Theological Virtues and Vices

It is typical for pride in scholarship to enter in with things such as practical books, conversations, or tasks being looked down upon. Granted, sometimes it is because those actually do function as an obstacle and even as an excuse to not pursue the knowledge of God as he is in himself. So the aversion to the “ABCs” can be understandable at times. There are practical books that do nothing but mass market pragmatism, if not also legalism, or else downright consumeristic fluff. There are conversations that never rise above the materialistic drivel of this world. There are tasks that will waste our days and form fetters on our minds.

But then it is also the case that the intellectual acumen of some is nothing more than an excuse to look down upon the church and despise the ordinary means of grace. It answers to the perfectly natural temptations to neglect spiritual disciplines, to feel self-reliant on one’s mental abilities, or to rest on the praise one has received from others about our erudition. These are sure ways to begin hardening our hearts and closing our minds to what the Spirit says through the Word.

With such a general lay of the land in mind, what follows is a catalog of theological virtues and vices. These will be paired as they are clearly opposites of each other. To be guilty of one is to have neglected the other, or perhaps to have been blind to it all along. What I offer here is hardly anything of a scientific classification, but rather the names that seem to me to fit best, and in no particular order. 

The Virtue of Faithful Wonder and Vice of Wandering Curiosity.

Thomas Boston posed the problem in this way:

“Is not sinful curiosity natural to us? and is this not a print of Adam’s image? (Gen 3.6). Is not man much more desirous to know new things, than to practice old known truths? How much like old Adam do we look in this eagerness for novelties, and disrelish of old solid doctrines? We seek after knowledge rather than holiness, and study most to know those things which are at least edifying.”1

Although Boston speaks in this way, of curiosity and novelty being merely the subject and object in relation to each other, it seems to me that a more precise distinction between the two is needed. There are plenty of old women in the Bible church down the block who can quote Scripture like a Puritan and who occupy themselves with any number of curiosities. But it would never occur to any of them to indulge the typical theological innovation of the seminarian.

Michael Allen writes, “The vice of curiosity leads one to pursue or pontificate on things outside one’s knowledge. This vice is the noetic manifestation of pride: overconfidence in one’s own capacities and unbelief in one’s need to depend on the gift of another (which, in this case, has not been rendered).”2

John Webster adds,

“In this state of futility, studiousness is distorted into curiosity. Curiosity is the distortion of intellectual appetite in which created intellectual powers are applied to improper objects of new knowledge. Curiosity seeks to know created realities without reference to their creator — as phenomena, not as created things — and the process of coming-to-know takes place inordinately, indiscriminately and pridefully … Curiosity enters when theology neglects the particular object of theology and instead gives itself promiscuously to whatever sources of fascination present themselves, particularly if they are novel; and so, theology becomes restless and unstable.”3

All of this may be equally true of the aforementioned simple church member as for the seminarian. The desire to be answered when God is silent is obviously not confined to the sophisticated forms of pride, but also the more subtle variety that may be birthed in pain and legitimate confusion. We can also not discount the opposite of pain, namely the way in which affluence breeds “too much time on our hands,” so that the intellect engages in its own luxury items and impulse purchases at the “checkout” of devotional time. Understandably fascinating subjects such as the identity of the Nephilim or the exact referents of the visions in Daniel can become rabbit trails leading only to a theological graveyard. For all that, we must distinguish between this more pedantic and aimless curiosity and a kind that is searching for either deeper roots or wider breathing room. 

The Virtue of Stability and Vice of Novelty.

What is the difference between mere curiosity and novelty? Both reach out for what is new; yet there is a kind of wanderlust of mind—Augustine specifically calls attention to this “lust of the eyes”4—that is marked more by distaste for the old than by any real taste for something more substantive. So novelty is the need to be cutting-edge, to disassociate oneself from the fathers, to never be caught dead on any old path.

Novelty also unwittingly cuts both ways on the timeline. Sometimes the “something more” can be sought in something once possessed. This can begin innocently enough in the suspicion that one is living in the shallowlands, yet before one knows it that sense of superiority in knowing it becomes a tunnel vision.

There becomes a pride in pageantry, a snobbery of show in the name of substance that has lasted. But what could be more unlike the spiritual dimension of Christianity than to root either catholicity or orthodoxy in physical lineage or geographic distinctions? And yet when a truth so old has been hidden from a head so new, it is all very natural to blame the wrong things and lash out against one’s more immediate ancestors only by falling in mindless league with one’s more distant ancestors. There is an irony that will make a novelty of a relic.

How many have set out on their Reformed ship, only to be allured by the siren calls of the mystic or the monk, or the “smells and bells” down the Tiber River? What begins in the open straits of catholicity becomes hellbent to shipwreck on the shores of Rome or Constantinople. 

The Virtue of Teachability and Vice of Contentiousness.

Webster writes, “One of the chief fruits of the Spirit’s conversion of the reader is teachableness, a teachableness which extends into the disposition with which Scripture is read.”5 Recalling our starting point in the fear of the Lord, certainly we cannot consider anyone a theologian who will not listen to God; but the reality is that the God who uses means has been pleased to ordain the teaching office as well. This starts with one’s own parents, but extends outward to schoolmasters and church elders.

It is even evident in the patience to hear another man out in one’s conversations and reading. Therefore if “the preaching of the word of God is the word of God,” then one might appropriate that confessional language to see that to reject the authority figure, or the sound teacher, that God has sent is (to the extent that he is bringing the word) is to reject God himself. 

There is a form of false humility that fancies itself a “good Berean,” which was commended by Paul, only toward the end of keeping every teaching at an arm’s length, and so “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). An unteachable spirit and a contentious spirit are really twins in that both have exalted the independence of one’s judgments over truth itself. It should be noted that the real Bereans checked the Scriptures to measure Paul’s words not to keep the words of others out of their hearts, but it says that “they received the word with all eagerness” (Acts 17:11).

The Virtue of Scripture Satisfaction and Vice of Bible Boredom.

That most serpentine novelty of all comes in the seed form: that of growing “too familiar” with the Bible itself. Beeke and Smalley write, “A theologian has entered into an exceedingly dangerous place when he delights in reading the words of mere men, but has little interest in meditating on the Bible.”6

The triumph of Scripture over vain philosophy and adoration over mere pontification, in Augustine’s journey, is a model for true Christian academics. He contrasts what God teaches through nature, reason, and even the pagans (in which there is truth and for which we should give thanks), with those glories in the gospel of which those other books are altogether silent.7

A good theology book is one that will increase one’s esteem for Scripture. It will do so by defending both the content and manner of its communication. Wisdom tells us that life is short,8 which assigns to us a very particular reading list.

“Of making many books there is no end” (Ecc. 12:12), and so the same of reading them if we do not develop an early discipline of which to read carefully, which to skim, and which to discard. 

The Virtue of Corporate Edification and Vice of Self-Serving Autonomy.

If theological acumen is a gift, and if gifts are for the edification of the body, then sound theology will take delight in serving the saints exactly where they are. Trueman saw this in Owen, “that most delightful aspect of precritical theology: its essentially ecclesial and practical purpose … It was theology done within the church for the benefit of the church.”9 

The theologian ought not ascend to the heights in order to draw attention to himself or to pound anyone who crosses him by his eloquence. We are to speak, Baxter says, “as plain as we can, that we may inform the ignorant.”10 Eagerness to censure and upbraid must be included in this vice, since it is more likely to be motivated by offence than by love. Sibbes added that, “The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.”11

Among the more sophisticated vices that Augustine struggled with is “to be thought elegant and urbane.”12 It is the pursuit of intellectual achievement that can too easily define our sense of worth.

Vanity is the context in which Augustine spoke, and to be vain in pursuit of academics is to read and write what we do ultimately because of what it says about the Self, rather than what it says about God. This was always a temptation, but in our age of easy dissemination of opinions, there is an easy route away from serving the church with our minds.

Augustine recounted sitting under Ambrose, caring more for his eloquence than for his convictions. He craved gifts of mind and speech to make much of himself; but the intellectual virtues are from God.13 Failure to thank him for it issues forth into a different pursuit of scholarship. To make a name for oneself: this is the definition of academic or ministerial vanity. Of course it is also idolatry.

Knowledge, discovery and service are all good things insofar as they participate in the goodness of God; but as they are deprived of his chief end, they call subordinate ends ultimate. This is even true of relating, with these gifts, to precious image-bearers: “If souls please you, let them be loved in God; for in themselves they are mutable, but in him firmly established.”14

The Virtue of Risky Clarity and Vice of Peace-Making Ambiguity.

There is a failure of nerve wherever we beat around the bush in eternal matters. In all matters one knows are controversial to the spirit of the age, one must cultivate plain speech over the craving for safety. In his classic, Christianity and Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen said,

“Few desires on the part of religious teachers have been more harmfully exaggerated than the desire to ‘avoid giving offence.’ Only too often that desire has come perilously near dishonesty; the religious teacher, in his heart of hearts, is well aware of the radicalism of his views, but is unwilling to relinquish his place in the hallowed atmosphere of the Church by speaking his whole mind. Against all such concealment or palliation, our sympathies are altogether with those men, whether radicals or conservatives, who have a passion for light.”15

R. C. Sproul had a term for that theological vice by which those who knew better distract from the heart of a controversy by falsely diplomatic speech. He called it “studied ambiguity.”

“This studied ambiguity is an intentional ambiguity by which words and phrases are left blurry enough for antithetical views to be safely held by both sides in a debate … Church history testifies that the studied ambiguity is the refuge of the heretic. If he can blur his meaning, he can safely continue to slither along on his belly.”16

It is one thing to be the heretic in full bloom. But this vice of ambiguity has two points of attack: one comes from the dragon of heresy itself and the other from the man who is assigned to vanquish it. There are countless theologians and pastors who will beat their chest about controversial matters: so long as those matters are safely tucked away in a history book, or on the side of a committee report upon which their denomination has already ruled. If it requires taking a stand on some unknown dust cloud emerging before us, the same men are as quiet and small as a mouse.

There is a statement often attributed to Luther that helps us get very specific here:

“If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point.”17

In fact, I dare say that the person who can think of no better reaction to that quote than to say, “Well, you know, Luther never actually said that”—I dare say such a person has never known a moment of Christian thought as the warfare that Paul says it is in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. Such a pretender at theology has never met a stronghold with which he did not make peace. What real difference does it make whether Luther said such words, when what really ought to occupy our souls is whether we believe them?

The Virtue of Contentment and Vice of Covetousness.

Two biblical texts will show the way here: Psalm 131:1 and Deuteronomy 29:29. In the words of the Psalmist: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” Centuries earlier, Moses had been inspired by the same Holy Spirit to write,

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

The first is an expression of the heart seeking God, and the other a portion of covenantal instruction to God’s people. Both of these point to limitations between the human intellect and divine mysteries. Such limitations are neither arbitrary nor stifling to the true design of the human soul. Note that in both passages, there is a proper domain of humanity that is recovered precisely by being content with the portion God has given to us. 

In that short Psalm the individual soul is not crushed, but flourishes: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me” (131:2). The contrast is not between repression versus the maturing flight of human reason, but rather the true spiritual milk18 versus a vain illusion that would have poisoned.

Likewise for Israel assembled at Moab, that which was revealed was hardly the irrational crumbs off of the Lord’s table concealing the rational assent to the hidden feast above. That which was revealed was both rational and practical. The boundaries were set that they may be both hearers and doers of the law.19 

The very suspicion that the Lord is keeping from reason that which is good for it harkens back to the subtle slander of the serpent to Eve. As one may covet the goods of earth, so one may covet the secrets of heaven; and there is the recapitulation of the original sin of prying into a knowledge not given (Genesis 3:6). Brakel put it in this way, “Believers must not, nor do they desire to, proceed with their minds beyond its defined limitations, that is, beyond that which the Lord has been pleased to shed light upon. Whatever cannot be fully understood and perceived, they believe.”20

The Virtue of Heavenly-mindedness and Vice of Worldliness.

This may seem too generic of a division to speak directly to theological activity; yet how much of our theology is done as a monument that fades with this age? Wisdom makes for practical theology, that is, one that makes good use of our lives in this world. Heavenly wisdom keeps uses in their place, never to be put on the throne of loves.

Augustine’s distinction between what is to be used and what is to be enjoyed21 is something we find worked out extensively among the Puritans. Obviously this is the case of Bunyan’s pilgrim. Beeke and Jones describe the Puritans as “pietistic”22 in the truest sense of being in the world but not of it. At the very least, theology done without Judgment Day ever in view is a mad delusion. Baxter’s warnings to the preacher seem just as apt to the academic who works upon eternal truths:

“God never saved any man for being a preacher … Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you should there read the sentence of your own condemnation?”23

We can fool ourselves that we escaped intellectual vanity because we have avoided the lust for the novel or the accolades of the elite, yet there is more from this passing world to be attained by reason. There is the most natural desire for safety and security that prevents us from academic courage: the sort that caused Augustine to leave the Roman rhetorical halls behind, or Luther to take on the papacy, or Machen to earn the scorn of the modernists, or in countless other ways to be counted fools for Christ’s sake. We may love scholarship as Demas loved this present world (2 Tim. 4:10). In loving it, but not for God’s sake, we may abandon it as a calling and cling to it as an idol.

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1. Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2020), 73.

2. Michael Allen, Christian Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 13.

3. John Webster, God Without Measure (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2018), 222-23.

4. Augustine, Confessions (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2007), 176

5. Webster, Holy Scripture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 101.

6. Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Volume 1: Revelation and God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 153.

7. Augustine, Confessions, 98-100.

8. Psalm 90:12

9. Trueman, quoted in Beeke and Jones, A Puritan Theology, 102.

10. Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), 137.

11. Sibbes, The Bruised Reed, 23.

12. Augustine, Confessions, 28.

13. Augustine, Confessions, 55.

14. Augustine, Confessions, 49.

15. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 17-18.

16. R. C. Sproul, Introduction to Francis Turretin, Justification (Phillipsburg, NJ: Prebsyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2004) xvii, xviii

17. Martin Luther [misattribution] quoted in Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1984), 50-51.

18. 1 Peter 2:2

19. James 1:22

20. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:139

21. cf. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, I.3-4

22. Beeke and Jones, A Puritan Theology, 849.

23. Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 54.