What’s the Problem With Systematic Theology – Brad Jersak

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Question:

What is the problem with the concept of systematic theology? Isn’t it just a way to put your theology in cohesive manner in which to think through it? A way to organize it into a logical order?

Response:

Thanks for your excellent question. You may have read my post titled “My Theological Method” in which case, it both raises the question and responds to it, at least in part.

Full disclosure: part of who I am leans heavily to analytical thinking. I see in outlines and diagrams, to a fault. My shelf features quite a few volumes and whole sets of systematic theology, some that I’ve read cover to cover. Eventually, my analytical obsession led me to a rigorous critique of theological systems and how they distort Christian spirituality, biblical interpretation, and essential doctrine.

At the same time, I want to affirm your description of systematic theology. Gathering and organizing our theology into cohesive themes seems like a good idea to me. Unfortunately, that’s not all that’s going on. So I’ll share a few concerns that limit regard for that approach.

1. God’s self-revelation is not systematic. God’s primary revelation came through a Person, a life, a story. The Incarnation was not systematic and defies systematizing. Indeed, Jesus’ preaching and teaching were not systematic at all. He spoke in parables, analogies, aphorisms, and exhortations.
   Further God’s revelation through nature, through living prophets, and through recorded Scripture are never systematic. It is odd to me that theologians perceive the need to fix that as if God’s ways of conveying truth would be somehow improved by transposing the gospel into propositional faith statements.
2. Our systematic theologies don’t merely organize our theology. They impose categories onto divine revelation after the fact. What I mean by this is that overstepped any intention of simply drawing out the themes we saw in Scripture. We created categories and then retroactively squeezed some texts into those cubby holes, while leaving many by the wayside and distorting others. The most glaring example are those systematic texts that begin with hundreds of pages on ‘Revelation’ (how God is revealed) and ‘the Nature of God’ (what God is) before getting to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Under ‘revelation,’ they highlight Scripture (inspiration and authority) and under ‘the nature of God,’ write ad nauseam about God’s attributes (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.) … with virtually nothing about Jesus Christ or his Incarnation (one sample took over 600 pages to get there).
   But what does John 1 say? “No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (vs. 18). If Christ alone knows God and is the central revelation of God (as the Word of God), the kind of Systematic Theology that doesn’t start there is in grievous error.
3. Our systematic theologies generate factions of exclusion defined by themselves. That is, we develop a theological system, and seeking to be faithful, make it doctrine, summarized in a faith-statement that defines who is in and who is out, who is wrong and who is right, welcoming those who agree to agree, and marginalizing or even expelling those who disagree because they disagree. The test of faithfulness then is no longer ‘you will know them by their fruit’ or ‘that they love one another,’ but rather, ‘did they assent?’ to the propositions we declared as non-negotiable beliefs (or practices). That sounds like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Above our pay grade.
   Paul repeatedly condemns factions in his ‘flesh lists’ alongside orgies. Yet in the name of ‘faithfulness to doctrine,’ we willfully set the stage for schism, which historically is the first heresy.
4. Our systematic theologies are not pastoral, and an effort to use them that way is a kind of legalism. First scenario: I develop a clean system. I apply that system to messy people. I impose that system on them as law. Applying principles to people as a form of discipleship is pastoral negligence (or worse, religious abuse).
   
   Jesus showed us the perils of doctrinal conformity in his confrontations with the scribes and experts of the Law. And he showed us what true spiritual leadership looks like: (1) welcoming the other, (2) listening to their story, (3) helping them connect with the Spirit as guide and counselor. You don’t need the Spirit as a guide if you have a rule book. But Paul went down that path and concluded that it’s a ministry of death.

All that to say, we may think our systematic theologies are a benign way to organize our thoughts on God. But if we’re to use them, I recommend a rigorous assessment of how they function in the life of the Christian community. Are we aligned with the ways and priorities of God’s self-revelation through the Incarnation and the other secondary means? Are we creating categories and imposing them onto the stories and poems and writings in ways that alter their intent and meaning? Are we using them as opportunities for factionalism? Are we employing them as tests of faithfulness that make rightness more important than community? Are they somehow displacing a discipleship based on relationship and stories and action with a new law code of mental assent?

These are four factors (among others) that have mitigated my obsession with systematic theology. Thanks for asking.

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