I recently competed in a marathon. Doesn't every middle aged man who can't afford a Porsche do this? In the months leading up to the event, it was certainly easy to say 'hey, I'm running a marathon' and bask in the glory of the unattempted and unachieved with that little inner smug feeling.
It was quite another to stare down the hard tarmac on a warm Sydney morning and imagine pounding it for some four hours (more like five as it turned out). Some 20 kms in and everything in me was saying 'you can't do this, and you should stop now'.
A theology essay can feel an awful lot like that. If you don't feel just a little overwhelmed, then I don't think you have really grasped the size of the mountain you are being asked to climb. As I said in my previous post, a theology essay is a complex, multi-disciplinary entity involving a conversation with ancient and modern texts (oh, and all the stuff in the millennia in between). Knowledge of four or five languages would help. And the history, literature and philosophy of a number of cultures. Hardest of all, it is an exercise in thought. It asks you to think about concepts, and to nuance them.
Making the same point, the American theologian David Bentley Hart writes:
...theology requires a far great scholarly range than does any other humane science. The properly trained Christian theologian, perfectly in command of his materials, should be a proficient linguist, with a mastery of several ancient and modern tongues, should have a complete formation in the subtleties of the whole Christian dogmatic tradition, should possess a considerable knowledge of the texts and arguments produced in every period of the Church, should be a good historian, should be thoroughly trained in philosophy, ancient, medieval and modern, should have a fairly broad grasp of liturgical practice in every culture and age of the Christian world, should (ideally) possess considerable knowedge of literature, music and the plastic arts, should have an intelligent interest in the effects of theological discourse in areas such as law or economics, and so on and so forth. This is not to say that one cannot practice theology without these attainments; but such an education remains the scholarly ideal of the guild...
More of the nature of the theological task in a later post - but if even a genius like Hart finds it overwhelming (and I suspect he has most of the accomplishments that he lists) then what hope have we mere hackers? What is your little effort possibly going to contribute to the discussion of centuries? How can your attempt to wrestle with the question do it justice in any way at all given the gargantuan nature of the enterprise? These theological debates have been aged in centuries like a fine whiskey is aged in oak - and we are still drinking orange cordial.
But there's another thing. And it is that the task of serving Jesus and his people - which is why you signed up for theological study in the first place - seems a long way from this particular process. You aren't going to be writing essays for people who need to be show the love of Christ and to hear the good news. The slow train of the theology essay seems to take the long way around to the destination. How is it going to help me in my ministry?
I am here to tell you that a) it is going to help you enormously; b) even you can do it; and c) it may even be fun (bear with me here.).
a) the theology essay is your chance to spend serious time with your attention focused on an issue, question or problem in the knowledge of God that really matters. There is a kind of theological reasoning which is obsessed with abstract and irrelevant questions - the proverbial 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' question. The theologians of the Reformation period, however, insisted that theology properly done is an intensely practical discipline - not because it is really only concerned with what we should do, but because the knowledge of God is always relevant to the lives of men and women. There is, in fact, no more vital study than to know God and his benefits. Your essay is going to shape you as a servant of God's people and is going to benefit you in your own spiritual life - because to know God more deeply is the goal. The Elizabethan scholar William Perkins wrote:
Theology is the science of living blessedly for ever. Blessed life ariseth from the knowledge of God and therefore it ariseth likewise from the knowledge of ourselves, because we know God by looking into ourselves.
b) ...and you can do it. Now, I haven't met you, so I don't really know at one level whether you can do it or not. But one important conviction ought to sustain you here - and that is that the knowledge of God itself is not the domain only of the clever. Let Jesus's prayer in Matt 11:25 be your comfort: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." We are all gifted differently, and have had different educational and cultural backgrounds that make this process easy for some and less so for others. But whatever level you are at, there is a profound equality amongst Christians in terms of the knowledge of God - because this knowledge is a revealed and not a discovered knowledge. It is to that revelation of God in his Son Jesus Christ that we answer in our writing of theological essays.
That's not to say that an answer full of pious observations is what is looked for in a theology essay. You aren't writing a sermon, or a devotional reflection. That's a mistake of genre that some students make. But you aren't coming at this cold - you not only know, but you are known by the object of your study!
c) ...and yes, it can be fun. It's overwhelming, but - what a challenge! You are being asked to think alongside some of the most profound thinkers of all history - Augustine, Aquinas, Luther. You are being invited to scale the heights and see the panoranic view at the summit - but not to do it unassisted but alongside expert guides. You being challenged to grow as a knower of the knowledge of the God. You are being invited to hear unfamilar voices express familiar truths. Because theological thinking emerges from the Christian gospel, which addresses all human beings everywhere and everywhen, then the discipline of theology invites you to learn from what the Holy Spirit has taught Christian believers in places that you and I can't even locate on a map.
So: what are you waiting for?
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