Friday, March 20, 1998 Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 
The desire for certitude is natural enough and explains the human tendency to mistake faith for certainty. This is not a specially religious mistake. We think of supernaturalism when faith is mentioned, but the naturalistic description of the world also operates on assumptions that require a faith as robust as does the most soaring mysticism. The usual efforts to skirt faith beg all the questions there are. A psychiatrist, for instance, who points out to you that you believe in God the Father because you need a father, or that you became a missionary to expiate your guilt feelings, may be quite correct, but he has not touched on the prior question as to whether there is, in fact, a cosmic father figure who is the archetype of all other fathers, or whether there is an evangel worth spending your life promulgating.
... Thomas Howard (b. 1935), Christ the Tiger, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967, p. 97   
 (see the book; see also Rev. 5:11-12; Ps. 20:7; 94:20-22; Matt. 7:11; Rom. 8:15; 1 Cor. 15:9; more at Certainty, Faith, Father, God, Guilt, Life, Missionary, Nature, Need)
 
 
  
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