using your toolbox

I Corinthians 3:6 "the letter kills but the Spirit gives life."

In fact, as much as we need systems, ultimately they will kill us. The life is in the blood. This can almost be applied across the board.

Grammar is a good thing. We cannot write without it. We cannot communicate without it but it isn't the only thing. If we approach writing as a purely grammatical exercise we will kill ideas.

Systematic theology is a good thing. We cannot understand the Bible without it. But if our theology is merely systematic it is dead.

The law (Pentateuch) was a good thing but it was powerless to save.

Systems are tools. They help us find the real things. Unfortunately, many people are happy when they have found a system. They never look up from their scavenging in the rubble to see the reality of the thing they are searching for.

Very often it is the conservative, Christian wing of the world that enjoys substituting the tool for the thing. The problem is that you can have a measure of success with a system but in the end you are left bankrupt and confused (Col 2).

October 6, 2009 from Cindy at Ordo Amoris.

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God's grandchild

from Dante's Inferno: Canto 11

"Turn back again, " I asked, "to where you said
that usury offends the Power Divine,
And pray explain to me this knotty point."

"Philosophy," my master answered me,
"To him who understands it, demonstrates
How nature takes her course, not only from
Wisdom divine, but from its art as well.
And if you read with care your book of physics,
After the first few pages, you will find
That art, as best it can, doth follow nature,
As pupil follows master; industry,
Or art is, so to speak, grandchild to God.
From these two sources (if you call to mind
That passage in the Book of Genesis)
Mankind must take its sustenance and progress.

The moneylender takes another course,
Despising nature and her follower,
Because he sets his hope for gain elsewhere."

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