At the Root of Every Temptation

“At the root of every temptation lies the glimpse of the possibility of reaching divinity by a shorter road than that of reality; by a road that one should self-invent, in spite of the prohibitions imposed by the laws of Creation, the divine order and the nature of man.”

~ Denis De Rougemont, The Devil’s Share (New York, NY: Meridian Books, 1956), 32.

Ideas Have Consequences

“If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity, and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone.

I became acquainted with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment — or, as the Nazi liked to say, ‘of Blood and Soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”

~ Viktor Frankl, quoted by Ravi Zacharias in The End of Reason (Grand Rapids, Mi.; Zondervan, 2008), 62-63.

Story-Shaped Lives

“The same impulse that makes us want our books to have a plot makes us want our lives to have a plot. We need to feel that we are getting somewhere, making progress. There is something in us that is not satisfied with a merely psychological explanation of our lives. It doesn’t do justice to our conviction that we are on some kind of journey or quest, that there must be some deeper meaning to our lives than whether we feel good about ourselves. Only people who have lost the sense of adventure, mystery, and romance worry about their self-esteem. And at that point what they need is not a good therapist but a good story. Or more precisely, the central question for us should be, ‘What personality dynamics explain my behavior?’ but rather, ‘What sort of story am I in?’”

~ William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong (New York, NY; Simon & Schuster, 1992), 192.

Worldviews of the Heart

“Basic beliefs function as the grid or matrix by which we comprehend reality and attempt to live consistently within that framework.

All humans are committed to their basic beliefs; otherwise, these beliefs would not be basic. Our commitments to our basic beliefs are core commitments — we cling to them; they are nonnegotiable; we express them in every facet of our lives. Basic beliefs and core commitments are the fundamental aspects of a worldview, since, by definition, they determine how we understand the world and what aspects of that understanding are nonnegotiable. Thus, having and living out a worldview are inescapable aspects of being human. To be human is to have a worldview. . . .

Basic beliefs are religious in nature because they are basic beliefs; core commitments are religious in nature because they are core commitments. Religion is fundamentally a matter of basic beliefs and core commitments — a worldview. Thus all worldviews are religious, and all people are religious. All thinking and doing arise from or are motivated by our core commitments, our basic beliefs — what the Bible terms ‘the heart’ and describes as the center of our being.”

~ W. Andrew Hoffecker, Revolutions in Worldview, ed. W. Andrew Hoffecker (Phillipsburg, NJ; P & R Publishing, 2007), xi-xii.

The Worth & Excellency of a Soul

“The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.”

~ Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man (Harrisburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1986), 62.

Islam’s Most Vulnerable Point

“I find it hard to see how Islam, or, for that matter, any religion based on belief in a unitary god, can possibly account for human personality or explain the diversity in unity of the world. . . . If the Christian faith is to make headway after all these centuries, it must begin at the roots of Islam with the Qur’ran’s dismissal of Christianity as repugnant to reason due, among other things, to its teaching on the Trinity. . . . For now and the future, we must recover our nerve, for this is the root of Islamic unbelief and also its most vulnerable point.”

~ Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2004), 10.

On Good, Evil & Ourselves

“We are ready to appropriate to ourselves the merits of which we have been only the agents, while we hasten to project upon Things, Destiny or Others an evil whose roots are really in ourselves.”

~ Denis De Rougemont, The Devil’s Share (New York, NY: Meridian Books, 1956), 44-45.

Salvation in Enemy Territory

“Sinners hate the idea of a clearly identifiable authority over them. They do not want to meet God. They would gladly make themselves believe that there is no clearly discernible, identifiable revelation of their Creator and Judge anywhere to be found in the universe. God’s work of redemption through Christ, therefore, comes into enemy territory. It comes to save from themselves those who do not want to be saved, because they think that they don not need to be saved.”

~ Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1969), 27.

On the Meaning of Everything

“Because reality is theistically grounded, human beings do not have the freedom of, the justification for, or even the capability of creating and ascribing an independent meaning to the universe. They are not free to do so because God already has done it. They are not justified in doing so because it is a violation of their subordinate, creaturely status. And they are not capable of doing so because of their formidable limitations. Only the rebellious, the proud, and the deceived, that is, only a human nature that is corrupt, would attempt such a ridiculous feat. The meaning of the universe and the authority to determine it are not open questions since both are fixed in the existence and character of God.”

~ David Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2002), 261-262.

Which Kind of Love Builds What Kind of City?

“We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God. . . . In the former, the lust for domination lords it over princes as over the nations it subjugates; in the other both those put in authority and those subject to them serve one another in love, the rulers by their counsel, the subjects by obedience. The one city loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders; the other says to it God: ‘I will love you, my Lord, my strength.’

Consequently, in the earthly city its wise men who live by men’s standards have pursued the goods of the body or of their own mind, or of both. . . . In the Heavenly City . . . man’s only wisdom is the devotion which rightly worships the true God. . . .”

~ Augustine, The City of God, quoted by David Naugle in Reordered Love, Reordered Lives (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2008), 52-53.