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b660d1e Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)--Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world--a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious--surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity. literature poetry science instructive credulous fossil mythic spectacle testing untaught primitive superstitious schools fable prose science-vs-religion glorious theology conflict curious democracy Walt Whitman
5d8a409 I agree with yours of the 22d tha inspirational best university-of-virginia opinion theology Thomas Jefferson
c9a8c26 I agree with yours of the 22d that . but we cannot always do what is absolutely best. those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. truth advances, & error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step. [ ] inspirational university-of-virginia opinion theology Thomas Jefferson
eb378df Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel. theology John Piper
af9074f "In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble--because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out." - Mere Christianity" mere-christianity theology C.S. Lewis
40520f9 "Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. philosophy-of-life theology G.K. Chesterton
7049494 The heart is like a woman, and the head is like a man, and although man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man, and she turns man's head because she turns his heart. man marriage woman relationships christianity spirituality heart love philosophy inspirational woman-s-charm jesus-shock woman-s-character woman-s-strength catholicism theology Peter Kreeft
da22e41 His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.' It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God. philosophy theodicy theology C.S. Lewis
260fb5a Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods - all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. 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 immortality makeshift satisfaction theory wonder reason science truth inspirational superstitious falsehood miracles study theology naturalism gods destruction soul Thomas A. Edison
9ce3504 "Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice" people, not heroes." heroes christianity spirituality philosophy culture-critique jesus-shock culture theology Peter Kreeft
b30bf1f We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love. christianity jesus spirituality god love philosophy inspirational excess-love saved-souls the-cross jesus-shock salvation cross saved theology christ sin Peter Kreeft
7c2ee03 By the way, if you get mad at your Mac laptop and wonder who designed this demonic device, notice the manufacturer's icon on top: an apple with a bite out of it. christianity spirituality bible humor philosophy apple-computer-inc forbidden-fruit garden-of-eden macintosh original-sin jesus-shock old-testament laptop apple steve-jobs mac catholicism theology genesis sarcasm peter kreeft
85a913c Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice. religion practice ethics theology Karen Armstrong
440e370 "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. theology hell Alan Moore
8a41783 "Don't be more serious than God. God invented dog farts. God designed your body's plumbing system. God designed an ostrich. If He didn't do it, He permitted a drunken angel to do it. Empirical facts can add significantly to the meaning of "being godlike"." god god-is-a-comedian theology Peter Kreeft
4a76255 All religions are based on obsolete terminology. religion philosophy philosophy-of-religion translation theology Vladimir Nabokov
fe7a3d3 "Spontaneously, without any theological training, I, a child, grasped the incompatibility of God and shit and thus came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely that man was created in God's image. Either/or: either man was created in God's image - and has intestines! - or God lacks intestines and man is not like him. The ancient Gnostics felt as I did at the age of five. In the second century, the Great Gnostic master Valentinus resolved the damnable dilemma by claiming that Jesus "ate and drank, but did not defecate." Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the creator of man." shit theology Milan Kundera
f7f1a8e Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise. I expressed these ideas long before the behaviorists, led by Pavlov in Russia and by Watson in the United States, proclaimed their new psychology. This apparently mechanistic conception is not antagonistic to an ethical conception of life. universe mind nature spirit religion science life behaviorism behaviorists first-cause ivan-pavlov ivan-petrovich-pavlov john-b-watson john-broadus-watson stimuli john-watson pavlov cosmology astronomy watson goal environment determinism ethics theology dogma materialism naturalism consciousness science-and-religion life-after-death physics psychology Nikola Tesla
b83302a "I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: "But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primogenial chaos? Isn't affirming God's absolute omnipotence and His absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist?" divine-will omnipotence chaos theology creation Umberto Eco
3674b05 Love gives you eyes. christianity spirituality love philosophy inspirational jesus-shock theology eyes Peter Kreeft
49c536d The most total opposite of pleasure is not pain but boredom, for we are willing to risk pain to make a boring life interesting. christianity spirituality philosophy jesus-shock catholicism theology pleasure Peter Kreeft
8fc915c "Matthew 10:34 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." christianity faith theology Anonymous
c912b40 Everything smaller than Heaven bores us because only Heaven is bigger than our hearts. heaven christianity spirituality god philosophy inspirational jesus-shock catholicism theology hearts Peter Kreeft
e33d581 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. christianity jesus spirituality philosophy christlessness christology jesus-shock jesus-christ theology christ fundamentalism Peter Kreeft
1a4f200 Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories. story jesus narrative theology Madeleine L'Engle
c01fe2c Everyone has gods. You just don't think they're gods. illusion god theology Terry Pratchett
841c68a We must never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry. A generous orthodoxy, in contrast to the tense, narrow, or controlling orthodoxies of so much of Christian history, doesn't take itself too seriously. It is humble. It doesn't claim too much. It admits it walks with a limp. theology Brian D. McLaren
e49f320 "But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word "hell," what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn't his point. He's often not talking about "beliefs" as we think of them--he's talking about anger and lust and indifference. He's talking about the state of his listeners' hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world." -- faith religion inspirtational theology Rob Bell
8718c3b Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked. heaven christianity jesus spirituality philosophy meeting-jesus jesus-shock shock jesus-christ theology christ hell peter kreeft
f3e78e6 Violence is spiritual junk food, and boredom is spiritual anorexia. violence christianity spirituality philosophy jesus-shock sloth catholicism theology Peter Kreeft
0d4c56d And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of of that order was to give room for good things to run wild. good philosophy truth theology G.K. Chesterton
e954e23 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. christianity spirituality god protestantism sacraments jesus-shock theology Peter Kreeft
40034f7 "Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons." christianity spirituality god philosophy ontological-oxymoron jesus-shock ontology oxymoron theology Peter Kreeft
2494a82 History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion -- ie., none to speak of religion truth theology Robert A. Heinlein
6e3d889 "Pilate's skeptical sneer "What is truth?" was addressed to Truth Himself, standing there right in front of his face. The world's stupidest question was three words; God's profoundest answer was one Word." christianity jesus god philosophy truth pontius-pilate jesus-shock jesus-christ theology christ Peter Kreeft
df9e814 And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing - maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'thou mayest'. man john-steinbeck theology soul John Steinbeck
bfb42c6 I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist. universe death religion life cosmic-sadist theology everything Charles Stross
0ecf402 It is just as crazy to be crazy about Christ as it is to be crazy about anything else. christianity jesus spirituality god philosophy inspirational crazy-in-love crazy-love jesus-shock jesus-christ theology christ crazy Peter Kreeft
db935bb The connection between art and Christ is like the connection between sunlight and the sun. It is, in fact, the connection between Sonlight and the Son. christianity jesus spirituality god philosophy son-of-god jesus-shock sonlight catholicism jesus-christ sun sunlight theology christ Peter Kreeft
d866cd7 In the tenth century BC, the priests of India devised the Brahmodya competition, which would become a model of authentic theological discourse. The object was to find a verbal formula to define the Brahman, the ultimate and inexpressible reality beyond human understanding. The idea was to push language as far as it would go, until participants became aware of the ineffable. The challenger, drawing on his immense erudition, began the process by asking an enigmatic question and his opponents had to reply in a way that was apt but equally inscrutable. The winner was the contestant who reduced the others to silence. In that moment of silence, the Brahman was present - not in the ingenious verbal declarations but in the stunning realisation of the impotence of speech. Nearly all religious traditions have devised their own versions of this exercise. It was not a frustrating experience; the finale can, perhaps, be compared to the moment at the end of the symphony, when there is a full and pregnant beat of silence in the concert hall before the applause begins. The aim of good theology is to help the audience to live for a while in that silence. religion theology Karen Armstrong
e2df4db It is reasonable to love the Absolute absolutely for the same reason it is reasonable to love the relative relatively. christianity spirituality god love philosophy absolutism reasonable jesus-shock catholicism relativism theology Peter Kreeft
072019c "I think we should stop treating ["God works in mysterious ways"] as any kind of wisdom and recognize it as the transparently defensive propaganda that it is. A positive response might be, "Oh good! I love a mystery. Let's see if we can solve this one, too. Do you have any ideas?" philosophy theology Daniel C. Dennett
ee3822f Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all. christianity faith god philosophy sacraments jesus-shock grace god-s-grace theology Peter Kreeft
6a2b7e3 Only God may be adored, because only God is unlimited goodness, truth, and beauty, and thus only God deserves unlimited love. christianity goodness beauty spirituality god love philosophy truth inspirational unlimited-beauty unlimited-goodness unlimited-love unlimited-truth jesus-shock catholicism theology Peter Kreeft
7ef20ee His knowledge is not like ours, which has three tenses: present, past, and future. God's knowledge has no change or variation. philosophy theology Augustine of Hippo
c3b93f6 The evil and suffering in this world are greater than any of us can comprehend. But evil and suffering are not ultimate. God is. Satan, the great lover of evil and suffering, is not sovereign. God is. suffering theology John Piper
377590a Me? You are laughing at me. Put your hand here. This has no theology.' I mocked myself while I made love. I flung myself into pleasure like a suicide on to a pavement. sex theology Graham Greene
7540218 It is closer to the truth to say that God is crazy than that God is reasonable. I suspect God merely smiles when someone calls him crazy, but shakes His head and frowns when someone calls Him reasonable. christianity spirituality god philosophy reasonable jesus-shock theology crazy Peter Kreeft
f13b90d ... the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. theology Augustine of Hippo
3688522 "Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text." religion truth philosophy-of-religion theology Umberto Eco
80b4e6d I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further. religion god flying-spaghetti-monster skepticism theology Richard Dawkins
8c218bd Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God. christianity god philosophy deist presence-of-god jesus-shock theist deism catholicism theology theism Peter Kreeft
3b54aa5 As a rule, theologians know nothing of this world, and far less of the next; but they have the power of stating the most absurd propositions with faces solemn as stupidity touched by fear. It is a part of their business to malign and vilify the , , , , Tyndalls, , , , and Drapers, and to bow with uncovered heads before the murderers, adulterers, and persecutors of the world. They are, for the most part, engaged in poisoning the minds of the young, prejudicing children against science, teaching the astronomy and geology of the bible, and inducing all to desert the sublime standard of reason. prejudice mind world stupidity reason fear adulterers alexander-humboldt children-science david-hume draper ernst-haeckel haeckel herbert-spencer humboldt hume john-draper john-william-draper persecutors propositions spencer theologian vilify wilhelm-humboldt wilhelm-von-humboldt alexander-von-humboldt murderers astronomy charles-darwin theologians geology afterlife theology darwin paine thomas-paine voltaire sublime knowledge power poison john-tyndall tyndall Robert G. Ingersoll
0b55434 Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? theology Augustine of Hippo
1fbfc94 She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct. theology Thomas Hardy
003e291 God gives us not only the truth but also the ability to believe it; not only the new thing to see but also the new eye to see it with. christianity faith spirituality god philosophy truth jesus-shock theology Peter Kreeft
344d837 The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life--until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty. christianity philosophy francis-of-assisi lady-poverty saint-francis st-francis-of-assisi troubadour jesus-shock catholicism theology christ Peter Kreeft
714a1f5 "To an even moderately sophisticated and well-read person it should come as no surprise that any religion at all has its hidden as well as its obvious beauties and is capable of profound and impressive interpretations. What is deeply objectionable about most of these interpretations is that they allow the believer to say religion theology Walter Kaufmann
db4c8e4 The English experience suggested that nobody really doubted the existence of God until theologians tried to prove it. god proof theology Alister E. McGrath
a2882c6 There is something distinctly odd about the argument, however. Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception. religion god pascals-wager belief theology Richard Dawkins
2c511a1 They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed. theology Arthur C. Clarke
1f993c8 "It comes as no surprise to find [Norman] Mailer embracing [in the book ] a form of Manicheanism, pitting the forces of light and darkness against each other in a permanent stand-off, with humanity as the battlefield. (When asked if Jesus is part of this battle, he responds rather loftily that he thinks it is a distinct possibility.) But it is at points like this that he talks as if all the late-night undergraduate talk sessions on the question of theism had become rolled into one. 'How can we not face up to the fact that if God is All-Powerful, He cannot be All-Good. Or She cannot be All-Good.' Mailer says that questions such as this have bedevilled 'theologians', whereas it would be more accurate to say that such questions, posed by philosophers, have attempted to put theologians out of business. A long exchange on the probability of reincarnation (known to Mailer sometimes as "karmic reassignment") manages to fall slightly below the level of those undergraduate talk sessions. The Manichean stand-off leads Mailer, in closing, to speculate on what God might desire politically and to say: 'In different times, the heavens may have been partial to monarchy, to communism, and certainly the Lord was interested in democracy, in capitalism. (As was the Devil!)' I think it was at this point that I decided I would rather remember Mailer as the author of good-and-evil jesus politics religion god philosophy omnibenevolence omnipotence norman-mailer theology theism monarchy reincarnation capitalism democracy communism devil Christopher Hitchens
a6d9c8c As Plato: We become more worthy the more we bend our minds to the impersonal. We become better as we take in the universe, thinking more about the largeness that it is and laugh about the smallness that is us. philosophy theology Rebecca Goldstein
d6162b8 It is easy, out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of the choice! theology John Steinbeck
0bee3e0 The fact that it has nothing else to contribute to human wisdom is no reason to hand religion a free licence to tell us what to do. Which religion, anyway? The one in which we happen to have been brought up? To which chapter, then, of which book of the Bible should we turn--for they are far from unanimous and some of them are odious by any reasonable standards. How many literalists have read enough of the Bible to know that the death penalty is prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the sabbath and for cheeking your parents? If we reject Deuteronomy and Leviticus (as all enlightened moderns do), by what criteria do we then decide which of religion's moral values to accept? Or should we pick and choose among all the world's religions until we find one whose moral teaching suits us? If so, again we must ask, by what criterion do we choose? And if we have independent criteria for choosing among religious moralities, why not cut out the middle man and go straight for the moral choice without the religion? religion theology Richard Dawkins
026e629 "Oh, sometimes I like to put the sand of doubt into the oyster of my faith." (Br. Cadfael)" spirituality religion theology mystery Ellis Peters
d7d1dc7 Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. freedom religion social-science post-apocalyptic liberty science-fiction theology mythology tyranny power ideology Frank Herbert
b1ae361 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. christianity ministers economics theology R.C. Sproul Jr.
00d8b46 I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who...prayed..with...unexpiated tears to 'dear,kind God! religion philosophic-reflection theology pessimism Fyodor Dostoyevsky
7e17b09 most of us happily disavow fairies, astrology and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, without first immersing ourselves in books of Pastafarian theology etc. religion pz-myers logical-fallacy theology Richard Dawkins
7881330 God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends. This may not be true, but it sounds good--and is no sillier than any other theology. pandeism theology Robert A. Heinlein
0c76412 I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person's theology was the effect it has on one's prayers. theology John Piper
965dd1e "The unbiblical idea of "spirituality" is that the truly "spiritual" man is the person who is sort of "non-physical," who doesn't get involved in "earthly" things, who doesn't work very much or think very hard, and who spends most of his time meditating about how he'd rather be in heaven. As long as he's on earth, though, he has one main duty in life: Get stepped on for Jesus. The "spiritual" man, in this view, is a wimp. A Loser. But at least he's a Good Loser." christianity theology David Chilton
98e770a And though he had almost flunked in Greek, his thesis on 'Sixteen Ways of Paying a Church Debt' had won the ten-dollar prize in Practical Theology. theology Sinclair Lewis
fb82574 The more we listen to the voices of others, voices unlike our own, the more we remain open to the transcendent forces that save us from idolatry. The more we listen to ourselves, the more we create God in our own image until God becomes a tawdry idol that looks and speaks like us. The power of the commandments is found not in the writings of theologians, although I read and admire some, but in the pathos of human life, including lives that are very unlike our own. All states and nations work to pervert religions into civic religions, ones where the goals of the state become the goals of the divine. This is increasingly true in the United States. But once we believe we understand the will of God and can act as agents of God we become dangerous, a menace to others and a menace to ourselves. We forget that we do not understand. We forget to listen. humanity religion pathos idolatry law theology Chris Hedges
ae23a76 We can no more assist the Holy Spirit in the quickening of our souls to spiritual life than Lazarus could help Jesus raise him from the dead. regeneration theology R.C. Sproul
d29743e "Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat. Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there. christianity religion science philosophy metaphysics hinduism theology islam Anonymous
bfb5bdb In short, an astonishingly broad spectrum of theologies of justification existed in the later medieval period, encompassing practically every option that had not been specifically condemned as heretical by the Council of Carthage. In the absence of any definitive magisterial pronouncement concerning which of these options (or even what range of options) could be considered authentically catholic, it was left to each theologian to reach his own decision in this matter. A self-perpetuating doctrinal pluralism was thus an inevitability. christianity reformation justification theology Alister E. McGrath
58905ad For the humanists, whatever authority Scripture might possess derived from the original texts in their original languages, rather than from the Vulgate, which was increasingly recognized as unreliable and inaccurate. In that the catholic church continued to insist that the Vulgate was a doctrinally normative translation, a tension inevitably developed between humanist biblical scholarship and catholic theology...Through immediate access to the original text in the original language, the theologian could wrestle directly with the 'Word of God,' unhindered by 'filters' of glosses and commentaries that placed the views of previous interpreters between the exegete and the text. For the Reformers, 'sacred philology' provided the key by means of which the theologian could break free from the confines of medieval exegesis and return ad fontes to the title deeds of the Christian faith rather than their medieval expressions, to forge once more the authentic theology of the early church. catholic-church medieval-church vulgate reformation scripture theology Alister E. McGrath
e759b20 For Calvin, the creation reflects its Creator at every point. Image after images flashed in front of our eyes, as Calvin attempts to convey the multiplicity of ways in which the creation witnesses to its Creator: it is like a visible garment, which the invisible God dons in order to make himself known; it is like a book in which the name on the Creator is written as its author; it is like a theater, in which the glory of God is publicly displayed; it is like a mirror, in which the works and wisdom of God are reflected. glory-of-god theology Alister E. McGrath
3d40c69 The rising influence of lay piety is particularly marked upon the Mariological controversies of the late medieval period. Two rival positions developed: the maculist position, which held that Mary was subject to original sin, in common with every other human being; and the immaculist position, which held that contrary view that Mary was in some way preserved from original sin, and was thus to be considered sinless. The maculist position was regarded as firmly established within the High Scholasticism of the thirteenth century. The veneration of the Virgin within popular piety, however, proved to have an enormously creative power that initially challenged, and subsequently triumphed over, the academic objections raised against it by university theologians. christianity immaculate-conception lay-religion mariology virgin-mary original-sin middle-ages mary theology Alister E. McGrath
27d9623 "...Jesus responds to almost every question he's asked with...a question. "What do you think? How do you read it?" he asks, again and again and again." jesus theology Rob Bell
ba3b851 The theologian is interested specifically in the modern novel because there he sees reflected the man of our time, the unbeliever, who is nevertheless grappling in a desperate and usually honest way with intense problems of the spirit. honesty ficiton theology Flannery O'Connor
ea0d988 The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists. religion philosophy zoology theology Yann Martel
649dc4c "Of all the conceptions of the divine, of all the language Jesus could put on the lips of the God character in the story he tells, that's what he has the Father say. "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours." ... Millions of people in our world were told that God so loved the world, that God sent his son to save the world, and that if they accept and believe in Jesus, then they'll be able to have a relationship with God... But there's more. Millions have been taught that if they don't believe, if they don't accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them "the gospel" does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God will have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell... A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony... if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, acceptable, awful reality... sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting the gospel is that they sense that the God lurking behind Jesus isn't safe, loving, or good. It doesn't make sense, it can't be reconciled, and so they say no... God creates, because the endless joy and peace and shared life at the heart of this God knows no other way. Jesus invites us into THAT relationship, the one at the center of the universe... so when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will "get into heaven," that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club. The good news is better than that. (excerpts all from chapter 7)" philosophy monster-god universality theology Rob Bell
d959dfa Not the last time in Western history, the revolutionaries armed themselves with a new religion to steel themselves for greater outrageous. theology Niall Ferguson
18ba3be So when the ruling ideology enjoins us to enjoy sex, not to feel guilty about it, since we are not bound by any prohibitions whose violations should make us feel guilty, the price we pay for this absence of guilt is anxiety. philosophy nonfiction philosophy-of-life theology psychology Slavoj Žižek
d14d6d6 "There appears to be a fifth way, that of eminence. According to this I argue that it is incompatible with the idea of a most perfect being that anything should excel it in perfection (from the corollary to the fourth conclusion of the third chapter) . Now there is nothing incompatible about a finite thing being excelled in perfection; therefore, etc. The minor is proved from this, that to be infinite is not incompatible with being; but the infinite is greater than any finite being. Another formulation of the same is this. That to which intensive infinity is not repugnant is not all perfect unless it be infinite, for if it is finite, it can be surpassed, since infinity is not repugnant to it. But infinity is not repugnant to being, therefore the most perfect being is infinite. philosophy ontology infinity metaphysics theology infinite John Duns Scotus
2f80bf0 Lewis is a rare example of someone who liked to think about life's great questions because they were forced on him by his own experience. thought-life theology Alister E. McGrath
c92ac73 The medieval European, who shared the fundamental assumptions of his Muslim contemporary, would have agreed with him in ascribing religious movements to religious causes, and would have sought no further for an explanation. But when Europeans ceased to accord first place to religion in their thoughts, sentiments, interests, and loyalties, they also ceased to admit that other men, in other times and places, could have done so. To a rationalistic and materialistic generation, it was inconceivable that such great debates and mighty conflicts could have involved no more than 'merely' religious issues. And so historians, once they had passed the stage of amused contempt, devised a series of explanations, setting forth for what they described as the 'real' or 'ultimate' significance 'underlying' religious movements and differences. The clashes and squabbles of the early churches, the great Schism, the Reformation, all were reinterpreted in terms of motives and interests reasonable by the standards of the day--and for religious movements of Islam too explanations were found that tallied with the outlook and interests of the finders. religion theology islam Bernard Lewis
c28af66 The Enlightenment, finally, invented progressive 'history' as an inner-worldly purgatory in order to develop the conditions of possibility of a perfected 'society'. This provided the required setting for the aggressive social theology of the Modern Age to drive out the political theology of the imperial eras. What was the Enlightenment in its deep structure if not an attempt to translate the ancient rhyme on learning and suffering - mathein pathein - into a collective and species-wide phenomenon? Was its aim not to persuade the many to expose themselves to transitional ordeals that would precede the great optimization of all things? enlightenment philosophy theology enlightenment-quotes optimization political-theology purgatory Peter Sloterdijk
96fc093 What early Christianity meant by 'faith' (pistis) was initially nothing other than running ahead and clinging to a model or idea whose attainability was still uncertain. Faith is purely anticipatory, in the sense that it already has an effect when it mobilizes the existence of the anticipatory towards the goal through anticipation. In analogy for the placebo effect, one would have to call this the movebo effect. faith philosophy anticipation theology Peter Sloterdijk
4ca22b2 We are all theologians, either good ones or bad ones. I'd rather be a good one. Wouldn't you? nature-of-god character-of-god sovereignty-of-god theology Randy Alcorn
558fc25 In North Pittman is a particularly striking theology. There, one church memorably teaches that if all the trains were to be still, together, for one moment, if there were no rails percussing the iron road, all human life would wink instantly out. Because such noises are the snoring, the sleep-breathing of a railsea world, & it is the rails that dream us. We do not dream the rails. dreams iron-road railsea sleep-breathing snoring theology China Miéville
3ab57d6 You know, the aspirants believe this is the only true existence. That everything outside is an illusion, a shadow play created by the ancestor gods to cradle us until we can build our own tailored reality and Upload into it. That's comforting, isn't it. science singularity transhumanism theology Richard K. Morgan
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