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Robert Farrar Capon Quotes

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Robert Farrar Capon was an American author known for his religious and literary criticism. His works are renowned for their profound insights and unique style, having a significant impact on contemporary literature and religious thought.

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All Grace World Jesus Ifs Creation Goodness Cooking Taste Christ Evil Food Home Made Sin Church Ends Facts Humans Knows Lovers

Famous Robert Farrar Capon 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.”

Love Desire Universe Creation Self Love Good Self Knowledge Being

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

Source: Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“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.”

Evil Grace Creation Goodness Gospel

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

Source: Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“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.”

World Needs Mean Doe Stills Reason Whole Use Lying Purpose Order Natural Walks Creation Lessons Goodness Remains Wine Environmental Delight Somewhere Else Piety Mushrooms

Author:Robert Farrar Capon

“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.”

Source: Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus

“... 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.”

Thinking Knows Facts Spirit Father Causes Knowing Creation Divine Hair Activity Eternal Intellectual Response Daydreaming

Author:Robert Farrar Capon

“Why do we marry, why take friends and lovers? Why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry or cooking? Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course; but out of more than that, too. Half earth's gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become.”

Giving Earth Lying Courses Simple Cities Half Creation Painting Lovers Goodness Cooking Delight Chemistry Residents Lovers And Friends

Author:Robert Farrar Capon

“If God seems to be in no hurry to make the problem of evil go away, maybe we shouldn't be, either. Maybe our compulsion to wash God's hands for him is a service he doesn't appreciate. Maybe - all theodicies and nearly all theologians to the contrary - evil is where we meet God. Maybe he isn't bothered by showing up dirty for his dates with creation. Maybe - just maybe - if we ever solved the problem, we'd have talked ourselves out of a lover.”

Ifs Problem Hands Seems Pain Suffering Evil Creation Lovers Appreciate Contrary Dirty Going Away Theologian Compulsion Bothered Showing Up Problem Of Evil

Book:The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair with Theology : Three Books

Source: The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair with Theology : Three Books