my book<\/a>, but some did. A few are from Christian believers. Others are not. Some of them, to those who are less prone to doubt, may sound like self-justification of what you might identify as spiritual weakness. And I get that. I really do. <\/p>\nBut these thoughts are comforting to me, and whether you agree entirely with them or not, I think they can be informative to any discussion about religious doubt and uncertainty. <\/p>\n
Anyway, I figured this was as good a time as any to gather them up into a single place. Here you go: <\/p>\n
\u2022 “Doubt is but another element of faith.” (St. Augustine)<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.”
\n(Paul Tillich)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not
\ncertainty.” (Flannery O’Connor)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “You call for faith: I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, If faith o’ercomes doubt.” (Robert Browning)<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 “Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.” (French novelist and writer Andre Gide)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “Unthinking faith is a curious offering to be made to the creator of the human mind.” (John A Hutchinson)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be
\nunable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.” (G. K.
\nChesterton)<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by
\ndoubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the
\ntruth.” (Pierre Abelard)<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 “Great Doubt: great awakening. Little Doubt: little awakening. No Doubt:
\nno awakening” (Ancient Zen saying)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “The whole problem
\nwith the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of
\nthemselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” (Bertrand Russell)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.” (Isaac Bashevis Singer)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely — this is for man what
\nrunning is for a horse.” (Pascal)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” (Rene Descartes)<\/p>\n
<\/b>\u2022 “I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.” (American Playwright Wilson Mizner)<\/p>\n
<\/b>————–<\/p>\n
I love that one: Doubt is what gets you an education.<\/i> That’s true. It’s not always a comfortable education, but it’s an education all the same. <\/p>\n
Your thoughts? <\/b>Do these kinds of quotes inspire\/comfort\/encourage you like they do me? Are there any doubt-y quotes I’ve missed? <\/p>\n
If so, please share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I get asked occasionally if I’ve heard this or that quote about doubt and faith from such-and-such famous person. In most (but not all) cases, yes, I’m aware of the quote. This is due to two reasons: 1) Because I’m a big philosophers-and-theologians-and-writers nerd. Actually, the “nerd” tag explains a lot of things about me.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}