06 March, 2007

St. Paul is not a psycho.

I like posting things written by others, especially when I'm busy. It's just so easy. I'm only a little sorry. I'll try to think of something "original" to post soon.

"Where is faith? In a faithful person, you might say. But where is faith, in that person? My gut tells me that for most, explicitly or implicitly, faith, as a fruit of the Spirit's work in man, is thought to be found in a person's brain. This is not surprising since it is relatively easy to manipulate the thoughts of your brain, but it is a mysterious mission (at best) to attempt to control the thoughts of your hands and legs. We, however reformed we claim to be, still want to have some power over God. It seems what is meant by a lot of folks saying, 'sola fide' is really 'faith alone in my brain.' And then it's no wonder that hearty affirmations of efficacious sacraments make them choke. And yet the work of the Spirit is in the whole man: renewing the mind throughout our bodies. If faith is only needed in our brains, St. Paul is psycho, for all his insistence on the subduing of our bodily members to Christ. Lastly, if we as the Church make up Christ's body, and our bodies will one day be made like his body, then this has to inform not only our ecclesiology and eschatology but our ontology and epistemology. There is more going on than our brains can tell us. Not only do we need faithful brains, but we need faithful eyes, faithful knee caps, and faithful finger nails. And that, my friend, is why it's important to dance."

Borrowed from someone named Toby Sumpter- unfortunately, I don't remember who that is.

2 comments:

Kelly said...

Heh heh - he's one of the teachers at the Atlas School.

;-)

Kelly said...

You know, I hadn't thought about that yet, but Paul repeatedly speaks of the bowels of mercy and things of that sort. Of course, for him the bowels (reigns in the OT) are the seat of the emotions, the heart being where the soul and mind reside.

I'm not concluding anything, just considering what you posted in light of some bits of Paul I've been reading lately.