Pros & Cons of Academic Approaches to Theology

Perhaps the greatest advantage or strength of academic approaches to theology is that they emphasize one of God’s most wondrous gifts to humanity: our rational abilities. God has granted human beings intellectual capacities, and he expects theologians to exercise those abilities as they pursue theological truths.

Throughout Scripture, wise men are honored for using their intellectual abilities in service to God. The Bible shows us that to be wise is to ponder what is true and to formulate sets of coherent beliefs out of those rational enquiries. For instance, Solomon was considered wise because he exercised his ability to think through matters. Listen to the high praise given to Solomon in 1 Kings 4:29-31:

God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore … For he was wiser than all other men … and his fame was in all the surrounding nations.

Similarly, the wisdom literature of the Bible repeatedly calls on faithful believers to develop and use their reasoning abilities.

Peter acknowledged the importance of intellectual sophistication in 2 Peter 3:15-16 when he commented on the theology of the apostle Paul. He noted:

Our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him … There are some things in [his letters] that are hard to understand.

Now, if you look at Paul, when he met the philosophers in Acts 17, he actually used his intellectual capabilities to be able to convince them about what he believes, and through that he was able to win some people over to the Lord. And I think we also need to actually use our intellectual faculties to understand the Christian faith, first, so that we can understand God and what he has revealed about himself so that we can have a meaningful relationship with him. And number two, so that when anybody asks us about our faith, we’ll be in a good position, whether a philosopher or whoever that person may be, we’ll be in a good position to explain our Christian faith to that person like Paul did. [Rev. Dr. Humphrey Akogyeram]

As we can see, the intellectual or academic emphasis of traditional theology doesn’t oppose the biblical notion of good theology. On the contrary, rigorous thinking is a great strength of traditional theology.

Still, as valuable as academic orientations toward theology may be, we must always be alert to the dangers they pose. All too often, theologians gather, analyze and collate facts about God with remarkable skill, but they fail to give the same careful attention to living in service to God. Sophisticated, rational theological analysis often becomes an end in itself. We commonly consider people to be “good theologians” simply because they know a lot about theological subjects. But at times we have to admit that good theologians are not always good people.

It’s quite possible to be a good theologian, or called a good theologian, and not be a good person. In fact, it happens all too often that people write really great books, they preach great sermons, they’re leaders of the church, and then we find out that they really weren’t good people all along. It happens far too much. And it does happen because often we identify a good theologian with somebody who’s smart and who can be rigorous in their thinking, and we don’t consider whether that thinking is impacting their lives. And it’s a very serious problem. Because the truth is, we don’t just need good academic theologians. We need good academic theologians who are also good people, people who are conforming their lives to the ways of Christ. [Dr. Richard L. Pratt, Jr.]