What Good is Theology?
(The following opinion piece owes its existence to basic online theology courses, called The Theology Program, published by Biblical Studies Press which the writer subjected himself to. The information and ideas that are criticized are all from those courses.)
What good is theology?
Theology is the science of studying God. It makes a systematic collection and interpretation of information (or what sometimes is found later to be mis-information) from the Bible and also from other sources like the writings of other ancient writers, oral and written traditional beliefs and history, archeology, anthropology and sciences of language origin and development, the definition of words and other disciplines.
Assumptions and deductions are made from all this research and a creed is established. Then comes the criticism. Other theologians, who are engaged in the same kind of pursuit, react to what has been deduced and they often differ on interpretation of information or definition of words or reliability of sources. These theologians deduce and assume and publish their creed.
How many theologies and how many creeds are there? How many can there be? Can they differ a lot or only differ slightly? I think my reader knows the answers to these questions. I also think my reader agrees with all of what I have written up to here.
What else do we know about theology?
First, it has been engaged in the evaluation and substantiation of the various versions and translations of the Bible that we have today. The need for the many versions springs from the different opinions that the proponents of the different theological systems hold. This is a distraction in what is, admittedly, a needed industry. But it is only a small one that doesn’t have to bother us unless we let it.
The reason it is a needed industry is because there are, and have been, some real hurdles to overcome in order to put your favorite version of the English language Bible on your coffee table. Most of them have to do with the early copies of the books of the Bible that have been found. None of the original writings still exist; only copies of them do. When dealing with these copies there are several problems.
Many of the earliest copies of many New Testament books do not agree in places. Some in important ways; most, not important. Sloppy copying, not a desire to corrupt, produced most of these errors. And going to the earliest known copy of, say, the book of Romans is not necessarily helpful because that copy may have errors, but later copies made from another early copy, that has since been destroyed, may be correct.
Sometimes copyists changed words because they thought another word gave the more correct idea of what God was saying. Some paraphrased and so put in words that were not in any original. Some copyists left off copying at a certain place on the “page”, went for coffee, came back and started, carelessly, a little above where they quit so that there is a repeat of some of the words. Such things are easy to catch and earlier translators caught them but it casts doubt on the rest of the writing. If something is left out of one copy of Romans and appears in another, the question is raised: is it because God did not want it to be there or is it because the copyist left it out?
Then we have all the changes in grammar, spelling and the modernization of languages. Some scribes, in referring to a city by name used the name current to their time rather than what it was called when one of the patriarchs lived or fought or visited there. This makes one version of the Bible say an event happened in city “A” and another says it happened in city “B”. This looks like a contradiction, but actually city “A”s name was changed to “B” by the time of the translation.
Some differences are pernicious. For example in Matthew 6:13 “For thine is the kingdom, etc…” is added. No question. It was added to make the Bible fit with the theology of the copyist.
Sometimes copyists and ancient translators took two accounts of an event, like, say, in the gospels and changed them so they would agree better. In the versions that God inspired, he didn’t want everything that happened in the event to be told by both writers. He had one leave out things and tell other things. He had another tell the things the other left out. He had his reasons. Copyists brought the information together, thinking it would be helpful to have all the accounts agree, and changed the Bible with “good intentions”.
In the Greek world, Hebrew people were not speaking as much Hebrew as they once did so a new Old Testament was produced for them called the Septuagint. There were a lot of opportunities for changes to the original when they did that. Surprisingly there are few differences from the Hebrew version that had been in continuous use, mainly because there was a great unwillingness on the part of Jews to give opinion in matters of religion. The commentaries that form the basis of the Talmud erupted much later.
And then there is the canon. What books of the many that exist should be included between the front and back covers of the Bible? The council that officially recognized which books should be and which should not be in the Bible did it by agreeing almost unanimously that they “recognized the voice of the Shepherd” in certain books and not in others. This council was working with the traditional evaluations, too, of the earlier Christians who were being attacked by all sorts of evil false doctrines. They had to start deciding what they would allow as the Word of God and what they would not. The council made its decision and, as we know, it was a Roman Catholic council. It allowed certain books called the Apocrypha into its Bible, but even many modern Catholics don’t trust them. Over al,l the council, though Catholic, did a job that Protestants respect. Somebody said it is interesting as to whether there would have been a Reformation had the Catholics never adopted the doctrines concerning Mary, Papal infallibility, and purgatory.
The above is just a hint as to the problems involved in discerning what constitutes the Word of God. We needed and still need scholars to work through all these issues with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to help the church with this.
BUT, do we need all the other things that theologians do?
A question is asked: If you had a letter written by Peter telling some fact about Christ and you had a letter from Polycarp (he was a church leader from the generation following Peter) on the same subject and they differed, which one would you accept? In the end of the gospel of John it says that Christ did many things that were not written in the Bible. The books would fill the world. So Peter and Polycarp both tell one of them. Which do you think is more accurate? Easy, right? But then, what about other things that are told by leaders contemporary to Polycarp and the next generation that are not told by original apostles? There is a great body of this kind of information. Should it be included in the “Word of God” as extra-biblical traditional teaching that has the same weight as the Bible itself?
Those who believe in “sola ecclesia” believe it should. These think that the Bible is not enough and we need the teachings of traditional oral history, handed down from the early church “fathers”.
Evangelicals, believe “sola scriptura”; the scripture is the final and only infallible authority for the Christian, but they also think that some creeds, traditions, and confessions are not necessarily negative influences and should be considered.
Fundamentalists believe “solo scriptura” (note the “o” in stead of “a” on the end of solo) This is different. It means that they believe the Bible is the ONLY source and that creeds, confessions and traditions ARE negative influences and should be avoided.
What I have touched on here is only the tip of the berg. But it is the basic essence of the differences that exist and these differences are the products and raw materials of the theology industry.
Add in just a little more. There is, in the study of Hermeneutics, the consideration of “illumination”. This answers the question: “What light do we have on the verse under consideration?” Illumination is the subjective understanding of how a verse should be interpreted by an individual. It is granted by God as a means of teaching us what He means by different statements in the Bible. Theologians admit that it could cause different people to have different opinions of what God has said and that over time they may even change those opinions. (!)
Now, here we get into the real evils of theology. In these considerations are born all the divisive doctrines of the church. Here are based and supported the controversies of the Armenians and the Calvinists; the pre, post, and mid tribulation rapturists, as well as those truly born again believers who do not believe there will be a rapture at all. Also here is where all the other differences among us that caused there to be over 600 named divisions of those who profess Christ into denominations and sub-denominations. All from the interpretation of scripture. And, because these professional God-scientists are so learned, so respected, they have many degrees and have published titles, the garden variety Christian just accepts what they teach and continues on as a Presbyterian, or a CMA, or an E-Free or a Baptist, or a Plymouth Brethren or etc. in whatever church he first heard the gospel and was saved. Is this right? Is this what God wanted? Read John 17 and see what Christ prayed. "That they all may be ONE…” Did he mean only spiritually? Invisibly? Theoretically? Did He mean that there would among all the divisions of true believers, be one denomination that was the only right one and that all who belong to that one would be “one”?
Most denominations think they are the only ones who have the complete truth. They think their scholars have used the tools of theology in the best ways and have ascertained what God wants from the church in the way of behavior. They think other denominations do not. If they did, they would join them. There have been a small number of mergers because of realization of agreement, but they came at great compromise.
There are some major divisions among Christians today. Predominant is the argument over whether a person can lose his salvation. Try as they may, no sect that has studied this question has been able to come up with an argument that would sway all the other Christians to their view. If they had, this question would not exist today. As it stands, each denomination has its stand concerning this issue and they hold on to it. But which one is actually the one that God would approve? In this, one of the primary dividers of the church, theologians have not been worth two pins.
And so it goes. Theologians have so many terms for things you and I think we should experience in the Christian life. Many of these terms are constructed by human minds trying to grasp spiritual ideas. For example, “trinity”. We know that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is hard to explain. Why do some people feel a need to explain it? Why not just leave it alone. Accept it as it is stated in many verses in the Bible. Why invent a word (trinity) that is not in the Bible and use it to inadequately explain to simple Christians something that is doubtless a lot more complex than they make it out to be? As Christ said to Nicodemus, “If you don’t understand earthly things, how can you be expected to understand heavenly things?” In another paper I have written about how to understand spiritual things, so I won’t repeat that here. It has a lot more to do with reliance on the Holy Spirit and what the words of the Bible say in plain language. If something is not clear to us from the plain words of scripture, we should wait and pray and perhaps God will help us to understand spiritual things using spiritual means. If not, why not just say “We don’t know?”
So. What good is theology? From what I can see of its subject matter and from my experience of 50 years as a born-again Christian, trying to understand the Bible, it is mostly a negative. If it were a neutral factor, I would just ignore it, but because it is really the most harmful of the mistakes that man has made in his quest for God, I feel I must speak against it. I advise us all to not read it, don’t listen to it, don’t respect it, don’t espouse it. Stick with the Holy Spirit and your Bible. That’s all that Christ left for us. He knew what He was doing. If He had wanted theology and Bible schools, he would have established them before he ascended. Or the Apostles would have, and they didn’t.
What good is theology?
Theology is the science of studying God. It makes a systematic collection and interpretation of information (or what sometimes is found later to be mis-information) from the Bible and also from other sources like the writings of other ancient writers, oral and written traditional beliefs and history, archeology, anthropology and sciences of language origin and development, the definition of words and other disciplines.
Assumptions and deductions are made from all this research and a creed is established. Then comes the criticism. Other theologians, who are engaged in the same kind of pursuit, react to what has been deduced and they often differ on interpretation of information or definition of words or reliability of sources. These theologians deduce and assume and publish their creed.
How many theologies and how many creeds are there? How many can there be? Can they differ a lot or only differ slightly? I think my reader knows the answers to these questions. I also think my reader agrees with all of what I have written up to here.
What else do we know about theology?
First, it has been engaged in the evaluation and substantiation of the various versions and translations of the Bible that we have today. The need for the many versions springs from the different opinions that the proponents of the different theological systems hold. This is a distraction in what is, admittedly, a needed industry. But it is only a small one that doesn’t have to bother us unless we let it.
The reason it is a needed industry is because there are, and have been, some real hurdles to overcome in order to put your favorite version of the English language Bible on your coffee table. Most of them have to do with the early copies of the books of the Bible that have been found. None of the original writings still exist; only copies of them do. When dealing with these copies there are several problems.
Many of the earliest copies of many New Testament books do not agree in places. Some in important ways; most, not important. Sloppy copying, not a desire to corrupt, produced most of these errors. And going to the earliest known copy of, say, the book of Romans is not necessarily helpful because that copy may have errors, but later copies made from another early copy, that has since been destroyed, may be correct.
Sometimes copyists changed words because they thought another word gave the more correct idea of what God was saying. Some paraphrased and so put in words that were not in any original. Some copyists left off copying at a certain place on the “page”, went for coffee, came back and started, carelessly, a little above where they quit so that there is a repeat of some of the words. Such things are easy to catch and earlier translators caught them but it casts doubt on the rest of the writing. If something is left out of one copy of Romans and appears in another, the question is raised: is it because God did not want it to be there or is it because the copyist left it out?
Then we have all the changes in grammar, spelling and the modernization of languages. Some scribes, in referring to a city by name used the name current to their time rather than what it was called when one of the patriarchs lived or fought or visited there. This makes one version of the Bible say an event happened in city “A” and another says it happened in city “B”. This looks like a contradiction, but actually city “A”s name was changed to “B” by the time of the translation.
Some differences are pernicious. For example in Matthew 6:13 “For thine is the kingdom, etc…” is added. No question. It was added to make the Bible fit with the theology of the copyist.
Sometimes copyists and ancient translators took two accounts of an event, like, say, in the gospels and changed them so they would agree better. In the versions that God inspired, he didn’t want everything that happened in the event to be told by both writers. He had one leave out things and tell other things. He had another tell the things the other left out. He had his reasons. Copyists brought the information together, thinking it would be helpful to have all the accounts agree, and changed the Bible with “good intentions”.
In the Greek world, Hebrew people were not speaking as much Hebrew as they once did so a new Old Testament was produced for them called the Septuagint. There were a lot of opportunities for changes to the original when they did that. Surprisingly there are few differences from the Hebrew version that had been in continuous use, mainly because there was a great unwillingness on the part of Jews to give opinion in matters of religion. The commentaries that form the basis of the Talmud erupted much later.
And then there is the canon. What books of the many that exist should be included between the front and back covers of the Bible? The council that officially recognized which books should be and which should not be in the Bible did it by agreeing almost unanimously that they “recognized the voice of the Shepherd” in certain books and not in others. This council was working with the traditional evaluations, too, of the earlier Christians who were being attacked by all sorts of evil false doctrines. They had to start deciding what they would allow as the Word of God and what they would not. The council made its decision and, as we know, it was a Roman Catholic council. It allowed certain books called the Apocrypha into its Bible, but even many modern Catholics don’t trust them. Over al,l the council, though Catholic, did a job that Protestants respect. Somebody said it is interesting as to whether there would have been a Reformation had the Catholics never adopted the doctrines concerning Mary, Papal infallibility, and purgatory.
The above is just a hint as to the problems involved in discerning what constitutes the Word of God. We needed and still need scholars to work through all these issues with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to help the church with this.
BUT, do we need all the other things that theologians do?
A question is asked: If you had a letter written by Peter telling some fact about Christ and you had a letter from Polycarp (he was a church leader from the generation following Peter) on the same subject and they differed, which one would you accept? In the end of the gospel of John it says that Christ did many things that were not written in the Bible. The books would fill the world. So Peter and Polycarp both tell one of them. Which do you think is more accurate? Easy, right? But then, what about other things that are told by leaders contemporary to Polycarp and the next generation that are not told by original apostles? There is a great body of this kind of information. Should it be included in the “Word of God” as extra-biblical traditional teaching that has the same weight as the Bible itself?
Those who believe in “sola ecclesia” believe it should. These think that the Bible is not enough and we need the teachings of traditional oral history, handed down from the early church “fathers”.
Evangelicals, believe “sola scriptura”; the scripture is the final and only infallible authority for the Christian, but they also think that some creeds, traditions, and confessions are not necessarily negative influences and should be considered.
Fundamentalists believe “solo scriptura” (note the “o” in stead of “a” on the end of solo) This is different. It means that they believe the Bible is the ONLY source and that creeds, confessions and traditions ARE negative influences and should be avoided.
What I have touched on here is only the tip of the berg. But it is the basic essence of the differences that exist and these differences are the products and raw materials of the theology industry.
Add in just a little more. There is, in the study of Hermeneutics, the consideration of “illumination”. This answers the question: “What light do we have on the verse under consideration?” Illumination is the subjective understanding of how a verse should be interpreted by an individual. It is granted by God as a means of teaching us what He means by different statements in the Bible. Theologians admit that it could cause different people to have different opinions of what God has said and that over time they may even change those opinions. (!)
Now, here we get into the real evils of theology. In these considerations are born all the divisive doctrines of the church. Here are based and supported the controversies of the Armenians and the Calvinists; the pre, post, and mid tribulation rapturists, as well as those truly born again believers who do not believe there will be a rapture at all. Also here is where all the other differences among us that caused there to be over 600 named divisions of those who profess Christ into denominations and sub-denominations. All from the interpretation of scripture. And, because these professional God-scientists are so learned, so respected, they have many degrees and have published titles, the garden variety Christian just accepts what they teach and continues on as a Presbyterian, or a CMA, or an E-Free or a Baptist, or a Plymouth Brethren or etc. in whatever church he first heard the gospel and was saved. Is this right? Is this what God wanted? Read John 17 and see what Christ prayed. "That they all may be ONE…” Did he mean only spiritually? Invisibly? Theoretically? Did He mean that there would among all the divisions of true believers, be one denomination that was the only right one and that all who belong to that one would be “one”?
Most denominations think they are the only ones who have the complete truth. They think their scholars have used the tools of theology in the best ways and have ascertained what God wants from the church in the way of behavior. They think other denominations do not. If they did, they would join them. There have been a small number of mergers because of realization of agreement, but they came at great compromise.
There are some major divisions among Christians today. Predominant is the argument over whether a person can lose his salvation. Try as they may, no sect that has studied this question has been able to come up with an argument that would sway all the other Christians to their view. If they had, this question would not exist today. As it stands, each denomination has its stand concerning this issue and they hold on to it. But which one is actually the one that God would approve? In this, one of the primary dividers of the church, theologians have not been worth two pins.
And so it goes. Theologians have so many terms for things you and I think we should experience in the Christian life. Many of these terms are constructed by human minds trying to grasp spiritual ideas. For example, “trinity”. We know that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is hard to explain. Why do some people feel a need to explain it? Why not just leave it alone. Accept it as it is stated in many verses in the Bible. Why invent a word (trinity) that is not in the Bible and use it to inadequately explain to simple Christians something that is doubtless a lot more complex than they make it out to be? As Christ said to Nicodemus, “If you don’t understand earthly things, how can you be expected to understand heavenly things?” In another paper I have written about how to understand spiritual things, so I won’t repeat that here. It has a lot more to do with reliance on the Holy Spirit and what the words of the Bible say in plain language. If something is not clear to us from the plain words of scripture, we should wait and pray and perhaps God will help us to understand spiritual things using spiritual means. If not, why not just say “We don’t know?”
So. What good is theology? From what I can see of its subject matter and from my experience of 50 years as a born-again Christian, trying to understand the Bible, it is mostly a negative. If it were a neutral factor, I would just ignore it, but because it is really the most harmful of the mistakes that man has made in his quest for God, I feel I must speak against it. I advise us all to not read it, don’t listen to it, don’t respect it, don’t espouse it. Stick with the Holy Spirit and your Bible. That’s all that Christ left for us. He knew what He was doing. If He had wanted theology and Bible schools, he would have established them before he ascended. Or the Apostles would have, and they didn’t.
posted by Biblical Christianity at 11:21 AM
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