I think the value of the future tense (i.e., thinking about the future) is derived only from its impact on my present tense activity. I think that thinking about the future in a negative way impairs the present tense. As an example, consider the negative aspects of anxiety (though there can be positive aspects as well). The same can be said of the past. It can empower the present tense, or it can impair my activities in the present tense. My past failures, my past patterns, can keep me from actualizing my present-tense potential.
With this preliminary conceptual framework, I’m able to reflect on the importance of doctrine. Doctrine may not exist in the past or the present; it may exist in what I will call the ethereal dimension (i.e., the abstract). Until I bring doctrine from the abstract into the present, it is of little value. Doctrine must be actualized. The truth is more than an object of argument; it is meant to be lived, not proven. Proving is a means, not an end.
