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LET'S BE REASONABLE, FOR GOD IS!
Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson
Published by World Wide Web Witness Inc.
March 2010
ISBN 978-0-98067675-3-7
PREFACE
Why not ? After all, you don't normally, with any appearance of wisdom at least, say, Let's be Unreasonable, For I am NOT!
Being reasonable is normally taken to be a good idea; though why it should be thought so on naturalistic grounds is entirely a mystery. If the universe were unreasonable, and this were the nature of reality, the last thing you would want, would be to go against what you and it both are, and be the opposite. It would involve endless clash, and toying with what is there, by adversative confrontation. Since you would in that case owe your life to it in some clandestine and odd way, you would not be well-advised to owe your death to its frown, or whatever else the non-personal creator of persons and logic might be thought to have in mind, if it had one.
Let us then be reasonable. It can only lead to the author of reason, to its dispenser, to its master and edict maker, to the originator of its impact on earth, stars and mathematics, on government (in theory) and the capacity to think at all.
Let's talk and walk straight, and forgetting fanciful fairy-tales, and personal disliking of the moral equivalent of logic for the mind, and the humbling experience of acknowledging someone who owns our environment and history, and finding out what He wants, look at the results of being reasonable. Man CAN be MOST reasonable, but normally isn't. Subterfuge, preference, self-importance, envy, rashness, impatience, pride, hostilities, unforgiveness, slander, ease of life, all these things can take man by the nose, as if it were a bridle. He becomes unbecoming, whatever he chooses to imagine he is, and certainly does not become in any way, anything better, even if, given time, like any student in any examination or just test, he is able to express himself and investigate questions some more.
IF you are to be reasonable, you will not expect figs from thistles, something from nothing, or disorder from the necessary source of order, righteousness from wrong reasons and desires, owisdom from ignorance, to be fit for life in abusing it, ignoring what it is, or merely seizing it like a prize, and throwing it about as if it were a lottery gain, just for spending as one wills. You will expect, as if first going to school or university, to find out what is there and to investigate this with care. If you do not like it, you have to consider whether this is the nature of life, or the nature of your life, or of human life generally, and if so, whether this is its nature, or from its nurture, from its bill or from its will; and if the latter, what to do about it.
Let's be reasonable. For nearly 60 years, from science and philosophy to theology and Christ, from theory to practice, from questing to digesting, from trial to triumph, from the Bible to all options, before me, I have found there is only one way to be reasonable, or to find reason at all. It is only fair to note, now that I am 82, that the result is persistent, consistent and challenging, not in this, that it is true, but in the fact that living it is worthy of what it is, that it causes loss, whether of funds or reputation or opportunity, the way of ease, but that it causes a result with the splendour of truth, the power of God and the progress of obedience in love. It is good to love, for it lifts, gives leverage over weakness, point and purpose; but it is better still to love what is true, love's source, for its own pure and unmixed reasons, so that what it is and what you are for, are wedded.
INTRODUCTION to
Let's Be Reasonable, for God is!
Why not ? After all, you don't normally, with any appearance of wisdom at least, say, Let's be Unreasonable, For I am NOT!
Being reasonable is normally taken to be a good idea; though why it should be thought so on naturalistic grounds is entirely a mystery. If the universe were unreasonable, and this were the nature of reality, the last thing you would want, would be to go against what you and it both are, and be the opposite. It would involve endless clash, and toying with what is there, by adversative confrontation. Since you would in that case owe your life to it in some clandestine and odd way, you would not be well-advised to owe your death to its frown, or whatever else the non-personal creator of persons and logic might be thought to have in mind, if it had one.
Let us then be reasonable. It can only lead to the author of reason, to its dispenser, to its master and edict maker, to the originator of its impact on earth, stars and mathematics, on government (in theory) and the capacity to think at all.
Let's talk and walk straight, and forgetting fanciful fairy-tales, and personal disliking of the moral equivalent of logic for the mind, and the humbling experience of acknowledging someone who owns our environment and history, and finding out what He wants, look at the results of being reasonable. Man CAN be MOST reasonable, but normally isn't. Subterfuge, preference, self-importance, envy, rashness, impatience, pride, hostilities, unforgiveness, slander, ease of life, all these things can take man by the nose, as if it were a bridle. He becomes unbecoming, whatever he chooses to imagine he is, and certainly does not become in any way, anything better, even if, given time, like any student in any examination or just test, he is able to express himself and investigate questions some more.
IF you are to be reasonable, you will not expect figs from thistles, something from nothing, or disorder from the necessary source of order, righteousness from wrong reasons and desires, wisdom from ignorance, to be fit for life in abusing it, ignoring what it is, or merely seizing it like a prize, and throwing it about as if it were a lottery gain, just for spending as one wills. You will expect, as if first going to school or university, to find out what is there and to investigate this with care. If you do not like it, you have to consider whether this is the nature of life, or the nature of your life, or of human life generally, and if so, whether this is its nature, or from its nurture, from its bill or from its will; and if the latter, what to do about it.
Let's be reasonable. For nearly 60 years, from science and philosophy to theology and Christ, from theory to practice, from questing to digesting, from trial to triumph, from the Bible to all options, before me, I have found there is only one way to be reasonable, or to find reason at all. It is only fair to note, now that I am 82, that the result is persistent, consistent and challenging, not in this, that it is true, but in the fact that living it is worthy of what it is, that it causes loss, whether of funds or reputation or opportunity, the way of ease, but that it causes a result with the splendour of truth, the power of God and the progress of obedience in love. It is good to love, for it lifts, gives leverage over weakness, point and purpose; but it is better still to love what is true, love's source, for its own pure and unmixed reasons, so that what it is and what you are for, are wedded.
CONTENTS
Strange, The People You Meet
THERE'S NOTHING GRIEVOUS
ABOUT THE WAYS OF GODHE DECLARES HIMSELF ON ALL SIDES
Apologetic Method, Mental Marvels and Spiritual Bliss
TIME PASSES, AND SO DOES MAN
IT IS POSSIBLE TO GO BACK,
AND FIND THE FUTURE,
BUT THIS IN ONE WAY ONLY
NEWS 426
The Australian, Review, March 6-7, 2010
LIFE IN THE LORD:
OBJECTIVE, PERSPECTIVE, POWER AND PROCEDURE
THE THIRD HOLOCAUST
The Time of Sand
A Strange Stirring within Israel
Fluttering into France
EXQUISITE IN CLARITY,
SPLENDID IN CHARITY
IMMENSE IN LOVE
SOVEREIGN BUT NOT DICTATORIAL
CHASTE IN APPROACH
SEEMLY IN SELF-CONTROL
THE MARVELS OF THE DIVINE CHOICE
OF THE CITIZENS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Foreknowledge and Predestination
Making Sure of His OWN
and Seeking with Implacable Urgency, Considered Control
and the Beauty of Holiness for ALL:
SUCH is the LOVE of JESUS CHRIST
LIFE IN THE LORD:
OBJECTIVE, PERSPECTIVE, POWER AND PROCEDURE
Psalm 107
LIFE IN THE LORD:
The Productive Foursome
Man, Woman, Child
and the Christ,
present through the Spirit of God:
Families and Godliness
LIFE IN THE LORD:
The Productive Foursome
LIGHT EXPOSES WITHOUT EXCLUSION
FOCUS: Government and Schools, giants that kill and children who must live.
Are even private schools to be turned in major areas, into pedagogic prisons,
by authoritative decree ?
NINE, NEIN!
Sprawl at Leisure, Repent without Pleasure
News 429, The CMI Newsletter
Being reasonable if always seasonable...