Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Summary of My Book.

I'm finally finished editing and now I'm writing book proposals.  Here's a short explanation of the premise of my book for Eerdmans.  I thought you all might find it interesting.
 

"The basic premise of the book is that the biblical category of promise is central to Lutheran understanding of the person and work of Christ.  The speech-act of promise is always an act of self-donation.  A person who unilaterally promises to perform a particular act is now bound to take a particular series of actions to fulfill that promise.  Therefore, by engaging in the speech-act of promise, the individual promisor effectively donates his or her person to the recipient whom he performs these actions in the service of.  Because Scripture tells us that God’s promises stand at the heart of his relationship to creation, the divine-human relationship is fundamentally one of self-donation and human receptivity.  The original narrative of creation is one in which creation passively receives the divine Word’s act of unilateral giving.  Narrative is constitutive of the ontic ground of creation.  Therefore, at its most fundamental ontological level, creation is rooted in the narrative of the first seven days wherein God gracious speaks it forth through an act of fiat.  Humanity falls when it becomes alienated from this narrative and accepts an alternative false narration of reality based on self-deification and self-justification.  This disrupts the passive relationship of humans to God of giving and receiving, and brings about the condemnation of the law.  Redemption is constituted by a divine promise of salvation being given to the first humans in the form of the protevangelium.  As a new and effective word of grace, the promise of a savior begins the process of redemption within which God speaks forth a new narrative of creation.  In this new narrative, God gives himself in an even deeper manner to humanity.  By donating himself through a promise first to the protological humanity and then to Israel, he binds himself to them. This commitment and self-donation grows ever greater throughout the history of salvation to the point that God finally becomes human in act of total surrender.  Through this, God enters into the condemnation of the law, neutralizes it in the cross, and brings about a new creation through his omnipotent word of promise actualized in the resurrection.  Just as the old creation was ontologically grounded in the narrative of the first seven days, the new creation is ontologically grounded in Christ’s new narrative of death and resurrection."

6 comments:

  1. Interesting but you are soaring way over this pew dweller's head.

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  2. Interesting indeed! I've reserved my VISA for final publication (hopefully, before Symposia so I may obtain a signature copy). Congratulations.
    Pax,
    Dennis

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  3. "Therefore, by engaging in the speech-act of promise, the individual promisor effectively donates his or her person to the recipient whom he performs these actions in the service of."

    This statement should be made simpler in the saying of.

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  4. Carl, my wife mentioned the same thing. It has been corrected. Again, thanks for the interest everyone. I'm sending two chapters and the final draft of the proposal today into Eerdmans. Pray for me!!

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  5. Right on. I appreciate greatly your stress on the Triune God. It is this inner relationship which becomes evident not only in creation and preservation, but also in recreation. Further it also becomes apparent in male/female interaction as Paul points out in Ephesians 5.
    Blessings to you and yours. Jakob Heckert

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  6. I seriously would not be without this novel and want to share to anyone I know!


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