From the Dean & President - S&H Jan/Feb 2006

Sometimes people question what I try to say about the human condition, as a sort of fundamentally negative frame of mind. I am thinking about Original Sin and the baggage which that powerful conception of human nature carries in its train.

To major on this one way of describing our shared human problem – the situation of inherited and also environmentally enhanced sin – seems to some to be too negative. Why not use antitheses such as night, error, demon oppression, and death versus light, truth, deliverance, and life? Why always begin with the word “sin” and the supposition of intrinsic sin within all human beings?

Herr Moltmann once said that he is a grace optimist while I am a sin pessimist. That sure was a down day for me over there! The other way people sometimes put it is the comparison of the glass half full versus the glass half empty. I lunge for the latter. And then you find yourself in company with the Jansenists and the late Augustine and the deeply serious greatest of them all.

I think about this a lot. Why am I always going for the “ethical,” which is the sin-dimension, the conflict one carries towards the impossible demand of the divine Law, when I could be going for the sustaining, nourishing, empathetic side of the divine Compassion? Why always the “for”-ness of God rather than His “with”-ness? I take the point.

The theological anthropology of Christianity is just so important. How do you see the problem of being human? Is it a state of being lost and alone primarily – being the victim of life – or is it a condition of being alienating and malicious – being the victimizer in life? Obviously it is both. But where do you place the emphasis?

I wish for our students to know the Fatherhood of God in the parables of the Son. And these parables, the most famous of them being that of the Prodigal Son, major on the absolution. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son” (St. Luke 15:18-19). I see the Grace of God maximized in the forgiveness from the Father to the prodigal son. Natch’, one could summon up all manner of associations from personal biography. Can’t you?

The anthropology at the center of our faith: It is the colors of Original Sin, played out in countless possible acts and operations. They are the primary sticking point in relation to which everyone is simply gasping for a breath of cool air (Dean’s Contest). I certainly know about forlornness and the tremendous need for comfort. Yet, I want to start with the remission of our sins. It puts us all in the place of absolutest humility and truest sensitivity toward the absolving Father. Our Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the absolving Father.

So we can stick with it, this reenactment of Article XI of our Thirty-Nine Articles, and paint in the other colors later.

Love,

Paul