A Quote by John Owen
Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.
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Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.
Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.
As to how I would guide someone who is confused about the idea of God, I would suggest that he or she begins identifying what one might called "philosophical friends," - people with whom one could seriously examine our thought about God through listening to each other, reading important and useful books together and trying to think for oneself while familiarizing oneself with the ideas of some of the world's great thinkers. Cultivate openness without gullibility and skepticism without cynicism.
If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without love is self-centeredness; forgiveness without love is self-abasement; fortitude without love is recklessness; generosity without love is extravagance; care without love is mere duty; fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated, or informed, by love.
Say the sea. Say the sea. Say the sea. So that perhaps a drop of that magic may wander through time, and something might find it, and save it before it disappears forever. Say the sea. Because it's what we have left. Because faced by the sea, we without crosses, without magic, we must still have a weapon, something, so as not to die in silence, that's all.
He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.
You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left, a back without a front - or a happy without a sad.
Some of the domestic evils of drunkenness are houses without windows, gardens without fences, fields without tillage, barns without roofs, children without clothing, principles, morals or manners.
If we are in Christ the whole basis of our goings is God, not conceptions of God, not ideas of God, but God Himself. We do not need any more ideas about God, the world is full of ideas about God, they are all worthless, because the ideas of God in anyone’s head are of no more use than our own ideas. What we need is a real God, not more ideas about Him.
A world without right or wrong was a world that did not want itself, anything other than itself, or anything not those two things, but that still wanted something. A world without right or wrong invited you over, complained about you, and gave you cookies. Don't leave, it said, and gave you a vegan cookie. It avoided eye contact, but touched your knee sometimes. It was the world without right or wrong. It didn't have any meaning. It just wanted a little meaning.
As I see it, only God can be all-powerful without danger, because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. Thus there is no authority on earth so inherently worthy of respect, or invested with a right so sacred, that I would want to let it act without oversight or rule without impediment (p. 290).
Sit all together in meditation. Become peacefully calm and quiet, without motion, without stillness, without birth, without destruction, without coming or going, with no judgments of right or wrong, neither staying nor going. This, then, is the Great Way.
I believe in God, who can respond to prayers, to whom we can give trust and without whom life on this earth would be without meaning (a tale told by an idiot). I believe that God has revealed Himself to us in many ways and through many men and women, and that for us here in the West the clearest revelation is through Jesus and those that have followed him.
[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we would not know an evil, wicked act from a decent human act without divine permission, without divine authority or without, even worse, either the fear of a divine punishment or the hope of a divine reward. It strips us of the right to make our own determination, as all humans always have, about what is and what is not a right human action.
They say there is no light without dark, no good without evil, no male without female, no right without wrong. That nothing can exist if it's direct opposite does not also exist.
Design: holding conflicting ideas in your head without difficulty
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