Apologetics

God’s Will Be Done, The True Path to Joy and Peace

God's Will Be Done, The True Path to Joy and Peaceby Peter Kreeft –
In heaven (and in heaven on earth, the sanctified soul) our will conforms to God’s, not God’s to ours. The reason the saint’s desires are satisfied and he has joy is not that God is a divine dispensing machine and the saint has learned to press the right buttons but that he has learned to desire “the one thing necessary”, God’s will, and therefore always gets what he desires, for God’s will is always done.

“Thy will be done” is the infallible road to total joy.

It is testable and provable in daily and hourly experience. Time after time, active willing God’s will, “Yes” to God, leads out of meaninglessness, passivity, depression, or sorrow into joy. And time after time the pursuit of joy as if it were mine leads to disappointment, emptiness, and restless boredom. Life teaches us by millions of repetitions, yet we need millions more.[Read more…]

Christianity Has Nothing to Say to People Who Don’t Understand Sin

Christianity Has Nothing to Say to People Who Dont Understand Sin
“Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness.

It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power – it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.” ~ C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

Faith and Reason vs. Emotion and Imagination – C.S. Lewis

Faith and Reason vs. Emotion and Imagination - C.S. LewisIn his timeless writings C. S. Lewis cautioned us about the battle between faith and reason versus emotion and imagination that frequently rages in our hearts and minds. He wisely warned that intense emotions can destroy our faith in what we already know to be true. Lewis counseled us that teaching our moods “where they get off” was a necessary virtue of being a good Christian or even a “sound atheist.”

In our progressive mainstream culture where rampant emotionalism and subjective feelings have been substituted for reason, logic, and common sense, his wisdom is more relevant and applicable than ever.

Key Points:

  • Battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.
  • Emotions can destroy your faith in what you really know to be true.
  • Faith… is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.
  • For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes.
  • Necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods “where they get off,” you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist.
  • We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. [Read more…]

The Orthodox Church: Fighting Heresies and Resisting Worldly Errors

Sunday of Orthodoxy, Orthodox Church Fighting Heresies and Resisting Worldly ErrorsG. K. Chesterton points out the glorious sanity and vigorous life that has existed in the Christian Church since Her founding. While Chesterton doesn’t specifically mention the Orthodox Church I found his comments most appropriate for the Sunday of Orthodoxy we just celebrated. “This is the Faith of the Apostles, this is the Faith of the Fathers, this is the Faith of the Orthodox, this is the Faith which has established the Universe.” ~ Confession of faith from the Day of Orthodoxy

“This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. [Read more…]

The Orthodox Church: Fierce Defender of Theological Truths and Sound Christian Doctrines

The Orthodox Church: Fierce Defender of Theological Truths and Sound Christian DoctrinesThe masterful and wisdom-filled writings of G. K. Chesterton remind us why the Christian Church cannot afford to swerve even “a hair’s breadth” on important theological truths. While not written with regards to the Orthodox Church specifically, his insights also describe how the Orthodox Church has continually fought to defend the Truth and the Christian faith as taught by Jesus Christ, embodied in the Scriptures, preached by the Apostles, attested by the Martyrs, reflected in the writings of the Saints, and expounded by the Fathers.

Chesterton writes:
“Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. [Read more…]

What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?

What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?by C.S. Lewis –
There is no question of what we can make of Him; it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us.

“What are we to make of Jesus Christ?” This is a question, which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of “How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this Man?”

This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of His moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity. In fact, I find when I am arguing with very anti-God people that they rather make a point of saying, “I am entirely in favour of the moral teaching of Christianity” — and there seems to be a general agreement that in the teaching of this Man and of His immediate followers, moral truth is exhibited at its purest and best. [Read more…]

God is Good and Goodness is Divine

God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.by Chris Banescu –

Most of recorded human history points to the reality of the Moral Law, written in our hearts, that governs the affairs of men. Since the beginning of time mankind has recognized (more definitively and clearly in some ages and civilizations than others) that universal concepts of right and wrong and good and evil do in fact exist.

We acknowledge this timeless truth every time we judge whether a person’s behavior is just or unjust, right or wrong, or good or evil. We make this determination not by claiming that a specific act is only “good” if we subjectively like and agree with it, but rather by comparing it with an actual standard of good and evil.

Such an evaluation is logical only if these standards are real and absolute, otherwise it would make no sense in labeling anything as evil or good. [Read more…]