Theologian Quotes - Page 19

• A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.

  Thomas Merton

  Sense Of Humor, Gentle, Pious

  Thomas Merton (1960). “Spiritual Direction and Meditation”, p.40, Liturgical Press

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• Never trust a theologian who doesn't have a sense of humor.

  D. Elton Trueblood

  Sense Of Humor, Never Trust

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• Humor is the opposite of all self-admiration and self-praise.

  Karl Barth

  Self, Opposites, Admiration

  Karl Barth (2010). “Church Dogmatics Study Edition 20: The Doctrine of Creation III.4 § 55-56”, p.329, A&C Black

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• Not everybody, however, has a genuine sense of humor. That calls for an altruistic detachment from oneself and a mysterious sympathy with others which is felt even before they open their mouths. Only the person who has also a gift for affection can have a true sense of humor. A good laugh is a sign of love; it may be said to give us a glimpse of, or a first lesson in, the love that God bears for every one of us.

  Karl Rahner

  Giving, Laughing, Glimpse

  Karl Rahner (1973). “Belief today: three theological meditations”, Sheed & Ward Ltd

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• But the saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor. (Nor should the Karl Barth who so loved and understood Mozart be regarded as such.)For humor is a mysterious but unmistakable charism inseparable from Catholic faith, and neither the "progressives" nor the "integralists" seem to possess it - the latter even less than the former.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  Aunt, Catholic, Saint

  Hans Urs von Balthasar (2007). “The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church, 2nd Edition”, p.184, Ignatius Press

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• And when we take ourselves too seriously, we are grim about the brothers and sisters, especially the dissenting ones, and there will be no health in us and no healing humor.

  Walter Brueggemann

  Brother, Healing, Grim

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• O God, make the bad people good, and the good people nice

  Philip Yancey

  Nice, People, Good People

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• A person who can laugh and go with life does not demand to be in control, which is why the most controlling people may be sarcastic but lack an authentic sense of humor.

  Richard Rohr

  Sarcastic, People, Laughing

  Richard Rohr (2010). “On the Threshold of Transformation”, p.197, Loyola Press

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• If Jesus doesn't have a sense of humor, I am in huge trouble.

  Stephen Colbert

  Jesus, Sense Of Humor, Trouble

  "Stephen Colbert to Fordham University students: 'I love my church'". www.foxnews.com. September 15, 2012.

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• Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus.

  Eric Alterman

  Technique, Use, Morality

  "Dick Cheney's Shadow Government" by Eric Alterman, www.realclearpolitics.com. July 14, 2009.

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• The theologian considers sin mainly as an offence against God; the moral philosopher as contrary to reasonableness.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Powerful, Philosopher, Moral

  Saint Thomas Aquinas (1951). “Philosophical Texts”, London : Oxford University Press

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• It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Old Habits, Bones, Beats

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2025, Library of Alexandria

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• I am no theologian. I am a layman. I am among those who are preached to, and who listen. It is not for me to preach. I should not willingly forego being a listener, a man who reads the Gospels and then listens to what others say that our Lord meant. But sometimes a listener speaks out, and listens to his own voice.

  Haniel Long

  Men, Speaks Out, Voice

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• I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty.

  James Lovelock

  If There Is A God, Scientist, Certainty

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• As set forth by theologians, the idea of 'God' is an argument that assumes its own conclusions, and proves nothing.

  Johann Most

  Ideas, Agnostic, Assuming

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• People, and especially theologians, should try to familiarize themselves with scientific ideas. Of course, science is technical in many respects, but there are some very good books that try to set out some of the conceptual structure of science.

  John Polkinghorne

  Book, Ideas, People

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• Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything.

  John Polkinghorne

  Inquiry, Problem, Speak

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• The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Fall, Men, Soul

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.12, Fig

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• The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

  Edward Gibbon

  Errors, Race, Long

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.237, Modern Library

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• Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Christian, Add

  Desiderius Erasmus, Beatus Rhenanus, John C. Olin (1987). “Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus, with His Life by Beatus Rhenanus and a Biographical Sketch by the Editor”, p.104, Fordham Univ Press

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• I am no theologian. I would not be surprised, however, if Heaven proved to be a cozy kitchen, where delicious treats appeared in the oven and in the refrigerator whenever you wanted them, and where the cupboards were full of good books.

  Dean Koontz

  Book, Heaven, Kitchen

  Dean Koontz (2016). “The Complete Odd Thomas 8-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours, Odd Apocalypse, Odd Interlude, Deeply Odd, Saint Odd”, p.891, Bantam

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• Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, of self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.

  Karen Armstrong

  Self, Creative, Way

  Karen Armstrong (2010). “The Spiral Staircase”, p.313, Vintage Canada

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• But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technological intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.

  Michel Foucault

  Real, Philosophical, Exercise

  "Discipline and Punish". Book by Michel Foucault, 1977.

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• You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way.

  Anne Lamott

  Children, Pain, Grace

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• After chiding the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past.

  Loren Eiseley

  Taken, Past, Origin Of Life

  Loren Eiseley (2011). “The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature”, p.199, Vintage

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