Theologian Quotes - Page 13

• You can't relate to an absolute or it wouldn't be absolute, it would be relative. On an intellectual level, that's easy. However, you hear theologians in the theistic traditions talk about absolute God, and I saw God, or God spoke; speaking, being seen, these are all relational things. So what is absolute about such a being, wouldn't actually be absolute.

  Robert Thurman

  Intellectual, Would Be, Levels

  Source: theindiespiritualist.com

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• In the past some of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians, such as Maimonides, Aquinas and Ibn Sina, made it clear that it was very difficult to speak about God, because when we confront the ultimate, we are at the end of what words or thoughts can do.

  Karen Armstrong

  Christian, Past, Influential

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• Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. That instant was his [Lucifer's] ruin.

  James Joyce

  Pride, Ruins, Sin

  James Joyce (2005). “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, p.134, Collector's Library

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• We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  God, Responsibility, Interesting

  Daniel J. Boorstin (2012). “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America”, p.8, Vintage

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• The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian Inspirational, Devil, Stills

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• Saying that a great genius is mad, while at the same time recognizing his artistic worth, is like saying that he had rheumatism or suffered from diabetes. Madness, in fact, is a medical term that can claim no more notice from the objective critic than he grants the charge of heresy raised by the theologian, or the charge of immorality raised by the police.

  James Joyce

  Mad, Police, Genius

  James Joyce (2016). “The Complete Works of James Joyce: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Poetry, Essays & Letters: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan’s Wake, Dubliners, The Cat and the Devil, Exiles, Chamber Music, Pomes Penyeach, Stephen Hero, Giacomo Joyce, Critical Writings & more”, p.2290, e-artnow

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• A free theologian works in communication with other theologians...He waits for them and asks them to wait for him. Our sadly lacking yet indispensable theological co-operation depends directly or indirectly on whether or not we are wiling to wait for one another, perhaps lamenting, yet smiling with tears in our eyes.

  Karl Barth

  Communication, Eye, Waiting

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• The centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures.

  Robert Bellarmine

  Attitude, Axes, Scary

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• Comedy mocks the vanity of visions of rational control. The person who can joke amidst a confrontation with evil, like the quick-witted Spider-Man, must be reconciled to the permanent imperfections of a corrupted world populated by fallen creatures.

  Peter Leithart

  Men, Vanity, Evil

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• Everyone is a theologian, either conscious or unconscious, in the sense that everyone has some conception of the nature of reality, of the demands of reality, and of those elements in reality that support or threaten meaningful existence.

  James Luther Adams

  Meaningful, Reality, Support

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• My father was a better bricklayer than I am a theologian. I am still in too much of a hurry. But if the work I have done in theology is of any use, it is because of what I learned on the job, that is, you can lay only one brick at a time.

  Stanley Hauerwas

  Jobs, Father, Use

  Stanley Hauerwas (2012). “Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir”, p.46, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• The young earth-solution to reconciling the order of creation with natural history makes good exegetical and theological sense. Indeed, the overwhelming consensus of theologians up through the Reformation held to this view. I myself would adopt it in a heartbeat except that nature seems to present such strong evidence against it.

  William A. Dembski

  Strong, Views, Order

  William A. Dembski (2009). “The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World”, p.55, B&H Publishing Group

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• I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt.

  Thomas A. Edison

  God, Believe, Doubt

  The Freethinker, Volume 90, 1970.

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• Big dreams are risky business. The psyche can be fiendish, puckish, exalted, imperious, tender, sardonic, faithful, pestilential--whatever rivets our attention upon the task of psychic growth. It is not so hard to find at least a little sympathy for theologian Martin Luther, who prayed to God not to send him any dreams at all, fearful he could not distinguish between those of divine origin and those sent by the Devil.

  Marc Ian Barasch

  Dream, Psychics, Faithful

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• Martin Luther, when he walked in the woods, used to raise his hat to the birds and say, ‘Good morning, theologians—you wake and sing, but I, old fool, know less than you and worry over everything, instead of simply trusting in the heavenly Father’s care.

  Richard Wurmbrand

  Morning, Father, Worry

  Richard Wurmbrand (1968). “Christ in the Communist Prisons”

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• I profoundly admire Aldous Huxley, both for his philosophy and uncompromising sincerity. But I disagree with his advocacy of 'the chemical opening of doors into the Other World', and with his belief that drugs can procure 'what Catholic theologians call a gratuitous grace'. Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.

  Arthur Koestler

  Philosophy, Doors, Other Worlds

  Arthur Koestler (1981). “Kaleidoscope: essays from Drinkers of infinity, and The heel of Achilles and later pieces and stories”, Vintage

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• The devils more orthodox than some theologians I know.

  Adrian Rogers

  Devil, Orthodox, Knows

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• Every time we mention God we become theologians, and the only question is whether we are going to be good ones or bad ones.

  J. I. Packer

  Be Good

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• A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.

  Martin Luther

  Reading, Thinking, Dying

  "Table Talk". Book by Martin Luther, 1566.

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• No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.

  R. C. Sproul

  Christian, Issues, Theology

  R. C. Sproul (2009). “Knowing Scripture”, p.25, InterVarsity Press

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• Indeed Christianity passes. Passes - it has gone! It has littered the beaches of life with churches, cathedrals, shrines and crucifixes, prejudices and intolerances, like the sea urchin and starfish and empty shells and lumps of stinging jelly upon the sands here after a tide. A tidal wave out of Egypt. And it has left a multitude of little wriggling theologians and confessors and apologists hopping and burrowing in the warm nutritious sand. But in the hearts of living men, what remains of it now? Doubtful scraps of Arianism. Phrases. Sentiments. Habits.

  H. G. Wells

  Beach, Heart, Men

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• Today the West is awakening to its wants; and the "true self of man and spirit" is the watchword of the advanced school of Western theologians. The student of Sanskrit philosophy knows where the wind is blowing from, but it matters not whence the power comes so longs as it brings new life.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Philosophy, School, Men

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1743, Manonmani Publishers

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• Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  Lovers, Knows

  Hans Urs von Balthasar (2004). “Love Alone is Credible”, p.10, Ignatius Press

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• King thought he understood the white Southerner, having been born and reared in Georgia and trained a theologian.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Kings, White, Georgia

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• The most wonderful thing of all is that the distinguished Lutheran and Calvinist theologians who belong to our order really believe that they see in it (Illuminati) the true and genuine sense of Christian Religion. Oh mortal man, is there anything you cannot be made to believe?

  Adam Weishaupt

  Christian, Believe, Men

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