Joseph Priestley Quotes

Had there been no Plato, the Christians would have had a harder time selling the idea that all God really wanted from us was fraternal love.

I suspect that relatively few people will sit down and read 1250 pages [ of The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures.] all the way through from cover to cover. There may be some, but not everybody. But there are many, many, many different Christian, theological, pastoral, specialisms that are covered by one section or another of the book and this will become, therefore, a resource volume for many people.

I think I could make the case for any kind of organized religion, but I'm not an expert in those, so let me narrow my focus to talk about Christianity.

Now, if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory, the Fall is an allegory and the need for a Savior is an allegory - but if we are all descendants of an allegory, where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine-it destroys the foundation of the gospel.

Christianity is a strangely cheery religion.

Christian theology: nothing so grotesque could possibly be true.

The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it.

There is nothing more foolish or self-defeating than for a Christian to say that he is not interested in doctrines.

The Christian "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection

But if Christians don’t get Jesus right, what chance is there that other people will bother much with him?

The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.

The Christian religion is derogatory to the Creator in all its articles. It puts the Creator in an inferior point of view, and places the Christian devil above him. It is he, according to the absurd story in Genesis, that outwits the Creator in the Garden Eden, and steals from Him His favorite creature, man, and at last obliges Him to beget a son, and put that son to death, to get man back again; and this the priests of the Christian religion call redemption.

The founder of Crunk Feminists is a Christian. If you claim to be a Christian, but then you attack somebody for saying you should approach a problem with love, you're not being a true Christian.

At one level Great Britain at the beginning of the 18th century was like the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, both three and one, and altogether something of a mystery.

The Christian idea of 'putting on Christ' is the whole of Christianity.

The Church no longer contends that knowledge is in itself sinful, though it did so in its palmy days; but the acquisition of knowledge, even though not sinful, is dangerous, since it may lead to pride of intellect, and hence to a questioning of the Christian dogma.

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace; Arminianism emphasizes human responsibility. The one restricts the saving grace to the elect; the other extends it to all men on the condition of faith. Both are right in what they assert; both are wrong in what they deny. If one important truth is pressed to the exclusion of another truth of equal importance, it becomes an error, and loses its hold upon the conscience. The Bible gives us a theology which is more human than Calvinism and more divine than Arminianism, and more Christian than either of them.

Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily.

Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution. But every one of these - the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure - emerged in its present form only toward the end of the second century.

Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer." “If you don’t believe in Easter,” Owen Meany said. “Don’t kid yourself—Don’t call yourself a Christian.

The fundamental principle of Christianity is to be what God is, and he is light.

The Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to save man. With you it is belief in a doctrine, and this belief constitutes your salvation. With us doctrine has nothing whatever to do with salvation. Each one may believe in whatever doctrine he likes; or in no doctrine.

The Christian test was a willingness to believe in the one Jesus Christ and His Message of salvation. What was demanded was not criticism but credulity. The Church Fathers observed that in the realm of thought only heresy had a history.