What is Christian theology?
Answered from the commentary of J. N. Darby, William Kelly, C. H. Mackintosh and 13 others
In these authors' own definition, theology is "man's mind working on the truth of God". It is not the revealed truth itself. It is the shape a human mind gives that truth once it has apprehended it. Their ground is that the man apprehends only part of the truth and separates it from the whole circle in which God placed it. He then clothes it in a form of his own, so that "it is no longer the truth" and "error mixes with it. That is theology". Theology is therefore man's attempt to make revelation into a science, "a set of inferences that people draw," whereas truth is never a conclusion. Systematic divinity is pictured as a dried plant with no freshness or life left in it, while Scripture is "spirit and life". From this the authors draw a solemn warning. A man may be a profound theologian and an able divine, may teach thousands, and still live and die without God and perish. In the same way, many hold correct doctrine who do not know the Person it speaks of.
Most of the authors speak of theology in this disparaging sense. A smaller number use the word more neutrally. They describe it as the systematic study and formulation of revealed truth, or call the knowledge of God "the noblest of all sciences," though a moral rather than an intellectual acquirement. One holds that every science must run into theology. Another allows that, rightly taken, it ought to mean "the revealed faith of a Christian". Even these agree with the rest on what lies at the heart of the matter. That heart is God Himself, known, trusted and enjoyed, which is "the soul of theology, the groundwork of divinity".
That knowledge is what John 17:3 calls eternal life: to know the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent. It is a present possession of every believer and is enjoyed as communion with the Father and the Son. It cannot be reached by reason, science or philosophy. "The world by wisdom knew not God". God is known only as He has revealed Himself in His Son and in the Scriptures. The Scriptures are therefore the sole rule of faith and the only standard by which every doctrine is tested. For this reason the authors set the "form of sound words" of 2 Timothy 1:13 above every creed. That form is the truth held in the very words God gave. Creeds are human, fallible, and open to appeal to Scripture. The faith "once delivered unto the saints" of Jude 3 admits of no addition or development, though our understanding of it may grow. Because God is infinite, much of what He has revealed is to be believed rather than comprehended. Doctrine rightly held is also "the doctrine which is according to godliness" (1 Timothy 6:3), and it must bear fruit in a holy life.
Verses: 1 Timothy 6:3, 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Timothy 3:17, 1 Peter 3:15, John 17:3, Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:2, John 1:1, John 1:14, John 1:18, Romans 11:33, Romans 11:34, Romans 11:35, Romans 11:36, Deuteronomy 29:29, Colossians 2:8, Colossians 2:9, Titus 1:9, Titus 2:1, 1 Timothy 4:16, 2 Timothy 1:13, Jude 1:3, Acts 2:42, Acts 17:11, 2 Peter 1:20, 2 Peter 1:21, Psalms 119:105, Proverbs 9:10, Isaiah 55:8, Isaiah 55:9, Jeremiah 9:23, Jeremiah 9:24, Hosea 6:6, 1 Corinthians 2:12, 1 Corinthians 2:13, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 1 Corinthians 15:4, Ephesians 4:11, Ephesians 4:12, Ephesians 4:13, Ephesians 4:14, Colossians 1:9, Colossians 1:10, 2 Peter 3:18, Hebrews 5:12, Hebrews 5:13, Hebrews 5:14, Matthew 28:19, Matthew 28:20, 1 Timothy 3:16, Romans 1:20, Psalms 19:1, Psalms 19:2, Psalms 19:3, Psalms 19:4, John 16:13, Philippians 3:8
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
Theology is man's mind working on the truth of God. Nothing but faith puts God in the right place. If I pretend to know anything of the Godhead, in so doing I deny it. You must know the thing before you know the object. "Why do you not understand My speech; even because you cannot hear My word (8:43). "We have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16) is mind with the intelligence. God sends a messenger, John, who comes and says, "Look at the light," at the sun, but the blind people don't see it. "A light to lighten the Gentiles" is quite different, that is, to manifest them. Chapter 10:1, "If anyone walk in the day, he stumbleth not," that is, if you have got the mind of Christ you will not fall. "Walk in the light" - we are in it.
When the power of the Spirit of God produces the truth, it develops itself in union with its source, whether in revelation or even in the life and in the service of the individual; although in the two latter cases there is a mixture of other elements, owing to the weakness of the man. When a man's mind apprehends the truth, and he seeks to give it a form, he does it according to the capacity of man, which is not its source; the truth as he expresses it, even were it pure, is separated in him from its source and its totality; but, besides this, the shape that a man gives it always bears the stamp of the man's weakness. He has only apprehended it partially, and he only produces a part of it. Accordingly it is no longer the truth. Moreover, when he separates it from the whole circle of truth in which God has placed it, he must necessarily clothe it in a new form, in a garment which proceeds from man: at once error mixes with it. Thus it is no longer a vital part of the whole, it is partial, and thereby not the truth; and it is in fact mixed with error. That is theology.
It may be desirable here to note the characteristics of theology, or reasoned development of Biblical doctrine, which it has been since the time of Origen. One whose writings are not sufficiently known shall speak. "When a man's mind apprehends the truth, and he seeks to give it a form, he does it according to the capacity of man, which is not its source; the truth as he expresses it, even were it pure, is separated in him from its source and its totality; but, besides this, the shape that a man gives it always bears the stamp of the man's weakness. He has only apprehended it partially, and he only produces a part of it. Accordingly, it is no longer the truth. Moreover, when he separates it from the whole circle of truth in which God has placed it, he must necessarily clothe it in a new form, in a garment which proceeds from man: at once error mixes with it. Thus it is no longer a vital part of the whole: it is partial, and thereby not the truth; and it is, in fact, mixed with error. That is theology" (J. N. Darby, Synopsis," vol. v., on 2 Timothy).
C. THEOLOGY (cf. Kattenbusch, in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, vol. xi:, pp. 394-397), concerned with systematic, logical development of TRUTH (see Fairbairn, p. 263), as a process collects and formulates religious ideas; in the form of "Biblical" Theology doing this for Revelation in the light of the periods during which that was vouchsafed; in the form of "Symbolic" Theology treating of the fundamentals of the Faith as these were investigated in the age of the first Church Councils, which issued "Catholic Creeds" (cf. note on Luke 18:8); whilst "Dogmatic" Theology has to do with the development of such doctrine in the light of spiritual experience; and so on.
Such is "theology"; whereas Scripture is "spirit and life." So is the Lord Jesus, the living One who died but is alive again for evermore; and again the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of truth that quickens, the One given not only for life but to keep every truth fresh and powerful; and so it is in the ever-flowing love of God the Father. Man makes, or strives to make, revelation into a science. Can two things more thoroughly differ? Who ever found life or peace in systematic divinity? It is always guarding this and guarding that with human weapons, and framing its uncertain and defective doctrines into imaginary fortresses of the faith, which must be Christ's working in us by the word and Spirit of God. Only in the Bible we have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and we have the Holy Spirit who wrote all to guide us into all the truth. Therefore we have confidence in God and the word of His grace.
If you listen to theology (that is, the attempt to make revealed truth a "science," as rationalists and ritualists love to do to God's dishonour and to their own grievous loss), they talk of God as the truth. I remember, years ago, meeting a celebrated but sceptic foreigner of the Romantic school who, though to me he discarded the Voltaires and the Rousseaus, laid his main stress on God being the truth. To a mutual friend he tersely if not reverently reported the difference, in that he saw God for himself, I only "through the spectacles of Jesus Christ." Yes, he deceived himself that he saw or knew Him in any real way. God in Himself is entirely above creature ken. Man requires a mediator who is man no less than God, in order that we should be enabled by the Spirit to know Him. Thus only can truth be known. God as such is not the revelation of God (nor man's conscience, nor his reason), but Christ as object, and the Spirit as the inner power for the new nature. How is God revealed? In Christ. Christ is the Revealer outwardly, as the Spirit works inwardly, and the word is the revelation of God or the truth. Christ might be before us every moment of our life, and we no better for it, unless the Holy Spirit co-operated with the word in enabling us to receive it by faith and thenceforward in the new life.
Not so, however, with one who knows God as He is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Such a one has gotten life eternal. "This," says Christ, "is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (John 17:3) It is not life eternal to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and all the while know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.
But it is not so with one who knows God in Christ. Such a one has life and an object. He has God Himself for his priceless portion. This is divine. It lies at the very foundation of personal Christianity and true religion. It is above and beyond everything. It is not, we repeat, mere theology, divinity, or religiousness; it is God Himself, known, trusted, and enjoyed. It is a grand, unmistakable reality. It is the soul of theology, the groundwork of divinity, the life of true religion. There is nothing in all this world like it. It is something which must be felt in order to be known. It is acquaintance with God, confidence in Him, and enjoyment of Him.
The Doctrine as to God — the Trinity The knowledge of God is, as some have put it, "The noblest of all sciences." We guard however against the thought that we can gain a knowledge of God as we would of the natural sciences. Indeed these do not yield their true meaning until we couple them with God, for surely He is revealed in all the works of His creation; but the knowledge of God as given to us in the Scriptures, and particularly in the New Testament, is a moral, rather than an intellectual, acquirement. It is this which our Lord declares when He says: "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
A. RELIGION in general has already been briefly considered in note 9 on John. As distinct from Theology, which is the study of Religion, the one is "subjective" or personal, the other is "objective." Unhappily, the two are often confounded.
Verses
- 1 Timothy 6:3If any one teach differently, and do not accede to sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching which [is] according to piety,
- 2 Timothy 3:16–1716Every scripture [is] divinely inspired, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; 17that the man of God may be complete, fully fitted to every good work.
- 1 Peter 3:15but sanctify [the] Lord the Christ in your hearts, and [be] always prepared to [give] an answer [to] every one that asks you to give an account of the hope that [is] in you, but with meekness and fear;
- John 17:3And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
- Hebrews 1:1–21God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, 2at the end of these days has spoken to us in [the person of the] Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
- John 1:1In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.