COLERIDGE on Transcendence, RILEY on Racial Attitudes, and Lloyd-Jones on Pastoral Attacks
Coleridge (poet) and his theory of ideas. EXERPT
Coleridge similarly sided with the supporters of the spiritual and transcendent against those who maintained the reality of the material and immanent only. In this way, he took part in the ‘Pantheism Controversy’ that raged primarily across German philosophy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Coleridge argued for the transcendence of God rather than holding, with Baruch Spinoza, that God is a wholly immanent power identified with the natural world. Characteristically of Coleridge, however, he didn’t dismiss Spinozistic arguments, but adopted parts of them to fit within what he saw as a wider whole. ‘Spinoza’s is … true philosophy,’ he wrote, ‘but it is the Skeleton of the Truth.’ It needed to be fleshed out in order to let ‘the dry Bones live’.
Coleridge’s thinking provides a bridge between materialist and dynamic views in the sciences
This inclusive attitude is one of the strengths of Coleridge’s approach, which grew from his celebrated powers of synthesis.
Jason Riley “Race Relations in America are Better than Ever” (WSJ) EXCERPT
What explains the wide perception of racial retrogression at a time when surveys show that racial attitudes and behaviors have never been better? Mr. Kaufmann cites ideology, partisanship and the media’s ability “to frame events and social trends.” The political left has a stake in overstating both the existence and effects of racism so that it can advocate for more and bigger programs to combat it. And the media has long been willing to do the left’s ideological bidding. Social media allows for wide publicity of statistically rare incidents that are in reality getting even rarer, giving the impression that isolated and infrequent events “happen all the time.”
Martin Lloyd Jones Confronted a Negative Pastor
“What I say to that is this: I am a physician but there is such a thing as ‘a surgical mentality,’ or of becoming what is described as ‘knife-happy.’ I agree, there are some cases where you have got to operate, but the danger of the surgeon is to operate immediately. He thinks in terms of operating. Never have an operation without having a second opinion from a physician.”
“Well,” he queried, “what about this: you remember Paul in Galatians 2? He had to withstand Peter to the face. He did not want to do it. Peter was an older apostle, a leader and so on. Paul did it very reluctantly, but he had to do it for the sake of the truth. I am in exactly that position. What do you say to that?”
“I would say this,” I responded, “that the effect of what Paul did was to win Peter round to his position and make him call him ‘our beloved brother Paul.’ Can you say the same about the people whom you attack?”
Dr. Lloyd-Jones became more firmly convinced of the way in which an orthodox ministry can be spoilt by a wrong spirit and by wrong methods.