Conflict, Closure, Dilemma: Bunyan's Grace Abounding

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 16; p. 103
• Main Author: Hall, Barry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2012
• Subjects: Bunyan, John (1628-1688); Bunyan, John (1628-88)
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]applying a single rule of judgement to both in order to settle their differend as though it were merely a litigation would wrong (at least) one of them (and both if neither side admits this rule).2 In his most influential book, The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard described a crisis of legitimation in science, economics, and the arts and posited that, far from being a negative situation, this state should be welcomed and seen as the natural reaction to modernist positivism: 'Let us wage a war on totality; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate the differences and save the honour of the name'.3 Lyotard' s postmodernism stresses the limitations of unifying concepts. Sim continues his argument by suggesting that 'those post-conversion backslidings to which the author admits he remains prone in the closing passages of Grace Abounding, the "many turnings and goings upon my heart both from the Lord, Satan, and my own corruptions", might be read as the return of the differend'.11 I would argue that the differend never goes away, that Bunyan is reconciled to conflict from the outset, that he is unable ever to trust in God's grace, and that the 'post-conversion backslidings' are evidence of that. [...]did my chains fall off my Legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away: so that from that time those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoycing, for the grace and love of God: So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find mat Sentence, Thy Righteousness is in Heaven, but could not find such a Saying, wherefore my Heart began to sink again, onely that was brought to remembrance, He of God is made unto us Wisdom, Righteouness, Sanctification, and Redemption; by this word I saw the other Sentence true, I Cor. 1 . Heaven and Hell were both out of sight and minde; and as for Saving and Damning, they were least in my thoughts.37 These representations of his unregenerate behaviour are of course literary devices designed to impress prospective saints but they go some way towards showing how Bunyan saw his life before conversion.