Carroll Moffitt > Carroll's Quotes

“Theology is not a private subject for theologians only. Nor is it a private subject for professors. Fortunately, there have always been pastors who have understood more about theology than most professors. Nor is theology a private subject of study for pastors. Fortunately, there have repeatedly been congregation members, and often whole congregations, who have pursued theology energetically while their pastors were theological infants or barbarians. Theology is a matter for the Church.”
― Karl Barth

“As ministers we ought to speak of God. We are human, however, and so cannot speak of God. We ought therefore to recognize both our obligation and our inability and by that very recognition give glory to God”
― Karl Barth

“Faith is not an art. Faith is not an achievement. Faith is not a good work of which some may boast while others can excuse themselves with a shrug of the shoulders for not being capable of it. It is a decisive insight of faith itself that all of us are incapable of faith in ourselves, whether we think of its preparation, beginning, continuation, or completion. In this respect believers understand unbelievers, skeptics, and atheists better than they understand themselves. Unlike unbelievers, they regard the impossibility of faith as necessary, not accidental ...”
― Karl Barth, Reader

“A free theologian works in communication with other theologians...He waits for them and asks them to wait for him. Our sadly lacking yet indispensable theological co-operation depends directly or indirectly on whether or not we are wiling to wait for one another, perhaps lamenting, yet smiling with tears in our eyes.”
― Karl Barth, The Humanity of God

“The mature and well-balanced man, standing firmly with both feet on the earth, who has never been lamed and broken an half-blinded by the scandal of life, is as such the existentially godless man.”
― Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans

“Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader

“Of all the knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, are the most important.”
― Jonathan Edwards, A careful & strict inquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of the will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue & vice, reward & punishment, praise & blame...

“God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 17: Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733

“God’s purpose for my life was that I have a passion for God’s glory and that I have a passion for my joy in that glory, and that these two are one passion.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“And yet some people actually imagine that the revelation in God’s Word is not enough to meet our needs. They think that God from time to time carries on an actual conversation with them, chatting with them, satisfying their doubts, testifying to His love for them, promising them support and blessings. As a result, their emotions soar; they are full of bubbling joy that is mixed with self-confidence and a high opinion of themselves. The foundation for these feelings, however, does not lie within the Bible itself, but instead rests on the sudden creations of their imaginations. These people are clearly deluded. God’s Word is for all of us and each of us; He does not need to give particular messages to particular people.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections

“Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering.”
― Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

“A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble broken-hearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble broken-hearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behaviour.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections

“If the heart be chiefly and directly fixed on God, and the soul engaged to glorify him, some degree of religious affection will be the effect and attendant of it. But to seek after affection directly and chiefly; to have the heart principally set upon that; is to place it in the room of God and his glory. If it be sought, that others may take notice of it, and admire us for our spirituality and forwardness in religion, it is then damnable pride; if for the sake of feeling the pleasure of being affected, it is then idolatry and self-gratification.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“true weanedness from the world don't consist in being beat off from the world by the affliction of it, but a being drawn off by the sight of something better.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“The deceitfulness of the heart of man appears in no one thing so much as this of spiritual pride and self-righteousness. The subtlety of Satan appears in its height, in his managing persons with respect to this sin. And perhaps one reason may be that here he has most experience; he knows the way of its coming in; he is acquainted with the secret springs of it: it was his own sin. Experience gives vast advantage in leading souls, either in good or evil.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections

“If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.”
― Jonathan Edwards

“How can you expect to dwell with God forever, if you so neglect and forsake him here?”
― Jonathan Edwards, Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards

“True virtue never appears so lovely as when it is most oppressed; and the divine excellency of real Christianity is never exhibited with such advantage as when under the greatest trials; then it is that true faith appears much more precious than gold, and upon this account is "found to praise and honour and glory.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections

“One of these grand defects, as I humbly conceive, is this, that children are habituated to learning without understanding.”
― Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 16: Letters and Personal Writings