Fundamentals of the Faith Quotes

“The universal sin Saint Paul pinpoints in Romans 1:18 is to suppress the truth.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“God’s solution to the problem of evil is his Son Jesus Christ. The Father’s love sent his Son to die for us to defeat the power of evil in human nature: that’s the heart of the Christian story.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“Second, the origin of evil is not the Creator but the creature’s freely choosing sin and selfishness.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“God judges justly. “All who sinned without [knowing] the [Mosaic] law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom 2:12). Even pagans show “that what the law requires is written on their hearts” (Rom 2:15). If we honestly consult our hearts, we will find two truths: that we know what we ought to do and be, and that we fail to do and be that. Fundamentalists, faithful to the clear one-way teaching of Christ, often conclude from this that pagans, Buddhists, et cetera, cannot be saved. Liberals, who emphasize God’s mercy, cannot bring themselves to believe that the mass of men are doomed to hell, and they ignore,”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“What the Church is sent apostolically to do is to make saints, i.e., to make humans completely human. This phrase, completely human, is often misused today to mean its exact opposite, to reduce the Church’s supernatural task to a merely natural one. But the Church betrays her mission and her Lord if she lets psychologists and sociologists who do not know Christ as her source dictate her end. We are sent to be completely human as Christ was, to love as he loved, not to be nice, not to “have a nice day”, not to pitch in a little bit to help build what everyone else is building. No, we are sent with a distinctive task: to build an eternal kingdom, a different building. We live in two worlds, and we rightly cooperate in building this one too, but the Church’s raison d’être is not to be one more social service agency but to be the one and only ark of eternal salvation, to be Christ to the world. This includes social service and liberation of the poor. Christ healed some bodies, but as a sign of his essential mission to heal all souls. Christ loved and liberated the poor, but as a sign of his love and liberation of our spiritual poverty. His work in time was a sign of his work for eternity. Even”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“Modernism and Fundamentalism are popular—they are two quick and easy answers to a complex question.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“Here is what they got out of their hoax. Their friends and families scorned them. Their social standing, possessions, and political privileges were stolen from them by both Jews and Romans. They were persecuted, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, exiled, crucified, eaten by lions, and cut to pieces by gladiators. So some silly Jews invented the whole elaborate, incredible lie of Christianity for absolutely no reason, and millions of Gentiles believed it, devoted their lives to it, and died for it—for no reason. It was only a fantastic practical joke, a hoax.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“God, I don’t know whether you exist or not. Maybe I’m praying to nobody, but maybe I’m praying to you. So if you are really there, please let me know somehow, because I do want to know. I want only the Truth, whatever it is. If you are the Truth, here I am, ready and willing to follow you wherever you lead.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“From Socrates through Aquinas, reason meant primarily the understanding of the nature of reality, the knowledge of the essences of things.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“sacramentally present at Mass—this Church is either God ‘s own or it is the devil’s own.”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics

“The claims the Catholic Church makes are a little like the claims Christ makes: so superhuman that it becomes impossible to take a comfortable, middle-of-the-road attitude toward them, unless we are either sleeping or dishonest. The man who claimed to be God is either God or a lunatic and blasphemer. And the Church that claims to be the body of the God-man, with divine authority to teach infallibly, to forgive sins, to make Christ”
― Peter Kreeft, Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics