Christopher Love (1618-1651), Grace: the truth and growth and different degrees thereof: the summe and substance of XV. sermons (London: T.R. and E.M. for John Rothwell, 1652), 80.
The earliest hit I've found in Early English Books Online so far (there are many others):
1616: Leonel Sharpe, Looking-glasse for the Pope: "What is grace but glory begun? and what is glory but grace perfected?" I did not get a page number out of EEBO for this one, and when I went back the next day to procure one, I couldn't reproduce the hit (though the images were of course still there), but only (as the next earliest):
1637: Joseph Hall, Remedy of profanenesse, p. 80: "what is grace here but glory begun? and what is glory above, but grace perfected?"
I have not searched the Library of Latin Texts for anything earlier, but neither "glory begun" nor "grace perfected" comes up in the online Yale edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Saturday, April 23, 2016
"objective relevance", "subjective apprehension"
"It was an intolerable truncation of the Christian message when the older Protestantism steered the whole doctrine of the atonement—and with it, ultimately, the whole of theology—into the cul de sac of the question of the individual experience of grace, which is always an anxious one when taken in isolation, the question of individual conversion by it and to it, and of its presuppositions and consequences. The almost inevitable result was that the great concepts of justification and sanctification came more and more to be understood and filled out psychologically and biographically, and the doctrine of the Church seemed to be of value only as a description of the means of salvation and grace indispensable to this individual and personal process of salvation. We will only ask in passing whether and to what extent Luther's well-known question in the cloister-which was and will always be useful at its own time and place-contributed if only by way of temptation to this truncation, or whether it is simply an aberration first of orthodoxy and then of the Pietism which began in it and followed it. What is more to the point is to remember (and this, too, is something we can only mention) that we will do well not to allow ourselves to be crowded again into the same cul de sac on the detour via Kierkegaard.
"Certainly the question of the subjective apprehension of atonement by the individual man is absolutely indispensable. And it belongs properly to the concluding section of the doctrine of reconciliation-yet not in the first place, but in the second. . . ."
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, trans. Bromiley (1956 []), p. 150.
"Certainly the question of the subjective apprehension of atonement by the individual man is absolutely indispensable. And it belongs properly to the concluding section of the doctrine of reconciliation-yet not in the first place, but in the second. . . ."
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, trans. Bromiley (1956 []), p. 150.
An unprincipled pacifism
"In March 2004 I met with Dietlinde Jehle, the widow of
Bonhoeffer’s pacifist friend [Herbert Jehle].
As we looked through his papers we came across a letter announcing
Bonhoeffer’s death. It was from [the lifelong Lutheran pacifist] Franz Hildebrandt, who couldn’t believe that Bonhoeffer would have
been personally involved in the 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler. So I asked Mrs Jehle, who was herself a
Quaker and a pacifist: 'Your husband
Herbert, the Quaker and peace activist who[m] Bonhoeffer converted to pacifism,
what did he think about Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot?' Her answer was quick and definite: 'Oh, he had to do it!' It was clear from this exchange that Herbert
Jehle both supported what Bonhoeffer did and at the same time did not believe
that he had abandoned his Christian peace ethic."
Clifford J. Green, "Pacifism and tyrannicide: Bonhoeffer's peace ethic," Studies in Christian ethics 18, no. 3 (December 2005): 46 (31-47).
Green's point is that Bonhoeffer's "Christian peace ethic" was rooted in "his Christology, his understanding of discipleship and the Sermon on the Mount, his way of reading the Bible, and his understanding of the gospel and of the church" (45), but not justificatory ethical principles. Still, I'm not yet seeing how it (as explicated by Green) differed really from a responsible and theologically informed Christian position on, say, "just war". For to say that, in joining the plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was drawing upon "the [well-developed] tradition of [Christian reflection upon] tyrannicide", "not assassination or murder" (41)—albeit by way of "core theological beliefs, rather than . . . the sort of principles found in the just war doctrine" (42))—is already to admit that "absolute pacifism is unsustainable". Indeed, very little of the logic outlined on pp. 41 ff. isn't native to a properly theological "just war" approach. Indeed, the emphasis on the importance of "free, responsible action" in a case such as that faced by Bonhoeffer, for whom tyrannicide was, nevertheless, clearly "contrary to the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount" (43 ff.), when coupled with the insistence that "followers of Jesus are always completely alone, single individuals who can act and make decisions finally only by themselves" (Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, trans. Green & Krauss, DBW 4 (2001), 135), would seem to cut against the importance to Green (and the "just war" tradition!) of the fact that Bonhoeffer "was not an individual acting on a self-appointed mission", but rather a member “of a substantial German resistance movement led by top military officers, lawyers, government officials, labour leaders and others" and abetted by "an international consensus of governments and church leaders—not least the entire Allied military operation" (Green, 41).
I therefore look forward to an expansion upon the further step taken in "How to read Bonhoeffer's peace statements: Or, Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran and not an Anabaptist," by Michael Dejonge (Theology 118, no. 3 (2015): 162-171), which is tantalizingly incomplete.
Green's point is that Bonhoeffer's "Christian peace ethic" was rooted in "his Christology, his understanding of discipleship and the Sermon on the Mount, his way of reading the Bible, and his understanding of the gospel and of the church" (45), but not justificatory ethical principles. Still, I'm not yet seeing how it (as explicated by Green) differed really from a responsible and theologically informed Christian position on, say, "just war". For to say that, in joining the plot to assassinate Hitler, Bonhoeffer was drawing upon "the [well-developed] tradition of [Christian reflection upon] tyrannicide", "not assassination or murder" (41)—albeit by way of "core theological beliefs, rather than . . . the sort of principles found in the just war doctrine" (42))—is already to admit that "absolute pacifism is unsustainable". Indeed, very little of the logic outlined on pp. 41 ff. isn't native to a properly theological "just war" approach. Indeed, the emphasis on the importance of "free, responsible action" in a case such as that faced by Bonhoeffer, for whom tyrannicide was, nevertheless, clearly "contrary to the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount" (43 ff.), when coupled with the insistence that "followers of Jesus are always completely alone, single individuals who can act and make decisions finally only by themselves" (Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, trans. Green & Krauss, DBW 4 (2001), 135), would seem to cut against the importance to Green (and the "just war" tradition!) of the fact that Bonhoeffer "was not an individual acting on a self-appointed mission", but rather a member “of a substantial German resistance movement led by top military officers, lawyers, government officials, labour leaders and others" and abetted by "an international consensus of governments and church leaders—not least the entire Allied military operation" (Green, 41).
I therefore look forward to an expansion upon the further step taken in "How to read Bonhoeffer's peace statements: Or, Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran and not an Anabaptist," by Michael Dejonge (Theology 118, no. 3 (2015): 162-171), which is tantalizingly incomplete.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
"a certain natural equity obliges a man to live agreeably with his fellow-men; unless some reason should oblige him to sadden them for their good."
"because man is a social animal he owes his fellow-man, in equity, the manifestation of truth without which human society could not last. Now as man could not live in society without truth, so likewise, not without joy, because, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii), no one could abide a day with the sad nor with the joyless. Therefore, a certain natural equity obliges a man to live agreeably with his fellow-men; unless some reason should oblige him to sadden them for their good.""quia homo naturaliter est animal sociale, debet ex quadam honestate veritatis manifestationem aliis hominibus, sine qua societas hominum durare non posset. Sicut autem non posset vivere homo in societate sine veritate, ita nec sine delectatione, quia sicut philosophus dicit, in VIII Ethic., nullus potest per diem morari cum tristi, neque cum non delectabili. Et ideo homo tenetur ex quodam debito naturali honestatis ut homo aliis delectabiliter convivat, nisi propter aliquam causam necesse sit aliquando alios utiliter contristare."
"unless for some reason it be at some point necessary to make others sorrowful beneficially."
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.114.2.ad 1. As thomascordatus has noted, Pope Francis, in his exposition of 1 Cor 13:5 (Amoris Lætitia 99), drops "unless some reason should oblige him to sadden them for their good"! contritio dervies from conterere, not contristare.
"there are no two opinions so contrary to each other, but some form of words may be found vague enough to comprehend them both."
"how idle is
it to suppose that to demand assent to a form of words which happens to be
scriptural, is on that account sufficient to effect an unanimity in thought and
action! If the Church would be vigorous
and influential, it must be decided and plain-spoken in its doctrine, and must
regard its faith rather as a character of mind than as a notion. To attempt comprehensions of opinion, amiable
as the motive frequently is, is to mistake arrangements of words, which have no
existence except on paper, for habits which are realities; and ingenious
generalizations of discordant sentiments for that practical agreement which
alone can lead to cooperation. We may
indeed artificially classify light and darkness under one term or formula; but
nature has her own fixed courses, and unites mankind by the sympathy of moral
character, not by these forced resemblances which the imagination singles out
at pleasure even in the most promiscuous collection of materials. However plausible may be the veil thus thrown
over heterogeneous doctrines, the flimsy artifice is discomposed so soon as the
principles beneath it are called upon to move and act. Nor are those attempted comprehensions
innocent; for, it being the interest of our enemies to weaken the Church, they
have always gained a point, when they have put upon us words for things, and
persuaded us to fraternize with those who, differing from us in essentials,
nevertheless happen, in the excursive range of opinion, somewhere to intersect
that path of faith, which centres in supreme and zealous devotion to the service
of God."
"Let it be granted, then, as indisputable,
that there are no two opinions so contrary to each other, but some form of
words may be found vague enough to comprehend them both. The Pantheist will admit that there is a God,
and the Humanitarian that Christ is God, if they are suffered to say so without
explanation. But if this be so, it
becomes the duty, as well as the evident policy of the Church, to interrogate
them, before admitting them to her fellowship.
If the Church be the pillar and ground of the truth, and bound to
contend for the preservation of the faith once delivered to it; if we are
answerable as ministers of Christ for the formation of one, and one only,
character in the heart of man; and if the Scriptures are given us, as a means
indeed towards that end, but inadequate to the office of interpreting
themselves, except to such as live under the same Divine Influence which
inspired them, and which is expressly sent down upon us that we may interpret
them,—then, it is evidently our duty piously and solemnly to promulgate it in
such form as is best suited, as far as it goes, to exclude the pride and
unbelief of the world."
Monday, April 4, 2016
"Aber jetzt Achtung!"
"Sie haben gesagt: «der handelnde und der sprechende Gott» - und ich als der erklärte «Laie» möchte Sie fragen: Hat Gott [nur] einmal gesprochen, oder spricht er auch heute?"
"Ja, natürlich spricht er auch heute. Der Gott, der sein entscheidendes Wort in Jesus Christus gesprochen hat - der ist kein toter Gott, wie heute die Toren sagen, sondern der ist der lebendige Gott, der auch heute spricht. Und wenn wir Ohren hätten, zu hören, dann könnten wir ihn beständig hören. Denn die Welt, in der wir leben, ist von ihm geschaffen. Und wenn wir Augen hätten, zu sehen, dann würden wir etwas von Offenbarung wahrnehmen - nicht nur in der Bibel, sondern auch sonst. Aber jetzt Achtung! Was man nun so Offenbarung außerhalb der Bibel nennen könnte und gerne nennt, das könnte etwa so sein auf der Linie «Hitler», nicht? Und da passieren immer wieder die Irrtümer, wenn die Menschen meinen: Ha, jetzt hab' ich's, hier und dort! Und deshalb wird es wohl für uns dabei bleiben müssen, bei aller Offenheit für die Welt, für die Schönheit des Frühlings, der uns da draußen umgibt, auch für das, was in der Geschichte geschieht, entschlossen und geschlossen dorthin zu blicken, wo Gott unzweideutig für sich selber gesprochen hat in Jesus Christus, der wahrer Gott und wahrer Mensch gewesen ist und heute ist und sein und bleiben wird."
Karl Barth, Interview von H. Knorr und R. Rohlinger, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (2.5.1966). In Gespräche 1964-1968 (GA IV.28). Center for Karl Barth Studies video here.
"Ja, natürlich spricht er auch heute. Der Gott, der sein entscheidendes Wort in Jesus Christus gesprochen hat - der ist kein toter Gott, wie heute die Toren sagen, sondern der ist der lebendige Gott, der auch heute spricht. Und wenn wir Ohren hätten, zu hören, dann könnten wir ihn beständig hören. Denn die Welt, in der wir leben, ist von ihm geschaffen. Und wenn wir Augen hätten, zu sehen, dann würden wir etwas von Offenbarung wahrnehmen - nicht nur in der Bibel, sondern auch sonst. Aber jetzt Achtung! Was man nun so Offenbarung außerhalb der Bibel nennen könnte und gerne nennt, das könnte etwa so sein auf der Linie «Hitler», nicht? Und da passieren immer wieder die Irrtümer, wenn die Menschen meinen: Ha, jetzt hab' ich's, hier und dort! Und deshalb wird es wohl für uns dabei bleiben müssen, bei aller Offenheit für die Welt, für die Schönheit des Frühlings, der uns da draußen umgibt, auch für das, was in der Geschichte geschieht, entschlossen und geschlossen dorthin zu blicken, wo Gott unzweideutig für sich selber gesprochen hat in Jesus Christus, der wahrer Gott und wahrer Mensch gewesen ist und heute ist und sein und bleiben wird."
Karl Barth, Interview von H. Knorr und R. Rohlinger, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (2.5.1966). In Gespräche 1964-1968 (GA IV.28). Center for Karl Barth Studies video here.
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