Quotes About Doubt

BELIEF IS NOT AN INTELLECTUAL MATTER," he complained. "IF HE'S GOT SO MUCH DOUBT, HE'S IN THE WRONG BUSINESS.

You're always telling me I don't have any faith," I wrote to Owen. "Well—don't you see?—that's a part of what makes me so indecisive. I wait to see what will happen next—because I don't believe that anything I might decide to do would matter.

Cho? ju? tyle razy prze?y?em m?k? i ?mier? Chrystusa, nieodmiennie niepokoj? si? o Jego zmartwychwstanie - jestem przera?ony, ?e w tym roku si? to nie uda.

What a phrase that is: "that explains everything!" I know better than to think that anything "explains everything" today.

And the trick of having faith, he said, was that it was necessary to believe in God without any great or even remotely reassuring evidence that we don't inhabit a godless universe.

Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for me. —FREDERICK BUECHNER

A Prayer for Owen Meany

Merrill was most appealing because he reassured us that doubt was the essence of faith, and not faith's opposite.

THINK OF HARDY AS A MAN WHO WAS ALMOST RELIGIOUS, AS A MAN WHO CAME SO CLOSE TO BELIEVING IN GOD THAT WHEN HE REJECTED GOD, HIS REJECTION MADE HIM FEROCIOUSLY BITTER.

Watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean, make sure they know what you mean!

In both classes, Pastor Merrill preached his doubt-is-the-essence-of-and-not-the-opposite-of-faith philosophy

but when I look at you now, I don't know who you are." I told her I occasionally had the same feeling about myself.

And when he was privileged to witness the miracle of Owen Meany, my bitter father could manage no better response than to whine to me about his lost faith—his ridiculously subjective and fragile belief, which he had so easily allowed to be routed by his mean-spirited and self-imposed doubt. What a wimp he was, Pastor Merrill; but how proud I felt of my mother—that she'd had the good sense to shrug him off.

When he finished reading this passage, Pastor Merrill lifted his face to us and cried out, "'I believe; help my unbelief!' Owen Meany helped my 'unbelief,'" my father said. "Compared to Owen Meany, I am an amateur—in my faith," Mr. Merrill said. "Owen was not just a hero to the United States Army—he was my hero," my father said.

As for my faith: I've become my father's son—that is, I've become the kind of believer that Pastor Merrill used to be. Doubt one minute, faith the next—sometimes inspired, sometimes in despair. Canon Campbell taught me to ask myself a question when the latter state settles upon me. Whom do I know who's alive whom I love? Good question—one that can bring you back to life.

At times I envy Lewis Merrill; I wish someone could trick me the way I tricked him into having such absolute and unshakable faith. For although I believe I know what the real miracles are, my belief in God disturbs and unsettles me much more than not believing ever did; unbelief seems vastly harder to me now than belief does—but belief poses so many unanswerable questions!

Homer Wells cried because he'd never known how nice a father's kisses could be, and he cried because he doubted that Wilbur Larch would ever do it again-or would have done it, if he'd thought Homer was awake.

won't they?

Graham Greene

at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul.

Do I believe the total perversion that I am witnessing?

I doubt whether any hack, under pressure, could pen such atrocious melodrama

How come God has to make it so tough for you?" "We must not question His ways," Ignatius said. "Maybe not, but I still don't get it." "The writings of Boethius may give you some insight." "I read Father Keller and Billy Graham in the paper every single day." "Oh, my God!" Ignatius spluttered. "No wonder you are so lost.