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QUOTES - THEOLOGY

There is but one perfect system of Christian truth, but a theology may be regarded as a treatise in which a serious effort is made to set forth that system of truth as accurately as possible (James O. Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion).

Theology in a Christian context is a discipline of study that seeks to understand the God revealed in the Bible and to provide a Christian understanding of reality (M. Erickson, Christian Theology).

The word Theology means literally a discourse concerning God, but in analogy with other words, as geology, chronology and biology, it means the science which treats of God (James P. Boyce, Abstract of Theology).

Although there have been significant nuances in theological approach through the centuries, the evangelical's concern is simply to investigate what the Bible says on a given issue and coalesce that into some sort of coherent whole (M. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine).

Theology, therefore, is the exhibition of the facts of Scripture in their proper order and relation, with the principles or general truths involved in the facts themselves, and which pervade and harmonize the whole (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology).

In theology the investigator has to do with God, Man, and the God-man (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology).

Theology, then, as the science of God, aims to obtain a knowledge of him that is free from contradictions, and is as profound as is possible, considering the nature of the subject and the limitations of the human mind (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology).

Dogmatics is that theological discipline in which the dogmatician, in organic connection with the church in the past as well as in the present, purposes to elicit from the Scriptures the true knowledge of God, to set forth the same in systematic form, and, after comparison of the existing dogmas with Scripture, to bring the knowledge of God to a higher state of development (Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics).

Theology itself is the science of God and his works and systematic theology is the systematizing of the findings of that science (Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology).

The essential purpose of theology is to study and bring into a fitting, consistent expression the Christian faith (Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology).

The purpose of systematic theology is to investigate and elucidate the content and meaning of the Christian faith (Gustaf Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church).

The teaching Church, and the teaching of the Church, is the "place" at which dogmatics arises. Dogmatics is a function of the teaching Church; speaking generally, it is a service which is rendered for the sake of the doctrine of the Church (Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God).

Only one who is a genuine "believer" and, as such, believes in the Church and its teaching, can render to the Church the service which is implied in the idea of dogmatics. . . . Dogmatic thinking is not only thinking about the Faith, it is believing thinking (Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God).

The dogmatic theologian who does not find that his work drives him to pray frequently and urgently, from his heart: "God, be merciful to me a sinner", is scarcely fit for the job (Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God).

Our theology, since it is a human enterprise, needs to be constantly revised and reformed (Donald Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology).

One danger in modern evangelicalism is neo-Pietism, characterized by an emphasis on religious experience over doctrine (Donald Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology).

Christian doctrine is the interpretation of the witness of Holy Scripture, coming from the witness of the believing Community (Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics).

Christian doctrine is necessary to prevent faith in Christ from developing into "Christianity" (Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics).

The Bible is not so interested in our academically proving, as in our holistically seeing, the truth, in our believing the gospel and obeying God. This is something I have had to learn myself, and it is a liberating truth (C. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle).

Theology makes doctrinal houses from the bricks and mortar of biblical texts, and reason seeks for the consistency between them (C. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle).

Theology in the premodern period was always done on the assumption that the Bible was the written Word of God (C. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle).

Theology says credo, I believe, along with the present-day community and its fathers. But it says credo ut intelligam, "I believe in order to understand" (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

But theological work does not merely begin with prayer and is not merely accompanied by it; in its totality it is peculiar and characteristic of theology that it can be performed only in the act of prayer (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

The word "theology" seems to signify a special science, a very special science, whose task is to apprehend, understand, and speak of "God" (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

Theology is neither prophecy nor apostolate. Its relationship to God's Word cannot be compared to the position of the biblical witnesses because it can know the Word of God only at second hand, only in the mirror and echo of the biblical witness. The place of theology is not to be located on the same or a similar plane with those first witnesses (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

The biblical witnesses are better informed than are the theologians. For this reason theology must agree to let them look over its shoulder and correct its notebooks (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

To study theology means not so much to examine exhaustively the work of earlier students of theology as to become their fellow student (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

It would cease to be theology if it should be ashamed of the fact that it is completely unable to categorize its object. It would not be theology should it refuse to confront the problem this inability poses (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

A theologian is he who has once and for all been compelled and permitted to face and accept, in an especially concrete manner (possibly even professionally), the challenge of the Word of God (K. Barth, Evangelical Theology).

Theology is "thought or speech about God"; it is the result of Church and churchmen trying seriously to think about God (Langdon Gilkey, Maker of Heaven and Earth).

Theology, then, is the articulation of comprehensive and general truths about God, his creation, and his redemptive actions, based upon (1) the variety in revelation, and (2) the presupposition of the unity of all truth (A. J. Conyers, A Basic Christian Theology).


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