“If a certain modern doctrinal assumption is to be believed, God had an olive tree in the Old Testament, but He chopped it down in the first century and now watches over a second tree He planted, which is a peach tree.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 262
Not Possible, in Other Words
“In the light of history, to insist that Paul served grape juice at the Lord’s Supper is as silly as maintaining that he wore a necktie.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 259
Protesting Catholics
“The classical Protestant, when asked where his church was before the Reformation, replies by asking, ‘Where was your face before you washed it?’”
The Cultural Mind, p. 258
Everything Is Amazing
“When it becomes apparent that the food on the table is still there after we open our eyes from saying grace, we should close them again to thank Him again.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 254-255
The Gratitude Argument
“If I am the end product of atoms careening through a mindless universe, there is no one to whom I may show my gratitude, and yet my ethical need to be grateful is genuine. There, there is a God, and I thank Him for the green hills I saw yesterday.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 254
To the Last Ditch
“When it comes to the ‘ecumenical question,’ we appear to have divided between two positions. The first says we should accept all kinds of heretical ‘Christians’ with all friendliness. The other says we should reject their heresies, along with their title to the name Christian. We have two positions. The first is that husbands cannot commit adultery, and the second is that adulterers are not husbands, and hence not adulterers. What never occurs to anyone is the duty of fighting our fellow Christians to the last ditch, as Athanasius did with Arius.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 247
Under Authority
“The Bible is not a grab bag of infallible truths, thoughtfully provided by God so that we could have an axiomatic starting point for our subsequently autonomous reasoning. The Scriptures are authoritative. We are men, with our breath in our nostrils. We are creatures with little pointy heads.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 243-244
Euclidian Inerrancy
“Of course the Bible does not contain errors. But neither does my claim that triangles have three sides. What is the difference between the Bible’s inerrancy and my occasional bursts of it? The difference is the other essential component of sola Scriptura—ultimacy.”
The Cultural Mind, pp. 242-243
The Teacher, Not a Student
“Similarly, the Bible meets no standard; the Bible is the standard. Defenders of the Word too often act as if the Bible is an exceptionally bright student, always acing every test we might devise for it.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 242
The Last Shall Be First
“In the same way, those who abandon all hope of autonomous creativity amaze the world at their creativity. The one who is creative is the one who knows he cannot be.”
The Cultural Mind, p. 239