"The fact that God could create
free beings vis-à-vis of Himself is the cross which philosophy could not carry, but
remained hanging therefrom."
(Auden, 1966, 29) "The
human race ceased to fear God. Then came its punishment; it began to fear itself, began to
cultivate the fantastic, and now it trembles before this creature of its own
imagination."
(Ibid, 49)
"I love a father and a mother
differently, and every distinct sort of love has its distinct expression, but there is
also a love by which I love God, and there is only one word in the language which
expresses it... it is repentance. When I do not love Him thus, I do not love Him
absolutely, do not love Him with my inmost being, and every other sort of love for the
absolute is a misunderstanding for when thought clings to the absolute with all its love,
it is not the absolute I love, I do not love absolutely, for I love necessarily; as soon
as I love freely and love God I repent. And if there might be any reason why the
expression for my love of God is repentance, it would be because He has loved me
first."
(Ibid, 81-82)
"For if
God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it; and if He does exist it
would be folly to attempt it."
(Ibid, 141)
"But between God and His works there exists
an absolute relationship;...The works of God are such that only God can perform
them."
(Ibid, 143)
"The
despairer understands that it is weakness to take the earthly so much at heart , that it
is weakness to despair. But, then, instead of veering sharply away from despair to faith,
humbling himself before God for his weakness, he is more deeply absorbed in despair and
despairs over his weakness."
(Ibid, 148)
" For in order to pray there must be a God,
there must be a self plus possibility, or a self and possibility, or a self and
possibility in the pregnant sense; for God is that all things are possible, and that all
things are possible is God; and only the man whose being has been so shaken that he became
spirit by understanding that all things are possible, only he has had dealings with God.
The fact that God's will is the possible makes it possible to pray; if God's will is only
the necessary, man is essentially as speechless as the brutes."
(Ibid, 151)
"Perfect love means
to love the one through whom one became unhappy. But no man has the right to demand to be
thus loved. God can demand it; that is infinite majesty. And it is true of the man of
religion, in the strictest sense of the word, that in loving God he is loving him through
whom he became unhappy, humanly speaking, for this life-although blessed."
(Ibid, 201)
PRAYER
"O Thou who art unchangeable, whom nothing changes! Thou who art
unchangeable in love, precisely for our welfare not submitting to any change: may we too
will our welfare, submitting ourselves to the discipline of Thy unchangeableness, so that
we may, in unconditional obedience, find our rest and remain at rest in thy
unchangeableness. Thou art not like a man; if he is to preserve only some degree of
constancy he must not permit himself too much to be moved, nor by too many things. Thou on
the contrary art moved, and moved in infinite love, by all things. Even that which we
human beings call an insignificant trifle, and pass by unmoved, the need of a sparrow,
even this moves Thee, O Infinite Love! But nothing changes Thee, O Thou who art
unchangeable! O Thou who is infinite love dost submit to be moved, may this our prayer
also move Thee to add Thy blessing, in order that there may be wrought such a change in
him who prays as to bring him into conformity with Thy unchangeable will,
Thou who art unchangeable!" (Ibid, 224-225)
FREE LITERATURE
Does God Exist?
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