Avoiding the Philosopher’s Sandbox: A Word to Budding Theologians

Something I have come to realize over time is that the theological rubik’s-cube will never be solved. In my young theological zeal, in my overzealous idealism, I had the vision that the theologian, not to mention the Greek grammarian, could pierce the heavens and find things never known before; that they could, with all their learnedness, put an end to various theological debates that heretofore had yet to be conquered. As I’ve done due-diligence over the decades I’ve come to realize that these professional theologians are but dust, like me. After spending hours and hours in study, I’ve come to see that the theologian often is simply shuffling various theological loci around per their own unique and imaginative ways of ordering them; and this in itself counts as their respective genius. In nuce, what I’ve come to realize is that most theologians don’t offer anything original to some sort of burgeoning theological discourse. This is somewhat disheartening, to say the least. 

All this does is press me into further Christ concentration. I don’t abandon the theological task. Instead, I look for theologians who have a laser-focus on the man from Nazareth. Most other theology, the theology of the schoolmen, what I am primarily referring to above, is a dead-end. It starts and ends in the theologian’s imagination, and from the philosopher’s sandbox. This is helpful for me in certain ways, it delimits the types of theologies and theologians I’ll spend my time reading. But coming to this realization has been a process. I still see budding theologians with the sort of zeal I started out with. Hopefully the game won’t chew them up and spit them out. Hopefully they won’t find their identity in their CVs, and the chummy-ness they come to experience at the national theological conferences. Hopefully they’ll be quick to the draw, and simply press into the economy of the Kingdom, rather than the institution of the theologians.