Quotes About Doctrine

When the term Christian or even Protestant is used, it seldom refers to any particularly evangelical doctrine or way of life. More often it refers to a religion accepted by the large majority, which assures them that God is not so much a Lord who demands obedience as a handyman who is available whenever we need help.

Protestants appeal to Scripture against the Church, "they forget that it is from this very Church, and on her authority, that Scripture is received.

The system of those who limit divine inspiration to matters of faith and morals cannot be tolerated.

The testimony of scripture is so plain that to add anything were superfluous, were it not that the world is almost now come to that blindness, that whatsoever pleases not the princes and the multitude, the same is rejected as doctrine newly forged, and is condemned for heresy.

We need theology in addition to Scripture because God has authorized teaching in the church, and because we need that teaching to mature in the faith.

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of opinion—how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

The methods of peace propaganda which aim at establishing peace doctrine by argument and by creating a feeling favorable to peace in general seem to fall short of reaching the springs of human action and of dealing with the causes of the conduct which they seek to modify.

I'm not particularly in favor of doctrine or creed, ordination, the elevation of holy texts, the institution of church, or, for that matter, Christianity. Like most religions, it has irreconcilable shortcomings and an unforgivable history. What I do favor is the attempt to make sense of things by living within a story. The Christian story, for good or ill, is my inheritance.

Aquinas was unconvinced. The message of revealed religion contained in the Bible and church doctrine was meant for everyone, not just the rednecks among us. Likewise, every human being deserved to know the whole truth, not just a chosen elite. To fall for the notion of a "double truth" and argue there was one set of truths for reason and another for faith and never the two shall meet made nonsense of the idea of truth itself.

If these words have a familiar sound, it is because they are not from Ockham or Gerson, but from Thomas Jefferson. They come from the most influential summary of medieval conciliarist doctrine in its secular form: the American Declaration of Independence.

By a mental sleight of hand, Ficino effortlessly merged Plato's theory of love with Christian Neoplatonist ideas about divine love derived from familiar authors like Augustine or Saint Bernard—not to mention Italy's two most famous love poets, Dante and Petrarch. And Plato's doctrine of love as the desire for beauty had a peculiar attraction in quattrocento Florence.

And since all knowledge forms a whole, the corollary is never throw anything away. Every doctrine, no matter how esoteric or seemingly irrational or irrelevant, may hold yet another secret to understanding the rest.

No doctrine of Redemption that in any way casts the slightest shadow over the high mountain of Divine Sovereignty can be tolerated for a moment.

If Scripture teaches the imputation of sin, we should not stumble when we find it affirming the imputation of righteousness.

False theology makes God's foreknowledge of our believing the cause of His election to salvation; whereas, God's election is the cause, and our believing in Christ is the effect .

It is by doctrine (through the power of the Spirit) that believers are nourished and edified, and where doctrine is neglected, growth in grace and effective witnessing for Christ necessarily cease. How sad then that doctrine is now decried as "unpractical" when, in fact, doctrine is the very base of the practical life.

Just as a blind man may, through labor and diligence, acquire an accurate theoretical or notional conception of many subjects and objects which he never saw, so the natural man may, by religious education and personal effort, obtain a sound doctrinal knowledge of the person and work of Christ, without having any spiritual or vital acquaintance with Him.

God, it would seem, did not communicate to His people an explicit and systematic form of doctrine; instead, He instructed them, mainly, through His providential dealings and by means of types and symbols. Once this is clearly grasped by us it gives new interest to the Old Testament scriptures.

Annotation 50: What is to be understood by primordial wisdom and discriminative wisdom is explained slightly differently in the Rangtong and Shäntong systems.

those of little merit would not even have doubts about this doctrine of emptiness. even suspicion that objects are empty wrecks the seeds of cyclic existence.

Our worldview dictates what we think and believe is true. We hold our beliefs at two levels. One is our operating beliefs. They are the beliefs that we act on. These beliefs affect and influence our values and overall behavior. Our theoretical beliefs are the beliefs that we hold at a theoretical level. They may or may not affect our lives. A church's doctrinal statement or creed would be one example of a theoretical belief.

The argument in this book is that religious doctrines matter and are in need of reform. Non-doctrinal factors—such as the Saudis' use of oil revenues to fund Wahhabism and Western support for the Saudi regime—are important, but religious doctrine is more important. Hard as it may be for many Western academics to believe, when people commit violent acts in the name of religion, they are not trying somehow to dignify their underlying socioeconomic or political grievances.

The argument in this book is that religious doctrines matter and are in need of reform.

Islamic scholars developed a doctrine known as "abrogation" (an-Nasikh wa'l Mansukh), whereby Allah issues new revelations that supersede old ones.