Augustine and Everything After (by the Jason Crows)

Aren't blogs the right place for woefully cheesy titles like that?

Let me preface by saying that I imagine many people will find this stuff very boring so don't read it if you don't want to. Blogs are for thoughts and these are definitely thoughts I have. On the men I talk about (Augustine, Luther and Calvin in particular), I automatically have great respect for well-repected men ... what I mean is that I am pretty new into this information and processing it as I can, but know I am far from getting the full picture. I intend to do a lot more reading on this topic and hopefully will be more estute as I go.

I have found that if I wanted to I could spend hours and hours writing and re-writing and I don't have the time for that ... so here is random thoughts on church history part 1 and I will either clean some of it up later with an additional post or make a more complete statement.

So I have almost completed two pocket history(s) related to Christianity; A History of Theology and a History of the Church. I love reading this stuff because I love seeing where all the modern thoughts came from and seeing how some of them are not new even when we think they are or they are new and ridiculous because of being new.

The biggest trouble I am currently having is figuring out what the truth is with Augustine's Grace vs. Free Will discussions and with Luther and Calvin's formulations of salvation. I honestly don't think they are straightforwardly dealing with the reality of our world or with the reality of the scriptures. They both get some grace because they formulated their thoughts as reactions to heretical thoughts ... Augustine to the british monk Pelagious and Luther and Calvin to the out of their mind at the time Roman Catholics. All of them want God to have absolute sovereignty and human beings to have absolute depravity. The only free will we have, according to Augustine, is the choosing which sin we want to pursue.

I understand the philosophical problem completely ... well as much as someone who has never taken a philosophy class. The philosophical picture needs to be black and white and very tidy ... so if God is to be in absolute control then that must include control over human will, individual or otherwise. The formulation becomes that we are completely passive while God's grace is active in saving, redeeming and everything else. Luther even says that repentance is a gift ... which follows right along with Augustine's argument.

So, it comes down to the elect and the damned, predestination or what Augustine called monergism (which I think refers to the fact that only God has any power). But, what about the Bible? All Christians are quick to say that you can only get so far with philosophy so why do all these guys keep going back to it before the Scriptures. They seem to figure it all out philosophically and then try and make the scriptures support it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that philosophy is bad in any way and the people that push for only learning from the Bible or only using biblical language get pretty confused as well. There are times when philosophy and rational discussion is our only recourse to make sense of the world and even our task as followers of Christ. BUT, these giant systems of interpretation that have greatly influenced the church, especially Protestant thought, don't seem to line up with the Scriptures very well at all.

I mean, what about the constant call for repentance. Why do all God's men, Jesus included, always walk around telling people repent? How does this system fit, in any way, with the story of the Prodigal Son? Can you imagine Augustine's view of God (at least in this aspect) being the same father Jesus describes running down the road to meet the lost son and falling on his neck with tears ... and then turning to the older son and inviting him in as well? I imagine if Augustine had to re-write the story it would have to include a little less choice on the son's part.

But it seems the biggest problem with all this is the obvious one ... how do you establish any real human responsibility if absolute power and control and action is given to God. That is what set off Pelagious in the first place ... coming into town and finding a lot of indecent behavior and then reading Confessions with Augustine saying that decent behavior (or self-control) was a gift from God ... so instead of putting forth moral effort, we are left to wait like a bunch of island charismatics for the gift of continence.

And then the same rap could be said about Calvinists ... don't know how true it really is, but i have heard that Protestants didn't do any missionary work for nearly 200 years after Calvin worked out double predestination. There is just no way that fits with the Bible.

A Christmas Poem (2005)

I wrote this poem last year and gave it to Tara as one of her Christmas presents ... but I thought it would make a nice post for the holidays.

I don't know anything about formating text ... but everything is supposed to be centered and the scriptures at the beginning are supposed to be smaller font and act as quote introductions like Eliot uses in all his poems (except he usually uses quotes in latin or french)

"As to the exact day or hour, no one knows it ...
be constantly on watch! Stay awake!
Mark 13:32-33

"Peace is my farewell to you,
my peace is my gift to you;"
John 14:27

Snowfall is a soft sound---a softening sound---smoothing
out the dissonance of an auto-crowded city.
Does anyone listen during these quiet sky-sent moments?

I whispered to my lover,
something about the mood of the moment.
I spoke in hushed speech,
preserving as much of the silence as I could,
but I was excited.

(whisper)
"Into the darkness of winter,
falls a precious white.
Into the blackness of the longest night,
is sent us something pure.
When ugly things bare their teeth
and wicked men attempt to hide their dirty deeds,
a savior is born."

We sat there a long time,
still throughout our entire bodies.
Except for the quivering hairs,
the listening hairs inside our ears.
They were enjoying the sound of the snow.

We had our blankets piled up,
to offer us protection from the winter cold,
the white cold,
the silent cold.
As everything was being covered outside,
we lay covered and quiet.

But we did not sleep.
No, we were much alive.

And then there was a rush of wind,
and a voice, almost audible,

saying,
"The war was won,
but the war is still fought,
Men love war but God loves life.

PEACE ON EARTH

PEACE ON EARTH

Peace on earth."

With this last line singing loudly in our ears,
we decided to go and find our children.

They also laid under layers of blankets,
but with open eyes.
They were watching and they were waiting.
Little had they slept,
refusing to forgot their task.

With tired, but joyful eyes
they watched and waited
for Christmas morning to come.

the tension of the age

The biblical account of the earth really makes sense to me. The old story about creation being blessed and then given to human beings so they could wisely stewart and care for it. And then when they rebelled and sinned everything fell downward and death and darkness began to grow where there used to be blessing.

This is our world. Our world is covered in both beauty and terror. there is light so rich and full that no imagination is wild enough to contain it, there is dark so evil and destructive that no shrewd wisdom can overcome it.

This world of ours is very complex. It is so bright and vibrant, full of rich colors and diversity ... and brilliant inventions. Even within the world of humans I am constantly astounded by the creativity of human beings, from the cd player that reads code and translates it into music, to the music itself. From the jet liner to the literature of the brilliant men and women scattered over the earth and throughout time.

But in those very same places (the earth and humanity) there is a terrible darkness, pockets of fear and evil machinations. People using their creative power to control and manipulate others so they can have transient pleasures. Even the world itself seems to be turning on inward with violence, destroying anyone in its path. There is flying sickness and death. There is pain and loss and suffering. And there is just void and unknowing. There is emptiness and desperation. There is loneliness.

This is the reality that must be held in our minds as we look upon the old gospel story. The good news that Jesus is a great warrior, who in God's strange way fought evil and death itself through suffering and dying innocently ... and that his walking out of the tomb was an open door to new creation, restoration of the blessedness of the old creation ... that the Creator God had found a way to work within the messy world itself to bring about a light and life that would win over darkness and death ... it is more breath-taking for facing the whole story.

Josef Pieper Quote

"We have, he writes on one occasion, 'lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.' That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort."

In order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. This is profound and rubs against most current understanding of knowledge. Knowledge is only knowledge when it is lived. You can know something, but you only know it as much as it affects the way you live or informs the way you live. Truth of this sort places a demand on us and if we say "no" to the demand with our actions we can't claim to know the truth at all.

Heschel says it this way: "Deed and thought are bound into one ... Spiritual aspirations are doomed to failure when we try to cultivate deeds at the expense of thoughts or thoughts at the expense of deeds." Then he asks a question to further make his point "Is it the artist's inner vision or his wrestling with the stone that brings about a work of sculputre?" The art is not disconnected from the artist's mental vision, but it also will never be art if the mental vision isn't brought forth through a physical medium. "Right living is like a work of art, the product of a vision and of a wrestling with concrete situations."

This is it.

Merton's prayer for us: "Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice."