tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post5245028515263848189..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Gregg Allison addresses Rome’s “Nature-Grace interdependence”Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-44126139919625821952015-02-28T08:30:14.084-05:002015-02-28T08:30:14.084-05:00Hi Vincent, here is some background material from ...Hi Vincent, <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/02/general-revelation-and-special.html" rel="nofollow">here is some background material from Bavinck</a>. He does not go into Augustine and Aquinas much (at this point), but he does accurately state the Roman Catholic doctrines.<br /><br />Keep in mind where the notion of “Grace” comes from: [which, as I’ve written, writers like Clement had gotten mixed up in the first place, see “<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/07/tf-torrance-on-1-clement-and-doctrine.html" rel="nofollow">Clement on Grace Part 1</a>” and “<a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/07/tf-torrance-on-1-clement-and-doctrine_18.html" rel="nofollow">Clement on Grace Part 2</a>”]<br /><br />Stephen Duffy (“The Dynamics of Grace”, pgs 114 ff.) notes <i>“Augustine had modified the tradition with a theology of grace that influences Western anthropology to this day…. Natural human endowments may not be denigrated but saving grace is a needed, superadded gift of divine largesse mediated through the Church and her sacraments … but this ‘natural endowment’ had to be distinguished from ‘that good which pertains to a holy life,’ that gift which does not emanate from nature, but is superadded by God. ‘The capacity to believe, as the capacity to love, belongs to human nature; but to actually believe and love belongs to the grace given to believers.’ ”</i><br /><br />Keep in mind here that Augustine is not referring to nature as Allison defines “biblical creation”. A biblical doctrine of nature holds that man is “very good”. In fact, <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-roman-catholic-view-of-nature-and.html" rel="nofollow">as John Currid has noted</a>, <i>““when the word for ‘very’ occurs after an adjective it is an absolute superlative. Therefore, the writer is describing God’s judgement of his own creation with great emphasis – it is perfect in every detail, even down to the very intricacies of its being” (Genesis, Vol 1: Genesis 1:1-25:18, pg 89).”</i><br /><br />Therefore, it was no “superadded gift” as Augustine said, “to actually believe and love”. This was no mere “capacity” – it was an actual thing that Adam and Eve did. <br /><br />So we see, Augustine got this wrong, and Aquinas made things worse. <br />John Bugayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17728044301053738095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-72707103981198451372015-02-28T07:28:08.365-05:002015-02-28T07:28:08.365-05:00So where did the nature/grace dependence come from...So where did the nature/grace dependence come from? Augustine and Thomas Aquinas? Allison hints at that here:<br /><br />Evangelical theology disagrees strongly with its counterpart concerning the interdependence between nature and grace. One objection is that the Catholic system’s concept of nature owes more to philosophical traditions—the Neoplatonism at the heart of Augustine’s theology; the Aristotelian philosophy to which Thomas Aquinas’s theology was wedded—than to Scripture. Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17686738325565738419noreply@blogger.com