THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL
BIOGRAPHY AND GLOSSARY

Lacordaire, Jean-Baptiste Henri
(1802-1861)
Lacordaire

Lacordaire

  • French Roman Catholic preacher.

Lactantius, Lucius
(c 240-320)
  • Italian preacher and apologist.
Lake, Kirsopp
(1872-1946)
  • Controversial writer
  • doubted story of empty tomb
La Mettrie, Julien Jean Offray de
(1709-1751)
La Mettrie

La Mettrie


Landels, William
(1823-1899)
  • Scottish Baptist pastor in London for 28 years
  • opposed Spurgeon on the "Down Grade Controversy."
Latimer, Hugh
(c 1485-1555)
Hugh Latimer

Hugh Latimer

  • British preacher and Reformer
  • Roman Catholic but denied authority of Rome
  • twice imprisoned by Henry VIII
  • burned at stake under Mary Tudor saying, "We shall this day light up such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!"

Latourette, Kenneth Scott
(1884-1968)
  • Baptist missionary, church historian
  • taught in China and Yale
  • Wrote A History of Christianity
Laud, William
(1573-1645)
William Laud

William Laud

  • Archbishop of Canterbury
  • advisor to Charles I
  • beheaded by Puritan Parliament for his persecution of Puritans and for trying to impose the Prayer Book on Scotland.
  • Because of him, thousands of Puritans fled to New England.

Lausanne
Law, William
(1686-1761)
William Law

William Law

  • tried to refute Deist Tindal's arguments
  • God's actions are not always according to human reason
  • his devotional works influenced John Wesley
  • wrote
    1. The Case of Reason
    2. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, The Spirit of Love

Lawson, James
(1538-1584)
  • Successor to John Knox
  • his great zeal made him intolerant
  • fled Scotland
Lee, Robert Greene
(1886-1978)
Robert Lee

Robert Lee

  • US Southern Baptist pastor in Memphis for 35 years
  • memorized his sermons

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von
(1646-1716)
Leibniz

Leibniz

  • German philosopher
  • God has created the best of all possible worlds
  • Wrote Monadologie.
  • Reality is a harmonious whole governed by the laws of mathematics and logic.

Leighton, Robert
(1611-1684)
Robert Leighton

Robert Leighton

  • wrote commentary on I Peter.

Leland, John
(1691-1766)
  • pastor in Ireland
  • against Deism.
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
(1870-1924)
Lenin

Lenin

  • Communism is the classless society
  • Christianity is just a tool of the ruling class to control the working class by the offer of the reward of the after-life
  • he changed Marx's view by introducing the idea of historical materialism.

Leo I (the Great)
(c 400-461)
Leo I

Leo I

  • Pope
  • papal supremacy over imperial authority
  • persuaded Attila the Hun to stop raiding Rome

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
(1729-1781)
Gotthold Lessing

Gotthold Lessing

  • German philosopher
  • rejected biblical revelation
  • prepared way for critical study of Bible and liberal theology

Leuba, James Henry
(1867-1946)
  • professor at Bryn Mawr College
  • wrote
    1. A Psychological Study of Religion
    2. The Psychology of Religious Mysticism
  • Positivist
  • Naturalist
Leucippus
(c 475 BC)
  • An atomist
Lever, Thomas
(1521-1577)
  • Anglican preacher
  • fled England
  • influenced by Calvin
  • returned to England
  • very outspoken
Lewis, Clarence Irving
(1883-1964)
C. I. Lewis

C. I. Lewis

  • US philosopher, professor at Harvard
  • wrote
    1. Survey of Symbolic Logic
    2. Mind and the World-Order
  • Held conceptual pragmatism: a version of the pragmatic theory of meaning, knowledge, and verification.

Lewis, Clive Staples
(1898-1963)
C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

  • Anglican novelist
  • lay theologian
  • Arminian
  • apologetic to intellectuals
  • taught at Oxford and Cambridge

Lewis, Howell Elvet
(1860-1953)
  • Welsh Congregational preacher
  • hymnwriter.
LIBERALISM
  • Sometimes called Modernism.
  • Includes most Protestant religious philosophies that attempt a reconciliation of science, humanism, and traditional Christianity.
  • Stresses the ethical teachings of Jesus and a social gospel.
  • God is conceived as man's fellow worker in reforming the world.
  • Human nature is essentially good.
  • It says "Religion is a feeling of creaturely dependence on God" (Schleiermacher).
  • Religion is that which "adds strength to frailty, fulfillment to frustration, wholeness to incompleteness" (Bewkes).
LIBERTARIANISM
  • Also called Indeterminism as a contrast with Determinism.
  • Not all events (e.g., moral choices) are caused.
  • The self is an agent with free will which transcends formed character and can act contrary to character or inclination in making moral choices.
  • A person is free if and only if he could have acted or chosen differently.
  • Determinism applies only to the person as observed, i.e., as empirical phenomena subject to laws, not to the self.
  • Conscious or rational choice (act) and "being caused by x" are different things.
  • Responsibility is possible either by acting according to inclinations that happen to be good or by acting contrary to inclinations that are not, as, e.g., in cases of moral temptation.
  • Free will is a necessary condition of responsibility.
Liddon, Henry Parry
(1829-1900)
  • Anglican pastor
  • a leader in Tractarian or Oxford movement
LINE
Livingstone, John
(1603-1672)
John Livingstone

John Livingstone

  • Scottish preacher
  • at age 27, his sermon resulted in conversion of 500 people.

Lloyd-Jones, David Martyn
(1895-1981)
D. M. Lloyd-Jones

D. M. Lloyd-Jones

  • Medical doctor turned preacher
  • Welsh Presbyterian
  • Calvinist
  • successor to G. Campbell Morgan at Westminster Chapel
  • wrote Preachers and Preaching
  • Many of his sermons have become classic examples of expository preaching.

Locke, John
(1632-1704)
John Locke

John Locke

  • British philosopher
  • first modern empiricist
  • A forerunner of Deism.
  • wrote
    1. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
    2. The Reasonableness of Christianity.
  • The mind at birth is a tabula rasa (blank tablet) on which are impressed experiences (impressions) which produce simple ideas.
  • Simple ideas are joined by reflection to form complex ideas.
  • Even abstract ideas such as cause, substance, or logical implication reduce to simple ideas.
  • There are no universal, necessary or a priori innate ideas independent of experience (unlike Plato or Kant).
  • Certain qualities (such as extension, shape, etc.) are presented to all knowers as the objective primary qualities.
  • These qualities give rise to the subjective.
  • Revelation cannot contradict reason; knowledge comes by reflection on sensations.

LOGIC
LOGICAL
LOGICAL POSITIVISM
  • a form of Phenomenalism held by A. J. Ayer who stated that the neutral sense data are the ultimate units of experience which are given.
  • Mind and matter are both logical constructs of actual or possible sense data, not metaphysical entities.
  • Statements about mind (mental statements) or matter (physical object statements) are both fully translatable into sense data or observation statements.
LOGOTHERAPY
Loisy, Alfred Firmin
(1857-1940)
  • wrote
    1. Autour d'un petit livre
    2. The Birth of the Christian Religion
    3. L'Evangile et l'Eglise
  • Founder of French Roman Catholic modernism

LOLLARDS
  • a medieval Dissenting group who followed John Wycliffe.
  • Some were martyred, but many recanted when put on trial.
  • They encouraged lay preachers; denied transubstantiation; encouraged use of Bible in English; pacifistic; condemned pilgrimages, auricular confession, and veneration of images; denied purgatory and priestly celibacy.
Lombard, Peter
(c 1100-1160)
  • Sometimes called Peter of Lombard.
  • theologian
  • Bishop of Paris
  • standardized Roman Catholic theology
  • combined logic and devotional commitment
  • his view replaced by Aquinas
  • Wrote Four Books of Sentences
  • Said that the dilemmas of faith were to be resolved by reason.
  • emphasized seven sacraments
Longenecker, Richard N.
  • Prof. of NT at Wycliffe College, Toronto
  • wrote
    1. "The Acts of the Apostles" in The Expositor's Bible Commentary
    2. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period
    3. The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity
    4. The Ministry and Message of Paul
    5. Paul, Apostle of Liberty
Lorimer, George C.
(1838-1904)
  • US Baptist
  • converted actor who became a Baptist preacher
  • memorized his sermons
Lotze, Rudolph Hermann
(1817-1881)
Rudolph Lotze

Rudolph Lotze

  • German philosopher and psychologist

LOVE
Loyola, Ignatius
Lucar, Cyril
(1572-1638)
  • Calvinist Patriarch of Constantinople murdered by Muslims.
Luccock, Halford E.
(1885-1961)
  • US Methodist
  • taught homiletics at Yale
Lucretius
(c 96-55 BC)
Lucretius

Lucretius

  • Roman philosophical poet
  • disciple of Epicurus
  • After his wife gave him a love philtre, he went insane and committed suicide.
  • He promoted Epicurean doctrine through his book De Rerum Natura which dealt with physics, psychology, and ethics.

Luther, Martin
(1483-1546)
Martin Luther

Martin Luther

  • Key figure of Reformation
  • excommunicated from Roman Catholics
  • his translation of the Bible standardized German language
  • married Katherin Bora
  • wrote profusely
    1. Ninety-five Theses
    2. On the Papacy at Rome
    3. Address to the German Nobility
    4. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
    5. Larger Catechism
    6. Smaller Catechism
    7. Lectures on Romans
    8. Lectures on Galatians
    9. Table Talk
    10. Bondage of the Will
  • wrote hymns saying that the Devil should not have all the best tunes
  • wrote "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
  • He was influenced by Brethren of the Common Life.

LUTHERAN
  • Those who hold to the basic views of Martin Luther.
Lyell, Charles
(1797-1875)
Charles Lyell

Charles Lyell

  • founder of modern geology
  • wrote Principles of Geology
  • the earth has changed slowly and gradually through the ages by means of processes that are still going on.