19 Quotes by Austin Farrer

Christ does not save us by acting a parable of divine love; he acts the parable of divine love by saving us. That is the Christian faith.

Faith begins where religious pretension ends

What no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.

It is commonly said that if rational argument is so seldom the cause of conviction, philosophical apologists must largely be wasting their shot. The premise is true, but the conclusion does not follow. For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.

Religion is more like response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert.

Faith begins where religious pretension ends.

If God might be comprehended, he would not be God. An over-confident dogmatism is as fatal to theistic belief as scepticism itself; it pretends to prove and to define, only to discover that what it has defined and proved is not its Lord and God. You can no more catch God’s infinity in a net of words than... you can fish out the sea the glories of the dying day.

The crucial revelatory images that express ‘the thought of Christ’ are present in scripture and reinforced in worship.

A climate in which belief may flourish.