Theological Method Quotes & Sayings

100 political parties put together can never defeat the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, come 2015 presidential election. — Patience Jonathan

No scientist ever begins his work de novo; while he works with the methodological questioning of what he has already known he builds on knowledge already achieved and engages in a movement of advance. But it is one of the worst characteristics of theological study, whether in biblical interpretation or in dogmatic formulation, that every scholar nowadays thinks he must start all over again, and too many give the impression that no one ever understood this or that until they came along. — T.F. Torrance

The great charm of St Francis, that which explains the wonderful attraction he has even for spirits apparently removed from him, is that no one was less a churchman. He was neither a priest nor theologian. He did not even know his bible well. He ignored the first rules of scholasticism... He hardly knew the Saints, of whom he was to become the greatest. He spoke to the crowds, not like the ecclesiatical preachers, from high pulpits, but simply, from among the peasants and the womenfolk, without dogmatic paraphernalia, without theological quotations or pompous phrases. He was an orator without oratorical method. His way of renouncing earthly goods was not the way of the ascetics. He forbade himself riches, he did not forbid himself joy... — Gabriel Faure

I firmly believe that the method which sets theological theories against scientifically ascertained facts, is fatal to the current theology and injurious to the spirit of religion; and that the method which frankly recognizes the facts of life, and appreciates the spirit of the scientists whose patient and assiduous endeavor has brought those facts to light, will commend the spirit of religion to the new generation, and will benefit
not impair
theology as a science, by compelling its reconstruction. — Lyman Abbott

Don't misunderstand. There is no abandoning, or being abandoning. And you're not owned by your parents, either. You should understand ... that you have no other master besides yourself. No one was forcing you to wait for a slow death ... in such a lonely place. — Minari Endou

All right, you deadly little ghostlings," I muttered. "Mama says go back to bed! - Cat — Jeaniene Frost

I found it again at last! Page 156 - 157 of *My Soul to Keep* by Melanie Wells.

Dr. Dylan Foster is thinking to herself while searching through literature on snake lore, "Then there was all the mystical stuff. Once again, the dearth of comparative religion in my theology training nearly skunked me. Four years of sod-busing in seminary had taught me exactly nothing more than what I already knew--in grander proportions, of course, and to near-microscopic levels of minutia. In the end, I got out of there with a solid hermeneutical method, an encyclopedic understanding of dispensational theology, and the ability to conjugate verbs and deconstruct participles in Greek and Hebrew--all notable skills--but without even passable knowledge of anything outside one extremely narrow strip of theological territory."

"When it was all said and done, I'd spent four years and trainload of money to get indoctrinated, not educated. Lousy planning, if you ask me. — Melanie Wells

The perspective that law enforcement is presenting seems to be a very narrow one that's focused very, very heavily on investigations of past crimes rather than on preventing future crimes. It's very important for policymakers to take that broader view because they're the ones who are trusted to look at the big picture. — Matt Blaze

True thinking takes place within a frame of continuous historical development in which progress in understanding is being made ... No constructive thinking that is worth while can be undertaken that sets at nought the intellectual labours of the centuries that are enshrined in tradition, or be undertaken on the arrogant assumption that everything must be thought through de novo as if nothing true had already been done or said. He who undertakes that kind of work will inevitably be determined unconsciously by the assumptions of popular piety which have already been built into his mind. — T.F. Torrance

Oh, how easy it must be to be good when one has the power of doing good! — Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

Where there are children, people become neighbors; they don't merely hold property adjacent to one another. — Diana Trilling

For theologians groaning under the oppression of demands to justify their discipline before the bar of what is supposed to be universally valid scientific method the appeal of non-foundationalism is immense. It liberates a celebration of the rights of particularity. It enables the theologian to say that theological method must be different from other methods because it shapes its approach from the distinctive content with which it has to do - just as, indeed, other disciplines shape their approaches in the light of their distinctive content. Non-foundationalism, that is to say, is a way of advocating the autonomy of distinct intellectual disciplines. — Colin E. Gunton

If people want something to be wrong about you - they are going to make things wrong about you. That is why it is my belief to never try and prove anything to anyone. Real diamonds belong to people who know how to spot a real diamond; they don't belong to people who need to be convinced that they are real diamonds. It's the idiots who need to be convinced of something that they cannot already see. — C. JoyBell C.

Back at my teaching and editing jobs I imagined the new world we were trying to create would be enduring and absolutely better than any world we had inherited. For me, if an idea was purported to be new, it looked a lot better than any idea that seemed to be old. Most theologians I knew were trying to discover some new way of looking at the old ideas of God, humanity, sin and salvation. I was there to teach theology, but theology itself was in search of legitimation. What I was really doing might more accurately be described as promoting Rogerian psychology, wealth-distribution, demytholgy and existentialist ethics than studying God. Theology was desperately in search of a method, whether it was borrowed form cutting-edge philosophy, social theory or political life, as long as it didn't begin with revelation. — Thomas C. Oden

The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture; like a school-boy's holiday, with a task affixed to the tail of it. — Charles Lamb