Eagleton: Reason, Faith, and Revolutoin

"god for Christian theology is not a mega-manufacturer...Rather, God is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, the condition of possiblity of any entity whatsoever." [7]
"He made the world with no functional end in view but simpy for the love and delight of it." [8]
"He made it as gift, superfluity, and gratuitous gesture-" [8]
"If we are God's creatures, it is in the first place because, like him, we exist (or should exist) purely for the pleasure of it. The question raised by radical Romanticism, which for these purposes includes Karl Marx, is that of what political transformation would be necessary for this to become possible in practice." [10]
"...a disagreement of why there is anything in the first place, or why what we do have is actually intelligible to us." [11]
"Aestheticians are seized by the beauty and sensuous particularity of things, theologians by the fact that their existence is so mindbendingly contingent..." [13]
"On this theological view morality is quite pointless...it is a question of how to live most richly and enjoyable, relishing one's powers and capacities purely for their own sake." [13]
"the morality jesus preaches is reckless, extravagent, improvident, over-the-top, a scandal..." [14]
"self authorship is the bourgeois fantasy par excellence." [16]
"Men and women are called upon to do nothing apart from acknowledge the fact that God is on their side no matter what, in the act of loving assent which is known as faith." [20]
"His death and descent into hell is a voyage into madness, terror, absurdity, and self-dispossession, since only a revolution that cuts that deep can answer to our dismal condition." [23]
“What is at issue is a slashing sword, not peace, consensus, and negotiation.” [24]
“Given the twisted state of the world, self-fullfillment can ultimately come about only through self-divestment.” [24]
“Fullness of life is what matters; but working for a more abundant life all around sometimes involves suspending or surrendering some of the good things that characterize existence.” [25]
“becoming a eunuch for the kingdom.” [25]
“we need to have faith that, against all appearances to the contrary, the powerless can come to power.” [25]
“’eternal life’, life at its most richly and exuberantly human, intoxicated with its own high spirits and self-delight.” [28]
“concept of political love” [32]
“…even if the account I have given of it is not literally true, it may still serve as an allegory of our political and historical condition.” [33]
“The difference between science and theology, as I understand it, is one over whether you see the world as a gift or not; and you cannot resolve this just by inspecting the thing….” [37]
“the difference between Ditchkins and radicals like myself also hinges on whether it is true that the ultimate signifier of the human condition is the tortured and murdered body of a political criminal, and what the implication of this are for living.” [37]
“Christian faith, as I understand it, is not primarily a matter of signing on for the proposition that there exists some Supreme Being, but the kind of commitment made manifest by a human being at the end of his tether, foundering in darkness to the promise of a transformative love.” [37]
“your average liberal rationalist does not need to believe that despite the tormented condition of humanity there might still, implausibly enough, be hope, since they do not credit such a condition in the first place.” [38]
“money is a great breeder of unreality” [41]
“New Age religion…offers a refuge from the world, not a mission to transform it.” [41]
“postmodernity is the era in which religion goes public and collective once again, but more as a substitute for classical politics than a reassertion of it.” [44]
“what is the point of faith or hope in a civilization which regards itself as pretty well self-sufficient, as being more or less as good as it gets?[45]