To an Old Friend and an Alma Mater, Pt. 2
Lately theology has been given a bad name. Theologians are those stuffy, old, smart jerks who sit around and write boring treatises on things that do not matter in the least. Their work seems to be the very definition of irrelevant for two reasons.
First, many view education as vocational in nature. Theology will not teach you how to make money. In fact, it may teach you to give it all away at times. In an era of "practical" education for the ministry, church leaders are not even trained in theology. Instead the emphasis is placed upon the pastoral. Ministers are trained to counsel, evangelize, preach, and baptize well enough, and for good reason. But ask these ministers why or how it was that Christ was both God and man, and you will only be told to read your Bible again. Which brings me to my next point...
Second, for the last century one single topic has so dominated theological discourse that it has subordinated all else to it. The inspiration of Scripture has been the source of heated controversy since Darwin and historical-critical methodology challenged "traditional" ideas about the Bible. Christianity has spent the last century trying to rescue its sacred text from "relativism". In doing so, it has misidentified the Bible and relativized its own tradition.
In John Stott's book Evangelical Truth, this misidentification comes clear. On p. 50, Stott draws an analogy between Christ and the Bible in order to explain inspiration. Just as Christ is both divine and human, the Bible shares a divine and human author. While I can agree with Stott, it must be made much more clear that this is merely an analogy. One is "like" the other. The relationship between Jesus' divinity and humanity was such that it is intelligible to say both that "Jesus is God" and "Jesus is man". With Scripture, we can only say that it is both "the word of God" and "the word of man". The difference is subtle but outrageously important. The Bible has no intrinsic divinity (which Stott does point out). The Bible has no place in the Trinity. The Bible is not the subject of theology! The subject of theology is God, who is revealed in Jesus. Scripture provides theologians with a set of data to work with, indeed the most important set imagineable. But from there, much work must be done.
Scripture is no substitute for sound, rational, theological exploration. Our yearning for a simple piety based on an infallible text is naive, dangerous, and hopeless once we begin the task of educating Christians. If we base our entire religion solely upon a text, rather than upon our God, we are preparing ourselves for idolatry.
To all Christians seeking to become educated, look and see that many men and women throughout history have applied their various skills and talents towards making God known. These theologians loved Scripture, meditated upon it, and never departed from it. We will disagree with many who came before us, but to do so is an invitation to continue the discourse of faith to the next generation.
First, many view education as vocational in nature. Theology will not teach you how to make money. In fact, it may teach you to give it all away at times. In an era of "practical" education for the ministry, church leaders are not even trained in theology. Instead the emphasis is placed upon the pastoral. Ministers are trained to counsel, evangelize, preach, and baptize well enough, and for good reason. But ask these ministers why or how it was that Christ was both God and man, and you will only be told to read your Bible again. Which brings me to my next point...
Second, for the last century one single topic has so dominated theological discourse that it has subordinated all else to it. The inspiration of Scripture has been the source of heated controversy since Darwin and historical-critical methodology challenged "traditional" ideas about the Bible. Christianity has spent the last century trying to rescue its sacred text from "relativism". In doing so, it has misidentified the Bible and relativized its own tradition.
In John Stott's book Evangelical Truth, this misidentification comes clear. On p. 50, Stott draws an analogy between Christ and the Bible in order to explain inspiration. Just as Christ is both divine and human, the Bible shares a divine and human author. While I can agree with Stott, it must be made much more clear that this is merely an analogy. One is "like" the other. The relationship between Jesus' divinity and humanity was such that it is intelligible to say both that "Jesus is God" and "Jesus is man". With Scripture, we can only say that it is both "the word of God" and "the word of man". The difference is subtle but outrageously important. The Bible has no intrinsic divinity (which Stott does point out). The Bible has no place in the Trinity. The Bible is not the subject of theology! The subject of theology is God, who is revealed in Jesus. Scripture provides theologians with a set of data to work with, indeed the most important set imagineable. But from there, much work must be done.
Scripture is no substitute for sound, rational, theological exploration. Our yearning for a simple piety based on an infallible text is naive, dangerous, and hopeless once we begin the task of educating Christians. If we base our entire religion solely upon a text, rather than upon our God, we are preparing ourselves for idolatry.
To all Christians seeking to become educated, look and see that many men and women throughout history have applied their various skills and talents towards making God known. These theologians loved Scripture, meditated upon it, and never departed from it. We will disagree with many who came before us, but to do so is an invitation to continue the discourse of faith to the next generation.
posted by matt at 10:05 PM
2 Comments:
Yes! Thank you! How I wish sometimes I were also a theologian and not starting on the path of philosopher alone. It is so difficult sometimes to make points clear because, as the students who come here are deeply immersed in beliefs such as the divinity of scripture, the philosophy department spends a lot of time trying to reveal the limitations and dangers of such a belief. 80% of my class experience in philosophy is expended on tearing down idols of the faith rather than building upon the truth. That is very unfortunate, but more so because I am getting used to it. I want to build, but I want to make sure that I'm building upon the truth.
Whenever I say I am questioning the validity of scripture, what I hope to mean is that I question the idolatry, as you say, in which certain believers have placed the bible on the same level as God - as infallible.
However, when placed in its proper context, the bible must be unquestioned as primary revealer of God to us. I cannot and will not question the bible's validity when it comes to its ability to reveal the truth to us, but I will always question claims that it is the truth to us. Only God is true, only Jesus points the way to that truth while simultaneously being true himself.
And I posted a new brief explanation of my previous two posts on my blog. I hope it will clarify some stuff. This experience has caused a lot of confusion both for myself and my friends. I would like to provide some closure and explanation. Thanks for your help and please keep the comments coming. (=p
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