Quote of the morning

Book XI, 4, The Confession of St. Augustine

Earth and the heavens are before our eyes. The very fact that they are there proclaims that they were created, for they are subject to change and variation; whereas if anything exists that was not created, there is nothing in it that was not there before; and the meaning of change and variation is that something is there which was not there before. Earth and the heavens also proclaim that they did not create themselves. 'We exist', they tell us, 'because we were made. And this is proof that we did not make ourselves. For to make ourselves, we should have had to exist before our existence began.' And the fact that they plainly do exist is the voice which proclaims this truth.

It was you, then, O Lord, who made them, you who are beautiful for they too are beautiful; you who are good, for they too are good; you who ARE, for they too are, But they are not beautiful and good as you are beautiful and good, nor do they have their being as you, their Creator, have your being. In comparison with you they have neither beauty nor goodness nor being at all. This we know, and thanks be to you for this knowledge. But our knowledge, compared with yours, is ignorance.

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Me: Compare this to the bad translation online. It's amazing how creativity must meet creativity to keep translated works alive. This passage is spectacular for the way it describes the relations between our qualities and those of God. Augustine effortlessly explains the analogy of being, that God and humans exist in analogical relation: our beauty is an analogy of God's beauty. Many protestants give analogical thinking up because it exalts human nature higher than Luther et al would permit. After all, we are made only a little lower then the angels. I was quite moved by reading Marilyn Robinson's little essay on Psalm 8 a few years back. You can find it in her collection The Death of Adam. As a protestant thinker - congregational I believe, she has a wonderful understanding of the analogia entis (analogy of being). Her Pulitzer prize winning novel, Gilead glimmers with analogical insights, not the least of which is the central character's quest to bless his God-son. Very moving, and this comes from a man with a stone heart (ah, but there is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in).

I'm minutes away from finishing Theology and Social Theory - another one bites the dust!