Repentance

In class we talked about Montaigne's essay "OF Repentance." In that Essay he says, "I do not teach, I tell," and "I rarely repent." We also descibed the trust of Montaigne's argument in "Apology For Raymon Sebond" in a sentence by a contemporary author. He said, "One must obtain forgiveness for every essay in theology." He was saying it is hypocritical to write about God because He is outside of all philosophy. Again as Professor Anderson put it "All language transgresses by talking asbout God because language can be misunderstood."

The class discussed how all of these were true of Montainge. He never repented because he is not specifically writing a thoelogical treatise, but an essay about humanity. He writes about himself so there is no need to repent.

I wanted to add to the discussion that Montaigne himself writes on page 9, "For likewise these are my humors and opinions; I offer them as what I believe, not what is to be believed. I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me." This is a pivotal point of the arguement. He is not writing about theology, but of who he is, which may change at any moment.

I believ ethis is the point Professor Anderson is making on page 23 of his book Teaching Is Believing. He says, I remeber the intellectual joy I felt when I realized that this is the faith of my tradition and that it makes sense, it answers to my experience. It's about my experience, and all experience - its says experience is more important than dogma, more important than systems. The whole point of theology, Louth says is to affirm their own inadequacy, to give way to experience..."
The conclusion on page 198 gives a practical example of this. "I identify myself believing, I don't urge others to believe. But simply by being who she is a teacher influences students, simply by standing in front of them for ten weeks being who she is, and since who I am is Catholic, it's certainly possible that students may be influenced by Catholicism."

We do not need to write a doctrinal treatise or even write to have others read our lives. People read us by the actions we commit and the words we say everyday. They are in essence reading us. We are not telling them be like me. Believe like me. We are simply being who we are. We do not need to repent for that.