A little of everything. Since we cannot be universal and know all there is to know about everything, we must know a little of everything. For it is very much better to know something about everything than to know all about something. This universality is the finest thing. If we can have both kinds of knowledge, better still. But if we have to choose, this must be our choice. The world knows this, and makes this choice, for the world is often a good judge.
- Blaise Pascal, The Pensees, 42
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Propaganda in the schools will preach tolerance and, by implication, the errors of fundamentalism. Power and money will take away from fundamentalists the opportunity for equal means to educate their own children or to spread their particular views. This procedure appears to mean, 'We will tolerate you temporarily, but we will make sure by political power that we seize the minds of your children and educate them against your views.' Tolerance has apparently become intolerance. People who abhor oppression nevertheless oppress. People who abhor dogmatism turn dogmatic. People who may say that all their knowledge is tentative, and who may even say that there is no absolute truth, have remarkable confidence in their ability to use political power. They craft a compulsory educational system that they allege will solve our moral problems... Implicitly, they have supposed that they can diagnose the deepest ills behind human moral failures. They are really proposing an alternative means of salvation, a means of rescue from the evils of the human heart. That amounts to an alternative religion. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. With relevant and funny Youtube vid... Enjoy.
(Video done by Lutheran Satire, which is a very entertaining channel from those of the Lutheran Confession, showing that theology doesn't have to be stuffy or dry, but rather can have humor in it!) 15 We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, 16 yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. 17 But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Christ then one who encourages sin? Absolutely not! 18 But if I build up again those things I once destroyed, I demonstrate that I am one who breaks God’s law. 19 For through the law I died to the law so that I may live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing! Modern people may no longer make idols in the form of physical images, but their very idea of 'scientific law' is an idolatrous twisting of their knowledge of God. They conceal from themselves the fact that this 'law' is personal and that they are responsible to him. Or they substitute the word 'Nature,' personifying her as they talk glowingly of the works of 'Mother Nature.' But they evade what they know of the transcendence of God over nature. There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about ‘isms’ and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The Law says, 'Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says, 'Believe in this,' and everything is already done. |
AuthorMy name is still Jonah, and I happen to have a love of reading. Here are quotes I come across in books I read that I find interesting and encouraging. Archives
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