"It is not unknown to me, that Augustine gives a different explanation; for he thinks that the righteousness of God is the grace of regeneration; and this grace he allows to be free, because God renews us, when unworthy, by his Spirit; and from this he excludes the works of the law, that is, those works, by which men of themselves endeavor, without renovation, to render God indebted to them."
"At issue here is not the possibility if God's attaining Being, but, quite the opposite, the possibility of Being's attaining to God."
Faith is different from proof. One is human and the other a gift of God. 'The just shall live by faith' (Rom. 1:17). This is faith that God himself puts into our hearts, often using proof as the instrument. 'Faith comes by hearing' (Rom. 10:17). But this faith is in our hearts, and makes us say not, 'I know' but 'I believe'.
Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although I remain a material heretic to my friends at the University of Dallas, I will engage in thinking and reflecting on Luke 1:42-45 and of course Luke 11:27-28. Earlier in August, Pope Benedict XVI presented some thoughtful insights:
In the First Reading we heard: “God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the Ark of his Covenant was seen within his temple” (Rev 11:19). What is the meaning of the ark? What appears?For the Old Testament, it is the symbol of God’s presence in the midst of his people. However, the symbol has given way to reality. Thus the New Testament tells us that the true ark of the covenant is a living, real person: it is the Virgin Mary. God does not dwell in a piece of furniture, he dwells in a person, in a heart: Mary, the One who carried in her womb the eternal Son of God made man, Jesus our Lord and Saviour.In the ark — as we know — the two Tables of the Mosaic Law were kept. The Law expressed God’s wish to preserve the Covenant with his People, pointing out the conditions for being faithful to the pact with God in order to conform to God’s will and thereby also to our own profound truth.Mary is the Ark of the Covenant because she welcomed Jesus within her; she welcomed within her the living Word, the whole content of God's will, of God’s truth; she welcomed within her the One who is the new and eternal Covenant, which culminated in the offering of his Body and his Blood: a body and blood received through Mary.Therefore Christian piety rightly turns to Our Lady in the litanies in her honour, invoking her as Foederis Arca, that is, “the Ark of the Covenant”, the Ark of God’s presence, the Ark of the Covenant of love which God desired to establish with the whole of humanity, in Christ, once and for all.
So I hold out my arms to my Redeemer, who, having been foretold for four thousand years, has come to suffer and to die for me on earth, at the time and under all the circumstances foretold. By His grace, I await death in peace, in the hope of being eternally united to Him. Yet I live with joy, whether in the prosperity which it pleases Him to bestow upon me, or in the adversity which He sends for my good, and which He has taught me to bear by His example.
Always, we should be cautious in appealing to Religion (Judaism), Ethnicity (Being Jew) or Morality (having the Law). It is by faith alone. Consider the following. In Luke 3:8, John the Baptist states:
8 Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 7 nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.” 8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.
All the divine precepts are, therefore, referred back to love, of which the apostle says, "Now the end of the commandment is love, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and a faith unfeigned." Thus every commandment harks back to love. For whatever one does either in fear of punishment or from some carnal impulse, so that it does not measure up to the standard of love which the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our hearts--whatever it is, it is not yet done as it should be, although it may seem to be. Love, in this context, of course includes both the love of God and the love of our neighbor and, indeed, "on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" --and, we may add, the gospel and the apostles, for from nowhere else comes the voice, "The end of the commandment is love," and, "God is love."
If sin be subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we be slothful, negligent, foolish, in proceeding to the ruin thereof, can we expect a comfortable event? There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so while we live in this world.
The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel through the fact that w respect to salvation no one is excluded whether he should come as a Jew, Greek, or barbarian. For the Savior says equally to all, 'Come to me all you that labor and are burdened.
Reflections for Easter Day
14 But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them:
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know — 23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. 24 But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible.
- Acts 2:22ff
It all begins with two words in the Greek: Oddly enough, the NASB translates the relative pronoun "on" as an adversative. Thus, they render Acts 2:24 as "but God." However, there is no adversative. Again, there is no adversative. Consider, how strange would it be for Peter to say that it was literally by God's predetermined plan and foreknowledge that Jesus was murdered yet then say, "but God raised Him..." -that would be God working against God! Thus. today is a day to be thankful for God's plan of salvation, the sovereignty of God over evil for the sake of good, the power of God to raise Jesus from the dead, the end of "birth-pains" (wdin) of death.
As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see and not another
14 But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them:
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know — 23 this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death."- Acts 2:22f
1) Christology: Jesus Christ has proven his divinity by miracles, wonders and signs. Peter affirms simultaneously that Jesus is also a man.2) Sovereignty: the murder of Jesus was God's plan; it was no mere accident.3) Evil: the men who murdered Jesus were guilty and responsible for their actions.4) Soteriology: God intends to predetermine (orizw) evil for the sake of love, glory and redemption.
Awake, O sleeper,And arise from the dead,And Christ will shine on you- Ephesians 5:14
1. Being awakened (Romans 13:11)2. Being raised from the dead (Ephesians 2:1-10)3. Transferred from light to darkness (John 3:19ff; Colossians 1:10-14)
The fact that Neoplatonism makes bad theology and worse [biblical] exegesis is no philosophical argument against the Platonic notion of being. Yet, it goes a long way to prove something else, which is the only point I am now trying to make. If any being ever entailed the notion of existence, it is Yahweh, the God whose very name is, I AM; and here is a Christian theologian [Marius Victorinus] who, because he still conceives being after the manner of Plato, cannot even understand the very name of his God. A tangible proof indeed that the Platonic notion of being is not only foreign to existence, but inconsistent with it.- Étienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd Ed., (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1952).
1 Therefore there is no no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh: God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
- Romans 8:1-4
Jesus makes clear the connections between election, glory, love, the joy of heaven and the supremacy of Christ for us. Jesus prayed:
Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
- John 17:24
"And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments."
Typology: The idea that persons (e.g., Moses), events (e.g., the exodus), and institutions (e.g., the temple) can—in the plan of God—prefigure a later stage in that plan and provide the conceptuality necessary for understanding the divine intent (e.g., the coming of Christ to be the new Moses, to effect the new exodus, and to be the new temple)
Psalm 19:1 explains:
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I still do not know where else I could have found one. I do not see how the "fear" of God could have ever meant to me anything but the lowest prudential efforts to be safe, if I had never seen certain ominous ravines and unapproachable crags.
