Harry B. Partin - "The Second Fall" (March 24, 1968)

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-	Absolve us, oh God, from every kind of sin,	0:04
	forgive us for trying to be clever	0:08
	when we should have sought wisdom.	0:11
	Heal us from the disease of trying to make names	0:14
	for ourselves when we should	0:17
	have been seeking to glorify thy name.	0:20
	Enable us, oh Lord, to find pardon now	0:24
	and to attain everlasting redemption in the world to come	0:27
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	0:32
	Amen.	0:35
	And hear these words of assurance, of pardon,	0:38
	as the heaven is high above the earth,	0:44
	so great is God's mercy to them that fear him.	0:48
	Like as a father pitieth his children	0:54
	so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.	0:58
	If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just	1:03
	to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us	1:10
	from all unrighteousness.	1:15
	Therefore, be of good courage.	1:18
	(bright organ music)	1:26
	(women singing brightly in Latin)	1:49
	(bright organ music)	2:12
	(women singing brightly in Latin)	2:19
	(bright organ music)	2:34
	(women singing brightly in Latin)	2:39
	(bright organ music)	2:49
	(women singing brightly in Latin)	2:56
	(bright organ music)	3:22
	Let us hear the Word of God as it is contained	3:59
	in the scriptures of the New Testament.	4:03
	First in the book of the Acts 17:22.	4:07
	"So Paul standing in the middle of the Areopagus said,	4:18
	"'Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way,	4:24
	"'you are very religious.	4:29
	"'For as I passed along and observed the objects	4:33
	"'of your worship, I found also an altar	4:35
	with this inscription, to an unknown God.	4:39
	"'What therefore you worship as unknown,	4:47
	"'this I proclaim to you.	4:52
	"'The God who made the world and everything in it,	4:57
	"'being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in shrines	5:01
	"'made by man, nor is he served by human hands	5:05
	"'as though he needed anything.	5:12
	"'Since he himself gives to all men life	5:15
	"'and breath and everything, and he made from one	5:20
	"'every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth,	5:26
	"'having determined allotted periods	5:31
	"'and the boundaries of their habitation,	5:34
	"'that they should seek God in the hope	5:38
	"'that they might feel after him and find him.	5:42
	"'Yet, he is not far from each one of us.	5:48
	"'For in him, we live and move and have our being.	5:54
	"'As even some of your poets have said,	6:01
	"'for we are, indeed his offspring.'"	6:04
	And in the epistle of Paul to the Romans 1:18.	6:10
	"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven	6:21
	"against all ungodliness and wickedness of men,	6:25
	"who by their wickedness suppress the truth.	6:30
	"For what can be known about God is plain to them	6:36
	"because God has shown it to them.	6:41
	"Ever since the creation of the world,	6:45
	"his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity	6:48
	"has been clearly perceived in the things	6:54
	"that have been made.	6:57
	"So they are without excuse.	7:00
	"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God	7:04
	"or give thanks to him.	7:12
	"But they became futile in their thinking	7:15
	"and their senseless minds were darkened.	7:18
	"Claiming to be wise, they became fools,	7:22
	"and exchanged the glory of the immortal God	7:28
	"for images resembling mortal man or birds	7:33
	"or animals, or reptiles."	7:39
	Amen and may God bless unto us the reading of his holy Word.	7:46
	(bright organ music)	7:53
	♪ Glory be to the Father ♪	8:02
	♪ And to the Son and to the Holy Ghost ♪	8:05
	♪ As it was in the beginning ♪	8:13
	♪ Is now and ever shall be ♪	8:17
	♪ The world without end, amen, amen ♪	8:22
-	The Lord be with you.	8:31
-	And also with you.	8:33
-	Let us pray.
	Most gracious Father, who, for every new generation,	8:47
	preparest thy blessing,	8:52
	we thy people offer this prayer of thanksgiving.	8:55
	For the power thou hast given us	9:01
	to lay hold of things unseen.	9:03
	For the strong sense we have that this world	9:07
	is not our abiding home.	9:12
	For our restless hearts, which nothing finite can satisfy,	9:15
	we give thee thanks, O God.	9:22
	For the invasion of our souls by thy Holy Spirit,	9:26
	for all human love and goodness that speaks to us of thee,	9:31
	for the fullness of thy glory outpoured in Jesus Christ,	9:39
	we give thee thanks, O God, thou author of every good.	9:45
	Let us offer a prayer of intercession for our country.	9:55
	Grant us, O God, a vision of our land,	10:01
	perish, she might be, land of justice	10:04
	where none shall prey on others,	10:08
	a land of plenty where vice and poverty	10:12
	shall cease to fester,	10:15
	a land of brotherhood where success	10:19
	shall be founded on service	10:22
	and honor be given to worth alone,	10:25
	a land of peace where order need no longer rest on force,	10:30
	but on the love of all for their country.	10:38
	And grant us, O God, to pledge our time and strength	10:42
	and thought to hasten the day of her beauty	10:47
	and righteousness through Jesus Christ our Lord.	10:52
	Let us offer a prayer of intercession for the armed forces.	11:00
	O Lord God, our Father, our Savior, our might,	11:06
	we commend to thy keeping all those	11:13
	who are venturing their lives, that whether by life	11:16
	or by death, they may win for the whole world	11:22
	the fruits of their sacrifice and a holy peace.	11:28
	We ask this in the name of him who is the Prince of Peace.	11:35
	Let us offer a prayer of intercession	11:43
	for all who labor for peace.	11:45
	Almighty and merciful God, who wouldest have the kingdoms	11:49
	of this world become the kingdom of thy Son,	11:53
	bestow thy blessing upon all who labor for peace	11:58
	and for righteousness among the peoples,	12:02
	that the day may be hastened when war shall be no more	12:06
	and thy holy will shall govern the nations upon earth	12:12
	through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.	12:18
	Let us offer a prayer of supplication that we ourselves	12:25
	may have a realization of God.	12:30
	Deepen and quicken within us, O God,	12:35
	the sense of thy presence and refresh us with thy power.	12:37
	Quiet our understanding and give ease to our hearts	12:43
	by bringing us close to things, infinite and eternal.	12:47
	Grant us dignity in our own eyes	12:53
	by taking us into thy service.	12:57
	Humble us by laying bare before us our littleness	13:01
	and our sin, and then exalt us by revealing thyself	13:06
	to us as our counselor, our Father and our friend.	13:11
	And let us offer our last prayer for ourselves.	13:21
	Help us this day, O God, to serve thee devoutly,	13:28
	and the world busily.	13:32
	May we do our work wisely, give succor secretly,	13:35
	go to our meat appetitely, sit thereat discreetly,	13:43
	arise temperately, please our friend duly,	13:50
	go to our bed merrily and sleep surely,	13:55
	for the joy of our Lord Jesus Christ.	14:00
	Now as our Savior, Christ hath taught us,	14:06
	we humbly pray together.	14:09
	Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.	14:12
	Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,	14:18
	on earth as it is in heaven.	14:22
	Give us this day our daily bread,	14:25
	and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those	14:28
	who trespass against us, and lead us not	14:32
	into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	14:36
	For thine is the kingdom and the power	14:40
	and the glory forever.	14:44
	Amen.	14:47
-	May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.	15:17
	Amen.	15:23
	The apostle Paul addressed his Athenian audience	15:27
	in these words.	15:35
	"Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way,	15:40
	"you are very religious."	15:45
	He continued, "For as I passed along and observed	15:50
	"the objects of your worship, I found also an altar	15:56
	"with this inscription: to an unknown God.	16:02
	"What you therefore worship as unknown,	16:09
	"this I proclaim to you."	16:14
	Paul assumed, and rightly, that his audience	16:18
	was consciously and deliberately religious.	16:24
	While God was not known, he was somehow acknowledged	16:32
	and sought and worshiped.	16:42
	Modern men, and all of us are modern, more or less,	16:49
	all of us are more or less affected by modernity.	16:57
	Modern men are not Athenians.	17:03
	Instead of raising altars to God, known or unknown,	17:08
	we are disposed to ignore or even to entomb him.	17:17
	The gods are dead.	17:27
	More and more, modern man sees the gods	17:31
	as obstacles to his freedom and he believes	17:34
	that he will not be truly free	17:38
	until he has killed the last god.	17:43
	When in 1880, the German philosopher,	17:48
	Friedrich Nietzsche first proclaimed the death of God,	17:51
	he spoke as a prophet of the modern world.	17:59
	In our own time, even some theologians turned atheologians,	18:04
	believe that it is necessary to accept,	18:15
	and even to assume the death of God and to think	18:19
	and to build on the basis of this fact.	18:25
	In his letter to the Romans, Paul assumed again,	18:32
	that men are religious and that at least God's existence	18:36
	can be known to them.	18:42
	Paul writes about men generally.	18:46
	"What can be known about God is plain to them	18:51
	"because God has shown it to them.	18:57
	"Ever since the creation of the world,	19:02
	"his eternal power and deity has been clearly perceived	19:07
	"in the things that have been made," in other words,	19:13
	the creation itself witnesses	19:20
	to the existence of the creator.	19:27
	But for modern man, the very word creation	19:32
	speaks not of God, but of man, the creator.	19:40
	Perhaps the highest compliment that one modern man	19:47
	pays to another is to say of him that he is creative.	19:52
	Paul believed that knowledge of the existence of God,	20:01
	of God's existence, is possible even for fallen man.	20:08
	According to the Biblical tradition,	20:16
	after the fall, man's relationship with God	20:20
	was radically different.	20:24
	Man was estranged from God.	20:28
	Man had lost the possibility of encountering	20:33
	and understanding God, but he kept enough intelligence	20:38
	to rediscover the traces of God,	20:45
	the traces of God in nature and in his own consciousness.	20:50
	The death of God is an old phenomenon	21:02
	in the history of religions.	21:07
	It is not something new.	21:09
	Among many archaic peoples, one find traces of belief	21:13
	in what the ethnologists called high gods.	21:18
	These are supreme beings who are believed	21:23
	to have created the world and to have sojourned on earth	21:28
	and to have established the laws	21:36
	and the institutions of this world.	21:39
	The high god is believed, subsequently,	21:44
	to have withdrawn from the world,	21:48
	to have retired to the highest heaven,	21:51
	where he is rather indifferent to human life.	21:54
	He became increasingly remote and transcendent,	22:00
	and among many peoples, this high god	22:07
	was ultimately forgotten.	22:09
	This forgetting of the high god,	22:14
	this oblivion of the high god, the creator god,	22:18
	was equivalent to his death.	22:24
	The disappearance of the high gods among primitive peoples,	22:29
	however, did not mean the end of religion.	22:32
	Quite the contrary.	22:37
	For it was with the death of the high gods	22:40
	that there appeared the vivid and dramatic pantheons	22:44
	of divinities representing the powers and vitalities	22:50
	of the world, the powers and vitalities	22:55
	on which man believed his life to depend day by day.	22:59
	The religious life came to center in the worship	23:07
	and propitiation of these concrete vital deities.	23:11
	The high god, the creator god, if some memory of him	23:18
	survived, was usually without any regular worship	23:25
	and was resorted to, if at all,	23:31
	only in times of extreme crisis.	23:35
	In a time of prolonged drought,	23:41
	of severe epidemic and the like.	23:45
	In other words, when life itself, life personified	23:49
	and represented by the vital deities,	23:55
	when life itself was threatened.	24:00
	Something of the same attitude appeared	24:05
	among the ancient Hebrews.	24:09
	Whenever they were living in a time of relative peace	24:12
	and prosperity, they abandoned Yahweh, the God of Israel,	24:18
	and they drew near to the Baals of the Canaanites	24:27
	and neighboring peoples, the gods of field and flock,	24:29
	gods personifying and dispensing the powers of fertility.	24:36
	It took some historical crisis or catastrophe	24:42
	to cause them to turn again to God.	24:51
	Thus one reads, for example, in 1 Samuel the 12th chapter.	24:56
	"And they cried to the Lord and said,	25:02
	"'We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord	25:05
	"'and have served the Baals and the Ashtoreths,	25:11
	"but now, deliver us out of the hands of our enemies,	25:16
	"and we will serve thee.'"	25:25
	In Nietzsche's prophecy, the death of God	25:31
	means the end of religion.	25:38
	After the death of the Judeo-Christian God,	25:43
	according to Nietzsche, man has to live by himself,	25:50
	alone in a radically desacralized world.	25:59
	Apart from the question of whether this prophecy	26:08
	of Nietzsche will come true, we have to face the fact	26:13
	that great numbers of modern men have chosen,	26:19
	often, consciously and deliberately to live in this way.	26:26
	Unlike Paul's Athenians,	26:35
	they do not consider themselves religious.	26:38
	Indeed, they cannot.	26:43
	This is a phenomenon of the modern world.	26:48
	Something seems to have happened to man.	26:53
	A secular, non-religious mode of existence seems	26:59
	to have become a real possibility for human existence,	27:05
	and many are trying to realize this possibility	27:11
	in their own lives.	27:17
	The distinguished historian of religion, Mircea Eliade,	27:21
	has suggested that one may speak,	27:27
	in Judeo-Christian terms of a second fall, a second fall.	27:29
	After the second fall, which corresponds to the death of God	27:39
	as proclaimed by Nietzsche, "Modern man,"	27:45
	writes Eliade, "Modern man has lost the possibility	27:50
	"of experiencing the sacred at the conscious level,	27:59
	"but he continues to be nourished	28:05
	"and guided by his unconscious."	28:10
	This is to say that modern man has rejected religion	28:15
	at the conscious level, but that it survives	28:20
	buried in his unconscious.	28:25
	It has descended into the depths of man.	28:31
	Modern man wants to be, and indeed declares himself to be	28:38
	areligious, completely rid of the sacred.	28:43
	Writes Eliade of this modern man,	28:48
	"On the level of everyday consciousness,	28:52
	"he is, perhaps, right, but he continues to participate	28:55
	"in the sacred, through his dreams and his daydreams	29:00
	"through certain attitudes.	29:09
	"His love of nature, for example,	29:13
	"through his distractions," his reading, the theater,	29:16
	"through his nostalgia and his impulses."	29:23
	I believe that Eliade is right in his insistence	29:30
	that much of the experience and behavior of modern man	29:33
	and especially of modern youth is unrecognizably religious	29:40
	for the reason that it is unconscious and unconventional.	29:48
	According to Nietzsche, it was, as a historical being,	29:56
	as a being making history that man killed God.	30:02
	Man's second fall, to use Judeo-Christian language.	30:08
	Man second fall was a historical event,	30:16
	as the first fall, the fall in Eden, was not.	30:22
	After this assassination, this deicide,	30:29
	man is forced to live exclusively in history,	30:35
	as a being made by history and a being who makes history.	30:41
	There is, for him, nothing, nothing which transcends history	30:52
	and no meaning beyond history.	31:01
	But is man's existence totally, completely,	31:07
	a historical existence, or are there kinds	31:13
	of human experience, dimensions of human experience,	31:18
	which reveal man's desire for and his possibilities of	31:25
	transcending the historically conditioned character	31:31
	of his existence?	31:35
	Can a man realize the freedom of the spirit,	31:38
	and achieve liberation in life?	31:47
	I'm convinced that this possibility exists	31:52
	and that indeed, it is being sought,	31:56
	especially by young people,	32:01
	and that its sources and its motivations	32:05
	are profoundly, if unrecognizably religious.	32:09
	The contemporary interest in Oriental religions	32:17
	and the unfortunate experimentation	32:22
	with chemically induced states of consciousness are,	32:26
	perhaps, among the contemporary expressions of it.	32:31
	I think it is important to realize that this desire	32:37
	to transcend the limits of totally historical existence	32:42
	does not necessarily lead to a renunciation	32:49
	of history and its tension.	32:55
	Many young people are profoundly concerned	32:59
	about contemporary historical conditions and events,	33:04
	the racial situation, the destruction of Vietnam and others,	33:10
	but they come to these historical conditions and events	33:19
	with a freedom which most of us do not possess.	33:23
	They have not renounced history,	33:31
	but they have renounced the idolatry of history.	33:36
	The apostle Paul declared	33:44
	to the consciously religious Athenians,	33:47
	"What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you."	33:53
	And what he proclaimed was Jesus Christ,	34:02
	Jesus Christ was coming to the religious Athenians.	34:06
	But how does Jesus Christ, indeed, how can Jesus Christ	34:15
	come to the unconsciously religious modern man?	34:22
	Dare we speak of and hope for a second coming	34:30
	of Christ to man twice fallen?	34:35
	And if so, how will he come?	34:42
	And how shall we recognize his coming?	34:47
	Will he come again from out of the past,	34:53
	will he somehow leap to us	35:00
	across the history that separates us	35:04
	from his first appearance, a history which, perhaps,	35:08
	has hidden him more than it has disclosed him?	35:14
	We have begun to rediscover his humanity.	35:22
	Jesus, the man among men, Jesus, the man for others.	35:29
	But how shall we rediscover his divinity?	35:42
	Jesus, as God's Word to us,	35:48
	and more, God's presence among us.	35:52
	Jesus as Immanuel, God with us.	35:58
	Will he come to us from out of the depths	36:05
	of our unconscious, into the light of consciousness?	36:08
	Will he come by way of resurrection,	36:15
	from his place of burial within us?	36:20
	The Belgian priest, Louis Beirnaert, has written,	36:25
	"The incarnation must not be reduced	36:33
	"to the taking on of the flesh alone.	36:38
	"God has intervened even in the unconscious,	36:43
	"that it may be saved and fulfilled.	36:48
	"Christ descended into hell."	36:52
	While Beirnaert is speaking of a radical	36:59
	and total incarnation of Christ,	37:02
	of a Christ whose coming is not only an historical event,	37:06
	but also an event, if you will, in the human psyche.	37:12
	This is not to substitute psychology for religion	37:18
	or psychoanalysis for the religious transformation	37:25
	of human personality.	37:29
	It is, rather, to acknowledge and affirm	37:32
	Christ's presence in the depths of man's being.	37:36
	When I speak of his second coming, in this context,	37:41
	I mean he is coming forth from the depths	37:45
	into the light of our consciousness.	37:49
	Christ has a recognition problem.	37:55
	Modern men knows some of his historical	37:59
	and traditional images and have rejected most of them	38:03
	as unacceptable or irrelevant.	38:09
	Man's unconscious, as Carl Jung and others have shown us.	38:15
	He is full of images and full of symbols,	38:22
	rich in meaning and import.	38:27
	May it be that in these images and symbols within us,	38:31
	Christ himself is present, and that if we were	38:39
	to become conscious of them,	38:44
	to raise them to the level of consciousness	38:46
	and to live them, Christ, indeed, would have come again.	38:50
	Or may it be that Christ will come again to us	38:58
	through our encounter with people	39:05
	of other religious traditions and communities.	39:09
	That encounter has already begun, and it has begun,	39:14
	especially for students in colleges and universities.	39:21
	That encounter is going to widen and deepen.	39:26
	I welcome it, not only as a historian	39:33
	of religion, but as a Christian.	39:35
	We too readily assume that the encounter	39:40
	with Buddhism, Hinduism, and other forms	39:43
	and expression of religious experience necessarily	39:48
	lead away from Christ.	39:51
	In our meeting with men of other faiths,	39:56
	we have the possibility, the possibility of discovering	40:00
	both the real distinctiveness of Jesus Christ	40:05
	and of grasping new and fresh meanings of Christ	40:10
	to which we are blinded by the provincialism	40:17
	of our own history and culture.	40:22
	Christ may indeed come to us in our meeting with others.	40:26
	The early Christians expected the second coming	40:36
	of Christ as a future event,	40:41
	perhaps in their own lifetime, but in the future.	40:45
	They knew neither when nor how, but they lived	40:51
	in confident and joyful expectation.	40:57
	We must confess that we know neither when nor how,	41:03
	but let us live in their hope, making it our own.	41:10
	Listen to the words, the words with which	41:19
	the New Testament closes.	41:24
	"He who testifies to these things says,	41:28
	"Surely, I am coming soon.	41:33
	"Come Lord Jesus.	41:37
	"The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.	41:40
	"Amen."	41:46
	Let us pray.	41:49
	O God, in whom we live and move and have our being,	41:53
	whose existence does not depend	42:07
	on our acknowledgement of thee,	42:10
	and whose love and power sustains us unawares,	42:15
	we give thee thanks for thy patience with us,	42:22
	and for thy persistence.	42:27
	O God, who art always present,	42:32
	even when we are far from thee,	42:36
	make thy presence known to us,	42:41
	that we may love and serve thee in newness of life.	42:45
	In Christ's name, amen.	42:53
	(bright organ music)	43:00
	(bright organ music drowns out singing)	43:52
	(bright organ music)	44:19
	(bright organ music drowns out singing)	44:31
	(bright organ music drowns out singing)	45:06
	♪ Amen ♪	45:43
	(gentle organ music)	45:52
	(heartfelt organ music)	46:35
	(gentle organ music)	47:29
	(somber organ music)	48:24
	(women singing in Latin)	48:35
	(somber organ music)	49:00
	(women singing in Latin)	49:07
	(somber organ music)	49:26
	(women singing in Latin)	49:33
	(somber organ music)	49:56
	(women singing in Latin)	50:03
	(somber organ music)	50:20
	(women singing in Latin)	50:27
	(somber organ music)	50:48
	(women singing in Latin)	50:54
	(somber organ music)	51:12
	(women singing in Latin)	51:18
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	51:54
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	52:04
	♪ Hallelujah ♪	52:15
	(somber organ music)	52:24
	(bright organ music)	52:31
	("Doxology")
	♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪	52:57
	♪ Praise him all creatures here below ♪	53:04
	♪ Praise him above ye heavenly hosts ♪	53:10
	♪ Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost ♪	53:17
	♪ Amen ♪	53:24
-	All things come of thee, O God, our silver and our gold.	53:32
	As of thine own do we give thee, as the symbol of ourselves	53:39
	in the name of Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.	53:45
	And now to God's gracious mercy and protection,	53:53
	do I commit you.	53:58
	May the blessing of God come upon you abundantly.	54:01
	May it keep you strong and tranquil	54:07
	in the truth of his promises through Jesus Christ our Lord.	54:11
	Amen.	54:19
	(bells ringing)	54:22
	(bright organ music)	54:35
	(haunting Baroque style organ music)	54:45

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Title:

Harry B. Partin - "The Second Fall" (March 24, 1968)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4028tf30

Date:

March 24, 1968

Speaker:

Partin, Harry B.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0423
ref6049_r23
uachapelsermaud
duke:628333
dcrau002415
ark:/87924/r4028tf30
f890d2ca-fdd3-4e8d-a704-c2773d5f4579

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Harry B. Partin - "The Second Fall" (March 24, 1968)

Transcript

Item Info

Duke University Archives

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