Do I know God? One could just as well ask: does the starfish know the ocean in which it lives and dies? It knows only waves and currents, but not the ocean.

— Kurt Marti (1921–2017), Schriftsteller, Lyriker und Pfarrer

Topics: Doubt & Hard Questions, God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit

Kurt Marti

Kurt Marti (1921–2017) war ein Schweizer evangelisch-reformierter Pfarrer, Schriftsteller und Lyriker, der vor allem in Bern wirkte. Geprägt von Karl Barth und dem religiösen Sozialismus, verband er theologische Lyrik und Mundartdichtung mit politischem Engagement, was ihm wegen seiner pazifistischen Haltung auch heftige gesellschaftliche Kritik eintrug. Bibellesern begegnet er durch seine pointierte Sprache und Aphorismen, die Kernthemen wie Hoffnung, Gerechtigkeit und Schöpfungsverantwortung ohne religiöse Floskeln zur Sprache bringen.

All quotes by Kurt Marti (9)

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The strongest faith isn't a faith that never doubts. Rather, it's a faith that grows through doubts.
Craig Groeschel

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.
C.S. Lewis

Do you see the moon standing there? It's only half visible, and yet it's round and lovely! So it is with many things that we lightly laugh about, because our eyes cannot see them.
Matthias Claudius

The grip of our faith by which we hold on to the Lord may loosen. But the One in whom we believe holds us with his grip.
Helmut Thielicke

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C.S. Lewis

Now that I am a Christian I do not have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.
C.S. Lewis

Faith comes and goes. It rises and falls like the tides of an invisible ocean. If it is presumptuous to think that faith will stay with you forever, it is just as presumptuous to think that unbelief will.
Flannery O'Connor

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare

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