Being Versus Doing Part Deuce

Before reading this post, it's important that you read Being Versus Doing Part Uno and read the first comment on that post by my buddy Jimmi.

Jimmi's an MDiv student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is an eclectic, good thinker. He also has great taste in music and film although in his latest post, he does compare Anne Lamott to Bruce Springsteen which is just insanity. Check out his blog here. And he makes a good point. To answer your question, Jimmi, allow me to not answer it at all, but instead to think of seminal virtues.

Without diving into endless conversations of predestination and free will, consider for a moment the virtues of love and faith. I deeply believe that both originate in the heart and character of God and are held to no "rankings" at all. In my mind and experience though, love precedes faith. To hold to McManus' language and form my own equations,
love = passions
faith = beliefs.

In the government of God, everything originates in love. God did not have to make humans and I believe that we are more than a random decision by a bored Higher Power. God made us to reflect Him in His image and the basis of that image-bearing is the ability to love. Adam and Eve loved God simply because He was God, not because they believed anything about Him. I don't know that I actually believe the statement I'm about to write, but here it is: Faith was not even a part of human existence, consciousness or essence until Genesis 3:15. My son doesn't believe that I'm his dad, I just am. Faith as a gift of God is a result of love as a gift of God. That statement I definitely agree with.

I think that what McManus is saying, and I would agree, is that passions are seminal. To answer another question posed, I do take McManus to mean that values and passions are synonomous. It is possible to be passionate about something without believing anything rational about it. I can be passionate about desiring an end to the war in Iraq without having a belief that war is inherently evil or understanding foreign policy or just war theory. My spirit just tells me that something is very wrong there.

I definitely believe that passion is compelled to stir some type of belief. Passion without belief is just a bunch of hot air. But passion is the starting point because love is the starting point in the rule of God.

Again, not sure I agree with anything I just wrote. I think I do though.