# The Great Omission (Willard)



## RamistThomist (Mar 8, 2015)

Willard, Dallas. _The Great Omission_.

Spiritual Disciplines

He has a beautiful chapter on “solitude” and “silence.” My only concern is that it is completely unworkable to anyone who has kids, a job with pressing demands, or both. This leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that there is “okay” spirituality, which is the basic stuff someone like you does every day (read the bible, pray, etc), and then there is “next level” spirituality for those unhampered by kids or work. Of course, this sounds exactly like monasticism. To be fair, Willard is not arguing for this point, but this is precisely the direction the early church took it. 

Towards a Christian Anthropology

In technical language, Willard is a soul-substance dualist, which is generally the Christian position. 


> “The soul is a substance in that it is an individual entity that has properties and dispositions natural to it, endures through time and change, and receives and exercises causal influence on other things” (Willard 139).
> “We have knowledge of a subject matter when we are able to represent it as it in fact is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience” (140)
> It is the source of life (143).


The spirit is a central part of the soul, the part of determination (is this what Dabney called connative powers?). It is the heart or will. This isn’t trichotomism, though. Trichotomism sees the spirit as a separate entity. This view sees it as a subdivision of the soul. 

The Good in the book

Logic as a spiritual discipline. This was a wonderful chapter, “Jesus the Logician.”

It requires the will to be logical (182). 
freedom from distraction
willingness to follow truth wherever it takes

Committed to logic as a “fundamental value” (183). Jesus uses enthymemes. He understates logical points which require the hearer to draw the conclusion--psychologically, this was a very effective move. 

As noted previously, his take on anthropology and its suggestions for a Christian psychology was wonderful. And despite his weak soteriology, he upheld the law-gospel distinction (162). 

Criticisms

Dangerous models:

Per Laubach: language of ascent to God (200). This is chain-of-being ontology. Note how the Christian “logic” works. We do not ascend to God. Christ descends to us. I understand that “inner” language has Augustinian precedents. 

This theme is heavier in Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle. The “rooms” are ways of living in relation to God. Interestingly, Willard notes that this book has become an interfaith manual. Ironically, or perhaps precisely because when the spiritual life becomes “mystical absorption into the One,” then why does it really matter which “One” it is?

And this problem surfaces in many of Willard’s works. He tries to “mix and match” spiritualities, but spirituality cannot be isolated from a larger theology. There is much that is valuable, even outstanding in this work. There is also much that is dangerous.

The biggest problem, though, is Willard’s ambiguity regarding soteriology. Granted, he is responding to the happy-clappy, let go and let God Christian, it remains that he is not always clear on the relation between justification and sanctification.


----------



## timmopussycat (Mar 9, 2015)

A good rule of thumb: always be suspicious of any modes of spirituality which could not be practised by a first century Corinthian slave.


----------



## RamistThomist (Mar 9, 2015)

Exactly. Don't get me wrong. I love quiet. Most AMericans could probably do a good job by turning off the Kardashians and just being quiet


----------



## Miss Marple (Mar 9, 2015)

Could a 1st Century Corinthian slave actually go to church? I am not being contentious. I like your test. But I wonder if we are held to account about a discipline like regular church attendance if in a slave situation. Similarly, may not have had a Bible at all. So Bible reading would be out.


----------



## timmopussycat (Mar 9, 2015)

It appears that the Corinthian slaves could go to church once their owners dismissed them for the night. Which may add point to 1 Cor. 11:22 if the free men could eat the Lord's supper before the slaves could get there.


----------

