Christian Theology for a Secular Society: Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land

Christian Theology for a Secular Society

Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land

Mark G. McKim

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY FOR A SECULAR SOCIETY

Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land

Copyright © 2008 Mark G. McKim. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

ISBN 13: 978-1-59752-829-0

EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7642-9

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

English language Scripture quotations are taken from three different translations as follows:

Those marked (NRSV) are from New Revised Standard Version of the Bible Copyright© 1989 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV® Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Those quotations marked (AV) or (Authorized Version) are from the Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version of 1611.

The Greek text of the New Testament referred to throughout this work is that of

the so called Textus Receptus of Robert Stephens, 1550

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Prolegomena I: The Nature of Theology

Chapter 2: Prolegomena II: Revelation as the Basis of Christian Theology and the Issue of Authority

Chapter 3: Prolegomena III: Contextualizing Theology

Chapter 4: The Nature of God

Chapter 5: Creation and Sin

Chapter 6: Jesus Christ

Chapter 7: Redemption

Chapter 8: The Church

Chapter 9: The Life of the Redeemed

Chapter 10: Last Things

Selected Bibliography

To the congregations of

Mahone Bay United Baptist Pastorate

(Mahone Bay, Northwest, New Cornwall United Baptist Churches,Indian Point Union Church)

Nova Scotia

Germain Street United Baptist Church

Saint John, New Brunswick

First Baptist Church

Regina, Saskatchewan

Among whom I learned how to sing the Lord’s Song better than I had before.

Preface

This volume, written over a period of several years whilst in pastorate, originated from twin convictions which I hope inform it throughout.

First, I believe that the discipline of systematic theology should be in the service of the church and her mission in the world of working to see the Kingdom of God realized. When systematics does not understand this, it has lost its way. I am now closing in on nearly twenty years of pastoring in local churches. During these years I have also kept, as it were, several toes in the academy, through writing, teaching, lecturing, giving papers, membership in learned societies and serving on boards and committees of post-secondary schools. Sadly, I have often observed a near total disconnect between the local church and the work of the academy, in particular with regard to systematics. We have clergy who apparently never read a single work of systematics once they leave seminary and make no effort carefully to lay out for their people in an organized way what it is we Christians believe—and why. We have laypeople who, despite years of listening to sermons and participating in Christian adult education, have no clear sense of what the basic teachings of Christianity are about, or how the various tenets of the faith relate to one another. This is a tragedy, and all the more so given the increasingly secular nature of western society. No longer can we assume that there is widespread knowledge of the Christian story among the general populace. Often, faith in Christ is not so much absent because of intellectual objections to it (though there are certainly those) but because what that faith means is simply unknown or not understood. The discipline of systematic theology must not live apart from the messiness of life in the world, and in the local church. Systematics must learn to draw examples from and give illustrations which pertain to daily living and ministry. It must give ordinary Christians the necessary tools to understand their faith, and to offer it to the world.

The second conviction which informs this work is that the single most serious problem facing the church in the western world is increasing secularization at every level—personal, institutional and societal. We no longer live in Christendom, or at the very least, we can surely say we are living in the dying days of Christendom. A substantial majority of those living in western society today live a secular lifestyle. Most still affirm belief in the existence of God, and if pressed, would also acknowledge belief in other, vaguely Christian tenets. But none of these affirmations have any serious connection with daily life. The idea of God actually being in charge of life, his lordship, is altogether foreign. Neither Christianity - nor for that matter any other faith tradition - forms an overarching system of meaning that shapes and molds life for most western people. Life is essentially lived without reference to God, or his will. Few there are who take his views into consideration when deciding on choice of career or mate, where to live, or how to live, or why to live. It is in this context that Christians must learn to do theology, both to set out what we believe and why we believe it. We must learn to be the church and to live out our faith in a secular society. That means returning to our roots in the New Testament, for those first Christians also had to learn what it meant to minister and to do mission as a minority. How are we to be salt and light today? How are we to work to see the Kingdom realized in this new situation, as Christendom ends? That, I believe, is the single most important issue facing the church in the western world - and the crucial question systematic theology must address. This book is intended as a small step toward the answer.

Acknowledgments

Although it is a cliché, it is also true that it is risky specifically to single out certain individuals for thanks, as there is always the danger of leaving someone out. Regardless of the risk, there are a number of individuals who richly deserve thanks for their assistance or influence in the writing of this book, over and beyond the churches referred to on the dedication page.

Rev. Wayne Dryer, a good and faithful friend, was for many years a member of my flock at Germain Street United Baptist Church, and eventually, my successor in its pulpit. He challenged, stretched and deepened my theological understanding more than he probably realized. Some of our frequent lunch hour or late night discussions are incorporated into this work.

Rev. Dr. Dan Dryer, Wayne’s father, influenced my thinking notably in my understanding of the Kingdom of God.

Rev. G. John Martin has served as both a local church pastor and hospital chaplain. A friend since seminary days, trusted confidante, and partner in countless road trips he has often been a theological sounding board as this work was written.

Several people proofread the manuscript along the way. Mrs. Norma Bishop, a long time deacon at Germain Street Baptist Church, friend and confidante, painstakingly proofread the manuscript for this book as it was written. She was one of the first and few to know that I was undertaking such a project, and was constantly supportive of me and it. We had many enjoyable sessions together during which we debated whether a colon or semi colon made something clearer, whether a split infinitive was in certain instances allowable, and what in heavens name I had meant when I wrote that sentence. (Norma, charitably, always said my brain had been moving faster than I could type!) Norma not only read for the technical details of style, punctuation and grammar. Repeatedly she had wise and constructive criticism of the content, which often was incorporated. Rev. Dr. Allison Trites, long time Professor of Biblical Studies at Acadia Divinity College, also proofread the manuscript. He made a number of helpful suggestions and corrections and was constantly enthusiastic about the project. Rev. Dr. Andrew MacRae who was, for many years Principal of Acadia Divinity College and Dean of Theology at Acadia University, in the midst of a very heavy teaching and writing schedule, also took time to read and comment on the manuscript. His warm support was unfailing. Dr. David Barnard, author of With Skilful Hand: The Story of King David, and former President of the University of Regina, read the manuscript, making useful recommendations, and contributing yet another perspective. I think we both enjoyed debating his comments!

Thanks are also certainly due to administrative assistants at First Baptist Church, both Erin Angus and Polly Hrenyk, the latter in particular who devoted many hours to converting my manuscript text from one format to another, and frequently served as my tech support when my computer decided to be uncooperative. Kevin Rich, and his son, Joel, congregants and neighbours, made many trips to my private home study in order to sort out computer glitches. Privately, and for good reason, I started referring to them as my ‘computer genii.’

My family has long realized how important the life of the mind as service to God is to me, and although at times, I am sure they grew weary of my talk, were none the less supportive of the time and effort involved in writing this book. So to my parents, Gordon and Thelma McKim, my brother Estey McKim, and my aunt, Marion Sherwood: thank you.

2 2 2

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following publishers for permission to quote from their copyrighted works:

The use of material taken from Christianity & Western Thought, Volume1 by Colin Brown (1990) is used with permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.

Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham, England for use in the United Kingdom of the same material, published by Apollos Books.

The use of material from Christian Theology, 2nd ed. by Millard J. Erickson (1988) is used with permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Augsburg Fortress Publishers for material taken from Douglas John Hall, Confessing the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) and from Douglas John Hall, Professing the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

TVZ Theologischer Verlag Zürich AG for material taken from Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption: Dogmatics II trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1952) and Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics I, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1950; reprint, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980).

Westminster John Knox Press for material taken from Alasdair I. Heron, A Century of Protestant Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980) and John H. Leith, Basic Christian Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993).

1

Prolegomena I: The Nature of Theology

Definitions: Theology, Christian, Systematic

Th eology has become something of a wax nose word, used loosely, and not infrequently without much thought as to what it means or with the assumption that everyone knows what it means. That being so it is crucial to begin with a clear understanding of how the word will be used here. A good place to start is in looking at the origins of the word theology itself. Theology comes from two Greek words: theos ( Qeo/v ), meaning God, and logos ( lo/goj ) meaning word or discourse. At its root theology means words or discourse about God."

Borrowing, but somewhat modifying John Leith, in his book, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition. Theology in its broadest sense is critical reflection, in light of the deity or deities, about the meaning of human existence and about the nature of the universe.¹ Two things should be observed here. First, every world religion which has some concept of a god or gods has a theology, some sort of reflection about human existence and the nature of the universe undertaken in the light of what that god or those gods are like or are believed to have communicated. There are of course thought systems, such as some forms of Marxism and Buddhism which have no conception of a deity or deities in them. While these are worldviews, they are not strictly speaking, theologies. Theology is one particular kind of worldview—the kind which has one or more deities integral to it. Second, theology means critical reflection. It is an informed, thoughtful pondering.

As Christians we have to refine further the definition of what we are about. What specifically is Christian theology? Again, Leith is very helpful. "Christian theology is critical reflection about God, about human existence, about the nature of the universe, and about faith itself in the light of the revelation of God recorded in Scripture and particularly embodied in Jesus Christ, who is for the Christian community the final revelation, that is the definitive revelation which is the criteria [sic.] of all other revelations."²

Christian theology is to be no less critical, indeed it ought to be more so, than any other of the world’s theologies. But for Christians that reflecting, that pondering, is done in the conviction that God has made himself known—for that is what revelation means—and has done so ultimately in the historical Jesus. The Christian claim is precisely that God has revealed himself. Indeed revelation is the whole basis for Christianity and Christian theology, that on which they stand or fall. Christians emphatically do not ask for the attention of others because we believe we have some great truths that, as a result of our own thinking, we have discovered. Christians have no claim whatever on the world’s attention other than our claim that we are reporting what God has revealed about himself. If that claim is correct then that revelation merits the most serious attention of every human being. If it is not accurate then Christianity becomes merely one of the world’s many competing worldviews, and one which, since it would be false at its core, should be discarded. This dependence on a divine self-revelation sets Christian theology over against those worldviews which have no concept of God, and since Christian theology claims a finality and uniqueness, it also sets itself against the world’s other theological worldviews.

Although something of God may be known from the created world, and in conscience, that revelation is not unambiguous. Hence God, Christians claim, made himself known; that is, revealed himself in a more specific way. He accomplished this working through ancient Israel, and, ultimately in coming among humanity personally in Jesus Christ. Thus God’s highest revelation of himself was himself. The primary and authoritative record of this special revelation is contained in Scripture, which becomes the standard by which all other revelation, or supposed revelation, is judged. The Christian claim, and the challenge Christianity makes to the world, is that in the light of God’s revelation of himself, a revelation which finds its climax in Jesus Christ, other events become intelligible: the pieces of the puzzle of life begin to make sense. C. S. Lewis put it this way:

Let us suppose we possess parts of a novel or a symphony. Someone now brings us a newly discovered piece of manuscript and says ‘This is the missing part . . . This is the chapter on which the whole plot . . . really turned. This is the main theme of the symphony.’ Our business would be to see whether the new passage, if admitted to the central place which the discoverer claimed for it, did actually illuminate all the parts we had already seen and ‘pull them together.’³

How many high school students struggling with some complex problem in geometry have not had the aha experience when the last piece fell into place and everything in the problem suddenly made sense? Ronald Blythe in his charming description of a parish year in contemporary rural England describes it in this way: The bottom line sanity of what we believe has always entranced me—drawn me into the beauties and satisfactions of Christianity.⁴ The Christian claim is simply this: the assertion that the man Jesus was God’s ultimate revelation of himself does more justice to the facts of life, and makes more sense out of life and gives more meaning to life than any other worldview and any other supposed revelation whatsoever. That is why Christian theology does its critical reflecting in light of the conviction that Jesus Christ was God’s ultimate and highest revelation to us. It can not be overemphasized that Christian theology finds its purpose and centre in Jesus Christ. Christian theology is in every sense Christocentric.

This work however is not just about theology, nor even about Christian theology. It intends to be systematic Christian theology. To some degree it is redundant to speak of systematic theology. If theology means a critical reflection, part of that must mean the thinking or reflecting aims to organize things in a pattern which makes sense, which makes a coherent whole, in other words, a system. Reflection is not critical otherwise! Having one doctrine over here and another doctrine totally unrelated over there, and perhaps the two in real or apparent contradiction with each other even though both claim to derive from the same revelation, is not organized, critical or systematic reflection. The point is to see the whole thing, or as much of it as we can, and all the parts of the whole, and their relationships to one another.

If it is understood then what is meant by theology which is both Christian and systematic, it is next important to have clearly in mind what the purpose of such a theology is, and perhaps, even more important to understand what the purpose of such theology is not.

What the purpose of Theology Isn’t: The Non-Sacredness of Theology

At the very outset needs to be slain one of the more persistent and pernicious errors which many Christians, particularly those in the evangelical tradition, entertain about the purpose of theology. It is in fact a confusion of the purpose of theology that among some Christians there is a distinct, if largely unspoken impression that if one affirms the correct view of Christ, or of the resurrection, or of last things (and there is quite frequently a long list of things about which must affirm the correct view) then one is in.⁵ On the other hand, if one fails to have and affirm the correct theological positions one risks being forever damned. If one gets all ones doctrine right, then one is safe, otherwise, not. ⁶

Fortunately, nowhere does Scripture say—and one may well be relieved to hear it—that there is an examination in theology required of all who would enter the kingdom. Nowhere in Scripture is Our Lord recorded as saying, If you believe in the hypostatic union, you will be saved. It is precisely not the purpose of Christian theology to enable individuals to have all the ideas and intellectual concepts of Christian belief lined up correctly and in order that they may get into the kingdom. It is not right doctrine or right theology, which will get anyone into heaven. Scripture suggests that the devil himself is undoubtedly an excellent theologian but such right knowledge by itself has no effect on his fate.⁷ And as John Leith points out rather diplomatically, church history gives examples of those who have had every doctrine correct but who have not shown . . . signs of Christian faith.⁸

This error about the purpose of theology was a major theme in the writing of Emil Brunner who believed it was no recent phenomenon. He argued, convincingly, that the medieval church had largely come to conceive of faith as intellectual assent to right doctrine. It was the genius of Protestant Reformers to have recovered the genuine New Testament understanding of faith, and this recovered understanding constituted the essence of the Reformation.⁹

Brunner described this erroneous understanding of faith as assent to right doctrine, variously, as objectivism, scholasticism, and theologismus. The hallmark of the error was an overwhelming emphasis on correctness of belief.¹⁰ This was not to suggest that right doctrine or understanding was unimportant. There is no such thing as faith without any content, and a certain amount of it is required for there to be genuine faith. The idea of contentless faith, faith without some amount of knowledge is nonsense. But when faith becomes a matter of mental assent to or agreement with the right doctrinal statements, one has made a terrible mistake. Brunner argued this approach was not faithful to Scripture on several counts. First, it regarded truth as something out there to be grasped, thus demonstrating the human tendency to try to bring things, in this case, God himself, under human control.¹¹ Brunner argued that God, however, is never an object for human control, but rather the eternal subject. In this he paralleled Karl Barth who contrasted religion with revelation. Barth saw religion in an almost entirely negative way. Religion was humanity trying to control God, a quest for power. Not only was this impossible but it did not lead to the knowledge of God as Lord and God. It is never the truth. It is a complete fiction, which has not only little but no relation to God.¹² Second, this approach makes faith into a human work when, according to Scripture, it is God’s gift.¹³ In fact wrote Brunner, Correct doctrine is something that can be learned, and indeed anyone who has a good brain and is able to study at a good college or university can learn it easily. But faith is not something that a man can learn—it is the free gift of God.¹⁴ Most important of all this approach was in error because in the New Testament "the object of faith is Jesus Christ himself, not merely some doctrine about [italics added] him.¹⁵ Faith wrote Brunner is not relation to a doctrine, to that which ought to be believed, but it is the obedience of faith . . . to Jesus Christ himself.¹⁶ Faith is as the Latin American theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez explains it . . . an act of trust, a commitment to God . . . . the gift of one’s self to the Other, and invariably to others . . . . [not] . . . the simple affirmation-almost memorization-of truths, but . . . a commitment . . . ."¹⁷

What the Purpose of Theology Is

If theology, or doctrine, does not get one into the kingdom, why bother with it at all? There is a paradox here. Theology must never be confused with genuine faith, but, without at least a minimum of theology there will never be genuine faith at all. It was the error of classical liberal theology to imagine that there could be faith devoid of content. As Brunner put it . . . a certain amount of doctrine must be present before living faith can come into being. Of course this can be an extraordinarily small amount. The jailer [in Acts 16] was changed in one night from a pagan into a believer. This conversion manifestly took place with a minimum of doctrine; the same obtained with those ‘three thousand souls’ who on Pentecost ‘were added.’¹⁸ Similarly, the penitent thief on the cross next to Jesus did not have time for a lengthy course of instruction in theology.

Theology has a crucial position. It is the ground of faith.¹⁹ But it is always a secondary position. The doctrines Christians study and attempt to understand, in the discipline of systematic theology, serve to guide, or point a person in the right direction, so that faith is placed in the right subject, Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is the goal; theology is the way to get there. Doctrine is like a pointer, with faith directed not to it, but going past it.²⁰ Or to put it another way, theology is the telescope through which we can see Jesus.²¹ It is important that the telescope be properly adjusted and kept in good order, lest instead of looking at Jupiter or Mars, one sees a fly on the drainpipe of the house next door. There is good reason to devote much time and effort to adjusting the telescope, and attending to it, but in the end, the object is to see Jupiter or Mars, not to spend all one’s time adjusting the telescope. That would be to miss the point of having a telescope. The telescope is a means to an end, not the end in itself. So also with Christian theology. It is a means to an end, that end being faith in Christ. The great danger of studying theology is that one may come to replace or confuse personal faith with scholarly reflection. When and if that happens, the time has come for plucking out the offending member. Alister McGrath, of Oxford, wisely comments ". . . on account of the increasing professionalization and specialization of theological educators [the] study of theology has become little more than the mastery of . . . . bodies of data. It is something you simply know about—where it should be something relational, something that is known, that shapes your life, provides a reason to live, and gives direction . . . . the most important role of theology is to establish a framework within which spirituality is to be set."²² Right knowledge of God, such as theology hopes to provide, should lead to personal transformation in adoring worship of God.

Faith, in the Scriptural sense, never means intellectual assent to the right doctrines. Faith arises in and with the abdication of the self which claims absolute sovereignty, a sovereignty which rightly belongs to God alone. It is the recognition of the sovereignty, the lordship of God, the god best made known in Jesus Christ, over every part and aspect of one’s life. It is rejoining, finding one’s place in, and learning again the steps of the great cosmic dance of thanksgiving and worship, in which God is lord of the dance, and only those creatures who are part of the dance will find purpose, fulfilment, wholeness and meaning. Faith is self-surrender, willing submission, loving, trusting obedience. The opposite of faith is not seen in the man or woman who does not understand or who refuses to affirm some particular doctrine set forth in Christian theology. The opposite of faith, unfaith, in the biblical sense, is the distrusting disobedience of the person who will not renounce his or her false and imagined independence from God. Unfaith, sin, means the revolt of the creature against the Creator, the attempt to avoid being under God, the desire of the tenant to be the owner. In faith which is the act of trusting obedience, this desire to run the show, to be master of one’s own fate, captain of one’s own soul, is abandoned. Faith is refusing to lend a willing ear to the whispered suggestion that God is withholding the fullness of life and happiness, that if we do it God’s way, we will miss out on the best, that we must do it our way to have the fullness of life. To borrow, and slightly elaborate an illustration which Brunner himself used: Faith in the biblical sense is the relationship of trust in another person. Naturally, such a relationship of trust in a friend is preceded by certain elements of knowledge. No one in his or her right mind would simply hand over his or her credit cards to someone he or she knew nothing about or someone about whose honesty, integrity and intentions he or she had good reason to doubt.²³ But once sufficient elements of knowledge are present, then that personal relationship may begin and grow. It is the same with the relationship of doctrine and faith —one leads to the other, but the two should not be confused.

This then is why Christians should bother with doctrine or theology, and why it is a worthy undertaking. It is the way to get to the goal, the goal being faith, and more specifically, faith in Christ. In the long history of God’s people, his ancient people Israel, and God’s people today, the church, theology, however small an amount,has been the vehicle which brought people to God. Without it few, if any, find him. That is the reason theology matters, and why Christians should bother with it. What is theology for? What is it that theologians do? What is the purpose of Christian theology? The real purpose is to lead people to God, the god best known in Jesus Christ, to an acknowledgement of his lordship in their lives, to set them on the path of lifelong following after him, the path of lifelong trusting obedience to him, of abandonment to him, of being completely at his disposal. This is the condition of spiritual poverty, which Jesus deemed to be blessed.²⁴

In Hindu spirituality, the word yoga is used to mean path or way. Some years ago a good friend preached a sermon titled The Yoga of Jesus. The title caught many off guard, which was the intention. In his sermon and accompanying children’s story, my friend told of how he had been fascinated for years by bonsai trees. These, of course, are the full grown trees which have been carefully pruned over many years to be miniatures. A couple of years before, my friend’s wife had given him a book on how to grow bonsai trees. The trouble, he said, was that he had read the book, and then had laid it on the coffee table. He had all the knowledge needed, but had never acted on it. So also with theology. It is not enough for a person to have a thorough knowledge of Christian beliefs. What is needed is for that knowledge to lead a person to begin the path or way, the yoga of following Jesus throughout life, in trusting obedience. If that does not happen, if theology does not see that as its goal, then it has failed and failed miserably.

The radical heart of Christian faith and the aim of genuine Christian theology, the centre of the Christianity, and that to which all genuine theology points, is a confession of Christ’s lordship in the individual’s life. Christian theology is radically christocentric. It is focused on Jesus Christ and his lordship. Lordship means simply this. If Christ is my lord, then no matter what his will is, and no matter what the subject of his will is, I am committed to obedience. To accept his lordship means to have pledged my loving, trusting, obedience to him, in all of life. Christian theology is, by definition, christocentric, Christ-centred. In his classic and powerful work, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian-martyr, railed against those who made being a Christian into an easy and costless matter. He wrote of what it means to be Christian, one who confesses Christ as Lord in these terms: "It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone . . . . when we are called to follow Christ we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person."²⁵ A century before, Søren Kierkegaard had made the same point. Fiercely criticizing the state church system in Denmark, he argued that in removing all demand and danger in its preaching, it had ceased to be genuine Christianity at all. It was he wrote merely . . . playing Christianity to take away the danger . . . ²⁶ Kierkegaard observed that most of his fellow Danes not only claimed to be Christians but legally and officially were so, but few, perhaps none, were Christian in the radical, biblical sense of what that meant. That genuine sense meant a relationship to God, known best in Jesus Christ in which a person . . . unconditionally obeyed, unconditionally, blindly, as a soldier obeys the word of command, if possible with the involuntary precision with which the cavalry horse obeys the signal.²⁷

The radical teaching of Scripture, a teaching which can be lost in the midst of serious theological study and endeavour, and in the midst of the denominational prejudices of a sadly divided Christianity is this: anyone who confesses Christ’s lordship, no matter what his or her theology, is a Christian. A person may hold to what with good reason may be regarded as foolish or wrong understandings of anything from the nature of God, and the Trinity, to the incarnation and the resurrection. There is a sense in which that does not matter. If, somehow, despite his or her poor theology, the individual has come to confess Christ’s lordship, he or she is a Christian and therefore brother or sister to all who similarly confess Christ. It is easy for there to be misunderstanding here. There is no suggestion or implication that matters such as God’s nature, the Trinity, the incarnation, or the resurrection are unimportant. They are of very grave importance. But they are not, in the end, of the gravest importance. They are matters about which it is certainly worth much labour to gain a right understanding. Moreover, in the long history of the church, those who have had a seriously wrong understanding of such things often appear never to have found their way to a genuine confession of Christ’s lordship. It is therefore of very great importance to insure that theology is as accurate a setting forth of God’s self-revelation as possible. It is an endeavour worthy of life long attention to insure that one’s theology is as genuine and faithful to God’s revelation as possible, to have, as it were, one’s telescope well polished, aimed correctly and adjusted properly. But so long as in the end one gets to the point of a confession of Christ’s lordship, to the yoga of Jesus, that is what counts, and what is most important.

This emphasis on Christ’s lordship, and the insistence that it is the heart of Christian faith and the aim of all genuine theology has a radically ecumenical implication. If this the most ancient of the church’s confessions, Jesus is Lord is the beating heart of Christianity, if the point of all theology is to guide individuals to a confession of Christ’s lordship in their own lives, then whatever disagreements Christians may have with one another theologically are rendered of secondary importance.

Motivations for Doing Theology

Historically, the church early on recognized it had a twofold responsibility in terms of the beliefs which it held. The first concerned responsibility primarily for those within the church. the assembly of believers. The second had to do primarily, with those outside the church, the outside world, where Christian beliefs were not accepted. Although the desire to challenge unfaith, and false worldviews which under gird them, may seem the more urgent task, the first task has logical precedence and is the more fundamental. Christians can hardly do justice to their evangelistic and missionary calling if they do not first understand the content and meaning of the message they claim to have received and intend to tell to that world! That is what theology is about. Theology tries to understand and express clearly the message or revelation Christians have received. It is not therefore the job of theology proper to ask whether there ought to be an institutional church, or to defend belief in the deity of Christ or the resurrection, or to respond to any of the other myriad criticisms or questions which are directed toward Christians by either earnest inquirers or hostile sceptics. These are questions for apologetics, itself a very important and often neglected field of study. Christians do need to be able to give a carefully thought out reasoned case for why they believe as they do. But, strictly speaking, theology’s role is to set out Christian beliefs in an organized, or systematic fashion, not to defend those beliefs or justify them to those who are not Christians. Nevertheless, responsible theology does not approach its work without the most acute and constant awareness of those criticisms and questions which are agitating the minds of contemporaries and which consequently form part of the culture in which the theology is being done. Responsible theology will attempt to take with the greatest seriousness and sensitivity all such criticisms and questions. Responsible theology will keep always in mind these may be genuine barriers to real faith, and will endeavour to clear away such barriers, in a sense doing the spadework for apologetics.

The theological enterprise, then, has at least five motivations:²⁸

1) The Desire to Know God

More than anything else, and consciously or not, the human thirst for knowledge is ultimately a seeking after God. If, as Christians believe, God is the source of all truth and all knowledge, than in seeking knowledge in any field, one is, knowingly or not, seeking after its creator. In fact . . . every act of knowing implicitly contains the desire to know God. This desire defines human intellectual dynamism.²⁹ The theological enterprise, which deals both directly and consciously with the study of God, is at its best, a desire to know God. Surely every genuinely Christian theologian has found that this is the primary reason for his or her intense devotion of years of study.

2) The Struggle Against False Theology

If right theology leads to a confession of Christ’s lordship, then theology which is inadequate, and not faithful to the revelation from God, is a most dangerous thing for it can lead people away from making such a confession. It becomes necessary therefore to distinguish between false and true teaching, to compare and reflect, and the more subtle and refined the errors are, the more intense the work of theology becomes. Repeatedly in the church’s history it has been when heretical groups arose that the church was forced to define, as never before, precisely what the revelation meant. For example, one of the motivations for early Christians to set forth which books were inspired, and therefore belonged in the canon of Scripture, and which were not, was the publication by Marcion of his own version of Scripture, which rejected what we now call the Hebrew Scriptures or Old/First Testament entirely, and would have left Christians only with an abridged version of Luke and some of Paul’s letters. The Definition of Chalcedon, made by the Council of the same name in 451, was a precise explanation of the divine and human natures of Jesus, and was the result of a long struggle which may be traced at least as far as Arius (250–336) who had taught that Jesus was a created being, the greatest of all God’s creatures, but a creature none the less, and not the eternal God by nature.

3) The Social Context and the Apologetic Need

If there is the internal need for theology—to avoid theology which leads away from a confession of the lordship of God, best known to us in Jesus—there is also an external need for theology. If it is important that believers understand, it is also important that unbelievers be convinced.³⁰ John Leith points out in his Basic Christian Doctrine that the social context in which we live requires that we do theology.³¹ We live as part of a larger world, which calls on us not only to articulate our faith but to give a reason for it.³² In our secular and pluralistic society, the one thing which is anathema is the suggestion that all worldviews are not equally valid or true.³³ For persons living in such a society, it becomes crucially important for Christians not only to know what they believe but also (though this falls to the discipline of apologetics) why they believe it.³⁴ If Christians are to present their faith to the world, they must be able to do so intelligently and in a manner which makes that worldview comprehensible.

This of course, is no new responsibility. It has always been urgent for Christians to present Christian doctrine in a way which society could not only understand, but in a way which commended those affirmations to that society. Throughout the history of the church, this has been the case. Augustine’s City of God was a presentation of the faith suitable for a society in collapse, where many voices accused Christianity of weakening and contributing to the fall of the Roman Empire. Aquinas’ Summa was appropriate for a society where thinking people were engaged with deep questions of philosophy and the rediscovery of Aristotle. How could Christian thought be reconciled with the great truths being freshly rediscovered in the ancients? While apologetics (from the Greek word a0pologi/a) is a separate discipline from systematic theology, concerned with giving reasons for faith and responding to criticisms of Christian belief, systematic theology does have an apologetic responsibility. Responsible theology is not done in a safe, antiseptic setting which ignores the questions and criticisms of non-Christians, as if such matters were of no concern to it. It would certainly be easier and less messy to do theology this way, undisturbed by such matters, but Christians claim to worship a God who entered into the messiness of human existence, with the express purpose of drawing us to himself. Christian theology can hardly ignore that example. If the point of theology is to draw people to a confession of Christ’s lordship, it must, of necessity both know and address the questions, issues and barriers people have which keep them from that confession. John Leith reminds us that:

Reinhold Niebuhr insisted that Christian theology must be apologetic and that the apologetic task was twofold. First, Christian apologetics exposes the alien faiths by which people live and makes explicit what is often implicit in the lives of people. Theology seeks to uncover the fact that all people live by faith which has consequences not only in their personal lives but in political, economic, and social life as well. The task of Christian theology, however, goes beyond the exposure of alien faiths to the positive task of showing how Christian faith makes sense of human life and experience.³⁵

In other words, responsible theology will demonstrate that everyone has a world view, which to one degree or another is based on faith of some sort. Even, to take a stereotypical example, the scientist who claims to have no faith lives by the faith that the universe operates according to certain rules or patterns which do not normally alter. If the Christian explanation of the reality we experience, then, is the most sensible, comprehensive, explanation available, that in and of itself commends Christian beliefs to non-Christians, and in turn can lead to genuine faith.

No one should imagine however, that apologetics, by itself, can lead anyone to a confession of Christ’s lordship. Its role is to clear away intellectual barriers, and open one to the inward convincing and convicting of God’s Spirit, to make possible an encounter with the living God.

4) Catechetical Instruction and Continuing Education:Learning the Steps of the Great Dance

Another motivation for doing theology has been the need to instruct people, especially those preparing for admission to the Church, in the beliefs of Christianity. Of course, such instruction should never become merely the learning of doctrines. It should always aim to make the student better able to understand, present and defend Christian beliefs, and most important, in so doing, to help the student move further along the path, the yoga of following Jesus.

Among those traditions which practice infant baptism, followed at a prescribed age by confirmation classes and the rite of confirmation, it becomes easy to assume that knowing certain doctrines, perhaps evidenced by the ability to memorize answers from a catechism, or church confession, is faith, and that anyone who has such knowledge is a Christian. Even among those in the believers’ church tradition, such instruction, taking the form of what is commonly termed the pastor’s class or baptism class can lead to the impression that the knowledge gained from the classroom instruction is itself faith, and constitutes the successful graduate a follower of Christ. When done properly however, such catechetical instruction, and subsequent life long continuing Christian education, can accomplish what it should be intended to accomplish—equipping the students better to live out genuine faith, helping them to better know the steps in the great dance.³⁶

5) A Comprehensive World View

Wherever men and women have thought deeply about life and its meaning they have wanted to bring as many of the strands and pieces as possible together in some sort of whole which made sense, an effort at the unification of all knowledge. This was a not insignificant factor in the development, during the middle ages, of universities, with the emphasis falling on the first syllable of the word—uni or one. Since God was believed to be the source of all truth and knowledge, only if due recognition was given to this fact, could the grand vision of a unity of all knowledge possibly take place. Theology was the hub of the wheel of knowledge into which the spokes of all the other disciplines fit. It is still the Christian conviction today that only when the centre or hub is correct is their any hope of constructing an accurate worldview. To leave God, the first concern and priority of life according to the Scriptures, and the subject of theological study, completely out of a worldview is a perfect example of what it means to be secular, and dooms any such worldview to failure from the outset. Lacking a centre, or hub, it can not possibly hold together.

It was precisely because of this conviction that the first universities regarded theology as the Queen of the Sciences. All the other disciplines revolved around and led to theology as the hub which held the whole together. Thomas Aquinas in fact argued not only that theology was a science³⁷ but that it was more valuable than the other sciences.³⁸ That value stemmed from two facts. First, theology provided greater certainty than the other sciences because it was based on divine knowledge while the other sciences deriving their conclusions from human reason could be misled.³⁹ Second, theology as a subject was of greater worth, because it leads to heights the reason cannot climb whereas the other kinds of science were concerned only with things set under reason.⁴⁰

Sadly, the only remnant, and it largely unknown, of this understanding of theology as the hub of knowledge, is found in the custom that official university regalia still regularly assigns a gold coloured tassel—the colour for the sciences—to caps of theology graduates. Despite this, the mad endeavour to have a worldview which lacks a centre is often observed in contemporary academia. Many western universities actually pride themselves on being secular; that is, leaving out the centre. They thereby render themselves unworthy of the name university. They are in fact multiversities with no unity-making hub. Individual faculty members, if they still believe there is such a thing as truth to begin with, seek after truth in their own fields, with no notion of any unifying whole, or centre. Similarly western society has many individuals who hold to a variety of mutually contradictory opinions and a vast array of unrelated facts with no clear centre around which to arrange those facts or against which to test those opinions. Not a few would deny that any such centre even exists. Yet the Christian conviction is that there is such a centre, that that centre is God, the god known best to us in Jesus Christ, and, moreover, that arranging the facts around that centre makes more sense of the universe than any other approach.

1. John H. Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition: A Way of Being the Christian Community, rev. ed., (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), 91.

2. Ibid.

3. C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (Glasgow: Fount, 1978), 113, 114.

4. Ronald Blythe, Word from Wormingford: A Parish Year (London: Penguin, 1998), 214.

5. In my own experience the first occasion I faced this unspoken assumption as an evangelical was in a seminary course in systematic theology. The class was considering, in great detail, the doctrine of the Trinity, and following all the minute details and concepts being set out was no easy task. It eventually occurred to me that if I as a seminary student found this difficult, what about those ordinary believers in the pews who did not have the benefit of a theological education? For one raised in an evangelical tradition which often confused faith and doctrine, this presented an agonizing dilemma. If one did not have all one’s doctrine right, one was eternally doomed, yet it now seemed that it would take years of theological study to have any chance of accomplishing such doctrinal correctness and completeness. I recall thinking there was something very wrong here, and indeed there was. I had made a very common mistake or assumption as to what theology is supposed to be about and had made the theology itself sacred. But theology itself is not sacred. What, or rather, whom, we study and try to understand is, but not the studying and trying to understand itself.

6. An excellent example of this conclusion being quite explicitly drawn is seen in the Creed of Athanasius, which in many of the great liturgical traditions is recited regularly during the year. The Creed begins by informing the reader Whosoever would be saved; needeth before all things to hold fast the Catholic Faith. Which faith except a man keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish eternally. The Creed then proceeds to set forth what the catholic faith is, and explains, at length, and with somewhat technical language, among other things, the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation. Logically, one concludes that anyone who fails to comprehend, understand and affirm these doctrines which constitute the catholic faith, will perish eternally. Yet, what a horrible and impossible burden this imposes! What if one gets something critical wrong, perhaps failing to comprehend the meaning of the creed and falling into the error of confusing the persons or dividing the substance of the Trinity? And how indeed does one determine what is critical and what is not?

7. James 2.19.

8. John Leith, Basic Christian Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 13.

9. Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason: The Christian Doctrine of Faith and Knowledge, trans. Olive Wyon (1946; reprint, Wake Forest, N.C.: Chanticleer Publishing Company, Inc., n.d.), 10.

10. Emil Brunner, Truth as Encounter, trans. Amandus W. Loos, David Cairns, T.H.L. Parker, Enlgd. ed. of The Divine-Human Encounter (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), 167.

11. Ibid., 70, 71.

12. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: Volume I The Doctrine of the Word of God (Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics), Second Half-Volume (eds. G.W. Bromiley, F. F. Torrance, trans. G. T. Thomson, Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1970), 303–307.

13. Brunner, Revelation and Reason, 420.

14. Ibid.

15. J. Edward Humphrey, Emil Brunner, Makers of the Modern Theological Mind Series (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1976), 127.

16. Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics I, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1950; reprint, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980), 106, 107.

17. Gustvao Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation rev. ed. trans., ed. Sr. Caridad Inda, John Eagleson (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1988), 6.

18. Brunner, Truth as Encounter, 140.

19. Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith and the Consummation: Dogmatics III, trans. David Cairns, T. H. L. Parker (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 164.

20. Brunner, Revelation and Reason, 156.

21. Ibid.

22. Alister E. McGrath, Christian Spirituality: An Introduction, reprint (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 28.

23. Brunner, Revelation and Reason, 39.

24. Matthew 5.1 In the Scriptures, there is a distinction between spiritual and material poverty. Spiritual poverty is the state or condition of the person who recognizing his or her own spiritual bankruptcy, is completely open to God’s will, who acknowledges God’s lordship in his or her life. This is the condition which Jesus described as blessed. On the other hand, material poverty or physical want is a state which is contrary to God’s ultimate will for humanity, although it must also be said that Scripture sees that condition as being less spiritually dangerous than having great wealth, for the person with great wealth is tempted to depend and trust on his or her wealth, whereas for the poor person no such temptation exists. In no way however does this mean that Scripture approves of, condones or romanticizes material poverty or misery. Repeatedly the prophets, notably Amos, condemned those whose greed and injustice makes others poor.

25. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, rev. ed., trans. R. H. Fuller, Irmgard Booth (London: SCM Press, 1959; reprint, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1963), 63.

26. Søren Kierkegaard, Attack Upon Christendom, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 8.

27. Ibid., 63.

28. I am indebted here, in part, to John Leith’s discussion in Basic Christian Doctrine.

29. Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 44.

30. Leith, Basic Christian Doctrine, 18.

31. Ibid., 16, 17.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., 8.

36. The image of the Great Dance refers to the genuine rhythm of the cosmos, attuned to and trustingly, lovingly, obedient to its creator. Only in that dance is there purpose, meaning, joy, and completion—there is no other place in which such may be found and there is no other dance. The concept of the Great Dance is pre-Christian, and, in the west, can almost certainly be first attributed to Plato. The Roman poet Lucian wrote of the dance of the heavenly bodies which came into existence at creation. In Scripture, Psalm 148 approximates the idea of the dance, without actually using the term, with its portrayal of the sun, moon, stars, animals, fire, hail, snow, frost, mountains, hills and trees, and all the peoples of earth joining in God’s praise. Christian writers, musicians and poets have repeatedly used the image of the dance. It is found, for example, in the old Cornish Christmastide hymn Tomorrow shall be my dancing day as well as in the more recent Lord of the Dance written by Sydney Carter and Lord, teach me to dance written by Graham Kendrick and Steve Thompson. T. S. Eliot used the image in his 1935 poem Burnt Norton. There the reference may have been influenced by eastern thought—the concept of the dance of creation appears prominently in Hinduism. Eugene Warren used the image in his Christographia poems, and it is employed as well by Tom Howard of St. John’s College in Boston, who used the image in the title of his excellent book, Chance or the Dance? A Critique of Modern Secularism (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1969). C. S. Lewis painted a vivid picture of the dance at the very end of Perelandra, the second volume of his science fiction trilogy. His description, while it is only a few hundred words, is extremely moving. The Cambridge physical biochemist and theologian, A. R. Peacocke refers to the idea of the dance in the 1978 Brampton Lectures which were published as Creation and the World of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).

37. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. (trans. Thomas Gilby, O.P., Summa Theologiae [London: Blackfriars, 1964]) Part 1, Question 4, Article 4.

38. Ibid., Part 1, Question 4, Article 5.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

2

Prolegomena II: Revelation as the Basis of Christian Theology and the Issue of Authority

Perhaps more important now even than in the sixteenth century when Christianity itself suffered division on the issue, is the question of authority, for a secular society logically both stems from and results in individuals who recognize no final authority except themselves. For the Christian theologian then this issue is foundational to all others. The standard query from non-Christians to Christians is why should I accept what you say? This is in fact a question about authority, and unless and until the questioner is convinced that there is good reason to accept what is being said, that there is in fact authority for it, every further question will return to the first one. As Douglas John Hall notes, the question, silent or spoken, comes from both within and without the Christian fold:

Whenever Christians make statements about the biblical God . . . . they can expect to elicit the question, How do you know? When Christian preachers announce the reality of God’s love, God’s willingness to forgive, the judgment of God against social evils, the meaningfulness of the historical process, and so on, they must assume today that there are people in every pew who are asking them, silently but insistently, How do you know . . . . And the one who is in the pulpit is also asking this question, in all probability-perhaps without admitting it.¹

Christian theology, based entirely on the claim that there has been an authoritative revelation upon which it stands, must likewise be clear from the outset about that revelation from which its authority to speak derives.

Christian theology acknowledges that it is impossible for humans to have a knowledge of God which is complete and perfect in every way. Such would be the equivalent of comprehending God, which, by definition is impossible for finite humanity. It has been, moreover, the common experience of God’s people that such an exhaustive comprehension is beyond our grasp. Thus the psalmist was moved to write, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too lofty for me to attain.² However, it is possible for humans to obtain a knowledge of God that is sufficient and adequate for the realizing of God’s purposes in human lives, including the purpose of returning individuals to their place in the great cosmic dance. This is possible because God chooses to reveal enough of himself to us to make this possible. In other words, God does not hide from us. God wills to be known by us.

The Christian faith is based on this claim and conviction—that God has revealed himself, made something of himself known, to humanity. That revelation is the sole basis for all Christian theology and all the doctrines that theology sets forth. Christian theology claims to be valid and true, only insofar as it parallels that revelation and its authority is derived solely from that revelation. Never can Christian theology address the world by saying our best thinkers have come to such and so a conclusion about God or humanity or anything else. Christian theology’s sole claim to the attention of humanity is the same one which the ancient Hebrew prophets had, that we say Thus says the Lord.

The Nature of Revelation

Revelation means something or someone, in this instance God, is revealed, or made known. The Christian conviction is that God has deliberately acted to make something of himself known. That revelation has a number of characteristics which elaborate what Christians mean by the term revelation³

1. Revelation means Personal Disclosure of God, by God.⁴ Revelation certainly includes information about God, but it is not simply or merely information. It is always God making himself known, personal encounter or engagement with God.

2. Revelation is apprehended by repentance and faith and results in a changed life.⁵ Søren Kierkegaard argued that truth, in the biblical sense was subjective. Kierkegaard was no ethical relativist. He was not denying the existence of moral absolutes. Rather, he meant that truth in the biblical sense always changed, or affected the one who heard it. It was not merely a fact out there, a fact such as one might list in a catalogue or encyclopedia of other similar facts. In a similar way, revelation is subjective. It changes the one