Definitions and the Utilitarian Mind | thebereancall.org

TBC Staff

Concerning utilitarianism [if it works, it’s okay], Pastor J. Gresham Machen wrote:

This temper of mind is hostile to precise definitions. Indeed nothing makes a man more unpopular in the controversies of the present day than an insistence upon definition of terms. . . . Men discourse very eloquently today upon such subjects as God, religion, Christianity, atonement, redemption, faith; but are greatly incensed when they are asked to tell in simple language what they mean by these terms.

— John Gresham Machen (1881–1937, pastor, New Testament scholar, and teacher).