Repaying God?
[The Psalmist asks:] What return shall I make to the Lord? (Ps 115:12). What does this mean? It means “repay”. Repay for what? For all that he has given to me. What has he given to me? I was once nothing, and he made me. I was lost, and he looked for me. Looking for me, he found me. I was a captive, and he bought me back. I had been sold, and he freed me. I had been a slave, and he made me a brother. What return shall I make to the Lord? You don’t have anything you can give in return. When you await everything from him, what do you have to give in return? …. Why does the Psalmist ask, What return shall I make to the Lord for all he has given me? Looking all over for something to give him in return, he seems to find something. What does he find? I will take up the cup of salvation. You were thinking of giving something in return, and you still desire to take. Please, look: If you still desire to take, you will still be a debtor; when will you be able to give something back? If you will always be a debtor, when will you give something back? You won’t find anything; unless he gives it, you won’t have it. (Augustine, Sermon 254, 6; PL 28, 1184-85)
JAK –
Augustine asks, ” What does this mean?” Is it typical of Augustine to ask this question explicitly? Wittgenstein, who was greatly influenced by Augustine, constantly asked this question and changed the course of philosophy with it. I wonder if he got the habit of asking it from Augustine.
Ann:
Yes, Augustine asks that question often, drawing his congregation into his theme, the way a good teacher would. (I wonder how much of his sermons that congregation in Hippo really comprehended.)
The quotation from Augustine I gave in an earlier post–”Woe to those who do not speak of you when those who speak most say nothing”–I read somewhere was quoted by Wittgenstein at the beginning of one of his books. In another one, however, he was severely criticsl of Augustine’s description of the child’s acquisition of language in the “Confessions”.
For lack of a better place to post this, I am half-way through a book I mentioned before and for which Fr. K. is a prominent contributer. I highly recommend it for your post-Lenten reading:
Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?
Is not Augustine’s language here the language of reciprocity that is grounded in the Greco-Roman friendship tradition: “do ut dos,” I give in order to receive? What is interesting about early Christianity in this regard is the need to cancel the reciprocity ethic in order for Christians of differing social statuses to share fellowship (notable in Paul and Luke-Acts), which would have been otherwise prohibited by the larger society around them.
In relation to God, this becomes a major problem. You were supposed to give back “in kind”, but who could repay the Lord? The alternative was to give honor and praise.
The value for us today: on the vertical level praise and honor of God is all we can do to repay what God has done for us. On the horizontal level, those who have more must share with those who are without, and not expect anything in return.
Yes, in relation to the gift, we are always debtors because we cannot reciprocate in kind. We do what we can do. What better meditation for Holy Week?
After that Augustine quote at the very beginning of “Philosophical Investigations”, Wittgenstein immediately notes that Augustine is assuming there that there is only *one kind* of word — names. The rest of Wittgenstein’s career was devoted to showing that there are many different kinds of words and uses of words. But he did respect Augustine highly. He quotes him in at least a couple of other places in PI..
I keep thinking that Wittgenstein’s illuminations of the various meanings and uses of words could contribute greatly to an understanding of Jesus as “the Word”. What does that *mean*??