Saturday, February 19, 2011

Alasdair MacIntyre's Flawed Critique of Capitalism

Robert T. Miller has a great article in the February 2011 First Things entitled "Waiting for St. Vladimir" in which he critiques Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of capitalism. (It is not available online except by subscription so I can't link to it.)

I have taught MacIntyre's great book After Virtue (hereafter AV) in my Christianity and Culture class for the last 7 or 8 years and I have greatly profited by reading and re-reading it. Like Miller, I revere MacIntyre as one of the greatest living philosophers and I think AV is one of the great books of the 20th century. It amazes me how lucid and engaging it is compared to some of MacIntyre's other books, which leave me cold and bored.

But AV is a story and a corker at that. It is the story of how we got to the point where, as a culture, we can no longer articulate coherent reasons for moral positions and are thus left drifting aimlessly along with no way to resolve moral disagreements other than by force. It seems clear that a culture in this predicament faces the alternatives of collapsing or embracing tyranny. And that is a lot of insight to get from one 300 page book.

I completely resonate with him when Miller calls MacIntyre one of his "intellectual heroes" and so Miller's criticism of MacIntyre is not based on any desire to undermine MacIntyre's ethics in general or to discredit him as a Christian philosopher. I believe MacIntyre is right about so many things that it pains me to find him wrong at one very important point. For the past several years now, in my final lecture on AV I have had to point out that MacIntyre seems to be somewhat naive about Marxism and Capitalism insofar as he seems to think that the Marxist critique of Capitalism is valid even though Marxism itself has been completely discredited. Miller explains the root of MacIntyre's critique of Capitalism and thus throw light on this puzzling position of MacIntyre's.

Miller describes a lecture given by MacIntyre at Cambridge in the summer of 2010 on the financial crisis of 2007-08 in which MacIntyre reiterated his anti-Capitalist views and expounded on them. Miller points to the classical Marxist theory of surplus value as the foundation of MacIntyre's argument. Miller writes:
"Following classical Marxist theory, MacIntyre defines surplus value as 'the difference between what the labor of productive workers earns in wages and what capitalists receive for the products of that labor' - that is, the difference between the value of the goods produced by a firm and the amount paid in the aggregate to its workers. Capitalists appropriate this difference and so exploit labor." (38)
MacIntyre argues that capitalists are caught in the dilemma of wanting to maximize profits by minimizing wages, on the one hand, and needing consumers with buying power to purchase the goods, on the other. Capitalism solves this dilemma by inventing credit, what he terms "the infliction of debt." (38) In creating the necessary financial products to facilitate debt, capitalists transferred a high amount of risk to unsuspecting individuals without explaining what was going on and thus caused a debt crisis.

Miller points out that if MacIntrye is right, the only solution is not regulation but revolution. The whole system is rotten morally and must be replaced. So we are not waiting for a new St. Benedict, but for a new St. Vladimir (as in Lenin). In the 1995 preface to his 1953 book Marxism and Christianity, "MacIntyre mentions 'relatively small-scale and local communities' such as certain ancient cities, medieval communes, and 'modern cooperative farming and fishing enterprises.'" He claims that in such communities the uses of power and wealth are subordinated to the goods internal to communal practices. While it is not clear in AV, Miller observes that "the local communities in which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained" that MacIntyre mentions in AV's conclusion turn out to be economic communities.

As Miller observes, the Marxist theory of surplus value is rejected by most economists today. Theologians and philosophers, apparently, have not all received the memo as yet, however.

Why is the theory wrong? It is because the value of goods is determined by all the inputs into the production process and not merely the labor of human beings alone. It depends on the cost of raw materials, plant and equipment, patents and technology and other inputs. Workers are entitled not to the entire value of the goods produced, but only to the portion of the value of the goods due to their efforts. Owners of capital deserve the portion of the value of the goods attributable to the capital.

Miller points out that MacIntyre's argument is implausible. For one thing, capitalists are not really able to set wages at any level they want because of stiff competition from other firms who compete for the services of workers. Wages set in a competitive environment are fair.

MacIntyre speaks as if all capitalists functioned as a collectivity, when in reality they are competing against each other. As Miller points out, capitalism has produced, through this kind of competition, a greater equality of wealth and income than any other system in history. Even workers are investors (capitalists) in contemporary societies. Most large companies are publicly traded and owned partially by workers. Workers invest their retirement savings in mutual funds, which invest in companies.

Credit products like mortgages exist because they meet a need, not because capitalists scheme to inflict debt on unsuspecting workers. A young couple thus can buy a house when their children are young, rather than waiting until the children are grown.

Miller is clear that capitalism is not perfect. But the costs of the capitalist system are less than those of the alternatives. All that need be claimed is that it is the least imperfect system in a fallen world; no Utopianism is required. Thus, as Miller says, an attack on capitalism is really an attack on poor people, who have been most helped by capitalism.

MacIntyre admits that capitalism has generated more material prosperity than any other system but is still unjust because of the surplus theory of value. But this theory is simply false.

Miller may well get to a deeper reason why MacIntyre thinks capitalism is evil when he notes that MacIntyre, following Aristotle, thinks that all communities have a purpose and that since capitalism is so good at generating wealth that must be its purpose. However, Miller argues that capitalism exists not to facilitate any particular purpose but rather to facilitate the attainment of the goals individuals set for themselves.

MacIntyre has made some serious mistakes in political philosophy. But Miller demonstrates that MacIntyre's anti-Capitalist view are not derived from his Aristotelian philosophy. They are merely the barnacles of MacIntyre's rather old-fashioned Marxist ideology.

14 comments:

David said...

I'm equally a fan of Alasdair Mac but haven't read the article - just your very clear summation of it.

One of the curiosities of MacIntyre is that he, in Europe at least, broke the Kantian stranglehold on Theology. Before MacIntyre and theologians in his debt (Hauerwas for example) the goal of "translating" theology into proper public ("universally accessible") discourse was the thing. MacIntyre told us that it might not be easy or even desirable to do so. The curiosity is that he is the most brilliant exponent of the old useless Kantian/Niebhurian model than anyone I can think of!
In the last decade he's taken an increasingly Thomist theological position into the "public" realm but always slightly "detheologized it". When I hear some of his talks my mind goes to the Summa and parts that he's working from. I wait for "God" and "Scripture" and "the Apostle" and "the Saints" and all Thomas' sources to make an appearance but they don't. MacIntyre, maybe unconsciously, seems to be "translating"!

I mention this as I suspect an underlying Thomist logic in his critique of Capitalism these past few years. The writer you cited criticized A Mac's reverse engineering of a society reducing capitalism to a scramble for profit. The writer spoke instead of the individual motivations that propel capitalist enterprise. The question for a Thomist is "can the contingent ends of capitalism participate in the ultimate ends of the beatific vision?". Now we know that a lie for Thomas is never good. If my wife says I look good in his shirt to make me feel good she is conflating a contingent end, me feeling good, with her ultimate end being truthful as God has biblically called her to be. So she errs as, I really don't look good in this shirt!

I suspect when MacIntyre speaks of "surplus value" he is imagining that the resources, globally, are finite. If so then a wealthy person is failing morally. They are taking a bigger piece of the pizza that is the world's resources meaning someone necessarily else gets a smaller piece. This would explain why the Gospels are so hard on the wealthy. The Rich Man in Mark, for example, is better than me, he has kept the commandments all his life! He shows no sign of sin except he is wealthy and unless shorn of this wealth he cannot enter the kingdom. So too the Rich Man in Luke, we know nothing of him morally except for the fact that he is rich while Lazarus is poor. Is it an accident that in the afterlife their roles are so perfectly reversed? Lazarus waiting for crumbs in life as the rich man yearns for Lazarus to dip his finger and let drops fall on his burning tongue in the afterlife? My hunch is that Luke is linking the two as if the poverty of one if directly related to the wealth of the other.

If this is so then the quest for wealth cannot be commensurate with our ultimate end as the contingent goal of wealth accumulation is incommensurable with our ultimate goal of doing God's will. I wonder if in focussing on surplus value MacIntyre is really making this point, although translating it?
This is not to say his point is correct, simply that a fan of his as I am can't just flag this down to the old Marxist Alasdair Mac bizarrely tearing its way through his now Thomist stomach!

Craig Carter said...

David,
Thanks for the good comment. A couple of responses:

1. As for the rich man and Lazarus, the wealth of the one and the poverty of the other are indeed linked, but in the Bible as a whole and the parable in particular the link is charity, not justice as coerced redistribution. It is not as if the Bible demands equality of wealth in society, but rather it demands that the rich give generously to alleviate the basic needs of the poor. I think modern ideas of socialist equality of outcome are often read into the text illegitimately.

2. Your point about "translation" and its relationship to a "demythologized Thomism" is quite brilliant. It is a very interesting way to look at it because it is a failure of AM to be "MacIntyrian" enough. I've always thought that the clear implication of AV was that unless modern Western society adopts a premodern starting point metaphysically it is doomed. Maybe I'm more "MacIntyrian" than MacIntyre.

3. You write near the end:

"If this is so then the quest for wealth cannot be commensurate with our ultimate end as the contingent goal of wealth accumulation is incommensurable with our ultimate goal of doing God's will. I wonder if in focussing on surplus value MacIntyre is really making this point, although translating it?"

If this is how AM is thinking, he is wrong because he is distorting capitalism by viewing it through ideological lens of Marxist theory. Two points here: (1)wealth is not finite; this is a Malthusian myth that greatly hampers rational discussion of economics and (2) Capitalism does not require each person to subordinate all life goals to that of wealth accumulation. Rather, it allows each individual to decide what constitutes "enough" and to balance that with other life goals (family, leisure, hobbies, volunteerism, religion, etc.).

The fact that each one is free to balance life goals according to one's own priorities is the essence of freedom. (The fact that some make money an idol is due to the fallenness of this world and human nature and socialism is as powerless as capitalism is to change this fact.)

The surplus wealth generated by free enterprise allows many people to get enough and then retire. I know many people who have been successful in business and now have retired so they can be involved in ministry. The myth that all capitalists make money the be all and end all is a clever bit of Marxist propaganda that is contradicted by the facts all around us.

Michael Kruse said...

You've peaked my interest. I'll definitely hunt down a copy of Miller's article.

One observation. You wrote:

"Why is the theory wrong? It is because the value of goods is determined by all the inputs into the production process and not merely the labor of human beings alone. It depends on the cost of raw materials, plant and equipment, patents and technology and other inputs. Workers are entitled not to the entire value of the goods produced, but only to the portion of the value of the goods due to their efforts. Owners of capital deserve the portion of the value of the goods attributable to the capital."

I don't agree. The value of goods is equal to what someone is willing to pay for them, regardless of how much labor or other inputs went into their production.

Profit is what the capitalist gets for taking the risk of coordinating production and marketing in a way that customers pay more for products than what was invested in their production and distribution.

David said...

Many thanks for this Craig. It is very helpful.

A point where we, I suspect, agree might make it easier for me to explain why I'm uneasy about capitalism.
One of MacIntyre's wonderful revelations is the way the modern nation state seeks to achieve "good" ends without people being good. Unlike the Church it doesn't long for the transformation of selves in relationship with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit into being less evil (less Godless) things. It, instead, leaves them quite Godless but says "if you steal or murder we will punish you". An evil person avoids evil acts out of selfish fear.
As we know, this really doesn't work very well and the modern attempt to bring about less evil ends in societies populated by bad people has, I believe, failed.
Akin to this is the active attempt of the modern nation state to do "good" on behalf of the citizens! The welfare state, FDR's new deal for example, is an attempt at coerced good where "good" ends are achieved despite people being bad.
From a Christian perspective this too fails terribly as the Good is conformity to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. This conformed self, this more Good (more Godlike, less Godless) self feeds to the hungry and gives to the poor as they can't imagine not doing so. The act is because of the presence of Christ, the loving one, in them by the power of the Holy Spirit. This, not the stuff that this leads to (justice), is the Good.
In the State assuming control of "charity" people pay taxes and the good stuff, we assume, happens. Again, they aren't transformed. No actual Good has occurred. They're still not saved. They still are trapped within their "Body of Death" (Rom 7) and the cycle of selfishness and sin, the hegemony of fallenness is set to continue.
So State control of both not being evil and being "good" is worthless. The feeding of the hungry when the cause of hunger (human sinfulness and fallenness) is not being assailed is not any good as the hegemony of injustice is unassailed.
So socialism is not just wrong, it's wicked, it divorces people from the moment of their responsibility, it creates the illusion that Christian charity is "being taken care of in Ottawa" and other such fallacies that maintain fallenness. Socialism and Christianity are incompatible.
I suspect that you share my dissatisfaction with socialism! (although perhaps with additional and maybe even different grounds)

More to follow below

David said...

I'm uneasy with Capitalism though as I don't view it simply as a freeing of the space from state control that will allow Christians pressed up against the coalface of their responsibility to do the good.
Socialism equals control and capitalism equals freedom is not, I feel, a good representation of the way things are in the 21st century as Capitalism is also a shaping of the self. In my opinion (pace Bill Cavanaugh) Capitalism is best understood as a shaping of desire.
In modernity Kant's bracketing of the noumena causes us to assume that a thing only means qua me. It is what it is only with reference to me, the perceiver. As such modernity essentially commodifies the real as all things are forced to be understood in terms of their value to the perceiving subject who, within such a logic, becomes the consumer. The person becomes the arbiter of the value of a thing based on apprehension and consumption of it.
So within the secular we have epistemologically determined that the subject object relationship be understood in terms of consumers commodities.
Capitalism, which today is understood best in terms of advertising rather than in the industrial revolution terms that frame marxist imaginings, serves to direct the desire of the consumer to the commodity, selling us the idea that possession of the commodity can justify ourselves.
As such, as a metadiscourse directing desire, it is in competition with the Church, another meta discourse, directing desire.
Here again we have another moment when it is, perhaps, clear that you are the proper Augustinian and I am simply a fundamentalist theocrat! Our imaginations must be shaped by the Church, our desire must be shaped by the Church and this shaping, for me, is inherently counter capitalism's shaping of our desire.
So if the conversation is capitalism or socialism, I'm for capitalism. But while being for capitalism I believe that the reach of capitalist discourse stretches out into the minds of Christians to ill effect and our preaching and our liturgies need to compete with that and combat it. So while I'm no socialist I'm also "uneasy" with Capitalism.
Finally Craig - I just got your email which was kind, insightful and typical of you! Many thanks for it, I'm going to respond to it right now :)
D

Craig Carter said...

Michael,
You are entirely right and if my clumsy wording made you think I don't agree then let me clarify myself.

Of course the value of a thing is what people are willing to pay for it. I assumed that. What I was talking about was the percentage of that value that should belong to the worker and the percentage that should belong to the owner of the firm in the form of profits. Marx thought that all profits are theft from the workers and I was trying to refute that view.

Profits are perfectly legitimate reward for risk-taking, creativity and initiative. Wages are set by the competitive marketplace and are therefore just. Marx simply failed to recognize that a manufactured item is the result of more inputs than simply raw materials and labor.

Craig Carter said...

David,
In response to your first comment, you are entirely correct I think in saying that AM shows that the state cannot make people act rightly without people being good. This leads to tyranny - right on.

But I think I see the solution somewhat differently than you do. What a culture needs in order to be free is a strong Christian Church and strong faith in the majority, or a large minority, of its citizens. Christianity plus political liberalism equals the freest and most prosperous society in history.

But when secularization and loss of religious faith ensues, the result is increasing legalism and the government bureaucratic smothering of individual liberty.

A free society can only flourish when moral restraint arises from within individuals non-coercively as a result of the moral influence of the Church's preaching. When this influence dips too low, increasing anarchy ensues (eg. family breakdown in the past 50 years) and the State has to step in to maintain order (eg. judges telling parents how to raise their children in the aftermath of the anarchy of divorce).

So capitalism works when most people have some level of moral restraint that is inculcated non-coercively by civil society, the Church and the Family. But it breaks down when secularism destroys that morality by weakening civil society and individual hedonism takes over. (That is what is happening in our society).

In response to your second comment, I think you are confusing consumerism and capitalism. Capitalism is essentially an economic system in which the market sets prices rather than the government intervening to do so. Consumerism is materialistic hedonism. You can have the former without the latter. I grant that when a society is secularized, Capitalism does not work very well but getting rid of Capitalism will not solve the problem. That is where I think Bill C. seems to go wrong (although I have not read his latest book).

One other point: I would say (as an Evangelical and as an Augustinian) that it is not really the Church per se that needs to (re)shape our desires. It is God. Only by individuals loving God with all their heart and soul and mind can their love of neighbor be set right. In my mind, the postliberal emphasis on the Church as a social structure that shapes the Christian life is a weak reed. The Catholic version (Cavanaugh) is better than the Protestant version (Hauerwas) because in talking about the Eucharist it at least begins to bring the vertical dimension of the Christian life into play (ie. God), but we need to be clear that personal faith in Christ is essential to the reshaping of our desires in such a way that God becomes our greatest love.

David said...

On the Capitalist - Consumerism conflation - Good point :)

As regards the lack of sympathy with post liberal trends (including RO) - finally a moment when I get to be the Catholic and Craig Carter the Protestant!

While you ought disagree our difference here is that I distinguish/dichotomize God and the Church less than you do.

For Papists like me the Church is Marian before it is Petrine. By this we mean that the Church is the "Yes" to the Father's will expressed in the movement of the Spirit which causes Christ to be with us. Mary's fiat is a pure embodiment of this. So for the Church to be the Church God must be present. The Church is not the Church in God absenting acts (such as sin) She is only the Church in Her Yes to God's will. This Yes is a Yes to the presence of God the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So being shaped by the Church when the Church is in Christ (and here the papist will speak of sacraments as the most radically real presence of God the Son) is to be shaped by the presence of God the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit as the expression of the will of the Father. Being shaped by the Church's sacramental liturgy IS being shaped by God.
Please tell me that such talk is idolatry to you? Or else all our ecumenical talk has been little more than two ultra Montane Roman Catholics gabbing with each other! :)

Craig Carter said...

David,
Hmmm, idolatry is such a strong word; but you are right that here I am the Protestant and you are the Papist. Or as we like to put it, you are defending a doctrine which needs reforming in our common Western tradition!

I, following the Reformed tradition, see what you call the Marian "Yes" in the vicarious obedience of Christ. (Mary's "Yes" is the "Yes" of discipleship - the human response to the salvation won by Christ's "Yes").

Thus we preserve the "infinite qualitative distinction" between the Divine and the Human. In other words, the Incarnation does not continue in the Church. Jesus Christ is (i.e. remains) the one Mediator between God and man and the Church is the creation of the Word and the witness to the Word. Grace comes through the Word and Sacrament as the risen Jesus Christ himself stands among His people and ministers by His Spirit through the ministry of the Church's ordained ministers.

When we talk (as we must) about union with Christ (which is Calvin's leading image of salvation) we can talk of being brought by grace into the intra-Trinitarian life of the Trinity precisely insofar as we are "in Christ." But this union with Christ is by adoption, not natural birth, and occurs not by nature but by the new nature imparted to us in the form of the Spirit.

Whatever being filled with the Spirit and union with Christ mean, they cannot mean that the Church is God or that we become God in the sense that the creature-Creator distinction is completely overcome. Our hope is for the beautific vision (Thomas) not for absorption into the Divine (Eastern mysticism). JP II totally got this distinction, by the way, because of his personalism.

So as a Protestant I protest the tendency toward talk of the Church as the continuing Incarnation. I suspect that when you Papists are absolutely precise in your expression you don't believe what we fear you believe. But some of the ways you speak of the Eucharist or Baptism or (above all) Mary, makes us suspicious.

Also, as a Protestant, I also am more ready than you perhaps are to operationalize and make use of the theoretical distinction between the institutional Church and the Church Triumphant. I learned this from Augustine, not free church Protestantism. He had a very high view of the Church but did not identify the visible, institutional Church on earth with the City of God in a simple, 1:1 correspondence.

By the way, I have Hans Boersma's new book "Heavenly Participation" on order. I hope to gain further enlightenment on these very questions from it.

Rod said...

Hey Dr. Carter,

Interesting conversation in the last two posts on capitalism and Christianity.

I am currently weighing both sides, but as I have commented on here before, I am professedly a libertarian.

Anyways, I was curious about your claims about private property and the 8th commandment. Could you suggest any theologians, especially early Christians who dealt with personal property and economics, which would be compatible with your own views? I am currently interested in historical theology and economics, and how religious worldviews influence our visions for the political economy. Any resources you recommend would be helpful.

David said...

Craig, I think doing good theology in this area is one of the most important thing Roman Catholics and Reformed Christians can do, not least because in coming closer ecumenically in this area we shape a soteriological grammar that I think the Church is in need of. I can sign up to almost everything you say. For example I cannot but say "Absolutely Yes" to this

"When we talk (as we must) about union with Christ (which is Calvin's leading image of salvation) we can talk of being brought by grace into the intra-Trinitarian life of the Trinity precisely insofar as we are "in Christ." But this union with Christ is by adoption, not natural birth, and occurs not by nature but by the new nature imparted to us in the form of the Spirit.
Whatever being filled with the Spirit and union with Christ mean, they cannot mean that the Church is God or that we become God in the sense that the creature-Creator distinction is completely overcome.”

My concern though is grounded in my awareness that, wretched man that I am, I am not capable of doing the good I am called to do. I am not capable of Faith and Hope and Charity. When I do the good, when I have Faith and Hope and Charity, I know that these are gifts from without.

I am not capable of flying either, it is not proper to me. If I suddenly grew wings and feathers and began to fly I could only imagine that something "birdy" had gotten inside me and "birdified" me.

God alone is Good. So when I do Good I can only assume that something "God" has gotten inside me and is the source of this action.

This is a terribly clumsy, almost grotesque version of the argument Gregory of Nyssa uses in "On the Holy Spirit" (adv Macedonians). It speaks though to the ontological nature of salvation. I was without God, wholly of the Flesh, and now I am different, with God, oriented by the real presence of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Saul can no longer call himself Saul. It would be a lie! He has been transformed. He is now Saul, driven by the Holy Spirit, Saul not absent from Christ, he is a different kind of thing.

Now I take this seriously. I don't think the difference between Saul and Paul is one of attitude. Saul is transformed from without. This transformation is not of Saul's nature but is none the less real for that. An analogy would see Saul transformed by virus that alters his neural pathways. New thoughts and reflexes are given him, his desire is shifted, reordered.

His salvation is this relationship in which he is bound to the Son by the power of the Spirit and in so doing he is placed in relationship (an ontologically vicarious relationship) with the Father through the Son.

I think Augustine is committed to this kind of thinking before 412 and I think he is very uncomfortable with it during the 420's. During the 420's salvation becomes understood as the reckoning of God despite who and what we are rather than a transformation of this thing we are by the work of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Roman Catholic fear is that "vicarious" refers not to the relationship between the self and the Father through the Son but to the fact that salvation is a post humous affirmation by a distant God on account of the Son's work. In the one the Son's work make possible the transformative relationship which is, in nuce, salvation, in the other salvation is the decree on the person by virtue of the Son.

The former makes possible a coherent relationship between time and eternity, the latter dichotomizes them, the former makes a sacramental economy coherent, the latter makes it inconceivable.

I'm writing on this very idea now, arguing for a more coherent account of the role of the Holy Spirit within the soteriological process. I'm treading very carefully though, I know very well the kind of awful theology that can get done with the infinite qualitative distinction between the temporal and the eternal isn't maintained.

Craig Carter said...

David,
I'm not sure if you should worry or not, but you really sound Reformed when you say:

"My concern though is grounded in my awareness that, wretched man that I am, I am not capable of doing the good I am called to do. I am not capable of Faith and Hope and Charity. When I do the good, when I have Faith and Hope and Charity, I know that these are gifts from without."

I don't know if it is of any help to put it this way or not, but here is a thought.

Reformed thought is different from both Lutheran and Wesleyan in the following way. We Reformed agree with the Catholic Church that we are sanctified progressively in this world and that we really do have faith, hope and charity. We don't just have a judicial declaration that we are righteous because of being clothed in Christ's righteousness (justification by faith). But we want to stress that our faith, hope and charity are not works of our will apart from, or in addition to, enabling grace, which we fear is not clear enough in Wesleyan/Arminian theology.

Roman Catholics, as I see it, are in no danger of the Lutheran temptation (justification without progressive sanctification) but they are in danger of the Wesleyan temptation of synergism. What is needed, I think, is some way of describing what Christ does in me and through me by His Spirit that bears in mind that this Divine work in me is also simultaneously the renewal of my being and my transformation into a new person in Christ. It is thus simultaneously me working and Christ working and it is in the same action! It is action which is foreign (because Divine) and also my own (because I am being renewed) (Compare I Cor. 15:10 and Eph. 2:8-9)

David said...

Amen to that! I think "What is needed, I think, is some way of describing what Christ does in me and through me by His Spirit that bears in mind that this Divine work in me is also simultaneously the renewal of my being and my transformation into a new person in Christ." is a superb summation. Many thanks for it! :)

Michael Kruse said...

Craig,

Thanks for the clarification. I just wasn't clear on what you were saying.

Great post, great discussion.