On the use of Systematic Theology

First of all what is systematic theology? Theology is the study of God and His interactions with man. (Along with philosophy (to which it is a close cousin) it used to be called the queen of the sciences not more than a hundred years ago. Theology a science you say? It was the queen of the sciences because without it one could not come to the conclusion of a rational universe in which to study. It was the foundation upon which all the other sciences rest, and why science as we know it could have only arisen from Christendom. But I digress - All of this is a post for another time perhaps.) So systematic theology is a way to systematize or order our knowledge of God in a way that makes rational and logical sense. If you look very closely at my writings you will find that I love order and step by step progression, (One of the reasons why I loved geometry in school.) it’s in my blood, and as a lawyer I was further trained to think this way. So what I am about to say as painful as it is for me to say it, is never the less true.

Our systematic theology no matter how closely we believe it is aligned with Scripture and the Faith is not reality. It may in some small way represent reality, it may dimly approximate reality, but it itself is not reality. It is a tool to vaguely describe the white shores and beyond, that far green country under a swift sunrise. ( I knew that if I tried hard enough that I could get a LOTR reference in here somewhere.) We here in this life see as through a glass but darkly. We can not comprehend the things of God for His ways are far above our ways and His thoughts are far above our thoughts. We should never lose sight of this, as it is a check against our pride. Even the Holy Scriptures are but lisping baby talk from God to His children that are too ignorant, small and weak to even begin to understand all that He is. It is like trying to put together a 100 piece puzzle when you only have ten puzzle pieces. It is fine if you keep your system in perspective, and it does help to more fully understand the things of God, but unfortunately many times the system takes on a life of its own and one begins to assume that those ten piece is the entire puzzle. However, as with all systematic theologies it will break down somewhere, as it is a poor tool at best.

Or to put it in yet another way, we live in a two dimensional world and our systematic theology is a two dimensional tool set to describe a three dimensional object. It is a tool that will describe a ball as a circle, but of course you and I know that a ball isn’t a circle. It is like a circle . . . but not really.

The problem arises when people insist that the circle is the ball, or when we emphasis our understanding of one aspect of God or His dealing with people at the expense of minimizing another aspect. What I am saying is not anti-intellectualism (I believe that we should use what God has given us to the fullest). No, it is the height of intellectualism to realize the limits of the intellect.

Look if God thought that the best way in which to learn about Him and His ways was through systematic theology then He would have given us a systematic theology textbook, and I hate to break the news to everyone, but the Scriptures are not a systematic theology textbook. So stop forcing that square peg into that round hole.

I love Reformed guys, because most of them are logical deep thinkers and they are passionate about the things of God. They have thought about all this theology stuff and generally have some pretty good answers. They have little diagrams for anything and everything that has anything to do with the Faith, but I get turned off when they insist (and they do) that their diagrams are The True Answer. I get turned off because at best their diagrams are a fuzzy approximation of The True Answer, and unfortunately a lot of times their diagrams are down right goobly-goop, because they haven’t come to grips with that reality and their pride has thrown everything off.