"I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. However, they that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, 'Ye are our gods,' they shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed." Isaiah 42:16-17
"We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called..., Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God s stronger than men." I Corinthians 1:23-25
There is a difference between making the gospel clear and dumbing it down. It is better that men find the gospel hard than underwhelming, better for them to be confounded at its paradoxes ("God as a man?") and its implications ("God was killed?") than to lose the power of those paradoxes and implications. It is cliché to say that the gospel is simple but not necessarily easy. Human pride and intellect roar against it: their pride because it wounds to the quick ("Are you calling me a sinner?"), and their intellect because of the necessity of faith ("I must figure it out first!"). To paraphrase Mr. Card, they are offend that they must surrender the hunger that says they must know, and have the courage to say, "I believe."
The powerful veil of the mysterious that shrouds God's truths are there for a purpose: it opens the eyes of the believer, and blinds those who say they can see. Read Hebrews 11 and see the beginning of the believer's intellectual life: "Through faith, we know..." Those who step out into the dark with God (which is key), they will always find their paths straightened, and that the darkness shines as the noonday. However, those who park their carcase on the banks of reasoned understanding have damned themselves to conundrums forever forever. In the effort to know, they can never know; claiming to be wise, they become fools.
The shores of reasoned understanding and believed understanding, of Reason and Faith, are two different, but in no way oppositional, places. The shores of Faith are not in antagonism against the shores of Reason (no matter what some knuckleheads out there try to say); they are not enemies. Faith is the completion of Reason, taking us to where Reason alone can never reach (i.e., God). Reason can only take us so far; Faith takes us the rest of the way. The two are not mutually exclusive: Reason needs Faith in order to fulfill its purpose, i.e., to know. We can never truly know until we believe, for in Reason we get to the truth of the matter, but in Faith we get to the Truth behind the matter. We can never fully know anything until we know the One who fully knows everything.
"I can never know
Until I am known.
By a leap in the dark,
Through the veil of mystery,
I find You..."
-Jon Vowell
"We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called..., Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God s stronger than men." I Corinthians 1:23-25
There is a difference between making the gospel clear and dumbing it down. It is better that men find the gospel hard than underwhelming, better for them to be confounded at its paradoxes ("God as a man?") and its implications ("God was killed?") than to lose the power of those paradoxes and implications. It is cliché to say that the gospel is simple but not necessarily easy. Human pride and intellect roar against it: their pride because it wounds to the quick ("Are you calling me a sinner?"), and their intellect because of the necessity of faith ("I must figure it out first!"). To paraphrase Mr. Card, they are offend that they must surrender the hunger that says they must know, and have the courage to say, "I believe."
The powerful veil of the mysterious that shrouds God's truths are there for a purpose: it opens the eyes of the believer, and blinds those who say they can see. Read Hebrews 11 and see the beginning of the believer's intellectual life: "Through faith, we know..." Those who step out into the dark with God (which is key), they will always find their paths straightened, and that the darkness shines as the noonday. However, those who park their carcase on the banks of reasoned understanding have damned themselves to conundrums forever forever. In the effort to know, they can never know; claiming to be wise, they become fools.
The shores of reasoned understanding and believed understanding, of Reason and Faith, are two different, but in no way oppositional, places. The shores of Faith are not in antagonism against the shores of Reason (no matter what some knuckleheads out there try to say); they are not enemies. Faith is the completion of Reason, taking us to where Reason alone can never reach (i.e., God). Reason can only take us so far; Faith takes us the rest of the way. The two are not mutually exclusive: Reason needs Faith in order to fulfill its purpose, i.e., to know. We can never truly know until we believe, for in Reason we get to the truth of the matter, but in Faith we get to the Truth behind the matter. We can never fully know anything until we know the One who fully knows everything.
"I can never know
Until I am known.
By a leap in the dark,
Through the veil of mystery,
I find You..."
-Jon Vowell
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