If we regard persons as freely choosing beings able to construct posi­tively and to follow hope and vision, we are awakened more to cognitive/constructionist ideas. But the theories themselves have devel­oped across most of a century; the latest theory is enriched by the earlier research and theory of psychoanalysis and behaviorism.

See GROW (GROWTH), FREEDOM, PERSON (PERSON­ALITY), TEACH (TEACHING, TEACHER).