Review Essay, Keeping the Balance
In fact, Trueman believes that of all the evangelical students he has seen “come unstuck” in their academic studies, the primary problem has not been an intellectual one but a spiritual one: church attendance, or Bible reading, or obedience has slipped. “It is this practical decline in daily Christian walk that has provided the framework for the impending intellectual crisis”. He reminds us that “human beings are not simply intellectual automata” producing beliefs that are “simply the result of value-neutral logical processes working from self-evident truths”. We are fallen beings who rebel against God’s demands to live for him alone and struggle with “a basic human desire to be free of God”. Loss of faith, like lack of faith, is not simply an epistemological problem. It is also a problem of morality. Likewise, “failure to integrate any particular aspect of our lives in the larger reality of our union with Christ …is not simply a problem of technique but also a problem of morality”.
Trueman now moves on to “the next level of getting the integration right”. Having attended to our general life as Christians, we must now consider the function of our theological studies. The first thing to understand is that, like anything else, theological study “is something to be done first and foremost to the glory of God; and that is to inform and shape the attitude with which it is pursued”. The second thing to remember is that “theological studies are to be seen as an opportunity for, and an avenue of, service to the church in general”. This requires some further consideration. The theological student should not get it into his or her head that he or she is “God’s gift to the Christian church” by virtue of superior biblical and theological knowledge. Trueman reminds us that technical knowledge in itself “does not mean we are in any sense a more effective, God-glorifying Christian” than the next person. There is a big difference between knowing what prayer means and knowing what it means to pray. There is a world of difference between knowing what the Chalcedonian definition says and knowing its personal significance. We should be humble, then, and remember, that though we may have gifts to offer, that is the the Church to recognise—our skills afford us an opportunity to serve, not a basis for exalting ourselves above others. As servants we ought to be involved, at whatever level, in our church. Trueman suggests that Sunday school “is one excellent means of developing a truly theological (as opposed to merely academic or scholarly) mindset”. The “twin challenges of explaining difficult concepts …and of making these concepts relevant” to youngsters and youths “is a profound challenge of which the average ivory-tower theologian has but the vaguest notion”.
Category: In Depth, Spring 2006
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