Theology as Discipleship

Keith L. Johnson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780830880171
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

First Things' Year in BooksFor many people, the word "theology" evokes something dry, academic, irrelevant and disconnected from the everyday concerns of life. We surely would not say that about God, so why is our talk about God any different?In this engaging and accessible introduction, Keith Johnson takes a fresh look at theology. He presents the discipline of theology as one of the ways we participate in the life of the triune God. Without suggesting it should be removed from the academy, Johnson argues that theology has to be integrally connected to the traditions and practices of the church. If academic theology is to be genuinely theological, then it has to be carried out in obedience to Jesus Christ and in service to the church.Unlike other introductions, Theology as Discipleship avoids the usual overview of doctrines according to the creed, which traditionally move from the Trinity to eschatology. Johnson instead explains the content of theology by describing the Christian life—being in Christ, hearing God's Word, sharing the mind of Christ. Theology not only leads to discipleship, but is itself a way of following after Christ in faith.

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RECOVERING THEOLOGY

The word theology comes from the Greek terms logos, often translated as “reason” or “word,” and theos, which means “God.” We practice theology whenever we think or speak about God. We are doing theology when we pray, worship, read Scripture, teach others about the faith and make decisions about how to live in a right relationship to God. In this sense, every Christian practices theology every day.

To illustrate, consider the claim “God is good.” We can imagine using this claim in a wide variety of contexts. It could be turned into a declaration and applied to God during prayer or worship as a form of praise. We might run across it while reading Scripture and use it to inform our understanding of God’s being and character. It could be offered as an explanation for why God acted in a particular way in the past, or it might be employed as an argument for why we should act in a certain way in the present. The list of possible uses could go on. Every one of these uses requires that we practice theology. After all, who is this “God” we are talking about? The word God does not sit as an empty concept in our minds. It has a meaning that has been acquired over the course of our lives, some of it by way of our personal experience with God and some through the instruction of others. This meaning is working in the background whenever we say the word God. The same thing is happening with our use of “good.” We use this word all the time, such as when we say, “The weather is good,” or “He is a good person.” This everyday usage forms the background of our use of this word to describe God. This makes things complicated. We might say, “Good dog!” to our puppy, and then say “God is good” a few minutes later. Certainly, we do not mean exactly the same thing by the word good in both sentences. What is the difference between our use of the word good when we apply it to God as opposed to our puppy? The task of answering this question—even implicitly and instinctively—requires the practice of theology.

This illustration shows, however, that even if a Christian has never engaged in formal theological study, he or she already operates with a functional theology at every moment of his or her life. Our functional theology consists of our default assumptions about who God is, what God is like and how God relates to us.1 These assumptions work in the background of all our thinking and speaking about God. They affect every claim we make about God because we filter every word we apply to God through them. So, when we read in the Psalms that “God is good” (Ps 73:1), our functional theology determines how we understand the meaning of the words in this sentence. In fact, we have never read or interpreted any word of Scripture apart from this kind of preunderstanding. Such is the case for every other claim we have heard or said about God. Theology has been a part of our lives at every moment.

The problem is that our functional theology can be wrong. God is good, but his goodness is not the same as that of the weather, a person or a puppy. Figuring out the nature of the similarities and differences between God’s goodness and these creaturely examples of goodness can be difficult. In our everyday life, for instance, we might think that a good person would not permit innocent people to suffer if he could prevent it. On this basis, we might say that, because God is good, he also would never allow the innocent to suffer unjustly. Yet this is precisely what God does: he sometimes permits the innocent to suffer, as he did in the case of Jesus Christ and believers in the early church (2 Thess 1:4-5). It can be challenging to figure out why we say “God is good” even though he willingly permits suffering, while a human who does the same thing normally would not be considered good. This challenge is so great, in fact, that sometimes people draw incorrect conclusions about God based on their assumptions about what he must be like: “A good God would never allow the innocent to suffer.” Multiply this potential for error by every single word we use for God, and it becomes possible, if not likely, that we will apply words to God incorrectly by drawing mistaken conclusions based on our faulty assumptions of what God must be like. As a result, we often end up with an incorrect picture of God and say untrue things about him.

Our potential for error explains why we need the kind of formal theological instruction that makes up the discipline of theology. The discipline of theology is the name for the organized practice of theological reasoning that directs our thoughts and speech about God so that they correspond to who God is and what God is like. This discipline came into existence in response to the fact that our functional theology does not always match the reality of God. Its goal is to shape our ideas and words about God so that that our functional theology corresponds to the truth about his divine being and character. As a discipline, theology developed over the centuries as prominent thinkers and leaders in the church responded to theological problems and questions by offering guidelines for how to speak and think about God correctly. These guidelines were drawn from the church’s reading of Scripture and took form in the church’s creeds, which serve as summary statements of right thinking and speaking about core matters of the Christian faith. The church considers thinking and speech about God to be orthodox when it corresponds to this creedal tradition and heretical when it does not.

In the present, the discipline of theology takes place as theologians write books, articles and biblical commentaries offering insights about how to think and speak about God correctly. They teach others by instructing them about errors the church has fallen into in the past so that we do not repeat them in the present. They also offer practical guidance for addressing the challenging questions Christians face today, such as those prompted by the existence of suffering, cultural changes brought about by new technology and the complicated interaction between adherents of different religions that shapes the modern world.

Concerns with Theology

Given its noble purpose, its prominent place in church history and the real contributions it makes to the church’s contemporary life, one would think that the discipline of theology has a positive reputation among Christians—but it does not. Every Christian has a functional theology, but not every Christian has a positive view of the discipline of theology. In fact, many smart and faithful Christians cringe when they hear the word theology due to the negative connotations the discipline carries. Some even reject the very idea of theology and insist that they can live faithfully without it simply by trusting God and believing the words of Scripture. There are at least three reasons why this negative view of theology has developed over time.

First, many Christians believe that the formal study of theology distracts us from the most important activities of the Christian life. Every Christian wants to think and speak about God correctly. But does the formal and organized study of theology help or hinder us in doing so? This is a matter of debate. Even though much sincere effort has been put into the discipline of theology over the centuries, many Christians believe it brings few benefits and many dangers for the church as a whole. Most of us know people who live faithful lives even though they have never formally studied theology; and at the same time, many of us also know or have heard about people who know a lot of theology but live hypocritically or without faith. Such examples prompt the warnings many students receive about theology professors who lead students astray or students who have lost their faith as a result of advanced theological study.

Behind many of these warnings is the worry that the discipline of theology unnecessarily complicates the faith by making it more complex and confusing than it needs to be. Paul warned that we should “avoid stupid controversies” about doctrinal matters because they are “unprofitable and worthless” (Tit 3:9). Instead of spending time and energy debating complex details, shouldn’t we focus on the central and most clearly understood commandments of the Christian life, such as the task of loving God and neighbor (Lk 10:27)? After all, if one can live faithfully without theological study—and if such study sometimes leads believers down the wrong path by unnecessarily complicating the faith—then it makes sense to invest our time and resources elsewhere. Doesn’t the discipline of theology distract us from the real work of the church, such as praying, worshiping, sharing the gospel and serving others?

Second, many Christians believe the study of theology inhibits rather than helps our discipleship to Jesus. One way it does so is by undermining our confidence in the content of the Christian faith. Because the process of engaging new material inevitably challenges long-held assumptions, exposes faulty patterns of thinking and prompts new and difficult questions, beginning students of theology often find themselves intellectually shaken by their study. Even though their new theological insights may help students begin to think and speak about God better than they could before, the process also often leaves them feeling ignorant. “How could I have been a Christian my whole life and not have known any of this before?” Instead of becoming stronger in the faith and better equipped to work and serve within the church, the new theologian often is embarrassed by all that he or she does not know and paralyzed by the prospect of looking foolish when he or she speaks. Theology in this case operates more like law than grace, and the theologian retreats from doing anything at all lest his or her ignorance be displayed for all to see. The result, as Helmut Thielicke puts it, is that a “lively young Christian is horribly squeezed to death in the formal armor of abstract ideas.”2 Theological study that should be freeing and enriching instead becomes restrictive and debilitating.

The mirror image of this problem is that theological study sometimes leaves people overconfident in their abilities. At some point, nearly everyone has been in a Bible study or church meeting with someone who not only thinks he or she has all the right answers but who also seems intent on showing that everyone else’s answers are wrong. Paul warns about these tendencies when he says that “knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor 8:1). Some people, he tells Timothy, have “a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words,” which causes “envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling” within the church (1 Tim 6:4-5). They seem to enjoy arguing with their fellow Christians about doctrinal matters, because doing so gives them a sense of purpose and identity. This identity often involves a sense of entitlement and elitism, as if their learning places them above the unenlightened masses who make up the large part of the church. Worse still, theologians sometimes use their skills to manipulate the content of the faith so that it conforms to their own ideas and goals. Paul talks about this tendency when he said that some people’s “itching ears” lead them “to accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.” Their theological learning leaves them worse off than before, because it enables them to “turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths” they have devised for themselves (2 Tim 4:3-4).

Third, many people think the formal study of theology produces unnecessary divisions in the church. Even though reading the texts of the great theologians can bring great benefits, it also can produce a sense of disillusionment. Many of the theologians widely considered to be among the best thinkers in church history starkly disagree with one another about core matters of doctrine. Not all of them can be right, and in fact, many of them think the others are gravely wrong. Often, these great theologians have entire schools of thought centered around their views which stand in opposition to other schools of thought based on the work of other theologians. The existence of these divergent schools of thought puts us in a situation where the label “Christian” is not enough. We also have to figure out which kind of Christian we are—whether it is Thomist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Arminian, or so on. While such labels can help us recognize important differences between various approaches to theology, they also can divide Christians from one another and hurt the church’s witness.

Paul makes this point when he criticizes the Corinthians for engaging in “jealousy and quarreling” between those who held to the teachings of Apollos and those who identified with Paul himself. Instead of starting with their immature “human inclinations,” Paul says, the Corinthians should view all their various teachers as “God’s servants, working together” for a “common purpose” (1 Cor 3:2-9). Paul’s point is clear: our theological distinctions are not irrelevant, but even so, they must be relativized by our common bond in Christ and commitment to the church’s mission. Any theological distinction that unnecessarily causes us to lose sight of this unity and purpose undermines the integrity of the church and the gospel it proclaims. The problem, as many Christians point out, is that Paul’s instructions have rarely been followed by the church’s theologians. In fact, more often than not, theological debates proceed just like contemporary political debates, with each side defending its views at all costs while assuming that their opponents are not only wrong but also morally and intellectual deficient in some way. This leads to a type of theological partisanship, where adherents of a certain view repeat their party line without charitably considering other arguments or striving for reconciliation with their opponents. In this case, the goal of theological study becomes less about knowing God or enriching the church than about building up one’s side and bringing down one’s enemies.

Such activities prompt some Christians to conclude that the study of theology, while noble in and of itself, almost inevitably become a means by which the theologian serves his or her own interests. James makes this point when he says that conflicts and disputes often stem from our desire of things we want but do not have (Jas 4:1-2). Just like the disciples argued among themselves about “which one of them was the greatest” (Lk 9:46), Christians often seek a position of authority over their fellow Christians. Theology often is employed as a tool to achieve this goal. If a theologian can prove that his or her opponents are wrong about important matters of doctrine, then he or she can justify having a position of influence and power over them. Paul encountered this problem when he was challenged by teachers in Philippi who worked against him out of “envy and rivalry” in line with their own “selfish ambition” (Phil 1:15-17). Then as today, such an approach hurts the church, because as James notes, “where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wicked­ness of every kind” (Jas 3:16).

These are the sorts of consequences that prompt faithful Christians to have a negative view of theology. If theological learning can and often does produce unnecessary and sinful divisions in the church—and if these divisions are often about the desire of some to gain positions of power and influence over others for their own benefit—then does the discipline of theology truly benefit the church?

What Went Wrong?

One explanation for why and how the formal practice of theology became suspect in the eyes of many Christians involves the shifting occupations of theologians.3 For much of Christian history, theology was practiced almost exclusively from within the church. Most early theologians, for example, were bishops and priests responsible for leading the church in its worship, teaching and ministry. Their formal theological study often stemmed from their desire to help their congregants avoid errors, understand Scripture and grow in their devotion to God. Even when they argued against other theologians, they did so not for themselves but for the sake of the church’s members. For example, the theological orations of Gregory Nazianzus against the Eunomian heresy were delivered as sermons to help his congregation “avoid being swept way” by this false teaching.4 Likewise, Cyril of Alexandria composed public letters to Nestorius not only to challenge Nestorius’s questionable claims about Jesus but also to inform other church leaders about his errors so they could instruct their congregations about Christological matters.5 In these sorts of ways, the bishops and priests used the discipline of theology to further their pastoral aims and to promote the doctrinal integrity of the church as a whole.

The same could be said of the theologians who lived and worked from within the monasteries. Although they were never totally separated from the life and work of the institutional church, the distinct rhythms of the monastic life often led these monks to bring their theological insights together with spiritual practices related to purification of the mind and body. Their isolation also gave them the time to think carefully about difficult theological topics such as God’s triune being or the nature of God’s relationship to created life. This work supplemented the theology of the bishops and priests in important ways. Augustine’s conversion stands as a case in point. Even though he greatly admired his bishop Ambrose, Augustine recalls that Ambrose did not know about Augustine’s “spiritual turmoil” because he was too busy meeting the needs of his congregation. “The crowds of people who came to him on business impeded me,” he recalls, “allowing me little opportunity either to talk or to listen to him.”6 A turning point came when Augustine read The Life of Antony, a book describing the famous monk’s spiritual life and practices. Antony’s example challenged Augustine’s view of the world and prompted a line of thinking that eventually led to his conversion.7 This influence lingered even after Augustine became a bishop, as the monastic style of theology and the example of monks like Antony continued to shape his writings and ministry.

A common factor uniting the work of the bishops, priests and monks was their assumption that theological study should be integrally related to a life of discipleship. Persons who wanted to study theology needed to “purify themselves” in the pattern of Christ (1 Jn 3:3). This meant that formal theological study was not something that just anyone could do. For instance, Gregory Nazianzus argues that theology should be pursued only by “those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing, purification of body and soul.”8 If the mind and body are integrally related to one another, then the theological formation of the mind must go hand in hand with acts of bodily obedience in the pattern of...