Hell and the Truth

Here is a longer quote from Trinity and Reality about hell. This section of his book is truly terrifying. The picture of man in Hell, as lonely, isolated, separated from God and man, burning physically and psychologically was a picture not easily dismissed from the mind.

"Man in hell cannot control his thoughts and motives. He is caught in the iron trap of his sinful self because that is all that is left of him. God no longer restrains his sin, upholding the nobler aspects of his character as Gods' image. At the same time, the man cannot satisfy his lusts either. He is confined to a world in which lust rages without limit and without satisfaction. The more he lusts, the greater his frustation--the greater his frustration, the more the fires of lust burn.

Thus, hell is dis-intergration in the sense that the sinner contradicts his own self. The horror of hell is the horror of the man who looks into the mirror of his soul and sees all the monsters, all the fearsome and foul fiends he so loathes and abominates. The fire of hell is the fire of a conscience that can no longer escape the penetrating self-accusation, the clear and complete knowledge of one's utter perversity--all the excuses gone, every form of self-justification and self-deception stripped away, so that nothing is left but the most unpleasant, unendurable, unbearable truth. The psychology of hell is the psychology of a man whose greatest torture is to become what he truly is and know it with infallible certainty." (p. 186)

Trinity and Reality

Here are some more of my favorite quotes from Ralph Smith's Trinity and Reality.

"In the Bible, for all practical purposes, the notion of Christian life apart from membership in a local church never occurs. To reject baptism, the Lord's Supper, and weekly worship is to reject the body of Christ, the bride He loves." (p. 166)

"For most nations in the world today, the pressing need is to plant churches and train families to follow God. It is not until the vast majority of the families in a nation have been baptized and taught to obey Christ that the political life fo the country can be changed sufficiently for godly government to thrive." (p. 178)

Science and the Trinity

I have quoted previously from Ralph Smith's Trinity and Reality. Here is another quote where he extols the virtues of a Christian view of science.

This view of creation [a biblical view] also makes the purpose of science very clear. Science is not the pursuit of ultimate answers, but penultimate answers-answers that will make us better stewards of the world. Science gives us the tools that extend our understanding in order to gain wisdom for dominion. From a Christian perspective, therefore, the work of science is a vital aspect of man's fulfillment of his historical destiny. Man cannot develop the creation to its full potential without the work of science. (p. 65)

Symbolism

Here is another quote from R. Smith's Trinity and Reality:

"The power of symbolism is the power of worldview presuppositions. It is the greatest power in the world. All of language is symbolic, of course, but symbolism is not limited to words. Symbolism creates reality, not vice versa. This is another way of saying essence precedes existence. God determined how things should be and then they were."

Bending the Knee to the Word

I recently read Ralph Smith's Trinity and Reality. I found it an excellent book, worthy of careful attention. Smith explains how the Trinity, God as one and three, illuminates how we think about all of life. He spends a lot of time showing how other theistic religions, such as Judaism and Islam, are bankrupt because their god is not a Trinity. I am going to pull out some of my favorite quotes and post them in the coming weeks. I encourage you to buy the book and digest it. Here is the first quote:

"For some, it is offensive to think that the Christian faith has at its very center a mystery [the Trinity], an incomprehensible truth. To them, Christians seem to be calling for a sacrifice of the intellect on the altar of religious confession. In reality, trinitarian faith demands something quite different. It is not a sacrifice of the intellect, but the sacrifice of the pretense of intellectual autonomy: the notion that the mind or reason of man is the ultimate judge of truth. "

(Smith, Trinity and Reality p. 7)