quotations about theology
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.
C. S. LEWIS
God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
A theologian should be thoroughly in possession of the basis and source of faith--that is to say, the Holy Scriptures. Armed with this knowledge it was that I confounded and silenced all my adversaries; for they seek not to fathom and understand the Scriptures; they run them over negligently and drowsily; they speak, they write, they teach, according to the suggestion of their heedless imaginations.
MARTIN LUTHER
"Of God's Word", Table Talk
Spiritual formation begins with the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility.... You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.
HENRI J. M. NOUWEN
Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit
There are many things that I don't understand. Sincere Christians can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology--absolutely.
BILLY GRAHAM
Newsweek, August 14, 2006
I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.
DENIS DIDEROT
attributed, The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations
I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study.
THOMAS EDISON
interview, "Thomas A. Edison on Immortality", The Columbian Magazine, January 1911
The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Games, Gods, and Gambling
We can no more have exact religious thinking without theology, than exact mensuration and astronomy without mathematics, or exact iron-making without chemistry.
JOHN HALL
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
There are great minds in the pulpits. If they would stop declaring the unprovable, and give their time to finding what is really Truth, the world would move more rapidly. Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.
THOMAS EDISON
interview, "Thomas A. Edison on Immortality", The Columbian Magazine, January 1911
The only thing that will destroy bad theology is good theology.
THURMAN R. HAYES JR.
"It's all about the theology", Suffolk News-Herald, May 26, 2017
Theological condemnation of others, which breaks off fellowship in either judgment or contempt, is impermissible.
ERNST KASEMANN
Commentary on the Romans
Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory?
THOMAS EDISON
interview, "Thomas A. Edison on Immortality", The Columbian Magazine, January 1911
A truly intersectional theology is messy. It encompasses all the contradictions, differences, and difficulties of human experience, and that means that sometimes we won't find a direct line from point A to point B to ultimate Truth. Instead, we will find questions, people who are nothing like us, ideas that terrify and challenge us.
GRACE JI-SUN KIM & SUSAN M. SHAW
"Christians In The U.S. Are Not Persecuted", Huffington Post, May 18, 2017
Theology is Anthropology.
LUDWIG FEUERBACH
The Essence of Christianity
Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and -- I shall boldly add -- all can be theologians.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
"The Paraclesis", Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus