Apologetics
"...that's the apologist's dilemma, that if you simply address the God- shaped blank that people think they've got, the God you end up with is the God shaped by the blank. The real God specializes in taking the blanks in people's lives and pulling and tugging and turning them into a new shape."
--N.T. Wright from an article in this months Christianity Today
For me, I think the mind acts as a gatekeeper to the heart; it evaluates and determines the worthiness of putting your trust in something. If I know I have no chance with a girl (movie star, etc), my mind is usually pretty good about keeping my heart in check and avoiding a crushing blow to my ego. It's not low self confidence, its just risk management. In a similar way, no matter appealing the benefits of Mormonism may seem to my heart, my mind is going to hold it back from a quest to become a little god or have multiple wives.
At times it seems like my mind hasn't been doing it's job. As I'm reading a book or magazine, sometimes I stumble across something that goes against everything I believe, but when I examine those beliefs I wonder where they even came from. When it comes to my Christian faith, sometimes it seems like God has been speaking to my heart behind my mind's back. I'm skeptic by nature, so I'm glad God spoke to my heart before I closed my mind completely.
What I love about apologetics is that I can examine my beliefs and find that they are not irrational blind faith. For me, apologetics is more about destroying objections to my faith than providing reasons to believe. They act as a confirmation and strengthening of a faith that is already there.
I realize many people turn to apologetics to determine if the faith is for them; if they can intellectually assent to the teachings of the Bible with integrity (Josh McDowell, even St. Augustine). I believe that people on this search will find answers, but will come across even more questions along the way. Intellectual reasons for belief fail to draw a complete picture of God. Oftentimes they suceed in drawing a box around Him, by reducing His work to A + B = C, therefore, etc.
Jesus says in John 6:44 "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me." Perhaps the method God brings some to Jesus is through their intellect, but what is clear is that coming to faith is not an equation. While A, B, C, and D may all be completely true, A + B + C + D does not equal God.
--N.T. Wright from an article in this months Christianity Today
For me, I think the mind acts as a gatekeeper to the heart; it evaluates and determines the worthiness of putting your trust in something. If I know I have no chance with a girl (movie star, etc), my mind is usually pretty good about keeping my heart in check and avoiding a crushing blow to my ego. It's not low self confidence, its just risk management. In a similar way, no matter appealing the benefits of Mormonism may seem to my heart, my mind is going to hold it back from a quest to become a little god or have multiple wives.
At times it seems like my mind hasn't been doing it's job. As I'm reading a book or magazine, sometimes I stumble across something that goes against everything I believe, but when I examine those beliefs I wonder where they even came from. When it comes to my Christian faith, sometimes it seems like God has been speaking to my heart behind my mind's back. I'm skeptic by nature, so I'm glad God spoke to my heart before I closed my mind completely.
What I love about apologetics is that I can examine my beliefs and find that they are not irrational blind faith. For me, apologetics is more about destroying objections to my faith than providing reasons to believe. They act as a confirmation and strengthening of a faith that is already there.
I realize many people turn to apologetics to determine if the faith is for them; if they can intellectually assent to the teachings of the Bible with integrity (Josh McDowell, even St. Augustine). I believe that people on this search will find answers, but will come across even more questions along the way. Intellectual reasons for belief fail to draw a complete picture of God. Oftentimes they suceed in drawing a box around Him, by reducing His work to A + B = C, therefore, etc.
Jesus says in John 6:44 "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me." Perhaps the method God brings some to Jesus is through their intellect, but what is clear is that coming to faith is not an equation. While A, B, C, and D may all be completely true, A + B + C + D does not equal God.
posted by hoose at 7:11 PM
3 Comments:
very good points
while i was reading this, "God-Shaped Hole" by Audio A was playing in my mind
oh ccm.
"When it comes to my Christian faith, sometimes it seems like God has been speaking to my heart behind my mind's back"
Hoose i like what you gots to say but one thing that might be interesting to note is the distinction between heart/mind. This seems to be a fairly western distinction many of the folks at Labri from Nepal, etc seemed perplexed when Americans talked about believing something in the mind, etc and not in harmony with the heart
Interesting thought Broun, I’d like to hear more about the heart/mind oneness. The reason I see them as separate is related to the notions of love (not as I have experienced personally, admittedly). If romantic love (or "being in love") was relegated to the mind, it would be determined by finding a mate that met a list of desires. Yet, there will always be someone more beautiful or smarter or just in general a better fit for your personality. Love seems to be a function of the heart because there is a spiritual connection established that supersedes any logical desires.
In the same sense, I feel that my heart has been captured by God and although in many ways I resist Him in my heart, there are probably just as many ways that i resist Him in my head.
One place where I see this most apparently is in my struggles over the authority of Scripture. I feel like my mind is fighting a losing battle in attempting to systematically or scientifically prove that every word is inspired by God. Instead I have begun to just trust that this is so and let the Scripture speak to my heart and my mind will follow.
I have more to say about this, but I am having trouble putting it into words. As for now, I don't hold tightly to the idea that the heart and mind are seperate. The only Scripture that comes to mind is when we are commanded to love God with all our "heart, soul, and mind". Now the question is if this is a rhetorical device using synonyms to instruct us to love God with our whole being. Or is it saying that the heart, soul, and mind are seperate parts of the being, having different makeup and function? I don't know and i look forward to discussing this.
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