Last Fall, I took “Trinitarian Theology” at Asbury, taught by Dr. Thomas McCall. It was brilliant. We studied reflections on the Trinity, from church fathers like St. John of Damascus to contemporary thinkers like Karl Barth. I learned about Divine Simplicity, Trinitarian metaphors, Schleiermacher (*cough cough* heretic), and the complexity of Christian thought on the triune God. I left more confused than when I started, and I am better for it. When I told a friend at church about some of what I was learning, he stopped me and asked, “Does any of this actually matter?”
I’m still thinking about the question.
Does it matter? Can you tell me?
I’m struggling to come up with an answer. I think it does. In fact… I’m almost positive it matters. Mostly because we can’t get away from it. Studying God isn’t an academic privilege, but a human pursuit. We all consider God in one form or another. We read about Him, meditate, and even doubt occasionally. We want to know God through experience, in our souls and our bodies. Even the atheist is obsessed with God.
Theology matters because we can’t run away from it. In 11th grade, I sat on a swing in Cave Creek, Arizona, late at night (too late for an 11th grader looking back). There were 4 of us: my brother, my two high school theater friends, and me. The conversation roamed around its usual turns and “deep” moments. At some point, “faith” came up. My brother and I reping the more conservative evangelical perspective as blossoming Pentecostals, Chad (one of the thespians) was a progressive Lutheran, and Lexi didn’t know. We started chatting about whether or not God was truly real. CS Lewis came up (as he tends to) and we weaved around the conversation until it came to Lexi. She said, “I don’t know… I think God is everywhere and everything. That’s it.”
It wasn’t a satisfying answer, I still don’t agree that it’s true, but it was genuine. She was humbly secure in what she thought. At that moment, she didn’t need much more or much less. She just needed to ponder.
Theology at its most intimate form is humble. It’s genuine and reflective. Even the great systematicians are at their best when they’ve come so far down the theological trail that they land in obscurity, simply saying, “I’m not sure. But God is real.”
“Theology at its most intimate form is humble.”
Theology doesn’t matter because truth matters (though it certainly does). Truth is important and a worthy pursuit, but theology isn’t about the correct answers. It’s about a good God. Is it a coincidence that Jesus adds “all your mind” to the Shema in Mark 12? Gregory of Nyssa says it is no coincidence at all, but that adding “mind” to the love of God with “heart, soul, and strength” is a call to embodied love. Jesus knows that the intellect is not separate from the heart's desires, the soul's longing, or the body's exercise. We can try to split them, but loving God can not be divided into parts. Theology doesn’t matter because truth matters, it matters because love does.
Doing theology is an act of love. Thinking about God, His reality, and His purposes is an attempt to align our minds with the Divine will. It is the exercise of thinking higher, wider, deeper, and getting lost in the thoughts that are not our own. Theology is a type of prayer to God. It is supplication to ask for His guidance. It is thanksgiving when we are in awe. It is lament when the weight of the world does not make sense. Theology divorced from prayer is pathetic in its own right. Without prayer, the study of God is a type of scale that covers our eyes, filtering out the humility of Christ and deceiving us with the ego of man.
Ultimately, theology matters because it is where God finds us. Fleming Rutledge often suggests we rid ourselves of the “I found God” or “my faith journey” type of language when theologizing because, in true theology, we are never the subject of the sentence; God is.
I did not find God… God found me! God journeyed toward me!
Is the great theologian, Paul, wrong when he declares in Ephesians 2 that you did nothing?
God’s love made us alive! Eph 2:4
God raised us up with Christ! Eph 2:6
God’s grace through (the gift of) faith has saved you! Eph 2:8
Theology is never about us. It’s always about God. It is never “what does this say about me?” but always, “What does this say about God?” Paul knows this. Fleming knows this. Our church fathers and mothers could hardly write a sentence without God being the subject. And it’s never because they discovered hidden gnostic mysteries with their vast and great intellect.
God. Found. Them.
Like the Israelites in Exodus, God saw and heard them. Theology matters because it is not where we find God, but where He finds us.
I am not a great theologian. I read Barth, Sonderegger, Origen, Rutledge, Wright, etc., knowing I will never write with as clear prose and as much insight as they do. That’s not my goal. I don’t need to write the next great systematics, or a “Newer New Perspective on Paul.” I need God.
Read theology. Write it. Debate it. Be wrong sometimes. Search for the God who has already searched for you.
This rocks, brother 👏🏽
Love this