W. H. Auden Quotes

If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.

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.

In this quest to seek and find God in all things there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt.

Revealed religion had no weight with me.

Certainly, I find that 'Mere Christianity' speaks to me. So why am I still an agnostic? Beats me.

Some who attempt prayer never have the sense of anyone listening on the other end. They blame themselves for doing it wrong.... Prayer requires the faith to believe that God listens.

...[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.

One chief cause of the amount of unbelief in the world is tha tthose who have seen something of the glory of Christ set themselves to theorize concerning him rather than to obey him.

I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man.

I totally believe in magic. Because my life, I think, has been very magic, and magical things have come true for me time after time after time.

How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ.

The Bible's truth does not depend in any way on whether or not a person believes the truth.

That's why I believe in Christianity because the Scriptures said: "The things that have been done in the dark will be known on the house tops."

Faith is believing that Christ is what he is said to be, and that he will do what he has promised to do, and then to expect this of him.

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.

If we believe in magic, we'll live a magical life.

This is faith, receiving the truth of Christ; first knowing it to be true, and then acting upon that belief.

Christianity is not a patent medicine. Christianity claims to give an account of facts - to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.

Listen to Jesus and follow him. That's the message of the Transfiguration.

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

If you ignore every single thing Jesus told you to do, you are just auditing. You're not a Christian.

There's probably a balance between. I believe you have to know Christ. But I think that if you know Christ, if you're a believer in God, you're going to have some good works.

God gives us not only the truth but also the ability to believe it; not only the new thing to see but also the new eye to see it with.

I speak "with absolute certainty" only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any "authority" let alone "divine revelation"!

Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.