Tag Archives: doubt

Lesslie Newbigin on Knowing

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Newbigin

How can we know things? It’s an important question which isn’t as easy or obvious to answer as you might first think. In fact, it’s such a tough question that there’s an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to answering it called epistemology. But it’s not just a question for the specialists with their thought experiments and fancy terms; it should be a question that we all think about regularly. Why? Because the way we operate in this world, the choices we make, and much of our identity is wrapped up in what we believe, what we know or think we know, and why we think we can or should believe it. Continue reading →

The Fog of Despair

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It’s exactly eleven days since I was ordained as a deacon in the service of The Church of the Advent in Atlanta, GA, under the Bishop of the Diocese of the South, within the Province of the Anglican Church in North America, a part of the global Anglican Communion. Today I spoke (as if into the Void, only partly as a prayer) something to the effect of, “If angels who stood in the very presence of God could rebel, how then am I, who cannot see God with my eyes, supposed to faithfully walk the path of trust and submission without being overthrown by the multitude of distractions, temptations, passions, and hindrances I’ll undoubtedly encounter? How is it reasonable to expect me to carry on tirelessly the endless process of becoming divine [that is, partaking of the divine nature — 2 Peter 1:3-8] when the very opposite of that feels so much more natural. Why was I not created differently, so that becoming divine felt natural? Why was everything not created differently so that sin never occurred? And if that’s to be the reality in the New Creation when people are to experience God’s presence directly, then, again, how could angels attending the throne of God rebel?” Continue reading →