The Jolly Blogger reviews J.P. Moreland’s The Kingdom Triangle, which he calls well worth reading. The triangle consists of “the recovery of the life of the Christian mind, the renovation of the soul and the restoration of the spirit’s power.” Here’s an excerpt:
Side two of the kingdom triangle is the renovation of the soul and I think Moreland offers one of the best and most incisive diagnoses of the illness that plagues our souls that I have seen anywhere. He describes this as the empty self, or the false self, and it has four characteristics.
- The empty self is inordinately individualistic.
- The empty self is infantile.
- The empty self is narcissistic.
- The empty self is passive.
He goes on to describe the antidote as a recovery of the art of Christian self-denial. This dovetails nicely with John Calvin’s contention that the summary of the Christian life is to be found in self denial.
So I am enthusiastic about Moreland’s diagnosis, but I diverge from him on the cure. Basically the cure for the empty self, and the practice of the renovation of the soul, is to be found in what I would call the practices of the Christian mystics, with an emphasis on the cultivation of the inner life.