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secondly, an “actual” or “active” conversion, in which this implanted habit or disposition
becomes active in faith and repentance. In present day Reformed theology the word
“regeneration” is generally used in a more restricted sense, as a designation of that divine act
by which the sinner is endowed with new spiritual life, and by which the principle of that new
life is first called into action. So conceived, it includes both the “begetting again” and the “new
birth,” in which the new life becomes manifest. In strict harmony, however, with the literal
meaning of the word “regeneration” the term is sometimes employed in an even more limited
sense, to denote simply the implanting of the new life in the soul, apart from the first
manifestations of this life. In modern liberal theology the term “regeneration’ acquired a
different meaning. Schleiermacher distinguished two aspects of regeneration, namely,
conversion and justification, and held that in regeneration “a new religious consciousness is
produced in the believer by the common Christian spirit of the community, and new life, or
‘sanctification,’ is prepared for.” (Pfleiderer.) That “Christian spirit of the community” is the
result of an influx of the divine life, through Christ, into the Church, and is called “the Holy
Spirit” by Schleiermacher. The Modern view is well stated in these words of Youtz: “Modern
interpretation inclines to return to the symbolical use of the conception of Regeneration. Our
ethical realities deal with transformed characters. Regeneration expresses thus a radical, vital,
ethical change, rather than an absolutely new metaphysical beginning. Regeneration is a vital
step in the natural development of the spiritual life, a radical readjustment to the moral
processes of life.”[A Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, Art. Regeneration.] Students of the
Psychology of Religion generally fail to distinguish between regeneration and conversion. They
regard it as a process in which man’s attitude to life changes from the autocentric to the
heterocentric. It finds its explanation primarily in the sub-conscious life, and does not
necessarily involve anything supernatural. James says: “To be converted, to be regenerated, to
receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote
the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong, inferior
and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its
firmer hold upon religious realities.”[Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 189.] According to
Clark, “Students have agreed in discerning three distinct steps in conversion: (1) A period of
‘storm and stress,’ or sense of sin, or feeling of inward disharmony, known to theology as
‘conviction of sin’ and designated by James as ‘soul sickness.’ (2) An emotional crisis which
marks a turning point. (3) A succeeding relaxation attended by a sense of peace, rest, inner
harmony, acceptance with God, and not infrequently motor and sensory reflexes of various
sorts.”[The Psychology of Religious Awakening, p. 38.]