Theological Quotes

#1. Theological study offers a level of thinking about God recalling the insight of Abraham Heschel who noted that thinking without roots will bear flowers, but not fruits.

Anonymous

#2. Biblically sound, faithful, and intellectually satisfying theology that will ... cure many current theological concerns.

Jay Kesler

#3. The reason he wouldn't be drawn into political or even theological debate was that he was indifferent to other people's opinions and felt no urge to engage with or oppose them.

Ian McEwan

#4. In too many churches today, people don't see manifestations of God's power in answer to fervent praying. Instead, they hear arguments about theological issues that few people care about. On Christian radio and television we are often merely talking to ourselves.

Jim Cymbala

#5. Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

Denis Diderot

#6. Widow Joyner is repacking a trunk with clean clothes when I return. She looks up as I approach, and her expectant smile instantly disappears. "What happened?" "The reverend and I had a theological disagreement that ended in a permanent schism." "So ... no congratulations are in order?

Rae Carson

#7. In the Church, bodily asceticism has always been the supreme road to
theological knowledge. It is not possible for man to come to know the truth of life, the truth of Godand the truth of his own existence purely through intellectual categories ...

Christos Yannaras

#8. Evangelicalism as a movement is rushing headlong toward theological ambiguity, which is another way of saying apostasy.

Michael Horton

#9. . . . be suspicious of any [theological] position that fulfills all our heart's desires.

William E. Hordern

#10. The great argument used now against any theological proposition is not, that it is untrue, or unthinkable, or unedifying, or unscriptural, or unorthodox, but simply, that the modern mind cannot accept it.

Ronald Knox

#11. Because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

#12. We might be wise to follow the insight of the enraptured heart rather than the more cautious reasoning of the theological mind.

A.W. Tozer

#13. Its message is the story's two theological affirmations: (1) God's word is truthful and authoritative; and (2) the fulfillment of his promise of land is coming to pass.

Kenneth A. Mathews

#14. No matter how entrenched in the imagination of the average Christian the image of a male God might be, theological tradition has never assigned sex to God.

Sandra Marie Schneiders

#15. I do not have deep theological understanding or opinion, but I do not read the Bible as the literal word of God.

Anne Lamott

#16. To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.

David Brooks

#17. Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive.

Criss Jami

#18. There are dozens of references to God in the Scriptures for every one to the figure of Satan. This reflects a sometimes forgotten theological truth that the devil is by no means God's counterpart. He is a creature, not the Creator.

John Ortberg

#19. I take comfort in knowing that it was the shepherds to whom the angels appeared when they announced Christ's birth. Invariably throughout the course of history, God has appeared to people on the fringes. It's nice to find theological justification for your quirks.

Rich Mullins

#20. A reporter asked Barth what was the single most important theological discovery he'd made. After stopping to consider his answer carefully, Barth said, "Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so." Indeed, we can never outgrow that one great, majestic, and simple transforming truth.

Mark Driscoll

#21. I know the theological answers, but do my blood and my pulse?

Ann Voskamp

#22. Theological Seminary, points out that the sin of Sodom is mentioned several times elsewhere in the Bible, but never in connection with homosexual acts.

Jack Rogers

#23. The rabbi is often the regular preacher in the synagogue, the man whose sermons offer his community more general theological and moral guidance.

David Novak

#24. True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us ONLY as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques.

Thomas Merton

#25. The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.

Thomas Paine

#26. It is not simply a theological treatise, a code of laws, a religious homily, but the Bible - the book - while the only book for the soul, the best book for the mind

Herrick Johnson

#27. Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy. Nature will not verify any theological or metaphysical proposition (or not in the manner we are now considering); she will help to show what it means.

C.S. Lewis

#28. A nontheological faith cannot explain itself, but a too theological faith loses contact with the reason for its existence. (154)

Harold O.J. Brown

#29. Our own theological Church, as we know, has scorned and vilified the body till it has seemed almost a reproach and a shame to have one, yet at the same time has credited it with power to drag the soul to perdition.

Eliza Farnham

#30. so many theological terms, words like 'monotheism' are late constructs, convenient shorthands for sentences with verbs in them, and that sentences with verbs in them are the real stuff of theology,

N. T. Wright

#31. We Unitarian Universalists have inherited a magnificent theological legacy. In a sweeping answer to creeds that divide the human family, Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from a common source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny.

Forrest Church

#32. If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it's bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited.

J.I. Packer

#33. Are they really gods?"
"I never worry about theological questions," said Nightingale. "They exist, they have power and they can breach the Queen's peace - that makes them a police matter.

Ben Aaronovitch

#34. First, I hate all theological controversy: it is wearing to the temper, and is I believe (at all events when viva voce) worse than useless.

Lewis Carroll

#35. It is implanted in the Christian soul, by the side of the running waters, under the sky of the theological virtues, amid the breaths of the seven gifts of the Spirit. It is natural for it to bear Christian fruit.

Jacques Maritain

#36. I had a longing for ritual, something I could cling to, a routine to make me feel well and contented. I hoped that reading Bible commentaries and theological critiques would nudge me closer to some kind of absolute that I could hold up as a torch to light my way.

Jack Dee

#37. As I wrote in Pastrix I, like any good middle-class mainline Protestant, tend to arrogantly look down my theological nose at talk of demon possession as superstitious snake-handling nonsense, as though it's the spiritual equivalent of a monster truck rally.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

#38. I think that technology is essentially a continuation of a divestment of theological power that's been happening since The Enlightenment. It's the idea that God can see and hear everything.

Joshua Cohen

#39. Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are 'shaggy dog' stories; they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.

W. H. Auden

#40. Exposure to false doctrine places a person at risk not just for theological errors but for moral failure.

Max Anders

#41. Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.

Henri J.M. Nouwen

#42. People with a lot of theological study and no prayer life are dangerous ... and not in a good way.

Mark Hart

#43. People may not be impressed by our theological grasp, but they may be impressed by our expressions of practical godliness.

Alistair Begg

#44. I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out.

G.K. Chesterton

#45. We know that segregation is evil. We know that the sickest children should not go to the worst hospitals. No, I refuse to pretend the problem is insufficient knowledge. We lack the theological will to do it.

Jonathan Kozol

#46. On a small scale, person-to-person, Jesus encountered the kinds of suffering common to all of us. And how did he respond? Avoiding philosophical theories and theological lessons, he reached out with healing and compassion. He forgave sin, healed the afflicted, cast out evil, and even overcame death.

Philip Yancey

#47. No one church model or theological tradition - can reach an entire city. Reaching

Timothy Keller

#48. Given that sexual orientation is innate and that we are all, in theological terms, children of God, to deny access to some sacraments based on sexuality is as wrong as denying access to some sacraments based on race or gender.

Jon Meacham

#49. Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.

Voltaire

#50. At present, too much theological thinking is very human-centered.

John Polkinghorne

#51. Without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. Without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption too easily is seen as mere metaphor.

Russell D. Moore

#52. Genetics and epigenetics are far more important in sexuality than any idea of choice. No evidence has been found that anyone chooses their sexuality. Choice is a theological concept, not a biological one.

Darrel Ray

#53. Legalists and theological experts with "lips close to God and hearts far away from him" (Isa. 29:13). The world hardly needs more of these.

Dallas Willard

#54. When God saved me, He gave me a thirst to learn and to read and to study. I thrived in college. I got a bachelor's degree in philosophy and then went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.

Tullian Tchividjian

#55. Christianity ... made, for nearly 1,500 years, persecution, religious wars, massacres, theological feuds and bloodshed, heresy huntings and heretic burnings, prisons, dungeons, anathemas, curses, opposition to science, hatred of liberty, spiritual bondage, the life without love or laughter ...

M. M. Mangasarian

#56. Theological anthropology is a lot simpler when humans are the only ones with souls.

James S.A. Corey

#57. She had experimented with Wicca eight years ago, found that her spells did not produce the desired results of making her every bully bald and fat, and threw it in the corner of her soul as effete and impractical, as she had with a series of other theological outfits.

Thomm Quackenbush

#58. The work with which we embark on this first volume of a series of theological studies is a work with which the philosophical person does not begin, but rather concludes.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar

#59. I perceive two things in Scotland of the most fearful omen: ignorance of theological truth, and a readiness to pride themselves in and boast of it.

Edward Irving

#60. He had never taken such dislike to a man before and immediately felt guilty about it. He remembered his old tutor at theological college telling him, 'There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. We need to remember this about ourselves when we think of others.

James Runcie

#61. At the moment, the extremists have significant financial popular and theological backing in the Middle East. And that is an enduring phenomenon. And it's one that is going to require a long, ideological war to win.

Chuck Todd

#62. The primary theological fact about prayer is this: We address a triune God, and our prayers can be heard only through the distinct work of every person in the Godhead.

Timothy J. Keller

#63. St. Paul would say to the philosophers that God created man so that he would seek the Divine, try to attain the Divine. That is why all pre-Christian philosophy is theological at its summit.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar

#64. A theological thought can breathe only in the atmosphere of dialogue with God.

Helmut Thielicke

#65. I won't pretend that I've arrived at humble orthodoxy. When I gain a bit of theological knowledge, I all too frequently get puffed up with pride. But I'll tell you what deflates my arrogance and self-righteousness faster than anything else: trying to live whatever truth I have.

Joshua Harris

#66. Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil.

Milan Kundera

#67. Contraction of theological influence has at once been the best measure, and the essential condition of intellectual advance.

William Edward Hartpole Lecky

#68. The story serves as an important reminder to all of us that sometimes, when people are hurting, they don't need our advice and theological theorizing as much as they need our understanding and comfort.

Justin Lee

#69. the term "Land of Israel" was a later Christian and rabbinical invention that was theological, and by no means political in nature. Indeed, we can cautiously posit that the name first appeared in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew.

Shlomo Sand

#70. Any system of morals which has a theological basis becomes one of the tools by which the holders of power preserve their authority and impair the intellectual vigor of the young. ("Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?" [1954], Y 196)

S.T. Joshi

#71. I was influenced by the medieval theological beliefs when I presented Satan in Jesus' dream as unable to figure out who or what Jesus is, and unable to see the future.

Anne Rice

#72. Sacrifice is the first element of religion, and resolves itself in theological language into the love of God.

James Anthony Froude

#73. Extremists often derive their inspiration from literal interpretations of texts that should rightly be read not as Associated Press reports from the ancient world, but as theological and literary enterprises requiring independent intellectual assessment.

Jon Meacham

#74. At no point have I yet found artistic truth and theological truth at variance.

Dorothy L. Sayers

#75. Our purpose is simply to ask how theological principles can be shown to have usable secular analogues that throw light upon the nature of language.

Kenneth Burke

#76. No man can resist a woman who has an apple in her hand. It's theological. A woman with an apple in her hand is the first woman, the only woman in the world. And he is the first man, he stumbles on love and he cant shake it,never,ever,ever..

Pia Pera

#77. This is the God Nietzsche said had to be killed because nobody can tolerate being made into a mere object of absolute knowledge and absolute control. This is the deepest root of atheism. It is an atheism which is justified as the reaction against theological theism and its disturbing implications.8

James Carroll

#78. The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.

J.G. Holland

#79. How can one maintain a theological confidence in what one claims to be _true_ while acknowledging the existence of multiple religions that also claim to be _true_?

Namsoon Kang

#80. Humanists hold that ethical values are relative to human experience and need not be derived from theological or metaphysical foundations.

Paul Kurtz

#81. If the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist churches in continental Europe came about due to theological or ecclesiastical issues, the Church of England came about (at least in one sense) due to hormonal issues, namely, lust.

Daryl Aaron

#82. Newton produced three times as many theological papers than scientific. These manuscripts consistently recorded Newton's belief in the author of creation as one and the same as the author of the Law and prophecy contained in the Bible.

David Flynn

#83. I enjoy ritual and ceremony. What I don't like is when it's badly done or sloppily done. This is actually a theological issue - the forms we adopt, the actions we take, the way we do things, are, as it were, a sacrament.

Peter Hollingworth

#84. In the garden of the soul, the virtues of faith, hope, and love form the centerpiece. Traditionally called theological virtues, they come as free gifts from God and draw us to God. We cannot earn these virtues; God has already freely planted them in our soul.

Robert Morneau

#85. A science fiction story is just an attempt to solve a problem that exists in the world, sometimes a moral problem, sometimes a physical or social or theological problem.

Ray Bradbury

#86. Within the theological structure of the cults there is considerable truth, all of which, it might be added, is drawn from biblical sources, but so diluted with human error as to be more deadly than complete falsehood.

Walter Ralston Martin

#87. Perhaps it's not theology we're missing, but rather theological integrity. Many have the knowledge but lack the courage to admit the discrepancy between what we know and how we live.

Francis Chan

#88. The idea that Jesus rose on the 'third day' was originally a theological construct, not a historical piece of information.

Bart D. Ehrman

#89. Only when a disputed point has long caused bloodshed and disturbance, or when a successful invader (military or theological) insists on a change, is it necessary to draw up a code.

Edward Jenks

#90. There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only instinct I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as the sin of avarice.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

#91. The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our Satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves.

Richard Rohr

#92. They (theological liberals)seemed to know what the answer was supposed to be and weren't much concerned with how to get there. They knew only that whatever answers the Fundamentalists came up with must be wrong.

Eric Metaxas

#93. Becky Chabot, a PhD candidate in religious and theological studies at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, centered her dissertation on the social ethics of professional club soccer (and her fan typology) on the DBG,

Phil West

#94. I occupy much of my time in theological studies for which I have a natural inclination.

Cole Younger

#95. Suffice it to say that a global theological discussion will have little patience for ivory-tower theology and armchair theologians aloof from the realities facing ordinary Christians.

Craig Ott

#96. In those days I had various strong inclinations, for wine, gambling and cockfighting, and the society of gypsies, together with a passion for theological discussion which I had inherited from my father himself-all of which my father thought I had better rid myself of before I married.

Isak Dinesen

#97. The theological virtue of charity is the mysterious power, communicated by grace, to love as God loves.

Michel Quoist

#98. Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy.

Auguste Comte

#99. Your Promised Land is the place where God's personalized promises over your life become a living reality rather than a theological theory.

Beth Moore

#100. Religious relativism is not the answer to disagreement between faiths; yet relativism, and a blurring of religious distinctions, all too often result when two deeply believing faith communities engage each other in the public arena on theological issues.

Meir Soloveichik