Sunday, January 09, 2005

"People are not Victims". So began a talk by Steve Covey Friday morning at an event sponsored the Dade County Bar Association. He went on to say that that "there is the power of choice in every individual."

This took me back to our blog-conversation on "open theology" and the relationship between the question of our choice and God's sovereignty. Covey described a number of principles he identified as "universal, timeless, self-evident", and he said that in every one of the world's "great religions", those principles appear.

He implied that anyone could choose to adopt those principles, and he said that he has seen people from all over the world follow the urgings of their consciences, and make the choice to adopt and apply those principles, seeing their lives improve as a result.

He identified conscience as the key element in making good choices. Although he did not ascribe the promptings of conscience to God or make any other overtly religous references during a nearly 100 minute talk (a talk that had the rapt attention of everyone), at the very end he said that that he believes that conscience and the universal principles are from God, a God to whom he simply and briefly pointed but did not much describe, a God whom we would find, however, familiar. Is Covey, who is a Mormon, a free-will advocate or a determinist, an Arminian or a Calvinist? Does it matter?

I can't do the talk justice. (In fact, it was much less a speech than a conversation.) But there are some additional points that I wrote down that I found particularly interesting, and I will make them the subject of further posts. Meanwhile, I am going to go back and read his book,
the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
.

He has just published a new book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, which each of us who attended the event will receive next week.

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