What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 4

What Christians Believe? Peter Kreeft - 4
cinops be gone Monday, April 21, 2008
Let us jump to side 2 of this classic tape of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity.
Here are the words of Peter Kreeft: “Dying without Christ; that is not going to do it: Only Christ on the cross is going to do it.
Finally be an amateur not a professional. A professional is a prostitute…. I sell wisdom for a fee. Boston College is my (panderer). Socrates would say that. But I philosophy even if I weren’t paid for it. Now, I don’t believe there is going to economists or money in heaven, I think there is going to be philosophers in heaven so that is why I am a philosopher.

I am a conservative. I like job security even after death. So be a lover, be an amateur, and don’t be a scholar of love. I had a friend believe it or not. This sounds like a joke. This is a true story.

I had a friend who is a philosopher. He got a PH.D and didn’t take a teaching job. He wrote to me a few years later from the University of Toronto, I believe getting another PH.D in Psychology. I said why did you get a PH.D in Psychology? Well, I discovered the works of Freud. I thought that sex was important, so I should study more about it. I thought that was kind of funny.

He reminded a little bit of the bishop in chapter 6 of the Great Divorce or like the theologian in the famous story, who died and God gave him the choice of going to heaven or going to a theology lecture on heaven and of course, he chose the lecture.
Or like the Pharisees in the New Testament who Jesus said you search the Scriptures because you believe that in them you have eternal life and yet I am the life and I stand before you and you don’t come to me.
I am Juliet and you’re Romeo. You’ve got your nose in the picture of Juliet and Juliet is knocking at the door and says come to me Romeo. And you say I am too busy looking at the picture of my beloved.

Jesus says I am the truth: The three most important cultures in the ancient world were Greek, Roman and Jewish. The three that have lasted have three different words for truth.
The Greek word Alethea means not forgetfulness or remembering. It’s an intellectual word. The Roman Latin word for truth, Veritas is a practical moral word. It means rightness in thought. The Hebrew word Emet is a personal quality, a person is true, truth for himself, has integrity, and keeps his promises. It’s a quality of God.
Knowing the truth alethea is necessary but not sufficient. It would be sufficient if the truth were an idea, as Plato thought, even living the truth; doing the truth though necessary even more necessary is also insufficient. It would be sufficient if the truth were a value or a law or a good that’s abstract.
Truth is a person. So we must be that person. The Lord said I am the truth. So the meaning of life is to become little Christs and that’s the point of the final chapter of this section of Mere Christianity incorporation into Christ. It is like eating. In the Eucharist, we are assimilated into Christ and all of life is a Eucharist. And now you have paid your dues and you get to ask questions.”
George H .Kubeck, Duplicate and or translate in Spanish or Vietnamese.