Quotes About Existence

God is not "Being" but beyond being, because being necessarily includes multiplicity.98 Yet this "many", as Maximus explains along with Pseudo-Dionysius, is always such only because of unity.

person and existence are forced to draw together, and from the same depths of being—which is more than all intelligible essence—arises the invitation of a personal God to his created child, an event that belongs to another realm altogether than all the in-built natural orientations—however mystical—of intellectual beings.

he begins with the assumption that there is, in the final analysis, one single question for human thought at every time and in every place: whether, and tinder what conditions, the world can be affirmed in all its finitude. As is evident here, the value that von Balthasar attaches to the work of a thinker is ultimately determined by his answer to this question.16

the connection between being and person that is expressed in the word hypostasis.

To be a child means to owe one's existence to another, and even in our adult life we never quite reach the point where we no longer have to give thanks for being the person we are.

God defines himself as "I am who I am", which also means: My being is such that I shall always be present in every moment of becoming.

Infectious disease is one of the great tragedies of living things - the struggle for existence between two different forms of life... Incessantly, the pitiless war goes on, without quarter or armistice - a nationalism of species against species.

The structure of play absorbs the player into itself, and thus frees him from the burden of taking the initiative, which constitutes the actual strain of existence.

Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.

We, who live in the cities, see but a little farther than across the street. We spend our days looking at the work of our own and our neighbors' hands. Small wonder our lives have so little of God in them, when we come in touch with so little that God has made.

God is an immensity, while this disease, this death, which is in me, this small, tightly defined pedestrian event, is merely and perfectly real, without miracle—or instruction.

We Were Created as Emotional Beings

Our memory of dreams is a glimpse of the full spiritual life that each of us leads beyond the physical.

We not only have today; we have all the yesterdays we are capable of remembering and all the tomorrows we can envision.

Saya percaya bahwa orang bukannya takut mati. Mereka takut sesuatu yang lain. Sesuatu yang lebih menggelisahkan dan lebih tragis daripada maut itu sendiri. Kita takut tidak pernah hidup, menjelang akhir hayat kita dengan perasaan bahwa kita tidak pernah benar-benar hidup. Bahwa kita tidak pernah memahami, untuk apa kehidupan kita itu.

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.

A nontheological faith cannot explain itself, but a too theological faith loses contact with the reason for its existence.

I know the place I know the place. It is true. Everything we do Corrects the space Between death and me And you.

There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.

what are you but a corpse waiting to be washed?

I can't believe that what anyone is at this moment saying has ever happened has never happened. Nothing has ever happened. Nothing. This is the only thing that has ever happened.

The reality of living was never greater than when you held death clutched tightly in your hands.

LIFE" made it possible, "DEATH" made it necessary!

Think of it this way: no scientist has ever seen an electron, but all scientists agree that electrons exist. No physicist has ever seen a quark, but all physicists believe that quarks are real. Why? Because when they look into their microscopes, they see things happening that could only happen if quarks and electrons existed. I believe in the reality of God the way scientists believe in the reality of electrons. I see things happening that would not happen unless there is a God.