Terence E. Fretheim > Quotes

“Quite simply, if God knows me better than I know myself, what point is there [in] pretending I am other than I am before God? Prayer is not the place for pretended piety; prayer is the place for getting down to brass tacks. . . . Thus we might as well acknowledge our true state when we pray. We pray to God from where we are, not from where we consider we should be. And God, who knows us where we are, can lead us to where we can be.17”
― Terence E. Fretheim, Creation Untamed (Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic): The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters

“We pray to God from where we are, not from where we consider we should be. And God, who knows us where we are, can lead us to where we can be.17”
― Terence E. Fretheim, Creation Untamed (Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic): The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters

“The heart of the matter for Israel, therefore, is not subscription to an external code of conduct. It is a matter of faithfulness to a relationship with a personal God. The specific commandments have to do with how Israel’s loyalty to God is to be expressed in the ins and outs of daily life in specific times and places. The peril for Israel (“snare,” 23:33) is not that this or that commandment will be disobeyed but that it will be disloyal to Yahweh and serve other gods. The golden calf debacle demonstrates this. Israel’s future as the people of God is centered on this matter. If Israel is loyal to Yahweh, then that faithfulness will be manifested in obedience to the commandments; faithlessness to Yahweh will be manifested in a life of disobedience. The central placement of the loyalty commandment thus shows that issues of obedience and disobedience of all other commandments proceed from issues of loyalty and disloyalty. In other words, faithfulness to God himself takes priority over obedience. That does not make obedience of the detailed commandments somehow unimportant, but obedience follows from faithfulness, not the other way around.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

“[C]reation" is not simply viewed as a matter of origination or a divine activity chronologically set only "in the beginning.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“Our most basic images of God will shape our lives, willy-nilly, including how we think about the larger environment in which we live.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“[T]hese people lived close to the ground, if you will, and the natural world filled their lives. Creation was a lived reality for them prior to the development of specific ideas about creation.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“We pray to God from where we are, not from where we consider we should be. And God, who knows us where we are, can lead us to where we can be.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, Creation Untamed (Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic): The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters

“God works creatively with already existing realities to bring about newness. This understanding also entails the idea that the present (and future) is not wholly determined by the past; God does bring the "new" into existence. [...] God also creates in and through creaturely activity.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“Each created entity is in symbiotic relationship with every other and in such a way that any act reverberates out and affects the whole, shaking this web with varying degrees of intensity.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“God works from within a committed relationship with the world and not on the world from without in total freedom.”
― Terence E. Fretheim

“God is the God of the entire cosmos; God has to do with every creature, and every creature has to do with God, whether they recognize it or not.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“The life of God will forever include the life of the people of God as well as the life of the world more generally.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“[T]he creativity of the human creature is such that genuinely new realities are regularly brought into being.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“Creation is not simply past; it is not just associated with "the beginning.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“At the least, the volume of material demonstrates the importance of worship to the narrator. Moreover, the movement in the book of Exodus as a whole is one from slavery to worship, from service to Pharaoh to service of God.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

“The human is not a fixed entity from the beginning but, along with the rest of creation, is in the process of becoming.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“Sin and evil have their origins in the human will, not in God or in God's plan. At the same time, when sin and evil do enter into the life of the world, they do not become constitutive of what is means to be human (or any other creature).”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation