Help for Aspiring Theologians (which includes all of us)
A half-century ago during my college years, my Christian faith ran into a ditch. I made a profession of faith in 1965 and I hung around youth groups for a number of years. I even dived into Pentecostalism and its highly expressive versions of Christianity. But the ditch came in the form of hard questions about life and living. My understanding of Scripture was low. And my questions were large.
Someone handed me a copy of a little book by John Stott titled Your Mind Matters. (I think it is still in print.) There I learned that the life of the mind is essential to a well-rounded Christian faith, and that Christianity offered satisfying responses to those hard questions. Then between my junior and senior years, I read Os Guinness’s brilliant analysis of the 1960s in The Dust of Death and I was convinced that the essence of Christian faith involved both the heart and the intellect. Ever since then, I realized that like all Christians, I was a theologian, someone who thought about God and tried to follow God and his will for my life.
Many of us have negative reactions to theology. It conjures up images of egghead intellectuals using language that requires a dictionary just to converse. Many theologians don’t even seem like followers of Jesus. And theologians often raise too much doubt, and then leave us hanging. Trust me. I have met some of these folks.
But those things are not real theology. Real theology, according to Kevin Vanhoozer, research professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, “is taught by God, teaches of God, and leads to God.” If theology is not centered on the Triune God and his communication with folks like you and me through Holy Scripture, it is bad theology.
What kind of person do you need to become to be an effective theologian, one who thinks well about God? Vanhoozer answers that question this way. “The short answer is “wise”: a person with understanding who knows how to live out what he [or she] knows and does so in ways appropriate to his [or her] circumstances. Wisdom is the virtue that regulates and balances all the other virtues.”
Three pairs of contrasting qualities
For Vanhoozer wisdom comes from grasping three pairs of contrasting qualities. The first pair is faith and reason. “Theologians [and apologists] need to believe firmly and think clearly. Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and theology with trust in God’s word.” The great medieval thinker Anselm argued for a posture of faith seeking understanding. In other words, “we must believe in order to understand.”
Moreover, our human reason is vital as it “tells us what follows from the articles of faith revealed in Scripture. Reason exercises a ministerial function in theology, and is best viewed in terms of created, fallen, and redeemed human intelligence.” Hence, reason is a tool that helps us think biblically. “Relating things to the Triune God by thinking biblically is the reflex of a mature theologian.” Good theologians bathe their work in prayer. In the words of Helmut Thielicke, “a theological thought can breathe only in the atmosphere of dialogue with God.”
The second pair, Vanhoozer describes as “joyful truth-seeking and hopeful truth-telling.” In Vanhoozer’s words, “to become a theologian you must be willing to bear true witness and call out false witness, casting down idols and ideologies. That’s the shadow side of theology, but the best part is speaking light and truth…of God’s goodness.” Theology and apologetics exist to order the Church’s thinking toward the gospel of Christ. They are joyful tasks, but they require a thick skin because we tell people both inside and outside the church “that they are not lords of their lives.” In Thielicke’s words, theologians and apologists are “the conscience of the congregation.” We remind people, according to Vanhoozer, “that faith is not the same as anti-intellectualism, and that God is not a supporting actor in their stories but that we have bit parts in his.”
The final pair is boldness and humility. We boldly proclaim that “God is the origin and destiny of all things, and theology knows all things in their relatedness and connectedness to God.” But that is tempered with a healthy dose of humility, something especially important, “in the present political climate and blogosphere where it is harder to find good examples of humility” (and might I add common Christian practices like kindness, patience, and courtesy. It is the Holy Spirit who changes hearts, not us.) Thielicke warns us of what he terms “the disease of theologians…The cure is to love the truth more than our possession of it. You’ll find this to be especially the case when it comes to theologians’ preferred interpretations of Scripture.”
Good theology is Christ-centered
Let me illustrate Vanhoozer’s and Thielicke’s point with something happening as I write. A debate has broken out on social media regarding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the nature of his Christian faith. A few days ago, prominent evangelical pastor, John MacArthur, argued that Dr. King was not a Christian because his early writings expressed doubt about tenets of faith found in the Nicene Creed, specifically Christ’s death and resurrection. Others, especially within the African American community reacted strongly to the accusations. Was MLK a Christian? Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian? Or James Madison? I don’t know. The United States has always had people like them who have acted in ways to expand the freedoms and liberties promised in the American Declaration of Independence. I do know that Dr. King did base his work on the theological truth that every human being is created in God’s image, and I’m grateful for his important Civil Rights work.
This social media conflict is useless, and all it does is create more discord in an already divided and fearful populace. That is not the work of good theologians and apologists, those who are called to testify to the Christian faith and the hope we find in Jesus Christ. Conflicts like these demonstrate the need for Christian virtues like kindness and humility, virtues that take a lifetime to develop. We Christians believe that the ends never justify the means, and ungodly means are harmful to the gospel of Christ and to others. Good theologians practice kindness. Good theologians cultivate Christian humility.
Vanhoozer leaves us with this. “The serious point is that whatever your location, your theology should build up the Church in the knowledge and love of God so that it can worship in Spirit and Truth (John 4:23-24)…Our vocation is to speak the truth and love the truth (the way of Jesus Christ) we speak and those to whom we speak it.”
So, whether God calls you to become an academic theologian, a church leader who communicates Christian truth within your congregation, or a Christian who follows Christ in your everyday life, you can be a good theologian–one who thinks well and represents Christ well with love for the gospel and kindness, patience, and graciousness expressed through your speech and action. You don’t need big words–just a love for Christ and an intellectual curiosity that engages you to study the Christian faith in more depth. I can’t think of a better way to represent Christ in our daily lives.
If you wish to read the entire article, here is the bibliographical information: Kevin J. Vanhoozer. “Letter to an Aspiring Theologian: How to Speak of God Truly.” First Things (August 2018). Letter to an Aspiring Theologian by Kevin J. Vanhoozer | Articles | First Things. If you are interested in reading more about why Christian theology is important, might I suggest A Little Exercise for Young Theologians by Helmut Thielicke, and Who Needs Theology by Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson.