Schaeffer talks about the concept of apologetics, which to him has a few different facets, but I liked a couple of related quotes.
"The proponents of any position who are alive to their own generation must give a sufficient answer for it when questions are raised about it." (emphasis, mine)
"Such answers are necessary in the first place for myself as a Christian if I am going to maintain my intellectual integrity, and if I am to keep united my personal devotional and intellectual life." (emphasis, mine)
- page 151
I thought that these two quotes were important for my own mind because of the way that I see how much my thinking has been affected by the 'leap of faith'/anti-faith mentality that pervades our culture. (see previous post). When I think of faith, I do not think of it in terms of a leap into the unknown, but as a place to step on facts to connect with God based upon reality. I think of the probability arguments advanced by Josh McDowell, the Lord, liar, lunatic argument put forth by C.S. Lewis, the reliability of the Bible as opposed to the reliability of any other book in history, as well as Schaeffer's own argument that non-personal sources could never create personal beings when I think of compelling reasons for faith in Christ.
I love the statements about having real reasons for faith so that you can 'be alive to (one's own) generation', and giving sufficient (not leap of faith) answers. I know that I fall short of this in many ways, but these are ideals for me to shoot for. I also think that I need to have a unity of mind that values loyalty to Christ above all other things - and that will produce an intellectual and spiritual (Schaeffer calls 'devotional') integrity. It is hard to keep your mind united around one thing/concept/Person, but it is something that I am feeling a greater call to.
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