“The basic Christian answer to our leaders and scientists and politicians and writers and poets and philosophers has to be this. Who is God? Not you. Who has the prerogatives of Deity? Not you.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 23
Why Civil Government Must Have a Transcendental Grounding
“When I tell an ordinary citizen that he must not steal, I should be in a position to answer the question if he wonders why. If I tell my government that it must be modest, what do I do in the face of the same question? For—believe me—governments want to misuse their power more than ordinary citizens want to steal. My elected representatives want to steal from me more than my next-door neighbor does. That being the case, they must be told not to—which is a strong ethical requirement. As such, like all ethical requirements, it requires transcendental grounding.”
Pride Entire
“The aboriginal sin is not sexual, but is rather pride and insolence. Sex gets involved soon enough, but the sexual issues are just the battlefield. The conflict is over mastery.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 21
Totalitolerance
“Without an exhaustive rule through the predestinating love of the Father, unbelieving men will always see a job opening. They will want to fill that gap. They mimic the Father’s omnipotence, which is where we get the totalitarian part. They also try to mimic His love, which is how we get the tolerance farce. And so it is that we find ourselves suffocating under this totalitolerance.”
Fixed Immensity
“We cannot understand the first thing about the Creation, or the Fall, or the redemption accomplished by Christ until we first grasp the fixed immensity that is nature.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 19
An Administrative Ball and Chain
“Someone might plead necessity, and say that administrative law is too extensive and too complex for a legislature to understand, still less to pass. The reply to this is simple—if a set of regulations is too burdensome for the legislature to pass, then it is too burdensome for us to live under.”
Intertwined with the Gospel
“God made us male and female, and this is the image of God (Gen. 1:27). We cannot talk about men and women without talking about the triune God, Christ and the Church, and the whole point of the gospel. We cannot talk nonsense about men and women without talking nonsense about the triune God, Christ and the Church, and the whole point of the gospel.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 14
Not Even a Little Surprised
“So in the seventeenth century the battle for liberty was between the Crown and Parliament, and Parliament was in the right. In the eighteenth century, the battle for liberty was between Parliament and the colonies, and the colonies were in the right. No one institution or nation or entity is indefectible. Bad men show up everywhere, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if our final liberties were eventually removed by the Czar of All Fourth of July Celebrations.”
Reflected Confusions
“The church is supposed to model for a confused world what a real human society is supposed to look like. The church is not supposed to be a mirror that reflects the confusions of Manhattan right back at it.”
Virgins and Volcanoes, p. 13
Because the Pre-conditions are Absent
“If you want a nation of pot-smoking fornicators to be free, you want something that is not going to happen.”