Ten Great Quotes About Doubt & the Christian Experience

Ten Great Quotes About Doubt & the Christian Experience April 25, 2016

doubt.001I’ve been thinking about doubt a lot lately, and its central importance in the act of faith. Over the years I’ve come to believe that if you don’t, at one time or another, doubt nearly every aspect of the Christian faith, then you are simply not taking it seriously. Here are a few of my favorite quotes on the essential nature of doubt to the Christian experience:


 

“Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith… Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.” – Paul Tillich

“Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” – Frederick Buechner

“Belief in God does not exempt us from feelings of abandonment by God. Praising God does not inoculate us from doubts about God.” – Eugene Peterson

“Surely… we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety.” – John Calvin

“I do not believe there ever existed a Christian yet, who did not now and then doubt his interest in Jesus. I think, when a man says, “I never doubt,” it is quite time for us to doubt him.” – Charles Spurgeon

“To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely — this is for man what running is for a horse.” – Blaise Pascal

“I think the trouble with me is lack of faith… often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address.” – C.S. Lewis

“Who among us has not experienced insecurity, loss and even doubts on their journey of faith?… We’ve all experienced this, me too.” – Pope Francis

“The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget the questions, and we become smug like the Pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men… 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

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate… I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.” – Brennan Manning

One good warning about the downside of doubt, or superficial doubt:

“We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can almost be as stupid as a cabbage as long as you doubt.” – Dallas Willard


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