Faith, without trouble or fighting, is a suspicious faith; for true faith is a fighting, wrestling faith.
Ralph Erskine
Reason
Ed Stetzer
April 14, 2020
Tribalism conforms to the pattern of this world and does not fight for the basic truth that should unite all Christians. …secondary issues have conflated the spiritual and the natural in a way that weakens our witness and embroils us in deep conflict that distracts from and distorts the gospel of Jesus. Unflinching devotion to a tribe not only pushes us to fight against issues that are not connected to the gospel and don’t advance the mission of God, but it also affects how we view others who disagree with us. They become opponents we have to beat rather than lost people made in the image of God whom we are to love and extend God’s grace to. Our true fight is not against those who are hurting in the world; it is against the sinful and demonic forces of darkness.
(Christians in the Age of Outrage)
Bede Griffiths
I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking me. I had made myself the centre of my own existence and had my back turned to God. All the beauty and truth which I had discovered had come to me as a reflection of his beauty, but I had kept my eyes fixed on the reflection and was always looking at myself. But God had brought me to the point at which I was compelled to turn away from the reflection, both of myself and of the world which could only mirror my own image. During that night the mirror had been broken, and I had felt abandoned because I could no longer gaze upon the image of my own reason and the finite world which it knew. God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.
Francis A. Schaeffer
The ancients were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth they would fall off and be consumed by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, true to the ultimate environment – the infinite, personal God who is really there – then our minds are freed. We can pursue any question and can be sure that we will not fall off the end of the earth
Isaac Watts
Some persons believe everything that their kindred, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors incline them to swallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falsehood there is in them. Men take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
Benjamin B Warfield
A glass window stands before us. We raise our eyes and see the glass; we note its quality, and observe its defects; we speculate on its composition. Or we look straight through it on the great prospect of land and sea and sky beyond. So there are two ways of looking at the world. We may see the world and absorb ourselves in the wonders of nature. That is the scientific way. Or we may look right through the world and see God behind it. That is the religious [Christian] way.
Athanasius
For if the movement of the world were irrational, and the world rolled on in random fashion, one would be justified in disbelieving what we say. But if the world is founded on reason, wisdom, and science, and is filled with orderly beauty, then it must owe its origin and order to none other than the Word of God.
William Law
To think that reasoning and understanding of Scripture is to know Him is as sensible as reasoning about food is to eat it.
Blaise Pascal
The last proceeding of reason is to recognise that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.
Galileo Galilei
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use.