Quotes on Theology

I didn't write much until I turned 40. Up until then I felt constrained by a sense of the discipline of New Testament studies and a sense of the ruling elite in theology and biblical studies.

Depression can kill you. It can also be a spiritually enriching experience. It's really an important part of my theology now and my spirituality that life is not perfect, and I grew up wanting it to be and thinking that if it wasn't, I could make it that way, and I had to acknowledge that I had all kinds of flaws and sadnesses and problems.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

If you meet with a system of theology which magnifies man, flee from it as far as you can.

Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.

Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.

My entire theology can be condensed into four words, 'JESUS DIED FOR ME'.

Theology is taught by God, teaches God, and leads to God.

The problem with Prosperity Theology is not that it promises too much, but that it aims for so little. What God promises us in Christ is far above anything that can be measured in earthly wealth - and believers are not promised earthly wealth nor the gift of health.

Men are better than this theology.

The cross alone is our theology.

I did not learn my theology all at once, but had to search constantly deeper and deeper for it. My temptations did that for me, for no one can understand Holy Scripture without practice and temptations...I t is not by reading, writing, or speculation that one becomes a theologian. Nay, rather, it is living, dying, and being damned that makes one a theologian.

Wherefore all theology, when separated from Christ, is not only vain and confused, but is also mad, deceitful, and spurious; for, though the philosophers sometimes utter excellent sayings, yet they have nothing but what is short-lived, and even mixed up with wicked and erroneous sentiments.

In the devil's theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong.

Indeed, theological discourse offers its strange jubilation only to the strict extent that it permits and, dangerously, demands of it wokman that he speak beyond his means, precisely because he does not speak of himself. Hence the danger of a speech that, in a sense, speaks against the one who lends himself to it. One must obtain forgiveness for every essay in theology. In all senses.

Theology offers you a working arrangement, which leaves the scientist free to continue his experiments and the Christian to continue his prayers.

MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.

Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can't construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history.

I don't know how your theology works, but if Jesus has a choice between stained glass windows and feeding starving kids in Haiti, I have a feeling he'd choose the starving kids in Haiti.

The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking.