Friday, August 31, 2018

The more of God, the more of me

"Today we glorify God by being humble; in heaven it is our glory that will be his praise, it is our glory that will glorify him."

"Aujourd’hui, nous glorifions Dieu en étant humbles; au ciel, c’est notre gloire que sera sa louange, c’est notre gloire qui le glorifiera."

     Pierre-Marie Hombert, Gloria gratiae:  se glorifier en Dieu, principe et fin de la théologie augustinienne de la grâce, Collection des études augustiniennes, série antiquité 148 (Paris:  Institut d'études augustiniennes, 1996), 552, as quoted by Augustine specialist Gerald Bonner, in his review (Journal of theological studies 49, no. 2 (October 1998):  857 (855-858)), emphasis mine.  The pattern here is, of course, Jesus himself,
who . . . did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but . . . humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him. . . .
"Our predestination [is] in the predestined Christ".  This is "the keystone of Augustinian theology as a whole" (Hombert, 448).  "the elect—and Augustine never ceased to regard any human being as being potentially one of the elect, so long as breath remained in the body—are glorified in Christ and so should glorify God, through whom, and only through whom, they are glorified" (Bonner, 857).
     The humility of God is the glory of man.

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