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"The cross also shows us that from the aspect of the question of salvation, true man is always the sinner who is fundamentally unable to help himself, who cannot by his own action bridge the endless distance to God, and who is hence a member of the lost, chaotic, futile world, which at best waits for the resurrection of the dead.
Morality and religion do not alter this at all: they only intensify the forlornness by arrogantly or despairingly permitting attempts at the impossible - attempts, that is to say, to achieve salvation and transcend the world. The cross always remains scandal and foolishness for Jew and Gentile, inasmuch as it exposes man's illusion that he can transcend himself and effect his own salvation, that he can all by himself maintain his own strength, his own wisdom, his own piety and his own self-praise even towards God. In light of the cross God shows all this, and ourselves as well, to be foolish, vain and godless. For everyone is foolish, vain and godless who wants to do, without God and contrary to God, what only God himself can do. Whether it is the devout man who makes the attempt or whether it is the criminal is in the last resort unimportant. Only the creator can be the creature's salvation, not his own works. Salvation always means resurrection from the dead, because that is what God effects in all of his acts and gifts to us."
- Ernst Käsemann, "The Saving Significance of Jesus' Death", 40-41.
I wonder what it would look like if we really took seriously the notion that our own morality and religion did not alter the utter helplessness of humanity in terms of their own salvation and ability to transcend the reality of this world. Perhaps the problem is that we do not despair enough of our own helplessness and our existence in this world and therefore think that our morality and religion can achieve the impossible. I'm beginning to think that it is only in total despair of this world and all human possibilities that the Gospel can be heard.
2 comments:
You write: "I wonder what it would look like if we really took seriously the notion that our own morality and religion did not alter the utter helplessness of humanity in terms of their own salvation and ability to transcend the reality of this world." That would be The Kingdom of God, which is always breaking through in to the darkness of this world. The cross and the empty tomb, together, tell us the story. Despair enough? I do believe the Church despairs a tad too much, forgetting that we are not our own a bit too often. As for hearing the Gospel, that is a gift of grace, both for those who speak it and those who hear it. Leave room for the Third Person of the Trinity to work in and through all of us, all the time. That, too, is the scandal of the cross.
But when are you going to do or BE that?
Because the capacity to do so, and thus to BE that is alway intrinsically the case/possibility in Reality Itself now, now, now and in every future moment.
The only Christians that have ever in any sense really understood the radical communication of the Christian Gospel were the Illuminated Saints who appeared within the "Catholic" and "Orthodox" traditions.
Of course such Illuminated Saints have never ever appeared within the Protestant tradition, especially in its benighted anti-Spiritual Calvinist variants - such is of course impossible.
But even such Illuminated Saints were always treated with suspicion by the ecclesiastical "catholic" establishments of their time and place. Which is to say that they were usually persecuted, imprisoned and even executed. Which is also to say that the "catholic" and Protestant traditions have never ever really liked "Jesus".
"Paul" quite rightly told us that the left-brained letter always inevitably kills the Living Divine Spirit. Protestant Christianity is of course the "religion" of the Spirit-killing left-brained letter/word.
Which is to say that Calvinism well and truly sucks?
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