quotations about theology
The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church, as an organization, has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.
H. L. MENCKEN
Treatise on the Gods
You can't talk theology when people are hungry, when their basic needs are not met. Or, getting away from basic needs, if they are in a difficult, challenging personal environment, it's no good talking theology to them. It's got to be how the gospel transforms and changes their lives.
ANDREA LUXTON
"Brexit or Fix It", Adventist Review, June 3, 2017
It has been said that the true subject of theology is humanity. The gods we dream up can tell us an awful lot about ourselves.
NEIL CARTER
"When Gods Come of Age", Patheos, June 5, 2017
It is a curious accident of history that the Christian religion became heavily involved with theology. No other religion finds it necessary to formulate elaborately precise statements about the abstract qualities and relationships of gods and humans.... The idea that God may be approached and understood through intellectual analysis is uniquely Christian.... It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind. A thousand years of theological disputes nurtured the habit of analytical thinking that could also be applied to the analysis of natural phenomena. On the other hand, the close historical relations between theology and science have caused conflicts between science and Christianity that does not exist between science and other religions.
FREEMAN DYSON
The Scientist as Rebel
I know the theological answers, but do my blood and my pulse?
ANN VOSKAMP
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Mythology in religion and theology is not about the status of being truth or lie. Myth in religion is used to convey a deeper understanding or message that goes beyond the face value of the words used in the story. The two creation stories in Genesis have only one purpose. That is to present the faith position that God is Creator! It is not a scientific statement!
SEAN MAJOR-CAMPBELL
"I Fear the Two-Footed Snakes", Jamaica Gleaner, May 12, 2017
Theology must be man's critical reflection on himself, on his own basic principles. Only with this approach will theology be a serious discourse, aware of itself, in full possession of its conceptual elements.
GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ
A Theology of Liberation
Spirituality without theology is ungrounded and aimless; theology without spirituality is abstract and heartless. Joined together, theology and spirituality provide a holistic vision, the promise that we can experience our world views in daily life, and practices that help us discover the God we describe theologically, or inspire us to reshape our images of God.
BRUCE EPPERLY
"Why Theologians Need Spirituality and Spiritual Guides Need Theology", Patheos, May 9, 2017
Christians are called to understand biblical theology not just for self-preservation in an increasingly hostile culture, but most importantly for the glorification of God.
JEREMIAH GREEVER
"Theology shapes view of culture, God", The Pathway, May 3, 2017
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone. All it accomplishes is (a) to throw a veil of sanctity about ideas that violate every intellectual decency, and (b) to make every theologian a sort of chartered libertine. No doubt it is mainly to blame for the appalling slowness wich which really sound notions make their way in the world. The minute a new one is launched, in whatever fields, some imbecile of a theologian is certain to fall upon it, seeking to put it down. The most effective way to defend it, of course, would be to fall upon the theologian, for the only really workable defense, in polemics as in war, is a vigorous offensive. But convention frowns upon that device as indecent, and so theologians continue their assault upon sense without much resistance, and the enlightenment is unpleasantly delayed.
H. L. MENCKEN
Baltimore Evening Sun, December 9, 1929
Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.
G. C. LICHTENBERG
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)--Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world--a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious--surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.
WALT WHITMAN
Democratic Vistas
Forget everything you ordinarily associate with religious study. Strip away all the reverence and the awe and the art and the philosophy of it. Treat the subject coldly. Imagine yourself to be a theologist, but a special kind of theologist, one who studies gods the way an entomologist studies insects. Take as your dataset the entirety of world mythology and treat it as a collection of field observations and statistics pertaining to a hypothetical species: the god. Proceed from there.
LEV GROSSMAN
The Magician King
Without theology, the Bible may mistakenly appear to be a random book of helpful sayings, exciting stories, and an assortment of historical information. But with biblical theology, clarity is brought to the inherent unity of the Bible's teachings about God.
JEREMIAH GREEVER
"Theology shapes view of culture, God", The Pathway, May 3, 2017
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
H. L. MENCKEN
attributed, The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations
In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.
KARL BARTH
Letters, 1961-1968
Whatever our ... conscious theology, it is our duty--our obligation--in response to His love to attempt to give birth, like Mary, to Christ in ourselves and in others.
SCOTT PECK
People of the Lie
This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen before.
KARL BARTH
The Humanity of God
A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.
MARTIN LUTHER
Table Talk
A theologian should be thoroughly in possession of the basis and source of faith--that is to say, the Holy Scriptures. Armed with this knowledge it was that I confounded and silenced all my adversaries; for they seek not to fathom and understand the Scriptures; they run them over negligently and drowsily; they speak, they write, they teach, according to the suggestion of their heedless imaginations.
MARTIN LUTHER
"Of God's Word", Table Talk