The Grace of Starting All Over Again, Part One
As Gerald Stephens, who has stood behind this bar and sat at it, serving and drinking—pitching it out there and consuming it—as Gerald knows, I have been thinking these days in circles about “natural grace.” Here, over the next several days, some of those thoughts.
Apologia pro apologia sua: I haven’t tried to organize these thoughts in any particular matter, so you’ll see the circles. I won’t try to begin at the beginning or come to an end. I won’t try to avoid repetition or loose ends. Few of the questions will be rhetorical; and even the rhetorical questions can by answered, or challenged.
The apology for the argument having been made, here it is, or one part of it.
One assumption—true or false, fair or unfair: We, meaning Reformed Protestants, tend to confuse grace and revelation. I’m going to try to separate them. Here's my assumption: Revelation, I’m going to say, has content, what is revealed. Grace does not. It is not a contract; it is an action, a “kiss.”
So revelation is known in some sense. I don’t know at this point whether that sense has to be intellectual or has to involve some sort of assent. But grace is experienced. We may or may not be able to describe the experience. Even if we can, our description is not the experience.
Even if we can. I’m tempted to believe and assert—this seems true of “primary” or “saving” grace, at any rate—that we can describe only the results of the experience. Even the contractual languages of the various atonement theories, e.g., describe only the results of the saving event—how salvation might have been present in Christ’s passion. (The theories do agree: salvation was present. I say “might have been,” because they disagree about how it was present.) In any case, we don’t—at least I don’t think we successfully—describe grace itself, because we can’t: it has no content. We describe our experience of the gift of grace.
What is the nature of that experience? If redemption finds analogy in love—let’s say it does—then we could start describe redeeming grace in terms of “being in love.” When we’re in love, we sing!
Apologia pro apologia sua: I haven’t tried to organize these thoughts in any particular matter, so you’ll see the circles. I won’t try to begin at the beginning or come to an end. I won’t try to avoid repetition or loose ends. Few of the questions will be rhetorical; and even the rhetorical questions can by answered, or challenged.
The apology for the argument having been made, here it is, or one part of it.
One assumption—true or false, fair or unfair: We, meaning Reformed Protestants, tend to confuse grace and revelation. I’m going to try to separate them. Here's my assumption: Revelation, I’m going to say, has content, what is revealed. Grace does not. It is not a contract; it is an action, a “kiss.”
So revelation is known in some sense. I don’t know at this point whether that sense has to be intellectual or has to involve some sort of assent. But grace is experienced. We may or may not be able to describe the experience. Even if we can, our description is not the experience.
Even if we can. I’m tempted to believe and assert—this seems true of “primary” or “saving” grace, at any rate—that we can describe only the results of the experience. Even the contractual languages of the various atonement theories, e.g., describe only the results of the saving event—how salvation might have been present in Christ’s passion. (The theories do agree: salvation was present. I say “might have been,” because they disagree about how it was present.) In any case, we don’t—at least I don’t think we successfully—describe grace itself, because we can’t: it has no content. We describe our experience of the gift of grace.
What is the nature of that experience? If redemption finds analogy in love—let’s say it does—then we could start describe redeeming grace in terms of “being in love.” When we’re in love, we sing!
- Rick
posted by Rick at 5:06 PM
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