One learns the value of work by working, of play by playing, of food by eating; and one learns the value of faith by exercising faith, of love by trying to love fellow men.  Even so, if one would have faith in God, he must at least say to himself, "It could be that he lives.  I shall give the idea  fair trial.  I shall do his will.  I shall read the scriptures, expecially the life of Jesus, and I shall try to live as God would have me live.  I shall at least give religion a fair chance in my life."

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 138

Faith should not be considered a substitute for knowledge.  Whenever knowledge is available, it should be used.  For it is generallly better to live by knowledge in particular things than by faith, if knowledge is available...Fiath was never intended to be a blind substitute for knowledge, but rather an impelling motivation to seek and to know reality (see John 8:21-22)...Faith should not be considered an enemy to knowledge, nor a competitor.  The student should not feel compelled to choose between faith and knowledge.  Let him gain and use knowledge where it is available.  let him walk by faith where knowledge is not available. Let his faith include, but transcend his knowledge.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 128-129

Faith impells to action.  In the language of James, "Faith without works is dead."  One might also say that faith without works is not faith, but mere belief.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 126

Faith is adventurous and creative.  It not only is the sphere of the possible, but is also the power which often makes the possible come into being.  Faith is that remarkable quality of the human spirit which first envisages the possibilities of life, then lives as though these possibilities were realities, and by this action often makes them real.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 126

True religion should not be condemned for men's shortcomings any more than true science should be condemned for the errors of scientists, or great art for the failures of artists, or philosophy for the unacceptable theories of some philosophers, or marriage for the failure of many people to live it successfully.  Each of thes fields of human endeavor must be judged primarily for what it is at its best, and for what it can offer to us if we will folow its genuine purpose and method.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 120

What men object to in the name of religion is the presentation of a creed or body of beliefs in a spirit void of humility and love, in an attitude of arrogance with the implication that religious beliefs are beyond all error, question, or thoughtful examination.  This can be called the dogmatic attitude, which may characterize the scientist, philosopher, artist, or layman as well as the religionist.  The fact that religion claims to be of god sometimes encourages this dogmatic attitude among its followers, though ironically enough this kind of dogmatism is completely alien to the highest ideals of religion--humility and love.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 118

Lowell Bennion - On Institutionalism

There is always the danger that the fraternity will work to enhance itself rather than to serve its members; that the army will perpetuate itself and its own interest above service to the country...Religion does not always escape this limitation of institutions.  If leaders are not careful, the church becomes the end and the people the means of building and supporting it.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 95-96

Men have a perfect right to claim authority from God.  Granted his existence, there ar egood reasons to believet hat he would call and authorize men to be his servants on earth.  Authority implies a legal or rightful command without which orderly social action is quite impossible.  The principle of authoritarianism, by contrast, discounts man's ability to rule himself and advocates in principle the right of men to rule over their fellow men.  In this system of government authority is not looked upon as a necessary means of achieving desirable human goals, but rather as an end in itself.  In political science a dictatorshp is authoritarian; in religion any action that is carried out simply by reason of one's office and calling, with no regard for the value of that action in terms of religious purpose and principle, may be called authoritarian.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 116

Life is not only something to be thought about but also is to be lived. The living must go on continuously and cannot wait upon a completely satisfying theoretical orientation.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 113

If God is not, then the existence of all that is beautiful and in any sense good, is but the accidental and ineffective byproduct of blindly swirling atoms, or of the equally unpurposeful, though more conceptually complicated, mechanisms of present-day physics.  A man may well believe that this dreadful thing is true.  For to wish there should be not God is to wish that the things we love and strive to realize and make permanent, should be only temporary and doomed to frustration and destruction.  If life and its fulfillments are good, why should one rejoice in the news that God is dead and that there is nothing in the whole world but our frail and perishable selves that is concerned with anything that matters?  Not that such a prospect would diminish the duty to make the best of what we have while we have it.  Goodness is not made less good by a lack of cosmic support for it.  Morality is sanctionless and can never derive its validity from what is external to itself and to the life whose fulfillment it is.  Atheism leads not to badness but only to an incurabe sadness and loneliness.

-W.P. Montague

Quoted in Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 112

The universe itself is not simply matter in motion, indifferent to man's search for truth, goodness, and beauty,...the universe also possesses these spiritual qualities in some way.  And, though a natural or human catastrophe should destroy man with all of his ideals, ideas, and spiritual treasures, these cherished things would still survive because they are more than the creations of man.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 106

[Religion is] the faith that what is highest in the human spirit is deepest in the universe itself; that the things that matter most are not ultimately at the mercy of the things that matter least.

-Montague

Quoted in Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 106

A fundamental part of religion, it seems, is man's striving to be at peace with himself and to feel at home in the universe

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 105

Character is not made primarily in the library, the chapel, or the classroom, though inspiration may come to a person in those places.  Character is formed through everyday experiences: in human relations, while one is on a date, in the gym, on the job, or in the privacy of one's own resolve.  Everyday living is the crucible of one's moral nature.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 98

Happiness in marriage fulfils his deepest need, that of belonging to another person, of being needed, wanted, loved, and of loving someone else.  In the company of a friend, man feels free to be himself, knowing that he will be understood and accepted for just what he is. In fact, just to be a man omong men, to share the common lot of all men, can bring deep satisfaction to a human being.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 97

No one, whether working in the arts, in philosophy, or in religion, will contribute richly in his specialized field if he fails to keep in touch with the life common to all men and to live it fully.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 95-96

Dennis Johnson - On Introversion

God needs the hermit in the woods as much as he needs theman in the pulpit.

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams pg. 95

Three of the pups wandered off immediately as the little dog weaned them, but one, a dis-coordinated male, stayed around and was tolerated by its mother.  Grainier felt sure this dog was got of a wolf, but it never even whimpered in reply when the packs in the distance...sang at dusk.  The creature needed to be taught its nature, Grainier felt.  One evening he got down beside it and  howled.  The little pup only sat on its rump with an inch of pink tongue jutting stupidly from its closed mouth.  "You're not growing in the direction of your own nature, which is to howl when the others do," he told the mongrel.  He stood up straight himself and howled long and sorrowfully over the gorge, and over the low quiet river he could hardly see across this close to nightfall...Nothing from the pup. But often, threafter, when Grainier heard the wolvesat dusk, he laid his head back and howled for all he was worth, because it did him good.

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams, pg. 53

He poked through the caked mud around the grounds and found almost nothing he could recognize.  He scuffed along through the ashes and kicked up one of hte spikes he'd used in building the cabins's walls, but couldn't find any others.

He saw no sign of their Bible, either.  If the Lord had failed to protect even the book of his own Word, this proved to Grainier that here had come a fire stronger than God.

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams pg. 45