Thursday, January 9, 2014

Erasmus vs Twitter

I am reading John P Dolan's "The Essential Erasmus"














Unfortunately, I usually sound like Dolan's description of  Erasmus' contemporaries on twitter:
While most of the men of his time, in their relations with others and especially in their controversial writings, were concerned with proving to the world that their adversaries were wrong, or wicked, or heretical, Erasmus ever sensitive to the human situation, was concerned with winning others to piety and to Christ.

Conversely, I aspire to receive the critique Martin Luther gave to Erasmus' "Bondage of the Will" (De Servo Arbitrio):
You have checked my zeal for battle and drained my strength before the fight began.  This was due to two things: first, your skill in debate, for you discuss the matter throughout with quite remarkable restraint, by which you have prevented my wrath waxing hot against you.















Dolan then launches into what is presumably is theological humor:
While St. Paul did not scruple to quote from the poets, there is nothing in his works that smacks of Aristotle or Averroes. More seriously [was previous sentence supposed to be a joke?], dialectical theologians are led to distort the meaning of Scripture to suit their own constructions, sometimes going to absurd lengths.


















I'm not certain if dialectal theology is code for liberation theology which is code for Marxism. If so might agree with Dolan's condemnation of them.


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