[This page might be more readable on the bottom of the homepage.]
“Have the courage to use your own reason,
that is the motto of enlightenment.”
– Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of
Morals” (1785)
Of course you should not do this without listening to God’s voice / God’s Holy Spirit. But I believe that God is a God of logics (He created them).
Lorenzo Dow McCabe said:
‘Let us not be distrustful of human reason. The inspired Paul reasoned mightily with the people out of the Scriptures, and the prophet Samuel exclaimed to Israel, “Stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord”; and God himself proclaims, “Come, and let us reason together, let us plead together, and produce you your cause, put me in remembrance, bring forth your strong reasons and declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.” ‘
– Lorenzo Dow McCabe, Divine Nescience & Foreknowledge, p. 434-435.
‘“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord’
– Isaiah 1:18a (NASB)
Therefore:
“Make an effort to present yourself to God as a tried-and-true worker,
who doesn’t need to be ashamed
but is one who interprets the message of truth correctly.”
– 2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJV)
“Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope,
be ready to defend it”
– 1 Peter 3:15b (CEB)
“One of the laws of logic is the law of non-contradiction. Yet, Christians in their appeal to the Bible often contradict themselves.Christian doctrine is in conformity to the laws of reason, or natural law. Self-contradictory doctrines cannot be true.
Trying to understand Scriptures independently of reason is folly. God himself is the Logos, which may be translated the Logic.
Would he speak contrary to reason?“
“Christian faith does not require a person to check their brain at the door. No,
Christian faith is strongest when one’s head and one’s heart are in agreement.”
– T.C. Moore, “Why Did Jesus Die?” (theologicalgraffiti, emphasis mine)
“Does Christianity make sense to you? Don’t you think it should?
God does and invites you to see that
Christianity is not meant to be a mystery accepted by blind faith,
but rather a way of life that is intelligible, reasonable and practical.”
Source: revivaltheology (emphasis mine)
“A Final word on the appropriateness of this undertaking: Any study of God needs to avoid two pitfalls.
First, we must recognize the danger of presumption. We tend to exaggerate our ability to understand God.
Often we insist that He conform to our ideas about Him. The less appreciated danger is to exaggerate
our inability to understand God. Some people insist that we know hardly anything about God
because He is “beyond” all human thought. (…)
In general, Christians today are more guilty of the second than of the first of these errors.
Some even use piety as a cover for intellectual laziness. (…)
to rest satisfied with less than all that God has revealed is irresponsible.”
– Richard Rice, God’s Foreknowledge and Man’s Free Will, Introduction, p 11-12. (1980) (emphasis mine)
(Originally titled The Openness of God: The Relationship of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Free Will)
“I have not yet been able to stereotype my theological views, and have ceased to expect ever to do so. The idea is preposterous.
None but an omniscient mind can continue to maintain a precise identity of views and opinions.
Finite minds, unless they are asleep or stultified by prejudice, must advance in knowledge.
The discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world.
True Christian consistency does not consist in stereotyping our opinions and views, and in refusing to make any improvement lest we should be guilty of change,
but it consists in holding our minds open to receive the rays of truth from every quarter and in changing our views and language and practice as often and as fast,
as we can obtain further information. I call this Christian consistency, because this course alone accords with a Christian profession.
A Christian profession implies the profession of candour and of a disposition to know and to obey all truth.
It must follow, that Christian consistency implies continued investigation and change of views and practice corresponding with increasing knowledge.
No Christian, therefore, and no theologian should be afraid to change his views, his language, or his practices in conformity with increasing light.
The prevalence of such a fear would keep the world, at best, at a perpetual stand-still, on all subjects of science, and consequently all improvements would be precluded.”
– Charles G Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology, Preface (1847) (emphasis mine)
Do not be afraid and do not fall into the trap of thinking that you will not understand this website because you have not studied alot in your life!
“The Bible is God’s plain message to the lowly and the simple (Mt. 11:25-26) and was not intended to require great scholarship to arrive at its essential message.
The simplest possible interpretation is what God intended man to understand.
God is not seeking to hide truth or involve mankind in great mysteries, but to make the way of life plain and simple”
– Gordon Olson; The Truth Shall Make You Free;
The Truth About The Bible, The Divine-Human Word of God; p 11-12
(Illinois, Bible Research Fellowship Inc., 1980)
Don’t let the following verse become true in your life, nor in the life of your children!:
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children." - Hosea 4:6 (NKJV)
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