Cross Reference
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The late A. W. Tozer wrote:
“Wherever men think and try to express their thoughts two types of mind are clearly revealed, the scientific and the poetic. I mean not that all men are either poets or scientists; I mean rather that the cast of mind that makes a poet is marked in some men while others have a bent distinctly scientific. The one may never write poetry nor the other engage in scientific pursuits; but the bent is there.
The scientist is concerned with differences, the poet with likenesses. The poet may see the world in a grain of sand; the scientist is more concerned with the number and composition of the grains of sand in the world. I believe not only that this difference is among men, but within each man. In every one of us there is somewhat of both scientist and poet until one gains the ascendancy and crowds the other out. Then we have a man bent only on analysis or a man incapable of analysis, a man altogether scientist or altogether poet—that is, only half a man.
Unfortunately this controversy between the poet and the scientist among men and within each man is found also in the field of religion. The Church of Christ has not escaped the conflict but has been pulled and torn by the play of these contrary forces. Strong leaders have risen to stamp their images upon whole denominations for centuries, and the body of believers has divided where the leaders differed. In one group certain truths have been ignored or suppressed to make greater room for other truths that were felt to be more important; in another the same thing has taken place with an opposite set of truths, and serious cleavage has been the result.
Those who insist upon seeing the world in a grain of sand have their slavish, unthinking followers, and those who go doggedly about the task of counting the grains of sand in the world have theirs. The moral texture and spiritual complexion of the two groups are so completely different from each other than an uninformed but intelligent person who might chance to spend some time with each group could be forgiven for concluding that they drew their beliefs from different Bibles or perhaps even worshiped different gods.”
“Wherever men think and try to express their thoughts two types of mind are clearly revealed, the scientific and the poetic. I mean not that all men are either poets or scientists; I mean rather that the cast of mind that makes a poet is marked in some men while others have a bent distinctly scientific. The one may never write poetry nor the other engage in scientific pursuits; but the bent is there.
The scientist is concerned with differences, the poet with likenesses. The poet may see the world in a grain of sand; the scientist is more concerned with the number and composition of the grains of sand in the world. I believe not only that this difference is among men, but within each man. In every one of us there is somewhat of both scientist and poet until one gains the ascendancy and crowds the other out. Then we have a man bent only on analysis or a man incapable of analysis, a man altogether scientist or altogether poet—that is, only half a man.
Unfortunately this controversy between the poet and the scientist among men and within each man is found also in the field of religion. The Church of Christ has not escaped the conflict but has been pulled and torn by the play of these contrary forces. Strong leaders have risen to stamp their images upon whole denominations for centuries, and the body of believers has divided where the leaders differed. In one group certain truths have been ignored or suppressed to make greater room for other truths that were felt to be more important; in another the same thing has taken place with an opposite set of truths, and serious cleavage has been the result.
Those who insist upon seeing the world in a grain of sand have their slavish, unthinking followers, and those who go doggedly about the task of counting the grains of sand in the world have theirs. The moral texture and spiritual complexion of the two groups are so completely different from each other than an uninformed but intelligent person who might chance to spend some time with each group could be forgiven for concluding that they drew their beliefs from different Bibles or perhaps even worshiped different gods.”
