It is natural…for us to trust in ourselves. It is so natural, and so confirmed by the habits of a lifetime, that no ordinary difficulties or perplexities avail to break us of it. It takes all God can do to root up our self-confidence. He must reduce us to despair; He must bring us to such an extremity that the one voice we have in our hearts, the one voice that cries to us wherever we look round for help, is death, death, death. It is out of this despair that the superhuman hope is born. It is out of this abject helplessness that the soul learns to look up with new trust to God… How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence? Is it not by proving, through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to feel that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benign than our own, life is a moral chaos?… Only desperation opens our eyes to God’s love.

— James Denney (1856–1917), Theologe

Topics: Suffering & the Question of God, Hope & Confidence, Humility & Pride

James Denney

James Denney (1856–1917) war ein schottischer presbyterianischer Pfarrer und Theologieprofessor in Glasgow. Er stellte das stellvertretende Sühnopfer Christi ins Zentrum seiner Theologie und geriet dabei in Konflikt sowohl mit theologisch Liberalen als auch mit konservativen Vertretern einer strikten Verbalinspiration. Für heutige Bibelleser verbinden seine Auslegungen zum Tod Jesu eine anspruchsvolle Schrifterklärung mit dem praktischen Anliegen evangeliumszentrierter Verkündigung.

All quotes by James Denney (8)

James Denney

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