Faith and Doubt Quotes

“Scratch the surface of any cynic, and you will find a wounded idealist underneath. Because of previous pain or disappointment, cynics make their conclusions about life before the questions have even been asked. This means that beyond just seeing what is wrong with the world, cynics lack the courage to do something about it. The dynamic beneath cynicism is a fear of accepting responsibility.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“The movie Bull Durham was written by a man who grew up in the faith and was disillusioned by the church. It begins with the female lead saying, “I believe in the church of baseball. I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones … and the only church that truly feeds the soul is baseball.” Later in the movie the Kevin Costner character recites his creed: “I believe in the soul … the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch … I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in long, slow, deep, soft kisses that last three days.”4 My wife liked that one. A little too much. My wife is a Kevin Costner fundamentalist. Kevin said it; she believes it; that settles it.”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself. MADELEINE L'ENGLE”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“I put all my hope in a third day God.
But I live in a second-day world.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“The greatest bloodbaths in the history of the human race were recorded in the twentieth century in countries that sought to eliminate God, worship, and faith.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“faithfulness tends to elicit trust.”
― John Ortberg, Know Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“Underneath the surface of the skeptic is fear — fear of being disappointed.”
― John Ortberg, Know Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“Dostoyevsky, who was a believer, wrote that the “death of a single infant calls into question the existence of God.”1”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“No heart is as whole as a broken heart, and no faith is as solid as a wounded faith." Elie Wiesel”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Skepticism can keep us from blessing, can keep us trapped in two minds.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Skeptics would rather, even at their own expense, appear to be right than take the risk of trusting.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Author Evelyn Waugh was a Catholic who fell pretty woefully short of his faith's standards. Somebody asked Waugh one time, “How can you call yourself a Catholic and be so badly behaved, so mean, such a jerk, so spiteful?” Waugh responded, “Just imagine me if I were not a Catholic.” And”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“My Pentecostal friend Gary was at a service once where a man stood up and addressed the congregation: "Thus saith the Lord, 'As I was with Abraham when he led the children of Israel across the desert, so shall I be with you.'" He sat down, and his wife whispered something in his ear. Then he stood back up. "Thus saith the Lord, 'I was wrong. It was Moses.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Frederick Buechner has written, “There is perhaps no better proof for the existence of God than the way year after year he survives the way his professional friends promote him.”15”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“No one can see God's face” (see Exodus 33:20). What do they mean when they say that no one can see God's face? They mean that we cannot see God as he is. We are not capable of this. We inevitably project our own fallenness onto God.”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“Theologian Lesslie Newbigin writes that we live in an age that favors doubt over faith.4 We often speak of “blind faith” and “honest doubt.”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“But a philosopher named William James responded that sometimes Clifford's advice is bad strategy. He said doubt is the wrong alternative when three conditions are met: when we have live options, when the stakes are momentous, and when we must make a choice.3”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“It was around Clifford's era that Thomas Huxley coined the term agnostic, which did not exist before the nineteenth century. Agnostics, Huxley said, “totally refuse to commit” to either denying or affirming the supernatural.”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who doubts sometimes, has written that the reason so many babies keep being born is that God loves stories. Why”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“And it struck me, in that year, how deeply both faith and doubt are part of my life. We often think of them as opposites. Many books argue for one or the other. But while in some respects they are enemies, in other ways they are surprisingly alike: both are concerned with ultimate issues; both pop up unasked for at unexpected moments; both are necessary. I”
― John Ortberg Jr., Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith

“I distrust those people who knew so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan D. Anthony”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Honest doubt is the devil's advocate that honest faith requires”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Anything large enough for a wish to light upon is large enough to hang a prayer upon. – George MacDonald”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Christianity is like a nail. The harder you strike, the deeper it goes. – Chairman of Stalin's League the Militant Godless”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

“Vertrauen ist besser als Gewissheit, weil es die Freiheit des anderen ehrt und in der Beziehung eine wachsende Vertrautheit ermöglicht, wie Gewissheit allein sie niemals hervorbringen könnte.”
― John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt