FILE: DOG6.WMV PAUL TOULETTE: Hi. I am Paul. Can we go back to the word "theology"? I thought theology was something in a book, a kind of theory. The way you use theology doesn't seem to fit that. Am I missing something? Or was I mistaken? DR. JOEL OKAMOTO: Hello, Paul, and thanks for sharing that. If I hear you correctly, then I'd say that you are missing something. In other words, you're right to think that we're using the word theology in ways that don't fit with the thought that theology is just something, as you put it, in a book. Of course, I don't want to exclude the idea that you can read about theology, write about theology, find applications for theology, so you're not mistaken about that. But I wanted us to discuss the term theology in other ways as well. And especially -- especially to accent those other ways. So if the extent of your understanding is theology as a discipline, theology as, as you put it, some kind of theory or something in a book, then really that's -- that's too narrow for -- for us and for this conversation. So, yes, let's go back and let's review briefly the ways we used the term theology and some of the distinctions that I made. First I made a distinction between theology as an academic discipline and theology as something we say, something we believe, something we hold. Theology as doctrine, you might say. Now remember how I used the expression Biblical theology. There were two ways. One was the way that a teacher might speak about the discipline he teaches in. The other way refers to the position that we hold in our beliefs. In our confession. So what does it mean then for theology to be our doctrine? What does it mean for theology to be our confession? And on that basis, I want to make a further distinction between theology as that which we actually are saying and theology as that which leads us to speak rightly. In other words, theology in the so-called objective sense, theology as our doctrine, and then theology in the subjective sense. The aptitude. The habits. The disposition to think and speak of God. And I stress then that an education in theology is, at least as far as we're concerned, as far as Christians are concerned, it's an education that is meant to develop that aptitude for doing theology and to help us acquire the kind of skills whereby we think and we speak about God and speak of God rightly. Now, let me pick up then a little bit further on your comments. It isn't wrong, as such, to think of theology as a discipline. Frankly, a lot of us do that all the time. I do whenever I'm asked about my occupation, about my day job. I usually say I teach systematic theology at Concordia Seminary. And I know that when I do this, I'm identifying myself according to an academic discipline. In other words, I know that I'm saying the same sort of thing that many other teachers would say. I teach biology. I teach psychology. I teach English. I teach mechanical engineering. So even if a person has no idea what systematic theology is, and a lot of people don't, most people have the idea that I teach some kind of a discipline. I do something which involves study, teaching, and learning. Now, as such, there's nothing wrong with it, but problems can arise if that's all we think of theology as. In other words, problems can arise when theology is thought of more or less as just another subject, just another area of thought or practice, something that's supposed to be learned. And why? Well, when almost anything is turned into an object of study, it's determined that there's something for us to examine, to analyze, to discuss, and it tends to be robbed of its power or capacity to act on us. To engage us. Now, for instance, Latin American writer Mario Vargas Llosa has voiced this kind of concern in the case of literature. He started by recalling an essay by Lionel Trilling. Trilling was a literary critic in the 20th century. Now, Trilling had asked whether the teaching of literature doesn't actually denaturalize, as Vargas Llosa puts it. Doesn't actually denaturalize and impoverish the object of study, namely, literature itself. Trilling, like many of his contemporaries, believed in the power of great literature to seize the imagination of its reader. In other words, they believed in the moral power of literature. But Trilling asked whether this robbed -- didn't rob literature of that capacity. "I asked them," writes Trilling, "to look into the abyss and both dutifully and gladly they have looked into the abyss and the abyss has greeted them with the grave courtesy of all objects of serious study saying, interesting, am I not?" And Vargas Llosa explains, "In other words, the academy neutralizes, trivializes, and renders abstract the tragic and unsettling humanity contained in works of the imagination, depriving them of their powerful, vital force, of their capacity to change readers' lives." And in a similar way, when the Bible or Christian doctrines are turned merely into objects that we can study or put to use if we please at our convenience, when its studies become just another set of topics, then we run the risk of, as Vargas Llosa said, neutralizing, trivializing, and rendering abstract not literature but God, his word, and his work. In the case of the Bible, I can recall an article which starts with a quote from W.H. Auden. And it goes like this: Have you been read by any good books lately? The point of that quote was to underscore that books, well, at least some books, have the capacity to get a hold of us and to act on us. And the article also recounted in it an anecdote about a regional theater company. It seems that this company contacted a noted director to help them make Shakespeare more relevant. The director told them that it would be better if they made themselves relevant to Shakespeare. And the point of the article was to say that a similar view of things is required when coming to read the Bible. Now, for some time now, for a couple of centuries, the Bible has been widely treated as an object. This is the case just as much for so-called conservatives as it is for so-called liberal Christians. Now, perhaps it is regarded as a divinely wrought object, an inspired book, but an object nonetheless. And so it may seem that if we have the right presuppositions and the right methods, we can, as it were, push a button and out pops the right answer. Out pops the true meaning. Extracted, as it were, by careful operations on this object. But isn't being read by the Bible, isn't being spoken to by God, a basic purpose of the Bible? As the word of God, the Bible is more than just what God said once upon a time. It's also the means by which God speaks to us today. And it's the same way also about the doctrines of the church and theological reflection. The doctrines of the church are truths about God. About his will. About his work. About his relations with us human creatures. And with all of creation. Such truths which bear on everything and which bear on everything about us and about our lives of course have an utterly unlimited capacity to engage us. To grasp us. To interrogate us. To shape us. To renew us. Now, Luther really saw this very clearly and was getting at this with his distinction between the theologian of glory and the theologian of the cross. And he thought this out very clearly when he said that the true theologian, the genuine theologian, the one who says what a thing actually is about God, about God's will, about God's work. So by making Christian teachings merely objects of study, we can run the risk of making the study of theology a study of technical terms, of ancient history, of ongoing controversies, of issues and questions and turn theology basically into something you know or know about but not something that we do or a disposition that God has given us. And in this way, we then might be obscuring the power of doctrine to engage us. Now, again, this is a risk we run and it's for us to recognize it and be aware of it. And so for our part, for my part as we go through things, I'll try not to let this turn merely into a study of, you know, a particular class of objects that we might call Christian doctrine. Sure, there will be a lot to learn. That is, a lot to look at, a lot to remember, a lot to pull apart, a lot to bring together, a lot to decide upon. There will be reading assignments and exercises and discussions. But as we go along, we'll also do things to bring into the discussion or bring out of you Christian doctrine and theological reflection to enter into and are indispensable to the life and witness of the church and, for that matter, of individual Christians. For you. And on our side of things, we know that we can't compel you to grow and conform to the divine doctrine any more than we can compel you to do many other things. But we know that this is God's teaching and that God is at work through the process. And as we talked about earlier, we will act like God is the one who makes theologians. And because of that then on your part, I would ask you to keep in mind that this is not merely a study of things. This is an education in which you are being shaped. In which you are being made into people who think of and speak of God rightly. So keep in mind then that this is God's work. I got at that earlier when we spoke about what Luther said about making a theologian. Oratio. Meditatio. Tenatio. Prayer. Meditation. Struggle. There it's a matter of God working on us. And so as you continue to do this, I would ask you, you know, always regularly to -- to pray. Pray for God's spirit that he would lead you to hear his word rightly and to lead you into all truth. And then I ask you, as you attend to the scriptures and to Christian doctrine, that you do so with devotion in meditation and I ask you not to be too surprised if sometimes this leads you into some struggle. (End of DOG6.WMV.)