Quotes About Theology

Theology that steps back in time only to hide there from the problems to be faced in the present ends up hidebound and moribund. Or, worse, it becomes an empty scholasticism that refuses to attend to the needs of the present, accepting only what has been hallowed by time and use, as if it is sufficient to look backward without looking forward.

Authentic religion is not a theology test. It's a love test.

Most of us retain enough of the theological attitude to think that we are little gods.

The virtues acquired are the flesh of Christ and whoever eats it will find inner freedom. The contemplation of creatures is the blood of Christ and whoever drinks it will be enlightened by him. The knowledge of God is the breast of Christ and whoever rests on it will be a theologian. Evagrius of Pontus Mirror for Monks,

The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being.

God is his own best apologist.

More importantly, they show that the best answer to the challenge is not through improved technology but through deeper theology.

Not only do Christians believe, they are those who "think in believing and believe in thinking," as Augustine expressed it. The world of Christian faith is not a fairy-tale, make-believe world, question-free and problem-proof, but a world where doubt is never far from faith's shoulder.

My strong advice to you is to soak, soak, soak in philosophy and psychology, until you know more of these subjects than ever you need consciously to think. It is ignorance of these subjects on the part of ministers and workers that has brought our evangelical theology to such a sorry plight. . . . The man who reads only the Bible does not, as a rule, know it or human life.

It was a question of steering Christian dogma between the Scylla of pantheism and the Charybdis of materialism and its logical conclusion, scepticism.

I hold that religion and faith are two different things.

God created the world the laws of nature were created by God. True science tries to find out what God put in the world. The trouble is where scientists speculate about theology and they don't know what they're talking about because they weren't there. They can't speculate about the origins of life because they weren't there.

Let's assume for a moment that you, Oh, do not choose God. Does this prevent Him from choosing you? I conclude, from these many verses, that it does not. Either He saves everyone or He saves no one.

Despair is for people who know, beyond any doubt, what the future is going to bring. Nobody is in that position. So despair is not only a kind of sin, theologically, but also a simple mistake, because nobody actually knows. In that sense there is always hope.

Twisting Scripture? Theologians have long pointed out that you can prove anything from the Bible. The atheist looks at scripture and sees errors compounded on more errors; the cultist looks on scripture and sees bizarre interpretations; the Christian looks upon scripture and sees the wondrous God that is described therein. Truth, like her sister Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. But Truth, Reality insists, is an absolute, and they that ignore it do so at the peril of their souls.

Early Christians thought your soul was in your stomach," I say.

The world we live in includes two Great Divides. Economically, the rich-poor divide calls us to lives of generosity. Theologically, the ways that we understand God and faith calls us to a globally expanded view of God.

The pluralistic spirit of the age challenges the very raison d'etre of mission in a globalized world. If Jesus is not the only way, how does that affect our desire to go to dangerous, difficult places and into hardship situations? In the face of global pluralism, the church must proclaim Jesus Christ with theological integrity, critical contextualization and countercultural preaching.

It is the doom of the Christian church to be always distracted with controversy. John Quincy Adams

Your theology won't always work toward your obedience, because your use of theology is dictated by the condition of your heart. If your heart is not submitting to the plan of God, you will actually use your theology to justify things that should not be justified.

The call is to do theology in loving community with other people.

For students who have not been required to confess that it is easier to learn theology then live it, it is tempting to think maturity is more a matter of knowing in a matter of living

maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute and be very immature. It is possible to be biblically literate and be in need of significant spiritual growth.

The best theology will not remove mystery from your life, so rest is found in trusting the One who rules, is all, and knows no mystery.