he said, he said

I've been reading a couple of great books lately: "The Reason for God" by Tim Keller, and "Just Courage" by Gary Haugen.

Below are some of the words that have most stuck w/me.

"When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn't be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods." - Tim Keller

As quoted by Tim Keller, from scientist Francis Collins: "We have this very solid conclusion that the universe had an origin, the Big Bang. Fifteen billion years ago, the universe began with an unimaginably bright flash of energy from an infinitesimally small point. That implies that before that, there was nothing... And the very fact that the universe had a beginning implies that someone was able to begin it..."

"...while hunger doesn't prove that the particular meal desired will be procured, doesn't the appetite for food in us mean that food exists?... Doesn't the unfulfillable longing evoked by beauty qualify as an innate desire?... Isn't that at least a clue that this 'something' that we want exists? This unfulfillable longing, then, qualifies as a deep, innate human desire, and that makes it a major clue that God is there." - Tim Keller

"What is not fair is to do what so many evolutionary scientists are doing now. They are applying the scalpel of their skepticism to what our minds tell us about God but not to what our minds are telling us about evolutionary science itself... It comes down to this: If, as the evolutionary scientists say, what our brains tell us about morality, love and beauty is not real - if it is merely a set of chemical reactions designed to pass on our genetic code - then so is what *their* brains tell them about the world. Then why should we trust them?" - Tim Keller

"Building our lives on something besides God not only hurts us if we don't get the desires of our hearts, but also if we do." - Tim Keller

"So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things." - Tim Keller

"...our own rescue is God's plan for rescuing the world he loves." - Gary Haugen

"In taking on the forces of aggressive evil, we have found a place where we desperately need our Father's help, and where he is delighted to provide it. This is not a resignation of my gifts or passions or training, but a deployment of those endowments to a place beyond safety, beyond my ability to control the outcome and beyond my own power to succeed. It's a place where God is desperately needed and a work in which he delights to engage - for it is his own work." - Gary Haugen

"Consequently, while a word (and God) waits, groaning, for the people of God to bring hope, love, service and divine rescue, so many Western Christians miss their anointed work of truly glorious rescue because they are oblivious to the dramatic, urgent need, or they are paralyzed by hopeless despair." - Gary Haugen

"Mother Teresa said that she couldn't image doing her work for more than thirty minutes without prayer. Do you and I have work that we can't imagine doing for thirty minutes without prayer? If not, perhaps we need a new life's work. Or perhaps we need to an old life's work in a new way." - Gary Haugen