D. Elton Trueblood Quotes & Sayings

The Christian is joyful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate. The Christian can be sad, and often is perplexed, but he is never really worried, because he knows that the purpose of God is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. — D. Elton Trueblood

Engineering is a predictive science, not a manipulative art. — D. Elton Trueblood

This historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God.
It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus. — D. Elton Trueblood

The world is equally shocked at hearing Christianity criticized and seeing it practiced. — D. Elton Trueblood

Thoughtful people are concerned with the future because that is the only area of experience about which anything can be done. We cannot change the past, and the present is gone as soon as it is reported, but the future is that in which we can make a difference. — D. Elton Trueblood

No vital Christianity is possible unless at least three aspects of it are developed. These are the inner life of devotion, the outer life of service, and the intellectual life of rationality. — D. Elton Trueblood

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation. — D. Elton Trueblood

One of the noblest words in our language is "grace," defined as "unearned blessing." We live by grace far more than by anything else. Accordingly, I find that the one thing which I want to put into practice in my own life is the conscious and deliberate habit of finding someone to thank. — D. Elton Trueblood

Evangelism is not a professional job for a few trained men, but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs to the company of Jesus. — D. Elton Trueblood

We need to be agnostics first and then there is some chance at arriving at a sensible system of belief. — D. Elton Trueblood

Religion is never devoid of emotion, any more than love is. It is not a defect of religion, but rather its glory, that it speaks always the language of feeling. — D. Elton Trueblood

Democracy is necessitated by the fact that all men are sinners; it is made possible by the fact that we know it ... — D. Elton Trueblood

If the average church should suddenly take seriously the notion that every lay member man or woman is really a minister of Christ, we could have something like a revolution in a very short time. — D. Elton Trueblood

Our religion is one which challenges the ordinary human standards by holding that the ideal of life is the spirit of a little child. We tend to glorify adulthood and wisdom and worldly prudence, but the Gospel reverses all this. The Gospel says that the inescapable condition of entrance into the divine fellowship is that we turn and become as a little child. — D. Elton Trueblood

The only way to happiness is never to give happiness a thought. — D. Elton Trueblood

The spoken word is never really effective unless it is backed up by a life, but it is also true that the living deed is never adequate without the support the spoken word can provide. — D. Elton Trueblood

The more we study the early Church, the more we realize that it was a society of ministers. About the only similarity between the Church at Corinth and a contemporary congregation, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, is that both are marked, to a great degree, by the presence of sinners. — D. Elton Trueblood

Never trust a theologian who doesn't have a sense of humor. — D. Elton Trueblood

The ultimate verification of our religion consists of the changed lives to which it can point and for which it is responsible. — D. Elton Trueblood

At the profoundest depths in life, men talk not about God but with Him. — D. Elton Trueblood

It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will someday give shade to people he may never meet. — D. Elton Trueblood