Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
Interpretation
Believing in the truth requires moral integrity and a willingness to acknowledge evidence, rather than ignoring or twisting facts.
This quote by D. A. Carson emphasizes that the root of disbelief is often not a lack of evidence, but rather a conscious choice to distort or overlook the truth. It suggests that our moral compass plays a critical role in our ability to accept and recognize reality, highlighting the psychological barriers that can prevent individuals from embracing truths that may be uncomfortable or challenging to their beliefs.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of honesty in journalism, this quote can illustrate how personal integrity affects the portrayal of facts.
Both God's love and God's wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax - in the cross.
It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others.
Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
Imagination is a God-given gift; but if it is fed dirt by the eye, it will be dirty. All sin, not least sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of kingdom righteousness.
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.
No amount of energy will take the place of thought. A strenuous life with its eyes shut is a kind of wild insanity.
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.
If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.
He who is able to conquer others is powerful; he who is able to conquer himself is more powerful.
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