The idea of history turns on the reconciliation of good and time: the progress of time does not reduce the goods of nature to meaninglessness and vanity, but allows of a succession with its own meaning, congruent to nature but not identical with it. It is possible to underestimate the theoretical demands of such a reconciliation, which is what a variety of historicisms – spinning the logic of history out of nature or thrusting a logic of history over the top of nature – have done. Every such purely historical meaning turns out to be unmeaningful. It cannot yield the “love of one’s own” to which Grant gave such great weight.<\/p>\n
But if a reconciliation cannot be accomplished by immanent dialectic or nihilist decree, it may be disclosed to us by God, as promise. The difference between “my people” and “other people” depends on a special and particular gift, a narrative identity, and a narrative identity is a temporal meaning that is only to be received as a gift, not discovered as a truth of nature or imposed as a fiat of will.<\/p>\n