I am still plowing through Creation and Fall. This time of the year it is difficult to get a lot of time to read, but this is worth posting:
"The Serpent asks: Did God really say, You shall not eat from every kind of tree in the garden? It does not dispute this word, but opens the eyes of the human being to a depth of which the human being has until now been unaware, a depth from which one would be in a position to establish or to dispute whether a word is God's word or not. The serpent itself at first only poses the possibility that perhaps the human being has in this regard misheard, as God could not possibly have meant it in that way. God, the good Creator, would surely not impose something like that on God's own creature; tha would surely be to limit God's love.
"The decisive point is that through this question the idea is suggested to the human being of going behind the word of God and now providing it with a human basis--a human understanding of the essential nature of God. Should the word contradict this understanding, then the human being has clearly misheard. After all, it could only serve God's cause if one put an end to such false words of God, such a mistakenly heard command, in good time...In this way the serpent purports somehow to know about the depths of the true God beyond this given word of God..."
It goes on for another page, well worth the read.
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2 comments:
I've been slowly reading through Life Together, avoiding the temptation to finish it in one sitting. Bonhoeffer has the ability to convict me in the way that no other (modern) Christian writer/theologian can.
Yes, very true. I read Life Together about a year ago now. I especially like his idea of Christ mediating in our relationships.
James
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