Taken from the German philosopher’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture, ht BS:
“The inmost significance of the exaggerated value which is set upon hard work appears to be this: man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy, with a good conscience, what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refused to have anything as a gift.”
Cue this past Sunday’s sermon on the Parable of the Worker’s in the Vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16):
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2 responses to “Josef Pieper Mistrusts Everything That Is Effortless”
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So interesting, then, how firmly he holds to the importance of man’s effort in salvation. I was thumbing through “On Hope,” was absolutely blown away by his treatment of sloth/despair/acedia (which Protestantism of the evangelical variety doesn’t seem to willing to name/acknowledge), when all of the sudden he turned his whole project on its head with this gem:
“…the heresy propagated by the Reformation, viz., the sole efficacy of God’s redemptive and engracing action. By teaching the absolute certainty of salvation solely by virtue of the merits of Christ, this heresy destroys the true pilgrim character of Christian existence by making as certain for the individual Christian as the revealed fact of redemption the belief that he had already ‘actually’ achieved the goal of salvation… It has often been observed how close–both logically and psychologically–this…form of presumption is to despair on the one hand and, on the other, to the moral uninhibitedness of that ‘inordinate trust in God’s mercy’ that theology reckons, along with despair, among the ‘sins against the Holy Spirit'” (68-69)
#smh… “Inordinate trust in God’s mercy.” What?
Pieper was critiquing modern man for our inability to receive a gift.
Pieper was clearly not “mistrusting everything that is effortless” as
David Zahl seems to be insinuating?
To Mr Weatherman…my understanding of pieper,s
position on presumptio…we cannot assume that
we are going to heaven nor hell.
that drama is our life
An ordinate trust in God,s mercy
We have to cooperate with God,s grace and mercy not just presume inordinately