Monday, November 14, 2005
 | You scored as Augustine. You have a big view of God and also take human sin and depravity very seriously. Predestination is important for you.
Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com |
Okay, so they lied. I don't really take predestination all that seriously. I'm not even quite sure I know where I stand on that whole issue. So, I got Augustine! Yeah! But only to find out I'm not a good Augustinian.
Um, so anyone else think it weird that a man from North Africa is portrayed with a white beard, green eyes, and European facial-features? I mean, I could be wrong, I didn't live back then, but I've always pictured him less... White.
Comments:
That looks like a painting from the middle(ish) ages and therefore I think the theme they ran with is that black=evil and white=good, though probably not meaning it in a racist sense (?). I remember something about that from college, also he is darker than, say, most of the paintings of saints from that period. the shadows in his face definetly appear to be of a darker tone of skin - perhaps God's reverence is shining out of him? But you are right, I have always thought of him as less white as well...
Of course whenever I think of Augustine I always wonder how we got from 'no sin after baptism or else you can never go to heaven' to 'original sin requires infant baptism or you can never go to heaven' - I should have studied that more...
10lees
Of course whenever I think of Augustine I always wonder how we got from 'no sin after baptism or else you can never go to heaven' to 'original sin requires infant baptism or you can never go to heaven' - I should have studied that more...
10lees
# posted by 
: 11/16/2005 12:17 PM
: 11/16/2005 12:17 PM
I'm curious about that, too.
Brian, (my sem friend) any ideas?
-Laura
P.S. Brian, meet 10lee (friend from college). 10lee, meet Brian (friend from where I live now).
Brian, (my sem friend) any ideas?
-Laura
P.S. Brian, meet 10lee (friend from college). 10lee, meet Brian (friend from where I live now).
Between black lung disease and prelim exams (and we're not at all sure which one is worse), I suspect that Ultimate Brian is out of commission for a while. (Translation: Brian, quit spending your precious time reading blogs and get back to exam prep and/or sleeping!)
Which ought to prompt me to step up to the plate and try to take one for the team, except that I don't know the answer. I'd have to check with one of my friends who has some expertise in Early Christianity, as opposed to just dabbling in it enough to be dangerous. I'll try to make this one of my cocktail party questions at the American Academy of Religion this weekend and see what those other scholars come up with.
So I'll just say, Gee, that's a REALLY GOOD QUESTION! My hunch is that it had something to do with the church taking a few centuries to work out the correlation between its worship practices and the theology it used to explain them. Just as the doctrine of the Trinity came to be articulated from the church's need to explain to itself how it was that it worshipped Jesus as Lord and yet held to the Jewish profession that there is only One God, the understanding of the relationship between sin and baptism got worked out as the church observed its own various practices of Christian initiation and reflected on both the teaching of the Bible and the experience of living the Christian life (complete with the annoying reality of sin after baptism, no matter how hard you tried to be good). I doubt that there was a straight line from deathbed baptism (with its attendant theological justifications) to infant baptism (with its attendant theological justifications); more likely both practices co-existed in the church from the earliest times, subject to much wrangling over which was more faithful and why. You can see the tension in the life and writings of Augustine himself.
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Which ought to prompt me to step up to the plate and try to take one for the team, except that I don't know the answer. I'd have to check with one of my friends who has some expertise in Early Christianity, as opposed to just dabbling in it enough to be dangerous. I'll try to make this one of my cocktail party questions at the American Academy of Religion this weekend and see what those other scholars come up with.
So I'll just say, Gee, that's a REALLY GOOD QUESTION! My hunch is that it had something to do with the church taking a few centuries to work out the correlation between its worship practices and the theology it used to explain them. Just as the doctrine of the Trinity came to be articulated from the church's need to explain to itself how it was that it worshipped Jesus as Lord and yet held to the Jewish profession that there is only One God, the understanding of the relationship between sin and baptism got worked out as the church observed its own various practices of Christian initiation and reflected on both the teaching of the Bible and the experience of living the Christian life (complete with the annoying reality of sin after baptism, no matter how hard you tried to be good). I doubt that there was a straight line from deathbed baptism (with its attendant theological justifications) to infant baptism (with its attendant theological justifications); more likely both practices co-existed in the church from the earliest times, subject to much wrangling over which was more faithful and why. You can see the tension in the life and writings of Augustine himself.
