Quote
Augustine opens the Confessions with a sentence that still names the human condition: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and…
Rest · Identity · Hope
Augustine · Psalm 42
Quote
The infinite abyss
Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670), fragment on the abyss
Pascal did not write “God-shaped vacuum.” What he wrote is sterner and better. He said we carry the empty print of a lost happiness, and we try to fill it with everything around us — none of which works, “because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God himself.” The misquote makes God a product that fits a slot. The real sentence makes God the only object large enough for a human soul.
How you’d preach it
Correct the cliché if your people have heard it. Then use the real line: every finite love is too small, which is why even good gifts disappoint when we ask them to be God.
- Rest
- Identity
- Hope
Pascal · Ecclesiastes 3 · John 4
Ecclesiastes 3:11; John 4:13–14