“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
~ Galatians 2:20
“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
~ 1 John 1:3
Friedrich Nietzsche is one of my favorite philosophers. No, I do not agree with his worldview, but even unsaved pagans can be prophetic! In particular, I really appreciate that he called the hand of the naturalists.
Neitzsche correctly argued that if life is a struggle for existence in which the fittest survive, then strength is the ultimate virtue. This is absolutely true, but naturalists, who naturally embraced social Darwinism and evolutionary theory, preferred to think of themselves as “ammoral.” Jack London, Stephen Crane, and Edward A. Robinson, among other naturalists, with almost religious fervor created literary figures and promoted literary themes, that purported to be morally neutral. After all, Buck, in Call of the Wild merely responded to the forces of nature, “the call of the wild.”
Buck though was really virtuous! He was loyal, kind — more human than the humans! He was also the strongest dog in the pack. To call “strength” a virtue truly was too radical to the naturalists/evolutionists.
No, Nietzsche argued, there is a need to turn away from orthodox virtue altogether. The superman is someone who in discovering himself also discovers that it is in his best interests to reject any outside notions about values, trusting rather what he finds within himself. He creates his own good and evil, based on that which helps him to succeed or fail. In this way, good is something which helps one to realize his or her potential, and evil is whatever hampers or stands in the way of this effort. Since to Nietzsche everything in the world, including good and evil, is mutable, everything is being continually reinvented. The superman embraces this idea of change and he understands that since there is nothing in the world which is permanent, whatever exists must eventually be overcome by something else which comes along. In that sense, to Nietzsche, the naturalists got it right.
Seeing himself and his values in the same light, he knows that these aspects must also be overcome by something stronger. The superman therefore is the ideal of someone who has mastered the practice of overcoming himself.
The source of his strength lies in the cherishing of the same natural desires restricted in Christianity. Selfishness is healthy. He sees these insatiable desires as the best of all possible good since they act as the driving force behind his need to overcome.
The Christians, to Nietzsche, are just wrong; the naturalists are wrong and hypocrites.
Neitzsche was right about naturalism. For the first time, virtue is not connected to knowledge (Plato). Good is what survives, which wins; bad is what gives way and falls. The naturalists were brave enough to reject religion, Nietzsche said, but too cowardly to reject Christian morality. They replaced Judeo-Christian morality with a sort of humanist morality. Henry Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage shows virtue and courage by charging the enemy position. Wrought with irony, the “red badge of courage” was really Fleming’s realization that the world was controlled by an impersonal, bordering on malevolent, deity.
But Nietzsche correctly pointed out that one can’t have it both ways. One can’t replace one religion — Christianity — with another one — naturalism/evolution — without creating an intolerable anachronism. If one does that sort of thing, one creates a sort of metaphysical critical mass that could very well blow up in one’s face!
Nietzsche warned us that with the collapse of religion, that is Christianity, and the rise of nascent unsatisfactory naturalism, Hegelian (based on the struggle) totalitarianism was inevitable. We see in the life of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler the dark fulfillment of that prophecy.
The good news, however, is that there is strength in weakness, in Christ. We are crucified with Christ nonetheless we live (Gal. 2:20). Nietzsche got it right with naturalism — it is a paradox, a contradictory worldview. But he got it wrong with Christianity, too — it was not a faith for weak people. Christianity is not an excuse to be powerless but an excuse to be redeemed. Within that theological concept — something that cannot be duplicated philosophically — the believer is more fulfilled that Nietzsche tauted superman.
Redundancy: Wordiness
In the following examples, place the word or words in parentheses that are uncalled for and that should be omitted:
- Fill the glass full.
- They appeared to be talking together on private affairs.
- I saw the boy and his sister both in the garden.
- He went into the country last week and returned back yesterday.
- The subject matter of his discourse was excellent.
- You need not wonder that the subject matter of his discourse was excellent; it was taken from the Bible.
- They followed after him, but could not overtake him.
- The same sentiments may be found throughout the whole of the book.
- I was very ill every day of my life last week.
- That was the sum and substance of his discourse.1
(Joseph Devlin, How to Speak and Write Correctly)
Test-Taking
Reading Test
One can argue, correctly, that the entire ACT is a reading test! In fact, as it is true with the SAT, so it is true with the ACT: reading good books is the single best preparation for the ACT. The reading section of the ACT will include four passages, and after each passage you will answer several questions. The passages will be fiction and non-fiction. You have 35 minutes to finish.
Spend about six minutes reading a each passage. This should leave you about two or three minutes to answer the question on each passage. If you are prepared, you should be able to identify the questions as you read the passage. In any event, do not waste time looking at the questions before you read the passage.
How you read the passage is the key to doing well on this test. The questions will not be hard to answer if you have read the passages well.
To review, you are not reading the passage if you are not marking it up. First read a passage very quickly. Understand the general context of the passage. Then read the passage for more in-depth comprehension. Pay particular attention to the topic sentences of paragraphs and the thesis of the essay. Focus on the introduction and conclusion. What is the argument? How is it developed?
Whatever you do, don’t be thinking about the questions as you are reading. Concentrate on the passage you are reading. I repeat: you should be spending most of your time reading and not answering questions.
Drawing Conclusions
Based upon this treatment for diphtheria, what assumptions can be made about this disease?
PERSONAL AND BEDSIDE HYGIENE.
1. (a) All discharges from the nose and mouth should be gathered in soft, clean cloths or rags or papers and destroyed by burning. (b) The patient should cover the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, for a cough or sneeze will throw droplets of mucus to a distance of 10 or 12 feet.
2. The attendant should wear a washable gown that completely covers her clothing. It should be put on when entering the room of the patient and taken off immediately on leaving it.
3. A basin of water, together with a cake of castile soap (or where possible an antiseptic solution), should be placed in a convenient place, so that the doctor and nurse attending the patient may wash their hands whenever leaving the room, and even before touching the door handle.
4. All eating utensils that the patient uses should be washed in boiling hot water separately from other dishes and used exclusively by the patient.
5. All bedclothes and bedding should be boiled in soap and water, or they should be exposed to the sunshine. Direct sunshine kills disease germs.
6. The person attending the patient should wear a double layer of gauze or other soft thin cloth across the mouth and nose as a face mask whenever near the patient so as to prevent the droplets containing the germs coming from the patient’s mouth from entering and lodging on the lining of the mouth or throat of the attendant. Always remember that even though you may not get the disease, if the germs lodge in your throat they may grow there and you may carry the disease to another person who may catch it.
7. There should be but one attendant wherever possible.
8. No visitors should be permitted in the sick room — not even during convalescence.
9. The one who attends the sick should not prepare or handle the food of others. Sometimes it is impossible to take this precaution, as very often it is the mother who must take care of the patient, cook, and do all the housework. In such cases the one attending the sick must never neglect whenever near the patient:
- To wear a face mask.
- To wear a washable gown (which is to be taken off on leaving the room).
- To wash her hands when leaving the sick room.
Every attendant on the sick should know how disease germs are carried from the sick to the well. This knowledge should make her more careful, and thus help to prevent the spread of the disease.2
- Diptheria is a highly contagious disease.
- Diptheria is an airborne disease.
- Diptheria is spread through bodily fluids.
- It is easier to prevent diptheria than to cure it.
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- I and II
- I, II, and III
- None
- All
Details
“My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me” (Ps. 63:8).
Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this — that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.
Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.
We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. “No man can come to me,” said our Lord, “except the Father which hath sent me draw him,” and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”
In this divine “upholding” and human “following” there is no contradiction. All is of God, for as von Hügel teaches, God is always previous. In practice, however, (that is, where God’s previous working meets man’s present response) man must pursue God. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine. In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it.
The doctrine of justification by faith — a biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort — has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.
The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.
All social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality, grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.
This intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is personal: that is, it does not come through the body of believers, as such, but is known to the individual, and to the body through the individuals which compose it. And it is conscious: that is, it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul (as, for instance, infant baptism is thought by some to do), but comes within the field of awareness where the man can “know” it as he knows any other fact of experience.
You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end.3 (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God)
A title for this passage would be:
- Justification by Faith
- Following Hard After God
- Obeying Scripture
- Walking the Talk
The phrase “you and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large” means:
- We are made in the image of God but we are not as powerful.
- We are separated from God by sins.
- God is a mystery, unable to be comprehended.
- None of these
The theme of this essay is summarized by which quote:
- God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks.
- No man has yet discovered the complete infinite riches of God.
- God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten Son.
- None of these
Prevenient grace means:
- God’s providence protects the believer.
- God’s mercy creates painful knowledge.
- Before man can see God, he first must be sought by God.
- None of these
Miscellaneous Examples for Correction
- Can you imagine Indians or a semi-civilized people engaged on a work like the canal connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas?
- In the friction between an employer and workman, it is commonly said that his profits are high.
- None of them are in any wise willing to give his life for the life of his chief.
- Art is neither to be achieved by effort of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking.
“Like” is a preposition, introducing a prepositional phrase. In informal English, “like” is often used as a conjunction; but in formal English (as you will be writing!) “as” is always preferable.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”4
A.W. Tozer
The Pursuit of God5
A.W. Tozer
A.W. Tozer remains one of the most popular and important Christian teachers of this and the last century. His unabashed call to intimacy with God is peculiar to most Protestant teachers. This a remarkable book that will no doubt change your life!
Suggested Vocabulary Words
- Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply “things.” They were made for man’s uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
- Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.
- This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets “things” with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns “my” and “mine” look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant.
Rate Word Problems
1. If x represent the number of miles a man can row in an hour in still water, how far can the man row in 5 hours down a stream which flows y miles an hour? How far up the same stream in 4 hours?
2. A can reap a field in 7 hours, and B can reap the same field in 5 hours. How much of the field can they do in one hour, working together?
3. A tank can be filled by two pipes in a hours and b hours respectively. What part of the tank will be filled by both pipes running together for one hour?
Go to Answers Sheet