James Anderson > James's Quotes

“Human existence and action are characterized by their capacity for meaning.28 No form of human life can be defined "without reference to meaning. It makes sense [Sinn] to understand meaning [Sinn] as the fundamental category of
human existence."29”
― Udo Schnelle, Theology of the New Testament

“The abilities distinctive of human beings are abilities of intellect and will. The relevant abilities of intellect are thought, imagination (the cogitative and creative imagination rather than the image-generating faculty), personal (experiential) and factual memory, reasoning and selfconsciousness.”
― P. M. S. Hacker, Human Nature: The Categorial Framework

“Torrance emphasized that “the gospel of unconditional grace is very difficult for us, for it is so costly. It takes away from under our feet the very ground on which we want to stand, and the free will which we as human beings cherish so dearly becomes exposed as a subtle form of self-will”.”
― Paul D. Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance

“Eternal God, the refuge of all your children, in our weakness you are our strength, in our darkness our light, in our sorrow our comfort and peace. May we always live in your presence, and serve you in our daily lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Boniface
FURTHER”
― Thomas C. Oden, On the Way to the Cross: 40 Days with the Church Fathers

“Free will has carried many souls to hell, but never a soul to heaven yet.”
― Charles H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit

“From start to finish the good news is about how God’s people of every generation can enjoy kingdom benefits and blessing while they are still alive, not only after they die and go to heaven.”
― R. Alan Streett, Heaven on Earth: Experiencing the Kingdom of God in the Here and Now

“Salvation, therefore, is much more than spiritual deliverance from personal sin. It includes rescue from political forces and structures that have aligned with Satan.”
― R. Alan Streett, Heaven on Earth: Experiencing the Kingdom of God in the Here and Now

“The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the Creator and Redeemer.”
― John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

“no man can come to Christ until he truly knows himself to be a sinner. The self-righteous man cannot come to Christ; for what is implied in coming to Christ? Repentance, trust in his mercy, and the denial of all confidence in one’s self. Now, a self-righteous man cannot repent and yet be self-righteous. He conceives that he has no sin; why, then, should he repent?”
― Charles H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit

“If my sin appears to me to be in any way smaller or less reprehensible in comparison with the sins of others, then I am not yet recognizing my sin at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most serious, the most objectionable. Christian love will find any number of excuses
for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no excuse whatsoever. That is why my sin is the worst. Those who would serve others in the community must descend all the way down to this depth of humility. How could I possibly serve other persons in unfeigned humility if their sins appear to me to be seriously worse than my own? If I am to have any hope for them, then I must not raise myself above them. Such service would be a sham. "Do”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible

“We sometimes say, "Only believe;" but believing is just the hardest thing in the world when sin lies heavy on your shoulders. We say, "Sinner, only trust in Christ." Ah. you do not know what a great "only" that is. It is a work so great, that no man can do it unaided by God; for faith is the gift of God, and he gives it only to his children.”
― Charles H. Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit

“The current understanding of happiness identifies it as a pleasurable feeling. Pleasant feelings are surely better than unpleasant ones, but the problem today is that people are obsessively concerned with feeling happiness; people are slaves to their feelings. Feelings are wonderful servants but terrible masters. When people make happiness their goal, they do not find it and, as a result, start living their lives vicariously through identification with celebrities.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“While forgiveness is an important part of the gospel, the good news goes beyond that. It amounts to the claim that the kingdom of God—the direct availability of God himself and His rule—is now available to anyone who will enter it through trust in Jesus.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“Here we must examine the classical understanding of happiness proclaimed by Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Aristotle, Plato, the church fathers and medieval theologians, and many more—the understanding that has recently been replaced by “pleasurable satisfaction.” According to the ancients, happiness is a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“The gospel of the kingdom is an invitation to a different reality, a different way of living. The kingdom is a new way of relating as people. Where ordinary human life is based on competitiveness and defensiveness, domination and subjugation, treachery and violence, the kingdom is based on the self-giving love of God.”
― J.P. Moreland, Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life

“Error is intimately bound up with the notion of intention. The term ‘error’ can only be meaningfully applied to planned actions that fail to achieve their desired consequences without the intervention of some chance or unforeseeable agency. Two basic error types were identified: slips (and lapses), where the actions do not go according to plan, and mistakes, where the plan itself is inadequate to achieve its objectives.”
― James Reason, Human Error

“The modern patient safety movement replaces “the blame and shame game” with an approach known as systems thinking. This paradigm acknowledges the human condition—namely, that humans err—and concludes that safety depends on creating systems that anticipate errors and either prevent or catch them before they cause harm. Such an approach has been the cornerstone of safety improvements in other high-risk industries but has been ignored in medicine until the past decade.”
― Robert Wachter, Understanding Patient Safety

“Mistakes, on the other hand, result from incorrect choices. Rather than blundering into them while we are distracted, we usually make mistakes because of insufficient knowledge, lack of experience or training, inadequate information (or inability to interpret available information properly), or applying the wrong set of rules or algorithms to a decision”
― Robert Wachter, Understanding Patient Safety

“James Reason reminds us, “Errors are largely unintentional. It is very difficult for management to control what people did not intend to do in the first place.”
― Robert Wachter, Understanding Patient Safety

“The taxonomy of medical error is vast, colorful, and at times confusing. There are slips, lapses, harmless hits, and near misses; errors of omission and of commission; operator errors, system errors, accidents, complications, and bad outcomes.”
― Nancy Berlinger, After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness

“Into your hands, 0 Lord, we commit ourselves this day. Give to each one of us a watchful, a humble, and a diligent spirit that we may seek in all things to know your will, and when we know it may perform it perfectly and gladly, to the honor and glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Gelasian Sacramentary”
― Thomas C. Oden, On the Way to the Cross: 40 Days with the Church Fathers

“Lord, inspire us to read your Scriptures and meditate upon them day and night. We beg you to give us real understanding of what we need, that we in turn may put its precepts into practice. Yet we know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love. So we ask that the words of Scripture may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into our hearts. Origen
FURTHER”
― Thomas C. Oden, On the Way to the Cross: 40 Days with the Church Fathers

“O God, who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble: grant us the virtue of true humility which your only-begotten Son himself gave us the perfect example; that we may never offend you by our pride and be rejected by our self-assertion; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
― Leonine Sacramentary, On the Way to the Cross: 40 Days with the Church Fathers

“ORIGEN: God cannot be called wise in the way that human beings are wise, because a wise man merely has a share in wisdom, whereas God is its author and source. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.”
― Cindy Crosby, Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B

“AMBROSE: For Christ alone walks in the souls and makes his path in the minds of his saints, in which, as on bases of gold and foundations of precious stone the heavenly Word has left his footprints ineffaceably impressed. On the Christian Faith 3.10.71-74.”
― Cindy Crosby, Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B

“Since he rose we hope that we too shall rise. He himself has paid our debt. Then Paul explains more plainly how great the gift is: You are saved by grace. For it is not because of the excellence of our lives that we have been called but because of the love of our Savior. Epistle to the Ephesians 2.4-5.
Dare”
― Cindy Crosby, Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B

“AMBROSE: Do not rely on your own efforts but on the grace of Christ. "You are," says the apostle, "saved by grace. Therefore it is not a matter of arrogance here but faith when we celebrate: We are accepted! This is not pride but devotion." On the Sacraments 5.4.19.
Whether”
― Cindy Crosby, Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B

“AUGUSTINE: People love truth when it shines on them and hate it when it rebukes them. For,”
― Cindy Crosby, Ancient Christian Devotional: Lectionary Cycle B

“As award-winning British journalist Melanie Phillips writes, “The correspondences between Western progressives and Islamists are really quite remarkable. Both are attempting to create utopias to redeem past sins; both permit no dissent from the one revealed truth. . . . Both are giving expression to a totalitarian instinct that involves a wholesale repudiation of reason.”
― Mary Poplin, Is Reality Secular?: Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews

“For if indeed God became a man, then Truth condescended to become a truth, from whose historical contingency one cannot simply pass to categories of universal rationality; and this means that whatever Christians mean when they speak of truth, it cannot involve simply the dialectical wresting of abstract principles from intractable facts. One”
― David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth