Home > Author > Gerhard O. Forde
1 " As sinners we are like addicts - addicted to ourselves and our own projects. The theology of glory simply seeks to give those projects eternal legitimacy. The remedy for the theology of glory, therefore, cannot be encouragement and positive thinking, but rather the end of the addictive desire. Luther says it directly: "The remedy for curing desire does not lie in satisfying it, but in extinguishing it." So we are back to the cross, the radical intervention, end of the life of the old and the beginning of the new. Since the theology of glory is like addiction and not abstract doctrine, it is a temptation over which we have no control in and of ourselves, and from which we must be saved. As with the addict, mere exhortation and optimistic encouragement will do no good. It may be intended to build up character and self-esteem, but when the addict realizes the impossibility of quitting, self-esteem degenerates all the more. The alcoholic will only take to drinking in secret, trying to put on the facade of sobriety. As theologians of glory we do much the same. We put on a facade of religious propriety and piety and try to hide or explain away or coddle our sins.... As with the addict there has to be an intervention, an act from without. In treatment of alcoholics some would speak of the necessity of 'bottoming out,' reaching the absolute bottom where one can no longer escape the need for help. Then it is finally evident that the desire can never be satisfied, but must be extinguished. In matters of faith, the preaching of the cross is analogous to that intervention. It is an act of God, entirely from without. It does not come to feed the religious desires of the Old Adam and Eve but to extinguish them. They are crucified with Christ to be made new. "
― Gerhard O. Forde , On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, 1518
2 " What is necessary, Luther insisted, was an entirely different mode of thinking, an ad modum scripturae (in the manner of scripture), a fundamental change of the story. As early as his Lectures on Romans he remaks that the biblical story of the exodus had been interpreted (tropologically) to mean the exodus from vice to virtue. Now, however, it must be interpreted as the exodus from virtue to the grace of God! Grace must be the story. It is grace that determines the relationship between God, the creature, creation, and its destiny. Grace is what God is all about. Grace is what God is up to. And a graced creation is what God aims to arrive at. "
― Gerhard O. Forde , A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism
3 " Current religiosity and ethics, especially those that replace the story of the cross with demands for social reform, have produced many a theology of glory. It still flourishes along with its attendant despair. There is no cure through the law. It will take some dying. So we are already on the way to the cross. "
4 " bitterest pills for modern man to swallow: the problem of divine sovereignty as it is expressed particularly in the doctrine of predestination. "
― Gerhard O. Forde , Where God Meets Man
5 " Who knows whether we are right in saying that the sufferings of the divine-human Jesus have the “infinite worth” demanded by the scheme? All such speculations are really quite beyond the limits of our knowing. They are at best conjecture, which for many people, as history shows too plainly, only calls the gospel into question. "
6 " In things that are “below him,” man has freedom in Luther’s view to act as he sees fit. In things “above,” however, the matter is different; there we encounter the problem of God’s predestination. "
7 " Everyone, it seems, wants to do God the favor of making him less objectionable. Some say he is not absolute or omnipotent yet but is perhaps in the process of becoming so. Some say he is not infinite, but finite. Some even say he has obliged us all by dying! "
8 " Theology is the happy science concerned with the task of pointing to him whose yoke is easy, whose burden is light. Theology is not in the business of absolutizing itself, but rather of pointing beyond itself to the one who gives "
― Gerhard O. Forde , Captivation of the Will: Luther Vs. Erasmus on Freedom and Bondage
9 " The radical nature of the divine imputation brings a death and resurrection […] begins to kindle the first beginnings of actual hope and love where before there had been only hypocrisy and despair. For then the great commandment, ‘Thou shalt love…’ begins to become a reality. It begins to sound not just as a demand, a law, but as a promise: ‘You shall love, you will love one day, for I love you unconditionally. One day the last barrier will fall and you will be mine completely! You can bet your life on it! "
― Gerhard O. Forde , Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death and Life
10 " A sacrament is an action in which the Word of God does something to us through the earthly sign. It is an action in which God gets through to us in a concrete way. "