Two Crucial Theological Issues We Need to Discuss

2 spaces after a period is a new on on me. I agree with the capitalizing God and Lord and Scripture… I really don’t like seeing god when it refers to the God of the Bible.

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I have never heard nor have I seen two spaces after a period. Are they pronouns? I thought God’s name is God.

Two spaces after a period went away with movable type.

Capitalizing divine pronouns is a matter of preference. I don’t do it because honor is best bestowed by means other than grammar. For similar reasons, I don’t write Satan with a lowercase S.

The third theological question: Why hast thou, Dave, not responded to mine own email?

I find it is much easier to be consistent in typing if I just use one space after a period. For one, the spacing can appear awkward, and two, if I accidentally type two spaces somewhere in a document, I use the find and replace tool to find every instance of two spaces and replace it with one.

I always try to capitalize pronouns for God, but then I find it tedious. maybe I should stop.

Dave,

Maybe you need to make a visit to Aunt Kate Turabian about the two space thing. That is frowned upon in the world of academia today. Also the question of capitalizing of divine pronouns is to follow a consistence in the usage.

I think we should declare war on Kate and leave Calvinists and whatever a Non-Calvinist alone. She has brought more stress into the lives of Southern Baptist pastors seeking a seminary degree than any and all stripes of Calvinism and Arminianism together.

Had she been alive during the days of Calvin and Servetus, I would have started a petition to let the heretic go free and burn Kate. 🙂

Computer word editing programs automatically adjust spacing. Two spaces are no longer necessary. If I type on an old fashion typewriter, I will use two spaces after a period, if I can remember to do so, if I ever even see an old fashion typewriter.

At least we’re now talking about crucial theological matters. One space is great. Two are a waste of either paper or bytes, depending on the medium. As far as capitalized pronouns, I don’t like them so much. In Bible translation, there are times where the pronoun may refer to God or it may not. When it’s capitalized, the translator has made the decision for me. By the way, I dislike ‘red letter’ Bibles too. I find them harder to read with my old eyes. Plus, I have had people tell me that the red words are more important than the rest. All the words are from God.

My computer’s running short on spaces so I’m trying to conserve them. Only one space after a sentence. Perhaps the two-space deal arose because of the spring & wedge design of the alignment system of Ottmar Merganthaler’s linotype machine.

Divine pronouns capitalized? It just doesn’t feel right when I don’t do that.

Dave,

I still use two spaces after a period. Perhaps C.B. is right about Turabian because that was the standard style prescribed at Arlington Baptist College.

in the tetragrammaton, ALL of the letters are capitalized

some thoughts:

Through the millenia, what accurate sources can answer WHEN ‘sentences’ with punctuation and spacing began to be a part of sacred Scripture?

This is important, because punctuation and spacing, when added to translations of texts, can add to or change meaning . . .

it’s a complicated topic, but very important for those whose doctrines depend on a strict literal interpretation of sacred Scripture

Sorry to break this to you men, but Aunt Kate is semi-retired in SBC Seminary land. She has been replaced with her second cousin Sally Betty Littleerrors (or SBL for short). Ms. Littleerrors does not like two spaces after a sentence, nor does she tolerate the capitalization of a divine pronoun. Ms. Littleerrors is a master of disguise and she has many subtle supplements floating around that confuse the masses. She is a tricky lady!

Jim G.

CB, Amen and Amen! During my first D.Min seminar, we had to complete a Turabian exercise: find a certain amount of mistakes and cite the ref in Turabian. Of 15 in the class, 13 failed, including this writer (arrrg, 3rd person how I dislike Thee or thee). We were given a 2nd chance, highly unusual declared the professor, but since 13 failed, grace would be extended our way. Four of us worked together and compared papers; encouraged by the professor to collaborate. We submitted identical papers. Identical! And we received four different scores.
In the end, I hired an editor (best $500.00 I spent) and left Turabian to her.
Dr. Steve (Not Turabian Smart) Mills

Two spaces was used on fixed pitch typefaces (now called “monospaced”–i.e. any typewriter other than the IBM Executive which had proportional spacing and some of their typesetters which used a similar approach–to recognize the difference between an intra-sentence space and a space after a period and to create a little extra white space.

The concept of monospacing or fixed pitch is that the distance travelled by the typewriter carriage is the same for all characters. The Executive series assigned different movement “steps” to narrow characters like ‘i’ (two if I recall correctly) v. normal width (three) v. wide characters like ‘w’ and ‘m’.

With a computer generating the spacing and letting you inspect it on screen via so-called WYSIWYG display (what you see is what you get), it isn’t STRICTLY necessary to have two spaces after the period since white space in general is managed by the word processor. That includes not using multiple carriage returns to create vertical white space. Styles are used instead and those styles can include lots of detailed formatting parameters including intercharacter, interline, and interparagraph spacing and line justification (flush left, flush right, expanded to fill the line like a newspaper).

So that’s why you don’t NEED to do two spaces (or use multiple character returns). I will note that the IOS 5 common editor interprets two spaces after a word as the end of a sentence and will add a period. So there IS usefulness for the concept of two spaces!!

“No Lydia,

You must never meet Kate Turabian. For you to combine forces with with Aunt Kate would be a nightmare for Southern Baptist preachers who frequent Baptist blogs and adhere to the comp. persuasion.

Visions of the Spanish Inquisition come to mind.”

You are thinking of my pink pistol, too, aren’t you.

Maybe it should be spelled GOD in lieu of just God. Kind of like Lord and LORD. We can have our own meaning if we want to.

I write research papers in the information systems discipline, so I know nothing of Ms. Turabian. I use APA.

I often capitalize divine pronouns, but not always. I can never decide whether the practice is respectful or superstitious, so I split the difference. I’m not convince we should capitalize the word scripture.

Always use two spaces. Makes your paper look longer. And, if you can, always use fully justified margins, right and left.

well, since God is not a ‘being’,
perhaps the Hebrews had the right idea concerning the Holy Name

how do you name ‘existence’ itself?

Judaism believes that to give God a name is to attempt to give Him human characterstics so we can more easily percieve Him, but it is misleading.
Christianity may now speak the Holy Name of Jesus, (and among some Christian peoples even from ancient times, the head is bowed as ‘Jesus’ is said aloud, and in prayer, as a community, the knee is bent) . . .
Jesus . . . ‘He Who Saves His People’ . . . the living Temple where God and Man meet together in perfect adoration

what’s ‘in’ a name? For the Jews, a name carried with it something about the person, some meaning specific to that person’s being, and the giving of their ‘Hebrew Name’ is still an important ceremony for Jewish babies.

We are two thousand years and cultures away from the Jews of Christ’s time . . . how can we know to treat the Holy Name ?
We CAN know because of what Bob Cleveland has said in his comment: “Divine pronouns capitalized? It just doesn’t feel right when I don’t do that.”
It may be all we can do, but we can do it.
Maybe we should.

My memere, (French-Canadienne grandmother) bent her head when she said the Holy Name of Our Lord. My Southern Baptist grandmother, also of blessed memory, lit up from within at the mention of the Holy Name. . . an inheritance of respect for the Holy.

A relative of mine who is a regular contributor to this site showed it to me. To be clear, the Kate Turabian guide is excerpted from the Chicago Manual of Style, now in its 16th edition, so that thesis writers would have a shorter guide book for classroom/thesis use. The Chicago Manual is used by nearly every scholarly press. I a copyeditor and indexer for scholarly and religious/theological works, so I use the Chicago Manual Here are some pertinent sections from Chicago Manual. As for capitalizing the word “scripture,” follow your professor’s or publisher’s guidelines regardless of what Turabian or Chicago say.

2.9 Word spacing—one space or two?
Like most publishers, Chicago advises leaving a single character space, not two spaces, between sentences and after colons used within a sentence (but see 14.121), and this recommendation applies to both the manuscript and the published work.

2.11 Spaces, tabs, and hard returns within paragraphs
A well-structured electronic document will never include more than one consecutive character space. To indent the first line of a paragraph or items in a vertical list, use the Tab key or your software’s paragraph indention features rather than the space bar. (Also eliminate any extra character space or tab after the final punctuation at the end of a paragraph; the hard return should follow the punctuation immediately.) To achieve hanging indention for runover lines (as in a bibliography or index), use your software’s indent features—not hard returns and tabs or spaces (see 2.22). A tab or a hard return (i.e., a paragraph break, generally made with the Enter key) should never appear within a paragraph. For prose extracts, see 2.18; for poetry, see 2.19

8.90 Deities
Names of deities, whether in monotheistic or polytheistic religions, are capitalized.

Allah
Astarte
Freyja
God
Itzamna
Jehovah
Mithra
Satan (but the devil)
Serapis
Yahweh
Some writers follow a pious convention of not fully spelling out the name of a deity (e.g., G-d). This convention should be respected when it is practical to do so.

8.10 2Scriptures
Names of scriptures and other highly revered works are capitalized but not usually italicized (except when used in the title of a published work).

the Bhagavad Gita (or Bhagavad G?t?)
the Bible (but biblical)
the Book of Common Prayer
the Dead Sea Scrolls
the Hebrew Bible
Koran; Koranic (or, less commonly, Qur’an; Qur’anic)
the Mahabharata (or Mah?bh?rata)
Mishnah; Mishnaic
Sunna
Talmud; Talmudic
Tripitaka
the Upanishads
the Vedas; Vedic
but
sutra(s)

8.94 Pronouns referring to religious figures
Pronouns referring to God or Jesus are not capitalized. (Note that they are lowercased in most English translations of the Bible.)

They prayed to God that he would deliver them.
Jesus and his disciples

I for one still do the two spaces thing. And as for the other – capitalizing the pronouns for God, as He, Him, etc. I do that too.
Another one I think should be considered is the et cetera is “etc.” not ect. as I have seen several times.

The “rules” for spacing, use of tabs, paragraphing, and the like came along with technology. When I submit files to a commercial printer that have two spaces or certain no-nos with tabs, it messes up the printing of that file.

Just think of why the two-space rule came along with the advent of typewriters: So it would look nice. That’s all.

As for putting spaces in hand-set “cold” type, typesetters had tiny little spacers to put between letters and words so they could justify the lines. See the Wiki on Typesetting — it will tell you more than you may want to know.

Another FYI. When you see Old/Middle English works that were typeset on the presses of the 1400s, you might notice that some of the words are spelled different ways (e.g., olde, old, countrie, countree, country, country), and there are numerous abbreviations with superscript letters. Mostly, these were to lengthen or shorten a line of type so it would appear justified. Also, spelling rules, if there were any, were quite fluid.

So what has this got to do with theology? Nothing, really. If you and/or your publisher want to capitalize pronouns for Jesus, go ahead. If you want to use YHWH for God, go ahead. Style guides really aren’t products of the Holy Spirit, although some do put them right up there with the Bible.

Where do typesetting and theology get mixed up? Well, in the 15th and 16th centuries, it seemed that every theologian owned or had access to that new-fangled invention, the printing press — and since that was regulated by the governments, many presses were hidden or destroyed. (Think about the 20th and 21st centuries’ use of communication technologies by various churches.)

England’s first printer was William Caxton. England was late in getting printing presses — not until 1471. The rest of Europe had them around 1450s.

There’s a lot of evidence to show that William Caxton was a Lollard or Lollard sympathizer and used his new printing press to distribute Lollard works as well as the usual printed works by the government or established churches.

…. so there’s a long history of Christianity and scribal and printed works. (Just asks me about Titivillus!) Of course, Jews and Muslims have long traditions of scribal works.

And think about “the scribes and Pharisees” in the NT. Those scribes were important for insuring that the written Word of God was as error-free as humanly possible.

But, remember, St. Kate can be ignored if (a) you’re writing something that only you or only a few people will see and it’s not intended as a formal essay or book–sermons, Sunday school lessons, church bulletins –and (b) whatever you, your editor, and your publisher agree on can be your own style guide, no matter how rigid St. Kate may seem!

rules is rules . . . meant to be broken . . . especially the silly kind

But, however, should only one space between each sentence be permitted,there is way around it.We could just ‘skip’ a space after one sentence, and alternate by providing two spaces after the second sentence. That way, it all evens out in the end, and people don’t have to give up a treasured habit altogether.Makes sense. At least to me.

(this original idea comes from
‘The Hogwart’s Training Manual in Preserving Utterly Meaningless and Archaic Grammar And Punctuation Just To Annoy Them What Has No Business To Change What We All Know Is Right Anyway.’)

So I know this is a stale conversation, but as I’m reading The Elements of Typographic Style, I’ve just come across the following:

“In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, a colon or any other mark of punctuation.”