Quotes

He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.
- John Tillotson


“Your days at the most cannot be very long, so use them to the best of your ability for the glory of God and the benefit of your generation.”
- William Booth


"...of all the evidences of the real work of the Spirit, a habit of hearty private prayer is one of the most satisfactory that can be named. A man may preach from false motives. A man may write books and make fine speeches and seem diligent in good works, and yet be a Judas Iscariot. But a man seldom goes into his closet, and pours out his soul before God in secret, unless he is in earnest."
- J.C. Ryle



"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
- Richard Lewontin


"Most people think that winning the argument is what matters, not learning the truth. He who regards conversation as a battle can win only by being an antagonist, only by disagreeing successfully, whether he is right or wrong. The reader who approaches a book in this spirit reads it only to find something he can disagree with. For the disputatious and the contentious, a bone can always be found to pick a quarrel over. It makes no difference whether the bone is really a chip on your own shoulder."
[...]
"But if he realizes that the only profit in conversation, with living or dead teachers, is what one can learn from them, if he realizes that you win only by gaining knowledge, not by knocking the other fellow down, he may see the futility of mere contentiousness."
- Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren


"The question about God is not merely a question about another entity but a question about the character of the universe as a whole. The rejection of the cosmological argument implicitly carries with it a commitment to a rival metaphysical view, such as pantheism or naturalism. Ultimately, the question is not, 'Can God's existence be proved?' but 'Which metaphysical view is most plausible?'"
- C. Stephen Evans


"Every man must do two things alone, he must do his own believing and his own dying."
- Martin Luther


"If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn."
- Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren


"Our priority in apologetics is not to make the nonbeliever listen to us, but to help the person be ready to listen to God and be taught by him."
- Joe Boot


"Certainly, if we are to have a quiet hour set down in the midst of a hurry of duties, and to keep that time inviolate, we must exercise both planning and self-denial. We must be prepared to forego many things that are pleasant, and some things that are profitable. Let no one who can find time for their vanities say that they do not have enough time for prayer."
- David M'Intyre


"I should be much more afraid of being mistaken and then finding out that Christianity is true than of being mistaken in believing it to be true."
- Blaise Pascal


"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."
- G. K. Chesterton


"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
- Robert Jastrow


"When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics."
- Frank Tipler


"But you cannot reason anyone into the Kingdom of heaven. Of course not! No apologist purports to do that. Because reasoning is insufficient, however, it is not therefore unnecessary. The simplest announcement of the Gospel must present it as true. No amount of emotional appeal can stimulate people to accept a message they consider to be false. Speech in favor of the Bible's truth is one of many means the Holy Spirit employs in bringing men to full commitment. The Holy Spirit alone regenerates; but the Holy Spirit has chosen not to regenerate alone."
- Gordon R. Lewis


“If living things—things that we manifestly did not design ourselves—bear the hallmarks of design, if they exhibit a signature that would lead us to recognize intelligent activity in any other realm of experience, then perhaps it is time to rehabilitate this lost way of knowing and to rekindle our wonder in the intelligibility and design of nature that first inspired the scientific revolution.”
- Stephen Meyer


"My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?"
- C.S. Lewis


"Even though most people who reject Christianity treat it as a refuge for enemies of reason, the truth is that there may be no worldview in the history of the human race that has a higher regard for the laws of logic."
- Ronald H. Nash


"Although I was once sharply critical of the argument to design, I have since come to see that, when correctly formatted, this argument constitutes a persuasive case for the existence of God.”
- Antony Flew


"The Christian worldview is not proven in proven in one or two strokes but is rather verified by appealing to a wide and compelling variety of converging arguments. Christianity is shown to be the best explanation for the origin and nature of the universe as well as the human condition and the facts of history."
- Douglas Groothuis