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The heart spiritually is the will, not the feelings. It is under our control. Feelings are not.
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Peter Kreeft |
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1) Physical gravity is a physical form of love. That little rock is falling because it's in love with the big rock called the earth.
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Peter Kreeft |
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It is tempting to remain in the comfortable theater of the imagination instead of the real world, to fall in love with the idea of becoming a saint and loving God and neighbor instead of doing the actual work, because the idea makes no demands on you.
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Peter Kreeft |
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a man circling around a woman, or a hunter circling around a deer.
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Peter Kreeft |
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nothing else can ever cure our sick world except saints, and saints are never made except by prayer.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Right Response to Reality--the Three R's--is the fundamental principle of morality, of sanctity, and of sanity.
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Peter Kreeft |
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God's solution to the problem of evil is his Son Jesus Christ. The Father's love sent his Son to die for us to defeat the power of evil in human nature: that's the heart of the Christian story.
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Peter Kreeft |
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4) But only man knows consciously and rationally, and only man's loves can be conscious and rational and responsible through free will.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Reason is His voice, His interior prophet, in our souls. We call that prophet conscience. (St. Thomas used two terms for it: "synderesis" was the awareness of its reality and truth and authority and rules, and "conscience" was the application of it. We use "conscience" for both.) Conscience is essentially the power of reason to know good and evil."
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Peter Kreeft |
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Tempting is not forcing.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Disbelief is a sin, but honest unbelief is not.
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Peter Kreeft |
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The distinction between the natural and the supernatural is a distinction between two abstract aspects, not two concrete things.
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Peter Kreeft |
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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.
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Peter Kreeft |
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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.
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Peter Kreeft |
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T]o scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God (I-II,19,5).
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Peter Kreeft |
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What the Church is sent apostolically to do is to make saints, i.e., to make humans completely human. This phrase, completely human, is often misused today to mean its exact opposite, to reduce the Church's supernatural task to a merely natural one. But the Church betrays her mission and her Lord if she lets psychologists and sociologists who do not know Christ as her source dictate her end. We are sent to be completely human as Christ was,..
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Peter Kreeft |
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to dispense from the laws.
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Peter Kreeft |
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the mere necessity brings with it a dispensation, since necessity knows no law. . . .
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Peter Kreeft |
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fiat!")"
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Peter Kreeft |
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Hence man never desires infinite meat, or infinite drink. . . . But non-natural concupiscence is altogether infinite . . . Hence he that desires riches, may desire to be rich not up to a certain limit but to be simply as rich as possible (I-II,30,4).
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Peter Kreeft |
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Greed for the things money can buy ("natural wealth") is a bad thing, but it is finite. You can only enjoy a finite amount of food or drink, houses or cars, or even sex. But greed for money ("artificial wealth") is infinite. You can always want more. It's like a drug: you have to have higher and higher doses of it to give you the same "buzz" you used to get from little bits of it. And this never stops. It is Hell's false infinite."
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Peter Kreeft |
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Each truth about God known by the mind is a new motive for loving Him with the will.
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Peter Kreeft |
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It also works the other way around: the more you love any person (human or divine), the more you want to know him (or Him) better, and the more you do. And this always causes deep joy.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Only when there is virtue in souls can there be peace and happiness in society.
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Peter Kreeft |
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the instinct Rousseau found in himself and followed: the instinct to deceive, rob, and seduce rich ladies and to abandon his own children.
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Peter Kreeft |
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What is voluntary comes from the will; what is forced comes to the will from outside and prevents it from doing what it will.
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Peter Kreeft |
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In fact, educated people can justify sins more easily than uneducated people can, because they are clever enough to rationalize their sins away.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Every good choice makes the next one easier and more delightful.
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Peter Kreeft |
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other little wooden fences can come down too. How? When? God only knows.
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Peter Kreeft |
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We must distinguish the act of faith from the object of faith, believing from what is believed.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Our faith here can only be in God, not in our faith (that's presumption). He will never abandon us, but we can abandon Him. That's why we must be vigilant.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Ancient ethics always dealt with three questions. Modern ethics usually deals with only one, or at the most two. The three questions are like the three things a fleet of ships is told by its sailing orders. (The metaphor is from C. S. Lewis.) First, the ships must know how to avoid bumping into each other. This is social ethics, and modern as well as ancient ethicists deal with it. Second, they must know how to stay shipshape and avoid sink..
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Peter Kreeft |
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St. Augustine says, "If God is, why is there evil? But if God is not, why is there good?"
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Peter Kreeft |
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Love is strengthened and perfected by suffering. Couples who have had only ease lack depth. True love needs to suffer. "The course of true love never did run smooth." Kindness--mere kindness--cannot tolerate suffering. Love can."
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Peter Kreeft |
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Faith is like a rock; feelings are like waves.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Suffering together builds togetherness, and if togetherness is more important for us and for our joy than freedom from suffering is, then God is good to allow this suffering.
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Peter Kreeft |
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You can be just as certain that God will give you little pieces of Heaven, little appetizers for Heaven, for the rest of your life on earth as you can be certain that He will give you the fullness of Heaven when you die.
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Peter Kreeft |
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Socrates says we must be either fools because we think we are wise, or wise because we know we are fools. Christ says we must be either sinners who think we are saints, or saints who know we are sinners. Even
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Peter Kreeft |
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Suppose the god, the goal of progress, is changing. Then progress becomes impossible. How could we progress toward a goal that keeps receding? How could a runner make progress toward a finish line if someone kept moving it as he ran?
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Peter Kreeft |
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The true philosopher lives his life as a dress rehearsal for death.
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Peter Kreeft |
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I often thought of comparing life to a dream, because death always seemed to be an awakening.
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Peter Kreeft |
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bad fortune is really just as good for you as good fortune is, in fact, it is better, because, he says, bad fortune teaches, while good fortune deceives. When
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Peter Kreeft |
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One of Beethoven's biographers listed the three greatest and hardest human tasks as heroism, childbirth, and creative work. For
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Peter Kreeft |