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#Post#: 1270--------------------------------------------------
Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 20, 2015, 2:02 pm
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[font=trebuchet ms]I'm reading a Kindle book called Theology for
Beginners, by F.J. Sheed, and I've found I can copy and paste my
highlighting to the forum, so thought I would. The author gives
us things of depth to think about, and I love having things to
consider while I go about daily tasks.
Mr. Sheed is a Catholic author, so some mention of Catholicism
will occur, but not an overwhelming amount. Much of the text is
good for all interested in theology. I really enjoy his writing
style.
I'll copy a bit at a time. [/font]
[hr]
[quote][font=times new roman] . . . the joy and excitement of
theological knowledge is like the joy and excitement of any
other love— it cannot be explained to one who has not
experienced it; it need not be explained to one who has. I shall
keep, therefore, to the plainest of reasons. Truth is food and
truth is light.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]Revealed truth, then, is food. Now
it is a peculiarity of food that it nourishes only those who eat
it. We are not nourished by the food that someone else has
eaten. To be nourished by it, we must eat it
ourselves.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]Truth is light too. Not to see it
is to be in darkness, to see it wrong is to be in double
darkness. The greater part of reality can be known only if God
tells us: doctrine is what He tells: lacking it, we lack light.
To be stumbling along in the dark, happy in the knowledge that
our guides can see, is not at all the same thing as walking in
the light. It is immeasurably better than stumbling through the
dark with blind guides but it is poverty all the
same.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]A Catholic, thank God, never can be
wholly unnourished or wholly in the dark. But he may be living
an undernourished life in the half-dark, and that is a
pity.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]. . . it is obvious that an
ignorant man can be virtuous, it is equally obvious that
ignorance is not a virtue.[/font][/quote]
#Post#: 1307--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 21, 2015, 2:35 pm
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[quote][font=times new roman]Knowledge serves love— it can turn
sour of course and serve pride or conceit and not love, and
against this we poor sons of Eve must be on our guard. Knowledge
does serve love. It serves love in one way by removing
misunderstandings which are in the way of love, which at the
best blunt love’s edge a little.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman] . . . knowledge serves love in a
still better way— because each new thing learned and meditated
about God is a new reason for loving Him.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]The most obvious fact of our day is
that we are surrounded by millions who are starved of food that
Christ Our Lord wanted them to have— they are getting too small
a ration of truth, and of the Eucharist no ration at all. We
regret their starvation, of course, but we do not lose any sleep
over it; which raises the question of whether we really
appreciate the food we ourselves get from the Church. We should
not take it so calmly if their starvation were bodily: for we do
know the value of the bread that perishes. If spiritual
starvation is to be relieved, it must be largely the work of the
laity, who are in daily contact with starvation’s
victims.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]it is intolerable that men should
be perishing for want of truth that we could bring them. But not
only for their sake. For our own sake too: for it is not good
for us, or our children, to be the sane minority in a society
that is losing contact with God.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]. . . it is possible for a man to
possess the truth, while yet the truth does not possess
him.[/font][/quote]
#Post#: 1317--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Kerry Date: April 21, 2015, 11:56 pm
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I agree that the only knowledge worth having serves love. I
believe too that willful ignorance can be a sin. Turning away
from things we do not want to see can be too.
I think of the rich man happy inside his house while Lazarus was
miserable outside. He could pretend everything was fine if he
didn't have to see it. In the story of the Good Samaritan, we
see people going to the other side of the road to get past the
wounded man. I think of them averting their eyes once they saw
him, so they could ignore him. Willful ignorance dulls the
conscience.
#Post#: 1319--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Twinc Date: April 22, 2015, 3:06 am
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yes....I remember as I was weaned on them, there are actually
three in the set......I remember the feeling and the joy when I
came across them - twinc
#Post#: 1336--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 22, 2015, 10:14 am
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[quote author=Twinc link=topic=145.msg1319#msg1319
date=1429689984]
yes....I remember as I was weaned on them, there are actually
three in the set......I remember the feeling and the joy when I
came across them - twinc
[/quote]
[font=trebuchet ms]Ahh! There you are, twinc. :)
Yes, there is also A Map to Life and To Know Christ Jesus.
I do like his writing style and gentle teaching methods.[/font]
#Post#: 1337--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 22, 2015, 10:38 am
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[quote][font=times new roman]It (knowledge) serves love in one
way by removing misunderstandings which are in the way of love,
which at the best blunt love’s edge a little.[/font][/quote]
[font=trebuchet ms]
Hi Kerry. After the above, Mr. Sheed explained how we might
have misconceptions about God that place a barrier between Him
and us, for example: "Hell can raise a doubt of God’s love in a
man who has not had his mind enriched with what the Church can
teach him; so that he is driven piously to avert his gaze from
some truth about God in order to keep his love undimmed."
I think it a good point. How many of us "avert our gaze" in
this way, rather than seeking to understand more clearly. We
want to love God without reservation, and only by seeking to
have more knowledge can we dispel misunderstandings that make us
doubt Him in any way.
I've begun to ask myself what causes me to "avert my eyes" that
my love be undimmed? It is better to seek understanding than
to harbor doubt that we try to ignore.[/font]
#Post#: 1338--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 22, 2015, 10:59 am
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[font=arial]The book now enters discussion of "Spirit":[/font]
[quote][font=times new roman]In theology, spirit is not only a
key-word, it is the key-word. Our Lord said to the Samaritan
woman, “God is a spirit.” Unless we know the meaning of the word
spirit, we do not know what He said. It is as though He had said
“God is a—.” Which tells us nothing at all. The same is true of
every doctrine; they all include spirit. In theology we are
studying spirit all the time. And the mind with which we are
studying it is a spirit too.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]Spirit is the element in us by
which we know and love, by which therefore we
decide.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]Spirit knows and loves. A slightly
longer look at ourselves reveals that spirit has power ,
too.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]. . . as we shall see, the direct
power the human mind has over its own body, mightier spirits
have over all matter.[/font][/quote]
[quote][font=times new roman]Our ideas are not material. They
have no resemblance to our body. Their resemblance is to our
spirit. They have no shape, no size, no color, no weight, no
space. Neither has spirit whose offspring they are. But no one
can call it nothing; for it produces thought, and thought is the
most powerful thing in the world— unless love is, which spirit
also produces.[/font][/quote]
#Post#: 1339--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 22, 2015, 11:06 am
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[font=trebuchet ms]Ideas are the "offspring" of spirit. They
are similar in that neither ideas nor spirit have shape, size,
color, weight, nor do they take up space.
So . . . While they are very "real", they are not matter.[/font]
#Post#: 1340--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Piper Date: April 22, 2015, 11:25 am
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[font=trebuchet ms]How inspiring, then, to think that we, like
God, also possess spirit and our spirit need not be dependent on
matter. Yet, our spirit seems helplessly anchored to our
bodies. In Scripture, though, I think we see instances of this
anchor being overcome; spirit leaves body, then returns.
If spirit leaves body, then is it no longer assigned to time and
space? It stretches my mind to think of a realm where time does
not exist; it would always ever be "now." It also stretches my
mind to think of a realm where all that exists does not take up
space. What exists in such a realm would therefore be pure
energy. I think.[/font]
#Post#: 1712--------------------------------------------------
Re: Theology for Beginners
By: Twinc Date: May 4, 2015, 7:47 am
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[quote author=Piper link=topic=145.msg1336#msg1336
date=1429715642]
[font=trebuchet ms]Ahh! There you are, twinc. :)
Yes, there is also A Map to Life and To Know Christ Jesus.
I do like his writing style and gentle teaching methods.[/font]
[/quote]
yes I have read those two too but the two others I meant that I
could not then recall were 'Society and Sanity' and 'Theology
and Sanity' - twinc
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