#theology

For many decades now - and certainly during my adult life in academe - the Western intellectual world has not been convinced that theology is a pursuit that can be engaged in with intellectual honesty and integrity. ↗

— Arthur Peacocke

#adult #adult life #been #certainly #convinced

My body kills me, so I kill it. ↗

— Dorotheus the Theban

#death #desert-father #dying #holy-father #monastic

Spontaneously, without any theological training, I, a child, grasped the incompatibility of God and shit and thus came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely that man was created in God's image. Either/or: either man was created in God's image - and has intestines! - or God lacks intestines and man is not like him. The ancient Gnostics felt as I did at the age of five. In the second century, the Great Gnostic master Valentinus resolved the damnable dilemma by claiming that Jesus "ate and drank, but did not defecate." Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the creator of man. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#shit #theology #age

A Christian is supposed to be in the world, and yet not of the world--a Both/And as perplexing and demanding as the Either/Or that precedes the life of faith. I'm at once a pure, beautiful, genderless soul, but at the same time a gendered body full of flaws, sins, and wanting. This contradiction, the Both/And, is the Cross. ↗

— Therese Doucet

#existentialism #faith #kierkegaard #philosophy #philosophy-of-religion

God impressed me with this a long time ago: 'Roddy, I will never do anything through you until I have done it to you!'." ~R. Alan Woods [1998] ↗

— R. Alan Woods

#experience #r-alan-woods #theology #experience

We must learn to accept ourselves in the painful experiment of living. We must embrace the spiritual adventure of becoming human, moving through the many stages that lie between birth and death. ↗

— Johann Baptist Metz

#death #human-nature #life #spirituality #theology

A time will come in your life, William, where your faith will be tested... and you must stay faithful to the word and vision that the All-Father has given to you. ↗

— M.J. Chrisman

#christianity #fantasy #fiction #inspirational #m-j-chrisman

Theology, philosophy, metaphysics, and quantum physics are merely ways for God to have his smart people believe in him ↗

— Jeremy Aldana

#faith #god #humor #idea #inspirational

Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him? ↗

— John Piper

#theology #love

It is reasonable to love the Absolute absolutely for the same reason it is reasonable to love the relative relatively. ↗

— Peter Kreeft

#absolutism #catholicism #christianity #god #jesus-shock