Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
God
& Religion:
The
Search for Truth in Religion
-
- "The mistake which 'orthodox' people make is to suppose
that they have all the truth and that nothing more can be known."
Dr. W. R. Matthews, The Dean of St. Paul's
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, at the Special Assembly of
The Church of Scotland in 1960 to mark the Fourth Centenary of the Scottish Reformation:
"If we have faith and courage to seek it, we shall be shown new truths in the Gospel
of real and immediate relevance to our own time, and we shall be given new insight to
understand the unexampled problems which arise, almost every day, at home and
abroad."
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology:
"A theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of the
Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every new generation. Theology
moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the
temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be perceived:"
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland: The
Queen asserts that she is a hundred and one years, five months and one day old. "I
can't believe that," said Alice. "Can't you?" said the Queen. 'Try again.
Draw a long breath and shut your eyes."
- Le Roy: "If dogmas formulated absolute truth in
adequate terms, they would be unintelligible to us."
The Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Dear Mr. Brown:
"All intelligent faith in God has behind it a background of humble agnosticism."
Sir Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation:
"I believe that one should be agnostic when belief one way or the other is mere idle
speculation, incapable of verification; when belief is held merely to gratify desires,
however deep-seated, and not because it is forced on us by evidence; and when belief may
be taken by others to be more firmly grounded than it really is, and so come to encourage
false hopes or wrong attitudes of mind."
Pascal, Pensees: "I am astonished
at the boldness with which people undertake to speak of God."
Dr. Frederic Greeves, The Meaning of Sin:
"Many a humble agnostic, worshipping an unknown God, is nearer to the Kingdom of God
than is a theologian confident in his theology .... Many an 'atheist' is rejecting false
conceptions of God which he assumes to be Christian beliefs about Him. Many an agnostic
has a reverence for the unknown God which puts to shame the pride of a superficial
dogmatist."
The Bishop of Woolwich, Honest to God:
"As one goes on, it is the things one doesn't believe, and finds one doesn't have to
believe, which are as liberating as the things one does."
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
"Consciously, I was religious in the Christian sense, though always with the
reservation; But it is not so certain as all that."
Goethe: "Let us seek to fathom those things
that are fathomable and reserve those things which are unfathomable for reverence in
quietude."
Dr. William Harvey, An Anatomical Disquisition on the
Motion of the Heart and Blood of Animals: "All we know is still
infinitely less than all that still remains unknown... The studious and good never think
it unworthy of them to change their opinion, if truth and undoubted demonstration require
them so to do; nor do they deem it discreditable to desert error, though sanctioned by the
highest antiquity."
Pastor John Robinson, 1620, parting words to the Pilgrim
Fathers: "The Lord hath more light and truth yet to break forth out of
His Holy word."
Dr. Gary E. Schwartz, U. of Arizona, The
AfterLife Experiments: "I was trained to look at the world as an
intellectual, a scientist. In science we hypothesize; we do not believe. And
science does not establish 'proof' so much as provide evidence for or against a hypothesis."
|