Monday, March 21, 2005

Kierkegaard and Purity of Heart

In his recent book, Dr. Sam Storms quoted from Soren Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. I haven't read it, but from the passage quoted in the front of his book, I'm pretty sure that I disagree.

I do so because no one wills one thing. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." [Gal. 5:17] Every one wills more than one thing (even God), but everyone also wills one thing most. God is not willing that any man should perish, yet many of us will--because God has a higher will (for the Arminian, the higher will is that men choose him without his intervention, for the Calvinist, the higher will is that God aims to display the full range of his character in the next age: both justice and wrath on the vessels of wrath, and grace, kindness, and mercy on the vessels of mercy--but either way, there are two wills in God in operation). Surely God is the 'wholly other' example of purity of heart?

I submit that purity of heart is not to will one thing, but to will the correct thing, most. Kierkegaard was no doubt a smart and devout man--smarter and more devout that I am--but I don't think he got this right. Romans 7 may also be in support of this.

So, I think purity of heart is to will the correct thing most.

just a thought.

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