To love god with our minds does not mean that it is our minds that actually do the loving. Rather, we love God by using our minds. The situation is analogous to a surgeon who loves God with her hands—she uses her hands to express her love for God. Her hands are not doing the loving; she is doing the loving by using her hands.
Clifford Williams, The Life of the Mind
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right . …Time makes more converts than reason.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Knowledge is a state or condition of mind, and since cultivation of mind is surely worth seeking for its own sake, we are thus brought once more to the conclusion … that there is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it.
John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University
When God offers the Torah to the children of Israel, they do not say, “Let us hear what God wants, and then we’ll do it.” Instead, they respond in what seems to be the wrong order: “We will do and we will hear” [Exodus 24:7] . …When Rabbi Menahem Mendl Morgenstern of Kotzk read in Exodus, “We will do and we will hear,” he explained that some actions simply cannot be understood (or heard) until they are performed (or done). By doing, we understand.
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Jewish Spirituality: A Brief Introduction for Christians Common Sense
If we attach more significance to feeling than to thinking, we shall soon, by a simple extension, attach more to wanting than to deserving.
Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences
A man can’t live his life within his skull.
Frederick Buechner, Godric
People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have. For example, the freedom of thought. Instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
Søren Kierkegaard (source unknown)
Our mind cannot be understood, even by itself, because it is made in God’s image.
Augustine, Sermons
Unthinking faith is a curious offering to be made to the creator of the human mind.
John A. Hutchinson, Faith, Reason, and Existence
Our problem, after all, is that we think too much. Thinking has its place, but at some point it becomes a means of avoiding our lives instead of living them.
Philip Simmons, Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life
Our danger has not been too much thinking, but not enough.
Nathan Hatch, Making Higher Education Christian
A closed mind is a sign of hidden doubt.
Harold DeWolf, A Theology of the Living Church
Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere
Past Reflections columns include:
Bumper stickers (August 6, 2002)
Preaching (July 18, 2002)
Prayer (June 24, 2002)
Suffering and Grief (May 20, 2002)
Writers and Words (April 18, 2002)
Crucifixion (March 28, 2002)
God’s Mission (February 13, 2002)
On Enemies (January 8, 2002)
Life After Christmas (December 26, 2001)
Love & Marriage (November 13, 2001)
The Word of God (October 22, 2001)
Leadership (October 11, 2001)
Suffering (September 13, 2001)
Change (August 14, 2001)
Living Tradition (July 18, 2001)
Sacred Spaces (June 11, 2001)
Friendship (May 17, 2001)
