How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Give up? My answer to a famous old argument among some theologians is–who cares? What did that argument–or most any other theological/philosophical argument–do to help me live a better life closer to God.
I guess I’m just curious. And interested. I’ve read many, many books by famous and not-so-famous philosophers and theologians. Taught the Bible for over 35 years. The conclusion of a life of research is that we often miss the point.
In the pastoral letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus, Paul warns several times about those who love to argue over words. He was right. Those arguments over words (perhaps coupled with the cultures that grew up around them) led to hundreds of years of bitter fighting with much loss of life in Christian Europe.
What’s the point? Look at Paul’s description of a model church. Outside of a few fundamental beliefs–Jesus was real, Jesus was resurrected, the Spirit lives, and God’s grace saves us–Paul mostly wrote about or described people who lived a life with God and for God.
There has been a strain of Christianity since around 340 AD that holds that to be a Christian means to adhere to a doctrine. You just publicly state that you agree with the doctrine and you’re a Christian. Some people still believe that today.
I don’t agree. I think to be a Christian means that we’re living a life with God where Jesus shows us the way. It’s not theology. It’s life where God is real.
This line of thinking is as old as Christianity itself. It has been written more and more often in the United States since the early to mid 60s. Here are some lyrics from a song written by Paul Stookey of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary entitled Hymn that captures some of the idea:
I visited some houses where they said that You were living
And they talked a lot about You
And they spoke about Your giving.
They passed a basket with some envelopes;
I just had time to write a note
And all it said was “I believe in You.”
Passing conversations where they mentioned Your existence
And the fact that You had been replaced by Your assistants.
The discussion was theology,
And when they smiled and turned to me
All that I could say was “I believe in You.”
Faith Venture 
September 12, 2012 at 9:16 am |
To be fair, the “angels dancing on the head of a pin” was not an actual debate. Rather, it was a rhetorical attack on the “scholastic theologians” levied by many of their critics (including Martin Luther, though it doesn’t seem to be original to him). No one actually debated this. While I agree that being a Christian has more to do with a relationship with the living God than adhering to a set of doctrines, that doesn’t mean that theology is unimportant. If we are in a relationship, we can express our love by finding out as much as possible about the object of our love (who loves us back). For instance, if my wife knew everything about me, and yet I knew very little about her, or if I simply wasn’t interested in finding out more about her, that would not be a very loving relationship. Theology, at its root, is an expression of our love for God. The bible gives us the fact of the Resurrection, and that it is important (integral) for our salvation, but how we take that fact and interpret what it means (here we are doing theology) has huge impact on how we live, and how we interact with this God who loves us. So while it may not be the most important thing, it is still an important thing.
September 13, 2012 at 6:57 am |
Thanks. To be honest, I should refreshed my memory. Don’t know if that came out of a mostly forgettable year I spent with the Prof. Dr. H. as an undergraduate. It could have started when I was trying to explain a point he was missing and he asked if I should be teaching the class. (In retrospect after talking with other people who had taken his class, maybe I should have said yes instead of shutting up for the rest of the year.) Or because we kept reading about great thinkers instead of reading the great thinkers. Or maybe the uneasy feeling I had about his descriptions of thinkers (which I’m sure were vetted by his graduate education of many degrees) which I discovered through years of study outside the cloister were just wrong.
It was just the American way of teaching at the time. My engineering education was similar–instead of tracing why and how someone discovered a function or formula, they just through it at you to memorize then move on to the next one. Some of that has changed over the years much for the better.
I don’t want to get into definitions of theology. You could go back to the roots of the word. Or you could just take the more common sense of a field of study and degree path in universities. I used to subscribe to Theology Today years ago. I’d read it for a couple of years to see what the conversation was, then drop it for a while, then pick it up again. Basically I saw it was all pretty inbred and just stopped getting it. I just search for suggestions for good writers to study now.
September 13, 2012 at 7:06 am
Always better to read the original sources. Though some of them can be tedious, it is good for setting the context. I genuinely get giddy when I read certain theologians: Wolfhart Pannenberg, N. T. Wright, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, some parts of Barth (other parts I just find dull). I think the distinction between good theology and dry theology (of the “inbred” variety) is its potential impact on actions. Reading something like *Life Together* or *Cost of Discipleship* can be intellectually daunting, but it is so amazing that it refreshes my spirit and encourages me to go out and do something. If it extends beyond simple academic exercise, that’s when it’s worth reading.