A person of faith is a person on a journey.
For the person of faith, walking by faith produces the evidence to reinforce that faith. Evidence deepens faith. The more faith grows, the clearer our spiritual insight becomes.
Doctrines are not the essence of a believer's relationship with God, spiritual experience is. Doctrines are flexible hypotheses expressed from the experience of faith; they are formulated from growth in faith. If doctrines dictate a person's belief, then the relationship with God is second hand. If relationship dictates the doctrine, then the doctrine will become flexible. If experience and established doctrine conflict, it is doctrine that must give way. Danger comes when the person of faith transfers his or her trust from the still small voice to doctrinal consensus. When the doctrine carries more weight than the relationship, it stunts the relationship. When doctrine is subject to the relationship, doctrine gets modified, insight becomes clearer and the spirit grows.
I-think-i'd-better-think-it-out-again is a revisiting of my arrogant and dogmatic youth in the light of mellowing ageing. It is a review of all the things I stored away to years ago and may now be obsolete due to advancement of learning or experience. It is based on a relationship with a creator God which began in my young days and has continued through the mellowing years of insight.
Coming from a lifelong engineering bias, it is what I call an engineering review of the situation. I told one or two people I would write a theological book from an engineering point of view, and I could see them scratch their heads. An engineer thinks from outside the box, but based on a knowledge of what goes on inside that box. I realized I was biased toward engineering when, as a child, my parents asked why I had to take everything apart. I could not look at a clock accepting it told the time, I needed to know how it knew and how it expressed its understanding of time. Taking it apart did not alter the nature of time, nor did it take away the knowledge that time exists. It simply examined the way a clock delivers its expression of time.
An engineer starts from a different point to a scientist. The engineer presumes there is a design behind everything. When an engineer looks at a machine, he will take account of material laws, such as: laws of leverage or stress or strain. He will never assume that the machine adapted itself to accommodate these laws, nor indeed, to produce those laws. The natural assumption is that a designer took these into account long before he looked at which material he or she would use to build the machine. Natural assumption presumes that there is a purpose behind the machine. Also assumed is the machine was built to fulfil a function. Moreover, assumed is that the machine did not decide the function for itself, a designer stroke inventor set the purpose.
An engineer assumes a creation has started from an original thought or need, turned into a concept, proposed in a statement of mind and tested by feasibility studies through thought and logic. From this concept, it then travels through the desire to build, through the thought process and on to the planning stage. Next it is modified through choice of materials and limitation of purpose. Only then is it communicated through words and drawings. All this comes before it appears in the concrete world as an article.
Even after this, new materials will be found. An engineer, (while happy to romance in yesterday's steam train), moves on in practice, for the sake of efficiency, modifying from steam to diesel or electricity. Such re-examination of design makes far better everyday sense. The train concept still exist to pull freight or passenger, but the driving power is different due to latter-day technology, material development, and advancing ideas.
So it is in this book, read on if you will!
A person of faith is a person on a journey.
For the person of faith, walking by faith produces the evidence to reinforce that faith. Evidence deepens faith. The more faith grows, the clearer our spiritual insight becomes.
Doctrines are not the essence of a believer's relationship with God, spiritual experience is. Doctrines are flexible hypotheses expressed from the experience of faith; they are formulated from growth in faith. If doctrines dictate a person's belief, then the relationship with God is second hand. If relationship dictates the doctrine, then the doctrine will become flexible. If experience and established doctrine conflict, it is doctrine that must give way. Danger comes when the person of faith transfers his or her trust from the still small voice to doctrinal consensus. When the doctrine carries more weight than the relationship, it stunts the relationship. When doctrine is subject to the relationship, doctrine gets modified, insight becomes clearer and the spirit grows.
I-think-i'd-better-think-it-out-again is a revisiting of my arrogant and dogmatic youth in the light of mellowing ageing. It is a review of all the things I stored away to years ago and may now be obsolete due to advancement of learning or experience. It is based on a relationship with a creator God which began in my young days and has continued through the mellowing years of insight.
Coming from a lifelong engineering bias, it is what I call an engineering review of the situation. I told one or two people I would write a theological book from an engineering point of view, and I could see them scratch their heads. An engineer thinks from outside the box, but based on a knowledge of what goes on inside that box. I realized I was biased toward engineering when, as a child, my parents asked why I had to take everything apart. I could not look at a clock accepting it told the time, I needed to know how it knew and how it expressed its understanding of time. Taking it apart did not alter the nature of time, nor did it take away the knowledge that time exists. It simply examined the way a clock delivers its expression of time.
An engineer starts from a different point to a scientist. The engineer presumes there is a design behind everything. When an engineer looks at a machine, he will take account of material laws, such as: laws of leverage or stress or strain. He will never assume that the machine adapted itself to accommodate these laws, nor indeed, to produce those laws. The natural assumption is that a designer took these into account long before he looked at which material he or she would use to build the machine. Natural assumption presumes that there is a purpose behind the machine. Also assumed is the machine was built to fulfil a function. Moreover, assumed is that the machine did not decide the function for itself, a designer stroke inventor set the purpose.
An engineer assumes a creation has started from an original thought or need, turned into a concept, proposed in a statement of mind and tested by feasibility studies through thought and logic. From this concept, it then travels through the desire to build, through the thought process and on to the planning stage. Next it is modified through choice of materials and limitation of purpose. Only then is it communicated through words and drawings. All this comes before it appears in the concrete world as an article.
Even after this, new materials will be found. An engineer, (while happy to romance in yesterday's steam train), moves on in practice, for the sake of efficiency, modifying from steam to diesel or electricity. Such re-examination of design makes far better everyday sense. The train concept still exist to pull freight or passenger, but the driving power is different due to latter-day technology, material development, and advancing ideas.
So it is in this book, read on if you will!
I Think I'd Better Think It Out Again!
I Think I'd Better Think It Out Again!
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940165881732 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brian Limmer |
| Publication date: | 05/02/2022 |
| Sold by: | Smashwords |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 878 KB |