“Sin and grace, absence and presence, tragedy and comedy, they divide the world between them and where they meet head on, the Gospel happens.”

— Frederick Buechner

Telling the Truth (1977)

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Frederick Buechner 67

Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian 1926

Angela Carter book Wise Children

Source: Wise Children (1991), ch. 5 (p.213).

“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“Repentance is a pure gospel grace. The covenant of works admitted no repentance; there it was, sin and die. Repentance came in by the gospel. Christ has purchased in his blood that repenting sinners shall be saved.”

Thomas Watson (1616–1686) English nonconformist preacher and author

The Doctrine of Repentance (1668)

“Hysterical optimism will prevail until the world again admits the existence of tragedy, and it cannot admit the existence of tragedy until it again distinguishes between good and evil… Hysterical optimism as a sin against knowledge.”

Richard M. Weaver book Ideas Have Consequences

Source: Ideas Have Consequences

“Being is both presence and absence. God had to conceal His presence in order to bring the world into being.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5
Context: Being is both presence and absence. God had to conceal His presence in order to bring the world into being. He had to make His absence possible in order to make room for the world's presence. Coming into being brought along denial and defiance, absence, oblivion and resistance.