Word: westerhoff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Along with the debate over their form comes the tricky question of why some people can "see" angels while others cannot. "Angels exist through the eyes of faith, and faith is perception," observes Westerhoff. "Only if you can perceive it can you experience it. For some, their faith doesn't have room for such creatures. That's not to demean their faith. That's just the way they are; they can't believe things that aren't literal, that are outside the five senses...
...gods, and they are not ghosts or spirits of the dead. They do not spend time "trying to earn their wings," like the sweetly ministering Clarence of It's a Wonderful Life. "I know of no place in classical theology where humans become angels," notes the Rev. John Westerhoff, a pastoral theologian at Duke University's Divinity School. "Angels were created separately and were given free will, just as humans were. That's why there were fallen angels, like Satan. Their fallenness had to do with a denial and distortion of angelic life just as our fallenness...