Divine Grace and the Christian life : a study of Paul's teaching on the tension between Divine Grace and human responsibility
This thesis is an attempt to identify the problems bound up with the grace-responsibility tension in Paul's writings and to point out their significance for understanding the Christian life within the structures of his thought. We have tried to examine 'three main issues' in order to get a general picture of what Paul has taught in relation to the question of the grace-responsibility tension. This enables us to ascertain whether Paul's teaching discloses a consistent pattern of thought, or whether it includes differences in emphasis of elements of discord. The total pattern of thought which emerges from this study is that two types of language are used in all these three problems; man must hold himself responsible to continue in the faith, but, if he does so, Paul often depicts their responsible action in terms of God's own action. But we also noticed that he applies language differently with reference to time and eternity. The ontological gap between time and eternity cannot be bridged by any human reasoning; it is 'methodologically' wrong to translate the relationship between God and men into a rigidly logical system in terms of God's absolute mode of action, because many unknown aspects of God's rule resist
Lee, Han-Soo
Philosophy
Divine Grace and the Christian life : a study of Paul's teaching on the tension between Divine Grace and human responsibility. This thesis is an attempt to identify the problems bound up with the grace-responsibility tension in Paul's writings and to point out their significance for understanding the Christian life within the structures of his thought. We have tried to examine 'three main issues' in order to get a general picture of what Paul has taught in relation to the question of the grace-responsibility tension. This enables us to ascertain whether Paul's teaching discloses a consistent pattern of thought, or whether it includes differences in emphasis of elements of discord. The total pattern of thought which emerges from this study is that two types of language are used in all these three problems; man must hold himself responsible to continue in the faith, but, if he does so, Paul often depicts their responsible action in terms of God's own action. But we also noticed that he applies language differently with reference to time and eternity. The ontological gap between time and eternity cannot be bridged by any human reasoning; it is 'methodologically' wrong to translate the relationship between God and men into a rigidly logical system in terms of God's absolute mode of action, because many unknown aspects of God's rule resist
divine grace christian_life study paul teach tension divine grace human responsibility attempt_identify problem bound grace responsibility tension paul writing point significance christian_life within structure think tried examine three_main issue order get general_picture paul taught relation question grace responsibility tension enables ascertain_whether paul teach consistent pattern think whether include difference emphasis element discord total pattern think emerges study two_type language_use problem man must hold_responsible continue faith paul often depict responsible action term god_action also applies language differently reference time eternity ontological gap time eternity bridge human reasoning methodologically wrong translate relationship god men rigidly logical system term god absolute mode action many unknown aspect god rule resist