RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Adler Adoption
of the papal hierarchy, and wrote a Martyr ologium (best ed. by D. Giorgi, 2 vols., Rome, 1745), which surpasses all its predecessors in richness of material, and a Chronicon de sex cetatibus mundi (Paris, 1512; Rome, 1745 et al.; extracts in MGH, Script., ii., 1829, pp. 315-323) from the creation of the world to 874. His works are in MPL, cxxiii. 1-452.
ADONAI. See Yahweh.
ADONAI SHOMO. See Communism, II., 1. ADOPTION.
Old Testament Conception The Apologists (§ 5).
(§ 1). Augustine (§ 6).
The Conception of Jesus (§ 2). Scholasticism (§ 7). Paul's Conception (§ 3). Luther (§ 8).
The Gospel and Epistles of Later German Theology (§9).
John (§ 4). Two Views Held at Present
(§ 10).
Adoption is a term of theology denoting the new relation to God which Jesus experienced and into which he brings his followers. In tracing the history of this conception, attention is to be paid to the different senses in which the analogy is used in religion, — the idea of homogeneousness with God, of the relation to him, and the divine basis of both.
In the Old Testament, the people, the king, and individual pious men and women are called children of God. The people become children of God by their introduction into the promised land, the king by his election, individual persons by their physical creation. It is only with regard to the heavenly spirits that the state of being a child of God (Gotteskindschaft) expresses i. Old homogeneousness of being. The rela- Testament tion is one in which God helps, par- Con- dons, educates, even through suffering,
ception. and in which men have to obey God and trust in him. But the obedience of children is not different from that of servants, and their trust is paralyzed by God's inexplicable disposition to wrath. In later Judaism the relation became one of right, — the pious man must secure his reward, which is a matter of natural desire, by his own merits and sacrifices, and he always wavers between self-righteous security and anxiety.
Jesus as seen in the synoptic Gospels, knows God as the lofty lord to whom men are subjected in service, and as the just judge; but by inner experiences he recognizes this God as his father who discloses to him his love, and he encourages men to believe not that they are God's children, but that they become such by conducting themselves and feeling as children. The innovation lies in the quality of the relation. In spite of God's physical and spiritual superiority, man is free from the feeling of oppression and insecurity, in the first place, before the demanding will of God. Through the recognition of God as Father, Jesus
2. The knows himself urged to the service of
Concep- saving love, renouncing every worldly tion of desire, but this service means for him Jesus. freedom and blessedness (Matt. xi. 28-30), because he feels it as the fulfilment of his own desire (Matt. ix. 36-38), and even as a gain in greatness and power (Matt. xx. 25-28), because in it he is raised above the Mosaic law (Matt.
v. 22). In the same way he delivers those whom he encourages to believe in God's fatherly love and forgiveness, from the oppression of the law by showing them as its innermost core (Matt. v. 9, 48) the imitation of the example of the perfect God in a love which surpasses all bounds of human love. From this conception of the divine law all hedonistic elements have been removed; it expresses a reverent and cheerful devotion to an ideal. Where Jesus also uses God's retribution as an ethical motive and thus seems to substitute a relation of right for the relation of adoption, he deepens and purifies the traditional view. Reward goes hand in hand with conduct; a childlike disposition is rewarded with the dignity due to God's children (Matt. v. 9) and with physical homogeneousness (Luke vii. 36); justice is rewarded with justice (Matt. v. 6; vi. 33). He promises the kingdom (Matt. x. 13-16) to the unassuming childlike disposition, and promises reward, not to individual performance, but to the spirit which reveals itself in it (Matt. vii. 15, xxv. 23), excludes the equivalence between work and reward (Matt. xx. 1-16), and appeals to fear not as dread of physical evil, but as anxiety lest the life with God (Matt. x. 18) be lost. In the second place, the trust in God's fatherly guidance which Jesus himself proves and encourages, is of a singular surety and joyfulness. Whoever through fear of God is kept in his way, may be certain of the acquisition of salvation (Luke x. 20) and may hope not only to gain eternal life (Luke xii. 32), but already here on earth he knows himself to be lifted above all oppression of the world since he may be sure that his prayers are granted (Matt. vii. 7) and may expect from God his daily bread and know himself protected by God in every way (Matt. x. 28-31) and may venture even that which seems impossible (Mark xi. 22) and be sure of the forgiveness of his sins and of his protection in temptation (Matt. vi. 12, 13) and triumph over all hostile powers (Luke x. 19).
In opposition to philosophy, this idea is new in so far as God in the current systems of philosophy was represented as father only as the shaper of the world, and the capacity of becoming a child of God was merely a general function of reason. The religious importance of the ideal is here only secondary; it originates rather in personal dignity and is an altruism which does not extend to the love of enemies. As faith in a fatherly providence, it believes only in an order of the world which offers an opportunity to prove one's strength of will, and thus does not attain submission as expressed in Christian adoption, but only resignation.
Jesus speaks of adoption only in the imperative, — we must become children of God by imitation of God and trust in God; but he admonishes to become such by pointing to God's disposition and promise. His word receives additional emphasis from his personality which lives in God; and he judges the conduct of God's child in the last analysis as an effect of God (Matt. xi. 28, xv. 3; Mark x. 27). Therefore it is the natural expression of the experience of the Christian Church when in the New Testament the awakening of the child's life by the
Adoption