Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian
Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.227 [ellipsis added]
“For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!”
From The Ancient Sage (1885), lines 66-69
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Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side …" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson?
Alfred, Lord Tennyson213
British poet laureate 1809–1892Related quotes
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), II : The Starting-Point
“Faith ever says, "If Thou wilt," not "If Thou canst."”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 241
“I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.”
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
“It has been said that "Nothing worth the proving can be proved, nor yet disproved."”
William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist
True though this may have been in the past, it is true no longer. The science of our century has forged weapons of observation and analysis by which the veriest tyro may profit. Science has trained and fashioned the average mind into habits of exactitude and disciplined perception, and in so doing has fortified itself for tasks higher, wider, and incomparably more wonderful than even the wisest among our ancestors imagined. Like the souls in Plato's myth that follow the chariot of Zeus, it has ascended to a point of vision far above the earth. It is henceforth open to science to transcend all we now think we know of matter and to gain new glimpses of a profounder scheme of Cosmic law.
Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1898)
Ursula Goodenough book The Sacred Depths of Nature
Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 167
Context: We are, each one of us, ordained to live out our lives in the context of ultimate questions, such as:
Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?
Where did the laws of physics come from?
Why does the universe seem so strange?
My response to such questions has been to articulate a covenant with Mystery. Others, of course, prefer to respond with answers, answers that often include a concept of god. These answers are by definition beliefs since they can neither be proven nor refuted. They may be gleaned from existing faith traditions or from personal search. God may be apprehended as a remote Author without present-day agency, or as an interested Presence with whom one can form a relationship, or as pantheistic — Inherent in All Things.
The opportunity to develop personal beliefs in response to questions of ultimacy, including the active decision to hold no Beliefs at all, is central to the human experience. The important part, I believe, is that the questions be openly encountered. To take the universe on — to ask Why Are Things As They Are? — is to generate the foundation for everything else.
“Life is doubt,
And faith without doubt is nothing but death.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 37.
James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China
(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Four: Survivors’ Pact. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1984, 58).
