RE: THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF GOD
Truths can be self-evident without being evident to everyone.
D. Elton Trueblood, Ph.D.,
The Trustworthiness of Religious Experience (Friends United Press),
Section 3: Removal of Specific Objections
* * * * *
FURTHER THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION:
... the fact remains that vision comes only to the prepared.
- - - - - -
The eyes of the soul are cleared by silence, by purity of heart, by personal humility, by self-discipline.
- - -
- - -
[an illustration using the ophthalmoscope]
A physician, with whom I am intimately acquainted, has told me
how he looked long and faithfully into a human eye,
without seeing anything;
then suddenly, when he had learned what to look for
and his own eyes were fully adjusted to their new task, he saw.
Much is now self-evident to him
that is by no means self-evident to the ordinary layman.
- - - - -
I cannot reasonably use as negative evidence my failure to see the moons of Jupiter if I never take the trouble to look through a telescope on a clear night.
- - - -
Sometimes we must expect the necessary discipline to be long, as it usually is in appreciation of great music.
- - -
This discipline is a special combination of habitual reverence and consistent effort to do God's will in so far as it has been shown us.
[all of these additional thoughts for reflection also come from Dr. Trueblood]
No comments:
Post a Comment