I think E.H. Carr articulates with great accuracy the application of the balance between God's will and Man's free will. I am a materialist in my belief that life and all that it is, is reflected in the physical laws of nature, that God has so graciously created in His love. So here in lies the possiblity of understanding history and politics through a theological/spritual lense (and vice-versa) and be none the worse for it.


The Utopian is necessarily voluntarist: He believes in the possibility of more or less radically rejecting reality and substituting his utopia for it by an act of will. The Realist analyses a predetermined course of development which he is powerless to change...

...All healthy human action, and therefore all healthy thought, must establish a balance between utopia and reality, between free will and determinism.

~ E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis, 1937, London.

^[26The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak."

Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me."

²⁷The man said, "What's your name?"

He answered, "Jacob."

²⁸The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."

²⁹Jacob asked, "And what's your name?"

The man said, "Why do you want to know my name?" And then, right then and there, he blessed him.]

~Genesis 32:26-29 The Message

God calls his choosen people to wrestle with him, and to come though. Not alone, but with Him. As if a parody of this society's sick "Name-'em -and-claim-'em!" theology. I'd like to stake a claim on God's promises of His presence if I wrestle well. My free will in His.

I'm off to do Chinese now.