Tuesday, June 25, 2024

One does not entail the other five

It is clear from such examples that there is much at stake in the definition of “grace,” which is subject to strong and interested acts of interpretation. It is essential to disaggregate the various perfections of “grace,” and to warn against two matching assumptions: that any one perfection (or even a small cluster of them) is self-evidently the definition of grace, and that a perfection of one facet of grace will necessarily entail the perfection of others. When two different authors speak of divine benevolence or grace, but disagree on its meaning and its implications, this may be not because one emphasizes grace more than the other, or grasps its “true” meaning while the other does not, but simply because they are perfecting different facets of grace. As we shall see, Pelagius held firmly to the superabundance of divine grace, which was prior to all human activity; but (for theological reasons) he could not accept Augustine’s perfection of the incongruity of grace (see below, 3.2.3). Augustine did not believe in grace more than Pelagius; he simply believed in it differently.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 77

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