28 Quotes by Sheldon Vanauken

It is not possible to be 'incidentally a Christian.' The fact of Christianity must be overwhelmingly first or nothing. This suggests a reason for the dislike of Christians by nominal or non-Christians: their lives contain no overwhelming first but many balances.

Both Heaven and Hell are retroactive, all of one's life will eventually be known to have been one or the other.

Whatever one of us asked the other to do - it was assumed the asker would weigh all the consequences - the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as 'a cup of water in the night'. And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it.

What we did see was that jealousy is fear: it can corrode even if quite baseless.

Corruption is never compulsory.

Her death...brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealousy of God. It saved her faith from assault.

To believe with certainty, somebody said, one has to begin by doubting.

Signs must be read with caution. The history of Christendom is replete with instances of people who misread the signs.

My prayers are answered. No: a glimpse is not a vision. But to a man on a mountain road by night, a glimpse of the next three feet of road may matter more than a vision of the horizon. And there must perhaps always be just enough lack of demonstrative certainty to make free choice possible: for what could we do but accept if the faith were like the multiplication table?