Quotessence
Home / Authors / Robert Farrar Capon Books
Robert Farrar Capon

Robert Farrar Capon Books

Author

Bed and Board

A source page for quotes linked to Robert Farrar Capon.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“The proper self-knowledge and self-love of every created thing is ipso facto a participation in the knowledge and love of God. The entire universe moves by desire for the Highest Good simply because every part of it loves what God loves - namely, its own unique being. The stones on the beach, the grass in the field, the rabbits in the woods, and the stars in the sky all move toward him by the most dependable of all motions: their own desire to know and love themselves.”

LoveDesireUniverseCreationSelf LoveGoodSelf KnowledgeBeing
Book:Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“What God effects in the reconciliation does the work of forgetting without the danger of forgetting. He does better than forget: he remembers our evil in grace as the only read thing it ever could have been. He takes away the flaming sword between us and our self-knowledge, and brings us home to ourselves.”

RememberEvilForgetGraceGoodReconciliation
Book:Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“There is indeed no horror, no wickedness, no evil - no cruelty, no torture, no holocaust in the whole history of the world - that is not, under the sovereignty of grace, already reconciled in Jesus. And there is no perpetrator of any horror, wickedness, evil, et cetera (up to and including Hitler and your dreadful brother-in-law) who is not, in Jesus, forgiven. That is the Gospel, the Good News, without which we are all obviously dead ducks. But it is also, from where we sit, the most outrageous piece of bad news the world has ever heard because it says quite clearly that, on the basis of anything we can know or feel about the goodness of creation, God is bad.”

EvilGraceCreationGoodnessGospel
Book:Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“Straight theologizing about grace is more, not less, outrageous than parabolic theologizing. The more clearly you make grace sovereign over human life, the more unacceptable become your efforts to harmonize it with life as we know it. The farther you go in expounding grace as the ultimate goodness of God, the deeper you find yourself mired in the manifest badness of God.”

GraceGoodnessTheologyParable
Book:Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“judgment, as it is portrayed in the parables of Jesus (not to mention the rest of the New Testament) never comes until after acceptance: grace remains forever the sovereign consideration. The difference between the blessed and the cursed is one thing and one thing only: the blessed accept their acceptance and the cursed reject it; but the acceptance is already in place for both groups before either does anything about it.”

JesusGraceJudgmentParables
Book:The Parables of Judgement
Create image

“[The] dinner party is a true proclamation of the abundance of being -- a rebuke to the thrifty little idolatries by which we lose sight of the lavish hand that made us. It is precisely because no one needs soup fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time to time. It was largesse that made us all; we were not created to fast forever. The unnecessary is the taproot of our being and the last key to the door of delight. Enter here, therefore, as a sovereign remedy for the narrowness of our minds and the stinginess of our souls, the formal dinner...the true convivium -- the long Session that brings us nearly home.”

FoodCelebrationFeasting
Book:The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection
Create image

“However grand our sacramental downsittings and updressings may be, they remain only and precisely sacraments: real presences, under particular signs, of the happier order that faith can discover under any and all signs. They're a bit like the church. As long as we see them as an earnest of the kingdom, they're all right; when we put on airs and act as if they were the kingdom itself, they look just silly.”

FaithChurchFancyKingdomDinner PartySacramentDinner Parties
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

ReligionFaithGrace
Book:Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“[Heaven] is not something other than this world; it is this world as it is perfectly offered now in the land of the Trinity. It is all the moments of time and all the conjunctions of space as Christ holds them reconciled for the praise of the glory of the Father's grace. And it is all of them held for our endless exploration of their depths - depths which we, even at our best, even at the moment of seeing the beloved's eyes, have only just begun to suspect.”

HeavenGraceReconciliationTrinity
Book:Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“The world exists, not for what it means but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms, wine is in order to be wine: things are precious before they are contributory. It is a false piety that walks through creation looking only for lessons which can be applied somewhere else. To be sure, God remains the greatest good; but, for all that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since He does not need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own natural goodness; He has no use for it, only delight.”

WorldNeedsMeanDoeStillsReasonWholeUseLyingPurposeOrderNaturalWalksCreationLessonsGoodnessRemainsWineEnvironmentalDelightSomewhere ElsePietyMushrooms
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“Salvation is not some felicitous state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after the contemplation of sufficiently good examples. It is an utterly new creation into which we are brought by our death in Jesus' death and our resurrection in his. It comes not out of our own best efforts, however well-inspired or successfully pursued, but out of the shipwreck of all human efforts whatsoever.”

HumansWellsStatesJesusChristEffortExampleCreationSalvationInspiredLiftsContemplationResurrectionPursuedGood ExamplesBest EffortShipwreckBootstrapsJesus Death
Book:Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus
Create image

“The reason for not going out and sinning all you like is the same as the reason for not going out and putting your nose in a slicing machine: its dumb, stupid, and no fun. Some individual sins may have pleasure still attached to them because of the residual goodness of the realities they are abusing: adultery can indeed be pleasant and tying one on can amuse. But betrayal, jealousy, love grown cold, and the gray dawn of the morning after are nobody's idea of a good time.”

MayStillsIdeasReasonRealityIndividualFunSinPleasureMorningStupidColdGoodnessMachinesBetrayalDumbNosesDawnPleasantGood TimesGrayGoing OutDiscipleshipAdulterySinningMorning AfterLove JealousyResidual
Book:Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus
Create image

“A lost sheep is, for all practical purposes a dead sheep. It is the admission that we are dead in our sins---that we have no power of ourselves either to save ourselves or to convince anyone else that we are worth saving. It is the recognition that our whole life is out of our hands and that if we ever live again, our life will be entirely the gift of some gracious shepherd. God finds us the desert of death (not in the garden of improvement) and in the power of Jesus' resurrection, he puts us on his shoulders rejoicing and brings us home.”

IfsWholeHomeHandsLife IsPurposeJesusLostSinOur LivesGardenWhole LifeImprovementPracticalsShouldersSavingRecognitionDesertConvinceRejoiceResurrectionSheepGraciousShepherdsAdmissionJesus Resurrection
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“It is precisely because no one needs soup, fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time to time. It was largesse that made us all; we were not created to fast forever... Enter here, therefore, as a sovereign remedy for the narrowness of our minds and the stinginess of our souls.”

NeedsMindMadeSoulForeverFoodCookingFishesMeatMealsCulinaryRemedyCheeseSovereignSoupDessertSaladLargesseStinginess
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.”

MindDoeSelfLossSinPromiseLosingSelf ImprovementImprovementDisasterEndlessWinnerOddOur FamilyPeace Of MindThickFamily LifeBrokennessLotteryShipwreck
Book:The Astonished Heart: Reclaiming the Good News from the Lost-and-found of Church History
Create image

“... the proper self-knowledge and self-love of every created thing is ipso facto a participation in the knowledge and love of God. The entire universe moves by desire for the Highest Good simply because every part of it loves what God loves - namely, its own being.”

SelfMovingDesireUniverseSelf LoveHighestAnd LoveGod LoveSelf KnowledgeParticipation
Book:Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“... the divine knowing - what the Father knows, and what the Word says in response to that knowing, and what the Spirit broods upon under the speaking of the Word - all that eternal intellectual activity isn't just daydreaming. It's the cause of everything that is. God doesn't find out about creation; he knows it into being. His knowing has hair on it. It is an effective act. What he knows, is. What he thinks, by the very fact of his thinking, jumps from no-thing into thing. He never thought of anything that wasn't.”

ThinkingKnowsFactsSpiritFatherCausesKnowingCreationDivineHairActivityEternalIntellectualResponseDaydreaming
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“...we are saved by Christ alone who raises us from the dead - from the absolution of our death. We come before him at the judgement with no handwriting whatsoever against us. It's simply cheating to say you believe that and then renege on it by postulating some list of extra-rotten crimes for which Christ has to send you to hell. He, the universal Redeemer, is the only judge; as far as he's concerned, the only mandatory sentence is to life and life abundant.”

BelieveChristHellCrimeJudgingConcernedUniversalRaisesSentencesListsSavedJudgementExtrasCheatingRottenRedeemerHandwritingAbsolutionChrist Alone
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating, cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe, flinging the sweetness of its cassations to every window, pounding at every door in a hilarity beyond all liking and happening, until the prodigals come out at last and dance, and the elder brothers finally take their fingers out of their ears.”

WorldWayLastsUniverseGraceDoorsStreetsBrotherHappeningsWindowEarsFingersCosmicCelebrationSweetnessFloatingEldersShoutingCelebrate LifeProdigalsBashCelebration Of LifeHilarity
Book:Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace
Create image

“...there is therefore now no condemnation for two reasons: you are dead now; and God, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, has been dead all along. The blame game was over before it started. It really was. All Jesus did was announce that truth and tell you it would make you free. It was admittedly a dangerous thing to do. You are a menace. Be he did it; and therefore, menace or not, here you stand: uncondemned, forever, now. What are you going to do with your freedom?”

WorldHas BeensTwoReasonGamesJesusForeverDangerousBlameFoundationThings To DoLambsMenaceCondemnationDangerous ThingsYour FreedomBlame Game
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“But all the while, there was one thing we most needed even from the start, and certainly will need from here on out into the New Jerusalem: the ability to take our freedom seriously and act on it, to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. My repentance, accordingly, is not so much for my failings but for the two-bit attitude toward them by which I made them more sovereign than grace. Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions of glory.”

NeedsMadeTwoHomeJesusBitsAbilityMistakeAttitudeGraceFailingOne ThingNeededGloryDrawsErrorsOccasionsRepentanceCandleSovereignImperativesJerusalemJust ListenInfirmityTwo Bit
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“For all its rooted loveliness, the world has no continuing city here; it is an outlandish place, a foreign home, a session in via to a better version of itself-and it is our glory to see it so and to thirst until Jerusalem comes home at last. We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.”

WorldHomeLastsGivenForgetCitiesTasteGoodnessGloryHungerVersionsComing HomeAppetiteRootedContinuingThirstSessionForget ItJerusalemLovelinessOutlandish
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“The life of grace is not an effort on our part to achieve a goal we set ourselves. It is a continually renewed attempt simply to believe that someone else has done all the achieving that is needed and to live in relationship with that person, whether we achieve or not. If that doesn't seem like much to you, you're right: it isn't. And, as a matter of fact, the life of grace is even less than that. It's not even our life at all, but the life of that Someone Else rising like a tide in the ruins of our death.”

IfsBelievePersonsMatterDoneFactsSeemsGoalEffortGraceOur LivesAchieveNeededRuinsRisingTidesMatter Of Fact
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“The world is by no means averse to religion. In fact, it is devoted to it with a passion. It will buy any recipe for salvation as long as that formula leaves the responsibility for cooking up salvation firmly in human hands. The world is drowning in religion. But it is scared out of its wits by any mention of the grace that takes the world home gratis.”

WorldHumansMeanLongFactsHomeHandsReligionPassionResponsibilityGraceCookingSalvationScaredWitFormulasDevotedRecipesDrowningHuman Hands
Author:Robert Farrar Capon
Create image

“Christianity is NOT a religion; it is the proclamation of the end of religion. Religion is a human activity dedicated to the job of reconciling God to humanity and humanity to itself. The Gospel, however - the Good News of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the astonishing announcement that God has done the whole work of reconciliation without a scrap of human assistance. It is the bizarre proclamation that religion is over - period.”

HumansEndsDoneWholeJobsReligionHumanityJesusChristChristianityLordPeriodsActivityNewsJesus ChristSaviorDedicatedAssistanceGood NewsBizarreReconciliationOur LordAstonishingScrapHuman ActivityAnnouncementsProclamationSavior Jesus
Book:The Astonished Heart: Reclaiming the Good News from the Lost-and-found of Church History
Create image