Why "Unsystematic Theology"?

The gospel is…a truth widely held, but a truth greatly reduced.  It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.

 – Walter Bruegemann, in Finally Comes the Poet, pg. 1

In this post, I want to address the title of my blog, Unsystematic Theology. 

Why is my theology (or at least the bits and pieces of theology I offer here) unsystematic?  What is systematic theology anyway?

Systematic theology aims to describe the Christian faith as a comprehensive, cogent, and more or less complete system of logical propositions, generally resulting in sets of some very thick books.  Beginning with works like John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and continuing to the present day, Protestantism (my faith tradition) has constantly added to the literature of systematic theology, joining the works of great medieval theologians and writers like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of Damascus.

Systematic theology is a noble effort and often yields useful results, but it is also a flawed and ultimately impossible one.  I see two main objections to the idea of systematic theology, or at least reasons to take systematic theologies with a grain of salt, one relational and intellectual:

A Relational Objection:

As Donald Miller notes in Searching for God Knows What and elsewhere, one of the greatest problems in trying to describe God and our relationship with Him as list of propositions is precisely that it is a personal relationship.

After all, what if I tried to describe my relationship with my wife in a series of ordered propositions?  How could I possibly succeed?  It kind of misses the point anyway.

I have friends whose theologies have been upended by their personal experiences of God, with the spiritual certainty of experience and guidance leading to propositional theological uncertainty.

Some Intellectual Objections:

Systematic theology describes Christianity in a series of logical propositions.  Its purpose is to describe Christian belief as a system. 

Systematic theology implies that it is, for the most part, a closed system, a framework which we can know with certainty. 

Is this practical or even possible?

The truth is rarely simple as simple as it seems, and our intellect has limits.

The heavens may proclaim the glory of God (Psalm 19), but how easily is their speech understood?  Can an infinite God be described and understood by the finite mind?

Is God fundamentally unknowable?  Yes and no.  Can anyone apprehend Him in His infiniteness?  No, surely not.  Has He revealed Himself to us in knowable ways?  Yes, He has.  After all, Christ is the “Word made flesh.”  God has shown Himself to us, but our vision is forever limited.  What finite being can grasp the infinite? 

Can we truly build a logical and propositional framework that can truly encompass God and His relationship with us?  How much can we truly comprehend?  What can our minds really grasp?

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

                                     – Isaiah 55: 8-9

Most, if not all, theologians or readers of systematic theology will claim that theirs is based upon a close reading of the Bible and is, therefore, both correct and reliable. 

But everyone says that and backs up many different and even contradictory theological statements and frameworks with Scripture.

And how does each respond to the others?  “Ah, but we read it correctly.  They’re mistaken.”

I will address issues with how we read Scripture and other texts in a later post, but we should take our own and others’ biblical statements with a grain of salt and a spoonful of humility.

Of course, though, we do believe in common and central theological truths.  A relatively early and widely accepted statement of Christian beliefs is the 4^th century Nicene Creed, which remains a standard and foundational formulation of Christian orthodoxy and is regularly recited in liturgies used by the majority of the world’s Christians.

The Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God,

The Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

      the only Son of God,

      eternally begotten of the Father,

      God from God, Light from Light

      true God from true God,

      begotten, not made,

      of one Being with the Father.

      Through him all things were made.

      For us and our salvation

he came down from heaven:

      by the power of the Holy Spirit

                  he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

                  and was made man.

      For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

                  he suffered death and was buried.

                  On the third day he rose again

                        in accordance with the Scriptures;

                  he ascended into heaven

      and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

                  He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

                        and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

      who proceeds from the Father (*and the Son).

      With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

      He has spoken through the Prophets.

      We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

      We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

      We look for the resurrection of the dead,

                   and the life of the world to come.  Amen.

Beyond the basics, though, agreement breaks down quickly:

Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the dead to give us eternal life, but how does that work?  Did Jesus avert God’s wrath and punishment in a police-court situation, did He cheat death and Satan, ransom us from the Devil, die to kill death itself?  (Historically, including in the Patristic Period, there has been a lot less agreement on this that we might think.)

Do we choose to accept God’s salvation or does His irresistible grace compel us apart from free will?  Does free will even exist?

What is church polity supposed to look like?

What is the relationship between faith and works?  Scripture and Tradition?

Scriptural arguments are flung in every which direction.  We may think we have (and may truly have) definite answers to these questions, but humility becomes us.

Furthermore, we are constantly learning new things from all around us, including the sorts of ostensibly non-theological sources of knowledge this blog is meant to explore.

Since the days of early 20^th century Fundamentalism, the idea of a literal six-day creation approximately 6,000 years ago has not only become a dogmatic cornerstone for many Evangelicals, but also a litmus test of orthodoxy.

For the Roman Catholic and Mainstream Protestant Churches, however, this is not the case.  Faced with an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, these many Christians acknowledge that the universe is old and that Darwinian evolution provides a mechanism by which life around us came to be.

But what does this mean theologically?  Does it take God out of the equation?  No.  Does it mean throwing out the Bible?  Not at all.  The Fundamentalist/Evangelical creation dogma has never been the unanimous opinion of Christian theology.  Not even close.  Many, including the great theologian St. Augustine, understood the creation story allegorically.  For some of his words about it, see my first post, “Welcome to Unsystematic Theology.”

While science may rule out a particular theological interpretation, it leaves us with many questions about God, His creation, and how to make sense of it all theologically.

Today an overwhelming consensus of scientific evidence shows that our actions are warming the earth at a rate unprecedented in the known history of our planet.  A rapidly warming planet threatens severe weather, drought, famine, and rising sea levels that will affect billions of people.

What is our proper relationship with the world we live in?  The Bible tells us that God gave us care of and dominion over the earth and the things that live in it.  Are we being good stewards of what we’ve been given?  We are also told to love our neighbors.  Are we doing that when we wreak havoc on the world they live (or will live) in?

Even if things aren’t as bad as they seem, shouldn’t we err on the side of good stewardship and love of our neighbors?

And how do we understand this all in a broader theological context?

Less is settled than we like to think.

We know less than it seems.  Humility becomes us.

Are we in a position to write systematic theologies or even speak of such a thing?

Can we help ourselves, though?

Trying to understand the world around us and seeking rational order are basic human cognitive imperatives.  The search for systematic explanation is both inescapable and ultimately impossible.

If our theologies are systems, they are systems in flux.

Indeed, perhaps what we need are theological networks or theological constellations rather than systems.

That is why the theological reflection here is unsystematic.  I want to challenge and expand our theologies.  I have no all-encompassing system to offer you.  It would be antithetical to the sort of explorations I want to make here.

* The filioque clause (“and from the Son”) was inserted by the Western Church without consulting the Eastern Churches and is not recognized by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.


An earlier version of this post listed St. Isaac the Syrian as a prominent systematic theologian.  I was thinking of St. John of Damascus.  My bad.