Archive: How To Do Your Own Theology

Any layperson can

By Mathias Zahniser

Theology is a word that intimidates some people. It should not, for theology is little more than talking about, thinking about, considering or even discussing God. It is sustained thinking about God and about everything in relation to God and His purposes.

Consider the following conversation between John and Carol as an example of theology:

“Carol, what do you believe about God?”

“I believe God is a spiritual being who is everywhere, who knows and cares about me and has a plan for my life. I don’t always cooperate with Him, but He works persistently at making me the person I ought to be.”

“Where did you come upon this information about God?”

“I don’t know where I first heard about God, but I assume that my parents started talking to me about God so early that I can no longer remember when it was.”

“Now wait a minute, no young child would be told that ‘God is a spiritual being who works persistently to make you a complete person,’ or whatever it was you said.”

“Well, I have gone to church all my life. I read the Bible and hear it read. I especially like the parables and stories of Jesus. They all seem to say that God knows and cares about everyone.”

“That makes sense. But you don’t talk like a person who has only heard and read about God. You obviously have thought about Him too.”

“Yes, John, I have done a lot of thinking too. I remember when my father died it was hard at first to believe that God cared about me. One whole night I could not sleep. I don’t know whether it was my sister Connie’s uninterrupted sobbing or the questions that occupied my mind, but I didn’t sleep at all. I just kept thinking:

Is Daddy happy or sad? Since he is with the Lord, he must be happy. But how can he be happy if he knows how unhappy we are, especially Connie, who is so devastated? Maybe he does not know that we are suffering, but can the price of happiness be ignorance?

“I had gotten out of bed and was sitting at the kitchen table when the idea hit me: Maybe being with the Lord means Daddy knows so much more than we do that he sees even our sorrow as fitting into a larger pattern of joy. I can’t prove it, but I really think our sorrow was a sort of proof of how much our father meant to us. Because it hurt so much, we knew that he was very precious to us. It has somehow helped me to value my relationship with other members of my family more.”

“But what does that experience have to do with your belief that God cares about you?”

“Well, I guess what I’ve been trying to tell you is that when things didn’t make sense, my belief in God was threatened. But as God helped me put things back together, my belief in Him was strengthened. I can’t really know for sure that it was God directing my thoughts, but I felt as if I was being guided to understand our suffering. This restored my conviction that God cares.”

Carol has been doing her own theology. To be sure, circumstances pushed her to think about God, but her thinking about God helped in those circumstances.

What were the sources of her knowledge of God?

First, Carol is a link in a long chain of believers. Her parents and members of her church talked to her about God. They too had heard about God from others. Carol could have traced her knowledge of God back to the founder of her denomination—or even farther. This source of knowledge about God we call tradition, that which is handed down to us.

Second, Carol found great help in the parables and stories of Jesus. She knew that the writers of the New Testament were people close to Jesus Himself. Carol also knew that the Old Testament is necessary too because the apostle Paul said that all Scripture is inspired by God and able to instruct, guide, train, and equip believers for salvation and service (II Timothy 3:16).

Third, there was something about the natural way in which Carol talked about God that impressed John. He discerned that somehow she had experienced God for herself.

She might have put it something like this: There were things I truly believed about God, but after Daddy’s death I knew they would stand the test of real life. Before my beliefs were tested in my own experience, I held them; afterward, they held me.

Before her father’s death, Carol had made a decision to live by the truths which she had learned in Scripture and which had been handed down to her by her family and in her church. She committed her life to Christ in a decision that was personally meaningful to her. But at the time of her father’s death, God became real to her in a new and powerful way.

All these experiences represented important sources of knowledge for Carol. For all of us, experience is an important source of knowledge of God.

Scripture, tradition, and experience provided Carol with resources for knowing God.

Also, Carol was a thinker. Reflecting on her father’s death and her family’s suffering led her to doubt what she had been taught about heaven being a happy place.

She had been told that Christians who die go to be with the Lord. Her reading of Scripture confirmed this belief. She assumed that, in heaven, her father knew more than she, not less. But how could her father be happy if he knew of his family’s suffering? Did he know? Was he happy? How could the answer to both questions be yes? Doubt was at work, moving her to question her beliefs.

However, she pressed on in her thinking. Her doubts led her to a new insight which was really her own: Ignorance is not the price of happiness; rather, more knowledge—much more—will show sorrow to be a part of a greater joy. This was hard to explain and impossible for her to prove, but it made sense to Carol and was a key factor in her faith becoming really her own.

In short, Carol was doing her own theology. Her conversation with John described the process of her growing knowledge of God. Experience had forced her to think through what she believed, and John’s question gave her a chance to clarify her faith in words.

But what about you? Doing your own theology means reflecting on Scripture, tradition, and experience in such a way that your knowledge of God and everything else in relation to Him grows. As the conversation with Carol reveals, we do theology almost without realizing it. But we have a choice: We can shy away from it, or we can take it up deliberately. Here are some suggestions on how to do theology.

1. Do not be afraid of questioning or even of being wrong.

We are not saved by being right in what we believe; we are saved through faith (read “trust”) in Jesus by the free gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). What you believe about God will be strengthened, not weakened, by sincere questioning and thinking. You will come to some conclusions which you will later realize have been incomplete or incorrect, but for the most part you will discover that your basic beliefs make good sense.

2. Start with beliefs you can most confidently affirm.

You may have noticed that Carol’s theology was not complete. There is much more to Christian theology than a belief that God is a spiritual being who cares and works for the full growth of persons. But Carol started her answer to John’s question with what she could most confidently affirm.

There are many things which you believe because they are Scriptural or because the Church has affirmed them through the ages or because your family affirms them. Go on believing them. But start your sustained thinking with those convictions which you personally affirm most confidently.

3. Think of doing theology as conversation with God.

Two convictions which you might very well affirm confidently are, one, that God is personal and, two, that God is spiritually present everywhere. Now think about this: If God is personal and everywhere, then we are always in His presence. To talk about a person in his or her presence would be impolite. Similarly, it seems most appropriate to talk to God when thinking about Him.

For this reason I find myself addressing God in the written journal I keep. Doing my own theology is mostly prayer.

4. Search the Scriptures.

When I began doing my own theology, I discovered the embarrassing limits of my knowledge of Scripture. You too will find yourself searching the Scriptures for insights on a topic or question that comes up. I have found it helpful to read the Bible systematically so that I can get a whole picture of what God wishes to reveal to us.

5. Examine yourself regularly.

Are you living in a way that is compatible with those convictions which you can most confidently affirm? William Hordern has said that theology is the attempt to shape the way people think so that they will act as Christians (A Layman s Guide to Protestant Theology, 1968, p. xv). Thinking must never become detached from feeling and doing.

6. Finally, share your results.

If you are fortunate, you will discover someone else who wants to engage in doing theology. You can compare results and give each other encouragement. In your church school class, Bible study, or prayer circle, opportunities will arise to share your faith. Here is an opportunity to let other people you love and trust respond to some of your discoveries. Take their reactions seriously, reflect on them, but do not be defensive.

One of my students recently lamented to me, “My church taught me what to believe, but not how to think.” You can learn to think through your own faith, to do your own theology, by reflecting on Scripture, tradition, and experience.

Do so in conversation with God, and record the process in a journal. Start with the truths you can most confidently affirm, and test your results by the living of your life in the love of God and your neighbor.

Dr. A. H. Mathias Zahniser is the associate professor of world religions at Asbury Theological Seminary.