Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committed, within the area of read more

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committed, within the area of his research, to accepting the Church's presuppositions about Jesus, but he should not be committed to accepting naturalistic presuppositions either. If he does accept the latter, then the results of his research will in all probability contradict the beliefs of the Church, but this is because he has begged the question from the start. In examining, for instance, the evidence for the virginal conception [of Jesus], if he begins with the presupposition that such an event is impossible he will end with the same conclusion; if he begins with the presupposition that it is possible he may end with the conclusion that the evidence for it is good or that it is bad or that it is inconclusive. This is as far as scholarship can take him. The Christian will accept the virginal conception as part of the Church's faith. (Continued tomorrow).

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 Though natural men, who have induced secondary and figurative consideration, have found read more

Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 Though natural men, who have induced secondary and figurative consideration, have found out this... emblematical use of sleep, that it should be a representation of death, God, who wrought and perfected his work, before Nature began, (for Nature was but his Apprentice, to learn in the first seven days, and now is his foreman, and works next under him) God, I say, intended sleep only for the refreshing of man by bodily rest, and not for a figure of death, for he intended not death itself then. But Man having induced death upon himself, God hath taken Man's Creature, death, into his hand, and mended it, and whereas it hath in itself a fearfull form and aspect, so that Man is afraid of his own Creature, God presents it to him, in a familiar, in an assiduous, in an agreeable and acceptable form, in sleep, that so when he awakes from sleep and says to himself, shall I be no otherwise when I am dead, than I was even now, when I was asleep, he may be ashamed of his waking dreams, and of his Melancholique fancying out a horrid and an affrightful figure of that death which is so like sleep. As then we need sleep to live out our threescore and ten years, so we need death, to live that life which we cannot out-live.

For man to turn his back on God is to turn towards death; it involves ultimately the renunciation of every read more

For man to turn his back on God is to turn towards death; it involves ultimately the renunciation of every aspect of life. To deny God, man must ultimately deny that there is any law or reality. The full implications of this were seen in the [19th] century by two profound thinkers, one a Christian and the other a non-Christian. [Friedrich W.] Nietzsche recognized fully that every atheist is an unwilling believer to the extent that he has any element of justice or order in his life, to the very extent that he is even alive and enjoys life. In his earlier writings, Nietzsche first attempted the creation of another set of standards and values, affirming life for a time, until he concluded that he could not affirm life itself nor give it any meaning, any value, apart from God. Thus Nietzsche's ultimate counsel was suicide; only then, [he asserted] can we truly deny God: and in his own life, this brilliant thinker -- one of the clearest in his description of modern Christianity and the contemporary issue -- did in effect commit a kind of psychic suicide. The same concept was powerfully developed by [Fyodor M.] Dostoyevski, particularly in The Possessed, or, more literally, the Demon-Possessed. Kirilov, a thoroughly Nietzschean character, is very much concerned with denying God, asserting that he himself is God and that man does not need God. But at every point, Kirilov finds that no standard or structure in reality can be affirmed without ultimately asserting God, that no value can be asserted without being ultimately de rived from the Triune God. As a result, Kirilov committed suicide as the only apparently practical way of denying God and affirming himself -- for to be alive was to affirm this ontological deity in some fashion.

Take up the cross if thou the crown would'st gain.
[Lat., Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.]

Take up the cross if thou the crown would'st gain.
[Lat., Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.]

Feast of the Holy Innocents You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast read more

Feast of the Holy Innocents You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of the desolation, a rock rising above the storm.

Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711 When we look at the history of the read more

Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711 When we look at the history of the Church, at the reckless fashion in which we have squandered our strength and time in fratricidal struggles between sect and sect, in embittered bickerings over matters often of secondary moment, while the world about us lies unwon, and the Church's great commission remains plainly unfulfilled, surely we can understand that outburst of Erasmus, when he cried that he wished that we would cease from our disputings altogether, and put all that energy and zeal that we are wasting upon them into the carrying of the Gospel to the heathen! Or recall the infinite pains that have been taken, down the centuries, to preserve minute orthodoxy in all points of mental belief while ugly evils flaunt along the streets and are accepted meekly as part of the makeup of things! Or recollect how easy it is to assume that we, ourselves, are Christian people. Why? Oh, well, just the usual reasons: we say our prayers, when we are not too sleepy; and we come to church, when there is nothing much to do; and so, of course, there is no doubt of it, although our tempers may remain uncurbed, and our characters are not the least like Jesus Christ's, nor growing any nearer it! Do we not need that solemn warning that Christ gives us when He tells us bluntly that many people lose their lives and souls, because they are always laying the emphasis and stress on the wrong points?

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, read more

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890 May I be patient! It is so difficult to make real what one believes, and to make these trials, as they are intended, real blessings.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because read more

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

The men of faith might claim for their positions ancient tradition, practical usefulness, and spiritual desirability, but one query could read more

The men of faith might claim for their positions ancient tradition, practical usefulness, and spiritual desirability, but one query could prick all such bubbles: Is it scientific? That question has searched religion for contraband goods, stripped it of old superstitions, forced it to change its categories of thought and methods of work, and in general has so cowed and scared religion that many modern-minded believers... instinctively throw up their hands at the mere whisper of it... When a prominent scientist comes out strongly for religion, all the churches thank Heaven and take courage, as though it were the highest possible compliment to God to have Eddington believe in Him. Science has become the arbiter of this generation's thought, until to call even a prophet and a seer 'scientific' is to cap the climax of praise.