“One should seriously inquire if to live in a world permeated with God  and the knowledge of God is something they themselves truly desire. If  not, they can be assured that God will excuse them from his presence.  They will find their place in the “outer darkness” of which Jesus spoke.  But the fundamental fact about them will not be that they are there, but  that they have become people so locked into their own self-worship and  denial of God that they cannot want God.”

“Whereas the primal relationship of man to man is a giving one, in the state of sin it is purely demanding. Every man exists in a state of complete voluntary isolation; each man lives his own life, instead of all living the same God-life.”

From The Communion of Saints, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

And this from a man who truely gave.  “Greater love hath no man than this…”

“So blindly do we all rush in the direction of self-love, that every one  thinks he has a good reason for exalting himself and despising all others in  comparison.”

-From Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin.

How easily would I take these words of Calvin and bring them to my neighbor and say to him, “Look! See! This is what I have been trying to tell you.”  All the while ignoring the finger that points at me. Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, Υιέ του Θεού, ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν.

“The philosophy of living with an underlying motive of doing  everything for one’s own personal peace and comfort rapidly colors  everything that might formerly have come under the headings of  “right” and “wrong.”  This new way of thinking adds entirely new  shades, often in blurring brushstrokes of paint that wipe out the  existence of standards or cast them into a shadow that pushes  them out of sight. If one’s peace, comfort, way of life, convenience,  reputation, opportunities, job, happiness, or even ease is threatened,   “Just abort it.” Abort what? Abort another life that is not yet  born. Yes, but also abort the afflictions connected with having a  handicapped child, and abort the burdens connected with caring  for the old or invalid. Added swiftly are the now supposedly thinkable attitudes of aborting a child’s early security in his or her  rights to have two parents and a family life; aborting a wife’s need  for having her husband be someone to trust and lean upon; aborting   the husband’s need for having a companion and friend as well  as a feminine mate; aborting any responsibility to carry through a  job started.”

-From Affliction, by Edith Schaeffer.

“In a world apart from God, the power of denial is absolutely essential if  life is to proceed. The will or spirit cannot-psychologically cannot-sustain  itself for any length of time in the face of what it clearly acknowledges to be  the case. Therefore it must deny and evade and delude itself.”

-From Renovation of the Heart, by Dallas Willard.

A key psychological insight.  The world is blind to its sin because it could not possibly be see it and remain as it is.  The world is blind by definition.  The options are either to deny or to repent, there is no third.  I am terribly afraid of this.  I hear the words of Nathan the prophet: “you are that man.”

“Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you  talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption   such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare….  There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.   Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal, and  their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom  we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors   or everlasting splendors.”

-C. S. Lewis

“Professor Donnison has given  a vivid illustration of this from personal experience in the Navy. He  speaks of days spent in a transit camp where men were coming and  going all the time and no enduring bonds were formed between them.  In that camp, he says, one had to nail everything down or it would be  stolen. Then he speaks of life on board ship on active service. The same  men are his companions. But now he knows that any of his fellow crew  members would without hesitation risk his own life for one of his mates.  The same men were involved in both situations: in one they were bound  together by a common purpose; in the other they were not. In the two  different social contexts, their personal behavior was totally different”

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

“Love is a fragile thing that  does not scale well.”

-From Culture Making by Andy Crouch.

This is from Crouches chapter on the vary small arenas where cultural creation is possible.  His numbers are 3:12:120.  While I think he is spot on with this observation, I think he could have done more to argue why this is the case rather than simply assert that it is the case is many situations.

Humans are shockingly limited in the scope of their relational capacity yet wonderfully limitless in depth.  Interestingly, I found this same observation from an unlikely source as I studied for Political Science class: “The Founders were profoundly suspicious of popular leadership as a means of soliciting power and sought to establish a forum of leadership that depended on character rather than personality. This is, of course, entirely dependent on a polity that is small enough to allow an individual’s character to be well known.” (From American Government by Matthew Kerbel.)

“You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies–which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world–what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose.”

- from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

I can never quite figure out which side Conrad is on.  I could either hail him as a brother or repudiate his views as an aetheist.  Whatever position he fights for though, he certainly says it well.

“Truth is not a doctrine or a worldview or even a religious experience; it  is certainly not to be found by repeating abstract nouns like justice and  love; it is the man Jesus Christ in whom God was reconciling the world.  The truth is personal, concrete, historical.”

-from The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin.

This is the intitial revelation that opens up worlds of understanding for me as I read Prov. 8, John 1, 1 Cor 2, Col 1, and Eph 1.