Theology Quotes - Page 11

Swamp Thing, in Hell: "Demon...How...could God...allow such a place?Etrigan: Think you God built this place, wishing man ill and not lusts uncontrolled or swords unsheathed?Not God, my friend. The truth's more hideous still: These halls were carved by men while yet they breathed.God is no parent or policeman grim dispensing treats or punishments to all.Each soul climbs or descends by its own whim. He mourns, but He cannot prevent their fall.We suffer as we choose. Nothing's amiss. All torments are deserved...

The Sabbath day of rest establishes the reality that God's people live by God's grace and not by their own labors.

Christ is our all. He is everything to the Christian. He fills all, is in all, and He is our life (Colossians 3:4, 11). It is in Him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden (Colossians 2:3). He is the author and finisher of our salvation, the one who starts it, works it out, and completes it (Hebrews 12:2). This is as the Father wanted it. He places His people in the hands of the Son, having joined them to the Son in a super-natural union, so the Son, by His perfect life of obedience, and perfect act of self-sacrifice upon the cross, can bring about their full and complete salvation.

The first step of grace to seek knowledge begins with the reading of the Holy Scripture.

For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.

He (Jesus) gave up his life not because of the so-called sins of humanity, but because he was too adamant to give in to orthodox monstrosity.

The individualism of the Romantic theory of interpretation attempts to abstract the individual from his historical context by presenting him with the ideal of presuppositionless understanding; a truer theory of interpretation, which does not seek to elide the historical reality of the one seeking understanding, sets the interpreter himself within tradition. What we understand when we seek to understand the writings of the past is borne to us by tradition. Understanding is an engagement with tradition, not an attempt to escape from it.

She knew that it was better to have a dream and pay a price for it than to be lukewarm. - regarding St. Teresa of Avila

In Christ, for the first time, we see that in God himself there exists--within his inseparable unity--the distinction between the Father who gives and the Gift which is given (the Son), but only in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

Although I believe identity politics '"produces limited but real empowerment for its participants," it is important to note that it contains significant problems: first, its essentialist tendency; second, its fixed _we-they_ binary position; third, its homogenization of diverse social oppression; fourth, its simplification of the complexity and paradox of being privileged and unprivileged; and fifth its ruling out of intersectional space of diverse forms of oppression in reality.

The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other - he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - but it would be the only strictly correct method. My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

The ultimate story of success: When a nobody, who has never once in his entire life known the feeling of being remembered or respected, suddenly snaps and becomes a world dictator. On one hand it sounds just, but on the other, it illustrates the reason why a prosperity message has and needs its limitations.

Theology starts with a crisis, the very crisis of reality itself. The crisis is the fact that you live, that you have a life to live. … The crisis is the very mystery of our existence and the yearning for there to be some kind of meaning to it.

Just as the church needs members with different skills, our world must have various forms of labor, interdependent and thus valuable. A world full of ministers would be without churches, bread for the Lord's Supper, and printed Bibles to read.

The most total opposite of pleasure is not pain but boredom, for we are willing to risk pain to make a boring life interesting.

Our sin is our resistance to going along with God's initiative in making suffering reparative. We are deeply drawn towards God, but we also sense how following him will dislocate and transform beyond recognition the forms which have made life tolerable for us. We often react with fear, dismay, hostility. We are at war with ourselves, and responding differently to this inner conflict, we end up at war with each other. So it is undoubtedly true that the result of sin is much suffering. But this is by no means distributed according to desert. Many who are relatively innocent are swept up in this suffering, and some of the worse offenders get off lightly. The proper response to all this is not retrospective book-keeping, but making ourselves capable of responding to God's initiative. But now if that's what sin is, then one can sympathize with a lot of the modern critique of a religion which focuses on the evil tendencies of human nature, and the need for renunciation and sacrifice. This is not because humans are in fact angelic, or there is no point to sacrifice. It's just that focusing on how bad human beings can be, even if it's to refute the often over-rosy views of secular humanists with their reliance on human malleability and therapy, can only strengthen misanthropy, which certainly won’t bring you closer to God; and propounding sacrifice and renunciation for themselves takes you away from the main points, which is following God's initiative. That this can involve sacrifice, we well know from the charter act in this initiative, but renunciation is not is point.

We live in a day of abounding vagueness and indistinctness on doctrinal subjects in religion. Now, if ever, it is the duty of all advocates of clear, well-defined, sharply-cut theology, to supply proof that their views are thoroughly borne out by Scripture.

Theologians are to look to the _beyond_-community–– _beyond_ nationality; skin-color, gender; sexual orientation, citizenship, religious affiliation––because God, the Divine, who is the primary frame of reference for theologians, is for, with, in, among those individual human beings. It is to reaffirm the sheer truth: No one is better or worse, superior or inferior than any other; and, 'Ich bin du, wenn Ich Ich bin' [I am you, when Iam I.]

It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature-whether theological or technological-is a kind of schizophrenia. It would be impossible, in their view, to believe oneself innately evil without discrediting the very belief, since all the notions of a perverted mind would be perverted notions.

It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.

This quarrel over the messianic status of Jesus within first-century Judaism had profound effects on Christianity and prompted it towards a fateful turning point that switched the emphasis from following the way of Jesus to believing things about Jesus. Gradually a Christian came to be thought of not as one who lives and acts in a certain way, but as one who holds certain convictions or theories. The trouble with religious convictions or beliefs is that, since we can rarely prove or disprove them, we get anxious about them and start quarrelling with people whose convictions or theories differ from our own.

Very small errors in our understanding of the Gospel can result in very big problems.

Sin may appear good. But by God's commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

Cosmopolitanism has offered me an ethical perspective and a conceptual framework with which to read the _signs of our times_ as a theologian and intellectual who has a public responsibility for constantly offering a way to engage in this rapidly changing public world.

Our are speculations are not the measure of our God.

Can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?

Without the knowledge of God, we are in complete darkness.

God's dialogue with us becomes truly human, since God conducts his part as man.

In other words, The­ol­ogy is prac­ti­cal: espe­cially now. In the old days, when there was less edu­ca­tion and dis­cus­sion, per­haps it was pos­si­ble to get on with a very few sim­ple ideas about God. But it is not so now. Every­one reads, every­one hears things dis­cussed. Con­se­quently, if you do not lis­ten to The­ol­ogy, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones — bad, mud­dled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trot­ted out as novel­ties to-day are simply the ones which real The­olo­gians tried cen­turies ago and rejected.

The time and space in which I have been working on this cosmopolitan project have convinced me that the disparity between the ideal of cosmopolitan theology and the current sociopolitical configuration of hospitality, welcoming others, unconditional forgiveness, is itself a _prophetic call_ to which we all have to respond––as humans, as person of faith. The _real_ is always about calculation and conditionality, whereas the _ideal_ of cosmopolitan theology is about incalculability, unconditionality, and planetarity of the _world-as-it-ought-to-be_. Therefore, the disparity between the reality and the ideality is not a space for despair but a space where one's sense of prophetic call_ and passion for _the impossible_ must come in.

Those who hold to the Christian faith see law as an ultimate order of the universe. It is the invariable factor in a variable world, the unchanging order in a changing universe. Law for the Christian is thus absolute, final, and an aspect of God's creation and a manifestation of His nature. In terms of this, the Christian can hold that right is right, and wrong is wrong, that good and evil are unchanging moral categories rather than relative terms.From an evolutionary perspective, however, we have a very different concept of law. The universe is evolving, and the one constant factor is change. It is impossible therefore to speak of any absolute law. The universe has evolved by means of chance variations, and no law has any ultimacy or absolute truth. As a result when we talk about law, we are talking about social customs or mores and about statistical averages. Social customs change, and what was law to the ancient Gauls is not law to the modern Frenchmen. We can expect men's ideas of law to change as their societies change and evolve. Moreover, statistics give us an average and a mean which determine normality, and our ideas of law are governed by what is customary and socially accepted.

Our modern world defined God as a ‘religious complex’ and laughed at the Ten Commandments as OLD FASHIONED. Then, through the laughter came the shattering thunder of the World War. And now a blood-drenched, bitter world — no longer laughing — cries for a way out. There is but one way out. It existed before it was engraven upon Tablets of Stone. It will exist when stone has crumbled. The Ten Commandments are not rules to obey as a personal favor to God. They are the fundamental principles without which mankind cannot live together. They are not laws — they are The Law.

Immortal beings have been compared to stars, these are existences that linger on long after the death of the thing itself.

Jesus never spoke of truth in abstraction, as something that stands alone. Jesus always spoke of truth in relation to God being revealed through himself.

The more rigid and exclusive one makes the border between philosophy and theology, the more that distinction itself has to fall on the side of theology, and the more inaccessible that very distinction becomes to philosophy

The task of the modern era was the realization and humanization of God – the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology.

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.

If thinking wants to think God, then it must endeavor to tell stories.

...'joy' in Phillippians is a defiant 'Nevertheless!' that Paul sets like a full stop against the Philippians' anxiety...

As sinners we are like addicts - addicted to ourselves and our own projects. The theology of glory simply seeks to give those projects eternal legitimacy. The remedy for the theology of glory, therefore, cannot be encouragement and positive thinking, but rather the end of the addictive desire. Luther says it directly: "The remedy for curing desire does not lie in satisfying it, but in extinguishing it." So we are back to the cross, the radical intervention, end of the life of the old and the beginning of the new. Since the theology of glory is like addiction and not abstract doctrine, it is a temptation over which we have no control in and of ourselves, and from which we must be saved. As with the addict, mere exhortation and optimistic encouragement will do no good. It may be intended to build up character and self-esteem, but when the addict realizes the impossibility of quitting, self-esteem degenerates all the more. The alcoholic will only take to drinking in secret, trying to put on the facade of sobriety. As theologians of glory we do much the same. We put on a facade of religious propriety and piety and try to hide or explain away or coddle our sins.... As with the addict there has to be an intervention, an act from without. In treatment of alcoholics some would speak of the necessity of 'bottoming out,' reaching the absolute bottom where one can no longer escape the need for help. Then it is finally evident that the desire can never be satisfied, but must be extinguished. In matters of faith, the preaching of the cross is analogous to that intervention. It is an act of God, entirely from without. It does not come to feed the religious desires of the Old Adam and Eve but to extinguish them. They are crucified with Christ to be made new.

We must submit to God's righteous rule.

There's a way to preach the Bible unbiblically...You can use the Bible as the springboard for all kinds of ideas, can't you? Look around in here and find something that fits your fancy and then launch a rocket off it. People say, 'That was amazing, wasn't it? Remarkable what he got out of that.' Well of course it is because he put it in before he got it out.

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

But the Lord often leaves his servants, not only to be annoyed by the violence of the wicked, but to be lacerated and destroyed; allows the good to languish in obscurity and squalid poverty, while the ungodly shine forth, as it were, among the stars; and even by withdrawing the light of his countenance does not leave them lasting joy. Wherefore, David by no means disguises the fact, that if believers fix their eyes on the present condition of the world, they will be grievously tempted to believe that with God integrity has neither favour nor reward; so much does impiety prosper and flourish, while the godly are oppressed with ignominy, poverty, contempt, and every kind of cross. The Psalmist says, "But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." At length, after a statement of the case, he concludes, "When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me: until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end," (Ps. 73:2, 3, 16, 17).

Atheism is a lack of belief...what about the powers of darkness, and that of light, will you trace both to nothing? Then you must have created yourself.

If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.

Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.

I know the theological answers, but do my blood and my pulse?

Without the knowledge of God ,we perish.

For you, my darlings, freedom to do what you like is the discovery of how unlikable what you like to do makes you. Not that that stops you doing what you like, since you like doing what you like more than you like liking what you do...[Lucifer]

I would like to coin the phrase alimentary theology, a theology that is more attentive to and welcoming of the multiple layers contained and implied in the making of theology. This is a theology that not only pays closer attention to matters related to food and nourishment, and the many ways they can relate, inspire, and inform theological reflection. Most importantly, it is an envisioning of theology as nourishment: food as theology and theology as food. Alimentary theology is envisioned as food for thought; it addresses some of the spiritual and physical hungers of the world, and seeks ways of bringing about nourishment.

The crux of my argument is this—we cannot truly understand what we should put on, say, or do, without looking at our behavior in relationship to Christ. In Christ, decency in behavior and dress is far larger than the particulars of modesty. By the world’s standards, modesty is a rule passed down from generation to generation which involves choosing a garment that submits to a certain standard set by a mother or community, one that constantly changes.” – Stacie Parlee-Johnson (Ch. 9, A Theology of Modesty)

We degrade God too much, ascribing to him our ideas, in vexation at being unable to understand Him.

If what they say is right we're none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.

Of Course God does not consider you hopeless. If He did, He would not be moving you to seek Him (and He obviously is)... Continue seeking Him with seriousness. Unless He wanted you, you would not be wanting Him.

Leave some room in your theology for God to be bigger than you can explain

now the question we must ask is...what kind of _practices_ [theology] motivates, what kind of _gaze_ onto others, the guest, the new arrivant, it offers us to carry with us; _not_ who my neighbors are _but_ to whom I am being a neighbor.

Christ is God (Rom. 9:5). Jesus is Lord (Rom. 10:9, 12-13; 14:5-9; 2 Cor. 4:5; 12:8-10; Phil. 2:9-11 [expressly after the Resurrection]; Col. 2:6; 1 Tim. 6:3; Titus 2:13 [where he is called God and Savior]; Heb. 1:3-14). Christ is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15), in the form of God (Phil. 2:5). The fullness of God dwells in him (Col. 1:19; 2:9). He is in God (Col. 3:3). God and Christ are often coupled together (2 Cor. 10:4-6; Col. 2:2; 1 Tim. 5:21; 2 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 13:20), as is the Lord Jesus Christ with our God and Father (Rom. 15:5-7, 8; 1 Cor. 8:6;2 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess.3:11, 13; 5:23; 2 Thess. 1:5-10; 2:16; 3:5).

Truth is, something exists, and everything exists for a reason. Regardless if the reason is known or unknown, knowable or unknowable, reason exists and can be named.

Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.