Posts Tagged ‘grace’
Repentance, Grace and Gratitude
07
Oct
When we are able to meet the Other, forgive him and also
repent for what did not go well in this meeting, we find space in life for grace and gratitude, not by chance one is derivative of the other.
Gratitude does not exclude but overcomes bad feelings from our lives, excess positivity can also lead to demands and perfectionism that do not lead to an encounter, but the exclusion of the Other, tolerating small faults, which are often just differences, is necessary to attain grace, and grace when it comes to us must find gratitude.]
Many remember to ask for graces, when they don’t ask God, they ask some form of false mysticism or false gods, to find cosmic energies, which in fact exist, but will only have an ex-sistence if they are in front of the Being, the one who is and the one which has always been, after all, the most current theory in physics is that before the Big Bang there was already something, so something beyond this ex-sistence, a pure Being.
So a true philosophy of grace must lead to gratitude, it’s not just the Universe and luck that conspire, or even some “secret” that would be pure positivity, it can be illusory.
So gratitude removes feelings of evil and intolerance from our lives, includes people who are actually good and increases our potential for good virtues.
In the biblical passage where 10 lepers are healed, only one returns to thank Jesus,
When Jesus saw him, he asked where the others were (Lk 17:17-19): “Were not ten healed? And the other nine, where are they? 18 Has anyone returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19And he said to him, “Get up and go! Your faith has saved you.”
Ingratitude not only drives away grace, but explains its absence and the difficulty of living in environments of harmony, sincerity and peace.
Repentance, start over and grace
06
Oct
Repentance is not the same as remorse, it is linked to the past
and prevents a positive start, there is no awareness of guilt and a new state of grace is not achieved.
Grace is living life to the full, with the limits that life imposes on everyone, however repentant, you can compress the past strictly to what it was: a mistake, and live well the present and the future by overcoming an anguish that is inalienable responsibility for the fault or error committed.
To repent is to live intensely and truly in the present, even if some suffering or mark remains from the past, whoever took a step after that managed to start over.
Ludwig Feuerbach, best known for Marx’s Theses against his Hegelianism, called old Hegelianism, in his maturity wrote about remorse, his reading is important for the confrontation he makes both with Schopenhauer and with Kant.
Feuerbach recognizes the originality of the subject and proposes it in a broader scope of freedom, examining remorse and regret as conditions of imputability of an act,
In opposition to Schopenhauer, Feuerbach will affirm that the character of a man is not innate, nor unchangeable, that is why the death penalty is wrong, and here too, the discussion about the right of the Modern State on human life, an always controversial topic is important.
Against Schopenhauer, Feuerbach argues that man’s character is neither innate nor unchangeable, so the death penalty is mistaken.
The foundation of freedom is the self that acts in the game of passions and is essentially the relationship with the Other, which is widely explored in modern literature by Paul Ricoeur, Lèvinas and other authors, there is a phenomenological resumption of this issue.
The suggestions in the moral and legal field are essentially in relation to this relationship with others, and the suggestions in these fields are particularly interesting, but ethical questions remain, such as that of the absolute foundation of moral obligation, which is posed in Kant in the explanation of the which is moral conscience.
This discussion expands in some authors to the field of sensitivity (SERRAO, 2007) and mysticism (TOMASONI, 2010), where the issue of grace can be included more broadly, adding the recognition of grace where there is repentance and a new beginning.
References:
Adriana Veríssimo SERRÃO (2007). Pensar a sensibilidade. Baumgarten – Kant – Feuerbach, Lisboa, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, PT: Lisbon.
TOMASONI, Francesco (2010). Tra misticismo e scienza: l’uomo e la sua ‘sensibilità’ nell’Eklektik, in: L’umanesimo scientifico dal Rinascimento all’Illuminismo, a cura di Lorenzo Bianchi e Gianni Paganini, IT: Napoli.
