A friend tipped me off to a blog posting which had the following sentence as an introduction. One of the really dumb ideas floating around Post-Modern "Christian" circles is this idea that "God is Bigger Than Your Systematic Theology". . . The post goes on to quote from Philip Melancthon to support the claim that "Post-Modern 'Christian(s)'" are dumb in saying that God is bigger than Systematic Theology. I do not know if my friend agreed or disagreed with the post, however, I found this post to be rather, well, dumb. How can anyone claim that any theology, I don't care if it is Systematic, Piratical or even Biblical Theology, is as big as God. All forms of theology are the study of God, not God himself.
God is by far bigger than any study of himself. There are a number of reasons this is so. First is that we only know God from what he has chosen to reveal to us through the Bible. Don't get me wrong here, in his infinite wisdom God knew exactly what should be revealed to us, but no thoughtful person would imagine to think that everything there is to know about God has been revealed. If that were so, the trinity and the personhood/deity of Christ would have been explained in way more detail. No, God did not reveal himself completely to us in the scriptures. He only revealed what he chose to reveal, what was necessary. God revealed all that is needed to enter into relationship with him and how to grow in that relationship. Remember that God's foolishness is greater than the wisdom of men (1 Cor. 1:25). If he did completely reveal himself, we would never be able to completely understand it, no one I know claims to completely understand what he has chosen to reveal to us.
I was really surprised (well not really) to see that Systematic Theology was being lifted up so high. I think this is once again an example of bible-idolatry taken to the extreme. God is even greater than the scriptures that reveal him. The authority of the scriptures do not come from themselves but from the one who inspired them. Scriptures get their authority from being the word of God, not that God's words get authority from being scripture. Since all (orthodox Christian) theology, even Systematic Theology, is rooted in scriptures and is therefore less than the scripture, which is less than God. Therefore it is dumb to say that Systematic Theology is anywhere near as big as God. If you want to test this go throughout the scriptures to find contradictions, you won't. Then go down to your local Christian bookstore and pull off the shelves all the Systematic Theology texts and go through them, they will contradict each other all over the place. If Systematic Theology were as big as God this would not be so.
On one last note, let us not forget who we worship. It is the one true God, FatherSonSpirit, creator of the universe, king of all, not theology or even the Bible. Let us not loose focus of our true love, the one who gave it all for us. If we keep focused on God, we will not fall into the idolatry of theology.
3 comments:
Duly topic
The truth shall make you free.
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