Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on the Incarnation

"God's continued self-giving reached its apex and most perfect manifestation in his offering of himself to man in the most intimate of ways--by becoming man and sharing in the humanity of his children (Heb2:14).

"The incarnation is fundamentally consistent with God's preservation of the whole creation and thus with his very being. It is an extension of his loving presence. What is of significance is that God the Son was "made like his brothers in every way. . .yet was without sin" (Heb 2:17; 4:15). He became a man perfect in his humanity, with the fullness of its God-given relational potential, only to take upon himself our isolation and enslavement. He thus conquered sin by trustingly offering himself both to God and fellow men, even to the point of death. In the midst of life's ambivalence, he exposed with utmost clarity the deceptive nature of sin, based as it is on a fundamental denial of God's nature as love. Thus in Christ, the despairing sinner again perceives the astounding faithfulness and the life-bestowing love of God--not merely for himself but for all of creation."

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-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 17.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on the Primal Nature of the Command

"What is significant about Adam is that he alone becomes the locus of God's self-sharing. In Adam God reveals himself as self-giving, as love. Through creation, he who already perfectly and sufficiently affirms otherness within himself--as Father, Son and Holy Spirit-- freely reaches out to another. On other words, man is the only creature willed by God for its own sake. Such is the nature of love. It affirms another not because of a vested interest, but freely and disinterestedly, for the other's sake. It finds the other beautiful and interesting.

"God's love, as it finds beauty and a source of interest in the other, truly creates the other to be beautiful and interesting. Thus, surveying his creative work, God was able to conclude approvingly that "it was very good" (Gn 1:31). The divine self-sharing manifests itself, in the first place, in the act of creation itself. But it goes much further. Man receives God's blessing, as he it told to "be fruitful and increase in number." All that God has created is now entrusted to him to rule over and to subdue (Gn 1:28). What this means is that creation is God's gift to be used in a meaningful and responsible way. Finally, God shares with man his own being. The latter not only has a direct and personal experience of his Creator, but is himself created to reflect the being of God.

"Man is created with a capacity to love and to reciprocate love. Like God he has the ability to go beyond himself. In the same way that God affirms otherness within himself, man, too, is made to affirm another, so that the two "will become one flesh" (Gn 2:24). Further he is endowed with the capacity to affirm creation--it finds its meaning in his responsible and God-like stewardship. As one commentator put it, "while [man] is not divine, his very existence bears witness to the activity of God in the life of the world." In other words, just as God finds Adam and Eve worthwhile and interesting in and of themselves, humans, likewise, are to find God's gift of creation worthwhile in and of itself. Creation is not to be abused. Humans are created to love God, their fellow man, and God’s gift of creation. By definition, they are social and vocational beings, relating to others in such a way as to further their good through God appointed means. In so doing, they surrender their being in all its individualism only to gain it back, in, with and through the being of another. Only by receiving and giving can they realize their humanity. Only thus can they be human beings.

"It has already been indicated that love consists in self-giving. Naturally there can be no love under coercion. Thus with its origin in the divine love, human existence is one of freedom. God did not create automatons but beings that were beautiful, interesting and worthwhile for their own sake—individuals with the capacity, of their own free will, to reflect the love received. A loving relationship by nature implies an option for un-love. Love as self-giving implies the possibility of rejection. It is in this context of what love is that the presence in the garden of the tree of knowledge of good and evil finds its purpose. To Adam and Eve was entrusted all that God had created with the exception of one tree, of which they were expressly forbidden to eat. In negative terms, the tree presents itself as an alternative to God's love; it makes the possibility of choosing un-love, or self-love, a real one. In positive terms, it underscores the free and self-giving character of the divine-human relationship, pointing to the centrality of love in the constitution of man. From man's perspective, it makes love possible. Finally, it points to the fundamental significance of trust as an inseparable aspect of love. Adam and Eve knew their creator intimately in his self-sharing. All they were and all that they had came from him. It would seem there surely was a significant basis for trust. And yet, incomprehensibly but in how familiar a way, they gave credence to the serpent's deceitful promise.

"The fall is often portrayed as a transgression of what seemed to be an otherwise arbitrary command. We have already demonstrated that the command was far from arbitrary. Neither was it meant to stress the importance of divinely established order, as if God's self-giving were a mere show. The command was not there to put man in place and show him who really was in charge. On the contrary, it was there to complete his humanness in its capacity for love and freedom."

-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 13.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on Dependence and Independence

In preparing for my next series of posts on the law (It will start with Gerhard Forde, but... be patient; tomorrow would be the soonest), I came across this quote from Piotr Malysz. I don't remember if it figured into my first (literally) post on dependence and independence, but its thesis is strikingly similar. See my previous posts: Dependence and Independence and Self-Generation; Dependence and Independence Cont.. I find the paradox of being dependent on the created order to show superiority over that created order to be intriguing. We all do it (to a certain extent or another) without recognizing the absurdity of it. It reminds me of Jonathan Swift's "Yahoos." As such we fight over, and strive for power (over God's creation), prestige (from God's creation), popularity (from God's creation), love (from God's creation), acknowledgement (from God's creation); we strive to subdue (God's creation), create (from God's creation), bring under control (God's creation); we use our bodies and minds (that are created) to set ourselves apart from the rest of mankind (God's creation). We do this, much like the Yahoos, without realizing that (without God) we are just animals rolling around in the mud.

"Sin is also enslavement to imperium-- control and, if need be, violence-- as a means of preserving one's integrity. Adam and Eve destroyed their relationships not only by fearing a violation of their trust on another's part but also by chronic suspiciousness of another's, that is, God's self-giving. They saw in God's giving an attempt to confine them into reciprocation, thereby exerting control over their independence. Human life has thus become a struggle for control as a means of survival. This, in turn, has brought about the enslavement of man to creation. Man has abandoned his God-appointed role of creation's steward and endeavours to place himself above the created order as God's equal. But as a creature he can only claim equality with and independence from God by violently lording it over creation, not merely because this is the way he now understands God's being, but also because he recognizes his dependence on creation, which is God's work, and thus on God himself. Exploitation of God's things gives an allusion of power. In this way, creation is necessary for man as a means of self-assertion. The continued increase of his control over the created realm, including other human beings, creates the impression of approximating divinity. Put differently, in order to preserve his integrity, man must enslave. He is both enslaved and enslaver. Paradoxically this only deepens human dependence on the now-hostile creation.

"The isolation and enslavement of sin underscore that-- at bottom- it is a debilitating inability to love and trust, which "like spiritual leprosy, has thoroughly and entirely poisoned and corrupted human nature" (FC SD I, 6). As such, sin undermines everything that human nature was created to represent. Instead of allowing oneself to receive another in his self-giving, and thus to gain oneself, the sinner attempts his self-realization by going in the opposite direction, to the inside. Sin, to use Luther's dictum, makes man into a homo incurvitas in se ipsum. This turning in on oneself is the inevitable price of the trust-destructive misinterpretation of God's being, and thus also of failing to acknowledge one's humanity in its relational richness. In other words, the price of the knowledge of good and evil is the recognition of oneself as evil. Man cannot know evil without at the same time seeing it in himself, in his lovelessness and distrust.

"The tree that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from was not, contrary to their expectations, a vehicle of secret wisdom. The knowledge originated within man together with the deed, with his choice of un-love, with his rejection of God's self-giving. It came on the heels of man's attempt to be like God, in which the former isolated himself from his Creator and other human beings, abandoning his unique position within the created realm as the recipient of God's love and blessing. It came with man turning in on himself and the resultant collapse of his being. It is now with great difficulty that man preserves his integrity. He can do so only by a violent, self-centered and self-enslaving exercise of supremacy. Therefore, in so doing, he not only knows evil in himself but also actively propagates it.

"Consider the dreadful ambiguity that underlies all human desire to be creative. Ethically speaking, even the best of human works are tainted by vested interests, resentment, or distrust. Moreover from the scientific perspective, man's harnessing of creation's resources exposes his potential for self-destruction and thirst for more power, as much as it shows ingenuity. Finally, much as he may wish to avoid and ignore it, man meets with disintegration throughout his life only to be confronted by it conclusively at the point of death. The all-consuming presence of death reveals that creation without its steward has gone wild-- it dies both from lack of proper care and from the abuses it suffers at the hand of man. It has become the devil's playground. Man himself-- having separated himself from the life-giving love of God-- faces the same destiny as the creation he was so hasty to abandon in pursuit of self-realization. In isolation from God he is dust and to dust he must return (Gn 3:19). In a word, life without love and trust is deadly. It not only kills the isolated and enslaved human being but also spreads death around in spite and because of human attempts to avoid the inevitable. "Whoever tries to keeps his life will lose it" (Lk 17:33)."

-Piotr Malysz, “Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall,” Logia 11, no. 3 (2002), 14-15.

Lutheran Quote of the Day: Malysz on Identity

This comes from our own Piotr Maylsz over at Lutheran Theology. This quote draws on the theme of identity, and whether we try and form it from ourselves or whether we receive it from outside of us. This is accomplished through either justification of the sinner from outside- extra se- or self-justification from ourselves- in nobis. This theme is especially well developed by Oswald Bayer in Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification. (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003.) It can also be seen in Malysz' excellent article "Third Use of the Law in Light of Creation and the Fall" Logia 11, no. 3 (2002): 9-19.

I draw on this theme often, myself. It is especially evident in my post "Dependence and Independence" where I critique the attempts of man to establish independence in spite of the fact that we are always and totally dependent on the grace of God and his gifts.

Here is what Malysz has to say on this topic:

"To understand what Luther means by God’s justification of the sinner, it is first necessary to understand the reformer’s view of sin as self-justification. The being of a human person, according to Luther, needs to be underwritten, as it were, from the outside. It is not a locus of its own identity. Identity can either be received by one, or else the person may attempt to construct her own identity. In the former case, what one is, as a creature, is determined by the love of God. In the latter case, believing herself to be a free and autonomous shaper of her destiny, the person embarks on a pursuit of sources of security which could underwrite her being. She defines herself through her actions and commitments. In this, however, she enslaves herself to her own selfjustificatory activity, for to refrain from it would be tantamount to allowing one’s being to disintegrate. Thus all of the sinner’s works, however good they may appear, are ultimately only a modality of self-interest. Luther describes this enslaving pursuit of self-justification as being turned in on oneself (homo incurvatus in se ipsum). For the reformer, the sinner is the arch-individualist, and that in spite of all her activism."

-Piotr Malysz "Exchange and ecstasy: Luther’s eucharistic theology in light of Radical Orthodoxy’s critique of gift and sacrifice," Scottish Journal of Theology 60, no. 3 (2007), 297-298.