theologiaviatorum's reviews
206 reviews

Four Anti-Pelagian Writings by Saint Augustine

informative medium-paced

3.5

Having previously read Romanides on Ancestral Sin I wanted to acquaint myself with the Catholic view as well so I read these Anti-Pelagian writings by St. Augustine. In these four works, On Nature and Grace,  On the Proceedings of Pelagius, On the Predestination of the Saints, and On the Gift of Perseverance St. Augustine sets out the Catholic doctrine against Pelagius. Pelagianism holds that all men and women are born without imperfection or defect. Each person is in the state of wholeness which Adam enjoyed before his Fall. At some point a person will commit a sin and experience a Fall of the same kind as Adam. While Pelagius believed this was the reality of the case he did not believe this was the necessary case. He taught that it was possible for someone to live a perfect life without sinning, if he so chose. Against this, Augustine of Hippo taught that Man is born guilty of Adam's sin and therefore condemned from birth.  He is saved by the grace of God in the bath of regeneration (baptism). The emphasis upon grace is essential for St. Augustine. He will not admit the slightest bit of work or merit into salvation. He holds that the beginning, the growth, and the perseverance of our faith is the pure gift of God. According to Augustine, to say that God offers us grace in response to our faith is to say that he offers grace according to our merits, in which case grace ceases to be grace. Grace must always be entirely free and gratuitous. John Calvin's connection to the Bishop of Hippo is obvious. Unless I have misunderstood, there is no doctrine in the famous five points of Calvinism that is not found here in Augustine.

Edit (Feb. 18, 2025): I have since learned that while the English word "guilt" is used, these works were originally penned in Latin so there are issues of translation to deal with.  Both "reatus" and "culpa" may be translated "guilt."  I do not know which St. Augustine used here.  I do not have access to the Latin texts.  I do know, however, that regardless of Augustine's belief, it is not the Catholic belief that children are personally guilty of sin.  The catechism reads, "Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants" (CCC §405).

The Ancestral Sin: A Comparative Study of the Sin of Our Ancestors Adam and Eve According to the Paradigms and Doctrines of the First- and ... the Augustinian Formulation of Original Sin by John S. Romanides

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

This is without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read. I come from a tradition in which many (not all) are Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian in that they believe each person is born entirely without defect and at a particular age (often called "The Age of Accountability," which is no particular age but the moment when any person becomes "responsible") experiences a "fall" of the same kind as Adam. I began to question that idea years ago and became open to Original Sin. The more I studied the more I realized that the condition of Man was directly intertwined and intermingled with one's ideas of atonement, only increasing my interest. Somewhere along the way I became aware that there was a difference between Eastern and Western ideas about this condition. The differences were murky but I knew that in order to distinguish and distance themselves from the West Orthodoxy names this condition Ancestral Sin instead of "Original Sin."  I wanted to learn more about the distinctions between these two and was happy to be pointed towards this book by Romanides. "The Ancestral Sin" cleared up so many passages of the Bible which seemed incomprehensible to me. But once I changed the framework with which I viewed the passage I needed no explanation; It now became "obvious." At the risk of being simplistic I will summarize the distinctions this way: According to Romanides (an important caveat) The West says we die because we sin; The East says we sin because we die. The West says we share the guilt of Adam; The East says we share his death. Romanides has some strong words for the West. He says that St. Augustine was not the first to understand Paul (as some claim) but the first to "fundamentally misinterpret the Apostle" (134). He even refused to name Augustine a Saint or blessed (11). I admit to being turned off by those facts, but I kept reading and I am so glad I did. This is a rare book, the sort of book that becomes a landmark in one's spiritual and intellectual development (it will be in mine). Heartily recommended.

Edit: In the intervening years since reading this book I have learned that Romanides is not *the* Orthodox position.  It is *an* Orthodox position.  Unless I misunderstand them both, Father John Behr, an Orthodox priest, seems to disagree with Romanides on certain points.  Further, it is not the case the Catholics believe children are personally guilty of the sin of Adam, as Romanides insists.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads, "Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants" (CCC §405).  Admittedly, this is not helped by the use of the word "guilt" in certain translations of documents from Latin.  Regardless, I would now take much issue with Romanides.  Still, I am glad to have read this book and still reference it often.  For that I demoted the book from a 5 star rating to a 4. (Feb. 18, 2025).

Pictures of God: A Child's Guide to Understanding Icons by John Skinas

informative fast-paced

4.0

I received this book in the mail today.  I want my son's heroes to be the saints. And I want him to live in a world surrounded by signs and symbols of the God who made him. So what better book than a book of signs, a book of icons? The art in this book is beautiful and each icon has a brief description which points out details of the picture. It also urges the reader to holiness in imitation of God and his saints. Sometimes it asks questions to prompt discussion. I'm eager to be able to share these with my Little Man.

A Dissertation upon the Use and Importance of Unauthoritative Tradition by Hawkins Edward 1789-1882

informative medium-paced

4.25

I don't know when I first had the idea to read the influences of those authors I admired or where I got the idea but it has been my practice for some time. Alan Jacobs calls it reading "upstream" (The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, 43-50). So when I read Newman's "Arians of the Fourth Century" and found he so often quoted a sermon by Edwards Hawkins I decided to try and locate it. It was a difficult find, and the only edition I found was a reprint (which I never do because they are usually low quality and oddly formatted), but I am interested in the topic and this work in particular so I purchased it. It's old and the language shows, but it was helpful. His central contention is that scripture itself makes clear that it was God's intention for his book to be understood with the aid of "unauthoritative tradition." He emphasizes the "unauthoritative," in essence, to maintain his Protestant credentials. He regularly makes clear that he is not arguing for the elevation of tradition in the manner of the "Romanists" (a nasty term for Catholics). He insists that "the Scriptures will be our only authoritative rule of faith" (44). But he also points out that scripture is not systematic but, rather, they are occasional and "in every instance supposing [the readers] previously informed of the Christian doctrines, in short always implying previous oral teaching" (25). So he conceives the purpose of scripture not to teach the doctrine but to prove or confirm the doctrine which has already been taught. "If then the foregoing account of the Scriptures be correct, we cannot but admit the object of those sacred books to have been much less to teach, than to enforce and establish what had been taught before" (31). Hawkins suggests that the Protestant aversion to any mention of "tradition" is an unfortunate and extreme reaction to Catholicism. He writes, "an excessive dread of the papal heresy has caused the just and legitimate use of traditional instruction to be continually overlooked by pious Protestants" (17).  This edition also contains supplementary extracts from his Bampton Lectures in 1840 where the pagination resets (my references are to the first work "A Dissertation Upon the Use and Importance of Unauthoritative Tradition." All in all I found the work insightful, although occasionally offensive. 

Real Kids, Real Faith: Practices for Nurturing Children's Spiritual Lives by Karen Marie Yust

informative inspiring fast-paced

4.0

Of all the books I have read about Youth Ministry or Family Ministry or Children's Ministry or any related topic this one has been my favorite. Yust follows the happy trend of philosophers and theologians today away from a cognitivist model of education and towards a more holistic and embodied model of spiritual formation. Based upon the assumption that children are capable of religious faith, Yust offers solid theology and practical suggestions for inviting our children into spiritual practices in age appropriate ways. She offers great tips and points the reader to other available resources. While she is a Christian herself, and writes mainly from a Christian perspective, she regularly makes comments applicable to other faiths, drawing from Judaism and Islam, even (if my memory serves) Buddhism on a few occasions. One does not have to be a Christian to find wisdom here, though she aims primarily at a Christian audience. I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in such questions.

Saying Is Believing: The Necessity of Testimony in Adolescent Spiritual Development by Amanda Hontz Drury

informative

3.0

This books discusses the place of testimony in spiritual development. She argues that learning faith is like learning a language and none of us learns language merely by listening to it. We have to imitate the language. We have to talk back. Drury suggests that the same is true for learning the language of faith. If our children/teens are not actively involved in speaking about their faith they are more likely to lose it, just like we forget a foreign language if we have no opportunities to practice. It was a short work (167 pages) but contained good suggestions for how to incorporate testimony in a responsible manner.

Arians of the Fourth Century by John Henry Newman

informative slow-paced

4.0

 This was John Henry Newman's first published work. In it he details the circumstances which gave rise to Arianism (the belief that there was a time when the Son "was not", i.e. that he is a creature), the growth and disputations surrounding that doctrine, as well as its decline and fall. But this work is more than that. It is an incisive look into Church History and a sort of "anatomy of heresy." A few things stand out as contributing factors to the development of Arianism. 1. The refusal of mystery. Moved by a strict rationalism (Aristotle was called The Bishop of the Arians) they could not countenance the mystery of a God who is Three-in-One or the Man who is also God. So they divided the Trinity into rationally comprehensible parts. 2. Refuse extra-biblical terms. The Arians were happy to call the Son "Lord" and "Christ," they acknowledged him as "Son of God" and "Only-begotten," but they defined those terms in ways which denied his divinity. So the orthodox imposed the symbol of the Homoüsion (same-substance) to suss out those who denied the Trinity. The Arians objected on the grounds that Homoüsion is not a scriptural term. So long as the Arians could stick to the terms of scripture they could hide behind its vagueries.  Cardinal Newman describes the danger of this by saying "there are no two opinions so contrary to each other, but some form of words may be found vague enough to comprehend them both" (80). 3. Related but separate from 1 and 2, insist upon a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible. The Arians adhered to a strict definition of "Father" and "begotten" arguing that if the Son is "begotten" then there must have been a time when the Son "was not" for fathers always precede their sons. The Blessed John Henry Newman is to be canonized on October 13, 2019. His erudition and holiness makes it obvious why. (Concerning this edition: there were a number of spelling and formatting errors. The sense of the text was always discernible but it was occasionally irritating. The desirable edition, which I would have purchased had finances allowed, is the edition by Notre Dame Press with notes from Rowan Williams)

The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship by Dallas Willard

informative fast-paced

3.75

This is the most popular level of all Willard's works I've read. This book is not written as its own whole but is a collection of lectures, sermons, interviews, etc. This prohibits him from developing themes in a more nuanced or technical way but it also means that he is forced to simplify and get to the heart of the matter this creating an easier more accessible read. It also means, however, that a lot of the material is repeated. Here you get classic Willard. "Grace is not opposed to effort; It is opposed to earning. Effort is an action. Earning is an attitude." Or "Some are vampire Christians—they just want a little of Jesus' blood." Or again, "Disciplines are deeds within our power that make it possible to do things which are not presently in our power." For those who feel overwhelmed by his more technical "The Spirit of the Disciplines" or his much larger and much more intimidating "Divine Conspiracy," this works as a good introduction to his thought. Perhaps no one is more responsible in our time for reintroducing Protestant churches to the spiritual disciplines and the transformative power of God's Spirit whom we meet there.

Pensées by Blaise Pascal

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

I don't think I have enjoyed reading any book so much since I read "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton. In fact, I might say that Pascal was a sort of 17th century Chesterton. I would be shocked if Chesterton were not intentionally pulling from him. Anyway, Blaise Pascal's Pensées was intended to be a systematic defense of the Christian religion but he died before he could finish it. Peter Kreeft once said that is where its genius lies. He said if Pascal had finished it he would have ruined it. As it stands the Pensées are a collection of notes. It is full of aphoristic wisdom and immensely quotable. I have rarely marked and noted so thoroughly in any book. I feel sure that I will read and re-read this book again and again. Would that people would spend a bit more time with Pascal and less time with Descartes.

The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities by Jaroslav Pelikan

informative fast-paced

4.0

 This is Pelikan's Jefferson Lectures in Humanities from 1983. These four lectures, a short 82 pages, are a brief apologia in defense of tradition. Pelikan reminds us that "we do not have a choice between being shaped by our intellectual and spiritual DNA and not being shaped by it, as though we had sprung into being by some kind of cultural spontaneous generation" (53). We are traditioned creatures and cannot escape it, so we have some choices to make: "whether to understand our origins in our tradition or merely to let that tradition work on us without our understanding it, in short, whether to be conscious participants or unconscious victims" (53). Acknowledging tradition, however, is different from traditionalism. "Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living" (65). So we are not mere slaves of the past, but students of the past, participants in the present, and artisans of the future. To quote Goethe, as Jaroslav does, "What you have as heritage, take now as task; for thus you will make it your own."