"Faith and Doubt."..

The following are not my own words, but as I was reading Paul Tillich's Dynamics of Faith I came across this gem and had to share it with you all.

"The risk to faith in one's ultimate concern is indeed the greatest risk man can run.  For if it proves to be a failure, the meaning of one's life breaks down; one surrenders oneself, including truth and justice, to something which is not worth it.  One has given away one's personal center without having a chance to regain it.  The reaction of despair in people who have experienced the breakdown of their national claims is an irrefutable proof of the idolatrous character of their national concern. In the long run this is the inescapable result of an ultimate concern, the subject matter of which is not ultimate.  And this is the risk faith must take; this is the risk which is unavoidable if a finite being affirms itself.  Ultimate concern is ultimate risk and ultimate courage.  It is not risk and needs no courage with respect to ultimacy itself.  But it is risk and demands courage if it affirms a concrete concern.  And every faith has a concrete element in itself.  It is concerned about something or some body.  But this something or this somebody may prove to be not ultimate at all.  Then faith is a failure in its concrete expression, although it is not a failure in the experience of the unconditional itself.  A god disappears; divinity remains.  Faith risks the vanishing of the concrete god in whom it believes.  It may well be that with the vanishing of the god the believer breaks down without being able to reestablish his centered self by a new content of his ultimate concern.  This risk cannot be taken away from any act of faith.  There is only one point which is a matter not of risk but of immediate certainty and herein lies the greatness and pain of being human; namely, one's standing between one's finitude and one's potential infinity."

Paul Tillich.  Dynamics of Faith.  HarperOne:  Harper Collins Publishers.  New York, New York.  1957.  20-21.

Absolutely brilliant.  After reading this, I had a good cry, because I immediately recognized these symptoms in myself and then continued reading.