Faith Quotes - Page 20

R. Alan Woods

The empiricist assumes without any evidence or proof that his experiences somehow give him a magical access to reality. So completely does he identify experience and reality that he cannot liberate himself from thinking of the two as one and the same. In equating experience and reality, he is making a huge and unwarranted leap. But this breakdown of reason is not easy for him or us to recognize because our human minds have a built-in disposition toward illusion – the illusion that reality must be exactly the way we experience it. The irony is that many of the people who proceed in this irrational way think of themselves as following strictly along the pathways of reason.

Dinesh D'Souza

The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason - but one cannot have both.

Robert A. Heinlein

God is The Reasonable One, therefore reason & faith are not antithetical" ~R. Alan Woods [2007]

R. Alan Woods

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.

G.K. Chesterton

When reason has followed its road to the end, the point of crisis is reached and man is brought to the great question mark over his own existence.

Rudolf Karl Bultmann

Reason is the presupposition of faith, and faith is the fulfillment of reason.

Paul Tillich

Being that 'reason is not antithetical to faith' (Woods) and that Pentecost established the Reality of super-nature (Lewis) and that 'theology matters' (Wimber), then 'empowered evangelicalism' (Nathan) is the natural expression of discipleship."~R. Alan Woods [2013]

R. Alan Woods

Should a priest reject relativity because it contains no authoritative exposition on the doctrine of the Trinity? Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes . . . The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses.

Georges Edouard Lemaître

Ah, a breath of fresh air: reasonable faith!!!"~R. Alan Woods [2013]

R. Alan Woods

If there's something you really want to believe, that's what you should question the most.

Penn Jillette

The idea persists that faith is a remnant of an ancient way of life, a way of knowing that asks for unthinking acceptance of a belief system or adherence to specific dogma. This may be the case for some spiritual traditions, but the Buddha insisted that his disciples investigate his teachings with the powers of reason, test them in the inner laboratory of meditation, and build their faith on a firm foundation of knowledge. As a result, faith in the Dharma implies faith in one's ability to recognize truth when it presents itself and to take responsibility for verifying it through analysis and meditative experience.

Dharma Publishing

Is it not lack of faith that leads men to fear the scrutiny of reason? If the destination is doubtful, than the path must be fraught with fear. A robust faith need not fear, for if God exists, then reason cannot help but lead us to Him. Cogito, ergo Deus est,'says St. Augustine, I think, therefore God is.

Donna Woolfolk Cross

For faith, properly understood, does not contradict reason in the least; indeed...it is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it.

Edward Feser

You're doing it again. Using reason to argue faith. Can't be done. Like playing croquet with a crochet hook. Sounds something like the right tool for the job, but isn't.

K.J. Bishop

Sometimes in storm weather the shore had fluttered with disabled swallows. They crouched lower for his approach, without strength to escape. In his hands they pulsed with that same pulse. He had taken a bird and warmed it between his hands or inside his jacket, brought the life back until it was able to fly. Sometimes, released from his hands, they circled once around him before flying away; in gratitude, or so the child had believed--and the belief had survived all the man's science.

Barry Unsworth

Shows itself in the notion that what may be objectively true may in the mouth of certain people become false.

Søren Kierkegaard

The reader of these reflections of mine on the Trinity should bear in mind that my pen is on the watch against the sophistries of those who scorn the starting-point of faith, and allow themselves to be deceived through an unseasonable and misguided love of reason.

Augustine of Hippo

I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand - through rational thought - that which cannot be understood at all. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground, unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a difference of our minds, dearest one. I wish to arrive on wings, while you advance steadily on foot, magnifying glass in hand. I am a smattering wanderer, seeking God within the outer contours, searching for a new way of knowing. You stand upon the ground, and consider the evidence inch by inch. Your way is more rational and more methodical, but I cannot change my way.

Elizabeth Gilbert

In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.

Francis A.Schaeffer

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein

People falling in love for one reason may fall out of love due to another reason. However, if faith or trust is the basis of love, it does not break easily. Often people use all their reasoning to understand each other and even live together for years to satisfy themselves that they are in love. However, marriages based on such logical love, the love based on reason, do not last long. Quite to the contrary, marriages where the partners do not even know each other, survive for life—being based on mutual trust and faith.

Awdhesh Singh

Modernity gone wrong has isolated humanity and made human reason autonomous of (and dismissive toward) revelation.

John Mark Reynolds

Jesus' willingness to accommodate Thomas' unbelief is a reminder that God can handle our doubt. And that the rationalist doesn't need to see, touch, or run a lab test in order to believe in the resurrected Christ. Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me” (Jn 20:29) This is not a plea to accept what goes against reason, but it is an invitation to discover a faith that goes beyond it. The example of Thomas is for the stubborn skeptic in us all.

David D. Flowers

While reason steers a man, it is faith alone that moves him

Agona Apell

In asking for a relic of Descartes, the chevalier de Terlon was standing at the crossroads of the ancient and modern. He was applying to a modern thinker - the inventor of analytic geometry, no less - a primitive tradition that extends back not only to the institutionalization of Christianity in the fourth century, when Christians first broke into the tombs of saints to gather relics, but farther still, beyond the horizon of recorded history. The request is all the stranger for the fact that the man whose remains were treated in this quasisaintlike way would go down in history as the progenitor of materialism, rationalism, and a whole tradition that looked on such veneration as nonsense.

Russell Shorto

Faith and reason are indeed complementary faculties that we use to think about the truth. When any winged creature (or mechanism) tries to fly on just one wing, it falls to the ground. In a similar way, when we human beings try to wing it with just one faculty, we crash.

Scott Hahn

Running in the relay of life sometimes makes me notice that faith takes over the baton when reason finished its part.

Hasse Jerner

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts — not only their own but their friends' and neighbors'. It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide the grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt.

Timothy J. Keller

Human reason reduced to its own resources is perfectly worthless, not only for creating but also for preserving any political or religious association, because it only produces disputes, and, to conduct himself well, man needs not problems but beliefs. His cradle should be surrounded by dogmas, and when his reason is awakened, it should find all his opinions ready-made, at least all those relating to his conduct. Nothing is so important to him as prejudices, Let us not take this word in a bad sense. It does not necessarily mean false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, opinions adopted before any examination. Now these sorts of opinions are man’s greatest need, the true elements of his happiness, and the Palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither worship, nor morality, nor government. There must be a state religion just as there is a state policy; or, rather, religious and political dogmas must be merged and mingled together to form a complete common or national reason strong enough to repress the aberrations of individual reason, which of its nature is the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it produces only divergent opinions. All known nations have been happy and powerful to the extent that they have more faithfully obeyed this national reason, which is nothing other than the annihilation of individual dogmas and the absolute and general reign of national dogmas, that is to say, of useful prejudices. Let each man call upon his individual reason in the matter of religion, and immediately you will see the birth of an anarchy of belief or the annihilation of religious sovereignty. Likewise, if each man makes himself judge of the principles of government, you will at once see the birth of civil anarchy or the annihilation of political sovereignty. Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, and its ministers. To annihilate it or submit it to the discussion of each individual is the same thing; it lives only through national reason, that is to say through political faith, which is a creed. Man’s first need is that his nascent reason be curbed under this double yoke, that it be abased and lose itself in the national reason, so that it changes its individual existence into another common existence, just as a river that flows into the ocean always continues to exist in the mass of water, but without a name and without a distinct reality.

Joseph de Maistre

People of great faith are almost always lacking in reason, while people possessed of great reason often suffer from a pitiful lack of faith. So it always happens that people of great faith can move the world but cannot steer it, while people possessed of great reason excel at steering the world but are hopeless at moving it

Agona Apell

in the modern era, many thinkers began to mistrust faith, viewing it as 'blind' and an enemy of reason. Their watchword was 'reason alone.' One of the difficulties of this stance is that reason cannot test its own reliability, any more than soapstone can test its own hardness. Any argument, accomplished by reasoning, that what reasoning accomplishes can be trusted, would be circular, because it would take for granted the very thing that it was trying to prove.Suppose I am at the window of a burning building. Although I can hear the firemen calling to me from far below, I cannot see them because of all the smoke. They are telling me to jump. Though I may have every reason to believe that they will catch me in their net, I may not trust them enough to overcome my fear, and so, hesitating, I burn to death. Obviously, my reasons are not the same as trust; faith surpasses reason. Even so they are reasons for trust; though faith surpasses reason, it is not irrational.

J. Budziszewski

What is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities - the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net of there's so little fish to catch?

Yann Martel

... for miracles to happen, God, need our cooperation. As Pastor Charles once told me, God can throw us a rope to save us, but we have to hold to it.

Stevan V. Nikolic

The mindset of a believer every time he opens the Bible must be the conviction that whatever the Bible says is true. We cannot trust our reason to determine what is true or false, right or wrong.

Michael P.V. Barrett

God has put enough into the world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing. But He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone.

Ravi Zacharias

Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own c

Sting

There’s a dream I keep having,“ Sheridan whispered into the telephone. “The dream has always been the same—until tonight.”“And what happened tonight?” asked Lil’ John.Sheridan hesitated, his words stumbling out in tentative phrases: “The man in my dream . . . he spoke to me for the first time . . . he told me of a sacred gift that had been lost . . . a gift that could save the world.”“Your dream,” John urged gently. “Is the gods conspiring to give you freedom, just like the elders sang that night in the Sundance ceremony:”When worlds collideThere sounds a tollingA call to riseAnd seize the momentThe gods conspireTo give us freedomWhen worlds collideThe journey has begunSheridan pulled at the collar of his t-shirt, Lil’ John’s words suffocating him. Pushing back from the precipice of dread, Sheridan strained to speak, his husky words weak and staggering: “What are you saying?”“Your search for the sacred gift has already begun . . .

Phillip R. White

Prophecy is True and Sacred and should never be mishandled by people who have no business speaking about Sacred Things in GOD'S Name.

Errol Anthony Smythe

Embrace your sacred existence.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Time and again the sun sets like a bedimming curtain before my eyes, taking with it all illumination, warmth, and color. I am overwhelmed by night and the monsters that lurk in shadows of despair. But alas, stars twinkle from afar, shedding the tiniest rays of lighted hope. I am reminded that the sun also rises and that morning's glory shall restore beauty to my world. The realization of this dream is only a matter of waiting out the dreary night. So, I shall persevere.

Richelle E. Goodrich

When you understand that faith is God’s muscle at your disposal, moving mountains doesn’t seem so extraordinary.

Richelle E. Goodrich

Your trials and difficulties are a golden opportunity to illustrate your faith in God.

Elizabeth George

Opportunity is being in God's place, at God's time, following God's instructions, to obtain God's results.

Bidemi Mark-Mordi

You ought to explore, search and seek the unlimited possibilities in life

Lailah Gifty Akita

I thought back to Meg’s advice about Hemingway sentences—simple declarative statements that showed the truth and distilled the meaning. My first attempt at that had been cynical and messed up. I gave it a go again.Find one lost sheep.The angels rejoice.

Laura Anderson Kurk

When faith replaces fear, the gates open for you to receive enough money, optimal health, and genuine relationships.

Charles F. Glassman

We have to have a warrior mindset and be engaged at all times. If we are going to move mountains, we cannot be pitiful and powerful at the same time.

Sandra M. Michelle

Great God of wonders, the Creator of all dreams.

Lailah Gifty Akita

May God continue to grant you more grace for your work.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Faith is not blind when you consistently take the right actions to reveal it.

Charles F. Glassman

Faith is not blind if you consistently take the right actions to reveal it.

Charles F. Glassman

Having faith is like having an extra energy source. It allows you to keep moving forward when all logic tells you, you can't.

Michael Rogers

With consistent determination, commitment , persistent, handwork, and faith in God we can make our dreams come true.

Lailah Gifty Akita

Be fervent in God, and let nothing grieve you, whatever you encounter.

Hadewijch

Sometimes I find it difficult to determine whether or not I'm merely spinning my wheels or making progress. Nevertheless, I must keep moving on until I reach a destination. For I would much rather be in perpetual motion with the promise of reaching some place majestic beyond the horizon, rather than sitting idle alongside a dirt road watching time hurriedly pass me by.

Terry a O'Neal

Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.

Matthew Quick

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Faith Quotes - Page 20

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