Quotes About God

As Marion writes, 'The silence suitable to God requires knowing how to remain silent, not out of agnosticism (the polite surname of impossible atheism) or out of humiliation, but simply out of respect.'50 Or as Gregory Palamas writes, '[The] super-essential nature of God is not a subject for speech or thought or even contemplation, for it is far removed from all that exists … [it is] incomprehensible and ineffable to all for ever.

The desire to say nothing, to create sacred space, opens up the most beautiful type of language available – the language of parables, prose and poetry. This is why the mystics would write so extensively about how nothing can be written and would preach beautiful sermons about the futility of words. Without such well-honed words we may begin to think that we have something to say instead of viewing our life as the space out of which God speaks.

The love that Christ spoke of is born of God, and when we see it at work, we know that the person has been born of God. If the works being carried out are for other reasons (such as the desire for salvation), then it is not love that we are witnessing. This love is not the narcissistic love that we see all around us and within us; this love is more radical that we can ever imagine.

In the same way that the sun blinds the one who looks directly at its light, so God's incoming blinds our intellect. In this way the God who is testified to in the Judeo-Christian tradition saturates our understanding with a blinding presence.

God remains transcendent amidst immanence precisely because God remains concealed amidst revelation. In this reading, Christ, as the image of the invisible God, both reveals and conceals God: rendering God known while simultaneously maintaining divine mystery. Here the God testified to in Christianity is affirmed as an un/ known God.

In short, the emerging conversation is in a unique place to acknowledge the long-forgotten insight that God hides in God's visibility, realizing that revelation embraces concealment at one and the same time as it embraces manifestation and that our various interpretations of revelation will always be provisional, fragile and fragmentary.

The primary problem with idolatry is not that it falsely claims to have a connection with God but rather that it falsely claims to understand the God that it is connected to. Yet this does not mean that our definitions of God are somehow unimportant – indeed, they remain vital – it is only that we must recognize the extent to which these reflections fall short of that which they attempt to define and always reflect something of the one who makes the claims.

The love that arises from God is a love that loves anonymously, a love that acts without such self-centred reflections, that gives without thought. Our lives should be full of acts of love of this kind, and yet, by definition, they will be invisible to us.

the a/ theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God (a distinction that fundamentalism is unable to maintain).

The difference between the idea that our Christian traditions describe God and the view that they are worshipful responses to God is important to grasp, for while the former seeks to define, the latter is engaged with response. By charting the latter course, those within the emerging conversation perceive a very different way of understanding theology. It is no longer thought of as a human discourse that speaks of God but rather as the place where God speaks into human discourse.

Our 'theological' musings can thus be called a/theological insomuch as they acknowledge that we must still speak of God (theology, as traditionally understood) while also recognizing that this speech fails to define God (a/theology).

God is not a theoretical problem to somehow resolve but rather a mystery to be participated in. This perspective is evidenced in the Bible itself when we note that the term 'knowing' in the Hebrew tradition (in contrast to the Greek tradition) is about engaging in an intimate encounter rather than describing some objective fact: religious truth is thus that which transforms reality rather than that which describes it.

For instance, the words love your neighbor should not be thought of as sacred or divine. These words are no more than words. They take on a revelatory role only when they are lived, that is, when someone actually gets their hands dirty and loves their neighbor—in other words, when this phrase is incarnated in action. The idea of loving one's neighbor is the Word of God, not when it is merely affirmed, but when it is lived.

Therefore, it is impossible to affirm God's Word apart from becoming that Word, apart from being the place where that Word becomes a living, breathing act.

Indeed, Anselm, who is often seen as a key thinker in claiming that God is conceivable, writes that when gazing upon the Lord, the eye is darkened, noting that: Surely it is both darkened in itself and dazzled by you. Indeed it is both obscured by its own littleness and overwhelmed by your vastness.

Therefore, Lord, you are not merely that than which a greater cannot be thought; you are something greater than can be thought. For since it is possible to think that such a being exists, then if you are not that being, it is possible to think something greater than you. But that is impossible.

For Anselm there are three levels of existence. The first, and lowest, level is that which exists only in the mind (for instance, a unicorn). The second refers to those things that exist both in the mind and in reality (such as a horse). The third level is that which exists in reality but which cannot be contained in the mind (i.e. God). It is this third level of existence that has often been overlooked by the Church, and yet it is here that we find God.

We must speak and yet we must maintain our silence, we must maintain distance amidst the proximity of God, and we must worship while being careful not to make God into the object of our worship: for God is the subject before whom we worship.

For while we do not grasp God, faith is born amidst the feeling that God grasps us.

The Truth in Christianity is not described but experienced. This is not then the affirmation of some objective description concerning Truth but rather describes a relation with the Truth. In other words, Truth is God and having knowledge of the Truth is evidenced, not in a doctrinal system, but in allowing that Truth to be incarnated in one's

Speaking of God in Northern Ireland has too often fomented distrust and prejudice, not peace and reconciliation; speaking of God has too often been part of the problem, not of the solution

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God. . . . Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice. . .

When genuine love is released in a relationship, God's presence is manifest.

Life can be difficult, so have fun whenever you can to the glory of God.