""Let God be true but every man a liar" is the language of true faith"
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Tozer’s line is a dare disguised as devotion: if faith is real, it must be willing to offend the age’s favorite idol, the sovereign self. “Let God be true but every man a liar” (Paul’s phrasing in Romans) isn’t a casual slap at human honesty; it’s a power move that relocates authority. The believer isn’t asked to weigh God’s claims alongside human opinion, but to treat human judgment as the unstable element in the equation. Faith, in this frame, isn’t optimism or moral striving. It’s submission to a reality you don’t get to edit.
The intent is pastoral and polemical at once. Tozer is writing in a mid-century Protestant world increasingly shaped by respectability, pragmatism, and the softening influence of modern psychology and consumer culture. He sees “faith” becoming a synonym for positive thinking or churchy sentiment. By insisting on this hard, Pauline language, he draws a bright line: true faith begins where the ego’s courtroom loses jurisdiction.
The subtext is that skepticism isn’t the main enemy; negotiation is. “Every man a liar” sounds extreme because it’s meant to. It attacks the reflex to make God plausible, manageable, or agreeable to contemporary sensibilities. Tozer also knows the risk: such absolutism can be weaponized into anti-intellectualism or spiritual authoritarianism. His wager is that without this severity, faith collapses into taste - God as a projection of what we already approve.
The intent is pastoral and polemical at once. Tozer is writing in a mid-century Protestant world increasingly shaped by respectability, pragmatism, and the softening influence of modern psychology and consumer culture. He sees “faith” becoming a synonym for positive thinking or churchy sentiment. By insisting on this hard, Pauline language, he draws a bright line: true faith begins where the ego’s courtroom loses jurisdiction.
The subtext is that skepticism isn’t the main enemy; negotiation is. “Every man a liar” sounds extreme because it’s meant to. It attacks the reflex to make God plausible, manageable, or agreeable to contemporary sensibilities. Tozer also knows the risk: such absolutism can be weaponized into anti-intellectualism or spiritual authoritarianism. His wager is that without this severity, faith collapses into taste - God as a projection of what we already approve.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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