I recently came across a fabulous website by ex-atheist A.S.A. Jones, now a born-again Christian, who has written at length about her conversion and the logical case for Christ.
In an article entitled “Learning To Think Spiritually,” she showed a stereogram, a piece of abstract art that looks like a bunch of squiggly designs in brown, white, gray and black. But there’s more here than meets the untrained eye, she pointed out: A 3D galloping horse is actually embedded in the image.
This horse remains invisible, however, to anyone who focuses his vision on the readily apparent plane of the picture, or looks at it with only one eye. It can only be seen by those focusing both eyes on a plane behind this image, she explained.
There is a lesson to be learned here.
“Like many others,” she wrote, referring to her atheist days when she read the Bible only to tear it down, “I saw the gospel as a bunch of scribbles; I thought it was just a bunch of nonsense until my focus changed.”
Describing the Bible as a spiritual stereogram, Jones wrote, “You need two aspects of the intellect to see the reality of God in its pages; you need to utilize both the logical and spiritual (or poetic) component of your thinking to see Him. If you use only one in the absence of the other, you will lose the effect. It's like covering one eye.”
Jones pointed out that depth is key to seeing the truth in the Bible just as it is in stereograms. “I think the reason a lot of people aren't seeing its truth today,” she said, “is that we have become a nation of shallow thinkers.”
I think A.S.A. Jones is brilliant. And I think she has it exactly right.
--From Heaven Without Her (Thomas Nelson, 2008), pp 159-160. A. S. A. Jones article is available at http://archive.is/Hayc2.
In an article entitled “Learning To Think Spiritually,” she showed a stereogram, a piece of abstract art that looks like a bunch of squiggly designs in brown, white, gray and black. But there’s more here than meets the untrained eye, she pointed out: A 3D galloping horse is actually embedded in the image.
This horse remains invisible, however, to anyone who focuses his vision on the readily apparent plane of the picture, or looks at it with only one eye. It can only be seen by those focusing both eyes on a plane behind this image, she explained.
There is a lesson to be learned here.
“Like many others,” she wrote, referring to her atheist days when she read the Bible only to tear it down, “I saw the gospel as a bunch of scribbles; I thought it was just a bunch of nonsense until my focus changed.”
Describing the Bible as a spiritual stereogram, Jones wrote, “You need two aspects of the intellect to see the reality of God in its pages; you need to utilize both the logical and spiritual (or poetic) component of your thinking to see Him. If you use only one in the absence of the other, you will lose the effect. It's like covering one eye.”
Jones pointed out that depth is key to seeing the truth in the Bible just as it is in stereograms. “I think the reason a lot of people aren't seeing its truth today,” she said, “is that we have become a nation of shallow thinkers.”
I think A.S.A. Jones is brilliant. And I think she has it exactly right.
--From Heaven Without Her (Thomas Nelson, 2008), pp 159-160. A. S. A. Jones article is available at http://archive.is/Hayc2.
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