Quotes About Theology

Patrick Cheng's Radical Love is not only an excellent introduction to LGBT theology but an important contribution to the discipline of theology and the life of the church. It is a must read for anyone who cares about the health of the church and theology today.

Often, when I want to read something that is satisfying to me as theology, what I actually read is string theory, or something like that - popularizations, inevitably, of scientific cosmologies - because their description of the scale of things and the intrinsic, astonishing character of reality coincides very beautifully with the most ambitious theology. It is thinking at that scale, and it is thinking that is invested with meaning in a humanly evocative form. That's theology.

I think everyone who has an interest in Reformed theology, or just in Christian theology more generally, should read John Calvin Institutes.

The Resurrection of Jesus is...a symbol of hope...I don't see how you can show love...without being in solidarity with the victims of this world. And if you are in solidarity with the victims, I don't see how you can avoid the cross. The theology of the cross is the theology of love in our real world.

A God-centered theology has to be a missionary theology

Classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be 'God-centered,' not 'man-centered'.

With a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, and philosophy, especially the ethical questions at the border of science and theology.

There is no conflict between science and theology, except where there is bad science or bad theology.

Some fundamentalists go so far as to reject psychology as a disciplined study, which is unfortunate and polarizing. By definition, psychology is the study of the soul, theology is the study of God. Generally speaking, systematic theology is a study of all the essential doctrines of faith, and that would include the study of our souls (psychology).

The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon Hell and Damnation-upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer.

Broadly speaking, Protestants like to be good and have invented theology in order to keep themselves so, whereas Catholics like to be bad and have invented theology in order to keep their neighbors good. Hence, the social character of Catholicism and the individual character of Protestantism.

The classic theology of my tradition comes from the French Renaissance. [William] Shakespeare was born in 1564, the year [John] Calvin died, and that theology was very influential in England in his lifetime. I think Shakespeare was attentive to questions raised by it, about human nature, history, reality itself. I find the two literatures to be mutually illuminating.

Barth's approach tears up any possibility of dialogue between faith and unfaith or between theology and other human sciences. Theology just says what it says on the basis of scripture, and that's that.

You see, my Lord Archbishop, what is "dubious" about my theology is not that it contradicts particular doctrinal teachings, things are much worse or better: what I want, is no more and no less than a fundamental change in the whole way that theology is done today; but I want this out of faith, not out of faithlessness.

The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

Catholic theology accounts for the fact that there's evil in the world. People say, well, how could God let this happen. Well, what God did was set the mechanism in motion and then allow people to do the best they can under the circumstances that they're dealt in order to gain grace and get into heaven.

All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass - "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

The very power of [textbook writers] depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks he is ‘doing’ his ‘English prep’ and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all.

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.

When you put biblical truth to the songs used in churches, you'll have the congregation leave singing the sermon. You'll have God's thoughts, things that are God-breathed, stuck in their heads. It's sad to think about a really catchy tune paired up with bad theology because that could, honestly, do a lot of damage in church.

The Epistle to the Romans is an extremely important synthesis of the whole theology of St. Paul.

Me and my father went through a war period where we wasn't talking. He wanted me to go to theology school - I didn't want to go. I wanted to do music. I told him I was a minister through music.

Only men of moral and mental force, of a patriotic regard for the relationship of the two races, can be of real service as ministers in the South. Less theology and more of human brotherhood, less declamation and more common sense and love for truth, must be the qualifications of the new ministry that shall yet save the race from the evils of false teaching.

Catholic theology believes that God gave man free will, and you can't give somebody free will and then send in a play from the sidelines.

The difficulty in today's world is our technology and science has outrun our theological advances. The reason for that is in technology and science, we have had the courage to ask the single question that theology has been afraid to ask: "Is it possible that there's something I don't know about this, the knowing of which would change everything?"

If you don't listen to theology, that won't mean you have no ideas about God, it will mean you have a lot of wrong ones.

Theology is a thing of unreason altogether, an edifice of assumptions and dreams, a superstructure without a substructure

In God's eyes, all creatures have value whether we find them cuddly, affectionate, beautiful or otherwise. Our own perspective-in a way-is neither here nor there. Theology, at its best, can help to liberate us from our own anthropocentric limitations.

Realizing our society as it is, without theology dogmatically telling us how we should react to it, and being humane toward that society, that is all that we're sure of.

Pastoral theology and care helps people look deeper at the intersection between their inherited religious traditions and their current life situations. From this vantage point, religious traditions can be reinterpreted in a manner that assists healing, corrects distortions, and expands vision.

I'm not sure that I've ever been drawn to the academic life as such. Theology has been a matter of survival for me. If I have a carapace of academic presentability, it is thanks to the wonderful teachers I had.

Every faith uses some kind of tool to understand itself better. Faith seeks understanding. The Western tradition has used philosophy to understand the truths of the faith and you come up with theology. Where as, Islam at a certain point said: we'll use law. There are these four major, developed schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

I`m impressed that people out there in Pennsylvania, deer hunter country, have had it with these stupid wars, that they don`t go along with the neocon theology, they don`t go along with the big money people or the evangelicals that always seem to want to fight, especially in the Middle East.

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

All history is an attempt to find pattern and meaning in a section of human experience, and every historian worthy of the name raises questions about man's ultimate destiny and the meaning of all history to which, as history, he can provide no answers. The answers belong to the realm of theology.

To so many people, the Lord is in danger of being no more than a patron saint of our systematic theology instead of the Christ who is our life.

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

It is God who gives us the spirit of worship (Psalm 133:3), and it is what we know of God that produces this spirit of worship. We might say that worship is simply theology, doctrine, what we think about God, going into top gear! Instead of merely thinking about Him, we tell Him, in prayer and praise and song, how great and glorious we believe Him to be!

all theology knowingly or not is by definition always engaged for or against the oppressed.

I think a lot it was the theology, that the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad, that somehow if we broke apart the rejectionist states, like Iraq, then the whole Middle East would reconfigure itself into a more favorable environment for democracy and Israel and us.

Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God.

The third major characteristic of God - "infinitude" - is the catchall, the universal modifier of Christian theology. God is not merely a being; he is infinite being. God is not merely good; he is infinite goodness. God is not merely wise; he is infinite wisdom. And so on down the list. God is exaggeration run amuck.

There is too much theology in the Church now, and too little of the Gospel.

God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends. This may not be true, but it sounds good, and is no sillier than any other theology.

Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind

Jalaluddin Rumi is completely rooted in Islamic teachings of Quran. He was a great scholar, he belonged to a madrassa, and he knew Islamic theology and jurisprudence very well. He knew Persian, Arabic and Turkish, which was coming into Anatolia at that time, very well. He was a remarkable, remarkable scholar, besides being a great saint.

Theology, not morality, is the first business on the church's agenda of reform, and the church, not society, is the first target of divine criticism.

God must not engage in theology. The writer must not destroy by human reasonings the faith that art requires of us.