The Spirituality of Theological Activity, Part 1
There is no more wicked irony than a proud theologian. What could be more unfitting than the man who knows more than his contemporaries of a God who is infinitely above him, who then also supposes that this relative excellence in knowledge is to his own human glory? If the distance between the theologian and God is infinite, then it is the same distance as between God and his neighbors. He has no leg up on them here. Adding insult to the boast of his finitude is the moral chasm between his sin and God’s holiness. Luther’s scandal and suffering emphases in the Heidelberg Disputation come to mind here.
Now it is no secret that the Reformed have gotten a reputation for being haughty in their disputations. Our tendency is, as Packer once said, to “look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate and dismiss them as very poor specimens.”1 The truth is mixed about the Reformed tradition. We who are in it have often lived up to the caricature. Yet if one were to judge matters by the character of the doctrine itself, then only the uncharitable and careless reader could fail to see that so much of Reformed theology is driven toward personal piety, and yes, specifically, humility.
For example, it was Calvin who spoke of the doctrine of election as the great antidote to pride, and “how greatly ignorance of this principle detracts from the glory of God, and impairs true humility,” and moreover that “those who would extinguish it, wickedly do as much as in them lies to obscure what they ought most loudly to extol, and pluck humility by its very roots.”2
I speak of pride in a theologian. However, if it is the case that this is the primal sin, then what I have in mind to investigate are the manifestations of this pride—and its opposite, humility—in a variety of consequent opposites. The reality that is made up of this catalog of contrasting virtues and vices we will call “the spirituality of theological activity.” While we need to understand a whole range of theological phenomena in light of present controversies or as logical necessities or as part of the historical flow of a tradition, beneath all of these are the ways in which our whole souls stand in relation to God. Theology is either done consciously coram deo or else it will drift from some virtue to its opposite vice.
The goal of this writing is to show that true spirituality of theological activity is by the fear of the Lord, to the glory of God, in the way of Christ.
To the end of putting flesh on what might seem like a fairly general principle, I will locate this spirituality of theological activity first in the definition of theology as a wisdom, second in that aforementioned “catalog” of contrasting virtues and vices, and finally in two corresponding sections that seek principles in diagnosing the theologically vicious heart and cultivating the theological virtuous heart. In that diagnosis we will be asking especially the question of what exactly goes wrong when this or that vice explodes into a more expansive movement toward apostasy.
The Spiritual Advantage of Defining Theology as a Wisdom
Wisdom is often defined as knowledge rightly applied. The difference between wisdom and mere knowledge parallels the distinction between practical and theoretical disciplines. If I could make things concise: Wisdom is truth for life. Students of systematic theology—especially in its many historic expressions—are familiar with the debate over whether theology is theoretical or practical, whether it is a science or a wisdom.
Those who are not privy to this study may happily skip this section. No doubt it will come across as Question 2 in the theoretical nit-wit catechism, right after the infamous Question 1: “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Naturally those who are privy to the question know that this is actually altogether important and, might I add, practical.
To lay my own cards on the table, I would actually side with Turretin, Dabney, Shedd, and others (who in turn lean back on Aquinas) in calling theology a science. However, I have an appreciation for the “theology-as-wisdom” emphasis. There is an important place for it, and it may be that both emphases are correct even while looking at the nature of theology from two distinct yet legitimate perspectives. Before arriving at a comparison of those vices and virtues, I will argue that theology as wisdom is best justified as this “spirituality of theological activity.”
While the product and the method of theology speaks of a science, yet the whole activity is a wisdom. Mastricht, for example, insisted that the essence of theology is more than a science, yet he rejected that theological activity ought to be pigeonholed into any of the five Aristotelian “habits,” such as understanding, knowledge, wisdom, prudence, or art, since according to its eminence, theology is all of the habits, since it possesses the perfections of them all.”3 In developing this holistic activity of theology, he stood in the stream of some earlier continental Reformed theologians such as “Junius, Scharpius, Polanus, Alsted, and Walaeus” who “all preferred sapientia,”4 or the English Puritans who developed the “science of praxis.”5
Perkins and Ames, for example, referred to theology in the following ways: “the science of living blessedly for ever” and “the doctrine or teaching of living to God.”6 Wisdom is not apart from knowledge. For Ames, sound theology produces “the alignment of the human will with the will of a holy God.”7 It is built upon knowledge and out of nothing but knowledge. However, this is knowledge intentionally aimed by the whole soul for the whole of life, and not only that, but a life properly ordered toward the glory of God and ultimate blessedness of the saints. Here we will speak of this wisdom in (1) its beginning, (2) its end, and (3) its essence, these being, in short, the fear of the Lord, the worship of God, and the way of Christ.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10). The Bible teaches that this is our starting point, and couples wisdom with knowledge here (cf. Prov. 1:7). If theology is a wisdom, and if the fear of the Lord is its beginning, then what follows? Many minds can contribute the stockpile of scholarship from which theologians draw; but only a God-fearing mind can properly do theology. This is so for a number of reasons. The first is the incomprehensibility of its subject matter.
Spurgeon famously said of theology,
“It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-contentment, and go our way with the thought, ‘Behold I am wise.’ But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with the solemn exclamation, ‘I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.’ No subject if contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God.”8
Another reason that the fear of the Lord initiates the theological task is because of what is at stake for the soul of the one who sets about it. The theologian does more than stand in between God and his audience with the world. He stands in between heaven and hell himself. The verdict is still out, so far as he is concerned, whether his output will pass the test that is by fire, or whether it will be exposed as mere straw. While the believer’s salvation is secure in Christ, each believer’s theology may be more or less honoring to God.9
Such a God-fearing mind is not self-serving either. One of the great evidences of true conversion is a love that one has for the brethren, and all the more so that love which cares for the destiny and nourishment of their souls. So for the theologian it becomes a pastoral love and fear conjoined. Mastricht opens Volume 1 of his Theoretical-Practical Theology with such a love in mind. True to his form of exegesis coming first, he begins with 1 Timothy 6:2-3. It is an exhortation from Paul to Timothy about the importance of teaching true theology. By contrast, the pastor is duty-bound to silence those who would teach any other doctrine. So the activity of theology is driven toward its pure teaching, and this dogmatic end is inseparable from a polemical task.
Anyone who will carefully read the Pastoral Letters will see that the end of doctrine is itself a subordinate end to a godly life and that of life eternal. Even the pastor’s arguments against error are motivated by a care of souls, starting with one’s own. So Paul admonishes Timothy in another place: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16).
The worship of God is the end of wisdom. This follows from the truth of man’s chief end. If the whole of man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, and if theology is a proper enterprise of man, then it follows that theological activity must be ordered to this same chief end. To put it plainly to a test, if our theology is not worshipful, it is not true theology. Of course this does not mean that it would say nothing true. The three comforters of Job said many true things, but taken as a system they had no solace for Job’s misery but a “Christian karma.” It feigned glory for God and stood in need of repentance in the end.10 So in the same way, we may make a nice run at insightful research that becomes a mirror of our own distinctions instead of a window into eternity.
We need to remember how the Scriptures speak of “knowing” God in its intimate connotation, as Ezekiel’s constant refrain promised that his people would “know that I am the LORD.” In this emphasis the Reformed stood in a stream of already existing medieval piety. Divine love was for Bernard the first and final cause (causa efficiens et finalis) of all Christian theology and experience. He saw that this love was others-directed, as love “seeks not its own” (1 Cor. 13:5). It is both essential in God and his constant gift.11
The essence of this wisdom is the way of Christ. Now this is a subject of great exploration in its own right. We will notice that Mastricht qualified his definition in exactly this way, though certainly that was colored with the emphasis of suffering more in Luther’s theology of the cross. Naturally the most important part of this wisdom for any sinner to see is that apart from Christ, there is no coming to God as to anything but our Judge. Let us assume, however, the case of a genuine Christian who would do theology. In what way is the “way of wisdom” Christological? This is not a question that can be reduced to a kind of “spirituality” that turns on mere sentiment.
A distinction must be made here so there is no confusion. Classical theologians had made the point that a “trinitarian” method was to be preferred to a “Christological” method.12 What they had in their minds was something that would come to a full fruition in Barthianism. In early liberalism, this might have taken the form of inflating the Jesus of history at the expense of the Christ of faith, to use the terminology of Strauss. Finally, in more popular level pietism, such a “Christ-centered” faith may be nothing more than the relational nearness or practical example that one has in the life of Jesus, but which was supposedly veiled when the old thinkers spoke only of the Godhead in eternal categories. It is natural for the orthodox theologian to react to all of this by dismissing any sharp subjection of theological activity to what we see revealed in the humanity of Jesus. But it would be the opposite of wisdom to fail to press through. There is a “way of Christ” apart from which there is no lasting, fruitful knowledge of God.
“No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18).
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Theology as wisdom is the spirituality of theological activity: first, because its subject matter is spiritual; second, because the heart of the wise must be regenerate (the natural mind is of no avail here); third, because the knowledge of living for God in Christ is a spiritual appraisal of all things. So the object, disposition, and whole life of the theologian is spiritually discerned and so spiritually activated. To have that fear of the Lord as the beginning of this wisdom, the heart of worship as the end of this wisdom, and walking the way of Christ’s suffering as the essence of this wisdom, all requires the work of the Holy Spirit as the inward Teacher.13
The last thing I will say about theology as a wisdom will provide our transition to that catalog of contrasts between theological virtues and vices. Wisdom is a balance of intellectual activities, or perhaps the balance of these with other spiritual dispositions that one might not tend to think of as an intellectual discipline. With limited space, we will focus on just two such balances.
The first balance that will feature in several of the contrasts is an improper entertaining versus a proper exercise (or exciting) of one’s theological awareness. What is it that first awakens one’s theological interest? What is it about God that one is drawn to? What would it mean to discover that one is drawn toward or by something that we ought not? Brakel speaks of undertaking theology proper with trembling “so that on the one side we may avoid entertaining unbecoming thoughts of God, and on the other side we may be properly exercised in response to appropriate considerations of God.”14
A second balance is improper and proper truth-telling. I choose to say it this way partly because Paul’s words are so often wrongly used—“speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15)—as if what is commended is a diluted spiritual drink. The truth about truth-in-love is simply that the communication of truth must be fit not only for the urgent moment, but for the present readiness of that soul. It is no compromise to truth to discern that it is administered as mothers to nursing infants, as tutors to the ready pupil, or as drill sergeants to the sluggard. Richard Sibbes commented that,
“If it be not a truth to the person to whom he speaks, if he grieves those whom God has not grieved by unseasonable truths, or by comforts in an ill way, the hearts of the wicked may be strengthened. One man’s meat may be another’s poison.”15
Puritans like Sibbes understood that it is not relativism that discerns the relative fitness of a truth to a time and a place. He compares Christ, and the minister who would be faithful to his example, to a physician who raises his patients up by degrees.16 A firehose is not the proper conduit for medicine.
__________________________
1. J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 21.
2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.21.1.
3. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Volume 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), 105.
4. Richard Muller, Post-Reformed Reformed Dogmatics, Volume One: Prolegomena to Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 325.
5. Theodore Dwight Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion and Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 89.
6. Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 691.
7. Beeke and Jones, A Puritan Theology, 848.
8. Charles Spurgeon, quote in Packer, Knowing God, 17-18.
9. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15
10. Job 42:7-9
11. Aerie de Reuver, Sweet Communion: Trajectories in Spirituality from the Middle Ages through the Further Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 36.
12. W. G. T. Shedd made this argument explicitly (Dogmatic Theology. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2003, 43-44), and John Owen’s trinitarianism was described as having “a christological focus” and yet where “theocentricity and christocentricity walked together as friends, not as rivals” (Beeke and Jones, A Puritan Theology, 106).
13. John 6:45, 1 Corinthians 2:11-13, 1 John 2:20, 27
14. Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service: Volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 83.
15. Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1998), 28.
16. Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, 7.
