#theology

"One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself."

"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it."

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

"Our enemies are quite good for relentlessly keeping us sharp and on our toes. This especially goes for sincere philosophers. They use their enemies to challenge their arguments so that they can know the weak points in their own reasoning and how to argue for and strengthen their position. There are just none like one's enemies to always look for his mistakes and do it harder than anyone else."

"Christ is the Lesson as well as the Teacher."

"The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)"

"I wanted that future officer to weigh decisions with a supple mind and to be comfortable with nuance and uncertainty."

"If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction."

"Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice"people, not heroes."

"We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love."

"The heart is like a woman, and the head is like a man, and although man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man, and she turns man's head because she turns his heart."

"It's not about whether or not someone is a bigot, but whether or not the argument which that someone is arguing is worth being a bigot about."

"You will face your greatest opposition when you are closest to your biggest miracle."

"A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil."

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

"And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?"

"What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?''I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is."

"For wordsmiths and masters of words, without necessarily being harsh with words, the words have a tendency to shoot straight to the hearts of people, and this either deeply touches them or deeply angers them. Like the apostles in all their loving controversies are those who are masters of words while combining this gift with truth."

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

"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."