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Bible Verses Banned 
By Bible Believing Believers

I just read this very enlightening and short article. - Thought you'd appreciate it.

As I'm in discussion with several friends about the issue of whether the Bible teaches that God will supernaturally keep people alive so they can be tormented forever (which is a hideous thought) OR does the Bible teach Jesus really did come to save the world in which all are redeemed by His endless mercy (which is a beautiful thought) - this "thought experiment" proposed by Fyodor Dostoevsky is helpful and revealing.

 

 

 

 

Would You Choose Christ

Over the Truth?

(from CWR Magazine - Author is Brian Zahnd)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, 

then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dostoevsky said that if he were forced to choose, he would choose Christ over the truth.

 

That is a very bold and provocative claim.

Yes, I know, we don’t have to choose. I get that. But for a moment entertain the matter as Dostoevsky intends it—as a kind of thought experiment. 

If it were conclusively proven that the central claims regarding Jesus Christ were outside of the truth, what would you do? Would you continue to worship and follow Jesus Christ or not? 

 

How we answer the question reveals something about us.

 

If push comes to shove I agree with Dostoevsky. I would choose Christ over truth. But this is a claim I make only of Jesus Christ. Which is significant.

 

I would not make this claim for anything else. Truth trumps everything...except the beauty of Christ.

 

Let me put it this way: I do not want to live in a world where the beauty of Christ is untrue. No matter what. (Remember this is a thought experiment.) For me, Christ is so beautiful, he must be true. And I would reject a world where such beauty is untrue. Which leads me to what I’m trying to say.

 

Beauty is a reliable guide to life.

To choose the beautiful is a consistently wise choice.

 

You may say, “Why not choose the true?” 

 

I’m all for it, but this will often be a matter of dispute. (Politics anyone?) It seems to me that we have a better instinct for beauty than truth.

 

If the subject is Christ and Christianity, beauty is as reliable a guide as anything else.

 

Of course, I agree that we have the three prime virtues of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and we must consult all three. Yes.

 

But in reality we often fail to consult beauty at all. In our empiricist age, beauty ends up being demoted to mere adornment and is no longer regarded as a wise guide.

 

We ask if it’s true, and that’s the end of the discussion.

 

We tell ourselves that if a thing is true (i.e. we think it’s true), that’s the end of the matter. But this may only lead us to an ugliness we tolerate because it is “true.”

 

Too much harm has been done in the name of an ugly “truth.” You can burn heretics in the name of truth, but never in the name of beauty. You can wage a crusade in the name of truth, but never in the name of beauty. You can bomb a city to oblivion in the name of truth (or freedom or liberty or justice), but never in the name of beauty. You can hate in the name of truth, but never in the name of beauty.

 

I will reject a doctrine if it is ugly.

Just as I will eternally cling to Christ based on his beauty alone.

 

Jesus is beautiful. His life is beautiful. His teaching is beautiful. His death and resurrection are beautiful. His gospel is beautiful. His kingdom is beautiful. 

 

If some ology or ism claiming to be Christian is patently ugly, then I am immediately dubious.

 

Christ is so glorious that His transcendent beauty is sufficient to be my constant, my ground, my fixed point for all other realities.

 

I believe in truth and Christian apologetics. I believe in goodness and Christian ethics. But as an aesthete at heart, I believe first of all in beauty and Christian aesthetics.

 

For me, I start with the beauty of Christ and then

find my way into the truth of Christ.

 

It may have been the same for John the Beloved who said, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory [beauty], glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, my emphasis).

 

So I’m sympathetic with Dostoevsky when he says he would choose to remain with Christ even if to do so were to be outside the truth. 

 

Brian Zahnd - Summer 2015 Article in CWR Magazine (www.PTM.org)