A Collection of Quotes

The Sad Suspended State of the Skeptic

2009-10-30T00:12:00.001+01:00

We assert still that the Skeptic's End is quietude in respect of matters of opinion and moderate feeling in respect of things unavoidable. For the Skeptic… so as to attain quietude thereby, found himself involved in contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them suspended judgment; and as he was thus in suspense there followed, as it happened, the state of quietude in respect of matter of opinion . For the man who opines that anything is by nature good or bad is for ever being disquieted: when he is without the things which he deems good he believes himself to be tormented by things naturally bad and he pursues after the things which are, as he thinks, good; which when he has obtained he keeps falling into still more perturbations because of his irrational and immoderate elation, and in his dread of a change of fortune he uses every endeavor to avoid losing the things which he deems good. On the other hand, the man who determines nothing as to what is naturally good or bad neither shuns nor pursues anything eagerly; and, in consequence, he is unperturbed.

- Sectus Empiricus, in,

Landesman, Philosophical Skepticism, 39.

The kind of relativistic, un-judgmental view of life, seems to me a kind of de-creation. God created man to have dominion on all creation, and to be in a state of suspended non-judgment, not pursuing anything ardently, not ruling with any dogmas whatsoever is a kind of reversal of the dominion mandate.

Philosophical (and Theological) Classifications

2009-10-22T09:22:00.001+02:00

"Philosophical classifications are not like labels for political parties that people officially join; at best, they point to a salient feature that systems that differ in many other ways have in common. Such groupings fail to rise to the level of natural kinds; they are closer to what Wittgenstein thought of as concepts based upon family resemblances. They should be understood as handy devices for abbreviated referenced rather than as the product of a deep analysis of a philosophical tendency.

Charles Landesman, Skepticism – The Central Issues, 2.

Recorded Music as “Overhearing”

2009-09-23T03:26:00.001+02:00

The reason why gramophone music is so unsatisfactory to any one accustomed to real music is not because the mechanical reproduction is bad - that would be easily compensated by the hearer’s imagination - but because the performers and the audience are out of touch. The audience is not collaborating; it is only overhearing.

- Collingwood

HT: Peter Leithart

Sanctification and Justification

2009-07-06T04:28:00.001+02:00

Why, then, are we justified by faith? Because by faith we grasp Christ's righteousness, but which alone we are reconciled to God. Yet you could not grasp this without at the same time grasping sanctification also. For he “is given unto us for righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption” [I Cor. 1:30]. Therefore Christ justifies no one whom he does not at the same time sanctify. These benefits are joined together by an everlasting and indissoluble bond, so that those whom he illumines by his wisdom, he redeems; those whom he redeems, he justifies; those whom he justifies, he sanctifies…Thus is is clear how true it is that we are justified not without works yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ, which justifies us, sanctification is just as much included as righteousness.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk III, ch. 26.1

A Sermon for the President

2009-05-24T19:41:00.001+02:00

From Blog and Mablog:

Ascension Sunday 2009
This Lord’s Day is Ascension Sunday, the day we have set apart to commemorate the exaltation of Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Ancient of Days. This was the day upon which He was given universal and complete authority over all nations and kings, when He was given all rule and authority, dominion and power. Our Lord’s name is the name which is high above every name, and His is the name that, when spoken, will cause every knee to bow, and every tongue to confess, that He is indeed Lord of heaven and earth. And, as we cannot emphasize too much, or say too often, this is no invisible spiritual truth. It is simply, undividedly, true. This means it is true in a way that makes it true on the most practical levels. It is true when church is over.

"It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit. Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised. They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes. The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword" (Eze 32:17-21).

One of the visions that the prophet Ezekiel was given was that of a parliament of dead kings, assembled in the nether regions of Sheol—the Greek word for this place is Hades. The prophet was speaking of nations which had had their time of great glory under the sun, but which, inevitably, had descended below to an empty governance of shades and shadows, the empty governance of nothing that mattered. This reality is inescapable—in Augustine’s trenchant phrase, among the nations of men, the dead are replaced by the dying, and however splendid an empire might be for the moment, there is no future for any nation outside of Christ. History occurs on the inexorable conveyor belt of moving time. There is nothing that will shut this conveyor belt off, and so there is no device to allow one nation’s day of glory to be forever fixed. Glory cannot be kept or retained in that way at all. There is no future glory for any king or president, for any nation or people, outside of Christ. So for those who reject Christ, below the earth in the nether regions, we find nothing but wisps of lost glory, and above ground at some future date talented archeologists might be able to find the remnants of an Ozymandian ruin.

Continue Reading…

European Noblesse: France

2009-05-06T23:22:00.001+02:00

Yet we must hang on to this proposition of historical fairness with our very teeth, defending it against momentary appearances: European noblesse—of feeling, of taste, of manners, taking the word, in short, in ever higher sense—is the work and invention of France; European vulgarity, the plebeianism of modern ideas, that of England.—

Friedrich Nietzshe, Beyond Good and Evil, section 253 (p. 192).

Happiness a basis? – ευδαιμονία και αρετή

2009-05-06T10:49:00.001+02:00

Nobody is very likely to consider a doctrine true merely because it makes people happy or virtuous—except perhaps the lovely “idealists” who become effusive about the good, the true, and the beautiful and allow all kinds of motley, clumsy, and benevolent desiderata to swim around in utter confusion in their pond. Happiness and virtue are no arguments.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 49.

Independence

2009-05-06T10:40:00.001+02:00

Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 41.

Mistrust

2009-05-06T10:38:00.001+02:00

One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 82.

Speed and Time

2009-05-04T19:21:00.001+02:00

Like many modern advances, the domination of time turns into its opposite; absolute control of time through absolute speed, speed for its own sake, leaves us feeling we have no control of time.

Peter Leithart, Solomon Among the Postmoderns, 42.

More than Salvation

2009-04-25T22:25:00.001+02:00

This whole notion is rooted in the realization that Christianity is not just involved with “salvation” but with the total man in the total world. The Christian message begins with the existence of God forever and then with creation. It does not begin with salvation. We must be thankful for salvation, but the Christian message is more than that.

Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, 89.

Gothic Africans??

2009-04-25T22:21:00.001+02:00

Why did we ever force the Africans to use Gothic architecture? It’s a meaningless exercise. All we succeeded in doing was making Christianity foreign to the African. If a Christian artist is Japanese, his paintings should be Japanese, if Indian, Indian.

Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, 76.

Knowledge of One’s Language

2009-03-26T14:43:00.001+01:00

Educated speakers are notoriously unreliable in analyzing their own language. If Chrysostom weighs two competing interpretations, his conclusion should be valued as an important opinion and no more. If, on the other hand, he fails to address a linguistic problem because he does not appear to perceive a possible ambiguity, his silence is of the greatest value in helping us determine how Paul’s first readers were likely to have interpreted the text.

Moisés Silva, Philippians, 27.

Swearing people are verbally farting

2009-03-26T04:04:00.001+01:00

Swearing people are verbally farting, I explain to my children, and one often gets trapped that way, playing free and easy with God’s name, edging into off-colour jokes unbecoming the tongue of a child of the king (Eph. 5:3-14), lost in a vile, scoffing sort of raping with the mouth, because one has not been faithful in undergirding, developing and norming the semantic quality of one’s communication. If one has poor grammar and no mastery of syntax, no colour to his vocabulary, then one has no control, no depth, no persuasive power to his language. So it’s very tempting to bolster one’s weak talk by pulling in dues ex machine exclamations and by violating different social and ethical norms in order to grab attention, trying to load your speech powerfully enough to gain dominating control of the communicating situation. But it is in vain, because God’s creational order forbids it. The havoc of hate takes place. Dirty and God-damning talk is terribly destructive. But that is not “strong language” any more than rape is passionate love.

-Seerveld, An Obedient Aesthetic Life, 54.

All that Glitters Ought to be Gold

2009-03-02T19:28:00.001+01:00

“I think gold was meant to be seldom seen, and to be admired as a precious thing; and I sometimes wish that truth should so far literally prevailed as that all should be gold that glittered, or rather that nothing should glitter that was not gold.

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 50.

Architecture

2009-03-02T17:03:00.001+01:00

Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that they sight of them may contribute to his health, power, and pleasure.

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 8.

Robinson Crusoe on the Providence of God

2009-01-22T01:00:00.000+01:00

"If so, nothing can happen in the great Circuit of his Works, either without his Knowledge or Appointment. And if nothing happens without his Knowledge, he knows that I am here, and am in this dreadful Condition; and if nothing happens without his Appointment, he has appointed all this to befal me."
- Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, 79.

This quote from Robinson Crusoe exemplifies Defoe's Calvinistic worldview. There is of course the doctrine of Predestination involved, and how God created, knows, and is in control of all things. But much further than that, this passage shows Defoe's doctrine of Salvation. He starts with the question of where everything came from, and ends with adoring that Creator. Realizing that God is the Creator leaves Robinson Crusoe without any pride. He has nothing to stand on which God has not given him, therefore all complaining, all rebellion, and all despair loose their place and meaning. Having contemplated these things the only thing for Crusoe to do is to cry out to God, praise him, and trust him in all he does. He has no more right to question God's eternal decree's as to his location than a tree on the island would. He therefore can rest in the confidence that God has brought this about for his good, and not for his evil. Crusoe's next question was to ask why God had chosen to bring these things upon him. He had scarcely thought this when he realized how he had been going against God's will and his life's calling all his days. In spite of all this, Crusoe realized that God had spared him through incredible circumstances. How can Crusoe doubt that God was up to something in his life? When Christ offers grace to a particular sinner, that grace is irresistible and un-stoppable.

The Pagan's Intellect

2008-12-05T20:51:00.000+01:00

"What we see in Satan is the horrible co-existence of a subtle and incessant intellectual activity with an incapacity to understand anything."

C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost, 99.

The Battered but Safe εκκλησια

2008-12-04T09:58:00.000+01:00

"There is pleasure to be on board a ship battered by a storm, when we are certain that it will not perish: the persecutions buffeting the Church are of this kind."

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 617.

Bordedom

2008-12-04T09:37:00.000+01:00

"Nothing is so intolerable for man as to be in a state of complete tranquility, without passions, without business, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nothingness, his abandonment, his inadequacy, his dependence, his helplessness, his emptiness. At once from the depths of his soul arise boredom, gloom, sadness, grief, vexation, despair."

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 515.

Labour Saving Machinary

2008-08-29T05:41:00.000+02:00

"There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so to create power in this World; and that cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour...I will forgive Mordor-gadgets some of their sins, if they will bring [this letter] quickly to you..."

J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to his son Christopher, 7 July 1944.

Tolkien and His Car

2008-08-26T10:43:00.000+02:00

"There was the unforgettable occasion in 1932 when Tolkien bought his first car, a Morris Cowley that was nicknamed 'Jo'...After learning to drive he took the entire family by car to visit his brother Hilary...At various times during the journey 'Jo' sustained two punctures and knocked down part of a dry-stone wall near Chipping Norton, with the result that Edith refused to travel in the car again until some months later - not entirely without justification, for Tolkien's driving was daring rather than skilful. when accelerating headlong across a busy main road in Oxford in order to get into a side-street, he would ignore all other vehicles and cry 'Charge 'em and they scatter!' - and scatter they did."

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, 162.

The Tolkiens

2008-08-26T10:33:00.000+02:00

"A principal source of happiness to them was their shared love for their family...Tolkien was immensely kind and understanding as a father, never shy of kissing his sons in public even when they were grown men, and never reserved in his display of warmth and love."

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, 161.

Tolkien's Friendship with Lewis

2008-08-26T09:02:00.000+02:00

"Friendship with Lewis compensates for much, and besides giving constant pleasure and comfort has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual - a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher - and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord."

J.R.R Tolkien, quoted in, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, 152.

Tolkien's Humour

2008-08-26T08:24:00.000+02:00

He could laugh at anybody, but most of all at himself, and his complete lack of any sense of dignity could and often did make him behave like a riotous schoolboy. At a New Year's Eve party in the nineteen-thirties he would don an Icelandic sheepskin hearthrug and paint his face white to impersonate a polar bear, or he would dress up as an Anglo-Saxon warrior complete with axe and chase an astonished neighbour down the road. Later in life he delighted to offer inattentive shopkeepers his false teeth among a handful of change. 'I have,' he once wrote, 'a very simple sense of humour, which even my appreciative critics find tiresome.'

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, 134.