Marilynne Robinson - The Givenness of Things

“let loose our thoughts”: Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , vol. 1, Introduction, 31.

“to be fixed on Christ”: Calvin, Commentary on John , 3:16, 124.

“I, I am He”: Isaiah 43:25.

“vital force”: H. S. Chamberlain, Recherches sur la sève ascendante [Studies on rising sap], (Neuchâtel, 1897).

“Those who were full”: 1 Samuel 2:5.

“He has put down”: Luke 1:52–53.

“Whoever exalts himself”: Matthew 23:12.

“in a golden gown”: Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man , trans. Charles Glenn Wallis (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965; Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1998), 12.

“I understood why man”: Ibid., 3–4.

“I have placed thee”: Ibid., 5.

“Human nature it is”: De Docta Ignorantia, in Unity and Reform: Selected Writings of Nicholas de Cusa , ed. John Patrick Dolan (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962), 65.

“an order that by nature”: Ibid., 67.

“the highest nature that comprises”: Ibid., 64.

“Since this light, of which the Speech was the source”: Calvin, Commentary on John , 1:4, 32.

THEOLOGY

“Physicists have discovered”: Natalie Wolchover, “A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics,” Quanta , September 17, 2013. http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20130917-a-jewel-at-the-heart-of-quantum-physics/.

SON OF ADAM, SON OF MAN

“equality with God”: Philippians 2:6–7.

“the Son of Man came not”: Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45.

“were everywhere in abundance”: John Chrysostom, Homily 32, section 11, in Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians , ed. Philip Schaff, vol. 12, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, n.d.; reprint, Eerdmans, n.d.), 191.

“Do not presume to say to yourselves”: Matthew 3:9.

“Do not begin to say to yourselves”: Luke 3:8.

“The Lord says to my lord”: Psalm 110:1.

“If David thus”: Matthew 22:45.

“What do you think of the Christ?”: Matthew 22:42–45.

“He took to himself”: Chrysostom, Homily 24, section 8, in Saint Chrysostom , 143.

“Doubtless he says one ”: Calvin on Hebrews 3:5 and 3:7, in Calvin’s Commentaries , trans. John Owen, vol. 44, Hebrews (Edinburgh, 1847–1850), 56, 59.

“He who sanctifies”: Hebrews 2:11.

“through whom also he”: Hebrews 1:2–3.

LIMITATION

“Nor let anyone think”: John Locke, Human Understanding , vol. 1, book 2, chap. 7, 164–65.

“I suppose nobody will”: Ibid., chap. 1, 132.

“[Atoms in the brain] can remember”: Richard Feynman, “The Value of Science,” in his “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”: Adventures of a Curious Character , ed. Ralph Leighton (New York: Norton, 2001), 244.

“The whole world is preserved”: John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, and Luke , trans. William Pringle (Edinburgh, 1845; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1996), Matthew 4:4, 24.

“occupy themselves with myths”: 1 Timothy 1:4–5.

“And being found in human form”: Philippians 2:8.

“Though he was in the form”: Philippians 2:6–7.

“For it has been delivered”: Luke 4:6.

“Foxes have holes”: Calvin, Harmony , Matthew 8:20, at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/comment3/comm_vol31/htm/ix.lxxiii.htm.

“It is strange”: Calvin, Harmony , 1:388.

REALISM

“One born to prowess”: Pindar, The Odes , trans. Cecil Maurice Bowra (New York: Penguin, 1969), 107.

“lit / By the lovely light”: Ibid., 109.

I would like to thank the following institutions where these essays, sometimes in different form, were originally delivered as lectures: the Nexus Institute; the First Presbyterian Church of New York City; Santa Clara University; University of California, Berkeley; Yale University; Theos Think Tank; University of Notre Dame; Western Theological Seminary; the International Society, Wittenberg, Germany; Union Theological Seminary; Regent College, Vancouver; the Divinity School, Oxford University; the Soul Conference at Oxford University in conjunction with the University of Nottingham; the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh; and Key West Literary Seminar.

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the novels Lila (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award), Home, Gilead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize), and Housekeeping , and four books of nonfiction: When I Was a Child I Read Books, Mother Country, The Death of Adam , and Absence of Mind . She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. You can sign up for email updates here.