Page 12 - Through New Eyes

4 THROUGH NEW EYES
large, multi-dimensional context that includes spirit, revelation,
prophecy, and the Sacred as modes of meaning and knowing.
For example, events of the past can be seen to have symbolic
meaning that may instruct, warn, or nurture the present life.
In the teaching of the Fathers this is called ~Po/ogY: past events
serving as types or models of present or future reality. Symbol-
ism, not science, is the true universal language.
The God-centered principles contained in the Bible give us
the vision to correct the one-dimensional, earth-bound, man-
centered meaning that the secular world-view puts on the
facts. . . . 1

Correcting the secular worldview brings us to the purpose of
this book. Our purpose is not to deal with modern social prob-
lems, important as they are. Nor is our purpose to try and set
out a Christian philosophical worldview, as much as we need to
keep working in that area. Rather, ourpur-ose is to get into the Bible
and become as familiar as possible with the Biblet own worlduiew, lan-
guage, and thoughtforms. Our purpose is to learn to think the way
people thought in Bible times, so that we see the world through
new eyes — through Bible eyes.
Thus, my job in this book is to try to familiarize you with
this archaic worldview as much as I can, and then show you the
benefits of learning to think God’s thoughts after Him – because
there are real benefits to looking at the world through Bible eyes.
There are two ways we can proceed. One is to take each Bib-
lical symbol or pattern and discuss all the possible interpreta-
tions of it, debating various points among ourselves, and inching
toward a consensus. If this book had been written that way, it
would be thirty thousand pages long, with five million reference
notes. The other way to proceed is for me simply to lay it all out,
as I see it, without arguing in depth for every single point along the
way. In this way, the overall system I am setting out will speak
for itself, even if some of the individual points are debatable.
That, obviously, is what I have chosen to do. After the first
three chapters, which are introductory, we shall look in Chapters
4 through 9 at the fundamental furniture of the world: rocks,
stars, plants, animals, men, angels. In order for us to get famil-
iar with these things, I’ll be giving lots of illustrations from the