Here is a simple but profound rule: if there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute. Society is left with one man or an elite filling the vacuum left by the loss of the Christian consensus which originally gave us form and freedom in northern Europe and in the West.
the abuse and perversion of a truth must never be allowed to rob us of the use of it. When all has been said that can be said against fanaticism and enthusiasm, it is still undeniable that religious feelings are plainly spoken of and described in Scripture.
We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening a mob with the news that grass is green.
we live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization. "Burning Hearts Are Not Nourished by Empty Heads", Christianity Today (Sep 3 1982)
Brothers, for the sake of the truth, and for the good of your people, and for the glory of God in the world, don't confuse timid uncertainty with truthful humility. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (166)
We cannot know like God knows (archetypal), but we can know as God wants and allows and helps us to know (ectypal). Proclaiming A Cross-Centered Theology (32)
Skeptics attempt to put Nothingness/Nihilism/Chance into the heart of a society's literature. Soon they discover that the absence of truth invites the rulers of the day to exercise unbridled and exclusive authority to govern according to their own folly. The abolition of truth creates a vacuum that is filled with force.This Book Changed Everything, 11
If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be an enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well.
To own and stand up for a hated and despised truth will bring more comfort to our souls than all the pleasure the wicked have in their sensual delights.
So God wishes us to apply all the truths of the lower sciences to theology and after rescuing them from the Gentiles (as holders of a bad faith) to take and appropriate them to Christ who is the truth, for the building of the mystic temple; as formerly Moses enriched and adorned the tabernacle with Egyptian gold, and Solomon procured the assistance of the Sidonians and Syrians in building the temple.
We are all in such a hurry, we want everything at once. We believe that all truth can be stated in a few minutes. The answer to that is that it cannot.
My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God's word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes - many times - my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens - and it happens every day in some measure - I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.
We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.
The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
A religion without doctrine or dogma is a thing that many are fond of talking of in the present day. It sounds very fine at first. It looks very pretty at a distance. But the moment we sit down to examine and consider it, we shall find it a simple impossibility. We might as well talk of a body without bones and sinewsHoliness, Ch 4
That is in reality what happens to relativists: in claiming to be too lowly to know the truth, they exalt themselves as supreme arbiter of what they can think and do. This is not humility. This is rooted in deep desire not to be subordinate to the claims of truth. Think (113)
Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert-himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt-the Divine Reason.... We are on the road to productin g a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. Orthodoxy (31-32)
Relativism no longer means: your claim to truth is no more valid than mine; but now means: you may not claim to speak the truth. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (159)
God in his love gives his truth to us for our well-being. God's truth serves not only the interests of his own glory but also his people's good. Truth is for our everlasting joy in God. Furthermore, truth worked deep down into the heart and soul and bones of a preacher and then worked out in his relationships makes him tender and humble in his dealing with the sheep and in proclaiming and explaining the Word. Proclaiming A Cross-Centered Theology (20)
the objection that language is not capable of conveying absolute truth is not an angst derived from the pages of Scripture; it comes from an alien philosophical mind-set manifested in both medieval nominalism and post-Kantian philosophy. Both the apostle Paul and the apostle John were ready to expel people from the church over language! Proclaiming A Cross-Centered Theology (31)
Sometimes, indeed we represent it as a state of virtue (as is man's way with his weaknesses), censuring our predecessors for being too definite and dogmatic, and complimenting ourselves on being open-minded, flexible, and free from obscurantism. We must, however, be careful here. It has been well said that if you open your mind wide enough a great deal of rubbish will be tipped into it. God Has Spoken (34)
All biblical doctrines are presented as matter for worship and the encouragement and strengthening of faith. And if you and I don't present them in a way that's calculated to produce that same effect we're mishandling scripture. Systematic Theology A Lecture
If you say all truth-claims are power plays, then so is your statement. If you say (like Freud) that all truth-claims about religion and God are just psychological projections to deal with your guilt and insecurity, then so is your statement. To see through everything is not to see. The Reason for God (38)