Quotes About Belief

He liked her stories for the same reason she told them—they should have happened.

There was no such thing as a prayer of supplication in the old religion, only ways of giving thanks.

The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will.

Losing faith is a complicated business and takes time. There are no epiphanies, no "moments of truth." It takes much thought and concentration in the later phases, which thenselves come about through an accumulation of small accidents: examples of general injustice, misfortune falling upon the godly, prayers of one's own unanswered.

Our own attitudes always seem OK because we use an attitude to judge itself. No matter how much misery our attitudes cause, we will always defend them.

This has led some to misunderstand him as claiming that it doesn't matter what you believe so long as you believe it. Though scarcely espousing religious relativism, as a deeply committed Christian, Kierkegaard was more concerned with combating lukewarm or purely nominal religious belief than with apologetics.

Bertrand Russell, scarcely an existentialist: can anyone really believe that the revulsion they feel when they witness the gratuitous infliction of pain is simply an expression of the fact that they don't happen to like it?

primary purpose of this book is to explore the connection between knowledge, science, and belief in God.

Just as the sin of Adam was imputed to all people, so also the obedience of Christ has been imputed to believers. Adam

This verb refers to God's verdict of not guilty on the day of judgment (Rom 2:13). God's eschatological verdict has now been announced in advance for those who believe in Jesus Christ.13 Those who have been justified by the blood of Christ will be saved from God's wrath at the eschaton

We are justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone.

We should not interpret this to mean that repentance is another thing a person has to do to receive salvation in addition to faith. Rather, genuine faith includes repentance. Faith that doesn't include repentance is false faith, for those who truly believe turn away from evil.

The central truth in this paragraph is that right standing with God does not come from keeping the law (since everyone sins), but only through faith in Jesus Christ. Thus, all those who revert to the law only display their own sinfulness in returning to a covenant that has passed away, and hence they end up rejecting the grace of God given in the cross of Jesus Christ.

We live by faith alone, casting ourselves entirely on the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ is our righteousness; his cross is our only hope in the day of judgment.

Human beings do choose to believe, but they make that choice only because divine grace opens otherwise blind eyes to see the beauty of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).

I no way doubt but that many men do receive more grace from God than they understand or will own, and have a greater efficacy of it in them than they will believe. Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed: for the faith of it is included in that general assent which they give unto the truth of the gospel,

The biblical writers do not finally and fully resolve the tension between divine sovereignty and human freedom. They affirm the authenticity of human decisions, and yet they see God's sovereign hand behind all that occurs (Prov. 16:33; 21:1).161

It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light.

And, if we have any evidence that the wisdom which formed the plan is in the man, we have the very same evidence, that the power which executed it is in him also.

Let scholastic sophisters entangle themselves in their own cobwebs; I am resolved to take my own existence, and the existence of other things, upon trust; and to believe that snow is cold, and honey sweet, whatever they may say to the contrary. He must either be a fool, or want to make a fool of me, that would reason me out of my reason and senses.

If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the' constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life,' without being able to give a reason for them; these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd.

Those who reject some principle of common sense in speculation, find themselves under necessity of being governed by it in their practice. A skeptic may struggle hard to disbelieve the information of his senses, as a man does to swim against the torrent; but ah! it is in vain...For after all, when his strength is spent in the fruitless attempt, he will be carried down the torrent with the common herd of believers.

Every man feels that he must believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can give no other reason of his belief, but that he remembers the thing distinctly.

And a man who perfectly understood a just syllogism, without believing that the conclusion follows from the premises, would be a greater monster than a man born without hands or feet.