Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Gnade, das Übernatürliche 1; Unmöglichkeit der Selbst-Erlösung (co-dependent person; Sucht); heilende, operative, ko-operative Gnade. - Freiheit d. Wahl (Widerspruch, weil: F. von Sünde); Konversion, moralische Impotenz; Entscheidung, Wertskala

Kurzinhalt: If sin distorts and cripples our freedom, then in the first instance the impact of grace is to heal and strengthen our freedom so that we may break out of the compulsive power of sin.

Textausschnitt: GRACE AS HEALING

109b If sin distorts and cripples our freedom, then in the first instance the impact of grace is to heal and strengthen our freedom so that we may break out of the compulsive power of sin. Concretely the decisions we make embody the values we hold-not the values we "notionally" hold but the values we actually hold. Our decisions manifest our own personal scale of values, and a freedom that is captured by sin arises out of a heart whose response to value is fundamentally distorted. As we explored in our discussion of original sin, a key element of this distortion is our sense of our own personal value, our spontaneous sense of our own value or self-esteem. It may be that I feel myself to be unlovable, or that I love myself for all the wrong reasons, puffing myself up with a sense of self-righteousness. Decisions emerge either out of my efforts to bolster my sense of my own goodness or to confirm my own sense of worthlessness. (Fs) (notabene)

110a Despite the promises of self-help gurus, there is a sense in which I simply cannot solve this problem on my own. If my own sense of self is the problem, then all my efforts at "self-help" emerge out of the very same self that needs the help. My efforts will suffer from the same distortions and lead to a reproduction of the same problems in the new edition of "me." I can even enlist others into the project through manipulating them into helping me, but this again emerges from the same distorted self and leads to further reproduction of the same problem once again. In addiction literature this is such a common issue that it gains its own label, co-dependency. The co-dependent person seeks to assist the addict, but does so within the horizon of the addict and his or her addiction. Such co-dependency actually makes things worse, under the guise of seeking to help. (Fs) (notabene)

110b If a solution is to be found, it must be entirely "gratuitous," something that comes to us from a source beyond our manipulation, beyond our control. It must come to us from a source that is untouched by the distortions we suffer, a source of goodness greater than our own. Finally, it must be able to love us "as we are," love the real goodness that we have and so heal the distortions present in our self-esteem by grounding us in the reality of our own real goodness, a goodness that is ours as creations of a wise and loving God. This love must be strong enough to be able to break through the distortions we generate and the lies we tell ourselves. It must be able to confront those distortions and lies, yet do so in a way that both demands and empowers a real change of heart within us. This is the meaning of "grace as healing." (notabene)

110c A traditional theology speaks of this inbreaking of grace as "operative grace."1 God operates on the sinner, taking out the heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh. Such an operation is not dependent on the freedom of the sinner-in fact, God operates to restore the freedom of the sinner, freeing it from its slavery to sin. It is not an attack on our freedom; rather it liberates our freedom to be true to its orientation to the good. However, if we conceived of freedom simply as "freedom of choice" then the notion of operative grace will always appear as somehow contrary to the freedom of the sinner, because it "reduces" our "freedom" to sin. On the other hand, if we view freedom as directed toward good, sin represents a distortion of our freedom. In this case operative grace reestablishes us in true freedom by allowing us once again to act toward the truly good. (Fs)

111a In more modern terms, the prime example of such operative grace is what we would call "conversion." Conversion is not something I produce in myself. It comes to me from without, something that acts upon me. Conversion has various modalities, but a key feature of conversion is the radical change of life it produces in the newly converted subject.2 After conversion everything is different; the world has changed. Fear turns to courage, hatred to love, resentment to forgiveness, despair to hope, and hardness of heart to compassion. Things that were once impossible-for example, the ability to resist temptation-now become easy; things that were part of the routine of my life-for example, engaging my addiction-become repulsive. I am a new person "walking in the light" compared with the old me that "walked in the darkness" (see John 8:12). In this phase Catholic theology will speak of grace as "cooperative," inasmuch as the grace of conversion allows us to cooperate freely in achieving the good. (Fs)

111b Perhaps some of the best accounts of this conversion experience come out of literature dealing with the problems of addiction, such as Twelve Step programs. Indeed the first three steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable. (Fs)
2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.3

111c These three steps provide a solid summary of a Christian theology of grace: the problem of moral impotence ("we are powerless over alcohol"), the need for operative grace ("a power greater than ourselves"), and the new-found freedom that this grace as cooperative brings to the converted subject ("made a decision to turn our will..."). (Fs)