From Text to Doctrine

In thinking recently about the doctrine of the church I have been led to reflect further on the standard evangelical method of doing theology.


It is not too much of a caricature to say that much evangelical theologising is no different from a Bible Dictionary article. Or, that we are content with what such a dictionary article might say about a word.

So, asked to give an account of 'the doctrine of the church' we fly off to our Greek dictionaries and look for the word 'ekklesia'. How is it used? What does it mean? Or more often: what DOESN'T it mean? By this process we also hope to pick up - and correct - distortions in the tradition.

But of course, the NT usage of the word ekklesia and the Christian doctrine of the Church are two different (though related) things. We have other words, for example, that are used to describe the people of God in the NT (I don't think anyone denies this). What's more, this is not limited to words: we have a number of different texts doing different things that contribute to our knowledge. What's more, I think it is properly evangelical to give consideration to traditional answers to the questions we are asking.

That's not to say that this kind of process of checking how the Bible uses its terms isn't a necessary and useful one: merely that it isn't enough to do theology.

Post-It label Theology...

In his impressive book Bound to Sin, Alistair McFadyen makes an appeal against ‘Post-It™ label theology’, which, he explains, is when God is ‘stuck on’ to secular analyses and descriptions of the world. For it to carry explanatory force, theology must add something significant to our level of explanation and understanding of the world. As McFadyen puts it with regard to his study of sin:

If God is the most basic reality and explanation of the world, then it must be the case that the world cannot adequately be explained, understood, lived in, without reference to God in our fundamental means both of discernment and action.

Which means that theology ought to be more attentive to its own way speaking and to its own concepts than to concepts drawn from elsewhere.

(Alistair I. McFadyen, Bound to Sin: Abuse, Holocaust, and the Christian Doctrine of Sin, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine; 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) p.12. )

Theology as pure method?

This summer I obtained two books for my 9-year old son to read - The Philosophy Files 1 and 2 by Stephen Law.

They are quite brilliantly conceived books, using a dialogical style to introduce kids to the great issues of philosophical debate. Law is able to give the arguments for both sides in most instances, and then prompts some further questions. We had great fun talking about whether eating meat was ok, for example.

My thought was, why aren't there similar books on theology for Simon's age group: books that are fun, stimulating, don't talk down, don't provide cheap easy answers and have cool pictures in them?

But then a further realisation: Law is able to do what he does because he presents philosophy as a method of thinking rather than any particular set of thoughts. Essentially, as he offers it, philosophy means developing your skill in rational thinking (it's a very English view!). What answer you come to on the various questions is in the end irrelevant pretty much: it is the process of thinking them through that concerns him. And it makes for a more interesting book because it is open-ended in this way.

Can theology be presented like this? Can we say 'this is good theological thinking' without actually resolving some of the questions the philosopher is happy to leave unresolved? How could you then present theology to intelligent 9-13 year olds as not merely a set of answers but a way of thinking?

Searching for the way to say it...

Two questions of finding the write theological language confront me as I write:

1 - I keep wanting to say 'God' and 'human' as if they are opposites, but it strikes me that this isn't as simple as it looks. So, for example when I write -

Christian martyrdom is an act of God, not of human beings

- isn't this a false dichotomy because of Jesus Christ, who makes possible a kind of divine-human act? Isn't the opposition more between divine and non-divine? Is that the right language?

2 - I keep going to write 'the Church' out of habit - meaning 'the Church visible', as in -

the Church must always remember what the particular task for which they carry divine authority is.

- only as a Protestant I am not sure that this is meaningful language. Can I really talk about the visible church as a unity that can act, think, decide, live in this way? Isn't it more accurate - and more biblical - to speak of 'churches' when talking of the people of God under this aspect, and reserve 'the Church' for the final eschatological gathering?