“The sort of analytical, psychological,   sociological, or neurological knowledge of the working of  another person’s mind is not in any way a step toward the knowing of  another person which we experience in love and friendship. By itself,  it could only lead us away from such knowledge. That truly personal  knowledge only becomes a possibility when I abandon the sovereign  claim of autonomous reason, the claim to know the other person  without that person’s self-communication in speech and act and gesture;   when I am ready to stop my investigations and listen, to be addressed, to be called in question, to be summoned to an adventure  of trust. Natural theology, in other words, is in no way a step on the  way toward the theology which takes God’s self-revelation as its starting  point. It is more likely, in fact, to lead in the opposite direction.”

From The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, by Lesslie Newbigin.

I have always felt a certain discomfort when I am part of some theological conversations.  It is as though all the people in these discussions are talking about God is great detail as though he were not in the room.  Imagine a whole family sitting around the dinner table, talking for hours about exactly what kind of food their father would like to eat, all the while ignoring the father sitting quietly by at the head of the table.