Peter Kreeft Quotes About Sin

Quotes about: Sin

• Now suppose both death and hell were utterly defeated. Suppose the fight was fixed. Suppose God took you on a crystal ball trip into your future and you saw with indubitable certainty that despite everything — your sin, your smallness, your stupidity — you could have free for the asking your whole crazy heart’s deepest desire: heaven, eternal joy. Would you not return fearless and singing? What can earth do to you, if you are guaranteed heaven? To fear the worst earthly loss would be like a millionaire fearing the loss of a penny — less, a scratch on a penny.

  Peter Kreeft

  Crazy, Heart, Loss

  Peter Kreeft (1989). “Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing”, p.82, Ignatius Press

• We are all insane. That is what original sin means. Sin is insanity. It is preferring finite joy to infinite joy, creatures to the Creator, an unhappy, Godless self to a happy, God-filled self Only God can save us from this disease. That is what the name "Jesus" means: 'God saves'.

  Peter Kreeft

  Jesus, Mean, Self

  Peter Kreeft (2000). “Prayer for Beginners”, p.36, Ignatius Press

• This is the reason why it is crucial to distinguish anger from hatred. There is a kind of anger (nonsinful kind) which...is in God himself, while hate is not in God but is in Satan. If we do not clearly distinguish anger from hatred, then we do not clearly distinguish God from Satan!

  Peter Kreeft

  Hate, Hatred, Reason Why

  Peter Kreeft (2016). “Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion”, p.85, Ignatius Press

• We modern egalitarians are tempted to the primal sin of pride in the opposite way from the ancients. The old, aristocratic form of pride was the desire to be better than others. The new, democratic form is the desire not to have anyone better than yourself. It is just as spiritually deadly and does not even carry with it the false pleasure of gloating superiority.

  Peter Kreeft

  Pride, Opposites, Desire

  Peter Kreeft (1990). “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven-- But Never Dreamed of Asking”, p.29, Ignatius Press

• A God who did not abolish suffering-worse , a God who abolished sin precisely by suffering-is a scandal to the modern mind.

  Peter Kreeft

  Mind, Suffering, Scandal

• God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning.

  Peter Kreeft

  Powerful, Evil People, World

• No age has been more prone to confuse the sin with the sinner, not by hating the sinner along with the sin but by loving the sin along with the sinner. We often use "compassion" as an equivalent for moral relativism.

  Peter Kreeft

  Hate, Compassion, Age

  "The Pillars of Unbelief - Machiavelli" by Peter Kreeft, www.peterkreeft.com. January/February 1988.

• Of course the more you love the sinner the more you hate and make war on the sin, just as the more you love the person, the more you hate and kill the cancer cells that are killing the person. Compassion for cancer cells does not come from compassion for persons; it comes precisely from lack of compassion for persons.

  Peter Kreeft

  Hate, War, Cancer

  Peter Kreeft (1996). “Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War”, p.45, Ignatius Press

• God is love. Wraith is how His love appears to us when we sin or rebel or run away from Him. The very light that is meant to help us appears to us as our enemy when we seek the darkness.

  Peter Kreeft

  God, Running, Light

• We are insane. That is what sin is. Sanctity is identitical with sanity. It means living the truth, living in reality. Sin always substitutes unreality for reality.

  Peter Kreeft

  Mean, Reality, Insane

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.138, Ignatius Press

• Sin comes from not realizing God's love. Sin comes from thinking ourselves only as sinners, while overcoming sin comes from thinking ourselves as overcomers. We act our our perceived identities.

  Peter Kreeft

  Thinking, Identity, Overcoming

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.137, Ignatius Press

• Sin has made us stupid, so that we can only learn the hard way.

  Peter Kreeft

  Stupid, Way, Sin

• Without that freedom to sin there is also no freedom to love.

  Peter Kreeft

  Love, Sin

• Original sin is the proclivity to say "my will be done" instead of "thy will be done."

  Peter Kreeft

  Done, Sin, Originals

• The more we realize we are loved, the more ashamed we are not to love back. The more we sin as a violation of love, not just of law, the more powerful a motive we will have to overcome it. For sin is attractive to us (otherwise we would never be attracted to it) and can be cast out only by something more attractive.

  Peter Kreeft

  Love, Powerful, Law

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.137, Ignatius Press

• Envy, though not the greatest sin, is the only one that gives the sinner no pleasure at all, not even fake and temporary satisfaction.

  Peter Kreeft

  Giving, Envy, Fake

  Peter Kreeft (2016). “Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion”, p.76, Ignatius Press

• In every sin, we choose to believe the devil's lie rather than God's truth.

  Peter Kreeft

  Lying, Believe, Devil

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.113, Ignatius Press

• When we believe that God is something other than a lover, it is inevitable that we will sin.

  Peter Kreeft

  God, Believe, Lovers

• No emotion, merely as an emotion, is a sin, because we cannot directly control the arising of an emotion in our soul.

  Peter Kreeft

  Soul, Emotion, Sin

  Peter Kreeft (2016). “Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion”, p.82, Ignatius Press

• The Inquisition confused sin with sinners and judged both. Modern Americans make the same mistake but judge neither.

  Peter Kreeft

  Confused, Mistake, Judging

• We sin because we see sin as a bargain. We unconsciously calculate that it’s worth it, that it pays.

  Peter Kreeft

  Pay, Sin, Bargains

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven: But Never Dreamed of Asking”, p.145, Ignatius Press

• Only saints can save the world. And only our own sins can stop us from being saints.

  Peter Kreeft

  Saint, World, Sin

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