I have never met a genuine Christian who disparaged the importance of conversion, faith, commitment, sacrifice, Bible study, holy living, and the like. But I know lots of Christians who have not yet seen the importance of sound doctrine. It is important THAT we believe (spiritual concern); but it is also important WHAT we believe (theological concern).
~ Ronald Nash, Closing of the American Heart, page 99
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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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RELATED
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
What we believe about God is the most important thing about us.
~ A.W. Tozer
We are more at home with our own ideas about religion—with thoughts which are more comfortable and reassuring, with a “god” who is rather like us and who can be brought into line with our own expectations. This God is domesticated—like a religious “pet” rather than the wild, untamed presence of the Almighty.
~ David Hewetson and David Miller, in Christianity Made Simple
You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say, “God is love,” they will claim that you are taking things out of context!
~Dan Barker, in Losing Faith in Faith
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
The most important questions that will ever be asked in this world are those regarding the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Who was he? What was his mission? Why did he die? Was he resurrected?
Jesus, himself, asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Below you will find some of the answers that have been offered;
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Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
~ Robert A. Heinlein
The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.
~ Thomas Paine
What has ‘theology’ ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has ‘theology’ ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? What makes you think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?
~ Richard Dawkins
Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.
~ Robert Green Ingersoll
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
~ Henry Louis Mencken
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RELATED CONTENT
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What’s on your iPod? It is common for people to talk about Summer Reading — what about Summer Listening?
May I make a suggestion? How about using this summer to listen to one of the many free Seminary classes that are available for free online? I have listed below two sources for audio from actual seminary classes that are available for free online. You can listen to them as streaming audio or as an Mp3 download. If you don’t find something that interests you from the list below, check with me and I can set you up with a few more sources for similar material.
Available from BiblicalTraining.org (you have to take 30 seconds to sign up in order to gain access, but don’t worry about spam as they only send out an email 2 or 3 times a year, and usually it is just to let you know that more studies have been made available):
Daniel Wallace (Dallas Theological Seminary)
Robert Stein (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Gerald Bray (Beeson Divinity School)
Gordon Isaac (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
Ron Nash (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Peter Kuzmic (Evangelical Theological Seminary)
Timothy Tennent (Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary)
- Buddhism
- Hinduism (Foundations)
- Islam
- The World Mission of the Church (Foundations)
- World Religions (Foundations)
Bruce Ware (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Bill Mounce
- 52 Major Stories of the Bible
- Biblical Greek
- Biblical Training Institute
- Greek Tools for Bible Study
- Now that I Believe
Bryan Chapell (Covenant Theological Seminary)
John Piper (Bethel)
Miles van Pelt (Reformed Theological Seminary)
Douglas Stuart (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary)
Paul House (Beeson Divinity School)
Frank Thielman (Beeson Divinity School)
George Guthrie (Union University)
Gary Parrett (Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary)
Craig Blomberg (Denver Seminary)
- Introduction to the New Testament: Epistles
- Introduction to the New Testament: Gospel and Acts
- New Testament Survey
Gerry Breshears (Western Seminary)
And, these are available from Covenant Theological Seminary:
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(clickon image)
The tendency of the churches to be relevant and more secular-than-thou does not answer our need for the transcendent.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, in “A Circle of Quiet”, (NY: HarperCollins, 1972), page 111.
And a few more bookmarks I want to make sure are preserved during the transition from AnnotatedBookmarks.info to AnnotatedBookmarks.com…
Picher – Cardin
- Cardin Community Profile
- Cardin Demographic Data
- Cardin Houses
- Miami Tribe Environmental Issues
- Picher Ghosttown
- Picher-Cardin Public Schools
- Sucking Sound
- Tar Creek Project
- U. S. Geological Survey
- Vintage Ottawa County Photos
- Your Backyard
What do you think are the most common misconceptions people have about God?
Share your answer in the comments below.
