Theological Philosophy Quotes & Sayings

Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy. — Auguste Comte

Much theological discussion is wasted, not because the words used have no possible meaning, but because the people who use them don't mean anything by them. — Rosemary Haughton

When God saved me, He gave me a thirst to learn and to read and to study. I thrived in college. I got a bachelor's degree in philosophy and then went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. — Tullian Tchividjian

Niebuhr [Oden's Doctoral adviser at Yale and leading 20th century Christian theological ethicist] wanted all of his graduate students to have some serious interdisciplinary competence beyond theology, so I chose to be responsible for the area of psychology of religion. I hoped to correlate aspects of contemporary psychotherapies with a philosophy of universal history. The psychology that prevailed in my college years was predominately Freudian psychoanalysis, but my clinical beginning point in the late 1950's had turned to Rogerian client-centered therapy. The psychology that prevailed in my Yale years was predominantly the empirical social psychologists like Kurt Lewin and Musafer Sherif. I gradually assimilated those views in order to work on a critique of therapies and assess them all in relation to my major interest in the meaning of history. — Thomas C. Oden

The more I learn, the less I know. — Jeffrey Rasley

We advocate the atheistic philosophy because it is the only clear, consistent position which seems possible to us. As atheists, we simply deny the assumptions of theism; we declare that the God idea, in all its features, is unreasonable and unprovable; we add, more vitally, that the God idea is an interference with the interests of human happiness and progress. We oppose religion not merely as a set of theological ideas; but we must also oppose religion as a political, social and moral influence detrimental to the welfare of humanity. — E. Haldeman-Julius

It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature-whether theological or technological-is a kind of schizophrenia. It would be impossible, in their view, to believe oneself innately evil without discrediting the very belief, since all the notions of a perverted mind would be perverted notions. — Alan W. Watts

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

If you are going to help people discover God's original will for them, we've got to know what that will is, and He said it very clear in Scripture: He created man to have to dominion over earth. He wanted to establish man's authority on earth to represent heaven on earth, and most of our theological philosophy is completely opposite of that. — Myles Munroe

As well as being essential to theological study, philosophy is an indispensable tool for communicating theology, for evangelization and catechesis. A faith based on how warm and comfortable you feel and how "affirmed" you are by your community is pleasant, but there is no guarantee that it is true. Fides et ratio make clear that philosophy's central tasks are to justify our grasp of reality, of truth, and to make cogent suggestions as to life's true meaning. Being able to say something compelling on these topics -- reality, truth, and life's meaning -- is critical in winning young and old alike to the faith. A theology that incorporates philosophy's work in these areas will be faithful to the teaching of the Church and able to stand up to the most rigorous secular arguments and the ideologies of the age. — George Cardinal Pell

All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development - in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent god became the omnipotent lawgiver - but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas of the state developed in the last centuries. — Carl Schmitt

Questions about God's existence, self disclosure, saving action and almighty power reminded me of my inadequacies. For me the theo in theology had become little more than a question mark. I could confidently discuss philosophy, psychology and social change, but God made me uneasy. — Thomas C. Oden

Nature does not teach. A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy. Nature will not verify any theological or metaphysical proposition (or not in the manner we are now considering); she will help to show what it means. — C.S. Lewis

Deism" in its own day referred not to a superficial theological doctrine but to a comprehensive intellectual tradition that ranged freely across the terrain we now associate with ethics, political theory, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology. It was an astonishingly coherent and systematic body of thought, closer to a way of being than any particular dogma, and it retained its essential elements over a span of centuries, not decades. In origin and substance, deism was neither British nor Christian, as the conventional view supposes, but largely ancient, pagan, and continental, and it spread in America far beyond the educated elite. — Matthew Stewart

However, in regards to the theological aspects of each religion, tradition or philosophy, the same exacting standard must be set as measurement: does it clearly and accurately depict the functionality of Reality? That is, does the cosmology precisely describe how Reality works? If not, then the religion is invalid. — Thomas Daniel Nehrer

[It] is nevertheless better than the theological concept, of deriving morality from a divine, all-perfect will, not merely because we do not intuit this perfection, but can derive it solely from our concepts, of which morality is the foremost one, but because if we do not do this (which, if we did, would be a crude circle in explanation), the concept of his will that is left over to us, the attributes of the desire for glory and domination, bound up with frightful representations of power and vengeance, would have to make a foundation for a system of morals that is directly opposed to morality. — Immanuel Kant

The criers of the Mysteries speak again, bidding all men welcome to the House of Light. The great institution of materiality has failed. The false civilization built by man has turned, and like the monster of Frankenstein, is destroying its creator. Religion wanders aimlessly in the maze of theological speculation. Science batters itself impotently against the barriers of the unknown. Only transcendental philosophy knows the path. Only the illumined reason can carry the understanding part of man upward to the light. Only philosophy can teach man to be born well, to live well, to die well, and in perfect measure be born again. Into this band of the elect
those who have chosen the life of knowledge, of virtue, and of utility
the philosophers of the ages invite YOU. — Manly P. Hall

We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society. — Thomas Jefferson

It helps to not confuse theological philosophers with evangelists. There is a difference but objectively neither better than the other: an evangelist's mission is to convert; a theological philosopher's mission is to build an understanding of a position. — Criss Jami

Didn't Chains tell you about the Golden Theological Principle?"
"The what?"
"The single congruent aspect of every known religion. The one shared, universal assumption about the human condition."
"What is it?"
"He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone's got a place in the queue, you can't get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that line is actually circular. — Scott Lynch

St. Paul would say to the philosophers that God created man so that he would seek the Divine, try to attain the Divine. That is why all pre-Christian philosophy is theological at its summit. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar