Joseph Sittler, "Essays on Nature and Grace", 1971
"The fundamental meaning of grace is the goodness and lovingkindness of God and the activity of this goodness in and toward his creation."
Sittler describes creation not as grace in itself, but as the theatre of grace. I believe this resonates with the hiddenness of God.
"God is made known to man in the matrix of space, time, and matter, which are the substance of that mortal theatre in which God deals with his people in their historical actuality."
Judging from his dates, Sittler was on the forefront of an expanded understanding of grace that is able to interact with and be a proclamation toward the expanded knowledge of humankind today. Sittler would have been impressed and amazed at the advancement of technology and science since 1971! Even in this little book he marveled at the fact that we have discovered both the bigness and smallness of creation.
After experiencing the sounds of Günter Bergmann's "Harmonice Mundi Iovis" where a musical mathematical representation of the orbits of four of Jupiter's moons is given (thank you Martin H.C. Spindler), it is less awkward for me to think about grace and the redeeming work of God in Christ as being something that is to be understood cosmically. Joseph Sittler tips his hat to the thinkers of the Orthodox tradition, and by expanding the reader's understanding of grace's subject he illuminates scripture that is familiar to many of us: "For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." (The Apostle Paul, Ephesians 1:9-10)
