Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.
The awareness of the ambiguity of one’s highest achievements, as well as one’s deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity.
Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.
We are known in a depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision.
Astonishment is the root of philosophy.
Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.
Parents need to listen as much to their kids as they do to them: “The first duty of love is to listen.”
Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.
Destiny is not a strange power which determines what shall happen to me. It is myself as given, formed by nature, history, and myself. My destiny is the basis of my freedom; my freedom participates in shaping my destiny.
In Calvinism and sectarianism man became more and more transformed into an abstract moral subject, as in Descartes he was considered an epistemological subject.
Man and nature belong together in their created glory – in their tragedy and in their salvation.
There is no condition for forgiveness.
Love is the infinite which is given to the finite.
If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.
There is faith in every serious doubt, namely, the faith in the truth as such, even if the only truth we can express is our lack of truth.
Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.
Courage is a greater virtue than love. At best, it takes courage to love.
Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.
Existential anxiety of doubt drives the person toward the creation of certitude of systems of meaning, which are supported by tradition and authority. Neurotic anxiety builds a narrow castle of certitude which can be defended with the utmost certainty.
In the courageous standing of uncertainty, faith shows most visibly its dynamic character.