Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
Interpretation
Believing in the truth requires moral integrity and a willingness to acknowledge evidence, rather than ignoring or twisting facts.
This quote by D. A. Carson emphasizes that the root of disbelief is often not a lack of evidence, but rather a conscious choice to distort or overlook the truth. It suggests that our moral compass plays a critical role in our ability to accept and recognize reality, highlighting the psychological barriers that can prevent individuals from embracing truths that may be uncomfortable or challenging to their beliefs.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of honesty in journalism, this quote can illustrate how personal integrity affects the portrayal of facts.
Both God's love and God's wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax - in the cross.
It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others.
Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.
In deep self acceptance, grows a compassionate understanding.
Defeat in this world is no disgrace and that is what they cannot understand. If you really fought well and fought for the right thing.
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.
He unwittingly takes a false step and plunges into the abyss.
The good man does not grieve_x000D_ that other people do not recognize his merits._x000D_ His only anxiety is lest he should fail to recognize theirs.
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