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Homo sapiens’ “try” is Grace (otherwise known as reason or the enlightened pursuit of the ‘sufficient condition’)

Curiosity’s Contribution

Of all the words used in everyday Christian life, I find “Grace” the most compelling. I believe its true meaning to be abstract—possibly as abstract as an ethereal and immaterial God. As a result, this hurts the just cause of Grace. I think it is rarely understood and thus routinely misapplied. Nevertheless, to acquire Grace, individuals may need to find a way to understand it first. Fortunately, however, it’s worth the effort since an unfolding and meaningful connection to the creator comes along for free with that understanding. This last point is why an understanding of Grace is essential—for everyone.

Grace’s definition and etymology

Late 12c., “God’s unmerited favor, love, or help,” from Old French grace “pardon, divine grace, mercy; favor, thanks; elegance, virtue” (12c., Modern French grâce), from Latin gratia “favor, esteem, regard; pleasing quality, good will, gratitude” (source of Italian grazia, Spanish gracia; in Church use translating Greek kharisma), from gratus “pleasing, agreeable” (from PIE *gwreto-, suffixed form of root *gwere- (2) “to favor”).

Sense of “virtue” is early 14c., that of “beauty of form or movement, pleasing quality” is mid-14c. In classical sense, “one of the three sister goddesses (Latin Gratiæ, Greek Kharites), bestowers of beauty and charm,” it is first recorded in English 1579 in Spenser. In music, “an embellishment not essential to the melody or harmony,” 1650s. As the name of the short prayer that is said before or after a meal (early 13c.; until 16c. usually graces) it has a sense of “gratitude.” As a title of honor, c. 1500. also from late 12c.

Online Etymology Dictionary

Unmerited favor

God’s unmerited favor, love, or help” is generally considered to be the proper definition among the faithful. While ‘unmerited favor’ is both a perfect and succinct definition for the term Grace, what, now, does the new phrase ‘unmerited favor’ precisely mean?

An understanding of “unmerited favor,” I suggest, is where most Christians unfortunately drift away from insight. Unfortunately, Individuals most easily understand Grace only after the discovery of its true purpose. Yet, too often, Christians habitually define it from the point of faith. And yet, Biblical faith is predominantly truth-based (truth thereby generating merit). This bias necessarily produces an understanding of Grace that veers reflexively back to merit (subservience). And yet, this is not Grace (unmerited favor).

For example, after a quick search on the Internet, I found the following:

Love that goes upward is worship, love that goes outward is affection, love that stoops is grace. Grace is unearned and unmerited. It is an undeserved privilege not an exclusive right. Remember that the grace you receive so freely cost Jesus His life.

Bloor West Village Baptist Church – Grace: God’s Unmerited Favour (Ephesians 4: 4 – 9, John 1: 16)

Christian views on Grace remain stubbornly rewards-based.

Interestingly, Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection could authentically enable Grace. This happens because, while Jesus began “life” as God incarnate, He returned, once crucified, to the abstract upon His resurrection. And Grace is thinking in the abstract (as opposed to everyday sensory (perception) driven cognition). So, this is truly a gift of the resurrection—the promise of abstract thinking. However, not everyone is a Christian. Yet, critically, if Grace is endowed only with Christianity, then it cannot be called “unearned.” That is, one must become a Christian to enjoy it. Whereas if everyone can enjoy Grace (thus being genuinely unearned), then the resurrection could not be exclusively responsible for it.

Therefore, the above “unearned and unmerited” clarification by the Bloor West Village Church is not quite right. That is to say, for homo sapiens, Grace is no privilege. It is, in fact, a right. However, Grace is not always discovered and exploited by the individual. Grace is like a feature in one’s car or phone that they don’t understand, so they do not freely and consciously access it. Yet, all homo sapiens possess the potential for Grace. If developed, it is a function of the prefrontal cortex, and all humans have a prefrontal cortex. This is how Grace is unearned. When Grace is developed, however, by acquiring access to reason, the individual solves problems (requiring abstract thinking) and is, as a result, more successful. This is how individual favor is derived.

The spark

The spark that enabled the prefrontal cortex?

So, what activates one’s capacity to reason/Grace? Well, many things: The resurrection. Suffering. Curiosity. Yet, one ingredient above all others must be present to enjoy Grace. This is the premise that God’s truth, or absolute truth, governs absolutely everything. It must be acknowledged as an explanation for everything and always, consciously, declared, albeit sometimes confoundingly, perfect. Furthermore, for Grace, the individual must be in the perpetual pursuit of God’s truth. Habitually. Reflexively. Call this strange state as one of “trying to know” or trying to understand. This is Grace. It is humility before God’s truth, both recognizing and embracing that God’s truth is always bigger than anything the individual might think they already know. And yet, this humility produces unmerited favor. It enables YOU to create new ideas and new value. Therefore, critically, God didn’t offer favor; one’s personal humility before God did.

This is why “truth idolatry” is a sin. For God’s favor, it is essential that individuals not conclude that they know the truth. They don’t. For Grace, they cannot.

Understanding is not about giving God what humans think God wants but about having the humility to be cognitively quiet enough to see (that is, observe) what God might know or has accomplished because reality is perfect—otherwise, reality would have gone out of “business” years ago.

This is Grace.

https://server.learningframework.com/?p=20341

Humility Before God



The Hubble Deep Field.

The Hubble Deep Field is amazing. Never before has something so vast, massive, complex, and inconceivably mysterious been so easily misrepresented that its elements are rendered small, inconsequential, and trivial that they are nearly dismissably perceptible. This is how humans see (perceive) creation; our habitual conclusions are equally ignorantly incomplete. Our perceptions ALWAYS lie by omission.

And yet, a person enjoying Grace is not, in this way, cognitively deluded. Instead, they TRY to see and understand infinity. Habitually. They are unique in that they understand that they are confronted by the impossibly vast but recognize that what they know is embarrassingly little. Yet they try.

If the Hubble Deep Field does not make you small, then you are not humble enough. Moreover, you may not have discovered Grace.



Job, seeking the merited favor of God, also could not see it. Therefore, God, without Hubble, sought to school him.

Job (in part): The Old Testament

38: Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

“Who is this that obscures my plans
    with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?

“Who shut up the sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
    and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
    and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
    here is where your proud waves halt’?

12 Have you ever given orders to the morning,
    or shown the dawn its place,

13 that it might take the earth by the edges
    and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
    its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
    and their upraised arm is broken.

16 Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
    Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
    Tell me, if you know all this.

19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
    And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places?

    Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
    You have lived so many years!

22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
    or seen the storehouses of the hail,

23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
    for days of war and battle?
24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
    or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
    and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no one lives,
    an uninhabited desert,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
    and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
    Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
    Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
    when the surface of the deep is frozen?

31 “Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades?
    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c]
    or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
    Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth?

34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
    and cover yourself with a flood of water?
35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
    Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[f]
    or gives the rooster understanding?[g]
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
    Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
38 when the dust becomes hard
    and the clods of earth stick together?

39 Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
    and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
    or lie in wait in a thicket?

41 Who provides food for the raven
    when its young cry out to God
    and wander about for lack of food?

God continues …

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