Quotes from Peter Kreeft

Christ changed every human being he ever met. In fact, He changed history, splitting it open like a coconut and inserting eternity into the split between B.C. and A.D. If anyone claims to have met Him without being changed, he has not met Him at all. When you touch Him, you touch lightning. Socrates is puzzled because he is looking for the burn marks.

Conservatives often seem afraid of questions and liberals afraid of answers—which is even sillier, because that's like being afraid of food. Being afraid of questions is like being afraid of hunger. That's only cowardice.

Delight is a subjective reason for praying, but it is a valid one.

it is possible to love one's friend for another reason than God, whereas God is the only reason for loving one's enemy.

Disbelief is a sin, but honest unbelief is not.

Over half of all Roman Catholics in America today leave the Church before they get married and have kids. The most common reason for returning is for the kids. Like parachute jumpers, soldiers in foxholes, and big wave surfers, parents know they need God. And for similar reasons.

we are fallen fools, most of our philosophy is not "the proper use of human reason" but the improper use of human reason.

Since (1) charity is supernatural, and comes only from the real presence of God in the soul (St. Thomas' paragraph 3), and since (2) all men, and not only Christians, are capable of charity (as has been proved in the paragraph above), it follows that (3) all men are capable of accepting the real presence of God in their souls, even if they have defective or mistaken concepts of God.

St. Thomas mentions the three things necessary to attain any end, earthly or Heavenly: knowledge, love, and presence;

Our civilization has moved through three world views: from paganism (no pity and no pacifism) to Christianity (pity but not pacifism) to modernity (pity and pacifism). It is now moving to postmodernity, which is a new pacifism, a pacifism without spiritual warfare, a war on the very notion of spiritual warfare, and a war without pity or mercy for its enemy

Sociologists and anthropologists tell us that religion has three dimensions: creed, code, and cult; or words, works, and worship; or theology, morality, and liturgy.

Expect the world to be Heaven, and it will feel like Hell. Expect it to be Purgatory, and it will feel like Heaven. The two most salient facts about Purgatory are pain and hope, suffering and meaning.

The ancient Greeks named about five hundred gods, the Romans five thousand, the Tibetan Buddhists nine million, but Americans are the most polytheistic people in history: they have named 330 million gods. That is the root of our insanity. We demand to be our own authorities because we demand to be the authors of our own being and meaning

If our faith rests on God's veracity, it has an absolute and eternally unshakable foundation. If it rests on our own mind, it is as secure as sand. Does your faith look like a castle or a sand castle?

The major heresies of our day are not about God but about man.

Judaism, the one and only directly and divinely revealed religion in the world

Grace is not in nature so much as nature is in grace. Saint Thérèse said, on her deathbed, "Everything is grace.

Corruptio optimi pessima." The corruption of the best things are the worst things.

No happiness on earth can be deeper than the happiness that comes from our willing and active submission to God's will even when he wills suffering.

But to observe our neighbor's faults with the intention of looking down upon them or of detracting them . . . is sinful.

F]or a thing to be evil, one single defect suffices, whereas for it to be good . . . it is not enough for it to be good in one point only, it must be good in every respect. . . .

City of God interprets all of the human story, from Creation to the Last Judgment, as the drama of divine providence and human free choice, especially the choice between the two most fundamental options of membership in one or the other of the two cities. The City of God is the invisible community of all who love God; the City of the World is all those who love the world and themselves as their God.

A God made in the world's image can't save the world.

For everything naturally desires good