Theological Quotes - Page 2

• The Master was exceedingly gracious to university dons who visited him, but he would never reply to their questions or be drawn into their theological speculations. To his disciples, who marveled at this, he said, "Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?

  Anthony de Mello

  Ocean, People, Frogs

  Anthony De Mello (2012). “One Minute Wisdom”, p.105, Image

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• Those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire fences, quite often wish they could have more freedom of thought, but fear the change to the great ocean of truth as they would a cold bath.

  Luther Burbank

  Change, Truth, Freedom

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• Ninety percent of [contemporary philosophers] see their principle task as that of beating religion out of men's heads. ... We are far from being able to provide scientific basis for the theological world view.

  Kurt Gödel

  Men, Views, Principles

  "Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel". Book by John W. Dawson Jr., 1997.

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• Do the Pentecostals look back with shame as they remember when they dwelt across the theological tracks, but with the glory of the Lord in their midst? When they had a normal church life, which meant nights of prayers, followed by signs and wonders, and diverse miracles, and genuine gifts of the Holy Ghost? When they were not clock watchers, and their meetings lasted for hours, saturated with holy power? Have we no tears for these memories, or shame that our children know nothing of such power?

  Leonard Ravenhill

  Memories, Prayer, Children

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• Scholasticism, a concept which does not bear criticism, is a theological concept specifically designed to sustain faith in the immortality of the soul.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Soul, Criticism, Atheism

  Miguel de Unamuno (1977). “The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations”, p.90, Princeton University Press

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• It is quite likely ... that the central figure of the gospels is not based on any historical individual. Put simply, not only is the theological "Christ of faith" a synthetic construct of theologians, a symbolic "Uncle Sam" figure, but if you could travel ... back to First-Century Nazareth, you would not find a Jesus living there.

  Robert M. Price

  Jesus, Uncles, Historical

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• The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories.

  W. H. Auden

  Sex, Heart, Men

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• Manly natural religion - it is not joining the Church; it is not to believe in a creed, Hebrew, Protestant, Catholic, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian. It is not to keep Sunday idle; to attend meetings; to be wet with water; to read the Bible; to offer prayers in words; to take bread and wine in the meeting house; love a scape-goat Jesus, or any other theological clap-trap.

  Theodore Parker

  Jesus, Prayer, Believe

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

  Paul Kurtz

  Atheism, Foundation, Needs

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• Of all the differences between the Old World and the New, this is perhaps the most salient. Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European States... have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of Church and State. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States. There is no Established Church. All religious bodies are equal before the law, and unrecognized by the law, except as voluntary associations of private citizens.

  James Bryce

  Religious, War, Europe

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• In a Jewish theological seminar there was an hours-long discussion about proofs of the existence of God. After some hours, one rabbi got up and said, "God is so great, he does not even need to exist."

  Victor Frederick Weisskopf

  Long, Atheism, Doe

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• The more I read, the less I admire modern theology. the more I study the productions of the new schools of theological teachers, the more I marvel that men and women can be satisfied with such writings. There is a vagueness, a mistiness, a shallowness, an indistinctness, a superficiality, an aimlessness, a hollowness about the literature of the 'broader and kinder systems', as they are called, which to my mind stamps their origin on their face. They are of the earth, earthy.

  J. C. Ryle

  Teacher, Writing, School

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• Appealing to his [Einstein's] way of expressing himself in theological terms, I said: If God had wanted to put everything into the universe from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But he seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.

  Karl Popper

  Men, Interesting, Events

  Karl Popper (2005). “Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography”, p.150, Routledge

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• I firmly believe that the method which sets theological theories against scientifically ascertained facts, is fatal to the current theology and injurious to the spirit of religion; and that the method which frankly recognizes the facts of life, and appreciates the spirit of the scientists whose patient and assiduous endeavor has brought those facts to light, will commend the spirit of religion to the new generation, and will benefit--not impair--theology as a science, by compelling its reconstruction.

  Lyman Abbott

  Believe, Light, Appreciate

  Lyman Abbott (2009). “The Theology of an Evolutionist”, p.37, Cambridge University Press

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• Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe.

  John Polkinghorne

  Thinking, Years, Culture

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• 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

  Ignorance, Pride, Scotland

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• Truths are not truths to you unless you realize them within yourself. Without realization, they are just ideas. For spiritual perception, spiritual consciousness, lies not in vague theological ideas, but in the acquisition of Self-realization.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Spiritual, Lying, Self

  Yogananda (Paramahansa) (1977). “Self-realization”

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• As liberty and intelligence have increased the people have more and more revolted against the theological dogmas that contradict common sense and wound the tenderest sensibilities of the soul.

  Catharine Beecher

  People, Common Sense, Soul

  Catharine Esther Beecher (1864). “Religious Training of Children in the School, the Family, and the Church”, p.212

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• I believe you have to keep the theological standard high; the Lord said, 'Be perfect,' and the leaders have to be striving for that standard with all there is in them.

  Adrian Rogers

  Believe, Perfect, Leader

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• 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

  Light, Principles, Purpose

  Kenneth Burke (1970). “The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology”, p.2, Univ of California Press

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• 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

  Reading, Light, Torches

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• 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

  Dog, Missing, Religion

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

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Problem, Handiwork, Solutions

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.32, Fig

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• 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

  Hate, Believe, Events

  Lewis Carroll, Morton Norton Cohen, Roger Lancelyn Green (1979). “The letters of Lewis Carroll”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• 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

  Answers, Concerned, Supposed To Be

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