Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Christian Humanism - count me in.
 

Unless you misread Paul in Romans or II Corinthians you will find no mention of "Original Sin" in the Bible. But if you are steeped in the Helenistic traditions as say Saint Augustine was, you will know much about the dual nature of mankind.
There in the Greek Mythology of the mortal son of the immortal God Zeus and the creation of makind from the ashes of the Titans is the seed of "original sin".

"...Zeus bequeathed rulership of the world and the underworld upon his son while he was still a child, even setting him upon the great throne and letting him hold the lightening-bolt scepter. This aroused the envy of the Titans and of his wife, Hêra. Hêra bribed the guards whom Zeus had entrusted to protect the child (the Kourêtes), and distracted the child with toys and a looking glass. While Dionysus was beholding his own face in the looking glass, the Titans, ceremonially smeared with white gypsum, entered and attacked him, tearing him to pieces and devouring him. Enraged, Zeus destroyed the Titans with his thunderbolt, and from their ashes, commingled with those of Dionysus, arose the human race. Humans are therefore of a dual nature: the Dionysian divine nature imprisoned in the Titanic material nature."

Thus the sin of the Titans is passed on to each human while at the same time the devine spark of the son of Zeus is as well.

Thus each baby is damned as it is born, or as the Roman Church now wills, as it is conceived. As I have said before, prenatal baptism need to be looked into.
 

So, was Pico po-po-mo ahead of his time?

Would that make him proto-po-po-mo?
 

"Those who insist that any condition is attached to Grace -- any! even "acceptance"! -- are "walking in the flesh," not "in the Spirit.""

Spoken like a true Calvinist. I'm proud of you! Welcome to the Doctrines of Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace. :)
 

Even your "Oration of the Dignity of Man" recognizes the innate duality that is man.

"We have placed you at the world's center so that you may survey everything else in the world. We have made you neither of heavenly nor of earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with free choice and dignity, you may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine."

But neither the Hellenist nor Mirandola went so far as to blaspheme God's construct of Man by damn all men because only one sinned once.

I see Eve as the hero of the tale.
Without her bravado and rebellion, as the story was going, we would all be less than angels mere pets of heaven in the most pleasant of cosmic zoos.

But by listening to the intoxicating wisdom of the serpent guarding Mother Earth she tasted the Fig of Knowledge, gave to mankind a chance to rise above the angels and a shot at being God.

Here I say, one good Greek Myth deserves another.
 

Alan: I do have a strain or two of Calvinism in my thinking!

My favorite of his thoughts is: Live dutifully for God as if you were among the elect, whether you think you are among the elect or not, because God is God.

My own favorite thought is: We are all the elect. !! :-)

Not altogether sure that God's grace is irresistible, though. Awareness of Grace sparks longing, and that's as far as some people get, and I think that's enough. But ... dang it , gotta go to work NOW.

How can Grace be irresistible> (I ask, evne though I lean toward Universalism...)
 

"How can Grace be irresistible"

Seems to me that's the corollary of saying, "Those who insist that any condition is attached to Grace -- any! even "acceptance"! -- are "walking in the flesh," not "in the Spirit." If it doesn't require acceptance, if there are no conditions, then you get it, whether you accept it or not. Thus, irresistible.

"My own favorite thought is: We are all the elect. !! :-)"

Well, all that Calvinism was good while it lasted, ya dirty heretic. ;)
 

Hmmm. Well overt rejection is different, isn't it?

Grace gets on me without me "accepting" it, and would get on me even if I resisted, because it is irresistible. Once on me, can I shake it off?
 

Origin of Aleaxdria would say some are elect, and those who are not will be in a future incarnation. Sooner or latter all are elect.
 

"Once on me, can I shake it off?"

No ER, Grace is not a booger. ;)

Of course, we're all always doing stuff to resist God's good Grace, always. You point out the easy examples of that rejection (ie. the semi-pelagianism of various fundie visitors, etc.) but we're all guilty of "overt rejection" of Grace. Doesn't work I'm afraid ... we're covered with the stuff.
 

More Catholic humanism - a la Ignatius, Erasmus, etc. - than its Protestant variety. This captures a wonderful moment in intellectual history - a tossing away of the kind of misery anthropology prevalent throughout the late Middle Ages.

Romans 8. I get shivers when I read it, hear it. This is far more powerful than, "Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior?"
For I know that nothing can separate us from the love we have from God in Christ Jesus.

Alan, how dare you accuse ER of being a Calvinist! As for grace being a booger - let us hope not.
 

One passage leaped out at me, as good a summary of the Renaissance idea of grace as one will find anywhere:

Finally, the Great Artisan mandated that this creature who would receive nothing proper to himself shall have joint possession of whatever nature had been given to any other creature. He made man a creature of indeterminate and indifferent nature, and, placing him in the middle of the world, said to him "Adam, we give you no fixed place to live, no form that is peculiar to you, nor any function that is yours alone. According to your desires and judgment, you will have and possess whatever place to live, whatever form, and whatever functions you yourself choose. All other things have a limited and fixed nature prescribed and bounded by our laws. You, with no limit or no bound, may choose for yourself the limits and bounds of your nature. We have placed you at the world's center so that you may survey everything else in the world. We have made you neither of heavenly nor of earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with free choice and dignity, you may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine."

This is God's love for humanity, in a way. It is the gift of both freedom and Divine Guidance in making humanity what it was created to be. Would that we could recapture this view.
 

Re, "No ER, Grace is not a booger. ;)"

LOLOL
 

Re, "For I know that nothing can separate us from the love we have from God in Christ Jesus."

Ya know, that is just about the first theological thought to ever enter my head, back when I was 8.

Thanks God.

It has never left me.

Nothing. No. Thing.

Grace ...

I guess if I can only imagine shaking off Grace in the abstract, and can't imagine overtly resisting God to the extreme, especially when I have a growing sense, as time goes by, that God's Love IS irresistible, it's a moo point, as Joey Tribiani would say.
 

Tangent: My favorite closest barbecue joing has closed. I knew it would. They refused to advertise.

More serous tangent. I miss my Dr. ER, and it's approaching hellish at the moment. Damn it.