[Vision2020] Mere Christianity

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

I've just returned from the Olympic Peninsula and I've been following 
two threads, the one on firearms and the other "mere 
Christianity."  After I read all the posts, I will post a response, 
but until then, I offer the epigraphs from my chapter "The Temptation 
of Belief" from God, Reason, and the 
Evangelicals  (www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/Chap2gre.htm) and encourage 
visionaries to read the much shorter essay "The Gospel of Weak 
Belief" at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gospel.htm.

I offer these links in vain because Crabtree is obviously correct in 
his observation that no one on the Vision is interesting in what I've 
written and no one on the Vision reads more than two paragraphs of what I post.

I've added "Calvinist" to these famous theologians so that Heirdoug 
is alerted to the fact that he and his pastor probably should no 
longer associate themselves with this denomination.  The recent vote 
against Wilson by the largest conservative Presbyterian organization 
confirms my advice.

The man of faith ventures forth sometimes against all logic and reason
out of fidelity to the inward call that comes to him from God.

--Calvinist Donald Bloesch

By faith you are sure of all those things of which you have a firm conviction,
but which conviction is not the outcome of observation or demonstration.

--Calvinist Abraham Kuyper

They who labor to raise up a firm faith in Scripture by arguing are 
acting absurdly.

--John Calvin

We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to
the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

--Paul (2 Cor. 10:5)

Enlightened reason, taken captive by faith,
receives life from faith, for it is slain and given life again.

--Martin Luther

True reason--i.e., reason determined by God's word--
is nothing else but faith: he receiving of the divine Word.

--Lutheran Emil Brunner

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

--John 20:29

Faith is a form of mental certitude about absent realities
that is greater than opinion but less than knowledge.

--Catholic Thomas Aquinas

For the pursuit of the religious way a man needs
to seek certain goals with certain weak beliefs.

--Richard Swinburne, Oxford don

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