Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Double-Love Hermeneutic

Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all.  Whoever finds a lesson there useful to the building of charity, even though he has not said what the author may be shown to have intended in that place, has not been deceived, nor is he lying in any way...However...if he is deceived in an interpretation which builds up charity...he is deceived in the same way as a man who leaves a road by mistake but passes through a field to the same place toward which the road itself leads.

Augustine in On Christian Doctrine from Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement, 142

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