Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Feast of Mary Magdalen, Apostle to the Apostles

It has been observed that nowhere does Scripture attempt a deductive argument for the existence of God, like those of Thomas Aquinas, for example. This fact ought not to be taken to imply, however, that such an effort is unjustifiable and necessarily useless. The distinctiveness of the Biblical approach is its immediacy. The theistic proofs for God’s existence constitute a laborious, painstaking, and patient justification of theism. They attempt to set forth in rational argument what the soul grasps intuitively. But for the Bible, the deepest proof of God’s existence is just life itself. The knowledge of God and man’s knowledge of himself are closely intertwined. If only God could be written off neatly and cleanly, how simple things would be! But the hound of heaven pads after us all. He does not let us go. There is no escaping him...; when least expected, he closes in. The explanation for this is man’s creation in the image of God. His identity is known theologically, in relation to the God who as a man in his true significance cannot survive permanently in isolation from his Maker. Without God, man is the chance product of unthinking fate, and so of little worth. The current loss of identity and the emergence of the faceless man in today’s culture are testimony to the effects of losing our God. The knowledge of God is given in the same movement in which we know ourselves.

... Clark H. Pinnock (1937-2010), Set Forth Your Case, Chicago: Moody Press, 1971, p. 108-109 (see the book; see also Gen. 1:26; 1 Chr. 28:9; Ps. 119:66; Jer. 24:7; 31:33-34; Amos 8:11-13; Hab. 2:14; John 6:45; 17:3; more at Argument, Existence, God, Knowing God, Providence, Scripture)

 
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        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
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Last updated: 06/25/19

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