The Problem With Theology
by WCBI have a problem with theology, the idea of having a theology, or is it forming a theology?
My friends will tell you I have lots of problems, this not being the least of them. I remember sitting in a Biblical Theology class many moons ago. Moby Dick was still a minnow. Moses didn’t even need to shave yet. The Colorado River hadn’t even started carving the Grand Canyon. Okay, that Colorado River had NO part in the Grand Canyon. I know that.
In BT class. I remember listening to the professor tell me all about the attributes of God, God’s relation to the universe, about the divinity of the creator, blah, blah, blah, ZZZzzzz!!
Maybe I should have stayed awake. As for me, however, I thought, ‘Who is this guy and why does he have the right to tell me how to put the Bible together? When is the Bible Jigsaw class offered? Or, is this it?’
When a student begins to create his/her theology, it becomes just that, the student’s theology, that student’s view of how the Bible fits together, that student’s attempt to put God in a box and say, “This is what God is like.”
I don’t buy into it.Rather, we ought to ask. “What is God like in the book of Mark, or in Job, or in any ONE of the epistles, or from a prophet or king’s point of view?”
I don’t find the need to piece the Bible together to form ‘a theology’ and think that in some/many instances it is not even a good thing to do.
After all, the Corinthians had a theology but they likely never read Big John or the little Johns and so on.
Ask me my theology and I will ask you which book of the Bible do you want to talk from.
What’s your theology?
January 18th, 2008 at 9:18 am
What does an elephant look like to an ant?
Depends on where the ant is standing — the eyelash, the elbow, the tail, etc. His view of the elephant is going to be severely distorted if he only looks at one aspect at a time.
The ant may get acquainted with that part very well, but until he starts putting his insights together into a composite view — informed both by his own journeys to other spots on the elephant as well as by the reports of other ant scouts — he won’t come close to understanding what the elephant looks like, how the elephant goes about his business, what the elephant prefers to eat and do, and so on.
Of course, maybe the ant just doesn’t care to study the elephant and understand it.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:18 am
My point exactly, Susan.
An ant has no way of giving a complete picture of the elephant. S/he can only piece things together.
In the end, you are left with what the ant thinks and his/her friends who agree with him/her.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Part of being made in the image of God relates to our intellect, our curiosity, our drive to explore and understand. Many puzzles, mysteries, and crimes would never have been solved without people struggling with minute pieces of clues. What we understand about our world comes from such painstaking exploration.
How can we do less than explore the complexity of God?
January 20th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
The definition of theology I think Bill has a problem with is American Heritage Dictionary’s definition 1: “A system of school of opinions concerning God and religious questions: Protestant theology; Jewish theology.”
But everyone who is doing definition 2 — “the study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions” — even if they are asking “What is God like in this book of the Bible?”, is going to have their own interpretation of what the Bible tells us. You hope that people could agree on the important stuff, but in a way I see there are always all these different “theologies” running around (like Susan’s ants).
Sometimes enough people agree on a certain theology that it acquires a life of its own, which I think is what Bill is objecting to. No individual’s theology can replace the importance of the Bible as the source of God’s truth.
But I think there is value in people sharing their ideas of what the Bible tells us, even writing books about what they think they’ve learned. Like all the ants getting together and pooling their information about the elephant, sometimes that is a great way to get a clearer picture of the whole.
Like why people get together to study the Bible, instead of everyone studying on their own. Sometimes someone is able to describe something so that someone else is able to say, “Oh, now I get it!”
January 20th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
If we shouldn’t read other authors’ books about the Bible, then we also shouldn’t:
listen to preachers
enroll in Bible classes
talk to other Christians about our conclusions
sing Christian songs (unless they are pure Bible verses set to music)
participate in Christian Worldview blogs
WCB, have you considered joining a monastery?
January 20th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I joined a monastery once and was promptly kicked out for telling everyone they need to get out more.
January 20th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
ROTFL, WCB!