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<font size=4>Greetings:<br><br>
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 <i>God, Reason, and the
Evangelicals
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(<a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/Chap2gre.htm" eudora="autourl">
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/Chap2gre.htm</a>) and encourage visionaries to
read the much shorter essay "The Gospel of Weak Belief" at
<a href="http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gospel.htm" eudora="autourl">
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gospel.htm</a>. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<div align="center">The man of faith ventures forth sometimes against all
logic and reason<br>
out of fidelity to the inward call that comes to him from God.<br><br>
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<dd>--Calvinist Donald Bloesch<br><br>
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</dl><div align="center">By faith you are sure of all those things of
which you have a firm conviction, <br>
but which conviction is not the outcome of observation or
demonstration.<br><br>
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<dd>--Calvinist Abraham Kuyper<br><br>
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</dl><div align="center">They who labor to raise up a firm faith in
Scripture by arguing are acting absurdly.<br><br>
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<dd>--John Calvin<br><br>
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</dl><div align="center">We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to
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the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey
Christ.<br><br>
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<dd>--Paul (2 Cor. 10:5)<br><br>
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</dl><div align="center">Enlightened reason, taken captive by faith,
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receives life from faith, for it is slain and given life again.<br><br>
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<dd>--Martin Luther<br><br>
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</dl><div align="center">True reason--i.e., reason determined by God's
word--<br>
is nothing else but faith: he receiving of the divine Word.<br><br>
--Lutheran Emil Brunner<br><br>
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.<br><br>
--John 20:29<br><br>
Faith is a form of mental certitude about absent realities <br>
that is greater than opinion but less than knowledge.<br><br>
--Catholic Thomas Aquinas<br><br>
For the pursuit of the religious way a man needs <br>
to seek certain goals with certain weak beliefs.<br><br>
--Richard Swinburne, Oxford don<br><br>
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