Sproul on the bible and science

The Scriptures and science proclaim the same truth. They support each other because God's revelation of himself in nature is just as true as his revelation of himself in Scripture. The Scriptures and science are united - not without their distinctions, of course - but united. To separate them is to do exactly what the world does.

R.C. Sproul Defending Your Faith, p.85

Collins on YEC, losing faith, reason

"The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?
--Francis S. Collins, Director National Human Genome Research Institute, writing in Faith and the Human Genome"

Source:Some Timely Evolutionary Quotes

Divine action in YEC vs TE. Lamoureaux quote, billiard balls

Consider divine action in the origin of the world to be like the strokes of a cue stick in a game of billiards. Label the balls into three groups using the words “heavens,” “earth,” and “living organisms,” and let the 8-ball represent humans. The young earth creationist depicts the Creator making single shot after single shot with no miscue until all the balls are off the table. No doubt, that is remarkable. A progressive creationist sees the opening stroke that breaks the balls as the Big Bang. All of the balls labeled “heavens” and “earth” are sunk by this initial shot. Then God sinks those that signify living organisms and humans individually. That is even more impressive.
Evolutionary creationists claim that the God-of-the-individual-shots (or “gaps”) fails to reveal fully the power and foresight of the Creator. According to their view of origins, the breaking stroke is so finely tuned that not only are all the balls sunk, but they drop in order, beginning with those labeled “heavens,” then “earth,” followed by “living organisms,” and finally the 8-ball, the most important ball in billiards, representing humans. And to complete the analogy, the Lord pulls this last ball out of the pocket and holds it in His hands to depict His personal involvement with men and women. Is not such a God infinitely more talented than that of the anti-evolutionists? Is His eternal power and divine nature not best illustrated in the last example?

from Evolutionary Creation, by Denis O. Lamoureux (pp. 94-95)

originally from

Undeception — Test everything…hold fast to that which is good.

Augustine on the literal meaning of Genesis

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]
­ Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis): 1.19.39 translated by J.H. Taylor, Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, volume 41

McLaren on the nature of salvation in A New Kind of Christian

On the issue of the nature of salvation: "Now the real issue isn't an emotional crisis or the stereotypical experience of being "saved" or "born again" or of "crossing a line" and then stopping there. The issue isn't signing on to a new set of beliefs alone. The issue is following Jesus, joining him in his adventure and mission of saving the world and expressing God's love. If a person isn't moving ahead on that journey, then no matter how many aisles he walks down and cards he fills out and "sinners prayers" he says, whether or not he is going to heaven, there is still no way we can say in any meaningful sense that he is experiencing salvation (132)."

Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christian (p. 132)

McLaren on being saved in A New Kind of Christian

The way you modern evangelicals use the word "saved" is, I think, terribly unbiblical. (How's that for throwing down the gauntlet?) The way you talk about salvation suggests that the only thing that matters in life is getting your butt into heaven, being saved from hell, getting eternal life for yourself. ... I also think the standard definition of salvation breed passivity. It's like a line in the sand, and we say, "The most important thing in life is to be on the other side of the line." OK. People cross the line. What then? They try to get other people to cross the line. OK. What then? I see a huge contrast to crossing the line in this way, and following Jesus on a journey."

Brian McLaren, in A New Kind of Christian (p. 130)

McLaren on Literal Bible interpretation in A New Kind of Christian

"Fortunately, evangelicals don't say that people who disobey their parents should be stoned, as the Bible teaches in Leviticus, or that people whose genitals are mutilated should be excluded from worship, as the Bible also teaches in Leviticus, or that it's a sin for women to wear jewelry or have a short haircut, as the Bible teaches in some of Paul's writings. They don't justify killing infidels, even though Moses ordered the faithful to do so in Exodus. They don't practice polygamy, even though Solomon and David did. They don't recommend dashing the infants of their enemies against stones, as one of the Psalms celebrated. No, they have a grid of decency that keeps them from applying the Bible literally in these situations. But they seem generally unaware of this grid; they think they rigorously apply the Bible literally, and no one else is as faithful as they are. Their grid is like their own retina-they see by it, so they can't see it. As you said, the liberals do this sifting and sorting too, but they just have a different grid. So when the evangelicals say they're arguing about the Bible's absolute authority, too often they are arguing about the superiority of the traditional grid through which they read and interpret the Bible. Of course, I'd not recommend you say that to any of them, because they'll get pretty upset with you. They really can't see it. They'll think you're a fool or a troublemaker."

McLaren and Lewis on the demystification of the universe in A New Kind of Christian

[C.S. Lewis, in "The Discarded Image"] explains that medieval European Christians had developed a sophisticated worldview that was so intertwined with their faith that to them it was an essential part of their faith. In this worldview, the universe consisted of a series of concentric spheres, the smallest of which was the earth. As spheres ascended from the earth, they held objects of increasing perfection - the moon, then the planets, and then the starts, the angels, and so on. The spheres moved around the earth in a beautiful kind of cosmic dance, and it was thought that as they moved, they produced a beautiful music, symbolic of the harmony of God;s creation.

Near the end of the book, Lewis notes now new developments - especially new observations in the field of astronomy... - forced the medieval model of the universe to be 'adjusted' and the adjustments were becoming increasingly complex. Here's how Lewis explains this tinkering with the model."...

The old scheme... had been tinkered a good deal to keep up with observations. How far, by endless tinkerings, it could have kept up with them till even now, I do not know. But human mind will not long ensure such ever-increasing complications if once it has seen that some simpler conception can"save the appearances" (account for the data), Neither theological prejudice nor vested interests can permanently keep in favor a Model which is seen to be grossly uneconomical.

In other words, ... the medieval world had developed a working worldview, a working model of reality - a paradigm, a mental map - that could not account for or adapt to increasing amounts of new data (like the scientific findings of Copernicus and later Calileo and of course later still Darwin). Perhaps like a contract of constitution that is updated with more and more footnotes, fine tuning, and other amendments, people tray to keep the old contract alive, but eventually the amendments outweigh the original document, and someone says, "Why don't we just start over from scratch on a new one?"

But it's not that easy, Trading in an old model of reality for a new one has real costs associated with it. True, something may be gained, but a lot is lost too. [Later on in "The Discarded Image", Lewis] starts making clear what was at stake in trading in the old worldview for a newer one.

In our universe [the earth] is small, no doubt; but so are the galaxies, so is everything -- and so what? But in [the medieval] there was an absolute standard of comparison. The furthest sphere, Dante's maggio corpo is, quite simply and finally, the largest object in existence. . .Hence to look out on the night sky with modern eyes is like looking out over a sea that fades away into mist, or looking about one in a trackless forest -- trees forever and no horizon. To look up at the towering medieval universe is much more like looking at a great building. The "space" of modern astronomy may arouse terror or bewilderment or vague reverie; the spheres of the old present us with an object in which the mind can rest, overwhelming in its greatness but satisfying in its harmony. . . Pascal's terror at le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis never entered his mind. He is like a man being conducted through an immense cathedral, not like one lost in a shoreless sea.

Kenneth Miller on free will

"As more than one scientist has said, the truly remarkable thing about the world is that it actually does make sense. The parts fit, the molecules interact, the darn thing works. To people of faith, what evolution says is that nature is complete. Their God fashioned a material world in which truly free and independent beings could evolve. He got it right the very first time.

To some, the murderous reality of human nature is proof that God is absent or dead. The same reasoning would find God missing from the unpredictable branchings of an evolutionary tree. But the truth is deeper. In each case, a deity determined to establish a world that was truly independent of his whims, a world in which intelligent creatures would face authentic choices between good and evil, would have to fashion a distinct, material reality and then let his creation run. Neither the self-sufficiency of nature nor the reality of evil in the world mean God is absent. To a religious person, both signify something quite different - the strength of God's love and the reality of our freedom as his creatures.

Kenneth Miller, in Finding Darwins God


Finding Darwin's God:

Kenneth Miller on evolution, free will

“Accepting evolution is neither more nor less than the result of respecting the reality and consistency of the physical world over time. We are material beings with an independent physical existence, and to fashion such beings, any Creator would have had to produce an independent material universe in which our evolution over time was a contingent posibility. A believer in the divine accepts that God’s love and His gifts of freedom are genuine – so genuine that they include the power to choose evil and, if we wish, to freely send ourselves to hell. Not all believers will accept the stark conditions of that bargain, but our freedom to act has to have a physical and biological basis. Evolution and its sister sciences of genetics and molecular biology provide that basis. A biologically static world would leave a Creator’s creatures with neither freedom nor the independence required to exercise that freedom. In biological terms, evolution is the only way a Creator could have made us the creatures we are – free beings in a world of authentic and meaningful moral and spiritual choices.”-

- Kenneth R. Miller, Cell Biologist at Brown University
in "Finding Darwin's God" p. 290-291

Kenneth Miller on ID, science, popularity of ID

"“Whenever you debate, you should really have one person representing I.D. on one side and 10,000 scientists on the other. That would give a fair representation of the division of opinion in the scientific community.”

Kenneth Miller

Kenneth Miller quotes:

Kenneth Miller on ID, God of the gaps

The only evidence that intelligent design is able to muster is the observation that science has not yet explained everything, and therefore design must be kept around as a default explanation for what is left,”


Kenneth Miller

Kenneth Miller quotes: "“

C.S. Lewis on Nature, Science and Theology

The Fire and the Rose: Four theses against Intelligent Design: If you take nature as a teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you had already decided to learn; this is only another way of saying that nature does not teach. . . . Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. . . . Of course the fact that a Christian can so use nature is not even the beginning of a proof that Christianity is true. Those suffering from Dark Gods can equally use her (I suppose) for their creed. That is precisely the point. Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy. Nature will not verify any theological or metaphysical proposition . . .; she will help to show what it means. (Four Loves, 19-20)

Orr on Irreducable Complexity, ID

Intelligent Design: "H. Allen Orr writes:
Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become - because of later changes - essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required.*"

*Source

Bartlet on Poor Design, ID

Intelligent Design: "Professor Bartelt writes:
if we assume that Behe is correct, and that humans can discern design, then I submit that they can also discern poor design (we sue companies for this all the time!). In Darwin's Black Box, Behe refers to design as the 'purposeful arrangement of parts.' What about when the 'parts' aren't purposeful, by any standard engineering criteria? When confronted with the 'All-Thumbs Designer' - whoever designed the spine, the birth canal, the prostate gland, the back of the throat, etc, Behe and the ID people retreat into theology.* [I.e., God can do whatever it wants, or We're not competent to judge intelligence by a god's standards, or being an intelligent designer does not mean being a good or perfect designer.]"

C. S. Lewis on misuse of speech

C. S. Lewis Quotes:

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
C. S. Lewis"

C. S. Lewis on atheism, reading

C. S. Lewis Quotes:

"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.
C. S. Lewis"

Lewis on choice in The Great Divorce/Chess Game

AND SUDDENLY all was changed. I saw a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless, all in deepest silence, standing forever about a little silver table and looking upon it. And on the table there were little figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that. And I knew that each chessman was the idolum or puppet representative of some one of the great presences that stood by. And the acts and motions of each chessman were a moving portrait, a mimicry or pantomime, which delineated the inmost nature of his giant master. And these chessmen are men and women as they appear to themselves and to one another in this world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women. Then vertigo and terror seized me and, clutching at my Teacher, I said, "Is that the truth? Then is all that I have been seeing in this country false? These conversations between the Spirits and the Ghosts-were they only the mimicry of choices that had really been made long ago?"
"Or might ye not as well say, anticipations of a choice to be made at the end of all things?

C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce

source:
Text:

see also
http://audreysgonesailing.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html

Bonhoeffer on ID, God of the gaps

"``God is no stop-gap; he must be recognized at the center of life, not just when we are at the end of our resources...The ground for this lies in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. He is the center of life, and he certainly didn't `come' to answer our unsolved problems.'

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters from Prison)"

Some Troubles of Intelligent Design:

AIG on speciation, evolution

"... new species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model."

from this on AiG's website:

see also:

The Creation of an Evolutionist: Questions for Answers in Genesis #2:

AIG on speciation, evolution

"One of the most frequently asked questions posed by Christians and skeptics alike concerns how Noah could fit all the animals on the Ark. Secular evolutionists mock those of us who take the account of the Ark and a global Flood as literal history. They claim Noah couldn’t have fit the supposed millions of animals needed on board.But a little research shows clearly that Noah didn’t need millions of animals. Only representatives of each kind of land-dwelling and air-breathing animal were needed. Creationists have shown that there can be many different species within each kind—for example, dingoes, wolves, coyotes, and domestic dogs all of these belong to the same kind."

From AiG's "Answers Weekly" (26 Jan 08):

see also
The Creation of an Evolutionist: Questions for Answers in Genesis #2:

AIG on Uniformity of nature, science

"Science presupposes that the universe is logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws that are consistent over time and space. Even though conditions in different regions of space and eras of time are quite diverse, there is nonetheless an underlying uniformity. Scientists are able to make predictions only because there is uniformity as a result of God’s sovereign and consistent power. Scientific experimentation would be pointless without uniformity; we would get a different result every time we performed an identical experiment, destroying the very possibility of scientific knowledge."


From AIG's Answers Weekly: 16 Feb 08:

from

The Creation of an Evolutionist:

Francis Schaeffer on Bible interpretation, exegesis, Genesis

"Men today do not, perhaps, burn the Bible, nor does the Roman Catholic Church any longer put it on the Index, as it once did. But men destroy it in the form of exegesis: they destroy it in the way they deal with it. They destroy it by not reading it as written in normal, literary form, by ignoring its historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible's own perspective of itself as propositional revelation in space and time, in history.

— Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), Death in the City [1969]"

from:

The Creation of an Evolutionist:

Van Till on folk-science, pseudoscience, creationism, YEC

In "FROM CALVINISM TO FREETHOUGHT: The Road Less Traveled", Howard Van Till writes:

". . . a 'folk-science' is a set of beliefs about the natural world—beliefs that need not be derived from, or even consistent with, the natural sciences—beliefs whose primary function is to provide comfort and reassurance that the rest of one’s worldview is OK."

Similarly, the concept of Intelligent Design functions today as the folk-science of a large portion of the broader Evangelical Protestant population in North America. A fundamental tenet of ID’s folk-science is that the system of natural causes fails to include the formational capabilities needed for assembling certain complex biotic structures, such as the bacterial flagellum. If natural causes are inadequate, then the form-imposing intervention of some non-natural Intelligent Designer must have been essential (wink, wink, we don’t say who the Designer is, but you know who we mean). And if supernatural (power over nature) intervention was necessary for the formation of rotary motors on E. coli bacteria, then there is nothing standing in the way of Evangelicals maintaining their conviction that God could have performed all of the other supernatural acts portrayed in the Bible.


See also

The Creation of an Evolutionist:

Miller on NOMA, science

"In fact, as I have argued, God is unnecessary for a scientific description, but a scientific description is not a complete description of reality."

Dr. Keith Miller’s recent essay on the Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution site entitled “Creation, Evolution and the Nature of Science”

See also

Undeception » Limitations of science:

Gould on science and NOMA

"To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth million time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists. If some of our crowd have made untoward statements claiming that Darwinism disproves God, then I will find Mrs. McInerney and have their knuckles rapped for it (as long as she can equally treat those members of our crowd who have argued that Darwinism must be God’s method of action). Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example)."
Forget philosophy for a moment; the simple empirics of the past hundred years should suffice. Darwin himself was agnostic (having lost his religious beliefs upon the tragic death of his favorite daughter), but the great American botanist Asa Gray, who favored natural selection and wrote a book entitled Darwiniana, was a devout Christian. Move forward 50 years: Charles D. Walcott, discoverer of the Burgess Shale fossils, was a convinced Darwinian and an equally firm Christian, who believed that God had ordained natural selection to construct a history of life according to His plans and purposes. Move on another 50 years to the two greatest evolutionists of our generation: G. G. Simpson was a humanist agnostic. Theodosius Dobzhansky a believing Russian Orthodox. Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs—and equally compatible with atheism…

-S.J. Gould, “Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge” (review of Phillip Johnson’s ‘Darwin on Trial’) found here.

Another Source (Collins, Language of God)

See also

http://www.thecreationofanevolutionist.blogspot.com/2008/05/nonoverlapping-magisteria-goulds-noma.html

Gould on science and NOMA

"Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs – and equally compatible with atheism."

-S.J. Gould, “Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge” (review of Phillip Johnson’s ‘Darwin on Trial’) found here.

Another Source (Collins, Language of God)

See also

The Creation of an Evolutionist: Nonoverlapping Magisteria: Gould's NOMA Principle:

Gould on NOMA

"No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or 'nonoverlapping magisteria'). . . . The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry . . . . This resolution might remain all neat and clean if the nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) of science and religion were separated by an extensive no man's land. But, in fact, the two magisteria bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deepest questions call upon aspects of both for different parts of a full answer. . . . NOMA represents a principled position on moral and intellectual grounds, not a mere diplomatic stance. NOMA also cuts both ways. If religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions properly under the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world's empirical constitution. This mutual humility has important practical consequences in a world of such diverse passions."

Stephen J. Gould in "Nonoverlapping Magisteria,"

See also

The Creation of an Evolutionist: Nonoverlapping Magisteria: Gould's NOMA Principle:

SJ Gould on NOMA

"The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly."

Stephen J. Gould in "Nonoverlapping Magisteria

from

The Creation of an Evolutionist: Nonoverlapping Magisteria: Gould's NOMA Principle:

Lewis on science and the end of the scientific age

‘Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared—the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’

Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

Anti- and Pro-Israel contradictions in Paul's letters

Reinventing Paul by John G. Gager

If we look at Paul's letters, it is not difficult to pull out what on the surface appear to be directly opposing views, anti- and pro-Israel:

Anti-Israel set:

"All who rely on works of the law are under a curse" (Galatians 3:10).
"No one is justified before God by the law" (Galatians 3:11).
"For [some manuscripts add 'in Christ Jesus'] neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation is everything!" (Galatians 6:15).
"No human being will be justified in his [God's] sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20).
"Israel, who pursued righteousness based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law" (Romans 9:31).
"But their minds were hardened. Indeed, for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil is still there, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds" (2 Corinthians 3:14-15).

Pro-Israel set:

"What is the advantage of the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way" (Romans 3:1).
"Do we not overthrow the Law by this notion of faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the Law" (Romans 3:31).
"What shall we say? That the Law is sin? By no means" (Romans 7:7).
"Thus the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good" (Romans 7:12).
"To the Israelites belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the Temple, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ" (Romans 9:4).
"Has God rejected his people? By no means" (Romans 11:1).
"All Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26).
"Is the Law then opposed to the promises of God. Certainly not!" (Galatians 3:21).

Description of the emergent church movement

"'The emerging / emergent church movement falls into line with basic post-modernist thinking—it is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward, feelings over truth.'"

something I read on the Internet

Above "the line" in "A New Kind of Christian"

"[Neo] knelt down on the path, cleared away some fallen leaves, and drew a line in the dust. I stooped down next to him."
"This might help you. Very often,” he explained, “debates in the church occur on this level. There are all kinds of positions on an issue, along this line, with the most extreme positions being here and here.”
I offered a couple of examples: “OK. So Catholics are over here and Protestants over there. Calvinists are over here, and Arminians are over there. And charismatics are here and anticharismatics over there. And we could do the same on the issues of pacifism, inerrancy of the Bible, women in leadership, how the church should seek homosexuals, and—”
“Exactly,” he interrupted. “Now, almost all debate in the church takes place on this line. The issue is where the right point on the line is. So people pick and defend their points. Each person’s point becomes the point in his or her mind. Here’s what I’m suggesting: What if the point defending approach is, pardon the pun, pointless? In other words, what if the position God wants us to take isn’t on that line at all but somewhere up here?” He was moving his hand in a small circle, palm down, about a foot above the line he had drawn in the dust.
“So you’re saying,” I replied, “that we have to transcend the normal level of discourse. that makes sense to me. I mean, Jesus did that sort of thing all the time. Like with the woman at the well in John 4. The big debate is over where people should worship, on this mountain or on that mountain. Jesus doesn’t choose one point or the other; he says that the answer is on this higher level, that what God wants is for us to worship him in spirit and truth, wherever we are. Both mountains are good places to worship, so in that way both sides are right. But where you worship isn’t the point at all, so in that way both sides are wrong.”

in A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren.

Why we need to doubt

"We ourselves are called in question if we have no answer to doubt. If we constantly doubt what we believe and always believe-yet-doubt, we will be in danger of undermining our personal integrity, if not our stability. But if ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith grows stronger still. It knows God more certainly, and it can enjoy God more deeply. Faith is not doubt-free, but there is a genuine assurance of faith that is truly beyond a shadow of doubt."

Os Guinness, in God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt [pp. 14]

Lewis on whether God would work miracles

"If the ultimate Fact is not an abstraction but the living God, opaque by the very fullness of His blinding actuality, then He might do things. He might work miracles. But would He? Many people of sincere piety feel that He would not. They think it unworthy of Him. It is petty and capricious tyrants who break their own laws: good and wise kinds obey them. Only an incompetent workman will produce work which needs to be interfered with. [...] [I believe this feeling to be] founded on an error. [p. 115]"

C.S. Lewis' Miracles,

Providential story by Jonathan Edwards

An Examined Faith: The Grace of Self-Doubt by James M. Gustafson begins with a story of God's providence as told by Jonathan Edwards:

"We in this town, were the last Lord's Day the spectators, and many of us the subjects, of one of the most amazing instances of divine preservation, that perhaps was ever known in the land. Our meeting-house is old and decayed, so that we have been for some time building a new one, which is yet unfinished. It has been observed of late, that the house we have hitherto met in, has gradually spread at bottom; the cells and walls giving way, especially in the foreside, by reason of the weight of timber at top, pressing on the braces that are inserted into the posts and 'beams of the house. It has done so more than ordinarily this spring; which seems to have been occasioned by the heaving of the ground through the extreme frosts of the winter past, and its now settling again on that side which is next the sun, by the spring thaws. By this means, the under-pinning has been considerably disordered; which people were not sensible of till the ends of the joists which bore up the front gallery, were drawn off from the girts on which they rested by the walls giving way. So that in the midst of the public exercise in the forenoon, soon after the beginning of sermon, the whole gallery--full of people, with all the seats and timber, suddenly and without any warning--sunk, and fell down with the most amazing noise upon the heads of those that sat under, to the astonishment of the congregation. The house was filled with dolorous shrieking and crying; and nothing else was expected than to find many people dead, and dashed to pieces.
"The gallery in falling seemed to break and sink first in the middle; so that those who were upon it were thrown together in heaps before the front door. But the whole was so sudden, that many of them who fell, knew nothing at the time what it was that had befallen them. Others in the congregation thought it had been an amazing clap of thunder. The falling gallery seemed to be broken all to pieces before it got down; so that some who fell with it, as well as those who were under, were buried in the ruins; and were found pressed under heavy loads of timber, and could do nothing to help themselves.
But so mysteriously and wonderfully did it come to pass, that every life was preserved; and though many were greatly bruised, and their flesh torn, yet there is not, as I can understand, one bone broken or so much as put out of joint, among them all. Some who were thought to be almost dead at first, were greatly recovered; and but one young woman seems yet to remain in dangerous circumstances, by an inward hurt in her breast: but of late there appears more hope of her recovery.
None can give account, or conceive, by what means peoples lives and limbs should be thus preserved, when so great a multitude were thus imminently exposed. It looked as though it was impossible but that great numbers must instantly he crushed to death, or dashed in pieces. It seems unreasonable to ascribe it to any thing else but the care of Providence, in disposing the motions of every piece of timber, and the precise place of safety where every one should sit, and full, when none were in any capacity to care for their own preservation. The preservation seems to be most wonderful, with respect to the women and children in the middle ally, under the gallery, where it came down first, and with greatest force, and where there was nothing to break the force of the falling weight.
"'Such an event may be a sufficient argument of a divine Providence over the lives of men. We thought ourselves called to set a part a day to be spent in the solemn worship of God, to humble ourselves under such a rebuke of God upon us in time of public service in his house by so dangerous and surprising an accident; and to praise his name for so wonderful, and as it were miraculous, a preservation. The last Wednesday was kept by us to that end; and a mercy in which the hand of God is so remarkably evident, may be well worthy to affect the hearts of all who hear it.'"

Lewis on Free Will

"The sin, both of men and of angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave them free will: thus surrendering a portion of His omnipotence (it is again a deathlike or descending movement) because He saw that from a world of free creatures, even though they fell, He could work out (and this is the renascent) a deeper happiness and a fuller splendour than any world of automata would admit."

in Miracles by C.S. Lewis

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Dan Barker on Love

"It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being."

Dan Barker in Losing Faith in Faith

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Lewis On Free Will and Nature

"We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of... [our] abuse of free will... at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void... Not even Omnipotence could create a society of free souls without at the same time creating a relatively independent and 'inexorable' Nature.'"

C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

Lewis on Free Will and Suffering

'Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.'"

C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

Epicurus poem on God and evil

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-- Epicurus"

Eeyore's bad attitude

"'The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, 'Why?' and sometimes he thought, 'Wherefore?' and sometimes he thought, 'Inasmuch as which?' and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.'

-A. A. Milne in The Pooh Book of Quotations"