Grace again. Misc.

[Joseph Tracy]

From Paul's letter to the Romans CH 8)
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Romans 8:28-30).



CH 9)  13As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.
17For the scripture says to Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18Therefore he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens.
19 Willl you say to me, Why does he find fault? For who has resisted his will?
20No way dude, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why have thou made me thus?
21Doesn’t the potter have power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared unto glory,

Ch 9 is about Paul’s reasons why the gospel has moved from a message to the Jews to a message for the Gentiles
but the underlying theology of predestination  is quite plain. 

In his letter to the Ephesians he says: we are saved by grace though faith and that “”"not of ourselves””" for it is the gift of God.
 Basically people have no choice. 

I think Paul’s mind  was in some ways forced into this position by Greek logic and Zoroastrian theology. 

I think his reasoning went something like this: God is omniscient therefor God knows what everyone will do and God is the maker  of all so each person’s salvation or damnation is predestined according to his will.
 But this is not really a Judaic fundamental.
The idea of final Judgement is not in the Old Testament. For the Jews blessings and troubles were in this life; there is virtually no reference to an afterlife. Also there is less of an insistence on omniscience in pre Christian scriptures. 

For example in  Genesis we have this passage:          And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know
 
hard to see the omniscience here and apparently the Lord didn’t even trust his spies or the video footage circulating among the shocked angel class.

Zoroastrian thought entered among the Phariseeic priesthood during the occupation by Persia. Persia treated the Jews respectfully and allowed them to rebuild their Temple. The Zoroastrians had a major emphasis on a big final end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it showdown between good and evil. The image leaps into the visions of the final Hebrew prophets  approaching the time of Christ along with the idea of resurrection from the dead, also taken up by the Pharisees. 



> On Aug 4, 2017, at 8:39 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Wow! You are proposing a thesis in your Paul/Calvin predestination parallel that I'd never thought of.  I can't recall where Paul proposed predestination.  Can you point me to that text?
> 
> Paul seems to have supplied all the strident text presently used by religious right to condemn homosexuality.  Not a good start.  Jesus never condemned sexual practices.  Quite the opposite.  So fuck Paul!  Also, fuck Calvin!
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 2:38 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> The earliest appearance in the scriptures of the word has the usage of favor: Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This use appears several times in Genesis and though some say it means mercy it seems to more specifically mean favor.( hence disgraced means shamed/lost from favor) So there is a Hebrew word( chen)meaning favor that is used  frequently in the Torah and is taken up in the new testament
> by both the gospel writer of the book of John ( the law came by Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus)  and by Paul, who dominates theological interpretation of the life of Jesus( whom he never met, and appeared to know little of his  teachings as presented in the Gospels) .  Paul was multi lingual as a preacher to Greeks, Syrians, Romans and was steeped in Hebrew, the scriptures,Phariseeism and probably Aramaic. It seems likely that he was taking the core concept and word from Genesis and giving it a particularly Christian mystical spin. Paul is the source of the concept of predetermination of the destiny of the individual to be either saved or lost.  That concept was challenged at the time by James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the early church in Jerusalem who did not care for Paul’s teachings, but again Paul dominates the churches interpretation  especially among the Protestants. For many protestants grace became the dividing line between salvation and damnation with this idea being most clearly enunciated by Calvin. The Puritans were Calvinists and P’s personal lineage though with an heretical streak..
> 
> I agree with David Morris that despite this weighty background, Pynchon plays with the linguistic nuances that the word( grace of a dancer, graceful exit, graciuos host)  has acquired including letting  the Puritan heritage play out its role among the characters he creates. One must be careful to not overly connect the language of a pyncho character with his own beliefs or language.
> 
> Luther and Calvin derive their concept of grace, Luther as a function of loving parental abundance and the" finished work of Christ “ and Calvin more mechanistically as a kind of prearranged divine mathematics, from Paul.
> 
>  I spent a lot of years with the Bible and came away with some knowledge but little love for its sway in human affairs or my own life. The Pauine concept of grace and its theological explication seems diseased to me, a way of giving up agency and justifying powerful bullies. I personally use the word only when it is clear I am talking about elegant flow in art or physical movement. That human experience of the transcendent includes mercy and the renewal that mercy brings seems natural and does not  require a lot of theological pyrotechnics.  We don’t need to spend our lives going back and forth on the same bus going one way then the other. Just get off the bus and live.
> 
>  I see Pynchon as a humane satirist, a chronicler of alternative history from an outsider perspective, and wildly liberated spinner of 3 dimensional stories that include mythos, conspracy theory,  colorful but credible fiction, and historic events in fairly equal measure.
> 
> 
> > On Jul 29, 2017, at 3:28 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > You are the native speaker, Mark, but I would say it's bullshit if you don't provide context. What kind of grace? You have disgrace, you have clumsiness, I'm sure you have more opposites of grace.
> >
> > 2017-07-29 21:11 GMT+02:00 Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>:
> > I suggest "trump"
> > From: Mark Kohut
> > Sent: ‎7/‎29/‎2017 20:06
> > To: pynchon -l
> > Subject: Grace again. Misc.
> >
> > Gracelessness is an absence of grace, but the English language lacks a word for the opposite of grace.--Cass Sunstein, very recent essay.
> >
> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l