"God's thought of lions is lionlike"

     "It is a poor speaker of French who thinks in English and translates as he goes; the true master of tongues thinks as he talks.  He is a Frenchman in France and a German in Germany; why, he may find himself dreaming in German or in French.  The shape, the idiom of the Creator’s thought is the very shape and idiom of his creature’s existence.  God’s thought of man is human, for he thinks man as he is.  It is true that his thought of man stretches man, and reaches out into possibilities undreamt by us; but these possibilities are still  human.  God’s thought for us extends into the heaven he has prepared for us; but heaven itself is a human state; it is the state of man-in-glory.  God’s thought of lions is lionlike, and of sparrows sparrow-like; and elementary things that have neither life nor sense are thought and willed by him exactly as they are or as they go."

     Austin Farrer, God is not dead (New York:  Morehouse-Barlow Co., 1966), 74.  God is not dead was first published in Great Britain as A science of God?

Jesus is He "who alone . . . walks on the sea as on dry ground" (Job 9:8 LXX NETS; cf. Ps 107:29-30), passing us by (9:11; Mk 6:48), and yet, when necessary, getting "into the boat with [us]", and calming the storm (6:51).

"The Lord seeth them that are toiling in the sea, albeit He be Himself on the land. Although He seem for a moment to tarry in succouring the distressed, nevertheless the look of His love is strengthening them, all the while, lest they should faint and sometimes [(aliquando)] He setteth them free, even by an open deliverance [(manifesto adjutorio)], conquering all their adversaries for them, as when He walked upon the swelling of the waves, and stilled them."

     St. Bede, Homily on Mark 6:45 ff., as translated in the Tridentine Breviary at Matins on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday.  Latin from PL 93, col. 196C-D (I haven't checked the critical edition somewhere in CCSL 118-123 (1953 ff.)).  The two sentences immediately preceding:

Verily, He forgetteth not the prayer of the poor, neither turneth He His face away from any that putteth his trust in Him; yea, rather, to him whosoever is striving with the enemy, He giveth help to conquer, and, whosoever conquereth, to him He giveth an everlasting crown. For the which reason also it is here said plainly He saw them toiling in rowing.

Sad enough

     "This book has been written out of a deep sorrow at witnessing the emergence of false prophets within the City of God.  It is sad enough when people lose their faith and leave the Church.  But it is much worse when those who in reality have lost their faith remain within the Church and try—like termites—to undermine Christian faith with their claim that they are giving to Christian revelation the interpretation that suits 'modern man.'"

     Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan horse in the city of God (Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), Epilogue, p. 223.  Cf. C. S. Lewis.  From p. 265 of the editorially modified Sophia Institute Press edition of 1993:

This book has been written out of a deep sorrow at witnessing the emergence of false prophets within the City of God.  It is sad enough when people lose their faith and leave the Church; but it is much worse when those who in reality have lost their faith remain within the Church and try—like termites—to undermine Christian faith with their claim that they are giving to Christian revelation the interpretation that suits 'modern man.'

     I was put onto this passage by Kendall Harmon.

Catholic progressivism

"Enamoured of our present epoch, blind to all its characteristic dangers, intoxicated with everything modern, there are many Catholics who no longer ask whether something is true, or whether it is good and beautiful, or whether it has an intrinsic value:  they ask only whether it is up-to-date, suitable to 'modern man' and the technological age, whether it is challenging, dynamic, audacious, progressive."

     Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan horse in the city of God (Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), pt. 3, chap. 20 ("The sapping of truth"), p. 147.  

     "Enamored of our present epoch, blind to all its characteristic dangers, intoxicated with everything modern, many Catholics no longer ask whether something is true, whether it is good and beautiful, or whether it has intrinsic value.  They ask only whether it is up-to-date, suitable to modern man and the technological age, challenging, dynamic, audacious, or progressive."

     Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan horse in the city of God:  the Catholic crisis explained (Manchester, NH:  Sophia Institute Press, 1993), pt. 3, chap. 20 ("The sapping of truth"), p. 177.  That paragraph, the one that opens chap. 20, is merely transitional, however:

     Yet there is a tendency that is more refined than subordination of truth to the fashions of our time.  This is the attempt to interpret the notion of truth in a way that saps its very content.  This error is presented in an orthodox and religious guise and so is more dangerous to faith.  We are referring to the distinction, gaining popularity, between 'Greek' and 'biblical' notions of truth.

Etc.  My thanks to Kendall Harmon for putting me onto this passage.

"No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library."

     "No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library.  Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, California are great citadels of truth and freedom, where books and people and ideas are nobly joined.  When this is no longer true, then will our civilization have come to an end."

     Lawrence Clark Powell, "The heart of a university:  its library:  'A sacred place where the world's ideas are concentrated,'" University bulletin:  a weekly bulletin for the staff of the University of California 5, no. 26 (February 11, 1947), 127 (126-127).

"God does not allow his servants to embrace his prohibition against murder while rejecting his teaching about adultery or fornication."

"Jesus’ point in [Matthew] 5:19 is the same as that of other Bible teachers in his day:  one cannot pick and choose among the commandments but must obey them all.  As some teachers put it, one should be as 'careful with regard to a light commandment as . . . with a heavy one. . . .' . . . God does not allow his servants to embrace his prohibition against murder while rejecting his teaching about adultery or fornication."

     Craig S. Keener, A commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 1999), 179.  Or anything lighter, for example "the 'least' commandment about the bird's nest (Dt 22:6-7)"?

Nicely put

"we do indeed understand ourselves as a Christian community. Our statement of Core Values refers to Regent College as at its heart 'a community of Christian scholars,' aiming 'not simply to be informed by study but also to be transformed by the Holy Spirit through study, to the end that we might become more Christ-like and therefore more fully human.' Into this continuing community we welcome our students, who are sojourners within it. They are invited to join us for a time in the hope that our curriculum 'will establish them in the evangelical tradition' and 'deepen their faith and theological understanding.'"

     Regent College, Vancouver, "Moral vision" 2, under "Theological position" (underscoring and italics mine), accessed 13 February 2020.