Theology

"Theology is to-day recognised to be the instrument of myth, philosophy to be the instrument of science."

"The political spirit is the great force in throwing love of truth and accurate reasoning into a secondary place. ... Theology has borrowed, and coloured for her own use, the principles which were first brought into vogue in politics. If in the one field it is the fashion to consider convenience first and truth second, in the other there is a corresponding fashion of placing truth second and emotional comfort first."

"If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And its no solution to raise the theologians plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs."

"[Arizona State University scholar Chen Huaiyu’s] work [Seeking Monotheism in Chinese Religions] reminds us that theology isn’t just about gods—it’s about language, power, and the stories we tell to make sense of the divine."

"The question is frequently asked: why there is a school of theology attached to every University? The answer is easy: It is, that the Universities may subsist, and that the instruction may not become corrupt. Originally, the Universities were only schools of theology, to which other faculties were joined, as subjects around their Queen."

"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."

"The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing, it rests on no principles, it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing."

"All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

"Englishmen have a strong sense of political responsibility, and a correspondingly weak sense of intellectual responsibility. ... And the principles which have prevailed in politics have been adopted by theology for her own use. In the one case, convenience first, truth second; in the other, emotional comfort first, truth second."

"Biblical scholarship is useful as a form of historical inquiry and literary exegesis, while theology is a remnant of our childhood as a species, a vestigial belief that’s the mental equivalent of adults holding blankets and sucking their thumbs."

"Theology must either regress to blind faith or progress towards free philosophy."

"Theologian — the only kind of scholar who has no knowledge whatsoever of his supposed object of study."