What is systematic theology?
Systematic theology is the attempt to gather everything the Bible says about God, sin, salvation and the future, and to arrange it into an ordered, logical framework of doctrine. Writers in this collection recognise the value of orderly knowledge, but they warn repeatedly that a man-made system is not the same thing as the truth God has given.
Where the Term Comes From
Theology, as an academic discipline, works by collecting religious ideas and organising them into a logical whole, and it has long been divided into branches.
William KellyTheology is concerned with the systematic, logical development of truth. As a process it collects and formulates religious ideas. In the form of "Biblical" theology it does this for revelation in the light of the periods during which that revelation was given. In the form of "Symbolic" theology it treats the fundamentals of the faith as they were examined in the age of the first church councils, which issued the "Catholic Creeds." "Dogmatic" theology has to do with the development of such doctrine in the light of spiritual experience; and so on.
One writer draws a sharp line between God's own system of revelation and the systems men build about it. The difference, he says, lies in what each one costs the student.
A. PridhamGod has a system of revelation which, like all His other works, is perfect, though our dim spiritual sight may often fail to take in all the fair proportions of its unity of beauty and truth. There is a symmetry in truth which, being of the Spirit, is discerned and appreciated only by the mind of Christ. Systematic theology, as it is commonly understood, is a very different thing. It is easily within the reach of a patient effort of the human understanding, and needs no faith to attain it. But to the children of promise CHRIST is truth, and truth is Christ.
Scripture's Own Shape
The Bible itself was never written as a filing system. Its truths are interwoven, and finding them is meant to cost us something.
Numerical Bible NotesScripture has, in fact, never the character of a systematized theology. The truth in it is not classified for us as the specimens of a museum might be, but is a living thing, its branches interlacing with one another and sometimes hidden among leaves and fruits and flowers, for faith to trace and wonder at all the more.
This is not an argument against doctrine. Darby, answering a critic who reduced the New Testament to stories and letters, insisted that living truth and deep doctrine are the same thing:
J. N. DarbyThat the New Testament gives us truth in living evidence of it, and works truth out in the actual living relationships of the soul with God, and is not dry systematic theology, I admit with all my heart… The doctrine is grace meeting need, not treatises for the competency of the human mind. But does that say that the revelation of grace to this need was not doctrine, and doctrine of the deepest and most wonderful character?
Why Whole Systems Fail
The recurring objection is partiality. A system may be accurate as far as it goes and still damage the soul, because it persuades a person that he holds the truth of God when he holds only part of it.
Charles Henry MackintoshWe are dealing not with persons, but with schools of doctrine and systems of divinity which we would most earnestly urge our beloved readers to abandon, at once and for ever. Not one of them contains the full, entire truth of God. There are certain elements of truth in all of them, but the truth is often neutralized by the error. Even if we could find a system that contains, so far as it goes, nothing but the truth, yet if it does not contain the whole truth, its effect on the soul is harmful, because it leads a person to congratulate himself on having the truth of God when in reality he has only laid hold of a one-sided system of man.
There is a second objection: what is systematised tends to lose its life.
William KellyMan makes, or tries to make, revelation into a science. Can two things differ more completely? 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.
The Order God Does Ask For
Commentators differ on how far ordered study should go. Some urge that all systems be dropped; others point to Paul's charge to Timothy to hold an outline of sound words, and find in it a call to arrange truth carefully.
Samuel RidoutGod would have us gather and arrange the great outstanding facts of divine truth in due order, and in this way gain knowledge of a more exact character, perhaps, than would otherwise be gathered from our daily reading.
What separates that outline from a creed is not tidiness but the source of the words themselves.
Edward DennettThe difference between what Paul pressed on Timothy and a creed lies in this: Timothy's outline was to be in divine words, whereas the creeds of Christendom are expressed in human language. On this very account they fail, even when "orthodox," to express the full truth of revelation. Timothy's outline was inspired without any human mixture; the creeds are composed by human minds, taking Scripture as far as their authors understood it as the basis, and given in the words of man's wisdom.
Summary
- Definition. Systematic theology collects and formulates the ideas of revelation into a logical whole, branching into biblical, symbolic and dogmatic forms.
- Source. God's own system of revelation is perfect but needs faith and the mind of Christ; a man-made system is within reach of patient study and needs no faith at all.
- Shape. Scripture is not classified like museum specimens but grows as a living thing, with truths interlaced and half-hidden for faith to trace.
- Danger. No system holds the whole truth, and a partial one harms by convincing its holder he has everything.
- Order. Arrange the great facts of truth in due order — but hold the outline in God's own words, since even orthodox creeds are man's wording and fall short of the full revelation.