Image: St. Augustine, limestone, with paint and gilding, French. c. 1450. The Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
I’ve started reading Augustine’s Confessions (trans. Albert C. Outler) and was taken by his meditation
on God in Book I, chapter IV. It seems especially striking in light of recent challenges
by some to classical theistic views on the sovereignty and impassibility of God.
Augustine ably upholds the classical view of God, while also upholding the richness
of Scripture’s revelation of who he is:
Most high, most excellent, most
potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most
truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable,
yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing
old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest;
gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating,
nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost
love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without
remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy
plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never
in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demands
dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou become a debtor; yet who
can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing,
yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel
debts thou losest nothing thereby.
JTR
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