Concordia Theological Monthly
Article Title
Publication Date
8-1-1953
Document Type
Article
Keywords
apology, theologians, christian, doctrine, confessions, lutheran
Submission Type
Bible Study; Lecture; Sermon Prep
Abstract
"When I use a word," said Humpty-Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." In the history of Christian theology the tendency to do this has become almost an occupational disease, often making it difficult to understand theologians of the present and almost impossible to understand theologians of the past. Nor does this apply only to thinkers like Berdyaev, who found it necessary to coin his vocabulary as he went along, or to groups like the Gnostics, who sometimes seem deliberately to have chosen nonsense syllables to reveal their theology. It applies as well to those theologians to whom the modern reader feels closest, and to those words and technical terms of which he makes most frequent use.
Disciplines
Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Scripture References in this Resource (separated by semi-colons)
Colossians 2:22;
Submission Cost
Free
Submission Audience
Laity; Ministers; Scholars
Recommended Citation
Pelikan, Jaroslav
(1953)
"Some Word Studies in the Apology,"
Concordia Theological Monthly: Vol. 24, Article 49.
Available at:
https://scholar.csl.edu/ctm/vol24/iss1/49
