The Conjunction Conundrum

Yes, exactly.

Luther was really gifted as a theologian in part because he gave us so many great slogans.

It did not take him very long when he was writing or when he was lecturing for him to actually put things in really neat slogan form.

And sometimes he was copying versions of it that occurred before him.

But usually...

he was creating these brand new.

In that way, he was better than Shakespeare.

You know, Shakespeare is often noted for creating these words that never existed.

And then suddenly he would put these things together and they were always kind of odd words, but somehow they conveyed something quite powerful.

This is the way Luther is doing this with the conjunction of the incompatible.

And this becomes a key part of learning what Psalm 51 is saying, therefore what David is going through, and also then also becomes a key part of understanding the doctrine of sin.

So as we have been going through Psalm 51 and this particular section on David in Luther's Outlaw God, Volume 2— we have been especially talking about the doctrine of sin.

And Luther keeps pausing when he is teaching his students and reminding them that there is no harder way teaching in theology or a harder part of theology to learn than the part that is learning sin.

And, of course, there's a reason for it.

You could sit and talk about the theology of God, who God is, what God does.

You could talk about the theology of Jesus Christ, who He is and what He does, the theology of the Holy Spirit, etc., etc.

But, of course, when you get to this matter of sin, then you are directly involved, and you're directly involved negatively.

So that the problem with learning sin is that you don't actually want to learn what that is since it implicates you.

I mean, it points directly at you, this is what was happening to David and why it was so hard for David to actually learn this.

And one of the key things that is hard to learn regarding sin is this phrase that Luther now has created called the conjunction of the incompatible.

And we have it in English in almost identical form as the Latin.

It's just being taken over for that particular reason.

But these phrases are so great in Latin.

Conjungere duo incompatibilia.

And so Luther just rolls these things out for his students to understand what we're going to talk about now is something that the mind cannot grasp.

Yes, exactly.

Luther was really gifted as a theologian in part because he gave us so many great slogans.

It did not take him very long when he was writing or when he was lecturing for him to actually put things in really neat slogan form.

And sometimes he was copying versions of it that occurred before him.

But usually...

he was creating these brand new.

In that way, he was better than Shakespeare.

You know, Shakespeare is often noted for creating these words that never existed.

And then suddenly he would put these things together and they were always kind of odd words, but somehow they conveyed something quite powerful.

This is the way Luther is doing this with the conjunction of the incompatible.

And this becomes a key part of learning what Psalm 51 is saying, therefore what David is going through, and also then also becomes a key part of understanding the doctrine of sin.

So as we have been going through Psalm 51 and this particular section on David in Luther's Outlaw God, Volume 2— we have been especially talking about the doctrine of sin.

And Luther keeps pausing when he is teaching his students and reminding them that there is no harder way teaching in theology or a harder part of theology to learn than the part that is learning sin.

And, of course, there's a reason for it.

You could sit and talk about the theology of God, who God is, what God does.

You could talk about the theology of Jesus Christ, who He is and what He does, the theology of the Holy Spirit, etc., etc.

But, of course, when you get to this matter of sin, then you are directly involved, and you're directly involved negatively.

So that the problem with learning sin is that you don't actually want to learn what that is since it implicates you.

I mean, it points directly at you, this is what was happening to David and why it was so hard for David to actually learn this.

And one of the key things that is hard to learn regarding sin is this phrase that Luther now has created called the conjunction of the incompatible.

And we have it in English in almost identical form as the Latin.

It's just being taken over for that particular reason.

But these phrases are so great in Latin.

Conjungere duo incompatibilia.

And so Luther just rolls these things out for his students to understand what we're going to talk about now is something that the mind cannot grasp.