Quotes About Theology

The theologians, the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians, the high-handed statesmen, and others, no longer interest me. All that has been spoilt for me by the grind of stern reality!

We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.

Die wissenschaftliche Überlegenheit der liberalien Theologie, heißt es nun, sei zwar unbestreitbar, aber ihre theologische Position sei schwach, denn ihrem Moralismus und Humanismus mangle die Einsicht in den dämonischen Charakter der meschlichen Existenz.

True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us ONLY as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques.

A theology of love cannot be allowed merely to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, justifying their wars, their violence and their bombs, while exhorting the poor and underprivileged to practice patience, meekness, long-suffering and to solve their problems, if at all, nonviolently.

THE theology of the devil is really not theology but magic. "Faith" in this theology is really not the acceptance of a God Who reveals Himself as mercy. It is a psychological, subjective "force" which applies a kind of violence to reality in order to change it according to one's own whims.

Gerçek anlamda derin düÅŸünme; psikolojik bir hile deÄŸil, teolojik bir lütuftur.

The very first step to a correct understanding of the Christian theology of contemplation is to grasp clearly the unity of God and man in Christ, which of course presupposes the equally crucial unity of man in himself.

All theology is a kind of birthday Each one who is born Comes into the world as a question For which old answers Are not sufficient…

But God gives true theologians a hunger born of humility, which cannot be satisfied with formulas and arguments, and which looks for something closer to God than analogy can bring you. This serene hunger of the spirit penetrates the surface of words and goes beyond the human formulation of mysteries and seeks, in the humiliation of silence, intellectual solitude and interior poverty, the gift of a supernatural apprehension which words cannot truly signify.

I had never had an adequate notion of what Christians meant by God. I had simply taken it for granted that the God in Whom religious people believed, and to Whom they attributed the creation and government of all things, was a noisy and dramatic and passionate character, a vague, jealous, hidden being, the objectification of all their own desires and strivings and subjective ideals.

Therefore beware of the contemplative who says that theology is all straw before he has ever bothered to read any.

But the wonderful thing about France is how all her perfections harmonize so fully together. She has possessed all the skills, from cooking to logic and theology, from bridge-building to contemplation, from vine-growing to sculpture, from cattle-breeding to prayer: and possessed them more perfectly, separately and together, than any other nation.

ANOTHER characteristic of the devil's moral theology is the exaggeration of all distinctions between this and that, good and evil, right and wrong. These distinctions become irreducible divisions.

A theology of unknowing is necessary for a theology of knowing because without it God would not be worshipped as infinite but rather as a creature, and that would be idolatry.10

we are theological amnesiacs;

Three things come to mind as we look at this text: (1) we are theological amnesiacs; (2) the psalmist reminds us that God really is in charge; and (3) only when we feel weak and helpless, whether young or old, are we vulnerable enough to experience the power and grace of a God who "raises us up on eagle's wings." So, this text is about us, about God and what God does with us when all we seem to be is down.

I had begun to comprehend that the Bible's story is about the relationship of God to human beings, and of human beings to one another, and that this meant that it is our friendships, marriages, families, and even church congregations that best reveal what kind of theology we have, who our God is. Or, as Thomas Merton once put it, "because we love, God is present." That is the story.

The concept of sin does not exist so that people who may need therapy more than theology can be convinced that they are evil and beyond hope. It is meant to encourage people to believe that they are made in the image of God and to act accordingly. Hope is the heart of it, and the ever-present possibility of transformation.

Unfortunately, the marvelous understanding celebrated at the original Pentecost has faded into the background, and now the word "Pentecostal" often signifies not Christian unity but sectarian differences. Many Pentecostals are conservative Christians who disdain those of a more liberal persuasion. And mainstream Christians often dismiss Pentecostals as looney tunes; anti-intellectual in their theology, overemotional in their worship.

Since the earliest days of the Christian church, there has been a curious tension between Semitic storytelling, which admits a remarkable diversity of voices, perspectives, and experience into the canon, and Greek philosophy, which seeks to define, distinguish, pare down. It is the latter most people think of when they hear the word "theology," because at least in the Christian West, it is that tendency that has prevailed.

In his commentary on Titus 1:12, for example, Calvin states: "All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God.

The fourteenth-century preacher, John Bromyard, used to tell the story of the shepherd who, asked if he knew who the Father, Son and Holy Ghost were, replied, 'The father and the son I know well for I tend their sheep, but I know not that third fellow; there is none of that name in our village.

Because what touches His heart is not how much we know, but how much we love. Not how pure we are, but how passionate. Maybe that is why, when Pharisees were fighting over theology, prostitutes were falling at the Savior's feet and slipping into the kingdom of God on their tears.