Theological Question
Posted on | July 21, 2012 | 15 Comments
by Smitty
In a 2010 NYT editorial “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change“, Al Gore said:
From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.
The Apostle Paul:
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;–Romans 3:23
Question:
Through what mechanism do individual sinners, forming a government, achieve that which they cannot accomplish individually?
Related: The Parable of the Misguided Tea Partier
Comments
15 Responses to “Theological Question”
THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD
This spot rotates to honor those who link us in shameless obedience to Rule 2 of "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog."
HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!
Search
Recent Posts
- For the Benefit of Nate Silver (and Anyone Else Who Has Just Now Discovered How Selfish and Dishonest Joe Biden Really Is)
- In The Mailbox: 12.02.24
- Rule 5 Sunday: Cheerful Bikini
- The Dumbest Take on the 2024 Election
- FMJRA 2.0: Roster Like A Hole
- Are Democrats Starting to Get a Clue?
- In The Mailbox: 11.29.24 (Black Friday Evening Edition)
- In The Mailbox: 11.29.24 (Belated Thanksgiving Turkey Coma Edition)
- Democrats: Please Do Not Listen to Advice From This Attractive Young Woman
- Happy Thanksgiving to All!
Click here to manage your email subscription options.
RSS reader subscription
MEMEORANDUM
Recent Comments
- Election Results 2024: Prepared for a Night of Agony … But for Whom? : The Other McCain on Georgia: How’s ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ Working?
- And, Stacey Adam’s is Still Race-Pimping…… | If You are Left you ain't Right on Georgia: How’s ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ Working?
- Goodbye, Blue Monday | Animal Magnetism on Rule 5 Sunday: Pre-Coffee Lounging
- FMJRA 2.0: No Expansion This Year : The Other McCain on Can We Stay Sane a Few More Days? (Also: Has Trump Always Been Winning?)
- FMJRA 2.0: No Expansion This Year : The Other McCain on FMJRA 2.0: Preparing for the Winter Meetings
THE AMAZING GONZO FEED
Major Leagues
ADVERTISEMENT
Axis of Fedorables
- All-American Girl for the Restoration of Values
- Allergic to Bull
- Cat House Chat
- Chris Cassone
- Conservative Daily News
- DaTechGuy
- Fishersville Mike
- Girl on the Right
- Haemet
- Hogewash
- Just A Conservative Girl
- Marooned in Marin
- Paco Enterprises
- Sissy 'put moi in your blogroll' Willis
- So It Goes In Shreveport
- SWAC Girl
- The (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely Conservative
- The Camp of the Saints
- The World's Youngest Blogger
- Uncoverage
- VA Right
AMAZING SAVINGS NOW!
Archives
- December 2024 (5)
- November 2024 (44)
- October 2024 (47)
- September 2024 (43)
- August 2024 (55)
- July 2024 (63)
- June 2024 (59)
- May 2024 (48)
- April 2024 (43)
- March 2024 (55)
- February 2024 (46)
- January 2024 (45)
- December 2023 (53)
- November 2023 (62)
- October 2023 (57)
- September 2023 (56)
- August 2023 (53)
- July 2023 (69)
- June 2023 (67)
- May 2023 (53)
- April 2023 (60)
- March 2023 (73)
- February 2023 (65)
- January 2023 (56)
- December 2022 (60)
- November 2022 (64)
- October 2022 (58)
- September 2022 (68)
- August 2022 (75)
- July 2022 (69)
- June 2022 (73)
- May 2022 (74)
- April 2022 (57)
- March 2022 (79)
- February 2022 (65)
- January 2022 (58)
- December 2021 (62)
- November 2021 (68)
- October 2021 (73)
- September 2021 (63)
- August 2021 (60)
- July 2021 (80)
- June 2021 (64)
- May 2021 (64)
- April 2021 (58)
- March 2021 (73)
- February 2021 (57)
- January 2021 (71)
- December 2020 (77)
- November 2020 (81)
- October 2020 (84)
- September 2020 (94)
- August 2020 (75)
- July 2020 (68)
- June 2020 (83)
- May 2020 (77)
- April 2020 (65)
- March 2020 (85)
- February 2020 (94)
- January 2020 (95)
- December 2019 (88)
- November 2019 (60)
- October 2019 (113)
- September 2019 (91)
- August 2019 (91)
- July 2019 (88)
- June 2019 (80)
- May 2019 (74)
- April 2019 (97)
- March 2019 (100)
- February 2019 (85)
- January 2019 (93)
- December 2018 (90)
- November 2018 (83)
- October 2018 (96)
- September 2018 (79)
- August 2018 (107)
- July 2018 (98)
- June 2018 (86)
- May 2018 (78)
- April 2018 (78)
- March 2018 (97)
- February 2018 (61)
- January 2018 (70)
- December 2017 (62)
- November 2017 (68)
- October 2017 (67)
- September 2017 (70)
- August 2017 (68)
- July 2017 (52)
- June 2017 (60)
- May 2017 (56)
- April 2017 (80)
- March 2017 (80)
- February 2017 (102)
- January 2017 (104)
- December 2016 (65)
- November 2016 (86)
- October 2016 (77)
- September 2016 (81)
- August 2016 (66)
- July 2016 (83)
- June 2016 (81)
- May 2016 (65)
- April 2016 (64)
- March 2016 (81)
- February 2016 (74)
- January 2016 (66)
- December 2015 (64)
- November 2015 (85)
- October 2015 (71)
- September 2015 (80)
- August 2015 (67)
- July 2015 (79)
- June 2015 (69)
- May 2015 (72)
- April 2015 (94)
- March 2015 (122)
- February 2015 (71)
- January 2015 (93)
- December 2014 (99)
- November 2014 (67)
- October 2014 (109)
- September 2014 (87)
- August 2014 (106)
- July 2014 (132)
- June 2014 (154)
- May 2014 (126)
- April 2014 (145)
- March 2014 (144)
- February 2014 (142)
- January 2014 (185)
- December 2013 (192)
- November 2013 (174)
- October 2013 (175)
- September 2013 (181)
- August 2013 (172)
- July 2013 (147)
- June 2013 (135)
- May 2013 (128)
- April 2013 (105)
- March 2013 (162)
- February 2013 (191)
- January 2013 (206)
- December 2012 (190)
- November 2012 (176)
- October 2012 (240)
- September 2012 (206)
- August 2012 (235)
- July 2012 (223)
- June 2012 (161)
- May 2012 (230)
- April 2012 (269)
- March 2012 (282)
- February 2012 (247)
- January 2012 (267)
- December 2011 (285)
- November 2011 (300)
- October 2011 (302)
- September 2011 (297)
- August 2011 (288)
- July 2011 (297)
- June 2011 (245)
- May 2011 (260)
- April 2011 (344)
- March 2011 (293)
- February 2011 (201)
- January 2011 (263)
- December 2010 (265)
- November 2010 (266)
- October 2010 (305)
- September 2010 (280)
- August 2010 (272)
- July 2010 (230)
- June 2010 (244)
- May 2010 (256)
- April 2010 (222)
- March 2010 (271)
- February 2010 (286)
- January 2010 (229)
- December 2009 (21)
- October 2009 (1)
Free Agents
SHAMELESS CAPITALISM
The Other McCain is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for this blog to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Triple-A Franchises
- All-American Blogger
- American Power
- Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
- Athens & Jerusalem
- Barney Quick
- Bartholomew's Notes On Religion
- BatesLine
- Bear Creek Ledger
- Bearsears Patriots
- Blog de KingShamus
- Bride of Rove
- Cold Fury
- Daily Pundit
- Dr. Helen
- I Own The World
- Legal Insurrection
- Moe Lane
- No Runny Eggs
- Obi`s Sister
- Protein Wisdom
- Rhetorican
- Small Dead Animals
- The Conservatory
- The People's Cube
- The Sundries Shack
- VodkaPundit
- Vox Day
- Zilla of the Resistance
Blogroll
- 90 Miles From Tyranny
- A Conservative Shemale
- A Point of View
- Adrienne's Corner
- AmSpec Blog
- Bad Blue
- Blazing Cat Fur
- Calvin Freiburger Online
- Carol's Closet
- Catholic Bandita
- Caught Him With A Corndog
- Cecil Calvert
- Common Cents
- Conservative Hideout
- Conservative Watch News
- Conservatives for America
- Conservatives For Palin
- Crazy For Liberty
- Dad 29
- DC Damsel
- Dr. Flap
- Dyspepsia Generation
- Effing Conservatives
- Election Dissection
- Eric Reasons, IT Genius
- Eye of Polyphemus
- Finding Ponies. . .
- Free Will
- Grandpa John's
- Granite Grok
- GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD
- Hoosier Access
- John William Perry
- Judicial Watch
- Jumping in Pools
- KURU Lounge
- Laughing Conservative
- Makes My Brain Itch
- Marathon Pundit
- Martin Eisenstadt's Blog
- Media Fade
- Michael Leahy
- Mister Pterodactyl
- Naked Villainy
- Nice Deb
- noot's observatory
- Not One Red Cent
- Okrahead
- Ollieander
- Pileus
- Pinup Girl
- Point of a Gun
- Political Pit Bull
- Reaganite Republican Resistance
- Red Alexandria
- Red State Eclectic
- Red, White & Conservative
- Republican Redefined
- ResCon1
- Ric's Rulez
- Ricochet
- Right of Course
- Robipedia
- Robomonkey
- Ruby Slippers Blog
- Saberpoint
- Scared Monkeys
- Sentry Journal
- SI VIS PACEM
- Skepticrats
- Smash Mouth Politics
- Sooper Mexican
- Taking Hayek Seriously
- Tel-Chai Nation
- Tequila & Javalinas
- The Aged P
- The Classic Liberal
- The Izzy Report
- The Minority Leader
- The NeoSexist
- The Nose on Your Face
- The Republican Mother
- The Right Sphere
- The Saint Angilbert Press
- The Snooper Report
- The Underground Conservative
- Thunder Tales
- Tom McLaughlin
- Tory Anarchist
- TrogloPundit
- Vets On The Watch
- Watcher of Weasels
- Western Experience
- World's Only Rational Man
- WyBlog
- Yankee Phil
- Zingstrom's Blog
July 21st, 2012 @ 8:02 am
By people being sacrificed on the altar of hope and change otherwise known as the big lie and crony capitalism perpetrated by their self proclaimed betters; the liberal establishment and it’s minions.
It doesn’t matter if lives are destroyed and dreams dashed. What matters is that liberals feel good about themselves and wreak vengeance on the right for telling the truth and exposing the liberals’ hypocrisy.
July 21st, 2012 @ 8:09 am
Clearly Gore isn’t interested in his own redemption. It’s everyone else’s redemption that he can’t accomplish without the power of the state.
July 21st, 2012 @ 8:37 am
Our current, but eroding, rule of law is based on Biblical Law and came from the western church. Our founders instituted an environment where our supreme law was a simple set of rules to keep the government from trespassing on our rights and the canons of law that emanated from that document were the written rules where we were restrained from trespassing on each others rights.
They did this because none of us can be trusted with unfettered power over our neighbor.
This created an environment of freedom that spurred people to continuous civil acts and action to make a better place for each subsequent generation.
And that’s how you do it.
July 21st, 2012 @ 9:23 am
After wading through the source of the Al Gore quote, I would have to say that the way it’s being used here is taking it somewhat out of context. Keep in mind that before he used that phrase, he’d already written some 1700 words or so. He was in his muse and waxing poetic. I can imagine that a feeling of messianic triumph swelled within him, infusing his very being with the same sensation that has been felt by every demagogue who ever successfully incited a riot. As he wrote that redemption phrase, he didn’t think of it in the traditional sense: [all have sinned] He was thinking that our very success in and of itself is the sin. Therefore our “redemption” would come by undoing all of that success.
No doubt as he penned his final few paragraphs he imagined himself standing on some mountain-top while the adoring crowd screamed their adoration while chanting his name. I can picture him dotting the final period and then quietly muttering what for twelve years has been his Tourette syndrome-like mantra: “Stupid Bush.”
July 21st, 2012 @ 9:29 am
A progressive bringing redemption into the debate isn’t the least bit credible. After all, one of the few principles they find and agree to within the founding concepts is the idea of separation of church and state. And who exactly grants the redemption in his eyes? Gore himself? The elected class as a whole (Caesar)?
I doubt he was remotely serious, rather just grasping at alternative emotions to capitalize upon and salvage his atrophying campaign. After all redemption, in the biblical sense, most often is a lifelong endeavor and achieved only when full atonement (all sins) is reached. Surely even Gore would never admit that all the collective/government rules and laws were worthy, were he seriously contemplating a Christian view of redemption. I won’t even mention the “A” word….
July 21st, 2012 @ 9:33 am
Law that people flout are laws that encourage lawlessness and seduce us to greater evil.
July 21st, 2012 @ 9:48 am
No, Progressives are quite serious about redemption, but not in the Biblical sense. They don’t want to separate Church and State, but replace the Church with State.
July 21st, 2012 @ 10:48 am
So, you’re saying he ‘got carried away’?
I’d have bought ‘instrument of human improvement’, but redemption, like marriage, retains a clearly defined meaning, despite the efforts of various liars to make an invariant into a variable.
July 21st, 2012 @ 11:55 am
Perhaps. But in your context progressives are neither following a religious nor a Webster definition of redemption. The only concept I see that could be used as a replacement (from a progressive viewpoint) is conformity. In other words, through progressive conformity comes ideological purity, which leads to a secular version of salvation. Not exactly redemption. But, again, I find the use…….no, I mean the “leveraging” of the term redemption by Gore or any hard core progressive to be out of place. Incongruous with every other aspect of progressive ideology. I’m not implying they are by definition godless, rather they by definition want anything associated with God and religion to be isolated and on the margin. Certainly progressives want God in any context fully removed from not only government but also from the public. Or is the collective a better word in place of public??
July 21st, 2012 @ 12:32 pm
I think they’re full of it, too, but this is really how they think. Don’t immanentize my eschaton, man.
July 21st, 2012 @ 2:18 pm
Dude, they believe in god-kings. They don’t believe in Separation of Church and State. They believe in Separation of the Christ and the State/People/Nation/Person.
July 21st, 2012 @ 2:19 pm
This is not to say you can’t be a Christian and a Lefty, but the basic thrust of Leftism is anti-Christian, I suspect.
July 21st, 2012 @ 2:27 pm
They’re anti-anything that conflicts with the totalitarian state. Religion, liberty, logic.
July 21st, 2012 @ 4:34 pm
Ahh…so you too can see the fnords!
July 21st, 2012 @ 7:19 pm
If one’s theology is based upon the Abrahamic religions, then no, nothing man does individually or collectively redeems the evil and its consequences within man.
If one’s theology is based upon the conceit of being too intelligent to believe in the supernatural, then logically man has no need of redemption. There is no evil or good as these are perceptions. Actions therefore take on a teflon coating that easily sheds the perceptions of good and evil. Essentially: anything goes because there are no eternal consequences, only the tragedy of living.
If one’s theology is based upon the conceit of each person’s soul being capable of attaining godlike power, knowledge, and station- with this corporeal body being a chrysalis-crucible, then evil and good are not perceptions, but defined by each god-fetus. By defining evil and good, the god-fetus will self-justify all its actions as “good” and those actions with which it disagrees as “evil.”
Those who follow the second path always follow those who follow the third path in order to deny themselves the possibility of openess to the first path. The second path lacks the intelligence to consider the first path, and are in awe of the ability of the third path to define evil and good away from the chains of Abrahamic ethics.