To Will & To Do Quotes

“God does not grant us a neutral and indeterminate life; he grants a true life - that is, a life with a meaning and a value, and thus a life that is simultaneously the How of living.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“The Christian life relates to the future, but only to this future that is in Christ, not a future that is the logical consequence of the unfolding of time.... It is normal and obvious that the future comes after the present, that our act today leads to its result tomorrow; the movement goes from the past towards that which is not yet and must be accomplished. Now, in the Christian life, this process moves in the opposite direction: it is the future that moves towards the present. This future is already accomplished. It is a living reality for us, even before we existed. It is not the result of our act today; it is not determined by our acts - on the contrary! It is this future that determines what I am now. It is because Jesus Christ, resurrected, sits at the right hand of God and is coming towards me from the heart of his kingdom that I can live what I live. The things to come are already secretly in God, and these things are coming towards the present things, attributing them a signification.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“As he cannot and should not escape the world, the Christian is effectively called to participate in the activities of the world. It is normal that he should exercise a profession, be a citizen, etc. But he must know that in so doing, he is participating in the activity of the world, and that he is not legitimate, just, or in agreement with God ipso facto. On the one hand, he must continually remind himself and others that all of this is extremely relative. Certainly, all political regimes are not indifferent; but while they may have a certain importance regarding this or that aspect of human happiness, they will never attain the justice willed by God. Yet it is not without interest to participate in these regimes, precisely to bear witness to love and the requirement of truth in these regimes. But this is on the condition that he does not let himself be taken in by this game, nor place more faith in politics than in his Lord to accomplish what is right (which happens very often).”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“At no moment can the Christian believe that society organizes itself, is organized, or will organize itself in Christian truth - nor say that monarchy was the true Christian government, nor that communist society will enact Christian justice, etc.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“[R]ecall that nothing is done unless God does it. When it is serious, committed, constant, and living, the prayer of the church and of Christians (which is part of their behavior and their life) is much more important for the very direction of the world than all actions of all men. If we do not begin there, it is perfectly vain, perfectly useless to talk of the engagement of Christians in the world. This prayer is already a social action, a political action. The future of a people depends much more on praying Christians among this people than on its constitutions or its cannons. That those who bear authority should have the support of these authorities which depend on God, that they should be warned of the judgment of God waiting on them, is much more important than means or petitions; and this can come from prayer alone. And who else could fulfill this function? In these several examples (and they should be infinitely multiplied), we see thus that Christians play a particular role, fulfill a singular function in society, in the collectivity, in political life, in social struggles, that nobody else can fulfill - a role that is perfectly essential and without which nothing can function. Now, this role is considerable. To fulfill it will demand all the energy Christians have. They do not have much time or energy to waste on anything else. That is why it is so tragic to see Christians undiscerningly engaged in all human activities, accomplishing them the same as others: one participates in research on economic development, and another in the activity of unions, and a third in a political campaign, etc. - all things that men can do very well on their own, without the miniscule help of the Christian, who always limits himself in all these situations to howling with the other wolves. Yet, the specific activity of Christians, which is essential for the rest to bear fruit and be headed in a right direction, is left to the side, abandoned as well by Christians who only consider their private life, their personal salvation, seeking to lead the most perfect moral life possible, separate from others: This too is not the specificity of the Christian life, which cannot be simply one life among others.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“Only Jesus Christ delivers us from mystifications, allowing us to attack the Myths of society, of the world, of man - the false hopes, the fatal illusions, the mirages of Satan. Only the Christian can fight against all these things that destroy what is deepest in man, because Jesus Christ has liberated him. When we attack the Myth of Progress, or that of Technique, or the illusions of liberalism or the false hopes of communism, let us not say that we are doing a negative work: we would have to say that the man who breaks the shackles of a man in chains does a negative work[.]”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“[T]he Christian life is called to be specific and different from the life of other men - and even, if we hold to the Sermon on the Mount, the contrary of the life of other men. For in reality, the 'law of the kingdom' is the inverse of the law of the World.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“We do not need to look very hard to find reasons for the ineffectiveness of evangelism. It is not a problem of money, nor of techniques, nor of propaganda, nor a question of language, nor a problem of the 'break' with the working class, nor an affair of organization: it is the fact that Christians live the same life as everyone else, that they refer to the values of everyone else, that they behave like anybody else. In these conditions, why should a man accept oral testimony of the Power of the Lord, and of Salvation?”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“Individualism is totally foreign to the Christian faith. We could start with the idea that the person is made for relation, and that without a relation with the neighbor, there is no person; but this is still a philosophical notion, as elementary as it may be. It is better to begin with the fact that God makes a People for himself, his people, which in its entirety bears the Good News. What is true for Israel is true for the church. Every man called in his individuality is called to constitute this people, and this people is composed exclusively of called persons.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“Jesus Christ did not die for better State conduct, a better distribution of goods, a better organization of labor, higher productivity, better politics.... He died exclusively so that men, humans, would be saved, that they would be reconciled with God, that their sins would be forgiven, that God would be glorified in them, with death and the Powers conquered.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“First, we must take Scripture in its totality; second, we must not use the Bible as an object, as material to construct what pleases us, as an instrument destined to respond to our questions. Instead, we must receive it as a question posed to us, allow it to interrogate us concerning ourselves, and then decide on the ethical response that we might give. Now, these two things are directly linked. If we do not accept all of Scripture in its totality, we 'parcel' it out, breaking it into scattered pieces. We will be tempted to construct an edifice from these pieces, one that we design ourselves. We take the fragments that seem compatible with our ideas, our intentions, our preoccupations; but in doing so, we put ourselves in the foreground, instituting ourselves as the active subjects. By contrast, if we accept the bible in its massive structure, by this fact we renounce all attempts to model it, to renovate it. But only one attitude becomes possible - the attitude of submission, which puts us in the background, in the position of the listener who is questioned. All authority is given back to the one who took the initiative in the Revelation - that is, the Lord - in the form that he has chosen.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II

“[W]e must take Scripture as a whole, whatever our position concerning its moral content. The first error to avoid is that of choosing among the texts, holding onto the texts that seem to establish principles, that seem to address our problems, that seem to agree with a certain line of Revelation that we adopt. Subsequently, we reject the texts that, in our eyes, offer only negligible consequences or applications, or myths, or historically outmoded customs. (Most of the time, this choice is made unconsciously.) This attitude is unacceptable. it is the Bible in its entirety that contains the Revelation of the Lord.”
― Jacques Ellul, To Will & To Do: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, Volume II