Leading Christian theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas were not what today might be called 'strict constructionists.' Rather, they celebrated reason as the means to gain greater insight into divine intentions.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The Reformers, therefore, as instruments in the hands of God, in delivering the Church from bondage to prelates, did not make it a tumultuous multitude, in which every man was a law to himself, free to believe, and free to do what he pleased.
The Divine Thing that made itself the foundation of the Church does not seem, to judge by his comments on the religious leadership of his day, to have hoped much from officers of a church.
Bible revelations are not against reason but above reason, for the uses of faith, man's highest faculty.
You can latch onto theological ideas that are, in fact, not accurate, and refuse to let them go. I think we've seen this a few times in church history.
Whatever America's founders believed about Christianity - and they believed a wide range of things - they clearly rejected the idea of an established church.
The very fact that doctrine is hewn from bitter controversy and tested through time is sufficient reason to make them a focus of theology.
Faith is not contrary to reason.
Over the centuries, and even today, the Bible and Christian theology have helped justify the Crusades, slavery, violence against gays, and the murder of doctors who perform abortions. The words themselves are latent, inert, harmless - until they aren't.
Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts.
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.