Grace Abounding

John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)

John Bunyan, tinker of Bedford, who wrote it in the county gaol

Raw, first-person, and still shaking a little from how close it came to going the other way.

Catch rate: 80 / 255
Base research: 170
Stat total: 314

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina80

Contend84

Defend78

Popularity72

Total314

Cited for this book

John Bunyan wrote his spiritual autobiography during twelve years in Bedford jail for preaching without a licence. For years he tried to build a righteousness of his own and failed. Then, walking in a field, he saw that his righteousness was Christ’s, already finished, and safe whatever he felt next.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	There Was My Righteousness	Spirituality	Argument	88	100%	10
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
34	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
40	Rest	Spirituality	Rest	—	100%	5
48	Restless Heart	Experience	Argument	75	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“…I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand: there, I say, was my righteousness.”
John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain

There Was My Righteousness

SpiritualityArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameBunyan, in the field, at the end of years of trying to find a righteousness he could stand on. The relief in Grace Abounding is that it was never going to be his own — it was already finished, and elsewhere, and secure.

“In peace I will both lay myself down and sleep, for you, Yahweh alone, make me live in safety.”
Psalm 4:8 (WEB).

Rest

SpiritualityRest · 100% accurate

In the gameBreak off and rest. Stamina is restored in full and any trouble is slept off, but the book is then ASLEEP for a turn (two turns, one time in five) while the other side does as it likes.

“You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it reposes in You.”
Augustine, Confessions 1.1 (trans. Pusey, 1838, public domain, lightly modernized).public domain

Restless Heart

ExperienceArgument · power 75 · 100% accurate

In the gameExperience, directed toward God at last — what the Coach felt in his gut, Augustine prayed onto papyrus.

Strong against

×3The Absurdan argument · why?

Augustine’s line is that the heart is restless until it rests in God. It is the collision Camus describes, said fifteen centuries earlier by the man he studied for his degree, and with an answer.

×3The Man of the Worldan argument · why?

The cheerful, occupied man is restless and does not know it. The heart is restless until it rests in God.

×2Men Before Adaman argument · why?

Every people he names as older than Adam is a people with the same ache in it. One fall reaches all of them.

×2Penséesa book · why?

Pascal said that his account of man, wretched and great together, came from Augustine.

×2The Expressive Selfan argument · why?

The Romantic looks in and expects to find home. Augustine looked in and found the ache — and said nothing finite, the self included, has ever stilled it.

×2Totem and Tabooan argument · why?

Freud traces the restlessness to a child wanting its father. Augustine agreed it starts there, and said it does not stop there, because nothing finite has ever quieted it.

×2You Are Still a Manicheean argument · why?

A good thing, made restless — which is the distinction he says cannot be drawn.