Re: Rationale Method for identifying supernatural

George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Wed, 13 Jan 1999 09:55:06 -0500

Moorad Alexanian wrote:
>
> At 04:10 PM 1/12/99 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
> >Moorad Alexanian wrote:
>
> >> I recall reading somewhere that Christianity is not a religion. A religion
> >> is man seeking God. Christianity is God seeking man. We use words like God,
> >> Creator so readily that we do not comprehend the depth that such terms
> >> convey. If one were to sit in a quiet room for several hours trying to truly
> >> comprehend the meaning of those terms, I can assure you that the result will
> >> be humility, fear, and a desire to know more about God the Creator.
> >
> > OK if by "trying to truly comprehend" you mean something like fides quaerens
> >intellectum or at least being open to the possibility of faith. But there
> are plenty of
> >merely intelligent people who, after such an exercise, will have concluded
> that "God"
> >and "Creator" are vacuous, or will have attached to them concepts
> incompatible with
> >Christian faith in the God who is revealed in Christ.
> >
> >George L. Murphy
> >gmurphy@raex.com
> >http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> Dear George,
>
> Perhaps to those who "God" and "Creator" are vacuous terms should stay in
> the quiet room for several days rather than several hours. When I wrote the
> original message I had in mind someone like Pascal who realized that in some
> sense man was the median between the infinitesimal and the infinite. I do
> believe that without a notion of the transcendental, the logical conclusion
> of one's intellectual thoughts would lead to despair. Witness what Steven
> Weinberg said about things being meaningless the more we learn (and limit
> our thinking only to the physical plane). I still believe the belief of a
> Creator is the most important first step in the road of theism and
> ultimately to Christ.

Sure, & this sounds pretty close to fides quaerens intellectum. Pascal began
with his upbringing in the church & then his experience of "God of Abraham, God of
Isaac, God of Jacob, God of Jesus Christ - not the God of the philosophers."

George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/