Quote#God & Faith
Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall…
Quote byWilliam James · 1842–1910
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic".
English (original)
Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.
— William James
More from William James
"What is meant by saying that my choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and matter of chance?...It means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called but only one, and that one either one, shall be chosen.
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possibility, this admission that any one of several things may come to pass is, after all, only a roundabout name for chance.
Freedom is only necessity understood.
We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.