William Jennings Bryan: Quotes about God

William Jennings Bryan was United States Secretary of State. Explore interesting quotes on god.
William Jennings Bryan: 66   quotes 3   likes

“I can make affirmation; I can say "So help me God, I will tell the truth."”

William Jennings Bryan

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God , Truth , Help

“If you will take the second chapter — let me have the book. [Reaches for a Bible. ] The fourth verse of the second chapter says: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," the word day there in the very next chapter is used to describe a period. I do not see that there is any necessity for construing the words, "the evening and the morning," as meaning necessarily a 24-hour day, "in the day when the Lord made the heaven and the earth."… I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6 million years or in 600 million years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other. … My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days.”

William Jennings Bryan

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God , Books , Thinking

“Your Honor, I think I can shorten this testimony. The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world. I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee to slur at it, and while it will require time, I am willing to take it.”

William Jennings Bryan

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God , World , Question , Thinking

“When I read that a "big fish" swallowed Jonah — it does not say whale. That is my recollection of it. A big fish, and I believe it, and I believe in a God who can make a whale and can make a man and make both what He pleases. … One miracle is just as easy to believe as another. … It is hard to believe for you, but easy for me. A miracle is a thing performed beyond what man can perform. When you get within the realm of miracles; and it is just as easy to believe the miracle of Jonah as any other miracle in the Bible.”

William Jennings Bryan

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God , Fish , Reading

“The reason I am answering is not for the benefit of the superior court. It is to keep these gentlemen from saying I was afraid to meet them and let them question me, and I want the Christian world to know that any atheist, agnostic, unbeliever, can question me anytime as to my belief in God, and I will answer him. … Your honor, they have not asked a question legally and the only reason they have asked any question is for the purpose, as the question about Jonah was asked, for a chance to give this agnostic an opportunity to criticize a believer in the world of God; and I answered the question in order to shut his mouth so that he cannot go out and tell his atheistic friends that I would not answer his questions. That is the only reason, no more reason in the world.”

William Jennings Bryan

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God , World , Question , Chance

“I have studied the Bible for about 50 years, or sometime more than that, but, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was but a boy. … I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there: some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: "Ye are the salt of the earth." I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people.”

William Jennings Bryan

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

God , People , Boy , Sense

“The real question is, Did God use evolution as His plan? If it could be shown that man, instead of being made in the image of God, is a development of beasts we would have to accept it, regardless of its effort, for truth is truth and must prevail. But when there is no proof we have a right to consider the effect of the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis.”

William Jennings Bryan

God and Evolution (1922)

God , Truth , Question , Effort