Against the Flow Quotes

“What is consciousness?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied, after a little hesitation. “Never mind,” I said. “Let’s think of something easier. What is energy?” “Well,” he said, “we can measure it and write down the equations governing its conservation.” “Yes, I know, but that was not my question. My question was: what is it?” “We don’t know,” he said with a grin, “and I think you were aware of that.” “Yes, like you I have read Feynman and he says that no one knows what energy is. That brings me to my main point. Would I be right in thinking that you were about to dismiss me (and my belief in God) if I failed to explain the divine and human nature of Christ?” He grinned again, and said nothing. I went on: “Well, by the same token, would you be happy if I now dismiss you and all your knowledge of physics because you cannot explain to me the nature of energy? After all, energy is surely by definition much less complex than the God who created it?” “Please don’t!” he said. “No, I am not going to do that, but I am going to put another question to you: why do you believe in the concepts of consciousness and energy, even though you do not understand them fully? Is it not because of the explanatory power of those concepts?” “I see what you are driving at,” he replied. “You believe that Jesus Christ is both God and man because that is the only explanation that has the power to make sense of what we know of him?” “Exactly.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“this world is not going to be trampled and smashed by brutal, amoral regimes for ever. A day will come when God will bring to an end the state war-machines, the terrorist bombs, the consummate evil of totalitarian oppression, the gas chambers, death camps, killing fields, and countless other infamous instruments of death. There will be a judgment.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“The story of Daniel and his friends is a clarion call to our generation to be courageous; not to lose our nerve and allow the expression of our faith to be diluted and squeezed out of the public space and thus rendered spineless and ineffective. Their story will also tell us that this objective is not likely to be achieved without cost.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:26”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“Whether you believe in Jesus, Buddha, the Beatles, crystals, mother earth, or anything else that takes your interest, all are held to be on the same footing; all have equal validity for the relativist.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“Judah had failed to grasp that God’s loyalty to his own character, and therefore to his own creatures, has serious implications. Some of Judah’s leaders had fallen into thinking that, because their nation had been chosen to play a special role for God in history, it did not really matter how the leaders or the nation behaved. This was dangerously irresponsible and undermined the moral fibre of the people, because it led to the rationalization of corrupt and immoral behaviour that was incompatible with the law of God, albeit widely practised in the surrounding nations.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“Society tolerates the practice of the Christian faith in private devotions and in church services, but it increasingly deprecates public witness.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“The heart of monotheism is that God, who is outside history, is the guarantor of meaning.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism

“For some, the conviction that they “know the truth” produces in them an aggressive attitude that reeks of superiority and is very off-putting. They forget that the One about whom they profess to be witnessing – he who was the truth (John 14:6) – was the most gentle of men. He was gentle and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). But this clearly does not mean that he was a soppy, insipid, and spineless pushover. Christ was full of moral courage and authority, and showed (righteous) anger when necessary. But he was always courteous and respectful. Those of us who find it very difficult to respect or be gentle with those who disagree with us need to put a lot of effort into learning how to be like that.”
― John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism