CQOD: 12/05/07 -- Cassels: rational skepticism

Christian Quotation of the Day

December 5, 2007Meditation:
    Yet they say to God, 'Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?' But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the counsel of the wicked.
    -- Job 21:14-16 (NIV)

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Quotation:
    In deciding which passages he will accept, [the “rational skeptic”] proceeds on the a priori assumption that miracles can’t happen. So he automatically writes off any Biblical account of a wondrous happening which suggests that there is an order of reality transcending the observable regularities of nature and occasionally breaking in upon them. Nor is rational skepticism content with jettisoning the Bible’s miracle stories. It also dismisses other passages on the grounds that they reflect the ignorance and prejudice of a particular age, or the propaganda interests of the Church at a particular stage of its development. Its basic rule of Biblical interpretation is: “When in doubt, throw it out.” And the highest scores in the game of radical reductionism are awarded to pedagogues who find the most novel and far-fetched reasons for doubting that any part of the Bible really means what it says.
    ... Louis Cassels (1922-1974), Your Bible [1967]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, forgive me for ever having doubted Your word.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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