So what? What’s all this high falutin theologically jargony theology have to do with anything? I get to this point more times than not. Even though I often engage high theological notions, and attempt to reflect therein, at the end of it I often walk away with the “so what!” feeling. Many Christians take one look at the themes I write on, others write on, that the dead theologians have written on, and simply shake their heads figuring, at best, this is all for the eggheads among us. But I really don’t think that that is the case, or that it should be. Speaking from my personal experience, pushing deep into the theological themes present in the dogma of the Church catholic has radically changed my life as a Christian. Early on I had no depth grounding in the reality of the Church in Jesus Christ. I grew up as an evangelical Christian, a pastor’s kid, involved in the pastoral ministry of the church. My dad included me in his ministry, insofar that he could, and he found ways to do that all the time. So, I had a depth ministry experience from early on in my life, as far back as I can even remember. Even so, the doctrinal development, as a North American Conservative Baptist Association (CBA) pastor’s kid, went as deep as dispensationalism and a type of (“Calminian”) biblicism would allow for. I had a heart warmed for Jesus; I had a personal experience and relationship with Him and His people; but I didn’t have an understanding of just how deep the Church’s teaching ran. And because of this, when I hit some serious crises in my life, at the tender age of 23, I almost didn’t make it. Without belaboring the details of that season of life (which lasted for years and years following), it was the lacuna of doctrinal/affective/intellectual depth that left me in a serious theological lurch. It was this crisis, no different than WWI for Barth, or the lightning strike for Luther, that propelled me into the Bible afresh anew. This became my sustenance, reading through Holy Scripture, memorizing books of the Bible, meditating on it, dreaming it, every day and night. Scripture’s words became my sanity, they became my Nebuchadnezzar moment wherein I came to realize, over and again, that Yahweh is King, that He is God of gods and Lord of lords. In this realization, as I encountered the risen Christ, as I saw His smiling face peering back at me with each page turned, I came to have an experience of life, resurrection life, over and again. And so I kept returning, and continue returning over and again to the inhabitation of Holy Scripture.
But I still needed teaching, I needed sacra doctrina. I enrolled in Bible college, which then would lead to seminary. It was in seminary that I was first introduced to historical theology in earnest. Once I learned of the history of ideas, particularly, ecclesial ideas, my world went from the nagging skepticisms and doubts, indeed, the demonic attacks of absence and loss that I had been confronted with for years prior, to a strange new world of hope. I came to realize that the ideas of the Church, the grammar developed in the consensus patrum, were the very foundations, not just of the Christian Church, but of the intellectual history of both the Western and Eastern worlds, respectively. Once this reality hit me, I came to have a solvency of faith; I came to find peace in the realization of God’s Providential hand as it clearly had, is, and will shape the telos of the world unto the face of Jesus Christ; the face I had been encountering afresh anew throughout the pages of Holy Writ. And so this turn to the origins of ideas made me realize that the world, in its abstract and lost certitude, didn’t in fact own the keys to the Kingdom; it made me realize that God in Christ, that the triune God really did have it all in His hands. This gave me, finally!, the intellectual and more significantly, spiritual stability I needed to finally move on to the meatier things.
All of this, even still, and more so, was grounded in a proper theology of the Word. Back early on I ran into a nominal, non-practicing Catholic, we struck up a discussion, and he found out I was a brand-new bible college student. He told me, even as the Catholic he was, “that you can never go wrong with the Bible.” Indeed, he was right, and the history of ideas, historical theology in its development bore this out, particularly on the Protestant side of things (circa. 16th century ff). Understanding Scripture in its historical reception, grasping the fact that there was a history of interpretation that not only impacted the Church’s shape, and ongoing reality, but that this history had come to shape the secular world (and continues to) just the same. For some reason gaining this perspective was the missing link my tortured soul had needed all those years. It wasn’t Christian “apologetics,” in fact most of that just threw me deeper into doubts and fears that way. It was the realization of the bigness of God, and understanding that His hands were all over the pale of history right up into the present. That’s the perspective and reality that has allowed me to move on from most of my dark nights of the soul, from most of my anxiety, at least as that was related to these tormentuous doubts into what might only be identified as the abyss of nothingness. It was historical theology, and its reality in the Providence of God, given shape by the face of Jesus Christ that finally set me free.
This, for me, answers the “so what?” question. For me being able to think deeply and intelligibly about the triune life of God, about the hypostatic union and homoousion of Jesus Christ, about Holy Scripture, and the Church’s life from the communio sanctorum (communion of the saints) makes all of the jargon and deep thoughts pertinent to daily life. I look around at the seemingly chaotic world we inhabit, and because of the depth reality of sacred doctrine underpinning my life, as that is founded in the faith of Jesus Christ, I still can see God’s order, His purpose, His presence (parousia) in the midst of it all. And I know that if He can walk me through the chaos of my life, personally, that He is just as able to take the chaos of this world all around, and reverse it, re-create it, such that His order, His shalom will finally reign. And so now I know, precisely because of this push into the deep end of theological reflection, that God’s consummation, that His Eschatos, who is the Christ, has already happened in the unseen. And so I wait for the unseen to become the seen, for the vision of faith, to become the vision of sight as the Son of Man rolls the heavens back like a scroll, and brings the reality of His Kingdom to this world once and for all.
Hopefully this excursion has been helpful. If nothing else you at least have a little more insight into my background. Maybe you better understand now why I read and write on the things that I do, and why often, many of my posts appear to be probing into the theology under consideration. I continue to need its sustenance, its reality; without it, I will not survive the chaos of this world system all around. I need to know that God is God, and the world is not. And so I continuously remind myself of this, over and over and over again, because I need to know the warm embrace of my loving heavenly Father as I repose in His bosom in the Son by the comforting bond of the Holy Spirit.