Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope
We are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness
There are no simple congruities in life or history. The cult of happiness erroneously assumes them. It is possible to soften the incongruities of life endlessly by the scientific conquest of nature’s caprices, and the social and political triumph over historic injustice. But all such strategies cannot finally overcome the fragmentary character of human existence. The final wisdom of life requires, not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own,; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
by Reinhold Niebuhr
(June 21, 1892 -June 1, 1971)
from The Irony of American History
chapter: Prosperity and Virtue
image – peasap
October 28th, 2009 at 6:17 am
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October 28th, 2009 at 7:45 am
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