#theology

The lust of the flesh directs these desires [of personal union], however, to satisfaction of the body, often at the cost of a real and full communion of persons. ↗

— John Paul II

#human-sexuality #theology #theology-of-the-body #faith

We worship…the powers that speak to our souls, if it seems they do. We do so knowing there is more to the world, and the half-world, and perhaps worlds beyond, than we can grasp. We always knew that. We can’t even stop children from dying, how would we presume to understand the truth of things? Behind things? Does the presence of one power deny another? [p. 176] ↗

— Guy Gavriel Kay

#theology #faith

I sometimes find, especially among my peers, that authenticity is not a…means of growing in holiness, but a convenient cover for endless introspection, doubt, uncertainty, anger, and worldliness. So that if other Christians seem pure, assured, and happy we despise them for being inauthentic. Granted, the church shouldn’t be happy-clappy naive about life’s struggles. Plenty of psalms show us godly ways to be real with our negative emotions. But the church should not apologize for preaching a confident Christ and exhorting us to trust Him in all things. Church is not meant to foster an existential crisis of faith every week ↗

— Kevin DeYoung

#theology #anger

Lord, forgive us for the times we have read about Gethsemane with dry eyes. ↗

— Frederick S. Leahy

#jesus #theology #forgiveness

What the Father gives is the capacity to be a self, freedom, and thus autonomy, but an autonomy which can be understood only as a surrender of self to the other. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#christ #christianity #christology #god #god-father

The Christian is free from all other human beings. He does not have to live over against others, controlled by their actions and responses. Rather, he lives according to Christ's commands. This is Christian freedom. It is a freedom unknown by others. It is not just when others do the things that we like that we act properly toward them; we are free to do good even when they don't because our actions are not dependent on their responses. It is the Lord Christ when we serve! ↗

— Jay E. Adams

#christianity #freedom #theology #freedom

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. ↗

— Graham Greene

#sex #theology #love

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross. ↗

— H. Richard Niebuhr

#men

Only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the lifelong awareness of their being children, and therefore of having to ask and give thanks for things. ↗

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

#christ #christian-religion #christianity #god-father #god-son

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun. ↗

— Alan Wilson Watts

#metaphysics #philosophy #religion #tao #taoism