tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6221886899554221015.post4253539847140265730..comments2023-07-05T01:56:12.807-07:00Comments on Quiet Consecration: Fear and TremblingLeslie K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/13309112557962726272noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6221886899554221015.post-29838200662552186502016-04-12T08:59:28.177-07:002016-04-12T08:59:28.177-07:00I think we have a tendency to make God a bigger ve...I think we have a tendency to make God a bigger version of ourselves and that is why we are uncomfortable with having a healthy fear of The Lord. Thank you for what you wrote!Leslie K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13309112557962726272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6221886899554221015.post-88089279844446992862016-04-09T14:23:54.729-07:002016-04-09T14:23:54.729-07:00This passage from “Radical Monotheism and Western ...This passage from “Radical Monotheism and Western Culture” by H. Richard Niebuhr, was a good place for me to start: <br /><br />“What is it that is responsible for this passing, that dooms our human faith to frustration? We may call it the nature of things, we may call it fate, we may call it reality. But by whatever name we call it, this law of things, this reality, this way things are, is something with which we all must reckon. We may not be able to give a name to it, calling it only the "void" out of which everything comes and to which everything returns, though that is also a name. But it is there -- the last shadowy and vague reality, the secret of existence by virtue of which things come into being, are what they are, and pass away. Against it there is no defense. This reality, this nature of things, abides when all else passes. It is the source of all things and the end of all. It surrounds our life as the great abyss into which all things plunge and as the great source whence they all come. What it is we do not know save that it is and that it is the supreme reality with which we must reckon.”<br /><br />I read this and immediately understood “fear of the Lord.” The previous PC “awe and wonder” concepts looked like shadows cast by flimsy cardboard cutouts compared to this. And the “beauty” of Niebuhr’s perception is that it has all of the awe and wonder, as well as the fear and terror. My personal opinion is that people like an “accessible” God, one that they can get a handle on, and negotiate with, or have some control with. The infinite God is not at all something you can control. This fact is disturbing to many, and I have seen people metaphorically run shrieking into the night after reading that paragraph, and then spend the rest of their time rationalizing why God really isn’t like that.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01355629893888108893noreply@blogger.com