Fall mornings on the beach can be better than summer afternoons; the summer days almost invariably come with stiff breezes that cool things down, but the fall morning’s air just sits there and lets the sun’s warmth do its thing.
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Merv, I listened to the interview with N.T. Wright this morning, and it was precisely the word I needed to hear right now. THANK YOU!
The section on the Spirit groaning for us with words we cannot express has always been important to me, and Tom Wright explained clearly exactly why.
In relation to his focus on vocation, I will add this quote from Kierkegaard regarding Luther, James and secular distortions of grace and works:
At that time there appeared a man from God and with faith, Martin Luther; with faith (for truly this required faith) or by faith he established faith in its rights. His life expressed works–let us never forget that–but he said: A person is saved by faith alone. The danger was great. I know of no stronger expression of how great it was in Luther’s eyes than that he decided that in order to get things straight: the Apostle James must be shoved aside. Imagine Luther’s respect for an apostle–and then to have to dare to do this in order to get faith restored to its rights!
But what happened? There is always a secular mentality that no doubt wants to have the name of being Christian but wants to become Christian as cheaply as possible. This secular mentality became aware of Luther. It listened; for safety’s sake it listened once again lest it should have heard wrongly; thereupon it said, “Excellent! This is something for us. Luther says: It depends on faith alone. He himself does not say that his life expresses works, and since he is now dead it is no longer an actuality. So we take his words, his doctrine–and we are free from all works–long live Luther! Wer nicht liebt Weiber, Wein, Gesang / Er wird ein Narr sein Leben lang [Who loves not women, wine, and song / He is a fool his whole life long]. This is the meaning of Luther’s life, this man of God who, in keeping with the times, reformed Christianity.” Even though not everyone took Luther in vain in such a downright secular way–in every human being there is an inclination either to want to be meritorious when it comes to works or, when faith and grace are to be emphasized, also to want to be free from works as far as possible. Indeed, “man,” this rational creation of God, certainly does not let himself be fooled; he is not a peasant coming to market, he has his eyes open. “No, it’s one or the other,” says the man. “If it is to be works–fine, but then I must also ask for the legitimate yield I have coming from my works, so that they are meritorious. If it is to be grace–fine, but then I must also ask to be free from works–otherwise it surely is not grace. If it is to be works and nevertheless grace, that is indeed foolishness.” Yes, that is indeed foolishness; that would also be true Lutheranism; that would indeed be Christianity. Christianity’s requirement is this: your life should express works as strenuously as possible; then one thing more is required–that you humble yourself and confess: But my being saved is nevertheless grace. The error of the Middle Ages, meritoriousness, was abhorred. But when one scrutinizes the matter more deeply, it is easy to see that people had perhaps an even greater notion that works are meritorious than did the Middle Ages, but they applied grace in such a way that they freed themselves from works. Having abolished works, they could not very well be tempted to regard as something meritorious the works they did not do. Luther wished to take “meritoriousness” away from works and apply them somewhat differently–namely, in the direction of witnessing for the truth; the secular mentality, which understood Luther perfectly, took meritoriousness away altogether–including the works.
Kierkegaard, S. “For Self Examination [First Series].” The Essential Kierkegaard. Princeton, 2000. 76% in Calibre.
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Glad to hear that!
Your Kierkegaard excerpt has some good lines in it
I like that … and it seems “straightforward” enough, though that is an adjective that rarely applies to Kierkegaard it seems, and maybe I was naive to invoke it here.
I don’t think I’ve fully got that yet - or not where he was going with the last part anyway.
[BTW - a pet peeve of mine - or maybe more of an amusement really - is the tendency of people to make words longer instead of shorter. Examples … need a noun form of meritorious? Then why not “meritoriousness” (instead of just merit)? Or how often has “gracious” been re-nouned as “graciousness” (instead of just grace)? I guess the moral of that story might be … why use five letters when twelve will do? Pretty soon we’ll all be speaking German! ]
But back to the important stuff … Related to some of K’s comments that make repeated reference to the secular world, here is an interview published from … “The Edictum Form?” (which I gather to be some sort of conservative Christian forum, given the parade of exclusively conservative white men they’ve apparently featured or interviewed if their opening trailer is any indicator). But in this case and with this presentation, I was delighted to hear Tom Holland (author of “Dominion”) speaking about “Why I changed my mind about Christianity”. (Spoiler - I’m not aware that he self-identifies as a Christian, for reasons I think I’ve already mentioned somewhere else.) But whatever you make of that, I thought there was much interesting insight he shared on the history of our concept of “secular” and of “religions” generally. It starts with a Romanian introduction, but don’t panic - the speech is in English. And the Q&A (which is fully 40 minutes long - making the whole video look intimidatingly long) is worth every minute - I’ve already watched the whole thing through more than once. I think this is a well-done video, and one that should be able to reach quite a broad spectrum of audience.
-Merv
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I am once again reminded of Luther’s comment that salvation is by faith alone, but that the faith that saves is never along; saving faith doesn’t have to stop and ask if it should be doing good works because it is out and about and already doing them. As one of my college professors put it, faith without works is a contradiction in terms – so the Orthodox cannot be called wrong when they say that salvation is by faith and works.
Very nicely put. I’m going to have to think of what contacts I have with Orthodox thinkers these days and whether there’s someone I can bounce this off.
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I have for awhile thought it one of the great ironies that so much blood was spilt on both sides for a justification that is by faith plus works, or a justification that is by a faith that is not without works.
Now I do get the emphasis on faith as I know that I could not be saved by a judge that counted my works.
I am also glad that it only takes a smidgen of faith to be counted among the elect.
And at the end of the day, it really comes down to whether you love the Lord. That you see how awesome he is, and you see how wretched you are, and the Gospel is such that it does not depend on any amount (ZERO!!!) righteousness in you.
It’s also impossible to be with God and not be changed by him. So I fully accept the corollary emphasis, that it is impossible to love God and to hate your brother. Sometimes this is a process. A real life long trial. And all that glitters ain’t gold. And diamonds are often dirty and crushed.
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I started watching the Holland video but it didn’t click for me. I’m more interested in the Holy Post podcast but I find just listening doesn’t hold my attention as well as either reading or watching a video.
I wonder if either you or @Kendel is aware of any transcript available for that podcast?
His signed works (pieces that he wrote under his own name, rather than under a pseudonym), while not exactly a walk in the park, are much more straight forward than the pseudonymous works that I’ve read so far. Do not dispair. Go for his sermons and attack pieces first, and it will be less challenging.
No. It may peeve you. But no. Merit and Meritoriousness do not mean the same thing. Thus we have different words.
Like Ding (thing) and Dingigkeit (thingyness), yeah. They’re both nouns with the same root, and very different meanings and applications.
And it’s the French who add all those extra letters. Germans pronounce every one and then conserve more paper by eliminating extra spaces between words that can become compound nouns. Entire sentences worth of concepts compacted INTO ONE BEAUTIFUL WORD.
I’ll have to look at your link to Tom Holland speaking. Don’t know wnaything about this Edictum group. I get a bit queasy these days, when I hear non-RC religious folks using Latin. It’s all trendy among some conservative Christians these days as if Latin will help us get to deeper meaning somehow. Might help read medical articles. But German will help with physics and math and theology and talking to living humans, too.
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I didn’t see one, Mark, but I wasn’t looking for one specifically, either. I just listened while I was doing my morning routine the other day. Jacked up the volume over the water and the tooth brush noises.
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Many (good) distractions have shifted my attention from finishing with Kierkegaard’s “The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air.” I want to wrap up my work with the book this weekend. Just a few more notes, and a bit more marginalia. If you only have patience for one thing by SK, I recommend this little gem. Relatively accessible and highly rewarding.
PRAYER
Father in Heaven! That which we in the company of other people, especially in the throng of humanity, have such difficulty learning, and which, if we had learned it elsewhere, is so easily forgotten in the company of other people – what it is to be a human being and what, from a godly standpoint, is the requirement for being a human being – would that we might learn it, or, if it has been forgotten, that we might learn it anew from the lily and the bird; would that we might learn it, if not all at once, then learn at least something of it, little by little–would that on this occasion we might from the lily and the bird learn silence, obedience, joy!
Kirmsee translation 2016, pg. 5
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Very very yes to all of that. He saw well the truth of it. I was just reading some notes about meaning and its basis in morality and how we live. Similar sentiments but not as concise. Thanks for this.
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The issue was whether works add merit, and if that is the claim then salvation is by faith alone because the only merits flow from Christ. This is why I don’t think that Luther and the Orthodox are in disagreement; Luther was reacting to the false idea that humans could add to the merits of Christ, and from that perspective faith is what counts.
I picture it as a sort of legal document: the declarations page says “Faith in Christ” and needs nothing more, but at the bottom it also says, “see attached exhibits”, and it’s on those following pages that works show up. The tricky thing is that if there are no attached exhibits there’s no declarations page, except the one from the Accuser.
It’s worth noting that diamonds will burn.
Hey, the Lutherans and Anglicans never stopped using Latin!
This reminded me of the point by St. Ignatius of Antioch that it is only when we die in Christ that we become human.
- Neat! I’m worth more (to God) when dead than alive!
Do you understand what I was getting at?
I would need to know more before I can really evaluate Ignatius’s point, but based on this statement alone, it sounds terrible.
The belief that a group of people can be designated as sub-(or even non-)human on the basis of this or that human-designated criterion has lead to all sorts of evil.
I don’t think that that is at all what Kierkegaard was talking about.
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I think it may be relevant to note that theologians have often said that we become truly human when we become like Christ. One may infer that otherwise we may be considered as fallen human (or less then…).
Which rings familiar from the logic of genocide and slavery to me.
Maybe I should not have used this particular quote from Kierkegaard. It seems to be leading to places I would never dream of going.
I do not have a problem with Kiekegaard or your quote, and I think the discussion is going where you did not intend. However, as for many human wrongs, the Bible, and related writings have been abused to some horrible areas, including slavery, genocide, deceit, and so on. This should be mentioned from time to time.
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If nothing else, if one is inclined, it makes one think about the language we use and how it alters the concepts we are trying to articulate. What being “truly human” implies about those outside that “truly human” category (however that category is established) is worth considering.