James Sire Quotes

Truth cannot be constructed. To live in ideology is, as Havel so eloquently reminds us, inevitably to live in a lie. Truth can only be revealed. We cannot be creators, only receptors.

God does not love us because we are so valuable; we are valuable because God loves us."12

A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundations on which we live and more and have our being.

Where do the interests of the Christians lie?” “On the side of peace. Christianity is a religion, Sire, not a political ideology.

To glorify God is not just to do so in religious worship, singing praise and enacting the traditional rites of the church. To glorify God is to reveal his character by being who we were created to be-the embodiment of the image of God in human form.

Nations that are populated largely by immature, immoral, weak-willed, cowardly, and self-indulgent men cannot and will not long endure. These types of men include those who sire and abandon their children; who cheat on their wives; who lie, steal, and covet; who hate their countrymen; and who serve no god but money. That is the direction culture is taking today's boys.

For is it not the common experience of all of us - you and I - that we do no incorporate the truth of these propositions in our lives? We say we know, but we do not do as we know. We say we believe, but we do not act like it.

I am most interested in encouraging Christians to think and read well. Christians, of all people, should reflect the mind of their Maker. Learning to read well is a step toward loving God with your mind. It is a leap toward thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

Life is short, but art is long. Sophocles is dead, but Oedipus lives on…Each of us when we read a great piece of literature is a little more human than befor

A fearless honesty should characterize both our self-analysis-where we are now-and our pursuit of truth.

removed the “God-given” from this conception and made “reason” the sole criterion for truth.

Well-wrought poems and works of imaginative literature can do for us what stone-cold prose can never do. They can help us grasp the full dimension of ways of life other than our own.

Theism, however, teaches that not only is there a moral universe but there is an absolute standard by which all moral judgments are measured. God himself-his character of goodness (holiness and love)-is the standard.

So what is a worldview? Essentially this: A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) that we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.

Artists operating within the theistic worldview have a solid basis for their work. Nothing is more freeing than for them to realize that because they are like God they can really invent. Artistic inventiveness is a reflection of God's unbounded capacity to create.

But nothing external to God can possibly constrain him. If he chooses to restore a broken universe, it is because he "wants" to, because, for example, he loves it and wants the best for it. But he is free to do as he wills, and his character (Who He Is) controls his will.

O my land! O my love! What a woe, and how deep, Is thy death to my long mourning soul! God alone, God above, Can awake thee from sleep, Can release thee from bondage and dole! Alas, alas, and alas! For the once proud people of Banba! As a tree in its prime, Which the axe layeth low, Didst thou fall, O unfortunate land! Not by time, nor thy crime, Came the shock and the blow. They were given by a false felon hand! Alas, alas, and alas! For the once proud people of Banba! O, my grief of all griefs Is to see how thy throne Is usurped, whilst thyself art in thrall! Other lands have their chiefs, Have their kings, thou alone Art a wife, yet a widow withal! Alas, alas, and alas! For the once proud people of Banba! The high house of O’Neill Is gone down to the dust, The O’Brien is clanless and banned; And the steel, the red steel May no more be the trust Of the Faithful and Brave in the land! Alas, alas, and alas! For the once proud people of Banba! True, alas! Wrong and Wrath Were of old all too rife. Deeds were done which no good man admires And perchance Heaven hath Chastened us for the strife And the blood-shedding ways of our sires! Alas, alas, and alas! For the once proud people of Banba! But, no more! This our doom, While our hearts yet are warm, Let us not over weakly deplore! For the hour soon may loom When the Lord’s mighty hand Shall be raised for our rescue once more! And all our grief shall be turned into joy For the still proud people of Banba!

the existence of the moral sense is a signal that there is an ought, something other than, and transcendent over, what is. We will look again at this signal when we examine how

Morality itself requires transcendence, the existence of a “real” goodness.

There are indeed solid ontological foundations for an understanding of signals of transformation. Both Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin take the notion of God to be a direct perception of God’s existence, one unmediated by reason, by revelation, by society, or by psychological need.

One thing the Bible does not do: it does not denigrate the mind. The Bible is not anti-intellectual. Rather it gives the reason why all of us know what we know, why we can think with some degree of accuracy, and why we fail to think with complete accuracy.

Each action of each of us, each decision to pursue one course rather than another, changes or rather "produces" the future. By

​Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam, 1988), p. 122.

A worldview (or vision of life) is a framework or set of fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our calling and future in it. This vision need not be fully articulated: it may be so internalized that it goes largely unquestioned; it may not be explicitly developed into a systematic conception of life; it may not be theoretically deepened into a philosophy; it may not even be codified into creedal form; it may be greatly refined through cultural-historical development. Nevertheless, this vision is a channel for the ultimate beliefs which give direction and meaning to life. It is the integrative and interpretative framework by which order and disorder are judged; it is the standard by which reality is managed and pursued; it is the set of hinges on which all our everyday thinking and doing turns.

The postmodern pundit says, “We are only what we describe ourselves to be.” The I is not a substance, not even an activity, but a floating construct dependent on the language it uses.

Our age, which more and more is coming to be called postmodern, finds itself afloat in a pluralism of perspectives, a plethora of philosophical possibilities, but with no dominant notion of where to go or how to get there. A near future of cultural anarchy seems inevitable.

But first let us get one thing clear. Postmodernism has influenced religious understanding, including that characteristic of Christian theism, but it accepts the foundation at the heart of naturalism: Matter exists eternally; God does not exist.

Truth is whatever we can get our colleagues (our community) to agree to. If we can get them to use our language, then—like the “strong poets” Moses, Jesus, Plato, Freud—our story is as true as any story will ever get.

stories have great social binding power; they make communities out of otherwise disparate bunches of people.[28] The result is that though in postmodernism there is an “incredulity toward metanarratives” (Lyotard), in every culture there is a sufficiently agreed upon story that acts as a metanarrative. So much is this so that these stories, acting as metanarratives, mask a play for power by those in any society who control the details and the propagation of the story.

There is another limitation in many arguments Christians use to prove the rationality of belief in God. The God who is “proved” is only a transcendent, impersonal God, maybe a Creator, but not necessarily personal. Only a God whose existence is important to human understanding or human flourishing is worth troubling about.

Knowledge is power," Francis Bacon said in a peculiarly prophetic moment. He was right; "modern" scientific knowledge has demonstrated its power for three centuries. With postmodernism, however, the situation is reversed. There is no purely objective knowledge, no truth of correspondence. Instead there are only stories, stories that, when they are believed, give the storyteller power over others.

There are a million signposts pointing toward the specific truth of God in Christ.

Atoms dead could never thus Stir the human heart of us Unless the beauty that we see The veil of endless beauty be, Filled full of spirits that have trod Far hence along the heavenly sod And seen the bright footprints of God.175

all theisms—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—the difference between the self and God is radical. Pride is the fundamental sin of human beings.

The New Age operates on the epistemology of ecstasy.

In a closed universe, in other words, freedom must be a determinacy unrecognized, and for those who work out its implications, this is not enough to allow for self-determinacy or moral responsibility. For if I robbed a bank, that would ultimately be due to inexorable (though unperceived) forces triggering my decisions in such a way that I could no longer consider these decisions mine. If these decisions are not mine, I cannot be held responsible. And such would be the case for every act of every person.

The term numinous is like the terms substance, meaning, being, and a host of other terms; in the final analysis we can only define them in terms of themselves.

Step on my toe. Must I curse? I may. Must I forgive you? I may. Must I yell? I may. Must I smile? I may. What I do will reflect my character, but it is "I" who will act and not just react like a bell ringing when a button is pushed.

Christians, of all people, should reflect the mind of their Maker. Learning to read well is a step toward loving God with your mind. It is a leap toward thinking God’s thoughts after him.

When writers write they do so from the perspective of their own world view. What they presuppose about themselves, God, the good life and the validity of human knowledge governs both what they say and how they say it. That is why reading with world views in mind (your own and that of the author) will help you understand not only what is written in the lines but what is written between the lines—that is, what is presupposed before a pen ever reaches the page.

From Chapter 9: The Vanished Horizon: Postmodernism. Truth is whatever we can get out colleagues, our community, to agree to. If we can get them to use our language, then, like the strong poets--Moses, Jesus, Plato, Freud--our story is as true as any story will ever get.

Someone really needs to explain the meaning of ‘bodyguard’ to you, Sire

Human creativity is borne as a reflection of the infinite creativity of God himself. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

universes fashioned by words and concepts that work together to provide a more or less coherent frame of reference for all thought and action.5

But to discover one’s own worldview is much more valuable. In fact, it is a significant step toward self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-understanding.

Carl Sagan, astrophysicist and popularizer of science,

Depersonalized Personalized Sin Breaking a rule Betraying a relationship Repentance Admitting guilt Sorrowing over personal betrayal Forgiveness Canceling a penalty Renewing fellowship Faith Believing a set of propositions Committing oneself to a person Christian life Obeying rules Pleasing the Lord,

How does God fulfill our ultimate longing? He does so in many ways: by being the perfect fit for our very nature, by satisfying our longing for interpersonal relationship, by being in his omniscience the end to our search for knowledge, by being in his infinite being the refuge from all fear, by being in his holiness the righteous ground of our quest for justice, by being in his infinite love the cause of our hope for salvation, by being in his infinite creativity both the source of our creative imagination and the ultimate beauty we seek to reflect as we ourselves create.

So into this history of the growing pluralism of Western worldviews came the New Age movement whose central thesis is simple: The individual self is the center of reality: The self is the really real. Immanence replaces Transcendence.

When a person converts to Christianity, he or she not only enters a relationship with Christ and inherits eternal life, but also adopts a worldview—a set of lenses through which to view the world. Other critical worldview questions include What is real? (metaphysics); How do we know that which we know? (epistemology); What happens to a person after death? Where is history going? and What kind of a thing is a person? (anthropology). For more discussion on the subject of one’s worldview, see James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004); J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: Nav-Press, 1998); and Nancy Pearcey and Phillip E. Johnson, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001).