Charles Hodge Quotes

Doing something because God has said to do it does not make a person moral: it merely tells us that person is a prudential believer, akin to the person who obeys the command of an all-powerful secular king.

Morality rests upon a sense of obligation; and obligation has no meaning except as implying a Divine command, without which it would cease to be.

We ought first to know that there are no good works except those which God has commanded, even as there is no sin except that which God has forbidden.

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God.

Theology necessitates an image of God as a conscious, rational, supernatural being of unlimited power and scope who cares about humans and imposes moral codes and responsibilities upon them, thereby generating serious intellectual questions such as: 'Why does God allow us to sin?' 'Does the Sixth Commandment prohibit war?'

For most people, the question why be good - as distinguished from merely law abiding - is a simple one. Because God commands it, because the Bible requires it, because good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell.

God wants man to fulfill his commands as a human being and with the quality peculiar to human beings.

This is the law of God by which He makes His way known to man and is paramount to all human control.

To do my duty, I must obey God.

Let us realize the state we are in. Let us learn what needs to be learnt. Religion and God demand it.

No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.

Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established.

Capital Punishment is a non-diminishable command of God. No pope has the authority to go against God's stated will.

Even if there is a God, how do you know that his moral judgments are the correct ones? Seems to me Abraham should have said, 'God, that's just not right.'

This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.

If you don't believe in God, then where is your moral barometer?

It is not lawful for you to make a compromise with God: to try to fulfill part of your duties and to omit others at your own pleasure.

The Church does not invent sins but recognizes the will of God and has to declare it. Of course, the great thing.. is that upon the Church, which has to declare the will of God in its full magnitude, in its unconditional rigor, so that man should know his true measure, is bestowed as a gift, at the same time, the task of forgiving.

Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason there of until all of the events transpire.

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, 'Thou shalt not kill'; at another time He said, 'Thou shalt utterly destroy.' This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.

I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it be probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me

Giving thanks to God for both His temporal and spiritual blessings in our lives is not just a nice thing to do - it is the moral will of God. Failure to give Him the thanks due Him is sin.

Religion is not the belief there is a god. Religion is the belief god tells you what to do.

The moral absolutes rest upon God's character. The moral commands He has given to men are an expression of His character. Men as created in His image are to live by choice on the basis of what God is. The standards of morality are determined by what conforms to His character, while those things which do not conform are immoral.