Inspirational Quotes by Peter Kreeft
“Sacraments are that literal, that physical. Salvation is very physical. If the woman with the hemorrhage had touched the hem of St. Peter’s garment instead of Christ’s, her faith alone would not have healed her until it was joined to His body by her touch.—Unless God had willed to heal her that way, of course. God can work outside his sacraments, and often does. There”
“Scholastics called the “irascible” (averting) and “concupiscible” (attracting) emotions.”
“not human nature with perfect preternatural gifts such as it was in unfallen Adam.”
“Unworthy” does not mean “undeserving”, for we are all undeserving! It means “incapable of receiving.”
“since the foe of the human race was vanquished not as by God but as by man, as Pope Leo says”
“another principle demons use in spiritual warfare: multiple attacks, from many directions at once, or with many different weapons at once.”
“the species or nature with which we make our choices is fallen, sinful, selfish, and stupid; and we cannot by our own power attain the deepest and final end of our desires, union with God, eternal happiness. Thus,”
“Therefore the prayers we offer in the Mass for the world are far more powerful than the prayers we offer outside the Mass, even if the prayers we offer outside the Mass are the same prayers, and even if there are more of them, and even if they are offered for the same people, or for more people, and even if they are offered with the same faith and devotion on our part, or even with a little more faith and devotion on our part.”
“Of course we should use all our powers, of mind and will and imagination, but not trust in them, for that is trusting in ourselves.”
“our primary practical commandment in this life, to love our neighbors: it is not only for their and our good in time, but also preparation for our and their eternal blessedness.”
“The quantity comes from the efficient cause but the quality comes from the formal cause.”
“God loves good men more than bad men, as He loves angels more than men”
“(That’s why contraception is wrong by nature: it’s a limit, a “Wait! Hold! No! Not quite! We won’t give each other Everything”)”
“But God loves men more than angels in intensity, because He became one of us,”
“So two things, on our part, are required to receive God’s saving grace: repentance from sin and faith in God Who saves us (by grace, in Christ). Both are free choices, and both are necessary to allow grace to enter our souls.”
“Our attempts at charity without God, our attempts at charity before faith and hope, all fail because they are based on ourselves and our own false sufficiency and our own righteousness as their foundation and cause. But the charity that comes after faith is God’s own work in and through us, and is part of our own salvation.”
“Charity transcends mere virtue. Yet once this charity exists, it fulfills all virtue, as the New Law fulfills the Old and as grace fulfills nature. Charity is the heart and soul of all virtue.”
“the Lutheran alternative to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation which is called consubstantiation, in which the bread and wine are not changed but added to, so that Christ becomes really present along with them but they remain.”
“[T]o scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God (I-II,19,5).”
“If human life becomes cheapened, it becomes cheapened at both ends. Parents are killed, by euthanasia, when they become a “burden” to their children; and children are killed, by abortion, when they become a “burden” to their parents. All societies in history would regard these two sins as two of the most heartless and inhuman possible sins. To kill your parents is to kill yourself, your own past; and to kill your children is to kill yourself, your own future.”
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Peter John Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College, and author of numerous books as well as a popular writer on Christian theology, and specifically Roman Catholic apologetics. He also formulated together with Ronald K. Tacelli, SJ, "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God".
Kreeft took his A.B. at Calvin College (1959), and an M.A. at Fordham University (1961). In the same university he completed his doctoral studies in 1965. He briefly did post graduate studies at Yale University. He joined the Philosophy faculty of the Department of Philosophy of Boston College in 1965. In 1994 he was a signer of the document Evangelicals and Catholics Together.