RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Regeneration Eegrenstaurg
no need to include the objective basis of salvation in the conception of regeneration, although the
New Testament occasionally expresses 7. The the close connection of the new person- Doctrine ality with the person and work of the Presented, mediator of salvation (Eph. vi. 6, 10;
I Pet. i. 3). For the historical basis of salvation there are used other conceptions, Atonement and Redemption (qq.v.), and the idea of regeneration is more appropriate for application to individuals than to the comprehensive followship. There is no reason to break with the view offered by the Reformation in connecting regeneration with the origin of faith, or as Luther has it, that the new birth is faith. By faith not only is the divine judgment of justification appropriated but a union is effected with Christ transforming the believer into a new person. Faith has thus not only a religious but an ethical meaning, in that it represents a receptive attitude toward the vivifying and determining influence of the Redeemer. Man's relation to God can not be measured by the diagnosis of the state of his own soul, but merely by the worth of Christ, the object of his faith; hence the certainty of salvation is not jeopardized. Owing to the condition of appropriation by faith, it is impossible to ascribe to the baptism of infants unconditionally the effect of regeneration; for the realization of the state of grace offered in baptism is not completed with that act. The advent of a new personality can only proceed in the light of self-consciousness. Moreover, the conceptions of regeneration and conversion form an indivisible unity; they denote the .same beginning of a new life, only that regeneration characterizes it as an act of God and conversion as a new tendency of life assumed by the believer. It does not follow either from Scripture or the nature of the case that the new life of regeneration can not be lost, as the Reformed dogmaticians hold concerning the elect and as Rothe infers from the metaphysical essence of the spiritual existence. But it may be said that the communion with Christ having once become the fundamental tendency of life possesses an incomparable power to give a firmness to the unstable will, and that the surrender of it must appear intolerable to a person that has begun to experience the value of the blessing of salvation. (O. Kirn.)
Bibliography : The subject is treated in many of the works cited in and under Biblical Theology (q.v.), and of course in the works on systematic theology (for titles, etc., see Dogma, Dogmatics). Special treatises are: P. Gennrich, Die Lehre von der Wiedergeburt in dogmengeschichtlicher und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung, Leipsic, 1907; idem, Wiedergeburt und Heiligung mil Bezug auf die gegenwartigen Stromungen des religiosen Lebens, ib. 1908; G. Duffield, Spiritual Life; or, Regeneration, Carlisle, 1832; G. S. Faber, The Primitive Doctrine of Regeneration, London, 1840; S. Charnock, The Doctrine of Regeneration, Philadelphia, [1843]; E. H. Sears, Regeneration, Boston, 1853; E. C. Wines, A Treatise on Regeneration, Philadelphia, 1863; A. Phelps, The New Birth; or, the Work of the Holy Spirit, Boston, 1866; W. Anderson, Treatise on Regeneration, 2d ed., Philadelphia, 1871; A. Ritschl, Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versbhnung, vol. iii., Bonn, 1874; G. T. Fox, Doctrine of Regeneration, London, 1880; G. Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, iv., §§ 75-76, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1886-88; K. Heckel, Die Idee der Wiedergeburt, ib. 1889; G. N. Boardman, Regeneration, New York, 1891; E.
Wacker, Wiedergeburt und Bekehrung, Giitersloh, 1893; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, chaps, x.-xiii., xvii., New York, 1894; C. Thieme, Die sittliche Triebkraft des Glaubens, Leipsic, 1895; R. Eucken, Der Kampf urn einen geistigen Lebensinhalt, ib. 1896 ; idem, Der Wahrheitsgeha.lt der Religion, ib. 1901; J. B. Mayor, Commentary on James, pp. 186-189, London, 1897; C. Andresen, Die Lehre von der Wiedergeburt auf theistischer Grundlage, Hamburg, 1899; H. Cremer, Taufe, Wiedergeburt, und Kindertaufe, Giitersloh, 1901; J. Herzog, Der Begriff der Bekehrung, Giessen, 1903; O. Scheel, Die dogmatische Behandlung der Taufe in der modernen positiven Theologie, Tubingen, 1906; P. Lessau, Wiedergeburt in der Taufe, Neumiinster, 1909; N. H. Marshall, Conversion; or, The New Birth, Ithaca, 1909; DB, iv. 214- 221; DCG, ii. 485-489; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, fasc. xxxiv. 1020-21; and the literature in Conversion.
For notices of a cognate idea in other religions cf. : E. Crawley, Mystic Rose, 305, 270 sqq., New York, 1902; idem, Tree of Life, pp. 56-57, London, 1905; G. Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen, Gottingen, 1894; B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 246, London, 1899; and much of the literature under