Is prayer grasping the gift, or asking for the gift?

One of my favourite blogs these days is Martin Yee, a Singaporean Lutheran. Here is something to put in your theological pipe from his recent digest of a Philip Cary article:

Augustine gives us the gist of the prayer for grace in a famous formulation that irked Pelagius: “Give what you command, and command what you will.” To bring the difference between Luther and Augustine into focus, we can contrast this prayer with a formulation in Luther’s treatise, The Freedom of a Christian (1520): “The promises of God give what the commandments of God demand”. This formulation both echoes Augustine’s prayer for grace and replaces it with something new. Instead of human words of prayer, it draws our attention to the divine word of promise, which Luther elsewhere calls by the name “Gospel.” The distinction he draws in this treatise between commandments and promises as the two types of the Word of God is clearly the same as the distinction he draws elsewhere between Law and Gospel. The crucial point about the Gospel promise is always that it gives what it promises to those who believe it. So for Luther faith does not mean praying for grace and righteousness, but obtaining them by taking hold of Christ in the Gospel.

Man curved in on himself

I've been wondering about the origin of this definition of sin for a while. Kelly Kapic unpacks it.

First Augustine identified that we stop loving God and start loving his material gifts:

"St Augustine spoke of sin as that which bends or curves us to the ground, making us more like the beasts and less like the God whom we were to image. He speculated that we were created to have our heads and hearts raised toward Yahweh, and that sin is that which turns our gaze from him."

Then

Martin Luther picked up this imagery in the Reformation, arguing that sin actually bends or curves us upon ourselves (homo incurvatus in se). We were disigned to embrace God and others, but instead we are now consumed with ourselves.

(p. 37, Kelly M. Kapic, With Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

So we stop loving God and start loving ourselves. Finally, Melanchthon made the further step of locating that work in the heart.

A marking post on my journey in Trinitarian Theology

[A comment of mine on Dan Hames' blog]

Hello everyone,

I thought I best account for my absence in case it appear rude especially as I am really thankful for this conversation.

Unfortunately I have had not more than 30min at a computer at any one time for the last week (except at work) and I have been given so much to think about that I can't possibly respond properly without a couple of hours! Nevertheless I have not stopped thinking about what has been discussed and I have been able to read things and listen to lectures on my commute, which has been amazing.

In case any of you cared where I am in my journey through Trinitarian Theology, I thought I would do a summary for myself more than anything. But seeing as it has been formed in conversation with you all (esp. Dan and Glen – not because Martin and Paul don’t have good things to say but because they were there first and there when I had the time to read properly) I thought I would post it in a comment here.

0. God is definitely revealed and Glen was right to pick me up on where my rash comments led, but that doesn't mean that he is fully revealed. However I still think that God is primarily (I think I was wrong to say 'only') revealed in relation to creation, and particularly in our redemption.

1. I’m still not convinced that the Trinity is revealed in the OT in the way in which Glen appears to think it is. So many other people have made the argument better than me that I won’t dwell here.

2. I do think the Trinity is revealed in the OT but not because there are plurals in the names of God, an Angel of YHWH, Wisdom of God etc but because the Trinity is revealed in the unity of God too, just as the Trinity is revealed in the one Son so it can be revealed in the one Elohim.

3. Augustine is getting a horribly rough deal. I think he took into account the three much more he has been given credit for in recent discussion. I also have noted that: (i) some seem to think that he was much less neo-platonic on the Trinity than he has Glen and Dan say (ii) he was combating genuine concerns that were as real as the concerns of Glen and Dan (iii) On his book on the Trinity he spends the first third of the book in the Scriptures before moving on to Philosophy (iv) 'substance' was not 'stuff' for him. In all these things I can't help thinking that Augustine is a hook to hang the faults of the worst of post-Enlightenment Protestantism, much as Tom Wright hangs many of the faults of the worst of Evangelicalism on Luther.

4. I have been reading quite a few creeds and catechisms recently and the Apostles/Nicene creed are remarkably focused on the three - as in fact they are remarkably focused on history and the church.

5. Dan and Glen's thoughts about what makes the Trinity one make remarkable sense logically.

6. They also make remarkable sense of the bible’s own discussion about unity in married couples and the church. - incidentally it would be interesting to read something about the connection between monks and celibacy and conceptions of the Trinity. It is striking that whereas Augustine does go to Gen 1:26-27 to learn of the Trinity in the Trinity's image (apparently he was one of the first to do so) he focuses on the individual that is in the image of God and not the couple ('in the image of God...he created them').

7. This MP3 by Mike Ovey on the inseparable operation of the members of the trinity is the highlight of my listening/reading so far (other than this blog of course). It would be worth listening to while bearing in mind Glen's helpful post.

8. In the light of Mike Ovey's talk I wonder what Dan and Glen would do with: "whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise." "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works." "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." Although something similar could be said of the perfect human relationship this is a quantum leap in magnitude.

9. Is "God is love" any more important than "God is true" "God is spirit" "God is faithful" etc or even "God is a consuming fire". In which case does Augustine have a thought when he says "For we are not going to say that God is called Love because love itself is a substance worthy of the name of God, but because it is a gift of God, as it is said to God" and goes on to identify the Holy Spirit as love because he is a gift. Again we have come round to God’s revelation in relation to his creation and not primarily in himself.

10. So I’m still wondering: How bound to the creation is the revelation of God? The Word of God is a title which begs the question 'Word to who?'. Similarly Father and Son all could be related firstly to God's relationship to his people before to intra-Trinitarian discussion. As Calvin says on John 17:24 which Glen brought up earlier:

"This also agrees better with the person of the Mediator than with Christ’s Divinity alone. It would be harsh to say that the Father loved his Wisdom; and though we were to admit it, the connection of the passage leads us to a different view. Christ, unquestionably, spoke as the Head of the Church, when he formerly prayed that the apostles might be united with him, and might behold the glory of his reign. He now says that the love of the Father is the cause of it; and, therefore, it follows that he was beloved, in so far as he was appointed to be the Redeemer of the world. With such a love did the Father love him before the creation of the world, that he might be the person in whom the Father would love his elect."

Reminds me of Ephesians: “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world”. After all ‘Son of God’ was a title for Israel and her king first in the bible. Father was a title for Israel’s God before it was Jesus’ name for the first person of the Trinity. Although this is a facile discussion in some sense as God is the creator of time. Nevertheless he identified with us, and we identify with him – which came first (1 John says the former)?

11. Praise God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that all three in unity chose to bring me into that community to their own glory!

Quotable: Trinitarian theology from the masters

'that pasage in Gregory of Nazianzus vastly delights me: "I cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to thhe one."' (John Calvin, Institutes 1.13.17)

'Sometimes, indeed, [the ancients] teach that the Father is the beginning of the Son; sometimes they declare that the Son has both divinity and essence from himself, and thus has one beginning with the Father. Augustine well and clearly expresses the cause of this diversity in another place, when he speaks as follows: "Christ with respect to himself is called God; with respect to the Father, Son. Again, the Father with respect to himself is called God; with respect to the Son, Father. In so far as he is called Father with respect to the Son, he is not the Son; in so far as he is called both Father with respect to himself, and Son with respect to himself, he is the same God." [...] Indeed, it is far safer to stop with that relation which Augustine sets forth than by too subtly penetrating into the sublime mystery to wander through many evanescent speculations.' (John Calvin, Institutes 1.13.19)