Benjamin > Benjamin's Quotes

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
― C.S. Lewis

“God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”
― C.S. Lewis

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
― C.S. Lewis

“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
― Martin Luther

“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
― Martin Luther

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.”
― Martin Luther

“The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“Take heed also what books ye read; for as water relisheth of the soil it runs through, so doth the soul of the authors that a man readeth. (John Trapp on Prov. 19:27)”
― John Trapp

“When you were called, did you answer or did you not? Perhaps softly and in a whisper?”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“Theology sits rouged at the window and courts philosophy's favor, offering to sell her charms to it.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“...for our times are not satisfied with faith and not even with the miracle of changing water into wine - they 'go right on,' changing wine into water.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“Whatever one generation learns from another, it can never learn from a predecessor the genuinely human factor. In this respect every generation begins afresh, has no task other than that of any previous generation, and comes no further, provided the latter didn't shirk its task and deceive itself. This authentically human factor is passion, in which the one generation also fully understands the other and understands itself. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love, no generation can begin other than at the beginning, the task of no later generation is shorter than its predecessor's, and if someone, unlike the previous generation, is unwilling to stay with love but wants to go further, then that is simply idle and foolish talk.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“And isn't it true here too that those whom God blesses he damns in the same breath?”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“It is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a trifle. To go beyond Hegel is a miracle, but to get beyond Abraham is the easiest thing of all. I for my part have devoted a good deal of time to the understanding of the Hegelian philosophy, I believe also that I understand it tolerably well, but when in spite of the trouble I have taken there are certain passages I cannot understand, I am foolhardy enough to think that he himself has not been quite clear. All this I do easily and naturally, my head does not suffer from it. But on the other hand when I have to think of Abraham, I am as though annihilated. I catch sight every moment of that enormous paradox which is the substance of Abraham's life, every moment I am repelled, and my thought in spite of all its passion cannot get a hairs-breadth further. I strain every muscle to get a view of it–that very instant I am paralyzed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“Why then did Abraham do it ? For God’s sake, and (in complete identity with this) for his own sake. He did it for God’s sake because God required this proof of his faith ; for his own sake he did it in order that he might furnish the proof.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“Abraham believed. He did not believe that some day he would be blessed in the beyond, but that he would be happy here in the world.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“From this, however, it does not follow that the ethical is to be abolished, but it acquires an entirely different expression, the paradoxical expression – that, for example, love to God may cause the knight of faith to give his love to his neighbor the opposite expression to that which, ethically speaking, is required by duty. If”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

“A world, and a church, which is hooked on novelty like some cultural equivalent of crack cocaine needs the cold, cynical eye of the historian to stand as a prophetic witness against it.”
― Carl R. Trueman, Minority Report: Unpopular Thoughts on Everything from Ancient Christianity to Zen Calvinism

“Good confessions properly applied by appropriately qualified and ordained elders do actually hinder despotic church power and protect the members; they do not facilitate it.”
― Carl R. Trueman, Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity

“We must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word.”
― Carl R. Trueman, Luther on the Christian Life: Cross and Freedom

“Ironically, it is not the confessionalists but the “no creed but the Bible” people who exalt their creeds above Scripture.”
― Carl R. Trueman, Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity

“Membership is not a reward for achieving a high level of doctrinal knowledge any more than a high level of personal holiness. It is the gateway to the means by which these things can become possible via the ordinary means of grace.”
― Carl R. Trueman, Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity