Eucharistic Theology Quotes

In the womb of the Virgin Mary, God "becomes" human, receiving from her the body that makes possible the "passion" of God; while on the Cross, through the Jewish flesh given of Mary, the divine Son is truly crucified. In the same way, in the Eucharist, Christians receive the very flesh the Logos received of Mary and united to himself, that "truly life-giving flesh of God the Word himself." Only insofar as God receives the passability of human flesh does he become crucifiable and sacramentally givable. ~ Aaron Riches

To share Eucharistic communion with someone unbaptized, or committed to another story or system, is odd - not because the sacrament is 'profaned', or because grace cannot be given to those outside the household, but because the symbolic integrity of the Eucharist depends upon its being celebrated by those who both commit themselves to the paradigm of Jesus' death and resurrection and acknowledge that their violence is violence offered to Jesus. All their betrayals are to be understood as betrayals of him; and through that understanding comes forgiveness and hope. Those who do not so understand themselves and their sin or their loss will not make the same identification of their victims with Jesus, nor will they necessarily understand their hope for their vocation in relation to him and his community. Their participation is thus anomalous: it is hard to see the meaning of what is being done. ~ Rowan Williams

We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience -- and for them all, man is indebted to man. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

For theology to remain formally one as a science, all the natural knowledge it contains must be directed and subordinated to the point of view proper to the theologian, which is that of revelation. Thus incorporated into the theological order, human learning becomes a part of the sacred doctrine which is founded on faith. ~ Etienne Gilson

(...) one should never be too naive regarding the quality of the current philosophical culture, or imagine that the most recent thinking is in any meaningful sense more advanced or more authoritative than that of a century or a millennium or two millennia ago. There are certain perennial problems to which all interesting philosophy returns again and again; but there are no such things as logical discoveries that consign any of the older answers to obsolescence. Certain classical answers to those problems endure and recur, sometimes because they remain far more powerful than the answers (or evasions) produced by later schools of thought. And, conversely, weaker answers often enjoy greater favor than their rivals simply because they are in keeping with the prejudices of the age. ~ David Bentley Hart

Theology is a subject without an object. Theologians don't study God - they study what other theologians have said. The claims ~ Jerry A. Coyne

True faith calls on the name of Jesus for salvation from death, hell, sin, and Satan. Therefore, sound theology has its source in a founding drama with its revealed doctrines. Through the drama and the doctrine together the Spirit produces doxology - repentance and trust - and brings us into the unfolding story of God, no longer as spectators, but as disciples on pilgrimage to the everlasting city. ~ Michael S. Horton

A really religious person has no theology. Yes, he has the experience, he has the truth, he has that luminosity, but he has no theology. ~ Rajneesh

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

The main danger is that of supposing that the thing to do is get a mind on the scale of Thomas (Aquinas)'s into your head, a task of compression that will be achieved only at your head's peril. The only safe thing to do is to find a way of getting your mind into his, wherein yours has room to expand and grow, and explore the worlds his contains. ~ Denys Turner

Theology is not only about understanding the world; it is about mending the world. ~ Miroslav Volf

I was irresistibly drawn to write about Latter-Day Saints not only because I already knew something about their theology, and admired much about their culture, but also because of the utterly unique circumstances in which their religion was born: the Mormon Church was founded a mere 173 years ago, in a literate society, in the age of the printing press. As a consequence, the creation of what became a worldwide faith was abundantly documented in firsthand accounts. Thanks to the Mormons, we have been given an unprecedented opportunity to appreciate
in astonishingly detail
how an important religion came to be. ~ Jon Krakauer

Conformity is deformity ~ Sharon Desruisseaux

The trouble with a lot of modern theology and a lot of modern thinking about God, is that we think of God a sort of being like ourselves, but bigger and better with likes and dislikes similar to our own. ~ Karen Armstrong

Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians. ~ Erasmus

It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous imbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed theology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting them upon alchemy, heretic-burning , witchcraft and sacerdotalism. ~ H.L. Mencken

Christians tend simply to align themselves with secular and idolatrous ideologies, and they do this without integrating fully into their thinking the ways in which kingdom priorities ought to arrange a Christian's perspective on the society by holding love, human dignity, and solidarity in healthy tension.

Anthony Bradley in Morgan, Christopher W.; Peterson, Robert A. (2012-11-30). The Kingdom of God (Theology in Community) (Kindle Locations 4636-4638). Crossway. Kindle Edition. ~ Anthony Bradley

Everybody has theology whether they admit it or not. ~ Jim Walker

This, then, is the foundation of sanctification in Reformed theology. It is rooted, not in humanity and their achievement of holiness or sanctification, but in what God has done in Christ, and for us in union with him. Rather than view Christians first and foremost in the microcosmic context of their own progress, the Reformed doctrine first of all sets them in the macrocosm of God's activity in redemptive history. It is seeing oneself in this context that enables the individual Christian to grow in true holiness. ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

Theologians are to look to the _beyond_-community–– _beyond_ nationality; skin-color, gender; sexual orientation, citizenship, religious affiliation––because God, the Divine, who is the primary frame of reference for theologians, is for, with, in, among those individual human beings. It is to reaffirm the sheer truth: No one is better or worse, superior or inferior than any other; and, 'Ich bin du, wenn Ich Ich bin' [I am you, when Iam I.] ~ Namsoon Kang

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are 'crutches' hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. ~ David Marshall Brooks

The gloomy theology of the orthodox
the Calvinists
I do not, I cannot believe. Many of the notions
nay, most of the notions
which orthodox people have of the divinity of the Bible, I disbelieve. I am so nearly infidel in all my views, that too, in spite of my wishes, that none but the most liberal doctrines can command my assent. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes

Now pastor Jón Prímus laughed. Philosophy and theology have no effect on him, much less plain common sense. Impossible to convince this man by arguments. But humour he always listens to, even though it be ill humour. ~ Halldor Laxness

Lewis is a rare example of someone who liked to think about life's great questions because they were forced on him by his own experience. ~ Alister E. McGrath

So when the ruling ideology enjoins us to enjoy sex, not to feel guilty about it, since we are not bound by any prohibitions whose violations should make us feel guilty, the price we pay for this absence of guilt is anxiety. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Theology, however implausible many of its truth claims, is one of the most ambitious theoretical arenas left in an increasingly specialized world ~ Terry Eagleton

I feel compelled to make another 'nonapology.' Many readers are likely to be concerned about my use of masculine pronouns in relation to God. I think I both understand and appreciate this concern. It is a matter to which I have given much thought. I have generally been a strong supporter of the women's movement and action that is reasonable to combat sexist language. But first of all, God is not neuter. He is exploding with life and love and even sexuality of a sort. So 'It' is not appropriate. Certainly I consider God androgynous. He is as gentle and tender and nurturing and maternal as any woman could ever be. Nonetheless, culturally determined though it may be, I subjectively experience His reality as more masculine than feminine. While He nurtures us, He also desires to penetrate us, and while we more often than not flee from His love like a reluctant virgin, He chases after us with a vigor in the hunt that we most typically associate with males. As CS Lewis put it, in relation to God we are all female. Moreover, whatever our gender or conscious theology, it is our duty---our obligation---in response to His love to attempt to give birth, like Mary, to Christ in ourselves and in others.

"I shall, however, break with tradition and use the neuter for Satan. While I know Satan to be lustful to penetrate us, I have not in the least experienced this desire as sexual or creative---only hateful and destructive. It is hard to determine the sex of a snake. ~ M. Scott Peck

Our best hope is not found in correct theology, the Bible or any other book, but in the love we express through action rather than words. Our best hope is that love predates creation and thus that the Creator sees us as ever young. Our hope is that when we look at God through the eyes of the loving Christ we will see who God really is. Our ultimate hope is that God will be looking back at us as we'd like to be seen. ~ Frank Schaeffer

It's a difficult thing to describe theology, what it means and how it disciplines thinking. Certainly, theology is the level at which the highest inquiry into meaning and ethics and beauty coincides with the largest-scale imagination of the nature of reality itself. ~ Marilynne Robinson

One compelling alternative to land theology is the recognition that Judaism consists most elementally in interpretation of and obedience to the Torah in its requirements of justice and holiness. ~ Walter Brueggemann

When religious believers invoke miracles and acts of creation ex nihilo, that is the end of the search for them, whereas for scientists, the identification of such mysteries is only the beginning. Science picks up where theology leaves off. ~ Michael Shermer

In theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are predestined to salvation. ~ Ambrose Bierce