God and Mediation: Retrospective Appraisal of Luther the Reformer

On the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, this book attempts to appropriate, situate, and to some degree reinterpret Luther‘s five principles-sola gratia, sola fides, sola Scriptura, solus Christus, and ecclesia semper reformanda-which come to mean that God must always come first. It also attempts to consider how grace reaches out to freedom, faith to reason, Scripture to church tradition, Christ to ministry, church to mediation. God‘s being and action always come first, yet God‘s first gift, creation, and the mediations that derive from it are not undone or rendered irrelevant.