Lesslie Newbigin: Fact

Lesslie Newbigin was Christian missionary. Explore interesting quotes on fact.
Lesslie Newbigin: 18   quotes 0   likes

“must we not say that it is part of the deep sickness of our culture that ever since Descartes, we have been seduced by the idea of a kind of knowledge which could not be doubted, in which we would be absolutely secure from personal risk? And has not this seduction taken two forms which, even if they disclaim all relationship with each other, are really twin brothers? One is biblical fundamentalism which supposes that adherence to the text of the Bible frees me from the risk of error and therefore gives me a security which does not depend on my own discernment of the truth. The other is a type of scientism which supposes that science is simply a transcript of reality, of the "facts" which simply have to be accepted and call for no personal decision on my part, a kind of knowledge which is "objective" and free from all the bias of subjectivity.”

Lesslie Newbigin

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Eerdmans, 1989 (reprinted 2002),48-49.

Truth , Error , Idea , Knowledge

“What is striking about the books which were written, especially during the eighteenth century, to defend Christianity against these attacks, is the degree to which they accept the assumptions of their assailants. Christianity is defended as being reasonable. It can be accommodated within these assumptions, which all reasonable people hold. There is little suggestion that the assumptions themselves are to be challenged. The defense is, in fact, a tactical retreat. But, as later history has shown, these tactical retreats can--if repeated often enough--begin to look more like a rout.”

Lesslie Newbigin

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Eerdmans, 1989 (reprinted 2002),3.

People , Books , History

“So we already have the evidence of the dichotomy that runs through our culture. We all engage in purposeful activity, and we judge ourselves and others in terms of success in achieving the purposes that we set before ourselves. Yet we accept as the final product of this purposeful activity a picture of the world from which purpose has been eliminated. Purpose is a meaningful concept in relation to our own consciousness of ourselves, but it is allowed no place in our understanding of the world of facts.”

Lesslie Newbigin

Foolishness to the Greeks. Eerdmans, 1986, 77-78.

World , Understanding , Success