There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope, and many holy things lie in ruins because the world has ruined them and we have ruined them.

— Frederick Buechner (1926–2022), Schriftsteller, Theologe und Pfarrer

Source: Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons (2006)

Topics: Doubt & Hard Questions, Fear & Anxiety, Suffering & the Question of God

Frederick Buechner

Carl Frederick Buechner (1926–2022) war ein US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller, Theologe und presbyterianischer Pfarrer, der überwiegend im US-Bundesstaat Vermont lebte und wirkte. Bekannt wurde er durch Romane, Memoiren und theologische Essays, in denen er Gottes Gnade und Gegenwart mitten in alltäglichen Brüchen, Schmerz und Zweifeln thematisierte. Für Bibelleser heute eröffnet sein Werk einen literarisch feinsinnigen Zugang zu biblischen Texten, der existenzielle Verwundbarkeit ernst nimmt, auch wenn sein erzählerischer Ansatz mitunter Kritik an mangelnder dogmatischer Strenge aufwarf.

All quotes by Frederick Buechner (38)

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

All quotes · lumen.bible