The Knowledge of the Holy, pt. 1

Good Morning All!

I've been re-reading one of my favorite books, The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer, and I thought I'd share a few quotes from the first third of the book that struck me:

On Belief: 

• "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater then its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God."
• "The yearning to know What cannot be known, to Comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source. How can it be realized? The answer of the Bible is simply 'through Jesus Christ our Lord.'"
• "Some persons who reject all they cannot explain have denied that God is a Trinity. Subjecting the Most High to their cold, level-eyed scrutiny, they conclude that it is impossible that He could be both One and Three. These forget that their whole life is enshrouded in mystery. They fail to consider that any real explanation of even the simplest phenomenon in nature lies hidden in obscurity and can no more be explained than can the mystery of the Godhead."
• "Science has done much for us; but it is poor science that would hide us from the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, whiter we can never penetrate, on which all our science swims as a mere superficial film. This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical, and more, to whosoever will think it." 
• "What God declares the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof. Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous. Everyone who possesses the gift of faith will recognize the wisdom of those daring words of one of the early Church fathers: 'I believe that Christ died for me because it is incredible; I believe that He rose from the dead because it is impossible.'"   
• "The doctrine of the Trinity, as I have said before, is truth for the heart. The fact that it cannot be satisfactorily explained, instead of being against it, is in its favor. Such a truth had to be revealed; no one could have imagined it."
• "'God has no origin,' said Novatian, and it is precisely this concept of no-origin which distinguishes That-which-is-God from whatever is not God."

On Man's Nature

• "For reasons known only to Himself, God honored man above all other beings by creating him in His own image... It is a solid theological fact taught plainly in throughout the Sacred Scriptures... Man is a created being, a derived and contingent self, who of himself possesses nothing but is dependent each moment for his existence upon the One who created him after His own likeness. The fact of God is necessary to the fact of man. Think God away and man has no ground for existence. That God is everything and man nothing is a basic tenet of Christian faith and devotion; and here the teachings of Christianity  coincide with those of the more advanced and philosophical religions of the East. Man for all his genius is but an echo of the original Voice, a reflection of the uncreated Light."
• "The natural man is a sinner because and only because her challenges God's selfhood in relation to his own. In all else he may willingly accept the sovereignty of God; in his own life he rejects it."
• "His constant assertion of self, as far as he thinks of it at all, appears to him a perfectly normal thing."
• "For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both. 'He hath set eternity in their heart,' said the Preacher, and I the he here sets forth both the glory and the misery of men. To be made for eternity and forced to dwell in time is for mankind a tragedy of huge proportions. All within us cries for life and permanence, and everything around us reminds us of mortality and change."
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On Sin

• "Sin has many manifestations but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from the elevated position declares "I AM." That is sin in its concentrated essence; yet because it is natural it appears to be good."
• "Among all created beings, not one dare trust in itself. God alone trusts in Himself; all other beings must trust in Him. Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust not in the living God but in dying men. The unbeliever denies the self-sufficiency of God and usurps attributes that are not his. This dual sin dishonors God and ultimately destroys the soul of the man." 

On Man, Sin, and Belief

• "God's eternity and man's mortality join to persuade us that faith in Jesus Christ is not optional. For every man it must be Christ or eternal tragedy."