How many of us were taught as children that we were not supposed to question things that were told to us by adults? I was taught this as a youngster and I was told that this was especially true when it came to discussions about religious teachings. If a religious teaching didn’t make any sense, then it was “sinful” to mention it. The authorities knew all the answers, even when it was clear that they didn’t, and questioning them was upsetting to them at best and an excommunicable offense that would lead me straight to hell at worst. For a young, developing child, this is all very confusing. Part of a young person’s life is to ask questions. If you’ve ever shared time with a toddler, then you’ll know that a great deal of that time is spent answering their questions. Our brains thrive on receiving new information. And when something doesn’t make sense when we put pieces of knowledge together, then we not only question why but also how. Despite what many of us were taught as children, questioning is a good thing. I would argue that questioning can enhance our faith rather than detract from it.
When we’re taught that we cannot question things, we’re given an unhealthy way of doing theology. This is a very fundamentalist way of thinking about God. Have you ever seen the bumper sticker that says, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it”? That’s just bad theology. First of all, the Bible has a lot of contradictions in it. Secondly, reading scripture with that kind of attitude does not do the stories in the Bible the justice they deserve. The Bible is not a newspaper account of history. Instead it is a collection of books and stories about God and his relationships with his people. Bible stories are allegory, symbols, parables, anecdotes, illustrations, and more. If we read the Bible as if it is a literal account of the history of the world, then our entire faith structure can collapse when we discover something it contains did not happen exactly the way we read it in scripture. The whole dilemma starts in the first two chapters. Did you ever notice there are two creation stories in Genesis? I didn’t realize this until I was in my 30s. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 tell two very different stories of the creation of the world. Many of us conflate them together in our minds and turn them into one big story. But Genesis 1 tells us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It outlines the creation of the sky and the seas, the sun and the moon, the birds and the fish, and finally humankind in the image of God. Genesis 2 begins with God creating the heavens and the earth all over again. See? A contradiction right there on page 1. There are lots of contradictions throughout the Bible. But when we have bad theology, these contradictions essentially become like the building blocks in a house of cards. If you take one of the cards away because it doesn’t make sense, the whole house falls down. Our faith can fall completely apart when we discover that any one piece of our bad theology puzzle doesn’t fit properly.
When we practice healthy theology, or what is also known as systematic theology, the building blocks are more like solid bricks. Healthy systematic theology can help us to remove a brick to examine it while still keeping the structure of our theology intact. Sure, if we lose too many bricks the integrity of the structure can start to weaken. But if we build it up properly, we can spare to poke a few holes in it and try some different perspectives. Take the Genesis stories as an example. If we take it from a starting point that the earth was created in seven days and humanity was created on the seventh day, then as soon as someone comes along with the discovery of fossils, the house of cards falls. Dinosaurs lived hundreds of millions of years ago. The earth is certainly older than the 10,000 years or so that it must be if we use only Genesis as our guide. So if we have bad theology, the discovery of dinosaur fossils makes our entire faith structure collapse. I have heard people say that the dinosaur bones were placed there by God to test us into doubting the age of the earth to see how faithful we are. I have heard people say that the earth still could have been created in seven of God’s days, which are not necessarily the same as seven of our days. In reality, either of these are kind of cop outs. They’re hogwash. We know the creation of the universe took a very long time. We know the earth existed for between four and five billion years. How do we reconcile these differences? Systematic theology is the tool we can use.
When we do systematic theology, we can first recognize that the people who wrote the scriptures down on paper did not know the same information we know now. They didn’t have the same tools, the same evidence, the same record of history that we have access to today. Still, humans were the most developed creatures on earth. So for them, it made sense to write down the story as we now know it in scripture. Inaccuracies in some of the details don’t mean the story does not contain Truth. Essentially, we take what is important. God did create the universe as we know it and even beyond our ability to know it. He created us in his image and likeness and he loves us. That’s the important theological piece of the stories found in Genesis 1 and 2. When we get to the story of the flood, we know the world certainly was not flooded. However, there is record evidence of a number of pretty big floods in human history. When you remember that air travel has only existed for a short time, and automobiles for only a little longer, the world probably didn’t seem as big as it does today. If you were travelling everywhere in Arizona on foot, you’d think the Valley of the Sun was essentially the whole world. So if our valley flooded, you’d believe the whole world must be flooded with it. The important piece of the flood story is God’s covenant with Noah, not that the whole world flooded. When we practice systematic theology, we can reconcile that it probably didn’t rain for 40 days and 40 nights, and the entire world did not flood, yet there remains Truth in the story.
Healthy theology reminds us that God loves us and we are called to love one another. It really is that simple. Anything that goes against that is probably bad theology. A theology professor I had at Santa Clara University slammed his fist down on his desk one day and said, “Bad theology kills!” And it really does. Once when I met former Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori, she said, “When atheists tell me all the reasons they don’t believe in God, I tell them I don’t believe in that kind of god, either. My God is not like that.” That statement sums up healthy systematic theology. We have eyes. We have ears. We have brains. We have experiences. We know that purity codes like kosher eating may have served a purpose and kept us safe before the days of preservatives and refrigeration. But now that we know how to stay safe while eating foods, we know we no longer need to follow those codes. God doesn’t change, but we do. What seemed right and good 500 years ago might not make much sense today. We can practice systematic theology and build our faith structures even higher. And when we need to question things, we can (and should!) take out a brick or two and examine them. If we find that they are good bricks, we can put them back. And if they are bad, it’s ok to toss them out and to replace them with something better.