Quotes About Theology

The schools at Wittenberg and Geneva were like Reformation theology flywheels, their influence spreading far and wide and deep. Luther and Calvin were interested in reforming not simply their respective cities of Wittenberg and Geneva; they were interested in the message spreading. Likewise, they were not content that the gospel be discovered for their generation alone. They were equally concerned about the next generation.

Bonhoeffer has both christology (the doctrine of Christ) and ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) at the center of his theology, like the hub of a wheel. It might even be better to say that Bonhoeffer's ecclesiology flows from, naturally and necessarily, his christology

He was not interested in pure analysis; he was interested in helping the church. Second, Sproul draws attention to Luther's claim that a theologian must make assertions. Erasmus, Luther's debate partner on the issue of the bondage of the will, made equivocations.

To understand Bonhoeffer, we must first and foremost understand living by faith.

This life from the cross (Bonhoeffer's christology) and life in the church (his ecclesiology) together lead to the disciplines of the Christian

This life from the cross (Bonhoeffer's christology) and life in the church (his ecclesiology) together lead to the disciplines of the Christian life.

We seem especially susceptible to this pitting of spirituality against theology in American evangelical contexts. Perhaps we can chalk this up to the influence of pietism, which courses through the veins of many evangelicals. Pietism should not be confused with piety. Piety means simply the spiritual practices of praying, Bible reading and meditation, fasting, and gifts of charity.

Perhaps Bonhoeffer shapes us best by showing us in word and in deed, as a theologian and in his life, how to live the Christian life, how to be a disciple of Christ, how to live in the Christuswirklichkeit.

To be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant.

Bonhoeffer did not write a political theology nor was he much given to discussing politics in his letters, sermons, and lectures. He has at times been criticized by scholars as apolitical—which is an odd claim to make of one of the few ministers murdered in the concentration camps on charges of political conspiracy.

written with his wife Elisabeth Sifton, the renowned historian turned his attention to Metaxas's account only to note the "amazing ignorance of the German language, German history, and German theology." Elisabeth Sifton and Fritz Stern, No Ordinary Men: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans Von Dohnanyi, Resisters against Hitler in Church and State (New York: New York Review of Books, 2013), 147.

The trinitarian circle of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is therefore an open, not a closed, circle.

The church, someone has said, is the only club in the world where the only qualification for joining it and staying in it is that one be unqualified. The Bible and systematic theology tell us that we are sinners who sin. The church's confessions of faith add that same assessment. The liturgies have prayers of confession. All point to the fact that we're screwed up . . . and not just a little bit.

In Peshawar during the 1980s he had been overshadowed by Abdullah Azzam. In Saudi Arabia he was just one rich young sheikh among hundreds. But in Khartoum his wealth made him a rare and commanding figure. He was powerful enough to order men to their deaths. Yet he fashioned himself a lecturer-businessman, an activist theologian in the image of Azzam.

The study of political philosophy has always revolved around such questions as "Why should I obey the law?" "What is a citizen and how should he or she be educated?" "Who is a lawgiver?" "What is the relation between freedom and authority?" "How should politics and theology be related?" and perhaps a few of others.

How does a cosmos without a bearded, bathrobed God in the sky pull off all the things that a bearded, bathrobed guy in the sky was supposed to have pulled off? If there was no God who said 'Let there be light,' where did we get all that light?

It was in the mosque that al-Zarqawi first discovered Salafism, a doctrine that in its contemporary form advocates a return to theological purity and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Salafists deem Western-style democracy and modernity not only fundamentally irreconcilable with Islam, but the main pollutants of the Arab civilization

This is the historical reality of the soul, which, unlike the soul represented by Christian theology, is not born in sin and subject to punishment, but is born rather out of methods of punishment, supervision, and constraint.

From a Christian point of view, human reason is madness compared to the reason of God, but divine reason appears as madness to human reason.

Einstein escreveu uma vez que acreditava no Deus de Espinoza que se revela a Si próprio na harmonia daquilo que existe, não num Deus que se preocupa com o destino e as acções dos homens

William Blake is dreaming of Jerusalem under that sod, and Daniel Defoe is probably dreaming about something a fair bit earthier. You've also got John Owen and Isaac Watts, the reservoir dogs of eighteenth-century theology. What can I tell you? I just feel at ease in their company.

Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil.

Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the Creator of Man.

The dispute between those who believe that the world was created by God and those who think it came into being of its own accord deals with phenomena that go beyond our reason and experience. Much more real is the line separating those who doubt being as it is granted to man (no matter how or by whom) from those who accept it without reservation.