Graduate 70: Caveats and favorite quotes
So I felt the need (as I often do) to add one final caveat to my last post on Traditions. But I figured that it would be better to do so in a separate post. Graduate 69 was already too long and I didn't want to tax Daniel's patience any more. (Inside joke.) So after writing all that up, I started to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. And as I read the Introduction, my heart fell and I began to wonder whether I was not, by speaking of tradition as I did, only really bolstering the man-made systems that often prove to be such a hindrance to the advancement of the Gospel in the world.
Then I read the first chapter on "Costly Grace" and started to feel better. In neither text does Bonhoeffer deal directly with the themes that I was treating in my last blog entry. And, in one sense, even I spoke very little about any actual standing and controversial traditions. My piece (like so many of my recent pieces) was primarily concerned with the hearts and dispositions of the people involved. So this is not a renunciation of what I said, but an acknowledgment of the ongoing evaluation, within my own soul, of the topics on which I write and express my opinions.
--
That was the "caveat" part. Now for the "favorite quotes" part. What Bonhoeffer says about "Costly Grace" is brilliant. I can't wait to read the rest of what he has to say on discipleship. I was particularly struck by the contrast he drew between the person of mature faith and that of immature faith--very similar to the distinction that I have drawn between the mature and immature in my own reflections. But he did so with such a clarity and incisiveness that I simply must quote a portion of the passage here.
"At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now do see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception." (p. 51)
That is brilliant. It should be the first lesson taught to every college freshman. Indeed, there is a sense in which we stand on the shoulders of giants and thereby attain to greater heights and accomplishments than they. But there is another sense in which no student is greater than his master and everybody must begin at the beginning and can never hope to attain greater but only to reach the same level as the master. There are no shortcuts on this road to mastery. There is no substitute for walking the journey.
My goodness, what contradictory things I seem to be saying! But I have an inkling that there is an order and rationality that underly and unify these truths. Given some time I'll discover them, or run across someone who has already discovered them--much more likely.
Blessings all,
--
God is in this place,
and that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
Then I read the first chapter on "Costly Grace" and started to feel better. In neither text does Bonhoeffer deal directly with the themes that I was treating in my last blog entry. And, in one sense, even I spoke very little about any actual standing and controversial traditions. My piece (like so many of my recent pieces) was primarily concerned with the hearts and dispositions of the people involved. So this is not a renunciation of what I said, but an acknowledgment of the ongoing evaluation, within my own soul, of the topics on which I write and express my opinions.
--
That was the "caveat" part. Now for the "favorite quotes" part. What Bonhoeffer says about "Costly Grace" is brilliant. I can't wait to read the rest of what he has to say on discipleship. I was particularly struck by the contrast he drew between the person of mature faith and that of immature faith--very similar to the distinction that I have drawn between the mature and immature in my own reflections. But he did so with such a clarity and incisiveness that I simply must quote a portion of the passage here.
"At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now do see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception." (p. 51)
That is brilliant. It should be the first lesson taught to every college freshman. Indeed, there is a sense in which we stand on the shoulders of giants and thereby attain to greater heights and accomplishments than they. But there is another sense in which no student is greater than his master and everybody must begin at the beginning and can never hope to attain greater but only to reach the same level as the master. There are no shortcuts on this road to mastery. There is no substitute for walking the journey.
My goodness, what contradictory things I seem to be saying! But I have an inkling that there is an order and rationality that underly and unify these truths. Given some time I'll discover them, or run across someone who has already discovered them--much more likely.
Blessings all,
--
God is in this place,
and that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 9:15 AM
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