I've been pondering a m'Lynn post. I've always been fascinated by borders, especially the border between Quietism and Pelagianism. My understanding is that Quietism leaves everything up to God and we don't have to do anything and pelagianism assumes all virtues are man-made.
Peter Kreeft writes about attempting to gain patience:
Just try being patient without agape. It simply will not work. It works only as long as you feel patient. So then you try substituting hard "will power" for soft feelings. "I'll be patient with that so-and-so if it kills me." And it almost does. You discover two things: that your will is ridiculously weak and that even when you succeed in repressing your impatience, it is still there. You have buried it alive; it is not dead. Your love is false and forced and formal. Patience has to come from the heart, not from either undulating feelings or from iron resolution.Arguably, the two most morally flaccid decades of the American 20th century were the '20s and the '60s. The '20s came just after WWI and the '60s came not long after the WWII/Korean war period. Could those wars, with their "white-knuckling" aspects of self-denial and self-sacrifice, led to the morally fatuous periods? Was the answer to repression the flaccid decades? If so, it shows what we already know - that only Christ avails.
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