Grand Central Question Quotes

“A world without objective purpose beyond mere preference is terrifying.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“I posit that morality can be viewed as the means by which we fulfill objective purpose and immorality as the means by which we violate objective purpose.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“time and again, we opt for comfort over truth.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“If a worldview is true, it should answer all of life’s fundamental and central questions coherently.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“time and again, we opt for comfort over truth. The tendency to sacrifice truth for comfort seems practically hardwired into our psyches. In saying this, I need look no further than my own past to see how often I sacrificed truth on the altar of my own comfort.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“Until the heart is open, the ears remain closed.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“consider the gospel. It is the only worldview that tells us the sheer, stark truth that we are inherently sinful and that we need to be saved from ourselves. True spiritual transformation happens when our minds are renewed—perhaps even rescued—from the illusion that our works will save us and that we can be free from suffering if we just try hard enough. God’s renewal of our minds into understanding that we need the unmerited grace of the cross is unique and fresh.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“Some ideas lend themselves to being tested through quantifiable and experimental means, but some do not. Yet both kinds of ideas can be equally true. Some ideas touch on the physical—and we have science to test them. Some ideas touch on the metaphysical—and we have philosophy, psychology, the arts, theology and experience to test them. To cast off entire academic and professional disciplines is to be rather close-minded.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“unlike secular humanism, pantheism and Islam, Christianity does not focus on one Grand Central Question. Rather, the gospel gives us a central narrative. This narrative is that the triune God purposefully created humanity to be in relationship with him, but humanity rejected that relationship and thus rejected its very purpose. But God redeems humanity through his incarnate Son, Jesus, restoring the relationship and thus restoring our purpose. From this central narrative spring the gospel’s answers to all the Grand Central Questions.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“If objective purpose implies an “ought” to human existence or what human existence “should” mean, then objective morality is the set of rules or intuitions by which we fulfill that purpose. At the risk of appearing reductionistic, I posit that morality can be viewed as the means by which we fulfill objective purpose and immorality as the means by which we violate objective purpose. It follows, then, that if we ask what humanity’s ultimate purpose is, we must also ask whether objective moral values and duties exist.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“Moral reasoning can inform a conscience; it cannot create one.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“We can use reason to recognize what is right and wrong, but we can’t use reason as the foundation or source for objective morality.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“just because a value is shared by the majority of humanity does not mean it is actually objectively moral.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“the source of humanity is “nothing,” then why think that its goal is something—or anything—of significance?”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“if something has intrinsic value, then its value is not a matter of opinion or circumstance. It is always just as valuable in every circumstance.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“C. S. Lewis put it well when he wrote, “If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”7”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“in Buddhism the only way to escape is to be free of desire. But the entire system is set up so that every action is done out of the desire to be free. The lack of distinctions between God and self in Hinduism and the total denial of self in Buddhism are what imprison the self to an existence of self-centered conundrums. Strange, isn’t it, that pantheists try to escape the painful cycle of death and rebirth only to be sucked into the vicious cycle of a desire to be free from desire?”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“Ethics [is] about relationship with the God whose triune nature enabled him to be a God of perfect love before any human beings were created. As much as human nature might provide clues to the content of morality, this is why, at the end of the day, we are inclined to say that it’s God’s nature and image, in whose ours was created, that ultimately reveal the most veridical picture of moral reality. The Trinity is the ultimate reality, if Christianity is true, a God whose nature is reciprocal self-giving love. The bedrock of reality is this personal God with whom we are invited to be in relationship.23”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

“secular humanists live in a state of cognitive dissonance. They want to affirm purpose, value and morality as objectively real, but they are confounded by the logic of their view that tells them they are merely convenient fictions.”
― Abdu H Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews