28 Theologians Quotes for You to Enjoy

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. Robert A. Heinlein

Dark Black Cat Never Cellar Any Anything Midnight Themselves Persuade Theologians Theology Help Searching

We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman. Daniel J. Boorstin

God World Responsibility See Making Shifted Interesting Newspaperman Theologians Need

Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything. John Polkinghorne

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe. Lord Salisbury

Wisdom You Innocent Doctors Nothing Military Believe Safe Theologians Wholesome

You cannot be a conscious Christian without St. Paul. He translated the teachings of Christ into a doctrinal structure that, even with the additions of a vast number of thinkers, theologians and pastors, has resisted and still exists after two thousand years. Pope Francis

You Christ Christian Thousand Thousand Years Structure Vast He Without Still Years Exists Pastors After Cannot Paul Translated Theologians Teachings Even Conscious Thinkers Resisted Number Two

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead. Robert Green Ingersoll

Old Living Habit Beat Dead Theologians Bones

The text, 'Is God a White Racist', By Rev. Dr. William Jones, is still studied by theologians and academics and taught in institutes of higher learning. The book called into question the chief construction of black liberation theology: that God is on the side of the oppressed. Anthea Butler

It is the task of theologians to establish the limits of justice and injustice regarding the intrinsic goodness or wickedness of an act; it is the task of the observer of public life to establish the relationships of political justice and injustice, that is, of what is useful or harmful to society. Cesare Beccaria

Orthodox theologians insisted that the rest of humankind were only transitory creatures, lost in sin - a view that would support what would become their dominant teaching about salvation, offered only through Christ, and, in particular, through the church they claimed to represent. Elaine Pagels

Christ Church Rest Become Lost Claimed Would About Insisted Only Through Support Sin Particular Were Dominant Offered Salvation Represent Transitory Theologians View Teaching Creatures Orthodox Humankind

Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus. Eric Alterman

Approaching Philosophers Some Morality Argued Over Reaching Without Frequency Israelis Targeted Anything Centuries Theologians Use Ever Technique Consensus

Six-hundred-page biographies of German theologians aren't known to fly off the shelves. Eric Metaxas

Fly Known Shelves Off German Theologians Biographies

Rome should sometimes intervene and say this or that is not in conformity with the Catholic faith. Theologians should understand that. Some theologians go too far, for example, reducing the Catholic faith to a universal philosophy. Godfried Danneels

The problem for Rome, then, is how and when the intervention should be done with a sense of the possibility of going too far in limiting the freedom of theologians. This is not an easy time - neither for Rome nor for the theologians. Godfried Danneels

Time Freedom Problem Sense Too Intervention Possibility Neither Easy How Limiting Nor Done Going Rome Far Then Should Theologians

The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained - through prayer, study, and careful analysis - to manifest the divine event of God's saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time. Henri Nouwen

Work Future God Time Prayer Heart Events Random Christian Saving Analysis Seemingly Through Divine Leaders Study Know Trained Manifest Midst Persons Theologians Who Many Event Careful

Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe. John Polkinghorne

Time History Culture Few Think Thinking Universe Thousand Would Thousand Years About Rather Nobody Importance Course Years Deny Than Human The History Of Human Beings Span Fifteen Theologians Theological Billion Beings