gordon 2
Senior Member
Since C S Lewis is making his rounds here lately I thought I might post one of his sayings:
“God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than He is of any other slacker.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
It seems to me that Christians who are unwilling to allow intellectual abstractions in the relationships of spiritual lives to history, economics and philosophy and current events are missing out on the unique nature of man. Now some will be limited in this, like I am, and some more so and some less so.
Nevertheless when the subjects of our histories, economics and philosophies, and our politics which relate most closely to our relationships with others and others relationship to our selves are disregarded as frivolous, fancy and simply off topic to the specifics of an individual's life it is in my view intellectual slackness. The subject of others is not frivolous to God, nor is it to man.
When Christians consider that their prized hearts of flesh as opposed to hearts of stone are in league with renewed minds it should follow that spiritual reasoning must not repress the power of the human intellect to abstraction no less than to see order.
When we teach about different lives, lived, possible and impossible, we are suspect if we cannot make links between them with the same fervor we claim to have for our understanding of Christ's parables. Failing to entertain that man is imaginatively creative, that on spiritual and worldly subject man can intellectually abstract on abstractions and remain on topic and within definitions is to respect all reality.
What is sometimes thought off topic, or irrelevant to spiritual matters is many times on topic and relevant. We just have not bothered to use our capacity to intellectual abstraction sufficiently. In some cases we just cannot. In other cases we just are slackers... for a host of reasons.
“God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than He is of any other slacker.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
It seems to me that Christians who are unwilling to allow intellectual abstractions in the relationships of spiritual lives to history, economics and philosophy and current events are missing out on the unique nature of man. Now some will be limited in this, like I am, and some more so and some less so.
Nevertheless when the subjects of our histories, economics and philosophies, and our politics which relate most closely to our relationships with others and others relationship to our selves are disregarded as frivolous, fancy and simply off topic to the specifics of an individual's life it is in my view intellectual slackness. The subject of others is not frivolous to God, nor is it to man.
When Christians consider that their prized hearts of flesh as opposed to hearts of stone are in league with renewed minds it should follow that spiritual reasoning must not repress the power of the human intellect to abstraction no less than to see order.
When we teach about different lives, lived, possible and impossible, we are suspect if we cannot make links between them with the same fervor we claim to have for our understanding of Christ's parables. Failing to entertain that man is imaginatively creative, that on spiritual and worldly subject man can intellectually abstract on abstractions and remain on topic and within definitions is to respect all reality.
What is sometimes thought off topic, or irrelevant to spiritual matters is many times on topic and relevant. We just have not bothered to use our capacity to intellectual abstraction sufficiently. In some cases we just cannot. In other cases we just are slackers... for a host of reasons.
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