The Passover is just one example of many rituals outlined in the Torah which functioned on one level as reminders of who God was, who the Israelites were, and how they related to each other. Thus, when we come in to the Promised Land and we find the Israelites suffering persistent recurrences of amnesia, it does not take a genius to assume that part of the immediate cause of this was their abject neglect of the means which God had established for keeping his name and his acts fresh in their minds. What this kind of amnesia tells us is that we need constant reminders of who God is and what he has done if we are to stay on the straight and narrow; and that these are provided by the routines and rituals which God specifies in Scripture. The temptation for a theological student at this point, of course, is to make the obvious answer to this: well, I study the things of God all day long; I am hardly likely to forget about God, who he is and what he has done, am I? -Themelios 34:3
This took me aback. It seems to describe so much of what is wrong in the modern church today, it instantly shows us the link between the culture around us and the problems we have in the church, and it serves as a personal call to action at the same time. Let me start here: To objectify something, to treat God as an object, you must forget something. You must forget that He is a whole Being, a Person. When we study one of God’s attributes to the exclusion of all others, we are in danger of forgetting who God is.
Our culture, at large, objectifies people in the same way. Marketers see people as a set of database entries. We see people on social networks, like Facebook, as a collection of posts. Advertisers see people as sex objects. And most of the Evangelical Christian church sees God as an impassive, immutable, capricious Being whom we can study as we study a bird, or a flower, or a tree. I beg to differ. He is not a tame lion!
It is all too easy for the theological student to end up remembering God as an object of knowledge; it is quite another thing to remember him as the all-surpassing subject of existence.
But why is it this way? What in our way of studying makes us forget God as the all-surpassing subject of existence, and replace Him with an object of knowledge? Is it our view of the Scriptures, that we don’t see them as “living?” Have we become too concerned with “dry theology,” and do we need an emotional reply, and outpouring of warm fuzzy feelings towards God, and an abandonment of God’s Word as infallable?
A thousand times, No!
Then what is the problem? Let me point you to it, in simple terms: a complete and total reliance on the systematic theology as a lens through which to see the world, including God. It’s not the poor old systematic theology’s fault that we’ve placed such heavy emphasis on this single lens. I actually like systematic theologies—I have at least a half a dozen in my study collection, and I actually consult the things on a regular basis. I wouldn’t have spent over a thousand dollars buying books I thought useless, trust me.
But still, there it is; this piecemeal study of God from one specific angle at a time encourages us to forget. Forget about God knowing everything, let’s study God’s power for a few years. We’ll sort out His other attributes, like His knowledge of everything, later. Out pops Calvinism and the five points. So we have to limit God’s knowledge to make it work?—that’s okay, we just redefine omniscience to mean God doesn’t know things He hasn’t chosen. See, we must be right, because God is so omnipotent; it’s okay if His omniscience suffers a little, isn’t it?
Forget about God’s justice, and focus on his love for a couple of years (or even lifetimes). We’ll sort out His other qualities, like omnipotence, later. Out pops Arminianism, and finally open theism. We’ll just redefine omnipotence so it fits into our system; God can do anything in the present, but nothing about the past or the future, except as through His actions in the present.
A thousand times, No!
Stop the madness. I would argue the reason so many seminary students forget about God is because the course of study in most seminaries encourage the student to forget. Oh, I don’t think it’s intentional, I think it’s just bound into the process. Go forth, and learn these proof verses. When you’re really accomplished, you’ll be able understand proof verbs and proof nouns, too. We are always working from the specific to the general. It’s all inductive reasoning. This I know about God; this is the absolute point on which I stand. I must mold my understanding of all else about God around this.
Can’t we see we are treating God as an object?
What is wanted here is a balance. Inductive reasoning is fine in its own realm, but pushed outside that realm, it’s more harmful than good. Deductive reasoning is the same boat. But at the moment, we are listing to the inductive side, working from a single attribute of God and melding His other attributes around them. We are ripping Scriptures out of context, doing impressive word studies on them, forgetting that they must fit into a train of thought and into the Scriptures as a whole. Witness poor Romans 9, abused to prove predestination without foreknowledge in circles far and wide. Paul is probably up there shaking his head about now, wondering what’s come over us. Or maybe not, since he dealt with the Pharisees, and this is precisely how they operated.
Enough.
Let’s go back to remembering who God is, a whole Person, who’s attributes are balanced, and is knowable through the Scriptures and knowable by standing on the promises He has made. Let’s get out of the old chess game, and into understanding God to gain spiritual maturity, rather than to win arguments and write great papers for publication. Let’s go back to the reason God gave us the Scriptures, for that is the larger context.
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