Theology Quotes - Page 2

• Theology is but our ideas of truth classified and arranged.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  War, Ideas

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

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• Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Book, Common Sense, Religion

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• Before Vatican II, in theology, as in other areas, the discipline was fixed. After the council there has been a revolution - a chaotic revolution - with free discussion on everything. There is now no common theology or philosophy as there was before.

  Godfried Danneels

  Philosophy, Discipline, Vatican Ii

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• The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

  William James

  Life, Success, Character

  William James (1961). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.16, Courier Corporation

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• John Paul II made it clear that... liberation theology based on the teaching of Jesus Christ was necessary, but liberation theology that used a Marxist analysis was unacceptable.

  Claudio Hummes

  Jesus, Teaching, Analysis

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• 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.

  Pope Francis

  Profound, Decision, Important

  Pope Francis (2014). “My Door Is Always Open: A Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change”, p.63, A&C Black

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• Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowing, Effort, Literature

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• Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Heaven, Religion, Hell

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• A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men's theology; no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy, and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness, and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's hand.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Father, Men, Hands

  Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1870). “Feathers for Arrows: Or Illustrations for Preachers and Teachers, from My Note Book”, p.243

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• A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.

  John Kennedy Toole

  United States, Needs, Taste

  John Kennedy Toole (1980). “A Confederacy of Dunces”, p.23, Dubois Publishing

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• My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.

  Christopher Morley

  God, Philosophy, Mathematics

  Christopher Morley (2013). “The Haunted Bookshop”, p.276, Melville House

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• The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

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• I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.11, Broadway Books

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• 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.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, God, Spiritual

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.330, Princeton University Press

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• Theology made no provision for evolution.

  E. O. Wilson

  Evolution, Made, Provision

  E. O. Wilson (2014). “Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge”, p.15, Vintage

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• What the mind cannot accept, the heart can finally never adore.

  John Shelby Spong

  Heart, Mind, Religion

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• One either has to believe in a God who's terribly prejudiced, or disbelieve the teachings of such exclusionary theologies. Religions have taught us that 'we are better than they.'

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Believe, Teaching, Taught Us

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• The function of Theology? The recitation of the incomprehensible by the unspeakable to pick the pockets of the unthinking.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Pockets, Function, Picks

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• For many decades now - and certainly during my adult life in academe - the Western intellectual world has not been convinced that theology is a pursuit that can be engaged in with intellectual honesty and integrity.

  Arthur Peacocke

  Honesty, Integrity, Intellectual

  Arthur Peacocke (2004). “Evolution: The Disguised Friend of Faith?”, p.160, Templeton Foundation Press

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• The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

  Irving Babbitt

  Humanity, Needs, Today

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• The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.

  J. G. Holland

  Christian, School, Character

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 580, 1895.

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• Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of Nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Prayer

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.32, Princeton University Press

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• It seems obvious to me that the notion of God has never been anything but a kind of ideal projection, a reflection upward of the human personality, and that theology never has been and never can be anything but a more and more purified mythology.

  Alfred Loisy

  Reflection, Personality, Kind

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

  Hans Kung

  Important, Synthesis, Whole

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• I also think we need to maintain distinctions - the doctrine of creation is different from a scientific cosmology, and we should resist the temptation, which sometimes scientists give in to, to try to assimilate the concepts of theology to the concepts of science.

  John Polkinghorne

  Thinking, Giving, Temptation

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