Why I Study Theology

I know it would make sense with as much as I talk about writing to assume that I study English.  I used to.  It was always my thing and even though I considered every other option, it was the obvious choice for a college major.  But half way through my junior year of college, I got distracted by theology.  I finished my English degree, but I added Religion as a second major and when it came time to decide what to do next, I knew I wasn’t done with theology.

I’ve always had a hard time articulating how theology so managed to sweep me off my feet and make me believe that a life spent studying anything else would be inferior.

The classical definition of theology is “faith seeking understanding.”  If I had to give an even simpler definition, I would say, “figuring out why you believe the things you do.”  Theology almost always refers to Christian theology and it’s different from philosophy or the sociology of religion in that it’s done by insiders.  That’s the faith part of “faith seeking understanding”; you’re starting already with some kind of commitment. I am a Christian and I do theology.

I get myself into trouble with people who hear I’m a Christian and then assume they know what I believe.  I’m a progressive Christian who studies liberal theology.  I probably have more beliefs in common with atheists than a lot of Christians.  And if I’m being intellectually honest, I border on being agnostic, which means that I don’t think we can know if there is a God.  It’s hard for me to say why I still identify as a Christian.  Maybe I won’t forever.  For me it is partly cultural, but it certainly goes beyond that.  My thought is so shaped by Christian theology and even if there is no God or even if I’m not convinced we can know if there is a God, you don’t have to be certain of something in order for it to have meaning for your life.

I could go a million directions from here, but I’ll try to limit myself to the question of why I study theology.  The absolute best answer I can give to the question of why I study theology is that it’s completely changed the way I view the world.  And there really is no shift more fundamental than that.  Theology is not just about what you think of God or Jesus or the after life or homosexuality or science; it’s about how all of those things fit together into a systematic worldview.  It’s like a Rubik’s Cube where you change one thing and it affects everything else.  You say God is all powerful and then you have to explain why bad things happen to good people and why you act like you have freedom and power of your own if you’ve just said that God has it all.  But, unlike a Rubik’s Cube, there’s no solving it all; you do the best you can and sometimes that means admitting that you’re not sure if Jesus is really God or not and you have to sit with that uncertainty.

It’s maddening to pursue questions to which you will never find absolutely convincing answers, but pursuing them anyway will change the way you think.  It will force you to question everything you know.  It will reveal the subtleties of the world.  And it will force you to be creative.  I’ve never written much about theology on my blog, but it has so changed the way I think that it underlies everything I say here.

One of the most valuable things about theology is the way it breaks down constructs. Everything you do, you do based on some kind of belief, but the truth is that some of those beliefs are crap and you will realize it the minute you apply reason to them.  But, that’s just in the breaking down, and theology does not stop there.  It’s not simply destructive.  It’s constructive too.  You question everything you believe and it hurts and you’re not left with much when it’s over.  But, you start building again.

You start looking for answers, but everything is so much more complex than before.  It’s nuanced and subtle and dynamic and hard to hold onto.  You wade through all of that and find things that feel right to you, that don’t bend logic, that make sense with the world you actually experience.  Often that means being creative, viewing old ideas through new eyes, redefining words, making things up.  You build from there, but this time with the humility to know that your perspective is limited and the things you’re describing are always changing.

That is the point when the world comes alive and you realize that in every moment, you are presented with uncountable possibilities and whether you take the path of least resistance or make the biggest leap possible, you’re never the same this moment as you were the last.  And everything around you, from the humans you share your space with to the atoms that make up that rock are making similar choices, defining themselves by the choices they make.  Maybe God is there, persuading you to choose the possibilities best for you and every other organism, feeling your pain when you experience it, but your decisions are your own.

Theology is deeply personal, because the things you believe are always personal.  Literature would sometimes challenge me in that same way, but it was easier to lose myself in other worlds and academic jargon.  Making up words is a favorite activity of theologians as well and we can debate things of seeming inconsequence for centuries, but it’s always connected to something bigger–to the questions in life of the most significance.  Like, why are we here and where are we going?  I study theology, because I think few things are more important.  What you think about yourself, what you think about the world you live in, and what you think about the people you share this world with shape how you live, whether you’ve ever stopped to dissect them or not.  You’re always acting on a set of assumptions.

If this all sounds cold and academic, then I haven’t explained myself very well, but if it seems watercolory, one color blending into the next to make beautiful and ugly designs, then I probably have.  It is nuanced and uncertain, but real and important.  It is not about one sphere of life, but rather underlies them all and motivates us in everything.  Theology is also about real world practicality (like how do we share this world with each other) and ancient logic problems (mostly having to do with Jesus, like how is the bread really his body and how can he possibly be both human and divine), but those things I could find elsewhere.  It’s this experience of the world like an artist experiences a painting that makes me think that even if I never do anything with these expensive degrees, my time spent studying theology could never be wasted.