Theology Quotes
More Theology Quotes
Philosophy ... finds itself to be no longer anything but the heir to a fabulous mystical theology, but missing a God and wiping the slate clean.
georges bataille— p. 9 (L’Expérience Intérieure (1943))
All these riches, then, of her theology the Church has acquired, one might almost say, like the British Empire, in a fit of absence of mind. She was so busy scrapping with the heretics that she wasn't conscious of saying anything she hadn't always said; and yet, when she had time to sit down and look about her, she found it took ten minutes to sing the Credo instead of three.
ronald knox— The Hidden Stream (1952). London: Burns Oates, p. 142.
— Knox alludes to John Robert Seeley's much-quoted statement in The Expansion of England (1883) that "we seem, as it were, to have conquered half the world in a fit of absence of mind".
Probably none of the Weagles gave five minutes' thought a year to theology or ecclesiology, except Ora, who occasionally stirred up a lot of interesting family irritation by announcing that he was going to become a Catholic, an Episcopalian, a Buddhist, or a Seventh Day Adventist.
sinclair lewis— Work of Art (1934) Ch. 4
There are, certainly, differing degrees of devotion among Moon's followers; the fact that they bow at the right moment or shout "Mansei!" in unison doesn't mean they believe everything Moon says, or do precisely what he commands. Even on important issues, like Moon's claiming to be the messiah, there are church members whom I met, including a close aide to Moon, who demur. A religious leader whom they respect and whose theology they believe, yes; the messiah, perhaps not.
sun myung moon— Peter Maass, Moon at Twilight, The New Yorker September 14, 1998.
My theology, briefly,Is that the UniverseWas DictatedBut not Signed.
christopher morley— "Safe and Sane" in Hide and Seek (1920), p. 92
“I've done my best, but the boy is unteachable. He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science.” “In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense.” “He is unwilling to accept the idea that some things remain mysteries, comprehensible only to the mind of God. Ambiguity makes him saucy, and paradox causes open rebellion.” “An obnoxious child.”
orson scott card— Chapter 13 (Seventh Son (1987))
It is impossible to exaggerate the evil work theology has done in the world.
lydia maria child— The Progress of Religious Ideas Through Successive Ages, 1855, p.451, vol. 3
Notwithstanding the quasi-religious enthusiasms of ultra-Darwinists, their own understanding of theology is a combination of ignorance and derision, philosophically limp, drawing on clichés, and happily fuelled by the idiocies of the so-called scientific creationists.
simon conway morris— p.316 (Life's Solution (2003))
To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred.
— Lecture II, R. Manheim, trans. (1967), p. 11
The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.
thomas henry huxley— "The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature" (1885).
I regard Shelley's early 'atheism' and later Pantheism, as simply the negative and the affirmative side of the same progressive but harmonious life-creed. In his earlier years his disposition was towards a vehement denial of a theology which he never ceased to detest; in his maturer years he made more frequent reference to the great World Spirit in whom he had from the first believed. He grew wiser in the exercise of his religious faith, but the faith was the same throughout; there, was progression, but no essential change.
Percy Bysshe Shelley— Henry Stephens Salt in Percy Bysshe shelley, Poet and Pioneer (1913).
If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as plentiful as blackberries.
leslie stephen— The Fortnightly Review, vol. 34 (1880) p. 177
"Isn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems – poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict – that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation?" [The Communion, which] "used to be known for embodying the attribute of comprehensiveness, of inclusiveness, where we were meant to accommodate all and diverse views, saying we may differ in our theology but we belong together as sisters and brothers" now seems "hell-bent on excommunicating one another. God must look on and God must weep."
desmond tutu— "Tutu calls on Anglicans to accept gay bishop". Spero News. 2005-11-14. Retrieved on 2006-05-26.
When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.
— Frank Tipler, "Preface", The Physics Of Immortality, New York, Doubleday, 1994.
I always admired Mrs. Grote's saying that politics and theology were the only two really great subjects.
— William Ewart Gladstone, letter to Lord Rosebery. Sept. 16, 1880. See Morley's Life of Gladstone, Book VIII, Chapter I.
Are we to suppose that the only being in the universe who cannot answer prayer is that One who alone has all power at His command? The weak theology that professes to believe that prayer has merely a subjective benefit is infinitely less scientific than the action of the child who confidently appeals to a Father in heaven.
— John William Dawson, p. 461. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
For the Middle Ages man was in every sense the centre of the universe. The whole world of nature was believed to be teleologically subordinate to him and his eternal destiny. Toward this conviction the two great movements which had become united in the medieval synthesis, Greek philosophy and Judeo-Christian theology, had irresistibly led.
— Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science; a Historical and Critical Essay (1925)
I would say that teleology is theology, and that God is not a "because," but rather an "in order to."
Miguel de Unamuno— Miguel de Unamuno, San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1933)
You can only live for yourself: Your action is good only whilst it is alive whilst it is in you. The awkward imitation of it by your child or your disciple, is not a repetition of it, is not the same thing but another thing. The new individual must work out the whole problem of science, letters, and theology for himself, can owe his fathers nothing.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal entry May 28, 1839
The emanistic theories which played so great a part in Neoplatonic philosophy and Gnostic theology are forms of evolution .
thomas henry huxley— Thomas Henry Huxley, The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century (1889)
Personal religion is derived from ecstasy, theology from mathematics, and both are to be found in Pythagoras.
— Bertrand Russell , in A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book One, Part I, Chapter III, Pythagoras, p. 36
Contemporary Christian proclamation is faced with the question whether, when it demands faith from men and women, it expects them to acknowledge this mythical world picture from the past. If this is impossible, it has to face the question whether the New Testament proclamation has a truth that is independent of the mythical world picture, in which case it would be the task of theology to demythologize the Christian proclamation.
rudolf bultmann— Rudolf Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1984), p. 3
To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred.
Ludwig Feuerbach— Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion, R. Manheim, trans. (1967), Lecture 2, p. 11
theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.
Arthur Miller— 1953 Hale. The Crucible, act 2.
theology is just like sex, the art of penetrating the mystery.
leon bertoletti— Arts, Hic Sunt Leones, 15/6/2007
That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth day after their Nativities, according to Gentile theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the Creation of the Sun and Moon, in the work of the fourth day.
— Opening lines of Ch. 1
Some writers have exclaimed bitterly against systems of divinity, others have exaggerated the utility of them. Perhaps the truth may be, neither side has taken sufficient pains to understand the other. theology reduced to a system is nothing more than a regular arrangement of what we hold for religion, and there can be no damage done by such orderly dispositions of truths:;: on the contrary, much benefit arises to a student of divinity by them, for a system is as advantageous to a minister, as a regular set of books to a merchant.
— Jean Claude (1782). An essay on the composition of a sermon. p.396
Moral Teleology supplies the deficiency in physical Teleology , and first establishes a theology ; because the latter, if it did not borrow from the former without being observed, but were to proceed consistently, could only found a Demonology , which is incapable of any definite concept.
Immanuel Kant— Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgment (1892) Tr. J.H. Bernard
theology became conscious of its autonomy qua supreme science , which philosophy was emptied of its spiritual exercises, which, from now on...
— Pierre Hadot, quoted in Voices of change p.27
