Quotes about Justification

Men will not cease to be dishonest, merely because their dishonesties have been revealed or because they have discovered their own deceptions. Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain it. They will use whatever means are most convenient to that end and will seek to justify them by the most plausible arguments they are able to devise.

God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master's work. Take heed, therefore, to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade your hearers to be, and believe that which you persuade them to believe, and heartily entertain that Savior whom you offer to them.

Argument is not needed for rational justification. The believer is entirely within his epistemic right in believing, for example, that God has created the world, even if he has no argument at all for that conclusion..

If my belief in other minds is rational, so is my belief in God.

God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so.

Accordingly, criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below rather than above; they should not be presented ex cathedra but argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples.

We do not always believe things because they're true. More often than not, we believe things because they're expedient.

We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.

Justification by faith is the hinge on which all true religion turns.

People will use their religion to justify virtually anything.

There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.

Our faith works because we love, and we love because he has first loved us. Our faith is then emboldened by this responsive love; we've been loved, we've been assured of our justification; our Father speaks of our sanctification as if it had already occurred. By faith, then, we can courageously pursue growth into our true identity.