THE CHURCH

'...the existence of such a gathering is wholly astonishing. It is grounded in no human possibility; indeed, from the side of human history it is nothing other than a sheer impossibility, for the commonwealth of human time lies under the sway of sin and alienation, striving with all its might to oppose God and to refuse his call to reconciliation...That such a holy people exists and is preserved through time, that it does not collapse back into alienantion and hatred, that here sin is held in check and not permitted to eat away at human fellowship - all this lies in the hands of the holy God alone.'

John Webster. Holiness, p.57.

GOD

'Theological talk of the divine attributes is thus not primarily a matter of categorization but of confession...'

John Webster, Holiness, p.37.

THE BIBLE

'...the authority of Scripture is a matter for the Church's acknowledgement not its ascription.'

John Webster, Holiness, p.19.

GOD & REASON

'God is not summoned into the presence of reason; reason is summoned before the presence of God.'

John Webster, Holiness, p.17.

THEOLOGY

'One of the great myths of modernity has been that the operations of reason are a sphere from which God's presence can be banished, where the mind is, as it were, safe from divine intrusion. To that myth, Christian theology is a standing rebuke. As holy reason at work, Christian theology can never escape from the sober realization that we talk in the terrifying presence of the God from whom we cannot flee (Ps.139.7). In Christian theology, the matter of our discourse is not someone absent, somone who we have managed to exclude from our own intellectual self-presence and about whom we can talk about safely and undisturbed. We speak in God's presence. Whe we begin to talk theologically about the holiness of God, we soon enough discover that the tables have been reversed; it is no longer we who summon God before our minds to make him a matter for clever discourse, but the opposite; the holy God shows himself and summons us before him to give account of our thinking.'  

John Webster, Holiness, p.15.

THEOLOGY

'Theology is an aspect of the sanctification of reason, that is, of the process in which reason is put to death and made alive by the terrifying and merciful presence of the holy God.'

John Webster, Holiness, p.8.

THEOLOGY

'Theology is an office of the Church of Jesus Christ. It is properly undertaken in the sphere of the Church, that is, in the region of human fellowship which is brought into being and sustained by the saving activity and presence of God.'

John Webster, Holiness, p.1.

PRAISE

'Praise is the great act of rebellion against sin, the great repudiation of our wicked refusal to acknowledge God to be the Lord.'

John Webster, Holiness, p.76.