What is theology?
Ask most people what theology is and they will say it is the study of God, or the tidy arrangement of Christian doctrine into a system. The writers below accept that definition, but they press a harder question behind it: can the study of God ever be mistaken for knowing Him?
What the Word Means
At its simplest, theology is treated as an academic discipline, and it is set apart from personal faith by the direction it faces.
William KellyReligion in general has already been briefly considered in note 9 on John. As distinct from Theology, which is the study of Religion, the one is "subjective" or personal, the other is "objective." Unhappily, the two are often confounded.
That study splits into branches — biblical, dogmatic, and so on — each one concerned with "systematic, logical development of TRUTH" and with collecting and shaping religious ideas into order.
Truth Passed Through a Human Mind
One of the sharpest definitions on offer traces what happens to divine truth when a person takes hold of it and tries to give it a shape of his own.
J. N. DarbyWhen a man's mind apprehends the truth, and he seeks to give it a form, he does it according to the capacity of man, which is not its source... He has only apprehended it partially, and he only produces a part of it. Accordingly it is no longer the truth. Moreover, when he separates it from the whole circle of truth in which God has placed it, he must necessarily clothe it in a new form, in a garment which proceeds from man: at once error mixes with it... That is theology.
Study That Saves Nobody
Theology can be taken up exactly like any other academic subject, with the same tools and the same effort — and that is the danger.
C. H. MackintoshIt is not life eternal to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and all the while know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.
The same writer names what turns the subject from a study into something alive, and it is not a better system.
C. H. MackintoshIt is not, we repeat, mere theology, divinity, or religiousness; it is God Himself, known, trusted, and enjoyed. It is a grand, unmistakable reality. It is the soul of theology, the groundwork of divinity, the life of true religion. There is nothing in all this world like it. It is acquaintance with God, confidence in Him, and enjoyment of Him.
Pressed Flowers and Living Words
Some writers are blunt about what happens when revelation is reworked into a science. One compares systematic divinity to a collection of dried plants — leaves and flowers cut from the stem, preserved, with no freshness left in any of them. Alongside that image he sets the alternative.
William KellySuch is "theology"; whereas Scripture is "spirit and life."... Man makes, or strives to make, revelation into a science. Can two things more thoroughly differ? Who ever found life or peace in systematic divinity? It is always guarding this and guarding that with human weapons, and framing its uncertain and defective doctrines into imaginary fortresses of the faith... Only in the Bible we have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and we have the Holy Spirit who wrote all to guide us into all the truth.
Knowledge That Inflates
The risk is not that a believer learns too much. It is where the learning stops.
An Outline of Sound WordsThe acquisition of knowledge however has its dangers, as Paul showed in 1 Corinthians 8:1... When the truth of God is only held in the intellect, and has not affected the heart and conscience, there is the danger of inflation. If, however, the truth enters into the heart, touching the affections and the conscience, there will be edification instead of inflation.
God's Own Order
Rejecting man's systems does not leave a believer with nothing but loose ideas. The commentators press for a different starting point.
William KellyThere may have been some wildness in the denouncing of "system"... because it gave the idea that the only right thing was to have no system. Assuredly those who had no system were to be pitied, if it really came to that. The true question was and is, What is God's system? Man's must be wrong... Only His word can exhibit and only His Spirit can enable us to carry it out.
So teaching is still to be held, but held in a particular manner, and by a particular power.
Eric TachoiresKnowledge of God's thoughts is acquired through godly, not intellectual, study of Scripture, in accordance with the expression "the doctrine which is according to godliness" (1 Timothy 6:3; Titus 1:1). If we are exhorted to "keep the good deposit," it is "by the Holy Spirit" that we must do so (2 Timothy 1:14).
Summary
- Definition. Theology is the study of religion — objective, systematic, and often confused with personal faith, which is a different thing.
- Limitation. Truth taken into a human mind and given a human shape comes out partial, cut off from the whole, and mixed with error.
- Distinction. Divinity can be studied like law or medicine, and a person can finish the course still not knowing God.
- Life. Knowing, trusting and enjoying God Himself is the soul of theology — the reality that all the study is meant to be about.
- Test. Truth held only in the intellect puffs a person up; truth that reaches heart and conscience builds up. So the question is never how much you know, but whether God's own order, taught by His word and Spirit, is forming you.