A Quote by Tryon Edwards
Unbelief, in distinction from disbelief, is a confession of ignorance where honest inquiry might easily find the truth. - "Agnostic" is but the Greek for "ignoramus."
Related Quotes
There is no strength in unbelief. Even the unbelief of what is false is no source of might. It is the truth shining from behind that gives the strength to disbelieve.
Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.
To conceal ignorance is to increase it. An honest confession of it, however, gives ground for the hope that it will diminish some day or the other.
Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grants pardon of sin, all hope consists in confession; in confession there is a chance for mercy.
Confession frees, but power reduces one to silence; truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an origincal affinity with freedom: traditional themes in philosophy, which a political history of truth would have to overturn by showing that truth is not by nature free--nor error servile--but that its production is thoroughly imbued with relations of power. The confession is an example of this.
To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.
The Greek makes the distinction between petros and petra simply because it is trying to preserve the pun, and in Greek the feminine petra could not very well serve as a masculine name.
In doubting we come to inquiry; by inquiry we perceive the truth.
Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.
But whether I become a believer or remain an agnostic, my belief or disbelief must derive its source from within, not from without. I, myself, must create its symbols. The transcendental is that which produces its own form. I will never discover its secret if I do not find it in my own heart; if I do not possess it already I shall never be able to acquire it.
A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.
Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.
The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. ... Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.
Unbelievers enjoy the security of their unbelief; there is great confidence in ignorance.
Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.
Real inquiry is a tremendous moral transforming force. It's not just questioning and looking for a quick answer or explanation, but the process of inquiry-of questioning, of opening-opens something in the human being which has not been touched in our culture. Everybody who is human has in themselves the potential of passionate inquiry after truth, and that's the transforming force.
Related Authors
Albert Schweitzer Quotes
German
Theologian
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes
German
Theologian
Ernest Holmes Quotes
American
Theologian
Francis Schaeffer Quotes
American
Theologian
Huston Smith Quotes
American
Theologian
Johann Kaspar Lavater Quotes
German
Theologian
John Calvin Quotes
French
Theologian
John Owen Quotes
English
Theologian
Kevin DeYoung Quotes
American
Theologian
Mary Baker Eddy Quotes
American
Theologian
Oswald Chambers Quotes
Scottish
Theologian
Paul Tillich Quotes
German
Theologian
Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes
American
Theologian
Samuel Rutherford Quotes
Scottish
Theologian
Stanley Hauerwas Quotes
American
Theologian
Thomas Aquinas Quotes
Italian
Theologian