A friend of mine once told me that books are my love language. If you spend five minutes talking to me, I’ll probably recommend five books to you.
My central questions:
1.) What are people for?
When we talk about anything related to what is good for humanity, such as health, prosperity, justice, love, respect, etc., there are always assumptions about what it means to be human underneath any views that we support or disagree with.
a. Getting around the maze:
i) Asking the question: “What is the understanding of the human behind this argument?” is a great way to begin to understand your own worldview and the worldviews of other people. One of my mentors, Dr. C. John Sommerville, introduced me to this question and I haven’t stopped asking it since.
ii)Researching the history of our “human terms.” “Mind”,”Soul”, “Body”, ‘Emotions”… we can’t think without these terms, but they become the boxes that we can’t think outside of. There’s a wealth of different ways of understanding what it means to be human, and the “human terms” are not always interchangeable. “Emotions” don’t mean the same thing as “affections” or “passions”, and a “mind” is not a “soul.”
b. Favorite guides: Charles Taylor, C. John Sommerville, Richard Lentz, Colin Gunton, Thomas Dixon, Stanley Grenz.
2.) How do we know things?
What is knowledge? Reason? Faith? Doubt? How are these terms related? How does our understanding of these terms shape how we interpret the world around us? What can we know? What are the limits of human knowledge?
a. Favorite guides: Michael Polanyi, Esther L. Meek, George MacDonald, St. Augustine of Hippo, Lesslie Newbigin, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Marjorie Grene.
