1. While it is true that faith directs understanding, it is
equally true that understanding is prerequisite to faith.
2. Revelation is dipolar. It comes into existence when a
word spoken is heard, when a disclosure is apprehended.
No revelation occurs without the experience of it.
3. Jesus is neither God nor man simpliciter; He is best de-
scribed as the God-Man, a complex being who came into
existence in Time.
4. It is false to declare that faith in Christ is justified only
when tile Bible is received as infallible.
5. For our knowledge of such things as can be perceived by
the senses we are not dependent upon the Bible.
6. The Bible is best described not as Revelation, but as a
Witness to revelation,
7. While nature should be viewed in the light of Scripture,
it is equally true that Scripture should be interpreted in
the light of our knowledge of nature.
8. Time is a mode of finite existence. God exists beyond
Time, although He operates within it
9. God draws persons to Himself, not by force, but by per-
suasion.
10. Although Faith is in some sense a risk, it is not a sheer
leap into the dark. It is based upon an awareness of a
daunting yet alluring Presence who evokes response.
11. All of us are descendants of Adam, but not of Noah.
12. The course of events is not to be regarded as the
unrolling of a scroll written from the beginning of time
(or in eternity).
13. God's omnipresence means, not that He fills all space,
but that there are no spatial barriers to His presence.
14. Eternity is not to be conceived as before Time, but as
above Time, over-arching it, and in a sense, embracing
it.
15. While a given theory of evolution may conflict with
biblical teachings, the concepts "creation" and
"evolution" do not stand in an antithetical relation.
Because they direct the mind to two distinct features of
finite reality (Origin and Development) they need not
come into conflict.
16. It Is the faith of the Christian that in the miraculous
birth, the atoning death, and the bodily resurrection of the
man Christ Jesus, in essense one with God, the destiny of
man and cosmos is ineluctably involved.
17. The mission of the church is to represent on earth the
reality and promise of Christ's kingdom. In pursuit of
this end the church reaches out with the Gospel to the
unsaved, nurtures in the faith those embraced within its
fellowship, and involves these in a beneficent
engagement with the world.
18. Although God did create something (Light? Energy?) by
direct fiat, it is permissible to suppose that other things
came into being in the course of time through the
divinely controlled unfolding of increated potentialities.
19. Sin is the root cause of all the evil in the world.
20. God did not, and does not, intend or decree that man
should sin.
21. God's permitting, or even causing, human suffering is
not in conflict with His absolute Goodness.
22. For both God and man, hate of persons is morally illicit.
23. For man to be totally depraved he must retain many nat-
ural excellencies.
24. God loves all human beings with an agapic love, but this
love can be, and is, spurned by some.
25. Election to salvation in Christ is best understood not as
an eternal divine "selection of some" to the exclusion of
others, but as the profession of Christians that they have
been saved by the grace of an initiating God.
26. That "Grace is irresistible" is not a factual statement
about the nature of grace, but the profession of each
Christian that in his case lie could not but succumb to
the blandishments of God.
27. To say that man is "totally depraved" is not to say that
he is without a moral sense or without increated
excellencies, but that he is oriented at the center of his
being to ends other than his true end.
28. Christ's atonement is limited not in the sense that he
died only for some, but that through human perversity it
is not effectual in all.
29. It is not the Bible, but the Word of God, that is infalli-
ble, and that Word can be discovered through the careful
and prayerful study of a Scripture which contains errant,
irrelevant, and superseded passages.
30. The heart of the Gospel is that God was in Christ recon-
ciling the world unto himself.
31. When God created man in His image He put Himself at
risk and exposed himself to opposition.
32. Man was introduced to the notion of Evil not when he
ate of the tree, but when he was told that such eating was
forbidden.
33. That God knows the number of hairs on our head is not
a factual statement, but an epigrammatic way of saying
that we can keep no secrets from God.
34. He who is forgiven but does not accept forgiveness re-
mains unforgiven.
35. It is not by God's will, but in His presence, that sparrows
fall to the ground.
36. Abortions may be performed only after moral considera-
tion and for due cause.
37. A fertilized egg, simply as such, is not a veritable
person. It is not even a potential human being until it is
attached to the uterine wall.
38. One may assume that all human beings who die in
infancy are alive in Christ.
39. The implicative knowledge attained in mathematics and
formal logic is improperly called "belief."
40. God does not pre-determine all that occurs in the course
of time.
41. God's sovereignty may be thought of as His ability to
move with certainty through the free choices of men to-
wards the fulfillment of His purposes.
42. Christianity asserts, not that all those are lost who have
not confessed the Christ, but that if anyone is saved it is
by virtue of Christ's atoning work.
43. Hell is neither a creation of God nor a place in space, but
the condition of those (if such there be) who unto the
end have persisted in their opposition to or their flight
from God.
44. The Male-Headship principle should be abandoned in
home, church, and society in favor of universal gender
equality.
45. By God's Immutability we mean the stability of His na-
ture and the unswerving direction of His will, not His in-
ability to make ad hoc decisions, or to adjust to changing
circumstances.
46. Rightly to understand the human situation three cate-
gories are to be employed: Nature, Sin, and Grace (Cre-
ation, Fall, and Redemption).
47. In the Incarnation, the Second Person of the Trinity did
not "change" into a man, but "took human-ness upon
himself" and thus "became" both God and Man in indis-
soluble union.
48. The doctrine of "Verbal Inspiration" is unacceptable if it
means that each and every word in the Bible was chosen
by the Holy Spirit or received His direct imprimatur.
49. The view that Christ builds His church primarily along
covenant lines, gathering it from believers and their chil-
dren, lacks warrant and inhibits the work of missions.
50. He who denies the possibility of miracles denies the
Lordship of God over the work of His hands.
51. Miracles are not to be understood as violations of perma-
nently established "natural laws," but as variations in the
way God ceaselessly works in the world.
52. It is not likely that all the feats of strength and ingenuity
ascribed to Samson actually occurred.
53. One may affirm that God is "Triune" only if one can
give some intelligible account of what, in this instance,
is meant by "Three in One."
54. The confession we make that God is "single and simple"
does not permit us to posit within the Godhead three
distinct centers of consciousness.
55. It is permissible to regard the "dust" from which God
made man as "organic material," and to think of the
"breath of life" that He breathed into man's nostrils as
effecting "God Consciousness.
56. That God inscribed with His fingers the Ten Command-
ments on tablets of stone is not to be taken as a straight-
forward factual statement.
57. The Athanasian Creed errs when it declares that
everyone who does not "keep it whole and undefiled
shall without doubt perish everlastingly."
58. If God is a "suffering" God attentive to our daily cries,
laments, and sorrows, can His life be one of "perfect
bliss"?
59. There is in God an erotic love as well as an agapic love.
60. A theological model which places God at the center of
the world is as legitimate as one that places Him above
the world
61. While government is for the people, and preferably by
the people, it is not from the people.
62. The psycho-somatic Unity espoused by Vollenhoven
and Dooyeweerd reflects the teaching of Aristotle.
63. It is untrue that facts are inseparable from the interpre-
tation put upon them
64. Not all that occurs in the physical world can be
accounted for in terms of intra-cosmic forces.
65. The whole of Ethics is situational in the sense that no
proper moral judgment can be made when circumstances
are ignored.
66. The Just War Theory does not claim that certain wars
are "just," but that they are "justifiable."
67. Although the Bible itself should be taken as it is, a doc-
trine about the Bible may well need revision.
68. Neither Determinism nor Indeterminism is true; Freedom
is always linked to Destiny.
69. It is only Ontological Reason, not Technical Reason,
that has been significantly affected by Sin.
70. Untended and uncontrolled nature threatens civilization
and culture.
71. The existence of Physical Science is one of many indica-
tions that man transcends nature.
72. The God who reveals Himself is also the Deus Abscon-
ditus, the hidden God, whose being and ways are past
finding out.
73. The creation of the world is an expression of God's
agapic love, a manifestation of His will to impart gifts to
others, and to provide them a share in the fellowship of
the Holy Trinity.
74. The Bible nowhere ascribes Self-Love to God.
75. Theocentrism is false if it is taken to mean that God is
wholly turned in upon Himself, and does not exist pro
nobis.
76. What to some may appear to be Calvin's undue orien-
tation to Old Testament motifs is in fact his Christocen-
trism, his conviction that it is the whole of Scripture was
Christum treibet.
77. The "Rhythm Method" sponsored by the Roman Church
is not in accord with its view that sexual intercourse is
for generative purposes only.
78. The Christian doctrine of Divine Providence asserts that
the world is governed by a loving Creator, whose
concern for the establishment of a Kingdom of Life
never suffers abatement, and whose determination to
effect it cannot be thwarted. It does not assert that all
that occurs in the world is in accordance with the intent
and purpose of God's rule.
79. The Church, though formed by Grace, rests on the fact
that man is by nature a social being inclined toward Fel-
lowship.
80. Grace does not destroy Nature, but perfects it.
81. Whatever the Incarnation did effect, it did not effect the
humanization of God or the deification of Man.
82. The doctrine that asserts "The Perseverance of the
Saints" does not preclude "apostasy"; it expresses the
faith of a Christian that God's preserving power will not
fail him.
83. At least some truths are relational: That Christ died for
me is true if I believe it, false if I don't.
84. Only he who has transcended the world can live Chris-
tianly in it
85. Not all happenings, but only culture-forming
happenings, become grist for the historian's mill.
86. That God is "glorified in the death of sinners" means not
that God takes pleasure in their death, but that in the
overcoming of those who oppose Him his divine
sovereignty is disclosed and vindicated.
87. It is not the literal turning of the cheek that Christ com-
mands, but the development of a peaceful and non-
retaliatory disposition.
88. To take the measure of a man, one should observe
whether or not he dots his i's and crosses his t's.
89. Although God is an Individual, He is not a Whole em-
bracing all that exists, nor a Unit bordered and defined
by another; He is the All in the realm of the Divine, and
an unconfined and ubiquitous Presence in the realm of
creation.
90. Through the testimony of the Holy Spirit within, a word
from the Bible can become for man the very Word of
God.
91. Christian Monotheism declares that only the God of the
Bible is God; it makes no overt declaration concerning
the numerical character of God.
92. It is unwarranted to declare that Masturbation is evil per se.
93. It should be acknowledged that there are some who are
constitutionally pre-disposed toward homosexuality.
94. It is morally permissible, under some circumstances, to
speak contrary to fact: some "lies" are White
95. Sunday, the Lord's Day, is best spent in an assessment
of one's behavior during the preceeding week, and in an
endeavour, through prayer and worship, to re-establish
and re-invigorate one's Christian discipleship.
96. An Ethicist should avoid the "Ideal World Fallacy," and
seek to determine, not what ideally would be the right
thing to do, but what, in a broken world, and under pre-
vailing circumstances, is the best thing to do.
97. Capital Punishment is permissible, but not mandatory,
and should only in rare instances be exercised.
98. Although "Christian Education" does not necessarily re-
quire "Christian Schools," the nurture of covenant chil-
dren is best advanced when home and school join forces.
99. Since some things exist, Something (or Someone) must
always have been in existence, for from Nothing nothing
can come.
100. God did not create the world at some time, for Time is
itself a creation.
101. The Bible reflects both the science and the social
patterns of its era, and in these respects it is not
normative for us. It is the Bible's "Weltanschauung"
not its "Weltbild" or its "Gesellschaftsauffassung," that
needs adopting.
102. That Ordination conveys Grace, and enables the Ordi-
nand to impart Grace, is a Roman Catholic idea, and
should have no place in Reformed Church Polity.
103. There are biblical Psalms some portions of which a
Christian cannot in good conscience sing.
104. It is not to be believed that the real Samuel made an
actual appearance in response to the Witch of Endor's
necromancy.
105. Since there is only one God, and since He alone is self-
existent, all else that exists was called forth by His
power out of nothing.
106. God's omnipotence enables him, not to do every
conceivable thing, but to do whatever He wills to do.
107. To achieve "excellence" is not the same as to "excel."
108. Although Sin is disruptive, it can operate only within
and through the stable structure of creation. To exist at
all, Evil requires the Good, and conflict requires order.
109. Man is neither divorced from Nature, nor immersed in
it. In relation to Nature lie is both Immanent and
Transcendent.
110. Unlike a "sign," which remains external, a "symbol"
participates in what it symbolizes.
111. In a Christian College, Academic Freedom should be
confined within the parameters of the school's
constitution.
112. A Republic, in which people are governed by chosen
Representatives, is better than a Democracy, in which
things are settled by Plebiscites.
113. The Apologetics question is: How shall we sing the
Lord's song in a foreign land?
114. To flee God is to leave the Rock of Defense and
stumble upon the Rock of Offense.
115. Conscience serves as a brake upon proposed or contem-
plated action, but is no true guide to positive action.
116. That the Son is begotten of the Father indicates that the
Sort is of the same nature as the Father, but it does not
indicate that the Son is equal to the Father, or eternally
co-existent with Him.
117. The End toward which history moves is not a
Terminus,
but a Goal.
118. What Is is finally determinative of what Ought to Be.
119. Problems are solved by further inquiry; Puzzles are
dispelled by clarification of what is already known;
Mysteries remain mysteries even when disclosed.
120. The Christian life recapitulates the Christ events. It is
by dying to oneself, rising with Christ into newness of
life, and ascending to God in prayer, that a Christian is
able to go into the world with saving power.
121. The "God Question" is not whether God exists, but how
He is to be conceived and responded to.
122. Central to Faith is not assent to church dogma, but
Trust in the person Christ Jesus.
123. Although the Antithesis is to be recognized, it is not to
be embraced, since it is that which the Gospel is out to
destroy.
124. Philosophy inquires, not about the whole of the world,
but about the world as a Whole.
125. None but the most naive of worshippers believes that
an Idol is a God. To most the Idol represents a god, or
is inhabited by one.
126. No society can endure without an accepted code of
Morals, Manners, and Procedures.
127. That God is a Jealous God means, not that He desires
what others have, but that He is vigilant in maintaining
His unique status, and unable and unwilling to share
with others His sole and exclusive Divinity.
128. What centrally characterizes Humanness is man 's
awareness of and responsiveness to God.
129. Just as Man, the rational animal, transcends the beast,
so Christ, the divine man, transcends the merely
human.
130. Historical Christianity arose at the confluence of two
streams - the Greek and the Hebrew - in both of which
the light-shedding Divine Word was active in
preparation for the Final Disclosure.
131. Since the Christian Faith rests upon an historical figure,
and upon actual historical occurrences, it is vulnerable
to historical criticism, and open in principle to
refutation by historical evidence.
132. The acceptability of a philosophy rests upon its
explanatory efficacy, upon its ability to illumine and
integrate human experience, and to lay bare the
structure of reality.
133. Although the Church is blessed with a Mighty
Presence, and has been made a witness of Saving Truth,
its membership is composed not of the Upright, but of
the Forgiven; not of the Perfected, but of those in
training for Discipleship.
134. One fasts properly not out of disdain for the body, but
out of concern for the soul
135. It is Religion that engenders and sustains Morals. With
the decline of religion morals collapse.
136. It is not the case that love to God is fulfilled in love to
neighbor; the love commandment moves one in both a
vertical and horizontal direction.
137. Religious faith and the faith that underlies the scientific
enterprise are two very different things.
138. We may distinguish between the Sacred and the
Profane, but not divorce the two.
139. One's theory of Atonement hinges on one's conception
of Sin.
140. Our profession that the Bible is perspicuous is in
tension with our demand for an educated clergy.
141. Not scientific Certainty, but religious Assurance, lies at
the heart of Christian Faith.
142. The presence of Sin is sometimes psychologically
determined; one who does what one considers sinful,
sins, even though what was done conformed to the
Law.
143. The Westminster Confession errs when it declares that
"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy
counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably
ordain whatsoever comes to pass."
144. That the Father delivered Christ into the hands of
sinners, who freely and willingly put Him to death, is
true; but this is not to say that the Father planned,
decreed, ordained, and orchestrated the crucifixion of
His Son.
145. One acts immorally when, without due cause, one acts
contrary to the group Mores.
146. Sola Scriptura was enunciated to counter the claim
that Tradition had the same authority as the Bible. The
phrase should not be used to deny that God reveals
Himself in Nature, History, and Conscience, nor to
deny that sound biblical interpretation takes place
within an historic community of faith and against the
backdrop of a shared tradition.
147. Although faith in Christ does not consist in assent to
certain propositions, it does not exist apart from such
assent.
148. Since Hell is depicted in the Bible as either a fiery
furnace or a bottom-less pit, Sin is best conceived as
either a hostile ascent to the Holy One, ablaze with
glory, or a flight from Him into outer darkness.
149. It is not Self-Centeredness that marks the presence of
Sin in man. At bottom no sinner considers himself of
central importance, or the object of ultimate concern;
his inexpungible sense of divinity, his inescapable
religiousity, compels him to bow at some point to
something or someone recognizably greater than
himself.
150. The Testimonium Spiritus Sancti. The Holy Spirit
does not testify to Christians that just these books
constitute the Canonical Scriptures' nor that every word
in them has His imprimatur, but He does testify that
God speaks to us through them, and that in Christ, God
has acted for us.
151. The Protestant is less a Protester than a Pro-Testant,
one who stands For or Witnesses to something.
152. Under the conditions of our existence it is Un-Christian
to propose the creation of a Christian State.
153. The Devil can be a devil only in so far as he retains the
image of God.
154. The Heidelberg Catechism misinterprets the Second
Commandment, and does a disservice to Christian Art,
when it declares that "God ... may not be visibly
portrayed in any way.
155. Life after death is based, not on the supposed indestruc-
tibility of soul-substance, but on the Resurrection of
Christ.
156. Suicide is possible, but self-annihilation is not.
157. In the Christian's love for God and Man both Eros and
Agape come into play.
158. While their Sin drives men towards social alienation
and disruption, their Finitude draws them toward social
complementation, cohesion, and cooperation
159. Not all sinful and immoral acts should be made into
criminal offenses.
160. What is entailed by the confession that the Bible is in-
spired is to be determined, not from a consideration of
the Spirit's perfections, but from an empirical study of
the composite biblical text.
161. Although God's ways are not our ways, I find it
impossible to ascribe to God what I find detestable in
myself.
162. One may endorse the separation of Church and State,
but not that of Religion and Politics
163. As technology develops it is well to remember that
"can" does not imply "may"
164. Because Divine Revelation is always mediate, God
cannot disclose Himself as He Is.
165. Although Mysteries are beyond comprehension, they
can, when contemplated, operate heuristically, and
advance understanding.
166. Every Ethic is defective which fails to recognize the
force exerted upon morals by the principle of Natural
Law.
167. The task of Apologetics is not to demonstrate the Faith,
but to stand upon it and set forth its explanatory
efficacy.
168. It is strange, but true, that it is amidst pain, sorrow, and
danger, that God is most frequently sought and found.
169. The traditional Ordo Salutis tends to obscure the fact
that the distinguishable elements that go into the mak-
ing of a Christian are not separate and successive, but
simultaneous and co-joined. By grace-induced faith
one is joined to Christ, in and through whom one is at
once regenerated, justified, brought to conversion, and
set on the path of sanctification.
170. It is incontrovertible that those who do not profess the
Christ perform deeds that are in a significant sense
"good."
171. The aim of Missions is to falsify the claim that certain
persons now living will suffer the torments of Hell.
172. That Paul is the chief of sinners is factually false, but,
in his mouth, religiously apt.
173. Although God can make a Man out of an Animal, an
Animal cannot bring forth a Man.
174. While justifiably employing the categories of Sin and
Grace, traditional Reformed Theology has not given
due weight to Nature and the stable structures of
Creation, and has, in consequence, denied to Reason its
true role in shaping thought and practice.
175. To deny the historicity of the Fall of man or angel is to
impugn the Goodness of God, and to weave Evil into
the very fabric of creation.
176. Underlying the Antithesis, and making conflict
possible, is the shared nature which Christian and Non-
Christian have in common.
177. The course of Nature is predictable since it rests on
inner necessities; the course of History is unpredictable
since it is largely shaped by the free actions of men.
178. Pacifism suffers from a lack of love for those whose
life and liberty are threatened by hostile forces.
179. Love is strung between the poles of Faith and Hope.
180. One may be tempted to act in accordance with an inner
inclination toward some evil, or be tempted to embrace
some evil repugnant to the inner self. Jesus was
tempted only in the latter way.
181. Sinners may be tempted to act in accordance with their
sinful inclinations, but they do not act sinfully until
they yield to the temptation.
182. If Space is defined as that which lies between two
objects, there is, of course, no space beyond the outer
limits of the physical universe. It is in this non-space
that the One Only God is said to "reside."
183. Beauty is not merely in the eye of the beholder; it Is
embodied and disclosed in an Object of sight or sound,
the incorporated features of which arouse and satisfy
one's aesthetic sensibilities.
184. To fear the Lord is not to "be afraid" of Him, but to
stand in awe of His majesty and be disposed to do His
bidding.
185. Because of God there is for Man no Privacy in this or
any world.
186. To say that it is Unreasoned is not to say that it is Irra-
tional.
187. Morality may at some time require us to act illegally.
188. One should always speak the truth, but the truth need
not always be spoken.
189. We are saved neither by works, nor without them.
190. The cross of Christ is at once God's greatest gift and the
world's greatest crime.
191. Amidst the ruins of the Corpus Christianum the Corpus
Christi stands secure.
192. It is a gross misreading of man's existential
predicament to regard as pathological his sense of guilt
and shame.
193. No full-bodied Theology can be elaborated without the
use of categories and insights developed in Philosophy
and the various Sciences.
194. It is not the case that God can work in the world only
through human agency.
195. It is impossible to see ourselves as others see us.
196. The Unity of the church is not to be purchased at the
price of its Fidelity.
197. Since Logos includes both Ratio and Verbum, it is
likely that an inadequacy in Expression betrays a lack
of clarity in Thought.
198. Not what is said, but what is meant, is the issue in
biblical interpretation.
199. A man in flight from God does not pray, for to pray is
to draw near to God.
200. Every Worldview is achieved within a perspective
chosen by the observer.
201. Facts function as legal tender in the realm of the Mind.
202. To propose a scientific explanation for the appearance
of Bethlehem's Star is to misconstrue the event and to
obscure its religious significance.
203. Knowledge is not only for utility; it is also for
satisfaction and enrichment.
204. There are no things too great and marvelous for men to
inquire into. There is no point at which human
curiosity ought to be arrested.
205. God's redemptive disclosures of Himself in the course
of Israel's history culminates in Jesus Christ, the focal
point not only of Heilsgeschichte but also of History in
general.
206. "The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry" trans-
lates into "The church will care for its own."
207. He who trusts in the Lord will walk through the midst
of the sea upon dry ground.
208. The atheistic Existentialist is mistaken. It is not the cir-
cumambient Void that fills him with Angst and
Despair, but the awesome Presence of One who, to the
alienated and hostile, cannot but appear as a Threat.
209. What centrally characterizes Divinity is Holiness.
210. For the understanding and interpretation of the Bible no
special or unique Hermeneutics is required.
211. The processes of Nature are cyclical, but History does
not repeat itself.
212. God instructs us in Nature and in History, and
Theology can ill afford to ignore such instruction.
213. The reality of the external world is evidenced by the
limitations it places on the operation of human wills.
214. It is upon certain tenets found exclusively in
Christianity that modern science is built.
215. Rights are generated by Duties.
216. A true Leader is both with the people and in advance
of them.
217. Although people are, on account of sin, undeserving of
salvation, they are, by virtue of creation, intrinsically
salvageable.
218. He who celebrates his growth in humility proclaims
the absence of it.
219. Generally speaking, what the Greeks called "Virtues"
are a-moral; they can be put into the service of rival
Kingdoms, and directed towards evil as well as good
ends.
220. The decisive factor in our thought-life is not our
exercise of reason, but rather what we take and trust as
significant for reason, what first premise we allow to
govern our reason, what definitive apriori controls our
reason.
221. A natural or formal science can be "Christian" or "non-
Christian" only in so far as, within it, decisions have to
be made on matters of philosophical import.
222. It is not by Nature, but by accident, that we are
sinners.
223. Change is intelligible only when viewed against the
background of stable structures.
224. Theology employs concepts, categories, reasonings,
and assumptions open to philosophical scrutiny and
appraisal.
225. Because Nature is a dynamic process, it is less a "book"
to be read than a "discourse" to be heard.
226. The "laws of nature" that we formulate are nothing but
our transcripts of God's "customary ways" of acting in
the world. They are not prior to, but after, God; they
record His habits
227. One becomes like the god one worships (Ps.115:8)
228. On matters of ultimate concern no thinking is "unpreju-
diced"; it is governed by the thinker's basic loyalties.
229. Since the Cosmos is a creation, everything in it is
contingent, and nothing within it can account for its
existence, order, meaning, or purpose.
230. Both the Idealist and the Materialist speak truly, for
both Mind and Matter are real; yet they both speak
falsely, for Mind does not derive from Matter, nor
Matter from Mind.
231. The distinction between Philosophy and Theology
fades when these disciplines are Christianly pursued.
232. God can be truly known only when He is loved and
obeyed.
233. Eros, or Desire, is universal in humankind, for it is
grounded in an essential Finitude in need of
complementation and support.
234. Since God is genderless, neither the feminine cause,
nor true religion, is advanced by thinking of God as a
woman.
235. To advance the feminine cause we need not rewrite the
Bible. We need only to learn that God transcends the
distinction between male and female, and that He is im-
partial in his dealings with men and women.
236. For the Christian, Gratitude is the dominant Motive
for living a life of moral rectitude.
237. When it comes to counting, weighing, and measuring,
Christians and non-Christians are, or should be, in ag-
greement.
238. Being is real, but of two sorts: Necessary and
Contingent "Being" is therefore not to be taken as a
univocal term embracing both Creator and Creature.
239. The extra-biblical conviction that God exists is best ar-
rived at and sustained, not by logical inference from
empirical givens, nor by the analysis and clarification
of terms, but by direct non-inferential awareness.
240. The Christian thinker, though open to paradoxes, can
embrace contradictions only by abandoning Reason,
and waiving Sanity.
241. The Christian is confident that whatever has been re-
vealed by God will not, and cannot, be in conflict with
that which has been discovered by man.
242. When theologians speak of God, the terms they use are
meant to be taken analogically.
243. Prayer is not to be confused with Meditation. Medita-
tion is a withdrawal into oneself; Prayer is an address
to Another.
244. Among the central affirmations of the Christian Faith
are these:
(a) God exists, is real. He is an infinitely good, wise, and
powerful personal being, who, lifted above the world
in true transcendence, is yet always and everywhere
present to it in grace and judgment.
(b) God created the world, not out of himself, and not
out of some co-existing matter, but out of nothing.
(c) Man was created in God's image, is in unbreakable
touch with God, and was made to be --- in free re-
sponsibility --- a member of that enduring fellowship
of love and justice called The Kingdom, a kingdom
which God is historically bringing into being, and of
which the Christian Church is the earnest and sym-
bol.
(d) The human race --- contrary to God's --- will fell from
rectitude into the power of Sin, with the result that
man, while retaining his humanness, came to exist in
alienation from God, self, and neighbor.
(e) God, from the very moment that man fell, out of
pity for man's isolation and brokenness, reached out
to restore him to self-integration, social cohesion, and
divine kinship.
(f) God's nature and purposes are fully revealed in Jesus
Christ, not only or even primarily in his words, but
especially in his person and deeds, and particularly
in his death and resurrection.
(g) Those who believe in Christ, trusting him for their
salvation, are in principle New Creatures, made privy
to the meaning of existence, empowered for self-
mastery, commissioned for social service, and
destined --- in the economy of grace --- to enjoy
forever, and in God's presence, the Eternal Life in
which they already now participate.
245. Underlying the authentic practice of Prayer is the man-
ifold belief that God exists, that God can hear or take
notice, and that God can help. It is because God is a
Person --- a centered Self --- that he can be addressed at
all.
246. God is such a one as will not let Himself be unknown
to any man. He allows men to repress their
consciousness of Him, and He allows them to
misconceive Him, but He does not allow them to be
ignorant of Him.
247. God approaches men not only through the misty
corridors of Nature, where His entrance into mind can
be barred by inattention and penultimate
preoccupations; He enters men 's minds directly by
registering His claims upon a conscience which,
though it can be seared, can never be silenced.
248. When one chooses to follow Christ, a perspective of the
world is opened up which brings the whole of reality in
support of the choice.
249. History will be fulfilled, not from within, but through
an incursion from above
250. The Jew is saved, not by the God of Abraham, but by
the Father of Jesus.
251. The Kingdom of God --- God's rule over persons and
peoples --- existed from the beginning of time, but it
did not come with saving power until Christ appeared.
252. Faith is a many faceted thing. Believing that
something is the case is riot the same as believing in
something or someone.
253. It is not by scientific observation, but by spiritual
discernment, that one finds God's fingerprints on
everything His hands have made.
254. Idols appear when in the broken and fragmented mind
of fallen man God is refracted into the likeness of a
creature.
255. Empirical givens acquire meaning only when rationally
construed, which means that Information becomes
knowledge only through Formation.
256. It is unwarranted to conceive of the Divine Trinity as a
society of constituent selves. The one God we confess
is in His Unity a centered Self, a concrete Individual.
From within the singleness and simplicity of his nature
there shines forth, however, a complex tri-dimensional
Personality.
257. Seeking is more arduous than Finding.
258. Although I do not deny that Angels and Demons exist,
I do not recall ever having been engaged by any of
them, and I have not consciously shaped my life and
thought with reference to them.
259. The Will by which we are set upon a fixed End is not to
be confused with the Volition by which we make
adventitious choices.
260. The Past is made Present in Memory, the Future in
Expectation or, perchance, in Foreknowledge.
261. The Stone that sealed the Grave, and blocked the way
to Life, has once and for all been rolled away.
262. When Jesus died He entered the New Age, and when
He arose He neither left it, nor failed to provide
evidence of its amazing reality.
263. Prayer is less a way to move God into compliance with
our wishes than a way to receive the gift. He freely
offers --- communion with Himself.
264. Man is free; he can under ordinary circumstances do
whatever he wills to do. But the Will is not free; it is
bound by man's nature, which is what it is by sin or by
grace.
265. The created world is not self-sustaining, but utterly
contingent. Called forth out of Nothing and hovering
over the brink of Nothingness, it requires for its
continuance the Preserving Grace of God.
266. God moves with infinite resourcefulness around the
obstacles human agents place upon His path and so
over-rules all Evil that, so far from frustrating His
ultimate design, it is woven into the divine web, and
made serviceable to the establishment of the Kingdom.
267. Although the Plan of God is fixed upon a determinate
goal, it is flexible in the arrangements of its parts, and
so loosely woven as to accommodate arid domicile the
adventitious Prayers of petitioning saints.
268. God can and does perform miracles, but He is also
concerned to preserve the stability of the Natural
Order. The thoughtful and sensitive Christian will
therefore hesitate to pray that the ascent of a hill be
made as facile as the descent, that a fractured bone be
knit in an instant, that water be made to flow upward,
that a plane which has lost its wings be kept cozily
aloft, and other such things.
269. It is better to think of Man theomorphically than to
think of God anthromorphically.
270. Although it is Religion that undergirds Morality, it is
Morality that refines religious conceptions, institutions,
and practices.
271. It is because God is Triune that the Incarnation does
not cancel Transcendence.
272. Although Christianity as an historical magnitude is in
flux, its theme --- "God in Christ for Sinners" --- is
fixed forever.
273. A human Individual is not an isolated atom, but a
unique Center in a web of particular relationships.
274. The theologian who does not remain in intimate touch
with the teeming life of Church and World makes over-
tures to a barren scholasticism, and the Preacher who
neglects the discipline of theology gives hostages to a
vacuous psychologism.
275. Although Jesus is in history, He is not wholly of
history. There is that in Him which transcends the
temporal.
276. It is unwarranted to set against the authority of the
Bible the authority of our spiritual intuitions and
religious experiences.
277. The walls that surround the Church should have gates
that swing outward as well as inward.
278. Christian Missions are possible because God, in His
Common Grace and General Revelation, has been
beforehand with the people to whom the Gospel is
addressed.
279. There is no one of whom it can be said that he is
entirely --- and finally --- forsaken of God.
280. The Prophets are characterized not so much by the fact
that they spoke, as by the fact that they were spoken to.
281. The External Law becomes meaningful and effective
when it is transformed into an Inner Witness.
282. The Kingdom of God is at the center of Christ's mis-
sion. His appearance was the harbinger of its coming.
His teaching was a setting forth of its rules. His life
was a display of its spirit. His death was the seal of its
establishment. His resurrection was the sign of its
triumph.
283. That all men possess the idea of God, and acknowledge
that the good is to be preferred to the bad, is owing not
to a process of Discovery, but to an act of Revelation.
284. The God of Plato is an Impersonal Ideal; the God of
Jacob is a creative and redeeming Spirit
285. In the context of religion "moral evil" is "Sin."
286. That Christ died is a fact, historically attested and ver-
ifiable. That He died for our sins is not given with the
event, or open to observation; it can only be believed.
287. Christ's Resurrection encompassed more than the
survival of abiding elements in the human Jesus; it
brought forth Life in a radically new mode of existence.
288. What has happened cannot be undone, for Time cannot
be rolled back.
289. In most instances the wisest path to follow is that of
Moderation.
290. We are called to love even those we do not like.
291. Since they facilitate social intercourse the prevailing
Customs should not lightly be put aside.
292. That we shall drink wine with Christ in His Father's
Kingdom (Matt 26:29) gives to the Blessed Future an
earthly cast.
293. Both the Law and the Gospel invoke in man a sense of
Obligation.
294. An Atom is a mathematical impossibility.
295. Freedom from is in the interest of Freedom for.
296. To treat two persons equally it may be necessary to
deal with them unequally.
297. It is not so much Happiness as Contentment that
characterizes the life of the Christian.
298. To get married is not quite the same as to be wedded
by church or state.
299. Whoever receives Christ as Savior must acknowledge
Him as Lord.
300. What can be tempered with Mercy is the
Administration of Justice, not Justice itself.
301. Change can occur only in that which in some sense re-
mains the same.
302. Possibilities do not exist in any "actual realm"; they
possess an ideal being in the Mind of God.
303. When the being of any subject is denied, what is
denied is not its essence but only its existence.
304. A church that neglects Catechesis will soon have no
spine.
305. Although the Ethnic Religions are false, man's capacity
for religion and the impulse to religious expression is
divinely caused.
306. The issues of life and death can be decided only with
reference to that which happened in Judaea in the first
century A.D.
307. Of nothing can we say: "It is no good".
308. Greek philosophy appraising Greek religion is simply
the human spirit engaging in self-appraisal.
309. Faith is grace-induced human Receptivity to divine
revelation.
310. While the Thomist insulates Philosophy against the de-
liverances of Faith, the Calvinist integrates the two.
311. Officials are too often Officious.
312. In a broken world, where old age is attended by many
maladies, death is a blessing.
313. Intelligence is not the same as Wisdom.
314. The Utopia that once was will one day be restored and
enhanced.
315. The evil that infects the world cannot destroy the
cosmic order or rob created beings of their value.
316. He who draws Near unto God must respect the
Distance that separates him from God.
317. Where Christian service is required Purity should be
prepared to risk Contamination.
318. Time modifies all human institutions and makes them
candidates for reconstruction.
319. What is Holy is meant to touch and sanctify what is
Profane.
320. Love brooks no subversion of the Good, no violation of
the Right.
321. The bane of Church life is an Ecclesiola in Ecclesia, an
assembly of the "like-minded," organized into a party,
and making use of power-techniques to achieve a
spurious hegemony.
322. The maintenance of a Liturgical Tradition tends to
stabilize the church's faith and witness.
323. Although there is only One God, the word "god" is
used to name whatever one takes as an object of
ultimate concern, or whatever one venerates and
worships with religious devotion.
324. The Son of God is said to have been generated
eternally out of the substance of the Father. Is the Son,
then, to be regarded as an Emanation from, or a
Prolongation of the Father, or perhaps as none other
than God's Self Objectification?
325. Self-Affirmation is in the interest of Self-Sacrifice.
326. St. Paul's "Let every person be subject to the govern-
ing authorities" (Rom. 13:1) enlists the Christian
against Anarchy, but not against Revolution.
327. The call to minister in Christ's name goes out to every
believer, and in the exercise of discipleship no office
held or vocation followed is more sacred than another.
328. Whatever is not God was called into being by God.
329. Before God dispenses Pardons He purchases them.
330. It is principally in the divine-human encounter that a
person's identity is disclosed.
331. The winds of the Spirit blow at God's bidding, but to be
moved by them we must hoist our sails.
332. Although Religion can please God, it cannot appease
Him.
333. Dykes and Levees are no match for Raging Waters.
334. Cultural developments may open our eyes to aspects of
the truth not previously discerned, but the Christian
faith may not be tailored to fit the culture that evoked
the new awareness.
335. Self-Acceptance is attained when one accepts Divine
acceptance.
336. Imperatives rest upon Indicatives.
337. Freedom does not release a man; it engages him.
338. In exercising Birth Control human beings distinguish
themselves from animals.
339. One may assume that before The Fall big fish ate little
fish.
340. Authentic Religion is the centered response of the
whole self to the Divine disclosure.
341. God loves us as we are so that we may be other than we
are.
342. Since there is a Record stored in Memory of our every
thought and word and deed, there is no Forgetting:
there is only a relative absence of Recall.
343. It is evident that the Bible not infrequently conveys its
Message in Mythical form.
344. The Church has come into existence, not to
accommodate itself to the World, but to lay the world
under judgment and entice it into repentance and
conversion.
345. God is the great Unavoidable, whom no way can
circumvent, whom no maneuver can evade, whom no
flight can elude.
346. In the human will to Peace God himself is active.
347. Christianity is distinguished from all mystical religions
by its steady appeal to an historic figure of the past. It
proclaims that in a single individual --- Jesus Christ ---
a final and authoritative disclosure is made of the
nature, will, and purpose of the One Only God.
348. The Horizon recedes as we advance.
349. Did Chalcedon perhaps err when it equated the Bibli-
cal Image "Son of God" with the Metaphysical
Concept "Very God"?
350. Of the origin of Evil the Bible gives no account. In the
Genesis story its existence is presupposed; the Serpent
simply appears upon the scene.
351. Those who turn their backs on God can get neither
Truth nor Goodness in focus.
352. A Theology grows, not by adding something to the
Word once and for all delivered, but by coming to that
Word with new questions, and hearing it give answers
which we had not heard before because we had not
previously put the questions.
353. One cannot fall when grounded.
354. A Church which defines itself negatively in opposition
to the World, rather than positively in affinity to Christ,
will be victimized by the World it negatively honors.
355. We are Animists when we get angry with a shoe-string
that wont untie.
356. The concern for Doctrinal soundness and Moral recti-
tude must not be allowed to lure us into monastic
retreat where, through excessive preoccupation with
ourselves, we become introspective, myopic, and
domesticated, and thus unable to venture out with poise
into a sinful world that needs nothing so much as the
service of Christian hands and hearts.
357. To demean Another is to diminish Oneself.
358. Although a man may be held accountable for his
opinions, he may not be reduced to them.
359. Those who are only half-right are wrong.
360. Authentic Christian Theology is not to be thought of or
proposed as a deductive system derived by logical
inference from some governing principle, but as a
theoretical restatement of the correlated Scriptural
givens in their fullness and with their paradoxes and
mysteries left intact.
361. Christian Love is meant to be spent entire upon all we
meet upon the way.
362. Dogmatism is the habit of regarding as closed what is
open-ended.
363. The God of Scripture is a God of double aspect. He is
both attractive and forbidding. One face enchants and
captivates, the other evokes terror and consternation.
Yet the two are not in balance. God's grace outshines
his judgments. His love is in the foreground; his wrath
is in the shadows. God is essentially and primarily the
Savior; He is only accidentally and derivatively the
Destroyer.
364. Nothing that exists is self-caused.
365. The Church should not set up extra-biblical rules that
deny mature persons access to the secular world, for
grace is there as well as sin, and the gifts of grace are
waiting to be thankfully accepted no less than the
effects of sin are awaiting expiation and removal.
366. A person achieves Self-Identity when he insinuates
himself into a community, a history, a tradition, an
encompassing whole.
367. The World being what it is, the healing ministry of the
Church cannot dispense with surgery, and the peace the
Church envisions cannot be established without
wearing down the stubborn will in ways which do not
always please the object of its solicitude and care.
368. The only Leader a Christian can follow in the deepest
things of life is the one who travels with him in the
Way.
369. Evil is no more than adjectival, modifying while never
becoming part of the substance of the world.
Essentially parasitic, it never appears in isolation, but
always in conjunction with some Good, upon which it
feeds, and without which it would simply cease to be.
370. Although Love is long-suffering and kind, it has in it a
flaming jealousy, which brooks no profanation of the
holy, no subversion of the good, no violation of the
right.
371. The presence arid operation of Common Grace keeps
the world from being burdened with the extremist
outworkings of man's radical perversity; it enables
society to establish a tolerably just order in which men
of every faith can live their common life; and it
preserves that solidarity of mankind which makes
possible the association of Christian and non-Christian
in all sorts of cultural enterprises.
372. The World as God's Creation, is well and permanently
structured and thus never beyond salvaging.
373. While encouraging periodical critical reappraisals of its
theological fomulations, the Church can give no
comfort to those who in their effort to make the bitter
medicine of the Gospel palatable to the taste of sinful
men dilute it to the point where it soothes without
restoring.
374. In Christian perspective the Moral Imperative rests
upon the Evangelical Indicative.
375. Love precludes all assaults upon men with a view to
their destruction, or with intent to hurt or damage their
true humanity.
376. While discouraging all merely mystical flights to
spiritual ivory towers, authentic Christianity imposes
upon its adherents the obligation to sometimes turn
away from the World in order in solitude to face God
in acts of pure devotion.
377. Happiness eludes those whose life is spent in its
pursuit.
378. While the gates of the Church must always be open on
the side of the World, they must never be open to the
World in such a way that through the intrusion of a
debilitating worldliness the Church loses all power to
exert upon the World the redemptive influence it was
appointed to exercise.
379. To be Finite is to be positioned between Being and
non-Being.
380. The rule that we should not try to excel, but to attain
excellence, does not hold in the realm of competitive
sports. Here a carefully structured adversary relation is
set up, and rule-regulated rivalry is playfully enacted.
Under these conditions one should seize every
advantage, give the opponent no quarter, and strive to
come in first.
381. Education is the process, not of informing, but of
forming students, of patterning them according to the
structure of reality, of imprinting on them the face of
being.
382. We sometimes fail to fit the word to the idea. With
inept language we falsify the truth. Through the
employment of ill-chosen words we corrupt good
notions.
383. One may object to Natural Theology when it is
defined as "a theology based on human reason apart
from revelation," but there is no cause to reject Natural
Theology when it is defined as "a theology which sets
forth what is revealed about God in Nature."
384. God's love casts out our fears.
385. At day's end there is one day less in which to do what
needs doing.
386. The essence of Justice is the right ordering of social
relationships.
387. Brought into being by God's Spirit within the womb of
Mary was One who, born of a woman, was truly human,
yet One who, born of the Spirit, was in the likeness of
God, and celebrated as God's only begotten Son.
388. The moral behavior of human beings is significantly in-
fluenced by the community in which they are
imbedded, and by the social history which is their
heritage and, in a sense, their destiny. Yet, because
they reside on a vertical as well as on a horizontal plane
of existence, they are able through the exercise of their
God-oriented freedom to transcend the social matrix.
389. In Christian perspective true Personhood is attainable
only in and through a conscious and affirmative
relation to God.
390. What a well-regulated society seeks to secure is that
delicate adjustment of Freedom and Order which will
prevent the rise of both Anarchy and Tyranny.
391. God is called "good," not because He conforms to some
standard outside Himself, but because He is Goodness
itself, the source and guarantor of all good.
392. Since man is an agent as well as a patient, it is
important to distinguish between the Causes of and the
Reasons for human behavior. Besides the physical
there is in man a Rational Will which can be engaged
by a transcendent Good, attachment to which evokes
behavior inexplicable in terms of natural stimuli.
393. Among humankind only the Individual is truly
personal; no group or society is this.
394. Life is not sacred. Neither life nor health is of ultimate
value. One may have to sacrifice both in the interest of
being good.
395. Conscience naturally apprehends the distinction
between good and evil, is charged with an innate sense
of obligation, and ineluctably makes judgments of
approval and disapproval.
396. Love is that which always, and in every circumstance,
ought to be done.
397. The virtuous man, in pursuit of his duty, may
sometimes be required both to cause and to suffer pain.
398. Every obligation demands ultimate validation, there be-
ing no genuine "ought" that does riot need the whole
universe to back it.
399. A Principle that does not issue into Practice is empty;
a Practice that does not flow from Principle is blind.
400. Truth and Goodness are inseparable, and our view of
the one determines our view of the other.
401. God is not an Object that is searched out, but a Subject
who invades.
402. God proclaims His will to His children less as
imperious demands than as gracious prescriptions for
enjoying His fellowship.
403. When it comes to religious and spiritual matters, the
path to knowledge leads through the valley of
obedience.
404. Christian doctrines can be recommended as true only
as they can be presented as practically efficacious.
405. A distinction should be made between God in His Be-
ing and God in His Act, between the God who inhabits
eternity and the God who has entered into a covenant
with man in time, between the God who in His aseity is
wholly independent of the world and the God who,
having created the world, is ineluctably involved with
it and ceaselessly concerned about it.
406. Having become a slave of God, the Calvinist has lost
the capacity to act slavishly toward any man
407. The Christian Church is made up of people who were
social before they en