Theology - 'the knowledge and study of God' - by-passes many Christians. Our modern 'post-Christian' world gets close to despising it - often seen as an arcane topic best left to priests and seminarians. But can we live without it?
All over the Christian world, believers pour over the text of Scripture. Literally millions of books and periodicals seek to explain and expound a version of Biblical interpretation. Sound scholarship through to gross, often uninformed, misuse of the text has spawned a vast supermarket of Christian belief. Thousands of 'church denominations' have formed - from the one billion strong Roman Church to tiny dozen-strong independent congregations. And each has its own theology!
But can we do without theology? All too often Christians cry, 'All we need is Jesus'. But why? Doesn't it take a 'knowledge of God' to figure the answer to that very question? Without theology we wouldn't even know we needed Jesus, needed salvation. And saved from - and for - what? Nor could we be sure why our own personal religion is Christian and not Buddhist or animism. Or why an individual is Roman Catholic and not from one of the myriad Protestant churches.
Without theology we are blind to the divine character - is He remote? pure? loving? wrathful? interested in humanity? We couldn't, without a knowledge of God, fathom why humans suffer so desperately, or explain evil.. And how can we discern 'false teaching' without a grounding in divinely revealed knowledge? Clearly, theology is needed - whether a person is Hindu or Christian or Buddhist.
Jews and Christians have delved deeply into the Scriptures for centuries. It's a life-time profession for some! The New Testament especially is chock-a-block with 'theology' - and it's there for a purpose.
For there is - despite claims to the contrary - only one way to God. Theology is how we may discern that way. Anything that seriously distorts God's revelation to us through the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures is 'false teaching'. Those Scriptures may be partially obscured by the mists of time and mistranslation etc - but the broad slopes of sound doctrine are clearly visible.
Tunnel Vision
It's vital we get a balance. A major failing of amateur theologians is 'tunnel vision'. A text seems to leap out at them, and that becomes an obsession. Every aspect of Scripture is bent to support the 'new truth'. Writes one author:
There exists not in the theological investigations of man's unaided intellect, an illusion of more frequent recurrence than that which attributes to his erring faculties an inborn illumination guiding them unto truth through discussions however intricate, or metaphysical abstractions however transcendent.
James Kennedy: Mosaic Record of Creation, page 1
Hence the immense variety of interpretations of the Scriptures!
As commented the apostle Paul on a situation known to him:
: "...remain at Ephesus that you may teach certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith; whereas the purpose of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and from sincere faith.. Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions" (I Timothy 1:3-7)
Not much change, then, in two millennia! It's a salutary warning to all who would be 'teachers of theology'.
An example is the 'calendar' - a centuries-old theological chestnut - on which many Christians depend to observe the Biblical holy days (Lord's Supper, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost etc). Always claiming Biblical authority for each particular view, a dozen conflicting calendar formats are foisted on any who will, with itching ears, be willing to listen. (Any teaching, no matter how weird, will gain a following!) . A dozen other examples could be cited.
Not content with the new understanding, all too often a doctrine is actively and aggressively promoted as 'essential for salvation'. A spiritual ghetto is erected around the adherents of the new truth, excluding all who are 'blind' to it, and condemning them to fiery destruction. So developed the medieval Inquisition! Religious - 'Christian' - wars often reflected such doctrinal obsessions.
Distortions
There are, of course, solid and foundational teachings that are indeed important. Sin, for example - a word now unuttered in government circles and rarely in the Church. Or the essential role in our salvation of Jesus. Or the Fatherhood of God, recently disputed by a leading Anglican bishop - a feminist teaching drawn from spiritism. Or the need for personal repentance and baptism. Or willing submission - obedience - to the divine Law.
Yes - we do need theology. Jesus himself said: "The truth will make you free".
Yet theologians distort the clear Bible teaching, and substitute a garbage bin full of destructive pre-Christian nonsense. Bad theology, shackles humanity. It clouds the divine plan for mankind - as revealed through the Bible holy days. A variety of 'holy' days - Christmas, Easter etc - have been substituted for the Bible festivals.
Sunday replaces the Biblical Sabbath - the seventh day of the week instituted for all mankind by the Creator from creation, and the only weekly day observed by the apostles and the first Christians. The Christian's covenant relationship with our Creator is renewed Sabbath by Sabbath - not on Sundays. Bad theology exalts a human being - male or female - to lofty and ungodly heights of spiritual authority, entangling followers in a web of deceit.
A heavy yoke of bondage hangs around the necks of believers who place themselves under a hierarchical denominational church structure. Bad theology is, too, a weighty mill-stone around the neck of those who fear that death holds torment, and has led to untold misery and even suicide. The unbiblical notion of an 'immortal soul' distorts the true nature of man and leads to such spiritually poisonous pagan debris as re-incarnation, immediate entrance to 'heaven' upon death - for 'the good' - and a 'fiery hell' for the wicked. It also encourages the false concept that the living can communicate with the 'departed spirits of the dead' and even be helped by them - in reality concourse with foul deceptive demons which are the source of much false teaching (I Timothy 4:1-3).
The Source
You wonder, then, why there is such religious diversity? No faith is free from it. The Roman Church is riven by myriad factions, as are Protestant denominations - though both share many of the same destructive heresies listed earlier! (And, indeed, share many of the same erroneous teachings as Eastern faiths.) Nor is the Muslim faith a united theological force, encompassing as it does a variety of deadly interpretations. Hinduism and Buddhism , too, have their factions.
Yet there can be but one God - Creator, Sovereign, Lord of all, unchanging in His fundamental nature.
Authentic study must inevitably lead to a unified understanding of who He is, His nature, His character. He is always the same - unchanging in fundamentals and in His overall purpose for His creation. All else is the product of human reasoning, all too often focused by Satanic forces, and a distorted understanding of God's nature and being.
However, '...without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him' (Hebrews 11:6).
We can, in other words, come to a right understanding of God - if we are truly serious in our desire to know Him.
To comment on this article or request more information, please contact James McBride by e-mail at the comment form below.
For PDF or mailed copy, see CGOM. Excerpt from New Horizons Volume 6 No. 6, November/December 2002. Edited by James McBride of the Churches of God, United Kingdom.
Go to Literature Index Page
This URL is www.abcog.org/nh/theology.htm