Communicating Grace

Abstract

For good reason, grace is one doctrine most dear to Lutherans. However, the common articulation of grace as God’s active work on passive humans has been and can be twisted to maintain relationships of control and abuse among humans and between humans and nature. In conversation with Finnish interpretations of Luther as well as the recent feminist relational ontologies of Karen Barad and Donna Haraway, this article suggests that alternative language for grace, along with alternative modes of relating to the world and one another, emerge where Luther’s unique extension of the christological communicatio idiomatum is emphasized.