Quotes About Theology

Calvinism is an all-embracing system of principles... It is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and form that specific religious consciousness there was developed first a particular theology, then a special church-order, and then a given form for political and social life.

The domain of Calvinism is indeed far broader than the narrow confessional interpretation would lead us to suppose.

it may never be said that like the state and the church, science arose because of sin and thus from an intervening grace.

The ideal is that your faith not be rigid and unpliable, but instead that it is capable of being stretched and remolded over time, and that your theological and spiritual life grows deeper and more mature with the passing years.

the original "Israelite" view gradually became "foreign" and unintelligible. The Shema could only be understood as affirming the later "truth" of Jewish monotheism. This authentically Israelite religious language seems to have become so alien that the Hebrew text was "corrected" in several cases to bring it into conformity with later Jewish theology

You have told me, O God, to believe in hell. But you have forbidden me to think...of any man as damned

Atheists are in a difficult position. A lot of modern religion is progressive, ethical and socially responsible--not about "supernaturalism" or a tyrannical ancient God. Atheists, on the one hand, risk giving the impression that they are campaigning against compassion and basic human values, or on the other that they are in a fight to finish off a dinosaur that was killed by liberal theology while they were sleeping.

Fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet. —KARL BARTH

Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not.

They do not understand that the proper antipode and effective antidote to modernism (theological liberalism) is not Fundamentalism, but Calvinism.147

Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not. Its sources, spirit, and methods are alien to Reformed theology, piety, and practice.

Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not. Its sources, spirit, and methods are alien to Reformed theology, piety, and practice. There

What makes us Reformed is how we understand Scripture, and this understanding is summarized in our confession. If we thought that our confession was not biblical, we would not use it, and if anyone can show that our confession is unbiblical, the church ought to revise it to bring it into conformity with Scripture.

Before the rise of Deism, Calvin condemned the pragmatic deism which relegated God to heaven and left the government of the world to men.

THE HOLY SPIRIT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. ARE YOU CHARISMATIC? He is bigger than your signs and wonders events. Are you Reformed? He will not be limited by your theology. The Lord Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, "He blows where he will.

If you walk in the Spirit, know your Bible, and spend sufficient time alone with God, your theology will take care of itself.

You never believed in God, Doc, did you? You said if God created man in His image, why couldn't man invent a God that was more anthropomorphic, less gratuitously remote, who, like his enemy, Satan, resembled us?

I eventually got to the point where I was like, 'Well, if I can't believe in the Big Bang Theory and be a good Christian, then maybe I'm not a good Christian.'

I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger.

I don't know if I ever really bought into the eternal damnation bit.

If you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as immutable historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell.

Suggesting a married Jesus is one thing, but questioning the Resurrection undermines the very heart of Christian belief.

The experience of this demoralizing crisis [of the Babylonian exile], which appeared to negate all the central elements that Yahweh had ordained for Israel's well-being, could easily have meant the end of Israel's religion. Remarkably, it provoked instead an almost explosive flowering of theological literature during the exilic period. (p. 139)

I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced.