Thomas Merton Quotes About Doubt

Quotes about: Doubt

• We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of forgone conclusions. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge from him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe convictions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture.

  Thomas Merton

  Faith, Believe, Struggle

• The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a man of faith.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Doubt, He Man

  Thomas Merton (1975). “The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton”, p.306, New Directions Publishing

• First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?

  Thomas Merton

  Responsibility, Destiny, Men

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.12, Shambhala Publications

• Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Meditation, Doubt

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.12, New Directions Publishing

• You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Doubt, Know How

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.105, New Directions Publishing

• The fruitfulness of our lives depends in large measure in our ability to doubt our own words and to question the value of our own work. The man who completely trusts his own estimate of himself is doomed to sterility.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Doubt

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

• For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, Acceptance, Doubt

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.12, New Directions Publishing

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