Themelios 35.

1 (2010): 4-6

MINORITY REPORT

The Importance of
Not Studying Theology
Carl Trueman

Carl Trueman is Academic Dean, Vice President of Academic Aairs,

and Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster
Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

It might seem odd to write an editorial for a theological journal on the topic of not doing theology and
how important that can be; and, indeed, perhaps it is contrarian even by my own exacting standards.
But it is nonetheless important. Let me explain.
The greatest temptation of a theology student is to assume that what they are studying is the most
important thing in the world. Now, I need to be uncharacteristically nuanced at this point: there is a
sense, a very deep and true sense, in which theology is the most important thing in the world. It is, after
all, reection upon what God has chosen to reveal to his creatures; and it thus involves the very meaning
of existence. In this sense, there is nothing more important than doing theology.
But this is not the whole story. One of the great problems with the study of theology is how quickly
it can become the study of theology, rather than the study of theology, that becomes the point. We are
all no doubt familiar with the secular mindset which repudiates any notion of certainty in thought; and
one of the reasons for this, I suspect, is that intellectual inquiry is rather like trying to get a date with the
attractive girl across the road with whom you have secretly fallen in love: the thrill comes more from the
chase and the sense of anticipation than it does from actually nding the answer or eliciting agreement
to go to the movies.
This plays out in theology in two ways. First and most obvious, there is a basic question of motivation
which needs to be addressed right at the start of theological endeavour: am I doing this purely and
simply for personal satisfaction? Has the study of theology become so central to my identity that the
whole of my being is focused on it and seeks to derive things from it in a way which is simply unhealthy
and distorts both its purpose and the person who I am? That is something with which all theologians
will, I suspect, wrestle until the day they die, being part and parcel of who we are as fallen creatures; but
there are also things we can do which ease the situation.
Strange to tell, I suspect that having a good hobby or two is critical. These can be important outlets
for aspects of our personalities that have only limited and occasional usefulness in theology. I am aware
that I have certain personality traits which, when applied to church or my studies, are likely to lead me
to bad places. I like my own company; I like to push myself; I like to strategise and plan; and while not a
bad loser on the whole, I do like to win. Far better than losing, in my experience. None of these things is
bad in and of itself, but I need to make sure that the satisfaction I get from them is not such that it harms
the church; and if I have no outlet for them other than theology and church, it will be a disaster. So I run
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 Themelios

long distances, and after twenty-ve years, I have taken up chess again, harmless outlets for personality
traits which could otherwise be problematic. On the roads, the trails and the chessboard, I can be alone,
I can scheme, and I can win as much as I want without fear of harming others.
The second way in which the study of theology for studys sake can play out is the manner in which
it can ultimately disconnect you from reality, an odd result of studying that should, in theory at least,
ground you more rmly in reality than anything else. I often wonder, as I sit in church on a Sunday, of
how much of the knowledge I have is truly signicant for the people in the pewsthe man who has just
lost his job, the single mum struggling to hold it together, the teenager coping with all of the pressures
that come with the transition to adulthood.
Now I am not saying that high-powered technical theology is not important. For the single mum,
the most important thing she can hear on a Sunday is that Jesus is risen. A simple statement, one that can
be grasped by a child, but also one which rests upon a vast and complicated array of other theological
truths and connections. But the mistake the professional theologian, or even the over-enthusiastic
amateur, can make is the assumption that truths such as Jesus is risen are in themselves so boring and
mundane that they must always be elaborated and expressed in highly technical language in a way that
can blunt the sheer gospel-power of what is being said.
This attitude often betrays itself in reactions to sermons. If the proclamation of the gospel on a
Sunday morning is more likely to elicit from you a question as to what the pastor thinks of the genitive
construction in the passage immediately after what he has expounded, it could be that you are studying
too much theology or at least studying it in a way that is not aimed at deepening your knowledge of God
but deepening your knowledge of a technical eld, in the way one might deepen ones knowledge of
chess openings, bridge bidding systems, or sports statistics. To put it bluntly, you probably need to get
out more, spend time with real Christian people dealing with real everyday situations.
Further, the study of theology in the abstract can lead to the objectication of the task. Luther was
once asked what the dierence between what he believed and what the Pope believed was. On one level,
he said, there is no dierence: we both believe Christ, the Son of God, came to earth, took esh, died on
the cross, rose again, ascended into heaven, and will return. So where was the dierence? I believe he
did these things for me was Luthers response.
The point Luther was making was that the Pope had objectied theology in a way that it no longer
had that personal, existential dimension that caused him to revise his own understanding of himself and,
ultimately, to bow down in worship and in awe. The opening of Calvins Institutes, with its statement
about the intimate connection and interdependence of our knowledge of God and our knowledge of
ourselves, makes a similar point: it is not, as is sometimes argued, anything to do with the modern
concern for contextualization, and everything to do with the connection of our identity to that of God,
forcing upon us the realization that theology cannot be abstracted from who we are before God.
The answer to such abstraction is not to stop making the study of theology our goal; it is rather to
stop making the study of theology our goal. We have a tendency to make the chronological end points
what new things we learn each daythe most important. Yet this confuses the process of learning with
the real order of things. The study of theology is not a chase after something or a movement beyond
where we start our Christian lives; it is rather a reection upon the foundations of where we already
are. The end term is, strange to tell, the beginning. I start by confessing with my mouth that Jesus is
Lord and believing in my heart that God raised him from the dead, and I never actually go any further.
All my theology, all my study, is simply reection on what lies behind that. Thus, I never move beyond
praise, never leave behind the beauty of adoration of the living God; I simply learn more and more about

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the deep foundations upon which that praise and worship rest, which all believers share from the most
brilliant to the most humble.
We need to stop studying theology, or, perhaps to put it better, we need at least to stop thinking of
what we do as study in the generic sense. It does not move us beyond our starting point; it merely helps
us to understand that starting point better.