![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/305\/2022\/01\/1024px-Johann_Georg_Hamann2.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In our discussion of John Kleinig\u2019s translation of\u00a0 J. G. Hamann\u2019s London Writings<\/a>, with which I was involved, I quoted part of Hamann\u2019s account of his conversion to Christianity.\u00a0 I want to give you a sample of what comes next, in which Hamann confesses his newfound faith.<\/p>\n Hamann\u2019s mature style, even when he writes about serious subjects, is comical, filled with wordplay and allusions, dense, and sometimes hard to decipher.\u00a0 John Betz, the author of the definitive book on Hamann, After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J. G. Hamann,<\/a> says that his style is purposefully counter to the straightforward, lucid style that characterizes the Enlightenment writers, thus making the point that reality is not as clear as the rationalists like to imply.<\/p>\n But the London Writings,<\/em> written at the very beginning of his career as his personal reflections, are highly readable, making them the best introduction to the writings of Hamann, especially since here he formulates the ideas that he would develop in more detail later.\u00a0 Hamann\u2019s prose in these journals is passionate, incisive, and electric with discovery.\u00a0 All of this is conveyed in Dr. Kleinig\u2019s superb English rendition.<\/p>\n From \u201cThoughts on the Course of My Life,\u201d London Writings<\/a>, p. 291:<\/p>\n I conclude, from the evidence of my own experience, with heartfelt and sincere thanksgiving for His saving Word which I have tested and found to be the only light by which we not only come to God, but also get to know ourselves. It is the most precious gift of God\u2019s grace that surpasses the whole natural world and all its treasures as much as our immortal spirit surpasses the clay of our flesh and blood. His Word is the most amazing and venerable revelation of the most profound, most sublime, most wonderful mysteries of the Godhead, whether it be in heaven, on earth, or in hell, the mysteries of God\u2019s nature, attributes, and His great, bountiful will chiefly toward us poor people, full of the most significant disclosures throughout the course of all the ages until eternity. His Word is the only bread and manna for our souls, which a Christian can no more do without than the earthly man can do without his daily necessities and sustenance \u2014 \u2014 yes, I confess that this Word of God accomplishes just as great miracles in the soul of a devout Christian, whether he be simple or learned, as those described in it. I confess that the understanding of this book and faith in its contents can therefore be gained by no other means than through the same Spirit who inspired its authors and that His unutterable sighs which He creates in our hearts are of the same nature as the inexpressible images that are scattered throughout Holy Scripture with a greater richness than all the seeds of the natural world and its realms.<\/p>\n Secondly, I confess with my heart and my best understanding that without faith in Jesus Christ it is impossible to know God and what a loving, unutterably good and generous being He is, He whose wisdom, omnipotence, and other attributes seem to be only, as it were, instruments of His love for humanity. I confess that this preference for people, the insects of creation, belongs to greatest depths of divine revelation. I confess that Jesus Christ was not only pleased to become a man, but also a poor and most wretched man.\u00a0 I confess that for us the Holy Spirit has published a book for His Word, in which, like a fool or a madman, yes like an unholy and unclean spirit, He turned proud reason\u2019s children\u2019s stories, trivial, contemptible events, into the history of heaven and God (1 Cor 1:25). I confess that this faith shows us that all our own deeds and the noblest fruits of human virtue are nothing but the sketches from the finest pen under a magnifying glass or the most sensitive skin as seen under it. I confess that it is therefore impossible for us to love ourselves and our neighbor without faith in God which His Spirit produces and without the merit of the only Mediator. In short, a person must be a true Christian to be a proper father, a proper child, a good citizen, a proper patriot, a good subject, yes a good employer and a good employee. I confess that every good deed, in the strictest sense of the word, is impossible without God, and that He indeed is its only author.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is a lot to unpack here, and he unpacks it in his later writings, beginning with the other works that constitute the London Writings.<\/em>\u00a0 Notice here how he even brings up vocation!<\/p>\n After his transforming encounter with the Word of God, Hamann found a German Lutheran church in London.\u00a0 He confessed his sins to the pastor, received absolution, and that Sunday received Holy Communion.\u00a0 He met with the pastor for counseling, who told him, \u201cgo home.\u201d\u00a0 He did, and the next chapter of his life unfolded.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell more about what transpired, which is recounted in \u201cFurther Thoughts on the Course of My Life\u201d at the very end of the London Writings,<\/em> including his romance with the sister of his friend, Katharina Berens.\u00a0 I\u2019ll do that in context of trying to explain why Hamann has become so important for contemporary thought.<\/p>\n