Three fundamental categories for theologizing are nature, grace, and glory. These terms indicate things you’ve already thought about before, but they don’t quite map onto other terms you might already know.

Nature is what a thing is in itself. Human nature is a created good, a thing with its own integrity and a recognizable completeness in itself. You can’t quite call it independent, because every nature you’ve ever encountered is a created nature which owes its being to God. But nature, the realm of created goods, has to have a relative independence from God in that it genuinely has existence as something distinct from the creator. You didn’t have to exist, and it’s worth thanking God for the gratuity and bonus of your sheer existence.
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