Systematic Theologies - good or bad?

 

From Berkhof to Grudem 

I purchased my first "Systematic Theology" at the age of 21. (Always a late starter).  It was written by Louis Berkhof. 

As dry as dust, I nevertheless devoured it as a newbie - I didn't know any better - Everyone who was Anyone in my world at that time said I needed it. 

Over the decades and with a few more similar titles on my shelves, I've come to see the blessings, limitations,  problems - and even dangers - of books like this.

The Good 

The blessings of SysTs - Grudem is now my go-to version - is that if you want  a quick refresh of a particular doctrine, you can look up the index, go to the relevant pages and gen-up on that doctrine. Helpful. And since, like commentaries, that author has studied other SysTs you're likely to be reading the summed up opinion of many other teachers.

All accurate interpretation of Scripture involves deep understanding of doctrine, so a good underlying doctrinal grasp of the Bible always makes for better preaching. 

The Problematic

The central problem with SysTs is they reverse-engineer how truth is actually presented in the Bible. Scripture's doctrinal content is not the only thing we should honour. We should also revere the method God has revealed his truth to us.

And, here's the point: there is no systematic theology in Scripture. Not a page which resembles a SysT.  Instead doctrine is unfolded in life, emerges out of and through life. 

Doctrine  and Life merge together in a seamless whole. Doctrine is incarnational. 

We learn that death is just a form of sleep, for example, not through flipping to "Death" in the index of a book and back to a particular page, there to read, "Death in Scripture is spoken of as sleep. This is because sleep is a temporary state which leads to awakening. In the same way, death, whether to eternal life or eternal perdition, always leads to an (eternal) awakening." 

Instead, we learn that death is a form of sleep in the visceral faith-testing but triumphant story of Lazarus, his two grieving sisters and puzzled followers. This doctrine is intended to calm the human hearts of his disciples, "Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." 

We learn of the Superiority of Jesus over the angels, not from a section entitled, "The Attributes of the Son of God" but from the impassioned exhortations of an inspired writer desperate to prevent a group of persecuted Christians going back to Judaism.

What a SysT does is to extract truth from life and then systematise it into a logical propositional form.

Older SysTs don't even bother trying to go on and apply that truth back into life, but many of the newer ones, realising this fatal applicatory error, attempt to apply the truth at the end of each chapter.

The basic problem is that SysTs have no example or warrant in Scripture.

Doctrine is never given for doctrine's sake, doctrine is always breathed into life  situations to bring comfort, rebuke, encouragement. 

The Dangers

There are a number of dangers with SysTs.

First, it's the wrong way to learn doctrine, as we have seen; it reverse-engineers the way doctrine is given in Scripture, where truth is birthed out of daily life. 

Second, SysTs can make us lazy: we go straight to our favourite tome instead of searching the Scriptures (perhaps SysTs have already been superseded by AI...).

I heard of one Bible college of old where the students over the course of their student years were encouraged to write their own SysTs - that meant, at least, that they owned their doctrine.

Third, it's too easy to follow a human being (for that is all the authors are) rather than follow Christ. To be a Berkhof-ite or a Grudem-ite, rather than...

Fourth, it can close our eyes to truth. The very nature of any man-made system of ideas / thought / doctrine / is that it so easily becomes our paradigm, our closed system of thought, our prison house.  And while it may initially have taught us to see better, it can eventually blind us to seeing truth that simply does not line up with the paradigm we have unconsciously swallowed, hook, line, and even sinker. 

Suppose we come across a truth in Scripture that seems to war against the one that we learnt from Mr B or Mr G? Will we have the courage to change our doctrine? Or will we - carelessly - ignore it? 

Fifth, doctrine can make us proud, for knowledge puffs up. (I've heard of guys boasting how many SysTs they have on their long-suffering Billy book cases.) Love builds up but knowledge puffs up.

Finally - I cannot believe I have mentioned the T word in this blog! (Some of you will know I am no fan of the word "Theology" "Doctrine" yes, "Theology" no). This is because, like bi-ology and zoo-ology, like ge-ology and psych-ology, theology is a necessarily flawed human attempt to systematise a body of truth.

When Luther's mate Melanchthon, begins his attempt at a SysT, which he calls "Common Theological Topics" (Now why didn't the book take off?) he opens like this:

"Just as in the other arts it is beneficial to have the chief topics arranged according to a method of teaching and a logical series.... so also it is advantageous to develop a method of teaching in Christian doctrine." 

No hiding there! SysT is just like the other arts.

But it isn't. 

Divine Truth sets itself apart from all other bodies of knowledge. 

Use but Beware

We're not arguing for book burning. But we are arguing for a careful and discerning use of SysTs, both old and new.

What is our greatest Need?

Abraham Maslow & Human Needs

The American psychologist, Abraham Maslow tried to organise all of our human need, from the most fundamental to the most important, and came up with the diagram below: 

The greatest human need, he suggested, is inner fulfilment, reaching our goals.

At one level, Maslow's pyramid makes sense and no doubt many people would agree with his highest goal, achieving personal fulfilment, success.

There is however, a problem with the top triangle, and it is this: everyone who has achieved "success", even spectacular success, says that it doesn't fill the human heart, it doesn't bring the expected satisfaction:

Jim Carey: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.” 

Lady Gaga: "I was at the top of the mountain and I felt so empty. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't enjoy any of it... It’s lonely at the top. When you get there, you realize there's nothing there.”

Scottie Scheffler: "The first time I won the Masters, I cried like a baby... I thought that tournament was everything. Then I realized it's just a golf tournament... Winning doesn't satisfy you. It doesn't keep you full."

A New Pyramid

The problem with Maslow's hierarchy of human needs is that it misses out our  deepest needs, our spiritual needs. We are more than body and mind, we have eternal souls. 

According to the Bible, the deepest part of our being is our invisible soul, the real us which lasts forever.

Our souls were designed to know God, love him and find our ultimate satisfaction in him. 

We need to redraw Maslow's pyramid:

Only God can fill the God-shaped hole that we all find within ourselves. Without God we will, all our days, say and feel things like this:

Meaningless! Meaningless!, says the teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.

"All the things that are done under the sun... are meaningless, a chasing after the wind."

"The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing."  

God sent Jesus into the world to reconnect us to himself, so that our souls would be satisfied once more. He said:

"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within them."

The key, the road, the solution to spiritual satisfaction is believing in Jesus.

Nietzsche and Nebuchadnezzar - The Difference is Repentance

 

 Nietzsche and his book "Ecce Homo"

No-one needs to read the unedifying Nietzsche, but part of the work of a pastor is understanding the days we live in and those who have influenced it - or at least those who are supposed to have influenced it. (I'm not at all convinced that both of those are the same thing.)

I was intrigued to read recently, in a biography of Nietzsche, that he went mad shortly after writing his last book "Ecce Homo."

Why I wondered?

So I took Ecce Homo on holiday and it soon became clear why this philosopher's mind was taken from him after writing this book.

"Ecce Homo", literally "Behold the Man", are the Latin words taken from Pilate's introduction of Jesus to the crowd.  Nietzsche is blasphemously appropriating Pilate's words to himself, "I am the New Messiah", "Look at me."  

The book is meant to be an autobiography but turns out to be a summary of his own writings over the years of his life, praising them and declaring them to be unique, revelatory, brilliant, epoch making. Chapter headings "Why I am So Wise" "Why I am so Clever" "Why I write such good books" and "Why I am a Destiny" speak for themselves. 

His anti-God, and especially his anti-Christ views, run like an ugly dark thread throughout the book. 

Arrogance and blasphemy, it turns out, are twins. 

Nebuchadnezzar

As I was reading this book I remembered another man in Bible history whose mind was taken away from him. 

One day Nebuchadnezzar in a moment of supreme arrogance, declared on the roof of his royal palace "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" 

On that very day Nebuchadnezzar went crackers. God removed his sanity. 

But there is a difference - a very big difference - between Nebuchadnezzar and Nietzsche. 

Nebuchadnezzar repented of his pride and ultimately declared God's grace and sovereign power, "those who walk in pride he is able to humble." God restored Nebuchadnezzar's sanity and his kingdom and he became a shining example of God's amazing grace. I hope to meet him in heaven one day. 

But there is no evidence that Nietzsche ever repented of his sins of pride or of blasphemy and he died a madman. 

"Do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked, a man reaps what he sows..."

There is always hope for those who repent, but no hope for the proud.

One final note

The writings of Nietzsche are the ramblings of  a (clever) madman. Their esteem by any community reveals the folly of that community who "thinking themselves to be wise (have in fact) become fools." 

But in pondering why his writings were so patently and evidently absurd, and contradictory, I noted from the biography that he spent much of his life alone. 

Therein lies at least one source of his great errors and folly. 

He really thought that one person on their own could arrive at truth on their own. In his works he is so often completely self-unaware, at times embarrassingly so.

Had he spent more time with other human beings, they may have reproved his folly. 

Without community none of us can arrive at truth. All we discover is "our truth." 

This is as true for Christians as for unbelievers. 

Christians who refuse to commit themselves to regular fellowship do not grow into the likeness of Christ, they become, as the years go by, more and more like their fallen ugly selves. 

It's a tragic sight to behold. 

The Lost Art of Simple Preaching

 

The Curse of the Academy

The story of the German anti-Christian thinker Nietzsche demands sober reflection. How did the son of a Lutheran pastor turn out to be so anti-God - perhaps the most militantly atheistic philosopher in history? 

And how did the birth nation of the "reformation" become the seed bed of apostate liberal theology?

At least one reason was this: Luther was a scholar before he was a Christian or a Reformer. And he never shook of the scholastic approach to everything Christian. Truth was packaged in the language and mould of the university. 

The Gospel cannot be poured into any man-made wineskin without emptying it of divine power and distorting its content.

As time passed Lutheranism lost the heart of the true Gospel as every man-made Christian grouping does, must and will (even Luther warned that the Gospel is easily lost by any community within 20 years), but, here is the point: Lutheranism itself retained the scholastic methods and outlook.

A scholastic environment - by definition - is always looking for novelty and now cut loose from the true Gospel it sought novelty in new liberal gospels which were no Gospels at all.

Something like this is happening in plain sight among we evangelicals.

Sermons sound like lectures delivered to students, verbal commentaries, complicated, devoid of real-life examples, parading their learning like a suit of "look at me" shining armour.

Even - especially - at our conferences which tragically set the example for the next generation. 

How different the simple preaching of Jesus, whom the crowds gladly heard! How different the preaching of truly great preachers of old, such as John Wesley who said,

 “I design plain truth for plain people. I labour to avoid all words which are not easy to be understood, all which are not used in common life.”

How can we reclaim simple preaching? 

(BTW, simple preaching is not simplistic preaching. Simplistic preaching is devoid of  doctrinal content and thrown together without much preparation. And I assume, below, of course, that prayer lies behind all human efforts at preaching.)

Five Keys to Preaching Simply  

1. Think about the most ordinary Christian in the congregation, when you prepare. You know the congregation. Pick out a couple of ordinary folks and write the sermon for them. If you preach for ordinary people, the super-educated will understand as well. If you preach to the educated, you will go over the heads of most of the congregation (unless they are all clever-educated, in which case you need to ask the far far far more serious question of why? For Scripture and church history say the church is made up of "not many wise...")

2. Wear your learning lightly. You may have consulted the Greek or Hebrew text, you may have grappled with high doctrine, but let all of that recede into the pale distant background. Don't quote books you've read, authors you know or use big fancy terms. It gives the impression you are just showing off your knowledge and therefore glorifying yourself, rather than edifying your hearers. Big words confuse the ordinary hearer.

3. Preach from the heart, not the head. How did God's word impact your heart and life as you were preparing it? Unless you allowed the Holy Spirit to touch, transform and excite you, it will never affect your hearers. A lecture-style sermon imparts information which will drain away before your Amen is spoken, but a from-the-heart sermon, while fully engaging the mind, will make the vital 12-inch miracle journey from head to heart. 

4. Use illustrations from every day life. Use illustrations, especially from daily life. Jesus worked hard to craft these into eternally memorable stories. He is our Divine preaching example.

5. Speak clearly and slowly and passionately. A preacher's voice is his most important tool. If his accent is broad he needs to work hard to correct it, if his volume rises and falls, he must stabilise it, if his speech is monotone, he must modulate it according to the very words he is speaking.  

Such simple preaching may not impress peers, it may not attract many hits, but who cares a monkey's? It will instruct God's people, build their faith an glorify God. 

AI Drawing: 

A man in jeans preaching to a crowd a simple sermon

Scrolling Ourselves to Death?

 

A Challenging Book

On my last break away I read "Scrolling Ourselves to Death" - a series of chapters written by American Christians. We summarised the book and encouraged everyone in the church home groups to go through the findings and warnings of these Christian writers. Here, instead of a review, I have gathered quotes from the book. 

For sure if the findings of these American Christians are true, and true of the situation in the UK, the church has a new threat and challenge before us. I shan't state page numbers. 

Three Summary Quotes

"From the rising of the sun to its going down, we scroll our way through the day. We scroll our way through life. And we are scrolling ourselves to death".

"Today, we're living through the early days of a revolution at least as dramatic as the Protestant Reformation and printing press. And we don't know the outcome." 

"The vast majority of American adults are walking around shooting up digital dope without raising an eyebrow. The best of us are responsible users who can consume media in moderation. But none of us is fully sober." 

The facts

The average UK adult time spent online is 4.5 hours, more for teenagers (ofcom).

"Between TV and digital media, the average American uses screens for 10.85 hours a day." "This is the zombie apocalypse, this is insanity, this is death, and this is death more redundantly” (rather than  “more abundantly.”)  

The Potential and Real Dangers

Mental health issues: "Researchers have made compelling correlations between smartphone (especially social media) usage and rising mental unhealth, especially among teens and young adults."  "We become anxious... angry....  addicted.... numb... lonely... delusional... detached from reality."

· Trivialising issues: "Within a sixty-second scrolling session, the social media "user" may witness chilling scenes of human carnage in Ukraine, corpses in Israel, a groomsman losing his lunch at the altar, and an orange kitten that looks like Donald Trump." "Mindless scrolling, like its near ancestor of mindless channel surfing, perpetuates mass trivialisation." 

Producing distracted minds: "Distraction has become a norm...Consider how frequently and rapidly in the course of any twenty-minute period we shift our attention for one thing to another...we usually have multiple screens on... it's no wonder our capacity to think coherently is severely atrophied." 

Wasting our precious time: "Television (and the internet in general) was designed to keep viewers engaged long enough to sell them soap via commercials." 

Moving us away from thinking to entertainment: "Television's (and all visual media) currency is visual delight rather than thoughtful action, engaging images rather than textual argument."

Discouraging us from thinking about the future or past, focusing on the NOW: "the internet is designed to keep us fixated on the present, rewarding and reinforcing engagement with what is current, new, and seemingly urgent."  "Americans seem to know everything about the last 24 hours but very little of the last six centuries or the last sixty years."

Reducing our attention span & ruining relationships: "If the first victims of our addiction are our time and attention span, the second (and far more important) victims are our families and relationships." "In late 2023, the US surgeon general released a report entitled ‘Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation.’"

Addiction: "Your phone is a digital syringe"  "Your brain is seeking dopamine. It's whispering, "Get out the digital syringe. Take another hit. Then the boredom, stress, irritability and blues will go away." "Digital Dope"

What do the Scriptures say?

1) Technology is surely neutral in itself. It's how we use it that marks it for good or evil. The printing press was neutral and then harnessed for good - it is unlikely that the Reformation would have happened without it. It's helpful therefore to discuss the many benefits of social media. The Amish community discerns what technologies help or hinder community - is that a helpful way to assess the impact of this one? "...the community's strength (Amish) is the primary concern when they evaluate technology." 

2) We should not be addicted to anything, “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything." (1 Corinthians  6:12) When we wake up, are we "gagging" for digital dope? "Dopamine media is the most powerful, pervasive and engineered form of communication technology in human history, and its not shaping us to love Jesus most."

3) We need to watch how social media affects the way we relate to one another. This is perhaps one of the most crucial things we need to discuss. God made us for community, and as a spiritual family and the body of Christ we need one another.

4) Our teaching ought to come primarily from real-life teachers, elders and pastors in our local church, whose lives are open to scrutiny. Any deceiver can set up a YouTube channel.  "Young believers, or those in periods of doubt, often turn first to online sources rather than to church leaders or communities for guidance."  "The internet - not the local church- has become the primary place where Christians are formed today. Before their leaders ever speak, many church members already know what they believe. After all, they've been reading, listening, and watching their favourite teachers all week. And they expect their leaders to conform,-or else. Preaching, then, is expected to confirm the convictions already developed through the internet. No wonder so many church leaders feel like they've lost their footing this century."

5) We need to disciple young  believers through real-life relationships.  "How would Jesus mediate his relationship to his followers if he were to come back today? My view is that he would communicate in the year 2025 the exact way he did circa 25: live, embodied, in-person.."

6) We should all avoid the itch for publicity and fame.  "Stop trying to reach the 150,000 impressions per video required to be an influencer in the virtual world." (p.187) 

7) We should use paper Bible wherever we can, in home groups and on Sundays, to marginalise the phone "encourage paper Bibles during the services.." (p. 213)

 

The Blinding Nature of Paradigms

A Very Simple Question

A very simple request to Google's AI: "Please (save water, no need to be polite to AI) describe the differences between human and ape hands." 

I expected to find some paper, some book, that would simply lay out the differences line upon line, chapter by chapter. Differences in size, motor sensitivity, etc. 

A very simple request.

But could I find such a paper, such an article, such a book?

No!

Why? Because most of the world's biologists labour under the imprisoning paradigm of evolutionary theory. This means that they're committed to likeness and similarity rather than difference or uniqueness. 

So similarities are played up - because the human hand comes from the ape hand, according to evolutionary dogma - while differences are played down - because humans cannot // are not unique or special.

So, this summer, during my holiday away, I'll be sifting through as many books and articles about the human hand I can find, to tabulate my own information, obscured as it will be by the evolutionary paradigm, and draw up my own list of unique features of the human hand. 

I know I will discover many exclusive features a priori because while animals and mankind share the sixth day of creation, only mankind, not apehood, was made in the image of God. 

I'll write up my findings.

The Danger of All Paradigms

A paradigm is a human perspective through which the world is interpreted. 

On the one hand paradigms are inevitable because unlike God we are all perspectival; we can only look at one tiny part of the world through tiny human eyes and brains. (This is one of the rare insights of post-modernism). 

On the other hand, paradigms skew data in one direction and end up blinding in another. 

We find this happens to Bible students too. Charismatic students see some things in Scripture and miss out others; and it's exactly the same with reformed exegetes.

The very glasses intended to bring sight also blind us.

How questioning we must be of all human paradigms, secular and spiritual.

Night Café draw: The uniqueness and wonder o the human hand

Three ways error enters the Church....

The tests of truth

It is sometimes argued that the sole test of a truth-teller is doctrine: do the writings of this man (or woman) match up, for example, with the Apostles' or Nicene Creed? 

We need to add another vital test - the test of life. Is this teacher fully integrated into the life of a local church and thereby accountable to his brothers and sisters? Or is he/she a lone wolf? 

Only from a godly life rooted and accountable to a local church can true doctrine flow. "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." (1 Timothy 4:16)  

Truth never proceeds from a believer isolated from the pillar and foundation of truth. 

So before we examine what someone believes, we must ask their connection to the body of Christ. If he/she pronounces from an ivory palace, if they are disconnected from the church, we should automatically discount their teachings, no matter what hifalutin qualifications they may proffer. 

There are three main sources of error - or better put, three kinds of heretic.

#1 "He's such a clever chappy."

This one catches evangelicals out all the time - especially of the reformed stripe - because they idolise knowledge and education. If a man says he has a DPD, DHL, UPS, Phd, DMin or whatever other strange letters at the end of his name, they're smitten by him. Or if, at the other end of the name, we find "Professor" or some such title, then same thing - clever chappy - we must listen to him. Or if he has written ponderous tomes, however incomprehensible, he must be the real deal. 

This is the only way to explain the inexplicable enchantment of someone like NT Wright among some evangelicals. NT Wright is a gnostic. A gnostic says "there is a secret piece of information outside of Scripture you need in order to really grasp the truth." NT Wright says "you can't understand the New Testament unless you are a first-century historian" (like, guess who?). While it is helpful to have some historical background, the Scriptures interpret the Scriptures, so that a believer with his Bible and the Holy Spirit is far better equipped to understand God's truth than a scholar with the Bodleian libraries at hand. Wright's Gnosticism is conveniently overlooked simply because he is a clever chappy. 

#2 "He's Mr Nice Guy."

False teachers can also masquerade as angels of light. Full of charm, popularity  and charisma - plus perhaps a smattering of good looks - they dazzle and hypnotise their audiences. Someone like Steve Chalke comes to mind. 

#3 "Mr Nasty."

At the other end of the niceness spectrum lies Mr Nasty. These false teachers are well-known to secretly live corrupt lives (in one or more of the following triad's allure - sex, power or money) but their wickedness is completely overlooked by the devoted deluded and sometimes protected by the "touch not my anointed" umbrella. My African friends tell me that this kind abound in their lands. 

In the 70s, 80s and 90s, Christians were warned about the sects and cults. They were few in number, and all easily spotted and defined by name. Today, the internet is awash with a myriad false teachers of whom Jesus warned "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." (Matthew 7:15)

AI: Draw a heretic