Quotes by Theologians - Page 47

A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... how utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was.
Don Cupitt
I got both hands on her throat and there was nothing inside me but the black madness of that desire to kill her, to close my hands until she turned purple and lay still and there’d be an end to her forever. Let them send me to the chair. Let ’em burn me. All they could do was kill me.
Charles Williams
A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his mere reason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round and round his logical circle.
G.K. Chesterton
The humility of wisdom is the happy consciousness that all things come from God, are sustained by God, and exist for God. This wisdom is rooted in the pride-destroying, joy-giving cross of Christ.
John Piper
Knowing and thinking exist for the sake of love -- for the sake of building people up in faith. Thinking that produces pride instead of love is not true thinking.
John Piper
Pride is no respecter of persons. The serious thinkers may be humble, and the careless mystics may be arrogant.
John Piper
I count myself as one of the number of those who learn as they write and write as they learn.
John Piper
Thinking is indispensable on the path to passion for God. Thinking is not an end in itself. Nothing but God himself is finally an end in itself. Thinking is not the goal of life. Thinking can be the ground for boasting. Thinking, without prayer, without the Holy Spirit, without obedience, without love, will puff up and destroy (1 Cor. 8:1).But thinking under the mighty hand of God, thinking soaked in prayer, thinking carried by the Holy Spirit, thinking tethered to the Bible, thinking in pursuit of more reasons to praise and proclaim the glories of God, thinking in the service of love--such thinking is indispensable in a life of fullest praise to God.
John Piper
Man is to be understood only in his relation to God.
C.S. Lewis
When the most important things in our life happen we quite often do not know, at the moment, what is going on. A man does not always say to himself, "hullo! i'm growing up." It is only when he looks back that he realises what has happened and recognises it as what people call "growing up.
C.S. Lewis
Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Our social and political tasks, if we take them seriously, loom larger than life. Yet infinite responsibility destroys a human being because he is only a man and not god." ~ p.23
Jürgen Moltmann
So, O king, does the present life of man on earth seem to me, in comparison with the time which is unknown to us, as though a sparrow flew swiftly through the hall, coming in by one door and going out by the other, and you, the while, sat at meat with your captains and liegemen, in wintry weather, with a fire burning in your midst and heating the room, the storm raging out of doors and driving snow and rain before it. For the time for which he is within, the bird is sheltered from the storm, but after this short while of calm he flies out again into the cold and is seen no more. Thus the life of man is visible for a moment, but we know not what comes before it or follows after it.
Bede
Man is now a horror to God and himself and a creature ill-adapted to the universe not because God made him so but because he has made himself so by the abuse of his free will.
C.S. Lewis
When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.
C.S. Lewis
But if they are shown to be, and are the works not of men but of God, why are the unbelievers so irreligious as not to recognize the Master Who did them?
Athanasius of Alexandria
I was like you once, long time ago. I believed in the dignity of man. Decency. Humanity. But I was lucky. I found out the truth early, boy. And what is the truth, Stark? It's all very simple. There's no such thing as the dignity of man. Man is a base, pathetic and vulgar animal.
Charles Grandison Finney
Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.
John Calvin
Are you a devil?""I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart.
G.K. Chesterton
Feelings are wonderful decorations, but they are not a foundation to build on.
Peter Kreeft
Feelings, like waves, look more substantial than they are.
Peter Kreeft
We appear to be saying something very important aboutsomething: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings.
C.S. Lewis
Feelings come and go, and when they come a good use can be made of them, but they cannot be our regular spiritual diet.
C.S. Lewis
Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about.
C.S. Lewis
Man himself is a great deep, whose very hairs Thou numberest, O Lord, and they fall not to the ground without Thee. And yet are the hairs of his head easier to be numbered than his feelings, and the beatings of his heart.
Augustine of Hippo
They say Aslan is on the move- perhaps has already landed."And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it has some enormous meaning- either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.
C.S. Lewis
We cultivate our feelings the way we cultivate a garden: we can't entirely prevent weeds from coming up, but we can take care to remove them before they do much harm.
Phillip Cary
God thundered again and again through the prophets that worship in the context of mistreatment of the poor and disadvantaged is an outrage.
Ronald J. Sider
God is never angry for His sake, only for ours.
Thomas Aquinas
Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offence against both God and his neighbour.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The problem with carnal anger and outrage is that it's one of the easiest sons to commit while convincing oneself that he is being faithful.
Russell D. Moore
The problem with carnal anger and outrage is that it’s one of the easiest sins to commit while convincing oneself that one is being faithful. . . . how many angry, divisive, perpetually outraged Christians are convinced that they are reincarnated Old Testament prophets, calling down fire from heaven? Now to be sure there is a time to call down fire from heaven . . . The prophets of Baal called down fire from heaven too, and they screamed and raved for a fire that never fell (1 Kings 18:29). James and John . . . wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Christ-rejecting villages of Samaria. Jesus wanted nothing to do with that spirit because he saw it for what it really was (Luke 9:54ff).
Russll D. Moore
Anger is the rising up of the heart in passionate displacency against an apprehended evil, which would cross or hinder us of some desired good.
Richard Baxter
If what we want is God’s justice, coming to sort things out, we will do better to get entirely out of the way and let God do his own work, rather than supposing our burst of anger (which will most likely have all sorts of nasty bits to it, such as wounded pride, malice and envy) will somehow help God do what needs to be done.
N.T. Wright
If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of organized resistance.""Eh?" said Syme, staring."The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle," pursued the policeman. "The composure of an army is the anger of a nation.
G.K. Chesterton
If all the world were Christian, it might not matter if all the world were educated. But a cultural life will exist outside the Church whether it exists inside or not. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.
C.S. Lewis
Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century, who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing... and the Gospel according to St. Thomas... was a new thrust like the titanic thrust of Gothic engineering; and its strength was in a God that makes all things new.
G.K. Chesterton
Unless the relationship of law to Christianity is re-established, there is no future except destruction for Western culture.
R. J. Rushdooney
It is often out encounter with culture that first reveals to us our own culture.
Tim Chester
The overriding reason why we should take other people's cultures seriously is because God has taken ours seriously.
John R.W. Stott
Two hundred years from now people will find out how we have been influenced by our culture in ways we have yet to recognize and they'll wonder, "How can those people claim to be Christians who lived back there in 2009?". There will be things people will find out about us that we are too blind to see right now.
Joseph C. Morecraft III
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.
C.S. Lewis
I had rather that the human race, having a certain quality in their lives, should continue for only a few centuries than that, losing freedom, friendship, dignity, and mercy, and learning to be quite content without them, they should continue for millions of millennia.
C.S. Lewis
How vigilant we must be to ensure that we don’t allow our impression of Jesus to be held captive by the prevailing mores of our secular culture! Rather, it is essential that we continue to return to the Gospels to ensure that the reverse occurs: to allow Jesus to hold our hearts and imaginations captive in response to the dominant thinking of our time. For exiles trying to live faithfully within the host empire of post-Christendom, the Gospel stories are our most dangerous memories. They continue to fire our imaginations and remind us that it’s possible to thrive on foreign soil while serving Yahweh, but it’s the kind of thriving that often rejects popular wisdom. These stories are the standard by which we judge all other stories, all other descriptors of life today. If, after reading these dangerous biblical stories, you can’t imagine Jesus the Messiah as a televangelist, strutting around on stage in a flashy suit, playing it up for the cameras, then you are forced to reject this image and seek another mode of being Christ today.
Michael Frost
In the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction.
C.S. Lewis
The deepest reason why the Church is weak and the world is dying is that there are not enough saints. No, that's not quite honest. The reason is that WE are not saints.
Peter Kreeft
The task is to become church for them, among them and with them, and under Spirit of God to lead them to become church in their own culture.
Tim Chester
On the other hand, activist Christians who talk much about justice promote a notion of justice that envisions a society in which faith in God is rendered quite unnecessary, since everybody already believes in peace and justice even when everybody does not believe in God.
Stanley Hauerwas
In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant.
David F. Wells
Man is the question he asks about himself, before any question has been formulated. It is, therefore, not surprising that the basic questions were formulated very early in the history of mankind.
Paul Tillich
You learn who you are only by making yourself accountable to the judgment of others.
Stanley Hauerwas
Go find yourself first so you can also find me.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Bring a mirror and let a dirty face recognize itself.
Bernard of Clairvaux
It [speaking with words that bring about harmony] consists of speaking of what is good about people, instead of what is wrong with them. For some people this is an almost impossible exercise, for they have become totally habituated to speaking critically. We all seem to have a special talent for finding critical things to say about the world, about others, and about ourselves! (117)
Jean-Yves Leloup
Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!
Søren Kierkegaard
From "Wetness and Water"How does a part of the world leave the world?How can wetness leave water?Do not try to put out a fireby throwing on more fire.Do not wash a wound with blood.No matter how fast you run,your shadow more than keeps up.Sometimes it's in front.Only full, overhead sundiminishes your shadow.But that shadow has been serving you.What hurts you blesses you.Darkness is your candle.Your boundaries are your quest.
Jalaluddin Rumi
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
Meister Eckhart
Unless some people are commissioned for the task, there will be no gospel preachers; unless the gospel is preached, sinners will not hear Christ’s message and voice; unless they hear him, they will not believe the truths of his death and resurrection; unless they believe these truths, they will not call on him; and unless they call on his name, they will not be saved.
John R.W. Stott
Love is only surpassing sweet when it is directed toward a mortal object, and the secret of this ultimate sweetness only is defined by the bitterness of death. Thus the white peoples of the world foresee a time when their land with its rivers and mountains still lies under heaven as it does today, but other people dwell there; when their language is entombed in books, and their laws and customs have lost their living power.
Franz Rosenzweig
The Biblical language was so deeply embedded in the great man's mind that it became his normal way of speaking.
Elton Trueblood