Dr. Hart, with regard to grace and nature, I’ve been reading John Barclay’s Paul and the Power of Grace. In reading his book I can’t quite make out his position. He seems to advocate grace alone but also the necessity of our response. This leaves everything hinging on our response.
So if we are saved by grace alone it’s through receiving the grace.
And if we don’t receive and respond to the gift/Charis then the grace alone which could have saved us fails to benefit us.
So if we are saved it is by grace alone, but if we are damned it’s because we rejected the grace alone which could have saved us.
So then our receiving of the grace doesn’t add to the power of grace to save us, but grace can’t save us unless we receive it.
So if we are saved it’s all by the grace of God, but if we are not saved it’s our fault for not being saved.
So then it’s 100 percent grace if we are saved, and 100 percent our fault if we are not saved.
But then what about God’s foreknowledge?
How helpful is the gift of grace to us if God knows in advance that we will, or just might, fail to receive it.
It seems that those with this with this kind of position want have their cake and eat it too. They want to claim that they believe salvation is by grace alone, and that our decision to receive it is only instrumental and not meritorious. But then if we fail in our instrumental and non meritorious reception of grace we are damned.
This makes the instrumental part of our reception of grace finally decisive and beyond that which grace can guarantee. This ultimately I think drives a wedge between nature and grace which I have trouble with. If salvation really is all of grace, then even our ability and desire to ultimately receive grace is driven and empowered by grace. Finally then grace and nature are two sides of the same coin and inextricably linked. They finally collapse into the same thing.
Is this a fair reading of Paul, or am I importing something into Paul that’s not really there?
When challenged on the whole "by grace not by works" spiel by one of us catechumens (ahem), my Lutheran pastor claimed that anyone who was truly "saved by faith" would be inspired by the grace of God to perform the works anyway. So it was to the grace, not to the works themselves, that the glory attached. This struck me as a tidy way to avoid the whole issue, which was that to diminish the significance of works seems rather against the spirit of the Gospels. (I know this is obvious, or should be; was just reminded of the exchange. I liked Pastor Craig.)
I think this is a neat trick. Grace doesn’t guarantee you will get your part of things done, but if you do get your things done then it’s credited to grace alone. Voila! But if you don’t get your part done, then it’s your fault for refusing the the grace alone which could have saved you. Whether you are saved or damned it doesn’t diminish the grace alone part of things. Your part is not meritorious, only instrumental. But if you fail to get your instrumental part accomplished then you’re damned. Your part of things can never be credited to you, but it can be counted against you. If you’re saved it’s 100 percent God. If you’re damned it’s 100 percent you. At least this is how it seems the whole thing is explained. Is this how you were taught it?
It was like 40 years ago, so I can't remember all the details. But though Pastor Craig stuck to the party line, he made room for doubt. He came up through seminary in the 70s, so I imagine some of that liberal protestantism Ross Douthat discerns in David rubbed off on him. I had no truck even then with the whole damnation thing. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me today, anathema to the very concept of a loving God. Pastor Craig was always cool with my heresies.
Dr. Heart, I enjoyed a recent talk of yours in Australia including and the inclination of people to look for divine purpose in suffering and death. What do you make of the passage from John 11:4-11:15 on Lazarus that reads “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Is this speaking directly to the issue of meaning or purpose in suffering? Does it in anyway deviate the position you took in your talk? Thank you.
I am currently in a debate about Grace, with someone who is claiming that Arminian theologians can claim in their theology that salvation is by grace alone, because the human decision is instrumental, but not meritorious with regard to salvation. What I’m wanting to argue, is that the human decision, even if it is not seen as meritorious can certainly be disastrous and negate salvation if the decision is not made correctly. so I want to maintain that if salvation is indeed by grace alone, in the largest sense of that concept, and if Grace goes to all in the largest sense of that concept, and if there really is no real distinction between grace and nature in the largest sense, then, salvation, and indeed everything else, is by grace alone, in the sense that everything is driven and powered by grace and that our necessary cooperation although we really have to do it is still assured.
Arminian and other types of “Free Will” theologians want to claim that they still affirm salvation by grace alone in the protestant tradition, at least, and as I see it magically, they make the decision for salvation not count in any way meritoriously even though it is still decisive towards whether salvation occurs.
I'm sorry, but I have nothing to say about debates between different Reformed factions, since I share absolutely none of their premises. I have no use whatsoever for arguments about merit, as they are nothing but exaggerations of what in Paul is a passing obiter dictum.
Anyway, the whole issue of free choice is--for reasons you already know--utterly incoherent in these debates.
Would it be fair, then, to say that there really isn’t a distinction between a Nature and Grace. And so it is theologically appropriate then to say that basically everything is Grace in the sense that everything necessary for what we will need, and what God will need to do for us is already guaranteed.
DBH in his intro to You Are Gods: “The entire problem of grace and nature (which was known to them almost exclusively from Thomist sources, many of them French) was a false dilemma created by an inept reading of Paul and by a catastrophic division into discrete categories of what should never have been divided. There is only χάρις, which is at once that which is freely given, the delight taken in the gift, and the thanksgiving offered up for it; and all those things that a distorted theology converts into oppositions or dialectical contraries or saltations—grace and nature, creation and deification, nature and supernature—are in fact only differing vantages upon, or continuously varying intensities within, a single transcendent act, a single immanent mystery.”
A question about grace and nature. In your New Testament introduction you write “In truth, I suspect that very few of us, in even our wildest imaginings, could ever desire to be the kind of persons that the New Testament describes as fitting the pattern of life in Christ. And I do not mean merely that most of us would find the moral requirements laid out in Christian scripture a little onerous—though of course we do. Therein lies the perennial appeal of the venerable early modern theological fantasy that the Apostle Paul inveighed against something called “works-righteousness” in favor of a purely extrinsic “justification” by grace—which, alas, he did not. He rejected only the notion that one might be “shown righteous” by “works” of the Mosaic Law—that is, ritual “observances” like circumcision or keeping kosher—but he also quite clearly insisted, as did Christ, that all will be judged in the end according to their deeds (Romans 2:1–16 and 4:10–12; 1 Corinthians 3:12–15; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Philippians 2:16; and so on). Rather, I mean that most of us would find Christians truly cast in the New Testament mold fairly obnoxious: civically reprobate, ideologically unsound, economically destructive, politically irresponsible, socially discreditable, and really just a bit indecent.
I think I see where you are going with trying to say that the later developed idea of salvation through grace alone as an impartation of imputed righteousness can be seen as a later theological development. On the other hand, I still think of Grace as a larger concept, which contains everything that God gives to us, and that we have from God without us having to do anything. So I would say that by grace, I am a child of God, who is capable of being taken into union with God, without having to be changed into something that I’m not.
In the biggest picture of all, I would say that it is by grace, that I am part of the creation of a supremely good God, who will ultimately restore the creation, and bring all of God’s children into union with God.
Now, all of this does not mean that I deny that there is a real work of cooperation that I must participate in, and also a real experience of judgment, which I may have to go through, in order to purge myself of anything that is unworthy. But I am also insisting that by grace God is at work in me, and helping me to do my part so that I can be assured that I will not fail to be able to do my part of the work. And here I would not be asserting that in my work, I am somehow trying to earn my salvation or justification.
You may have failed to notice that the scare-quotes in that passage are placed around "justification," not around "grace." It is the former that is being marked out as a mistranslation.
This also provides an automated transcription that makes it wonderfully easy to search for key terms or points in the conversation.
A further reflection on grace and nature...
Dr. Hart, with regard to grace and nature, I’ve been reading John Barclay’s Paul and the Power of Grace. In reading his book I can’t quite make out his position. He seems to advocate grace alone but also the necessity of our response. This leaves everything hinging on our response.
So if we are saved by grace alone it’s through receiving the grace.
And if we don’t receive and respond to the gift/Charis then the grace alone which could have saved us fails to benefit us.
So if we are saved it is by grace alone, but if we are damned it’s because we rejected the grace alone which could have saved us.
So then our receiving of the grace doesn’t add to the power of grace to save us, but grace can’t save us unless we receive it.
So if we are saved it’s all by the grace of God, but if we are not saved it’s our fault for not being saved.
So then it’s 100 percent grace if we are saved, and 100 percent our fault if we are not saved.
But then what about God’s foreknowledge?
How helpful is the gift of grace to us if God knows in advance that we will, or just might, fail to receive it.
It seems that those with this with this kind of position want have their cake and eat it too. They want to claim that they believe salvation is by grace alone, and that our decision to receive it is only instrumental and not meritorious. But then if we fail in our instrumental and non meritorious reception of grace we are damned.
This makes the instrumental part of our reception of grace finally decisive and beyond that which grace can guarantee. This ultimately I think drives a wedge between nature and grace which I have trouble with. If salvation really is all of grace, then even our ability and desire to ultimately receive grace is driven and empowered by grace. Finally then grace and nature are two sides of the same coin and inextricably linked. They finally collapse into the same thing.
Is this a fair reading of Paul, or am I importing something into Paul that’s not really there?
When challenged on the whole "by grace not by works" spiel by one of us catechumens (ahem), my Lutheran pastor claimed that anyone who was truly "saved by faith" would be inspired by the grace of God to perform the works anyway. So it was to the grace, not to the works themselves, that the glory attached. This struck me as a tidy way to avoid the whole issue, which was that to diminish the significance of works seems rather against the spirit of the Gospels. (I know this is obvious, or should be; was just reminded of the exchange. I liked Pastor Craig.)
I think this is a neat trick. Grace doesn’t guarantee you will get your part of things done, but if you do get your things done then it’s credited to grace alone. Voila! But if you don’t get your part done, then it’s your fault for refusing the the grace alone which could have saved you. Whether you are saved or damned it doesn’t diminish the grace alone part of things. Your part is not meritorious, only instrumental. But if you fail to get your instrumental part accomplished then you’re damned. Your part of things can never be credited to you, but it can be counted against you. If you’re saved it’s 100 percent God. If you’re damned it’s 100 percent you. At least this is how it seems the whole thing is explained. Is this how you were taught it?
It was like 40 years ago, so I can't remember all the details. But though Pastor Craig stuck to the party line, he made room for doubt. He came up through seminary in the 70s, so I imagine some of that liberal protestantism Ross Douthat discerns in David rubbed off on him. I had no truck even then with the whole damnation thing. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me today, anathema to the very concept of a loving God. Pastor Craig was always cool with my heresies.
Dr. Heart, I enjoyed a recent talk of yours in Australia including and the inclination of people to look for divine purpose in suffering and death. What do you make of the passage from John 11:4-11:15 on Lazarus that reads “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Is this speaking directly to the issue of meaning or purpose in suffering? Does it in anyway deviate the position you took in your talk? Thank you.
I am currently in a debate about Grace, with someone who is claiming that Arminian theologians can claim in their theology that salvation is by grace alone, because the human decision is instrumental, but not meritorious with regard to salvation. What I’m wanting to argue, is that the human decision, even if it is not seen as meritorious can certainly be disastrous and negate salvation if the decision is not made correctly. so I want to maintain that if salvation is indeed by grace alone, in the largest sense of that concept, and if Grace goes to all in the largest sense of that concept, and if there really is no real distinction between grace and nature in the largest sense, then, salvation, and indeed everything else, is by grace alone, in the sense that everything is driven and powered by grace and that our necessary cooperation although we really have to do it is still assured.
Arminian and other types of “Free Will” theologians want to claim that they still affirm salvation by grace alone in the protestant tradition, at least, and as I see it magically, they make the decision for salvation not count in any way meritoriously even though it is still decisive towards whether salvation occurs.
I'm sorry, but I have nothing to say about debates between different Reformed factions, since I share absolutely none of their premises. I have no use whatsoever for arguments about merit, as they are nothing but exaggerations of what in Paul is a passing obiter dictum.
Anyway, the whole issue of free choice is--for reasons you already know--utterly incoherent in these debates.
Would it be fair, then, to say that there really isn’t a distinction between a Nature and Grace. And so it is theologically appropriate then to say that basically everything is Grace in the sense that everything necessary for what we will need, and what God will need to do for us is already guaranteed.
Indeed.
DBH in his intro to You Are Gods: “The entire problem of grace and nature (which was known to them almost exclusively from Thomist sources, many of them French) was a false dilemma created by an inept reading of Paul and by a catastrophic division into discrete categories of what should never have been divided. There is only χάρις, which is at once that which is freely given, the delight taken in the gift, and the thanksgiving offered up for it; and all those things that a distorted theology converts into oppositions or dialectical contraries or saltations—grace and nature, creation and deification, nature and supernature—are in fact only differing vantages upon, or continuously varying intensities within, a single transcendent act, a single immanent mystery.”
Thanks Jesse, that’s exactly what I needed!
A question about grace and nature. In your New Testament introduction you write “In truth, I suspect that very few of us, in even our wildest imaginings, could ever desire to be the kind of persons that the New Testament describes as fitting the pattern of life in Christ. And I do not mean merely that most of us would find the moral requirements laid out in Christian scripture a little onerous—though of course we do. Therein lies the perennial appeal of the venerable early modern theological fantasy that the Apostle Paul inveighed against something called “works-righteousness” in favor of a purely extrinsic “justification” by grace—which, alas, he did not. He rejected only the notion that one might be “shown righteous” by “works” of the Mosaic Law—that is, ritual “observances” like circumcision or keeping kosher—but he also quite clearly insisted, as did Christ, that all will be judged in the end according to their deeds (Romans 2:1–16 and 4:10–12; 1 Corinthians 3:12–15; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Philippians 2:16; and so on). Rather, I mean that most of us would find Christians truly cast in the New Testament mold fairly obnoxious: civically reprobate, ideologically unsound, economically destructive, politically irresponsible, socially discreditable, and really just a bit indecent.
I think I see where you are going with trying to say that the later developed idea of salvation through grace alone as an impartation of imputed righteousness can be seen as a later theological development. On the other hand, I still think of Grace as a larger concept, which contains everything that God gives to us, and that we have from God without us having to do anything. So I would say that by grace, I am a child of God, who is capable of being taken into union with God, without having to be changed into something that I’m not.
In the biggest picture of all, I would say that it is by grace, that I am part of the creation of a supremely good God, who will ultimately restore the creation, and bring all of God’s children into union with God.
Now, all of this does not mean that I deny that there is a real work of cooperation that I must participate in, and also a real experience of judgment, which I may have to go through, in order to purge myself of anything that is unworthy. But I am also insisting that by grace God is at work in me, and helping me to do my part so that I can be assured that I will not fail to be able to do my part of the work. And here I would not be asserting that in my work, I am somehow trying to earn my salvation or justification.
What might be your thoughts?
You may have failed to notice that the scare-quotes in that passage are placed around "justification," not around "grace." It is the former that is being marked out as a mistranslation.
Mox audiam; et tibi dicere me valde honoratum inclusum fuisse in ipso catalogo sensisse volui.