Thursday 9 September 2010

The facts of life

... no 'fact' is seen as it really is unless it is seen in its correct relationship to God. Since God has made the space-time facts, their relation to God is naturally the most important thing to know about them. But more than that, it is not really enough to say that the most important thing to know about a 'fact' is its relationship to God because that very relationship to God exhausts the meaning of the fact. When you have seen the 'space-time facts' in their relationship to God, you have for the first time seen the fact about the 'facts'; that is, you have for the first time seen the facts in distinction from bare facts. Accordingly, anyone who does not see the space-time facts before the background or in the pattern of the absolute personality of God does not see any facts but only thinks he does. It is not true to say that everybody has the facts to begin with. On the contrary, only a Christian theist has the facts because there are none but theistic facts. In one sense, we could of course say that all mean 'have' facts, since all live in God's created order and all move in the general revelation of God. But the nontheist refuses to acknowledge the Creator who alone can be the proper context for interpreting any fact. Therefore nontheists deal only with 'bare facts,' that is, with abstractions that have no meaning. 
(Foundations of Christian Education: Addresses to Christian Teachers (Christian perspectives) Ch 1, Antithesis in Education, p16.

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