Jun

12

Why do you do theology?

June 12, 2008 |

Posted by ben hind · Filed Under Theology 

I have been asked in the past why I ‘intellectualise’ everything. Everything needs to be thought through. Everything needs to be proven, verified or be supported by evidence. And this is especially true when it comes to my faith. I’m a thinker, I believe that’s the way God made me. But I do have my doubts sometimes. Usually it’s down to someone putting the doubt in my mind, ‘but Ben, all you really need to do is just have faith, you don’t need to prove it or ‘intellectualise’ it.’ I’m sure you’ve heard it too, maybe it’s even been preached at your church!

And this has made me struggle, especially if I am going to defend my position that theology is necessary to our faith. There has been times when I’ve stepped back from theology and found Christianity less than intellectually satisfying. And my return to theology has always seemed to fill that intellectual void inside of me. So, why do I do theology?

Here’s some good reasons for when I’m having a theological crisis:

1. Some people relate to God better through their minds than through their feelings.
It goes without saying that some people are different than others. Some like margarine, some like butter. Some like sports, some like books. And for those that like to think deeply about things, a shallow ‘empty your mind and stretch out with your feelings’ kind of faith just won’t cut it. If you’re like me, you fall into this category, and if you’re mind isn’t getting stretched then it probably won’t interest you. This is especially true when it comes to the thing you love most - your faith.

2. God created you with a brain, use it!
I don’t believe God would have created us with a brain if He didn’t intend us to use it. That just wouldn’t make any sense. We are even told in both the New and Old Testaments to ‘love the Lord your God with all of your mind’. Somehow, I think that includes thinking properly. Especially if we are supposed to think properly about God. Which, of course, is theology.

3. Because a worldview that isn’t based on truth, facts and evidence is meaningless.
I know I’m making this point just because I’m the kind of guy that wants evidence before I believe something. And some people don’t really care about truth, facts and evdience. But surely, given the choice between 2 worldviews you’d choose the one that was true, and could be proven using facts and evidence. Isn’t that what apologetics (a branch of theology) is all about?

4. We need to be a good witness, and an intellectually weak faith is not a good witness to some people.
I know a lot of my non-Christian friends like to make fun of Christianity because it is perceived as being ‘intellectually weak’. What kind of witness are we giving to the world when we say things like ‘you don’t need to prove Christianity, you just need to accept it by ‘faith”? I don’t think it’s a good one.

5. Remember: whenever someone says ‘you don’t need to be theological, you just need to love Jesus’, they’re making a theological statment.
This is because we first need to figure out who this ‘Jesus’ character is that they’re refering to. Which Jesus are they talking about? A fictional character? A good moral teacher? A prophet from God? The Jewish Messiah? God Himself in human form? To love Jesus, first you need to figure out which Jesus you’re talking about. And that is theology.

6. Most of the New Testament is written by a theologian, Paul.
Pauls letters have always been the my favourate parts of the bible to read. But they read more like theological arguments than letters. That’s right, arguments. And not just any kind of arguments, they’re theological ones. He always seems to like putting a bit of theology into the beginnings of his letters before he makes a practical application. I would even argue that the entire bible is theological, though Paul is the best example.

7. Because I (and hopefully we) enjoy it!
This is my biggest reason, actually. I do theology because I enjoy doing theology. I like a good chat about the Deity of Jesus or the Trinity. Call me sad, but it’s probably my favourate hobby. Anyone with me?

So, there’s my reasons why I do theology. But why do you?


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Bec on June 12, 2008 7:35 pm

    Thanks for this post, it summarises a lot of my feelings about doing theology, and loving God with our minds.

    I think the core of the issue for me is that the idea that faith and reason are not connected is not even a biblical idea. That idea has developed since Descartes, when he made himself the fixed point for reasoning from. “I think therefore I AM”, rather than as God revealed Himself to Moses, that God is “I AM that I AM”.

    If you are the fixed point and God is “out there” then faith must be “a leap”. If God / what God has revealed is the fixed point, then it is rational and reasonable to believe.

    It’s disappointing that this kind of “leap of faith” thinking has infiltrated the church.

  2. ben hind on June 13, 2008 9:49 am

    Bec,

    It’s great to know there are people like me out there, fighting for our right to think theologically!

    I would take issue with you about Descartes ‘I think therefore I am’ being the point where man placed himself as the fixed point to draw knowledge from. As Descartes concluded in his meditations that the only 2 things that he could be 100% certain about was his own existence and Gods existence. He did this by using ‘reason alone’ through the ontological argument and said that God is the only ‘necessarily existent being’. And because God exists we can therefore assume that God would not deceive us all the time so we can then be certain that we can have knowledge about other things. I would say that people like Kant or Hume really made God a leap of faith rather than a rational conclusion.

    - Ben

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