Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith; they keep faith alive and moving.
~ Frederick Buechner
We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit.
~ Pascal
There is a never-known second at which the last link in the chain begins to collapse, at which the tenacity of resistance of the metal begins to wobble around. There is a split second that lifts the gull. A single second when unawareness loses its grip. A single second when faith becomes stronger than fear.
~ Marguerite Reiss
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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If every person in the world had adequate food, housing, income; if all men were equal and every possible social evil and injustice were done away with, men would still need one thing: Jesus Christ!
~ J. W. Hyde
Reason is a light that God has kindled in the soul.
~ Aristotle
No one indeed believes anything unless he has first thought that it it to be believed.
~ Augustine of Hippo
Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith; they keep faith alive and moving.
~ Frederick Buechner
A comprehended God is no God.
~ Dio Chrysostom
If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.
~ Denis Diderot, in A Philosophical Conversation
Reason is our Soules left hand, Faith is her right, …
~ John Donne
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this because hey manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions; the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.
~ Steve Eley
The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith.
~ T.S. Eliot, in his Introduction to Pascal’s Pensees
I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.
~ Galileo Galilei
Proof is only applicable to very rarefied areas of philosophy and mathematics…. For the most part we are driven to acting on good evidence, without the luxury of proof. There is good evidence of the link between cause and effect. There is good evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow. There is good reason to believe my mother loves me and is not just fattening me up for the moment when she will pop arsenic into my tea. And there is good reason to believe in God. Very good reason. Not conclusive proof, but very good reason just the same…. I believe it is much harder to reject the existence of a supreme being than accept it.
~ Michael Green, in Faith for the Non-religious
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
~ Ralph Hodgson
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
~ David Hume, in An Enquiry Concerning Human Concerning Human Understanding
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
~ Robert Jastrow, in God and the Astronomer
The more we know of God, the more unreservedly we will trust Him; the greater our progress in theology, the simpler and more childlike will be our faith.
~ J. Gresham Machen
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration—courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.
~ H. L. Menken
The faith that does not come from reason is to be doubted, and the reason that does not lead to faith is to be feared,
~ G. Campbell Morgan
Faith is reason at rest in God.
~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon
God cannot be understood by logical reasoning but only by submission.
~ Leo Tolstoy, in Wise Thoughts for Every Day
It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is a necessary to reason, as reason is to religion.
~ George Washington
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Books on Faith & Reason
Faith is the Christian’s foundation, hope is his anchor, death is his harbor, Christ is his pilot and Heaven is his country.
~ Jeremy Taylor
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
~ Indian proverb
If it is true that you know how to describe faith, it only proves that you are a poet, and if you can do it well, it proves that you are a good poet; but this is far from proving that you are a believer. Perhaps you can also weep in describing faith, that would prove then that you are a good actor.
~ Soren Kierkegaard, in For Self-Examination
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He who is not alone with God’s word is not reading God’s word.
~ in For Self-Examination
If it is true that you know how to describe faith, it only proves that you are a poet, and if you can do it well, it proves that you are a good poet; but this is far from proving that you are a believer. Perhaps you can also weep in describing faith, that would prove then that you are a good actor.
~ in For Self-Examination
It is my joy that the female sex, far from being more imperfect than man, is on the contrary the most perfect.
~ in Stages on Life’s Way
Longbridge gets its name from its length, for as a bridge it is long, though as a road the length of the bridge is not very considerable, of which one can convince oneself by crossing it.
~ Quidam, in Soren Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way
A poet is an unhappy creature whose heart is tortured by deepest suffering but whose lips are so formed that when his sighs and cries stream out over them, their sound beomes like the sound of beautiful music . . . . And men flock about the poet saying, “Sing for us soon again; that is to say, may new sufferings torture your soul, and may your lips continue to be formed as before.
~ quoted by Madeleine L’Engle, in A Circle of Quiet
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Literary Influence on Soren Kierkegaard
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Soren Kierkegaard, & C.S. Lewis
What factors have most influenced your current beliefs about God?
(Share your answers in the comments below.)
Can anyone know for sure that his or her religion is right? Why or why not?
(Share your answers in the comments below.)
What is one thing you no longer believe about God that you believed when you were younger? What changed your mind?
Share your answers in the comments below.
Last week I asked for your thoughts on faith. This week I have a related question for you. Should faith in God be “blind” or should it require evidence?
Share your answers in the comments below.
Faith may be one of most misunderstood words in the English lexicon. It is used in so many, many different ways. How would you define faith?
Share your answers in the comments below.
