“Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin—a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the Reverend R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.” (GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy)
by Stephen Rodgers
Richard is on vacation today, so I’ll be filling in for him. You know what that means? Of course you know what that means…giant pile of resources!
- 49-part series of James White teaching church history.
- John Piper has a new, free ebook on CS Lewis. And in case you missed any of them, here are 14 more free ebooks from John Piper.
- There’s a new Christian journal entitled Second Nature that examines new media and technology in light of the Christian tradition.
- CBMW seems to be ironing out the kinks of their new website, but on the bright side, their archive of JBMW issues is back up and running. (Longtime readers will remember me bemoaning the previously broken archive, and even setting up a temporary workaround; happily, that is no longer necessary).
- Nate Busenitz is copying me. I’ve been building our Recommended Resources page for years; he has now started his own. Don’t worry, I’ll be…appropriating…some of his recommendations shortly.
- Finally, Fred Butler has an apologetics-oriented post that contains a hidden gem: Dr. George Zemek’s doctoral thesis. Cesar and I are very excited about that; you all should be too. If you don’t understand why you should be excited, please ask Cesar.
That’s it!
Pro Rege