But if the lords were glum, the common people in the streets were huzzaing and throwing caps in the air. It would have puffed me up if I had not looked in their faces. There I could read their mind easily enough. Neither I nor Glome was in their thoughts. Any fight was a free show for them; and a fight of a woman with a man better still because an oddity–as those who can’t tell one tune from another will crowd to hear the harp if a man plays it with his toes.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seem to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity
Thou, who wouldst give no other sign, deliver me
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of my head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take me from all my trumpery lest I die.
~ The Apologists Evening Prayer
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains. Suffering is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.
He wants a child’s heart, but a grown up’s head.
He who converts his neighbour has performed the most practical Christian-political act of all.
~ in God in the Dock
I had known Redival’s tears ever since I could remember. They were not wholly feigned, nor much dearer than ditchwater…. It’s likely enough she meant less mischief than she had done (she never knew how much she meant) and was now, in her fashion, sorry; but a new brooch, much more a new lover, would have had her drying her eyes and laughing in no time.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
I want God, not my idea of God.
It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
The one sin the gods never forgive us is that of being born women.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
“We’ve had scores of matches together. The gods never made anyone–man or woman–with a better natural gift for it. Oh, Lady, Lady, it’s a thousand pities they didn’t make you a man.” (He spoke it as kindly and heartily as could be; as if a man dashed a gallon of cold water in your broth and never doubted you’d like it all the better.)
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
When I fail as a critic I may yet be useful as a specimen.
Yet it surprised me that he should have said it; for I did not yet know that, if you are ugly enough, all men (unless they hate you deeply) soon give up thinking of you as a woman at all.
~ Character in Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
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Recently my colleagues and I attended a debate on the topic “Does God Exist?”. The primary audience for the debate was private high school and middle school students. In our post-debate debrief one of my friends stated, “If you are going to put on a debate like this for a group of kids, you’d better be sure you win.” Unfortunately, it was none to apparent that the pro-God side won. At best it was a draw.
Dinesh D’Souza was the voice of theism in the debate. I have heard him many times and he is quite competent in such a forum. However, the voice of atheism, Dan Barker, was also quite effective in planting the seeds of doubt. And, I am convinced that many a student left the auditorium with the suspicion that Barker was what he claimed to be — the voice of “reason and kindness”.
The school planned follow-up discussions with the students in their classrooms. Hopefully, that time was used effectively in exorcising residual suspicions and fears. Even now I am praying for those who were in attendance.
That is the background, now let me get to the point. Students need to be confronted with arguments against their own beliefs and worldview. If they are not exposed to opposing arguments and claims in an environment where those arguments and claims can be effectively debunked then they become prime targets for sophists and philosophical snipers. Thus, it is a GOOD thing to expose your children to error. If you are doing so in a controlled environment you are inoculating them against many dangerous viral ideas.
HOWEVER, when attempting to inoculate the young, you must make sure that you exposing them to error in a controlled environment. Or, as my friend said, you’d better make sure you win. Truth has nothing to fear in the marketplace of ideas. But, truth poorly defended when error has a fully loaded arsenal can be as harmful when presented in a Christian environment as it is in the homeland of error.
Careful, careful, . . .
If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.
~ Thomas Carlyle
I savor Fr. Neuhaus’s formulation. We concede that Jesus-the-Christ — Jesus-the-Savior — isn’t something you submit for validation to the Bureau of Weights and Measures. We therefore think of him, as all Christians must, “proleptically,” i.e., in anticipation of a comprehensive acknowledgment of him, as Him. And this gives additional romance to Christian belief, as is fitting for those who sit waiting, forever and ever, yet confident that the third act will be transporting.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr. in Nearer, My God (NY: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1997), page 113.
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Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.
~ Aristotle
No one indeed believes anything unless he has first thought that it it to be believed.
~ Augustine of Hippo
Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith; they keep faith alive and moving.
~ Frederick Buechner
A comprehended God is no God.
~ Dio Chrysostom
If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.
~ Denis Diderot, in A Philosophical Conversation
Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith is her right, …
~ John Donne
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this because hey manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions; the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.
~ Steve Eley
The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith.
~ T.S. Eliot, in his Introduction to Pascal’s Pensees
I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.
~ Galileo Galilei
Proof is only applicable to very rarefied areas of philosophy and mathematics…. For the most part we are driven to acting on good evidence, without the luxury of proof. There is good evidence of the link between cause and effect. There is good evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow. There is good reason to believe my mother loves me and is not just fattening me up for the moment when she will pop arsenic into my tea. And there is good reason to believe in God. Very good reason. Not conclusive proof, but very good reason just the same…. I believe it is much harder to reject the existence of a supreme being than accept it.
~ Michael Green, in Faith for the Non-religious
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
~ Ralph Hodgson
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
~ David Hume, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Concerning Human Understanding
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
~ Robert Jastrow, in God and the Astronomer
The more we know of God, the more unreservedly we will trust Him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more childlike will be our faith.
~ J. Gresham Machen
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration—courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.
~ H. L. Menken
The faith that does not come from reason is to be doubted, and the reason that does not lead to faith is to be feared,
~ G. Campbell Morgan
Faith is reason at rest in God.
~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon
God cannot be understood by logical reasoning but only by submission.
~ Leo Tolstoy, in Wise Thoughts for Every Day
It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is a necessary to reason, as reason is to religion.
~ George Washington
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Books on Faith & Reason
I imagined that if a Christian had a brain cell, it would die of loneliness.
~ Josh McDowell, in More Than a Carpenter, talking about the way he thought prior to his conversion to Christianity.
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Question: I am struggling with my studies of the Old Testament. How do we counter the argument of Joshua’s jihad in the book of Joshua when confronted by Muslims and seekers of the Faith? Heck, not sure I can reconcile it in my own mind. I see little difference in the acts of terrorism recorded in our Holy Scripture and the acts of Alkeda (sic) today.
Kevin’s Response: I think that every thinking Christian struggles a bit with the question you ask. Sure, there are rationally good arguments for explaining the events in the book of Joshua, but nevertheless it goes against the grain of our sensibilities. I think it is good to acknowledge our discomfort even when we are able to answer the question.
There is such a thing as religious terrorism. We have seen it in many places and at many times; the Ku Klux Klan, the Inquisition, and what Al Qaeda is engaging in today. And, some of what was found in those instances may appear similar to what we find in the book of Joshua. However, it is not the similarities that provide an answer to your question – it is the differences. The Scholastics had a saying, “When there is confusion, make a distinction.”
So, what is the distinction? God. If one believes that the Scriptures are God’s Word, then the distinction is that the God who is all-knowing and all-good commanded what we find in the conquest of Canaan.
I can think of only two ways in which one can do away with this “distinction”.
1. You can assert that modern terrorists are also being commanded by God to engage in this behavior. I don’t believe this.
2. You can assert that the Bible is in error and that God did not command the events associated with the conquest of Canaan. I don’t believe this, either.
The dissonance we spoke of earlier leads most skeptics to skip the “distinction” and head straight to the question of God’s goodness. “If there is a God, and if the Bible is His revelation, could a good God command the things that we see in these biblical texts? Is God just?”
I have attached some links at the bottom of this response to articles that address this question. But let me quickly mention four things that are important to me personally when thinking through this issue.
1. Mankind is God’s creation and we are responsible/accountable to Him, not vice versa.
(Romans 9) What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
2. God is all-knowing. This is important because being all-knowing God would know the possible futures of what we would normally consider non-combatants and thus be able to consider them as combatants.
3. God is all-good. Therefore, I can trust Him even when I don’t understand.
4. God’s ways are far above my ability to comprehend.
(Deuteronomy 29:29) The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
(2 Corinthians 2:16) “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”
Job 38
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels [a] shouted for joy?8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death [b] ?18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,26 to water a land where no man lives,
a desert with no one in it,27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?31 “Can you bind the beautiful [c] Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons [d]
or lead out the Bear [e] with its cubs?33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s [f] dominion over the earth?34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?36 Who endowed the heart [g] with wisdom
or gave understanding to the mind [h] ?37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
And, here are the promised links through to articles in which you can see how others have handled this question.
- How Can a Just God Order the Slaughter of Men, Women and Children? (James Williams of Probe Ministries)
- Why in the Old Testament does God demand so much violence and war of the Jewish nation? (R.C. Sproul)
- The Justice of God (Regis Nicoll of BreakPoint)
- Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites (Paul Copan)
Orthodoxy does not have a history. It is true eternally. Heresy has a history, having arisen at particular times through particular teachers.
~ Eusebius of Caesarea
The age of the martyrs has a powerful attraction even to the casual reader; the age of the heresies leaves him bewildered and distressed. Yet the agents in both were discharging an equally necessary function. Both were upholding the truth of the gospel; the one against the power of the world, the other against the wisdom of the world. The martyrs had this advantage, that the force of their testimony was concentrated in one supreme moment, was expressed in one heroic act, which commands universal sympathy. The controversialists had to live through a protracted struggle and are judged by their utterances, and all their human weaknesses which the conflict remorselessly revealed.
~ Mandell Creighton, quoted by B. B. Warfield in Selected Shorter Writings
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Orthodoxy & Heresy in the Early Church
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100 Most Important Events In Church History
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(click on image)
What is your definition of a miracle? Do you think you have ever experienced one?
(Share your answers in the comments below.)
While on a sea cruise your ship sinks and you are stranded on a deserted island. With you are three intellectual atheists. They are not just atheists, but militant atheists. You do not have a Bible or any other references. What would be your strategy for sharing with them the reason for the hope that is within you?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
If God did not exist, what practical difference would that make in our world?
