Quotes about Belief

If people take seriously doctrines such as the divinity of Christ, it is not primarily because they can treat them as if they were tidy conclusions to an argument, deductions from readily available evidence, but because — however obscurely they are grasped, however challenging the detail — they see that the language of doctrine holds together a set of intractably complex questions in a way that offers a coherent context for human living.

The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.

Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief, but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief that sustains thought and holds the world together.

And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

Now, with God's help, I shall become myself.

to have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God.

For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.

It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke.

Faith is the highest passion in a man.

Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that in which all human life is united is passion, and faith is a passion.

To have distinctiveness is to believe in the distinctiveness of everyone else, because distinctiveness is not mine but is God's gift by which he gives being to me, and he indeed gives to all, gives being to all. (p. 271)