For the Other is in the self’s place, inspiring me to praise. In praise, I welcome the Scriptures as the living Word of God that claims me as His and thereon affects me further to praise without end. Praise is possible only as and in the language of the Word of God, that the self did not author but, rather, is given to the self from the time immemorial-the Logos by which the heaven and the earth are created. The response to God’s descent into one’s self can only take the form of praise, like Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) or Miriam’s Song of Exodus (Ex. The self is a (non)place to which God descends through his Word that is repeated by the self’s praise in response. The role of the other in the self-albeit God, Logos, the Scriptures, or the voice from the neighbor or that of a friend-is decisive in Augustine’s discovery of the self, who finds God in its place, in lieu of itself. In short, unless He calls me first, I cannot respond unless He speaks to me first, I would not know how to speak to Him in response. Augustine’s theology of the Scriptures makes it clear that the Word of God, Logos, that precedes the self, renders possible any utterance the self offers to God that the self can only respond to the Word of God that has always already been spoken to her in advance (through the Scriptures) from the time immemorial and that the self can say nothing except by the fact that “… first sa to me ” and except by citing the Scriptures themselves.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |