Random Notes

So I'm moving to Oklahoma City next month. Clearing out my office, I came across a pile of paper scraps that I've written random thoughts on over the years and wanted to think about more...now I need to throw them away or take them with me. I'll note their contents down here for future use by me, or immediate use by you, and make use of the wonders of this digital bulletin board!

I apologize that some of them may be a but obscure...but then, I know what they mean.  :-þ

- Might God only reveal truth in the context of relationship?

- The original, the first, the True Story

- Investing time in people: more than just fishing for problems to solve in tehir lives? (vs. spending time)

- Value in "normal" things? - Did God make them?

- Does true doctrine inevitably leave itself open to legitimate criticism?

- Seeing God would mean an increase in faith, since faith is the evidence of things not seen.

• the pure in heart will see God
• add to your faith virtue, to virtue, knowledge

- If they see a supernatural working, it will increase their faith

• but what brings the faith initially? A pure heart?
• they could see a supernatural working, but not see God in it
• on the other hand, with a (pure heart?), they could see the supernatural hand of God in many various events...

- Beliefs dictate actions

- The Greeks were the first civilization to adopt a more abstract, naturalistic cosmology. Did they do that because of the failure of their gods in the Trojan War and after? (Divine Right of Kings)

• The end of histroy and the last man, Fukuyama
• a history of ancient Egypt, Grimal

- Is the basic Christian purpose to Know God or to Make Him Known?

• can you have one without the other?
• Re-stated: Should the Christian feel that he is fulfilling this or that purpose?

- How do you win the heart?

• characters who's heart changed
• Scripture that speaks of the heart
• the heart is the seat of belief
• how do you change your beliefs?

- That the great balance in life is to balance experience and reason: experiential truth with abstract truth (it seems like we choose God, but it makes more sense that he would choose us)

- The One True Story, More Love, The Next Step: Maturity, The Next Step: Revalational Knowledge, Learn to be Childish

- Does God do things because he has to or because he wants to?

- Trusting other's sense of God's will in their lives

- When most people say "truth is absolute", what they actually have in mind is a particular set of truths that they think are absolute

- "Faith is the victory that overcomes the world" - Victory = faith in the midst of an imperfect world: one that has sin in it; even has your own sin in it.