Origen on the distinction between letter and spirit

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"We maintain that the law has a twofold interpretation, one literal and the other spiritual, as was also taught by some of our predecessors. And it is not so much we as God, speaking in one of the prophets, who described the law literally understood as 'judgments that are not good' and 'statutes that are not good'; and in the same prophet God is represented as saying that the law spiritually understood is 'judgments that are good' and 'statutes that are good'." (Con. Cel. VII,20)

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Nein!(?) A negative "point of contact" in the Epistle to Diognetus?

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Billede
Still working on The Epistle to Diognetus , which keeps making associations to modern theology pop up. This time it's Karl Barth's debate with Emil Brunner. Consider the epistle's claim that, “[...]being convicted in the past time by our own deeds as unworthy of life, we might now be made deserving by the goodness of God, and having made clear our inability to enter into the kingdom of God of ourselves, might be enabled by the ability of God.” (9.1, Lightfoot) and “Having then in the former time demonstrated the inability of our nature to obtain life, and having now revealed a Saviour able to save even creatures which have no ability, He willed that for both reasons we should believe in His goodness[...]” (9.6, Lightfoot) If by 'dialectical theology' we mean that God's 'yes' and 'no' are inseparable (Tillich), this is certainly a specimen of such. The two elements, negative and positive, come together in faith (in an Aufhebung! ), or? A
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