Theologian Quotes - Page 11

• No one sane would let a first-century dentist fill their children's teeth. Why then do we allow first-century theologians to fill our children's minds?

  Michael Dowd

  Children, Mind, Teeth

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• Theologians and philosophers, who make God the creator of Nature and the architect of the Universe, reveal Him to us as an illogical and unbalanced Being. They declare He is benevolent because they are afraid of Him, but they are forced to admit the truth that His ways are vicious and beyond understanding. They attribute a malignity to Him seldom to be found in any human being. And that is how they get human beings to worship Him. For our miserable species would never lavish worship on a just and benevolent God from whom they had nothing to fear.

  Anatole France

  Understanding, Way, Philosopher

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• Those theologians who are beginning to take the doctrine of creation very seriously should pay some attention to science's story.

  John Polkinghorne

  Doctrine, Attention, Stories

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• Al-Ghazali is the most important philosophical theologian of classical Islam, and Moderation in Belief is among his most important works. It sets out al-Ghazali's Ash?arite theology with unusual clarity and provides important background for such well-known works as his autobiographical Deliverance from Error and his attack on Avicenna in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. This first English-language translation, with notes that bring out the argumentation and background of the work, is thus very much to be welcomed.

  Peter Adamson

  Philosophical, Errors, Islam

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• The animal world being altogether external to the scheme of redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the belief that we have any kind of obligation to its members has never been inculcated - has never, I believe, been even admitted - by Catholic theologians.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Believe, Animal, Catholic

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1955). “History of European morals from Augustus to Charlemagne”

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• We are all theologians, either good ones or bad ones. I'd rather be a good one. Wouldn't you?

  Randy Alcorn

  Randy Alcorn (2011). “Courageous: A Novel”, p.148, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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• Spirituality is not a function of occupation or calling. A scientist may be more spiritual than a theologian; a teacher may be more spiritual than an officer. Spirituality is determined by personal outlook and priorities. It is evident in our words and actions.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Spiritual, Teacher, Priorities

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• Parental love is not contingent on the talents and attributes the child happens to have. We choose our friends and spouses at least partly on the basis of qualities we find attractive. But we do not choose our children. Their qualities are unpredictable, and even the most conscientious parents cannot be held wholly responsible for the kind of child they have. That is why parenthood, more than other human relationships, teaches what the theologian William F. May calls an “openness to the unbidden.

  Michael Sandel

  Children, Love Is, Parent

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• There is only one theology, but there are many theologians.

  Athenagoras I of Constantinople

  Theology

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• Addressing the conclusions of The God Delusion point by point with the devastating insight of a molecular biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath dismantles the argument that science should lead to atheism, and demonstrates instead that Dawkins has abandoned his much-cherished rationality to embrace an embittered manifesto of dogmatic atheist fundamentalism.

  Francis Collins

  Atheist, Atheism, Argument

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• The statement that 'God is dead' comes from Nietzsche and has recently been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them.

  Karl Barth

  Atheist, Laughing, Heaven

  Karl Barth (1981). “Letters, 1961-1968”

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• Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Orthodoxy, Sin

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

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• God will not take shelter behind a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither a schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in Heaven.

  George MacDonald

  Atheist, Father, Heaven

  George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.13153, e-artnow

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• I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.

  Denis Diderot

  Blow, Light, Darkness

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• Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it's what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Life, Men, Creative

  "Loving Your Enemies". Sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr. at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

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• Theology is not a private subject for theologians only. Nor is it a private subject for professors. Fortunately, there have always been pastors who have understood more about theology than most professors. Nor is theology a private subject of study for pastors. Fortunately, there have repeatedly been congregation members, and often whole congregations, who have pursued theology energetically while their pastors were theological infants or barbarians. Theology is a matter for the Church.

  Karl Barth

  Church, Matter, Barbarians

  Karl Barth (2005). “God In Action: Theological Addresses”, p.26, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.

  Marquis de Sade

  Atheist, Men, Views

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• Theologians and other clerks,
  You won't understand this book,
  -- However bright your wits --
  If you do not meet it humbly,
  And in this way, Love and Faith
  Make you surmount Reason, for
  They are the protectors of Reason's house.

  Marguerite Porete

  Book, House, Clerks

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• Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.

  Thomas Huxley

  Lying, Snakes, Records

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.52, Cambridge University Press

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• I don't believe that God is a fussy faultfinder in dealing with theological ideas. He who provides forgiveness for a sinful life will also surely be a generous judge of theological reflection. Even an orthodox theologian can be spiritually dead, while perhaps a heretic crawls on forbidden bypaths to the sources of life.

  Helmut Thielicke

  Believe, Reflection, Ideas

  Helmut Thielicke (1962). “A Little Exercise for Young Theologians”, p.37, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• You will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal, there really is only one, and that is this: to fulfill the highest most truthful expression of yourself as a human being. You want to max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people around you. Theologian Howard Thurman said it best. He said, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

  Oprah Winfrey

  Expression, People, Goal

  Oprah Winfrey's Commencement Address at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, news.harvard.edu. May 30, 2013.

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• God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts in, God is all-powerful, His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us.

  Harold S. Kushner

  Powerful, Yield, Light

  Harold S. Kushner (2006). “Overcoming Life's Disappointments”, p.15, Anchor

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• If acorns start growing into theologians, or if women begin turning into pillars of salt, then we may wish to hypothesize about a supernatural influence. But until such time as nature becomes hopelessly unintelligible and unpredictable, we need look no further than nature itself for explanations.

  George H. Smith

  Spring, Wish, Needs

  George H. Smith (2010). “Atheism: The Case Against God”, p.262, Prometheus Books

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• I do not think of God theistically, that is, as a being, supernatural in power, who dwells beyond the limits of my world. I rather experience God as the source of life willing me to live fully, the source of love calling me to love wastefully and to borrow a phrase from the theologian, Paul Tillich, as the Ground of being, calling me to be all that I can be.

  John Shelby Spong

  Love, Thinking, Mindfulness

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• Let no Christian therefore, whether philosopher or theologian, embrace eagerly and lightly whatever novelty happens to be thought up from day to day, but rather let him weigh it with painstaking care and a balanced judgment, lest he lose or corrupt the truth he already has, with grave danger and damage to his faith.

  Pope Pius XII

  Christian, Powerful, Catholic

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