Theology beacon dictionary of theology

Prior to the Reformation, perfectionism ap­peared mostly in ascetic, Pelagian, or mystical forms. The Reformers were generally hostile to these forms of perfectionism, but their opposi­tion paved the way for a more genuinely biblical orientation. Christian perfectionism entered the mainstream of Western Protestantism through the Wesleyan revival and received definitive for­mulation in the writings of John Wesley and John Fletcher.

In America, the merging streams of Wesleyan theology and Scottish common sense philosophy brought into dynamic conjunction the twin themes of free will and free grace. Lit by the fires of Finney revivalism, these conceptual explosives released into the mid-19th century church a per­fectionistic energy which was to affect every vital nerve center of national life. Educational, social, economic, ecclesiastical, political, physiological, moral, and spiritual aspects of life all came under intense scrutiny as zealous Christians pursued the goal of universal reform.

The movement included various types. Most prominent among them were the community en­terprises at Oneida, N.Y., and Oberlin, Ohio. At Oneida, John Humphrey Noyes advocated in the name of Christian perfection a style of living whose biblical underpinnings were suspect and whose ethical principles were scandalous. In his view, a Christian could rise above all need for external light and external authority and could actually become incapable of sinning. Central to the Oneida ethos was the practice of "open mar­riage," a concept which Noyes somehow derived from the principle of universal benevolence. The term perfectionism as such was probably most closely associated in the 19th-century mind with John Humphrey Noyes and Oneida.

In terms of biblical orthodoxy, moral consis­tency, and widespread influence, however, early Oberlin College stands without peer as the insti­tutional embodiment of American perfectionism. Perfectionistic concern at Oberlin began with the sanctification of individuals. Here it was pro­claimed that the new covenant in Christ prom­ised a work of the Holy Spirit which could bring the human heart into perfect conformity with the moral law.

Individual sanctification, however, had social ramifications. Oberlin's president, Asa Mahan, maintained that the Christian Church is a uni­versal reform society. The duty of Christians is to fight sin and wrong wherever it exists and to bring all of life under the sway of biblical prin­ciples through the powerful gospel of Christ. For Oberlinites and perfectionists generally, this meant such things as immediate emancipation of slaves, equal educational opportunities for women, temperance in eating and drinking, union among churches, and peace among na­tions. Benevolent societies were spawned to as­sist the needy, and moral suasion was brought fearlessly and effectively to bear upon the pow­erful. Motivating all was the vision of an ap­proaching millennium which would consist primarily in the sanctification of the church.

See CHRISTIAN PERFECTION, PERFECT (PERFECTION), SOCIAL HOLINESS, SOCIAL ETHICS.

For Further Reading: Dayton, Discovering an Evangel-

In the 20th century, permissiveness has ac­quired a distinctly pejorative connotation, partic­ularly in Christian circles. The term conveys images of antinomianism, indiscipline, and im­morality. As such, it is said to be an attitude which pervades society as a whole—a spirit of lawlessness and excessive tolerance (2 Tim. 3:1-5). It affects child-rearing practices, where sentimentality may replace loving correction; ad­olescent relationships, where self-gratification is called "love"; and adult life, where white-collar crime, infidelity, tax evasion, and lowering of ethical standards are all symptoms of permis­siveness. A permissive society is one based upon the hedonistic philosophy of "Do your own thing."

Theologically, permissiveness has been equated with antinomianism, a problem in some Early Church circles (cf. 1 John), and a label sometimes attached to Paul's doctrines of grace and freedom from the law. But the equation is inaccurate; Paul was neither an antinomian nor a legalist. For Paul, all of life was to be viewed from the dual perspectives of being "in Christ" and being part of the "body of Christ." Within this context Paul's freedom was remarkable, but his freedom would never extend to practices which were not helpful or uplifting (1 Cor. 10:23).

Jesus' ethical teaching was in a similar vein: He was the fulfilment to the law. In Matthew, He proclaims the higher meaning of the law, sum­marizing His own teaching in the two command­ments: to love God and to love one's neighbor. To lift Jesus' doctrine of love out of its biblical con­text of responsible action under God and use it as the slogan to justify the hedonism of "the per­missive society" is a perversion of the first mag­nitude.

See freedom, discipline, law and grace, anti-
nomianism, license. Kent Brower

PERPETUAL VIRGINITY. This refers to the Roman Catholic teaching that Jesus' mother, Mary, re­mained a virgin, even after she had become mar­ried to Joseph. Protestants understand, on various bases, that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations. It is implied where we read, "But he [Joseph] had no union with her until she gave birth to a son" (Matt. 1:25, niv). It is also implied where we read of Jesus' "brothers" and "sisters," all children of "the carpenter" and "Mary" (13:55-56, niv). Actually, Protestants, who do not believe that marriage is a less spiri­tual state than celibacy, have no interest in trying to show that Jesus' mother was a perpetual vir­gin.

See mariolatry mother of god.

J. Kenneth Grider

PERSECUTION. See tribulation.

PERSEVERANCE. As a theological term, persever­ance relates to the persistence of the regenerate believer in running the Christian race (Heb. 12:1), and the certainty of the final outcome. Cal­vinists understand the concept differently than Arminians. Calvinists believe that the certainty of successful perseverance is inherent in the new birth. Arminians believe that perseverance is contingent. This is to say that the believer bears an obligation to choose continuously to maintain his relationship to God, and that there is real danger that he may fail to do so.

In the Calvinistic schema the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is a correlative of (1) a concept of divine sovereignty which absolutizes the will of God in determining individual des­tiny, and (2) a view of the Atonement which sees it as a totally objective transaction, assuring un­failingly the salvation of the elect.

Unquestionably grace for perseverance is the constantly available gift of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 9:8). However, the Scriptures clearly warn against the danger of apostatizing. Paul speaks of his own concern: "Lest... I myself should be a castaway" (1 Cor. 9:27). The writer of Hebrews reflects this same concern for the Body of Christ when he states: "We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure" (6:11, Niv; cf. vv. 4-6). Christ himself warns of the danger of not abid­ing in Him and of being cast into the fire (John 15:4-6). It is, therefore, perfectly clear that a man as a free moral agent must cooperate with God's grace, and himself persevere. See Col. 1:21-23; 1 Tim. 1:18-20; 6:12; Heb. 3:12; 5:9; 10:26ff; 12:1-17; Rev. 2:5.

See eternal security freedom. contingent, monergism, synergism.

For Further Reading: The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclo­pedia of Religious Knowledge, 8:469-70; The Catholic En­cyclopedia, ll:447ff; Baker's DT, 403ff.

Forest T. Benner
396

PERSON, PERSONALITY


PERSON, PERSONALITY. A person is a human or suprahuman self, characterized in its normal state by self-consciousness, self-decision, and uniqueness. A person is essentially unitary, not multiple, though he may possess conflicting or variant natures. The "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" phenomenon reflects two natures, not two per­sons or individuals. Personality is the sum total of qualities which comprise individual person-hood. A fetus is a true person in an embryonic stage of development, therefore without full le­gal rights as a person. God is the perfect proto­type personality, after which all other levels of personhood are patterned. The divine image in man lies supremely in the fact that both God and man are personal beings.

Anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the­ology all have great concern for the person both individually and corporately. Cultural anthro­pology seeks to understand both the impact of cultural determinants upon the individual and the impact of the individual upon culture. Sociol­ogy considers social structures, power and or­ganizational structures, service and maintenance structures, economic and technological forces as they all affect societal or community matrices. Psychology seeks to understand the individual as a total person.

Theories of personality attempt to understand, depict, and predict the structure of the person­ality, the development of personality, and the dy­namics of personality. Personality, for the psychologist, is more than the connotation af­forded by the street phrase "She has a vivacious personality" or "He has no personality at all."

There are several theories of personality. At the risk of semantic distortion or oversim­plification we can say that these theories include a mechanistic view of man (behavioristic, Skin­ner), a genetic or physiological (Sheldon), a psy­chic determinism (Freud), a teleological or goal oriented (Allport), an environmentally deter­mined (Lewin), or various combinations of source positions. No theory of personality has yet found universal acceptance among scholars in the field. The science is still rather new and imprecise both from the theoretical perspective and from the total validity, reliability, and inter­active precision of instruments or designs for em­pirical research.

Theologically and biblically, the study of man is rather limited, also. OT terms for man include basar, ruach, and nephesh. Basar, "flesh," may de­note all living creatures, man as a created being by the will of his Creator, or as a frail, powerless being in God's sight. Basar deals far less with the essences of man than with his power.

Ruach is the life-giving power of the breath or Spirit of God that makes man a living soul. Ru­ach is not a substance but a power that is both creative and purposive. It brings wholeness, will, courage, direction, and resource to man as the sign and principle of God's Spirit at work in and upon man.

Nephesh is the life principle or life force which is often viewed as the soul when the context re­fers to loss or preservation of life. It is the seat of the senses, affections, and emotions of man, sel­dom referring to the wills and purposes of man. It is the nephesh which exhibits the power that the ruach provides. The Hebrew sees always the indivisible unity (both biological and psychic life) of the individual and sees him as incomplete apart from his corporate dimension and without meaning apart from the vitalizing power of God. The Hebrew mind deals with the intellective, af­fective, and behavioral dimensions of man and metaphorically refers to various organs as the seat of the will, the desire, the emotions, etc., of man. But it always sees man-in-relation-to-God as the whole person.

The NT use of two and sometimes three words to encompass the totality of the person has given rise to a theological debate that has renewed it­self periodically throughout the history of the Church, viz., whether man is essentially dual (dichotomous—body and soul/spirit) or three­fold (trichotomous—body, soul, and spirit). To­day many scholars believe that the intent of such biblical delineations of man is to encapsulate ev­ery aspect and vestige of man into one wholistic totality of the corporate man in Christ.

Again, whether man is viewed as sarx (akin to the Hebrew basar), flesh; soma, biological body; psuche (often translating nephesh), the free soul of man; or pneuma (translating ruach), spirit, he is seen as having no power apart from God's in­ward redemptive activity. Even his value as a person is linked to his salvability in Christ. With­out Christ personhood atrophies and becomes distorted. Personhood finds its normalcy and de­velopment through the sanctifying of the Spirit upon and in the life of the believer.

The person, therefore, is a personality in­volving the dynamics of genetics, life forces, en­vironment, and individual choice, in interaction with the grace of God. He is both unique and corporate, finding his completion only by and in Christ and His Body.

See MAN, DICHOTOMY. TRICHOTOMY DEVELOPMENT (THEORIES OF), SOUL, SPIRIT, HUMAN NATURE, NATURE,



PERSONALISM—PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

397

Again, the Spirit as a person may be grieved (Eph. 4:30).

While many have no problem in thinking of the Father and the Son as personal, the Spirit seems more difficult to describe. He seems like the personification of divine motion, not a truly personal member of the divine Trinity. Yet, Scrip­ture attributes the powers of personhood to Him consistently. Thus for Paul the Father elects, the Son redeems, and the Spirit seals in the economy of grace (Eph. 1:4-14).

Full recognition of the Spirit's personhood emerged gradually during the first four Christian centuries. Christian theologians wrestled with the intellectual conflict between monotheism and Trinitarian thought. The Jewish religion was uncompromising in its belief in one God. The Council of Nicea (a.d. 325) defined the godhood of Christ, while Constantinople (a.d. 381) em­phasized the personality of the Spirit.

The Early Church described Father, Son, and Spirit as a triunity of persons (Latin, personae). The concept "person" connoted the reality of each divine manifestation. In interpreting the Trinity, modalists like Sabellius erred in asserting a unity with an apparent, not a real, trinity. Or­thodox theology insists that the three personae are the fullness of God, whose unity is a triunity, not a diversity of gods or a tritheism. Orthodox Trinitarianism never allows, as does tritheism, that Father, Son, and Spirit exist or function in separateness. There is one God, whose fullness is triune.

When we describe the Holy Spirit as personal, we mean that He is possessed of all the attributes known to be in God. There is no essential differ­ence. Personhood for the Holy Spirit includes power of choice, self-consciousness, intelligence, and sensibility, even as for Father and Son, and, indeed, for human persons created in His image.

See ESSENTIAL TRINITY HYPOSTASIS, TRINITY (THE HOLY), SABELLIANISM, PERSON (PERSONALITY), HOLY SPIRIT.

For Further Reading: Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God; Carter, The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Leon O. Hynson

PHARISAISM. The term is derived from the sect of Pharisees who were one of the three main parties of the Jews at the time of Christ. Though at first this party was strong in religious character and some of its members were some of the best Jews, later generations deteriorated. Jesus was compelled to characterize them as "hypocrites." Of course not all were hypocrites: Paul before his conversion, Gamaliel, and Nicodemus were ex­amples of the better Pharisees. This sect, more than any other, preserved Judaism and the law.

It was love of display and strict but empty le­galism that earned for the Pharisees as a class the epithet "hypocrites." In NT times this term meant "playacting." Such acting led to the concept of pharisaism, which is rigid observance of external rules of religious conduct without any genuine piety. The term has come to be applied to all re­ligions that make conformity to the law primary, and promise God's grace only to those who are doers of this law. Rather than religion being a disposition of heart, it becomes the performing of outward acts. Often called legalism, phari­saism bases salvation upon observance of exter­nal regulations and neglects the more important aspect of love and mercy.

See LEGALISM, LOVE, PERFECT LOVE, PHARISEES.

For Further Reading: HBD, 544ff; New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, 741 ff; NBD, 981 ff.

Leo G. Cox

PHARISEES. A religious party or sect of Judaism originating in the times of the Maccabees and surviving after a.d. 70 as the dominant Jewish faction. Their new Jewish center at Jamnia pro­vided the foundation for modern rabbinic Juda­ism.

The Pharisees probably grew out of the has-idim or Hasidaeons, the "godly people" who, af­ter the return from exile, gave concerned leadership to practicing the sacred law and op­posing Hellenization. Two great Jewish parties emerged in this period, the Sadducees from the priestly class, and the Pharisees from the scribes or students of the law. The name Pharisees, which means "the separated ones," first appears in the record of the king John Hyrcanus (134-104 B.C.) whose policies the Pharisees opposed. They came to favor and great influence in the time of Queen Alexandra (76-67 B.C.), a prestige which continued through the time of Jesus. Josephus es­timated their number in Jesus' day at about 6,000. Because of popularity with the people many were chosen to the Sanhedrin. They were generally middle class.

The Pharisees were the orthodox core of Juda­ism. They held to the whole body of Jewish Scripture. They were the supernaturalists, believ­ing, for example, in the resurrection of the righ­teous and in angels. In politics and moral philosophy they held mediating views: Most submitted to foreign domination as an expres­sion of God's providence, at the same time hold­ing to free will and the right of resistance to interference with their practice of God's revealed



PHILANTHROPY—PHILOSOPHY

399

will. Various schools of Pharisaism developed, such as those founded by Hillel and Shammai.

They passionately believed the written law of Moses, but equally the oral "tradition of the el­ders" which encased the law. They tried to apply the written law, in terms of the oral law, to every situation with meticulous, sometimes ludicrous, detail. Law keeping, often merely ceremonial, was to them meritorious, the only way to righ­teousness. They separated themselves from all other Jews, the "sinners," who failed to follow their practices.

Although Jesus maintained friendship with a few Pharisees, in general He clashed with their practices. They, in turn, harassed Him and plot­ted His death.

At the heart of Jesus' difference with the Phar­isees lay His emphasis on love as the inner meaning and implementation of the law's re­quirements (Matt. 22:34-40). He taught a righ­teousness surpassing that of the Pharisees (5:20). They tended to see the law as a code sufficient within itself.

Jesus warned against the Pharisees' self-righ­teousness; their attention to outward ceremonies to the neglect of inward truth and purity; their inclination to trifling questions while neglecting "weightier matters" of judgment, mercy, and faith; their stress on the external "letter of the law" while overlooking the law's higher principle and intent; their pride and ostentation in per­formance of prayers, fasting, and alms; their im­position of burdens which they themselves could not carry; their censorious, exclusive spirit in place of loving concern. Because of this He called them hypocrites and blind guides (Matthew 23).

See pharisaism, legalism, sadducees, moralism, love.

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