Apologetics Quotes

“Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end: first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state. It all sounds so familiar. We have come a long road since our first chapter, and we are back in Rome.”
― Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture

“Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.”
― Blaise Pascal

“Religion, too, has defenders on both halves of the political spectrum. Even writers who are unwilling to defend the literal content of religious beliefs may be fiercely defensive of religion and hostile to the idea that science and reason have anything to say about morality (most of them show little awareness that humanism even exists). Defenders of the faith insist that religion has the exclusive franchise for questions about what matters. Or that even if we sophisticated people don't need religion to be moral, the teeming masses do. Or that even if everyone would be better off without religious faith, it's pointless to talk about the place of religion in the world because religion is a part of human nature, which is why, mocking Enlightenment hopes, it is more tenacious than ever.”
― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

“Don’t say, ‘I’m sorry, but...’ You’re either sorry or you’re not.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Soul Food: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

“As for the belief that humanity is mostly good, Secular humanism, when in that alignment, always presumes the existence of a higher power, or some god-like influence on man. Because it then becomes the belief that people are generally good and should be protected from the wiles of religion, as though this dark, vague and ignorant force once fell from the heavens, latched onto the purer hearts and minds of men and women, and, in all its forms, controlled and polluted the whole of human history. He says, 'When we defeat religion, humanity will be free.' But, if he were duly consistent, if he were really at all as secular as he claims, he might as well admit to what is actually an underlying brand of nihilistic cynicism: 'When we defeat humans, humanity will be free.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Regardless of how you came to doubt, doubt itself is not the problem, but what can be problematic and even tragic is what you do with your doubt.”
― Ben Young, Room for Doubt: How Uncertainty Can Deepen Your Faith

“We've been given a mind innovated by the Holy Spirit to know God, as well as a heart to love him and a will to choose him. We need to function in all three areas to have a maximum relationship with God and to glorify him.”
― Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter

“Christ is our Friend; He is also the Righteous King. God is our Father; He is also the Sovereign Lord. Christianity can be said to be both a religion and a relationship. You may often hear the cliché that it is not a religion, but a relationship only - which, I believe, is a bit too vague a statement - 'religion' has long had different meanings and implications depending on who you ask or where you are coming from. Honestly, it is sometimes the case that Christians like to think they are too cool and free and up-close and personal with God to be like other religions. Perhaps that could be argued, that could be the case, as it is written thus: 'You are no longer a slave to sin, but God's child.' So we might very well assert that Christianity is not at all some stale philosophy centered around legalistic guilt and empty rule-keeping, as the modernists so commonly define religion; although by other definitions we might as well be boasting that it is 'The Religion' simply by claiming that it is too real and too special to be deemed 'just another religion'.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“We ask, ‘Why the need for God?’ Maybe the better question is ‘Why the need not to need Him?’ And could it be that that question in fact evidences our need for Him?”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Diversion consoles us - in trivial ways - in the face of our miseries or perplexities; yet, paradoxically, it becomes the worst of our miseries becuase it hinders us from ruminating on and understanding our true condition. Thus, Pascal warns, it 'leads us imperceptibly to destruction.' Why? If not for diversion, we would 'be bored, and boredom would drive us to seek some more solid means of escape, but diversion passes our time and brings us imperceptibly to our death.' Through the course of protracted stupefaction, we learn to become oblivious to our eventual oblivion. In so doing, we choke off the possibility of seeking real freedom.”
― Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith

“Christianity did not begin with a group of people trying to remember and follow Jesus' teaching even though he was dead. It began with the belief that God had vindicated Jesus as the Messiah by raising him from the dead. This is why one would be completely mistaken to think that Jesus was a good teacher whose followers eventually developed a myth about his being the Son of God. There would be no Christian movement today if his original followers had not been convinced that he had really risen from the dead.”
― Mark Mittelberg, The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask:

“I'm not the only person who carries a lot of assumptions when I read the Bible, and it can be tough to entertain the idea that the Word of God has different perspectives in it. Biblical apologists spend all their time weaving these different viewpoints into a single frame, in an effort that often looks like squids playing Twister: fascinating, appalling, and hard to follow. We've seen what this approach to history can sow: a destructive oversimplification of the Church's past.
Americans treat their national narrative in much this way, too. We simplistically teach a single story in our history classrooms, of brave rebels who left cultures of tyranny and heroically crossed the Atlantic to found a nation built on freedom and justice. When we speak of our national sins, such as the genocide committed on Nation Americans or the brutal, longterm economic extraction of wealth from black bodies via slavery and segregation, we seem to dismiss these troubling matters as things that happened in the remote past but that have been resolved today.”
― Mike McHargue, Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science

“The serpent’s objective is clear. He seeks to drive a wedge of doubt into Adam and Eve’s confidence in what God has told them. Satan knows the power of undermining a human being’s confidence in what God has revealed. Sadly, the serpent’s temptation was successful. Adam and Eve second-guessed God’s trustworthiness and then rejected his command. They sinned and ate the forbidden fruit. This was the beginning of the fallen world we all experience. All generations following would have a natural bent for rebelling against God and being skeptical or indifferent to what he has said. To this day, Satan’s objective has not changed. Though his questions look a little different at times, they all contain the same idea”
― Jon Morrison, Clear Minds & Dirty Feet: A Reason To Hope, A Message To Share

“When the Bible offends you, be encouraged that it offends everyone at some point. Consider the responsibility of the Bible. It must speak the truth to every culture through every era of history. I believe that there has never been a culture on earth that has not been offended by the Bible on some issue. What offends one group could be common sense to another and vice versa. Some cultures are offended that God would judge people for their sin. Some cry out to God to judge people because of sin. There are some cultures that are appalled at how God would forgive people no matter what they have done. For other cultures, that kind of forgiveness is expected of God.”
― Jon Morrison

“Though his public teaching lasted only three years, it has been scrutinized by scholars in every science—among them theology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology to name a few. Jesus’ influence has founded universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Princeton, and Harvard. Now spanning the entire globe, Jesus’ followers have been inspired throughout the centuries to set up educational institutions to teach what he taught.”
― Jon Morrison, Clear Minds & Dirty Feet: A Reason To Hope, A Message To Share

“Religious pluralism is a popular belief in Western culture. At first it sounds very inclusive, but it is really just as exclusive as any other claims. Religious pluralists are those who argue that the “real God” is actually a mix of the gods of all the religions combined (ie. the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jehovah’s Witness; and we can even throw in ancient Greek gods). By mixing all the major religions, they are discounting the exclusive truth claims to which religions strictly adhere.”
― Jon Morrison, Clear Minds & Dirty Feet: A Reason To Hope, A Message To Share

“The Christian belief is that Jesus, as God, is the only one who can bring humanity back to God. He was the only person in history with such a pedigree. 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us plainly, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” As a man, he could represent humanity. He was tempted in every way, and yet he never sinned. Jesus is our proverbial “best foot forward” as far as humanity goes. Jesus is also God. As such he is able to serve as a “middle man” and usher us into the very presence of God.

The amazing thing is that Jesus offers his righteousness to anyone who will receive it. Rather than being receptive to this offer, we complain there are not other ways to God. While it is incredibly gracious that God would offer any way back to him, people complain that he did not provide ten ways.

The offer for salvation is available to all. Instead of being exclusive, Christianity is actually very inclusive. Everyone is welcome to come to Jesus. It does not matter who they are, or what they have done. The Bible tells us, “…whoever believes in him shall have eternal life” (John 3:16). Whether they be Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Greek, Canadian, African, athlete, entrepreneur, lawyer, or academic, the offer is there — come to Jesus.”
― Jon Morrison, Clear Minds & Dirty Feet: A Reason To Hope, A Message To Share

“Some words we use all the time are difficult to define when we actually have to think about them. We use the word “evil” all the time but when asked to define what we are talking about, it can be quite difficult.

Think about evil as you would think of counterfeit currency. A counterfeit is the corruption of something real. You can have real currency without the existence of any counterfeits. You cannot, however, have counterfeits without the real thing existing first. Evil is dependent on the existence of goodness but goodness is not dependent on evil. Goodness was there first. It is an absolute. Evil must always be thought of in relationship with absolute goodness.”
― Jon Morrison, Clear Minds & Dirty Feet: A Reason To Hope, A Message To Share

“I am not convinced of the argument, 'I want to believe; it is only those awful Christians I hate. They get in the way of my belief.' If you hate Christians more than you love Christ, you do not love Christ. It comes to mind the question, 'If you do not love your brother or sister whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Do not open your minds to the filtering of the fallacious doctrine that it is less infamous to murder men for their politics than for their religion or their money, or that the courage to execute the deed is worse than the cowardice to excuse it. Let us not flinch from condemning without respite or remission, not only Marat and Carrier, but also Barnave. Because there may be hanging matter in the lives of illustrious men, of William the Silent and Farnese, of Cromwell and Napoleon, we are not to be turned from justice towards the actions, and still more the thoughts, of those whom we are about to study.”
― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Lectures on the French Revolution

“When it comes to doubt, there is not one size that fits all. Some people struggle with it and some people don’t. Some people scream their way into doubt through pain and suffering, while others seem to drift into doubt. It’s that simple and that complex.”
― Ben Young, Room for Doubt: How Uncertainty Can Deepen Your Faith

“Doubting is not unique to a person or a time period. It is the nature of being a finite human living in a complex world filled with pain and disappointment and questions about existence that will never be answered.”
― Ben Young, Room for Doubt: How Uncertainty Can Deepen Your Faith

“Doubting is biblical, historical, and normal for many Christians who are trying to follow God in their lifetimes. It takes courage to face uncertainty and to live with doubts that may never completely go away.”
― Ben Young, Room for Doubt: How Uncertainty Can Deepen Your Faith

“I think that when we as Christians do not fully investigate the truth of something because we are concerned that it might confront our beliefs, we forget one of the very basic characteristics of the God we serve, namely that he is a God of truth.”
― Michael G. Strauss

“The evidence for the beginning of the universe in the big bang has become so powerful and so convincing that scientists have accepted it as true even though the philosophical and theological implications may be repugnant to some.”
― Michael G. Strauss

“Theists like myself have invoked the Big Bang and the anthropic principle as evidence for God for decades and over those years the observational evidence has increased, not decreased. Scientific evidence that supports the hypothesis of a creator God is more abundant than ever and, I confidently predict, that as we learn more about the origin of the universe this trend will continue.”
― Michael G. Strauss

“Benjamin Franklin said, "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." I disagree. To truly believe Franklin's statement in the simple terms of the quote, not qualified in any capacity, I propose that you would actually have to be insane, particularly in the realm of extreme paranoia. For instance, to merely take a breath of air, one must have some measure of faith in the vast majority of normal circumstances. One must have the faith that there is not any invisible, odorless, & lethal substance that has gone airborne in your area. To eat or drink something prepared by others, such as at a restaurant, one must have the faith that no one has poisoned your food. You can certainly examine your food prior to eating it, but to run a countless number of tests to see if it is poisoned in a way that is undetectable by sight, scent, or taste is ridiculous on a daily basis. Regardless of your belief in God, gods, atheism, or agnosticism, to completely abstain from faith in life as we know it would make the movie "Bubble Boy" seem like child's play. No, Franklin misunderstands faith and in his error has put a box around reason whose exclusion of faith can't rationally exist in order to further try to justify self-determination of morality.

The man who has no faith in anything is unreasonable, and the man who has no reason is incapable of faith.”
― Adam Garrett

“Without freedom, both the possibilities for people to love and to destroy would be eliminated. The problem of evil is the problem of freedom. God is Love incarnate (1), and despite the high amount of choice that He allows, He also is bursting to lavish His Love not merely on the perfect, which existed solely in Christ, but on the imperfect who could never deserve it by virtue of their imperfection (2). He does not completely shield the more deserving, not even the sole perfect One in all of human history, from destruction, yet He loves to redeem and restore, even through death at times as with His only begotten Son (3). His love is completely undeserved for the imperfect, despite their notions at times of amassing karma by their good deeds, yet He loves to pour out grace on the undeserving (4). Everything good in our existence, including the very life that we have, the air that we breathe, and even the good things that we do are by His mercy and grace (5). May all praise be to the One who has lavished loving-kindness on us in times of plenty and in times of want, who even seeks to grow us in the darkest of times when the cost of freedom is most clear, who remains with those who have found Him even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death (6).
1: 1 John 4:16;
2: Romans 3:9-31; 9:16, 23-29; 11:5-6
3. Job, Isaiah 53:3-6, 11 (prophesied centuries before Christ), Romans 3:24-26, 2 Corinthians 5:21
4. Romans 5:6-8; 11: 35-36, Isaiah 64:6, Ephesians 2:7-9, Psalm 50:7-15
5. James 1:17, Romans 2:4
6. Romans 8:28, Ephesians 1:3-10, James 1:2-5, Philippians 4:4-9, Psalm 23, Deuteronomy 31:8”
― Adam B Garrett

“Benjamin Franklin said, "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." I disagree. To live faithless I propose that you would actually have to be insane, particularly in the realm of extreme paranoia. For instance, to merely take a breath of air, one must have some measure of faith. One must have the faith that there is not any invisible, odorless, & lethal substance that has gone airborne in your area. To eat or drink something prepared by others, such as at a restaurant, one must have the faith that no one has poisoned your food. You can certainly examine your food prior to eating it, but to run a countless number of tests to see if it is poisoned in a way that is undetectable by sight, scent, or taste is ridiculous on a daily basis & there are poisonous substances that could remain undetected. Regardless of your belief in God, gods, atheism, or agnosticism, to completely abstain from faith in life as we know it would make the movie "Bubble Boy" seem like child's play. No, Franklin misunderstands faith and in haste has put a box around reason whose exclusion of faith can't rationally exist in order to further try to justify his disbelief in God including the perceived allowance for self-determination of morality.
The man who has no faith in anything is unreasonable, and the man who has no reason is incapable of faith.”
― Adam B Garrett

“The goal in most conflicts is to destroy your opponent. The goal in apologetics is to win your opponent.”
― Ravi Zacharias