By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
In what sense is Niebuhr right that there is "a resource of divine mercy which is able to overcome a contradiction within our own souls, which we cannot ourselves overcome"?
Niebuhr is right about this in a twofold sense:
(1) that, notwithstanding the contradiction throughout our lives, the grace of God pardons, forgives, and so "justifies" us; and
(2) that God's grace is also a power that heals the contradiction, and so "sanctifies" us.
Spring 1999