Theology Quotes

• A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  Sympathy, God, Death

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.39, Broadway Books

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• Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Brother, Cutting

  "Man's Place in the Animal World" (ca. 1896)

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• The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.

  Albert Einstein

  Meaningful, Spiritual, Religious

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• In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.

  Karl Barth

  Jesus, Church, Christ

  Karl Barth (1981). “Letters, 1961-1968”

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• I see a pattern, but my imagination cannot picture the maker of that pattern. I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Years

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• The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.

  Thomas Paine

  Christian, Data, Religion

  Thomas Paine (2016). “THE AGE OF REASON - Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (Including “The Life of Thomas Paine”): Deistic Critique of Bible and Christian Church”, p.99, e-artnow

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• I've come to learn that theology matters. It matters not because we want to impress people, but because what we know about God shapes the way we think and live. Theology matters because if we get it wrong then our whole life will be wrong.

  Joshua Harris

  Thinking, People, Shapes

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• What has 'theology' ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has 'theology' ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? What makes you think that 'theology' is a subject at all?

  Richard Dawkins

  Thinking, Make You Think, Religion

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• The cross alone is our theology.

  Martin Luther

  Crosses

  Martin Luther (1903). “The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther, the Hero of the Reformation, the Greatest of the Teuton Church Fathers, and the Father of Protestant Church Literature. Based on the Kaiser Chronological Ed. with Reference to the Erlangen and Walch Eds”

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• I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, God, Religious

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.39, Princeton University Press

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• It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.43, Princeton University Press

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• The worst criminals are not half so immoral as the creators and perpetrators of the unquestionable hell of Christian theology

  M. M. Mangasarian

  Christian, Half, Criminals

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• Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live into God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other peopleWe read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.

  David Seamands

  Christian, Believe, Unconditional Love

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• A theologian who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they necessarily are reflected in his theology.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Beautiful, Art, Doe

  "The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church". Book by Vittorio Messori, ‎Benedict XVI, 1985.

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• The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That's why theology and worship belong together.

  N. T. Wright

  Together, Worship, Within You

  N. T. Wright (2014). “For All God's Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church”, p.12, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Clever, Men, Laughing

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.226, Penguin

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

  Athenagoras I of Constantinople

  Theologian

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• Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Atheist, Cat, Dark

  Robert A. Heinlein (1985). “Job, a Comedy of Justice”, Del Rey

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• 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.

  Roger Ebert

  Believe, Men, Play

  Interview With Brit Hume, progressive.org. August 1, 2003.

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• Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology.

  J. I. Packer

  Song, Doe, Fundamentals

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• If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.

  John Burroughs

  Literature, Accepting, Guides

  John Burroughs (1913). “Writings”

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• Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Life, Book, Logical

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• Theology is a science of mind applied to God.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  War, Mind, Science And Religion

  Henry Ward Beecher (1866). “Royal truths”, p.53

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• Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?

  E. O. Wilson

  Biblical, Religion, Important

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• The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Long, Heaven, Atheism

  "Man, Society, and Freedom" by Mikhail Bakunin (1871), as quoted in Mikhail Bakunin "Bakunin on Anarchism" edited and translated by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.

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