Chris’s Reviews > Beyond Tragedy: Essays on the Christian Interpretation of History > Status Update

"But sex may also become the perverse centre of human interest and the source of disharmonies, unknown in animal behavior." O RLY? This from a man who waited to marry till he was almost 40? He seems to have read Freud though, which would give him lots of options.

Even without judgment in history, "The Christian faith is centered in one who was born in a manger and died on a cross." Why the return to incarnation and cross here? I know why I'd do it that is, but does N mean the same thing?

"God's ultimate judgment upon the mighty is also a periodic judgment in history." Thesis of this ch. When will Nietzsche come back in?

"History is nature; and in nature the strong devour the weak and the shrewd take advantage of the simple. But human history is more than nature. It is a realm of freedom where the inequalities of nature are accentuated by human imagination until they become intolerable and destroy themselves. Thus the ultimate religious judgments ... are always momentarily defied with impunity, but ultimately validated in history."

Use of Nietzsche on Xty as resentment. Shallow reading I think. Must check against Barth or Volf.

"Mankind does not destroy the law of life by violating it. It operates in history, if in no other way by destroying those who violate it. ... The pattern of life is not corrupted by historic existence but in historic existence. Thus the Kingdom of God must come in history. "Yet when it comes, it is the end of history. ... History presents a problem which points beyond history." Awesome.

Discussion of monastics. "The ascetic is a parasite on the sins of his fellowmen"-- ouch! But if not self-righteous, can be a testimony to the new law. Nothing about prayer in this description, oddly.

"The righteousness of the Kingdom of God stands above [relative justice] and condemns it. Without the acceptance of that judgment, that is, without repentance, there is no entrance into the Kingdom of God." Pretty low bar for repentance.

"The implication is that human nature has deviated from the law of its existence, that man is estranged from his essential nature." This is imprecise but possibly correct. Go on.

"[Jesus believed his reign] would have to be ushered in by pure goodness which had no power. But pure goodness, without power, cannot maintain itself in the world. It ends on the cross. Yet that is not where it finally ends. The Messiah will finally transmute the whole world order." Etc. Strong stuff. I want it better defined.