Quotes About Theology

#1. We aim for the practice of Christianity in their everyday life and dealings, and not merely the profession of its theology on Sundays.

Robert Baden-Powell

#2. The atmosphere of our time is fast being cleared of the fumes and deadly gases that arose during the carboniferous age of theology.

John Burroughs

#3. Truly, I've learned more theology living in poor neighborhoods than in classrooms. At times I wonder if the questions of traditional theology have any meaning for the poor. And "the poor" here mean eighty percent of the population! (Ivone Gebara, p. 209)

Mev Puleo

#4. The cosmopolitan gaze of planetary love and hospitality _is_ what constitutes being _religious_.

Namsoon Kang

#5. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography.

John Dominic Crossan

#6. Every single Biblical doctrine of theology, directly or indirectly, ultimately has its basis in the book of Genesis.

Ken Ham

#7. Because religious training means credulity training, churches should not be surprised to find that so many of their congregations accept astrology as readily as theology, or a channeled Atlantean priest as readily as a biblical prophet.

Barbara G. Walker

#8. Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

Alan W. Watts

#9. Most of us happily disavow fairies, astrology and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, without first immersing ourselves in books of Pastafarian theology etc.

Richard Dawkins

#10. Theology is taught by God, teaches God, and leads to God.

Thomas Aquinas

#11. After the evil spirit of a narrow Scholastic orthodoxy has been driven out, in the end seven much more wicked spirits return in its place.

Pope Benedict XVI

#12. How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.

J.I. Packer

#13. At best we are but clay, animated dust; but viewed as sinners, we are monsters indeed. Let it be published in heaven as a miracle that the Lord Jesus should set His heart's love upon people like us.

Alistair Begg

#14. when thinking becomes involved with faith, it will also understand that God cannot be thought without faith. That is the initial point from which evangelical theology proceeds.

Eberhard Jungel

#15. Prayer turns theology into experience.

Timothy J. Keller

#16. Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction.

Michel De Montaigne

#17. Theology, I still think, is due to lack of faith.

Karl R. Popper

#18. Two erroneous impressions ... seem to be current among certain groups of uninformed persons. The first is that religion today stands for mediaeval theology; the second that science is materialistic and irreligious.

Robert Andrews Millikan

#19. Faith is the only belief which remains alive between heaven and hell.

Munia Khan

#20. No matter what God's power may be, the first aspect of God is never that of the absolute Master, the Almighty. It is that of the God who puts himself on our human level and limits himself.

Jacques Ellul

#21. No one book of scripture can be understood by itself, any more than any one part of a tree or member of the body can be understood without reference to the whole of which it is a part.

Charles Hodge

#22. Science ha seradicated smallpox, can immunise against most previously deadly viruses, can kill most previously deadly bacteria. Theology has done nothing but talk of pestilence as the wages of sin.

Richard Dawkins

#23. Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution.

Andrew Carnegie

#24. One can't found a novel theology on Nothing, and nothing is so secure a foundation as a contradiction.

Gene Wolfe

#25. Theology is a means to enjoying and worshiping God, or it is useless.

John Piper

#26. Next to theology I give to music the highest place and honor. And we see how David and all the saints have wrought their godly thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.

Martin Luther

#27. This was a commercial situation, not some exercise in an Applied Theology course.

Vernor Vinge

#28. The shortest route to deeper and richer worship is a clearer theology.

Paul David Manson

#29. A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

#30. The politics of trans-identity seeks to move from the _politics of singular identity_ to the _politics of multiple solidarities_ across various identities without abandoning one's personal attachments and commitments to the group that one finds significant.

Namsoon Kang

#31. Satan could make an "A" in my Systematic Theology course. He knows the information and knows that the information is true.

R.C. Sproul

#32. John Paul II made it clear that ... liberation theology based on the teaching of Jesus Christ was necessary, but liberation theology that used a Marxist analysis was unacceptable.

Claudio Hummes

#33. ...theology waits as it works. It waits for its lungs again to be filled. Without the renewing breath of the Spirit it cannot speak.

Craig Keen

#34. As history shows, dead metaphors make good idols.

Elizabeth A. Johnson

#35. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Bill Moyers

#36. We've got to believe that God is sane, Davie boy. We'd be lost indeed if we didn't do that.

John Wyndham

#37. The most blessed result of prayer would be to rise thinking "But I never knew before. I never dreamed ... " I suppose it was at such a moment that Thomas Aquinas said of all his own theology, "It reminds me of straw.

C.S. Lewis

#38. Though I understand the theology behind it, the image does not bring me peace; it makes me feel sorry for the lion. It strips him of his essence, the fundamental part of his being. A lion that does not behave as a lion i snot a lion. It isn't even the lion's opposite. It's a mockery of a lion.

Rick Yancey

#39. Fidelity to the whole of revealed truth is what distinguished good theology from its counterfeits.

Romanus Cessario

#40. Theology is unnecessary.

Stephen Hawking

#41. In summary, Schmucker argued that theology was contextual in nature, and that theological systems and expressions - indeed the church itself - had to be changed to accommodate their cultural and philosophical setting.

Albert B. Collver

#42. The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable.

H.L. Mencken

#43. As Earl Lautenslager writes, "A minister without theology is like an engineer without physics or a doctor without anatomy. He'll kill you."[

Michael S. Horton

#44. The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar

#45. How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?

Bill Moyers

#46. Love isn't self-centered, even at the supreme scale.

John K. Brown

#47. Human paleontology shares a peculiar trait with such disparate subjects as theology and extraterrestrial biology: it contains more practitioners than objects for study.

David Pilbeam

#48. 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.

Paul David Tripp

#49. It is closer to the truth to say that God is crazy than that God is reasonable. I suspect God merely smiles when someone calls him crazy, but shakes His head and frowns when someone calls Him reasonable.

Peter Kreeft

#50. We can talk about God's justice and love from now to the end of time. But until our theological discourse engages white supremacy in a way that empowers poor people to fight the monster, then our theology is not worth the paper it is written on. In

Frederick W. Schmidt Jr.

#51. It is easy, out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of the choice!

John Steinbeck

#52. The Summa Theologiae is not, as is sometimes supposed, a potpourri of theology and philosophy; it is wholly a Summa of Theology concerned with the Sacra Doctrina, the Holy Teaching of salvation given by God's revelation.

Brian Davies

#53. Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God.

William Ames

#54. The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.

Jonathan Swift

#55. In Islamic theology, the phallic symbol is very important. Your biggest phallic symbol is New York City and your tallest building will be the phallic symbol they will hit.

Isser Harel

#56. Christian theology is a hair's breadth away from nihilism.

John Milbank

#57. Pastor Russell lived in nearby Pittsburgh and said that there was no hell. This was terrible for we all knew that everyone but the Baptists were going there, so to believe there was no hell upset all the countryside theology.

Ammon Hennacy

#58. The victim had been John Lewis, the theology student. He had been attacked by thugs in a white restroom in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Ken Follett

#59. Fruitful discourse in science or theology requires us to believe that within the contexts of normal discourse there are some true statements.

Kenneth L. Pike

#60. The Christ of Theology is not alive for us today. He is wrapped in the grave cloths of dogma.

Albert Schweitzer

#61. If we, who are finite, contingent, created beings, have got God completely figured out, it makes it seem likely that we invented him ... If I am ever completely satisfied with my understanding of who God is and how he operates in the world, I am in danger of ceasing to seek Him.

Holly Ordway

#62. The study of truth requires a considerable effort - which is why few are willing to undertake it out of love of knowledge - despite the fact that God has implanted a natural appetite for such knowledge in the minds of men.

Thomas Aquinas

#63. Our true wisdom is to embrace with meek docility, and without reservation, whatever the holy scriptures have delivered.

John Calvin

#64. She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct.

Thomas Hardy

#65. The result has been that although few conservative Presbyterian churches actually worship in the Puritan way, the Puritan theology of worship remains the standard orthodoxy among them. This discrepancy sometimes leads to guilty consciences.

John Frame

#66. It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve.

James Joyce

#67. Historical theology has too often failed to interpret repentance as a positive creative force ... Essentially, if Christianity is to succeed in the next millennium, it must cease to be a negative religion and must become positive.

Robert H. Schuller

#68. Natural Theology says not only look up and look out-it also says look down and look in, and you will find the proofs of the reality of God in the depth of your own nature.

Christopher Dawson

#69. We need God's great-grace in all spheres of life.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#70. Theology created the fiction of Satan which represents the revolt if an infinite being against the existence of an absolute infinity, against God.

Mikhail Bakunin

#71. The best theology is probably no theology; just love one another.

Charles M. Schulz

#72. Its helpful to know the reasons for our faith ... it helps us not be so vulnerable to doubt, and it helps us not be so vulnerable to false doctrine.

Holly Ordway

#73. I do remember seeing Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar, one of those. It was a liberation theology venue. Anything radical seemed to be accepted there. I definitely picked up the idea there that you should question authority.

Ian MacKaye

#74. How do you give something away with the knowledge that you will get it back in three days, and then claim it to be the 'Ultimate Sacrifice'?

Jake Jesser

#75. Hope had only revealed herself to him when he was immersed in darkness

Soroosh Shahrivar

#76. Church history has repeatedly and clearly proven one thing: Once the highest view of Scripture is abandoned by any theologian, group, denomination, or church, the downhill slide in both its theology and practice is inevitable.

James R. White

#77. To be a child means to owe one's existence to another, and even in our adult life we never quite reach the point where we no longer have to give thanks for being the person we are.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar

#78. Aside from theology and sex there is really nothing to talk about.

Harold Laski

#79. The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Mikhail Bakunin

#80. I believe that theology is facing the abyss.
I must face the abyss, the abyss of existence, the abyss of mystery. (Rubem Alves, p. 189)

Mev Puleo

#81. MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.

Ambrose Bierce

#82. I basically look like a lot of modern Orthodox people you know, but I work on a TV show where I sometimes have to kiss Jim Parsons. That's why I don't take on the title of modern Orthodox, but in terms of ideology and theology I pretty much sound like a liberal modern Orthodox person.

Mayim Bialik

#83. Theological discourse can be, in and of itself, a form of identity and solidarity.

Namsoon Kang

#84. We must learn to accept ourselves in the painful experiment of living. We must embrace the spiritual adventure of becoming human, moving through the many stages that lie between birth and death.

Johann Baptist Metz

#85. Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them for what they are.

James Baldwin

#86. The problem with Prosperity Theology is not that it promises too much, but that it aims for so little. What God promises us in Christ is far above anything that can be measured in earthly wealth - and believers are not promised earthly wealth nor the gift of health.

Albert Mohler

#87. It would be unjust toward children to introduce them to Christian teaching and existence only as little pagans and catechumens, in order to leave it up to them to choose the Faith on their own responsibility at a point in time difficult to determine.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar

#88. Lord, forgive us for the times we have read about Gethsemane with dry eyes.

Frederick S. Leahy

#89. Once humanity discovers what's behind the mirror of all the ruling class of governments and religions there will be a new beginning of justice called Enlightenment.

Charleston Parker

#90. I still believe that many Americans have a deep longing for that glorious moment when a sermon is more Biblical than American.

Criss Jami

#91. I don't know how your theology works, but if Jesus has a choice between stained glass windows and feeding starving kids in Haiti, I have a feeling he'd choose the starving kids in Haiti.

Tony Campolo

#92. Indians, of course, have no "theology," and indeed no word for the system of credulity in which the white priests arrange for God, who must be entirely bewildered by it, a series of excuses for his failures.

Sinclair Lewis

#93. We want Paul's theology and his results but not his methods.

Roland Allen

#94. It is not I, but religion that worships man, although religion, or rather theology, denies this; it is not I, an insignificant individual, but religion itself that says: God is man, man is God

Ludwig Feuerbach

#95. To use the biblical imagery, Christian theology must acknowledge itself an impoverished earthen vessel while daring not to diminish the value of the treasure it confesses.

Kevin Diller

#96. Pelagianism is the natural heresy of zealous Christians who are not interested in theology.

J.I. Packer

#97. The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. It is by the aid of Statistics that law in the social sphere can be ascertained and codified, and certain aspects of the character of God thereby revealed. The study of statistics is thus a religious service.

Florence Nightingale

#98. Perhaps the greatest lesson [Huxley] learned from reading Carlyle was that real religion, that emotive feeling for Truth and Beauty, could flourish in the absence of an idolatrous theology.

Adrian Desmond

#99. Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe.

Jerry A. Coyne

#100. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.

Henry Martyn