“We may be baffled by all this, but God is the foundation of all reason and order, and the problem does not perplex Him. But a man attempting to determine what the everlasting God may or may not do in history as He inhabits eternity is like a June bug trying to do quantum physics. …
The Real Problem with “Kill the Wabbit”
“The attraction was essentially erotic. This music bespoke emotion liberated from reason. In the musical realm, the assault on tonality corresponded to an assault on sexual restraint in the moral realm and an attack on the social order in the political realm. Wagner could achieve all three, which would correspond to the deepest needs he …
The Reasonable Limits of Reason
“The cross saves some sinners and baffles others. The ‘reason’ that both sets of sinners hold in common is not competent to judge these things. All our thoughts must be submissive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5); we must love God with all our minds (Mt. 22:37); and we must never presume that God needs our …
Wagner and Cultural Revolution
“Wagner was as committed as ever to the overthrow of existing conditions. However, the scope of his rebellion had changed. His desire for change now went deeper than the political process in terms of its end and beyond the political process, beyond even revolutionary politics, in terms of the means to bring that revolutionary change …
When the Gospel is Opaque
“Rationalists consistently maintain that a truth need not be accepted if it makes no sense to ‘reason.’ But does this not excuse those who are perishing? The gospel makes no sense to them. ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is …
High Standards Lead to Relativism
“Even so, most people still tend [to] think of the popular arts as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment and not something to be thought about or evaluated as art. This has disastrous consequences for the cultivation of Christian discernment . . .Undermining the status of popular art has not led to education of the audience to heighten appreciation; …
When Reason is Unreasonable
“Throughout Scripture we find a clear contrast between the philosophy of the natural man and the mind of Christ. When such passages are brought to bear on the various doctrines of the rationalist, the response is usually to shrug them off. And yet this is not sufficient; indeed, it is not reasonable. The Word of …
Magazined
“We adults look around, for example, and observe that while brain surgeons and Nobel laureates probably have their good points, surely glossy-magazine editors are the most impressive people in America. Every month, in the front of their magazines, many of them have to write those six-hundred word columns with titles like ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ …
All of Them Face Down
“To what may we liken God? The answer, friends, is nothing. And we show that we may compare Him to nothing by comparing Him to everything that is worthy of Him, and, of course, nothing completely is. In Him we live, and move, and have our being. This is not zen Christianity; it is the …
The Tombs of the Prophets
“Every rock anthem, every fashion statement, every protest gesture, every novel about rebellious youth—starting with The Catcher in the Rye and On the Road—carried the same cultural message: It’s better to be a nonconformist than a conformist, a creative individualist than a member of a group, a rebel than a traditionalist, a daring adventurer than …