← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Avalanche
Thread ID: 4633 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-01-27
2003-01-27 04:36 | User Profile
From: Why Shakespeare Is For All Time by Theodore Dalrymple
.... Shakespeare knew something that we are increasingly loath to acknowledge. There is no technical fix for the problems of humanity. .... Shakespeare no less than Solzhenitsyn understood the role of agents provocateur and entrapment in tyrannies. .... By depriving Macbeth of any particular predilection for evil that is not common to all men, and by denying him every possible circumstance that might justify or occasion his actions, Shakespeare excavates down to the line between good and evil that runs through every human heart, to use a phrase from The Gulag Archipelago that contradicts Solzhenitsynââ¬â¢s faintly dismissive estimate of Shakepeareââ¬â¢s evil characters. He writes: ââ¬ÅGradually it was disclosed to me [in the Gulag] that the line separating good from evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties eitherââ¬âbut right through every human heartââ¬âand through all human hearts.ââ¬Â And it is Shakespeare who shows us this line.
But he does more. He shows us not only how easily that line is crossed, even by someone without an excuse or a special propensity to do so, but what the consequences are of crossing it. And in showing us that the line is always there, easily and disastrously crossed, Shakespeare destroys the utopian illusion that social arrangements can be made so perfect that men will no longer have to strive to be good. Original sinââ¬âthat is to say, the sin of having been born with human nature that contains within it the temptation to evilââ¬âwill always make a mockery of attempts at perfection based upon manipulation of the environment. The prevention of evil will always require more than desirable social arrangements: it will forever require personal self-control and the conscious limitation of appetites. ....
Go read the whole thing!! [url=http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_oh_to_be.html]http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_oh_to_be.html[/url]
2003-01-27 04:51 | User Profile
Avalanche, thanks for sharing this wonderful Protestant viewpoint with us!
2003-01-28 00:42 | User Profile
The ideas can be seen as broadly Christian, however many Catholics believe that struggle with evil can stop for some in this life--the saints. Protestants emphasize more human depravitiy, and the never ending nature of struggle with evil.
I am pretty clear on the religious beliefs of the various individuals you mention, but thanks for trying to clear things up.
2003-01-28 04:26 | User Profile
Initially, the acceptance of grace only brings salvation. Become santified is a struggle. The old self is crucified with Christ, but its husk remains within. It's sting is always potentially felt. This is the view of Luther, Calvin, etc.
Where Lutherans and Calvinists tend to is on the question of whether the struggle will is one in which the believer can fail. The Calvinist will claim that the true believer cannot fail--but this still does not mean it is not a struggle. The Lutheran will tend to hold that the believer could potentially reject grace, and lose the struggle.