Quotes About Doctrine

As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies which have arisen in the Christian Church have had a decided tendency to dishonor God and to flatter man.

Arminianism is 'natural' in one sense, in that it represents a characteristic perversion of Biblical teaching by the fallen mind of man.

The Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics, had no claim to toleration.

If you meet with a system of theology which magnifies man, flee from it as far as you can.

Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.

God... is a personal Being, a holy and exalted man.

Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible.

The theories of men changed from day to day. Much that is taught new will tomorrow be in the discard, but the word of the Lord will endure forever.

Ideology is a virus.

Why bother to have a technical term for a religious ritual?

Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.

These people cared about eternal truths. Believed that some—but not all—such truths were written down in a book. That their book was right and the others wrong. This much they had in common with most of the other people who had ever lived.

You've even created religions that tell you that you are born in sin—that you are sinners at birth—in order to convince yourselves of your own evil.

Why" is a nasty little Protestant word, you follow? Catholics, now, say, "Credo, I Believe," to whatever the Pope says. If you want to ask "Why?" go ask the Anglican vicar to instruct you in unbelief and he will let you "Why-why-why?" to your heart's content.

Personal truths have the power to command your mind, body, and soul, but are not evidence-based. Personal truths are what you're sure is true, even if you can't—especially if you can't—prove it. Some of these ideas derive from what you want to be true. Others take shape from charismatic leaders or sacred doctrines, either ancient or contemporary. For some, especially in monotheistic traditions, God and Truth are synonymous. The Christian Bible says so:2

Legalism is alive and well in many of our churches.

The issues we address do not pit the Wesleyan against the Calvinist or the evangelical against the charismatic. This is not to say that these are not important issues, because they are and will remain so until the Lord comes back. But they are not issues that we are going to allow Satan to use as a point of division.

Some people think that all the equipment you need to discuss religion is a mouth.

There are some kinds of Christianity that insist you have to believe literally in doctrine. The Gnostic gospels open out the complexity and multiplicity of approaches to this. If you think the story of the virgin birth is mistranslated, for instance, it doesn't mean you have to throw out the whole thing.

Godliness, as well as the doctrine of our faith, is a mystery.

It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally.

There are two core doctrines in economics," Offer said. "One is individual self-interest. The other is the invisible hand, the idea that the pursuit of individual self-interest aggregates or builds up for the good of society as a whole. This is a logical proposition that has never been proven.