“To apply general tools to specific problems is to fail.”

“Some people today are wandering generalities instead of meaningful specifics because they have failed to discover and mine the wealth of potentials in them.”

“By standard intelligence texts, the dogs have failed at the puzzle. I believe, by contrast that they have succeeded magnificently. They have applied a novel tool to the task. We are that tool. Dogs have learned this--and they see us as fine general-purpose tools, too: useful for protection, acquiring food, providing companionship. We solve the puzzles of closed doors and empty water dishes. In the folk psychology of dogs, we humans are brilliant enough to extract hopelessly tangled leashes from around trees; we can conjure up an endless bounty of foodstuffs and things to chew. How savvy we are in dogs' eyes! It's a clever strategy to turn to us after all. The question of the cognitive abilities of dogs is thereby transformed; dogs are terrific at using humans to solve problems, but not as good at solving problems when we're not around.”

“If Christians do not develop their own tools of analysis , then when issues come up that they want to understand, they'll reach over and borrow someone else's tools- whatever concepts are generally accepted in their general field or in the culture at large. But when they do that, Os Guiness writes, they don't realize that "They are borrowing not an isolated tool, but a whole philosophical toolbox laden with tools which have their own particular bias to every problem." They may even end up absorbing an entire set of alien principles without even realizing it. In other words, not only do we fail to be salt and light to a lost culture, but we ourselves may end up being shaped by our culture.”

“Because a doubt is not a denial. Doubt is a powerful tool, and it should be applied to history.”

“This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance.”