What is Theology?

First of all, please don't feel offended by the story below. The point of this is not to offend anyone but to make a comparison (though may not be suitable). Secondly, please don't judge before you come to the end of this article. Finally, it is just a thought of mine and don't take it too seriously. Yet any discussion about this are welcome (if I have time to reply you).

Last night, I walked past a street and heard some dogs barking to each other. To my amazement, I understood what they were talking about. They were discussing about their master -- human being. One dog told the other how his master love him. Another explain how great is his master and what he has accomplished... Gradually, they came up with some theories (they called them doctrines) about human being and they developed a subject called humanology. The first one is the doctrine of throwing objects. They all experienced the same thing that their masters will very often throw some objects out for them to carry back for no reason. Therefore, they concluded that human being is a kind of animals that like to throw objects.

Some of us use to have a sort of certainty about what God is like through His interaction with human being and His revelation through the Bible. However, is it the real picture about God? It is probably the picture that God want us to have (if we receive it correctly). The point of the about story is that "throwing objects" is not the real picture of human being but it is a mean for the dog to understand and to develop relationship with us. The whole point of revelation is to satisfy our intellect but so that we can have a sense of who God is and in through what means He want us to approach Him. In other words, the most important thing is about our relationship with God. This acts as a filter of our knowledge of God. For example, God revel Himself as a God of love. Does it mean that it is His essential attribute or is it something that He decided to "fit Himself in"? If we start to ask question in this way, we are moving toward the direction of academic enquiry and we completely lost the point (not least, it will only result in speculation instead of knowledge). God revel His love so that we can have confidence to approach Him and to develop relation with Him (to know Him). Take another example, God is omnipotent (this term is not even from the Bible but we can find this idea from it). Does it mean God can create a stone that He cannot move? The asking of this question mean that we went astray again (even though by now, everyone know that the answer to this question is cannot). God revel His omnipotence so that we know that in whatever situation we are in, He is still big enough to solve it (if He choose to do so).

We should never think that we have a complete and true knowledge about God. Even if what we hold is true, it is only true in reference to Human-God relationship. Therefore, those theological differences that do not result in any significant difference in Christian view or action toward God nor the world should not be regard as real difference (e.g. the different understanding of the Holy communion by Lurther and his contemporary Catholic church as well as that of Calvin). That is what I meant by a filter.

Another important application is that we should understand that the certainty of our faith is a subjective one instead of objective one. As Christians, we should be certain that what we believe is the only right way to God but we shouldn't impose such thought to other people. Of course, telling this fact to other people is good and in some sense try to direct them is nothing wrong but we should be very careful not to overdo it. I have seen a lot of people (including me in the past) trying very hard to show other people in the wrong so that what I claim may seem superior. What we should do is to point them to Jesus and initiate them to study the Bible (maybe with us). The decision is their and we cannot help them to make it.

Theology as a study of God-Human relationship

As stated above, I think it is the most important aim in different discipline of Theology. It can also be a dynamic type of Theology in which different people's experience of God and the way they react to God and thought about God are investigate. So as to make sense of these, to correct these if necessary and to formulate the right "theology" out of it. It has to be done in the church setting. No one can know about God-Human relationship by just thinking about it -- although they "can know about God"(!) with their logical mind alone.

Theology as an apologetic subject

This is an effort to express Christian believes in the terms that contemporary people will understand and find relevant. It is one of the theme of theology that attract the most attention throughout generations of Christianity. The most difficult is what the core message of Christianity is and how to express it, together with some other relevant ingredient of Christian faith, in a way that contemporary people will find more easy to accepted. Becasue it is a topic that is only relevant to and has interest for those who believe in Christianity, this should only be done in a Theologian Seminary instead of a secular University.

Theology as Biblical study

I think this part is more or less self-explanatory. There are two different aspects to this. One to look at the Bible as some other ancient literature and try to understand it as other books. The other is stress on the believe that it is the words of God and try to dug behind the surface meaning of the earthly writers / editors / revisers and to look at the coherent and objective messages that God want to bring to His people from "the whole Bible as a book". The first kind can be done in a secular environment and the second kind, I think, can be done only by believers. Of course, the first kind of study will affect the result of the second kind.

Theology as Christian study

It is a subject to look at Christianity in a secular point of view just like other religions, e.g. what Christians believed or believing and the related matters arising. This sort of research can be done in a secular University. The results can then be picked up and refreshed upon by Christian thinkers in Seminary.

Three layers of Theology

As you can probably see from my discussion above, there are three layers of "Theology" -- (i) the primitive and front-line layer (ii) the Christian thinkers layer (iii) the secular layer. Theology is thus a dialogue between Christian experiences, Biblical understanding and the secular world. The central theme of this dialogue is God-Human relationship.

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