The Consequences of Ideas Quotes

“The concept of divine revelation was central to Augustine's epistemology, or theory of knowledge.

The metaphor of light is instructive. In our present earthly state we are equipped with the faculty of sight. We have eyes, optic nerves, and so forth- all the equipment needed for sight. But a man with the keenest eyesight can see nothing if he is locked in a totally dark room. So just as an external source of light is needed for seeing, so an external revelation from God is needed for knowing.

When Augustine speaks of revelation, he is not speaking of Biblical revelation alone. He is also concerned with "general" or "natural" revelation. Not only are the truths in Scripture dependent on God's revelation, but all truth, including scientific truth, is dependent on divine revelation. This is why Augustine encouraged students to learn as much as possible about as many things as possible. For him, all truth is God's truth, and when one encounters truth, one encounters the God whose truth it is.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“We take comfort, however, that mystery is not a synonym for contradiction.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“For many years I thought I was a Christian when in fact I was not. It was only later that I came to see that I had never been a Christian and became one.… What I needed was preaching that would convict me of sin.… But I never heard this. The preaching we had was always based on the assumption that we were all Christians.”
― Steven J. Lawson, The Passionate Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Lloyd-Jones believed the man who is called to preach comes under a sobering humility. He believed that this person is overwhelmed with a deep sense of his own personal unworthiness for such a high and holy task and is often hesitant to move forward to preach for fear of his own inadequacies.”
― Steven J. Lawson, The Passionate Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Philosophy was born in the ancient quest for ultimate reality, the reality that transcends the proximate and commonplace and that defines and explains the data of everyday experience.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“The ancient maxim still applies: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” To any serious thinker, and especially to the professing Christian, an unexamined life is not an option.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“Foundational thinking cares about the difference between truth and falsehood because it cares about good and evil.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“When Adolf Hitler came to power, the Nazis were not content to find a “final solution” for Jews and Gypsies. They also sought to eliminate intellectuals whose ideas were at odds with the “values” of the Third Reich. My friend was removed from his position. When he spoke out against the Nazis, his wife and all but one of his children were arrested and executed. He escaped from Germany with his young daughter.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“The Doctor lamented the confusion in the church regarding its beliefs. He stressed, “There is an absence of doctrine, there is a lack of clear definition and a readiness to allow anybody to say anything they like.”19 To reverse this decline, Lloyd-Jones asserted: This means that there was never a time when it was more urgently necessary that Christian people should consider together the doctrines of the Bible. We must know the ground on which we stand, and be able to withstand every enemy that comes to attack us, every subtle foe, every ploy used by the devil who comes disguised as an “angel of light” to ruin our souls.20”
― Steven J. Lawson, The Passionate Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“You will never have a knowledge of sin unless you have a true conception of the holiness of God.”
― Steven J. Lawson, The Passionate Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“This raises the ultimate philosophical question: Why is there something rather than nothing?”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“For Parmenides, if anything exists in an absolute way, it cannot change (“ Whatever is, is.”). It cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same way. If it is becoming, it cannot be being. If it is not being, it is nothing. It must be absolutely or not at all.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“Chaos is the archenemy of science. If reality is ultimately chaotic, science itself becomes a manifest impossibility.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“science. If reality is ultimately chaotic, science itself becomes a manifest impossibility.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“the “logic” of the facts—that is, as it sought to deduce laws or universals from the raw data of the particulars.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“Three burdens dominated the thinking of the original philosophers: first, a quest for “monarchy”; second, a quest for unity in the midst of diversity; and third, a quest for cosmos over chaos. Though these quests may be distinguished at one level, at a different level all three involve the search for a metaphysical answer to the physical world.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“A life marked by risk includes real fear and trembling, dread and anxiety.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“For Plato, knowledge that is restricted to the material world is at best mere opinion and at worst ignorance. The task of education is to lead people out of darkness into light, out of the cave and its shadows and into the noonday sun. The Latin term educare describes this process. Its root meaning is “to lead out of,” as the root ducere means “to lead.” We”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“The inauthentic person seeks safety in normality. He denies his uniqueness by becoming “average.” In”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World