Is Theology Practical or Speculative? - Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung

Summary

Podcast Summary: Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
Episode: Is Theology Practical or Speculative?
Release Date: January 14, 2025

In the episode titled "Is Theology Practical or Speculative?" of Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung, host Kevin DeYoung delves deep into the age-old debate surrounding the nature of theology. Drawing from historical theological thought and contemporary applications, DeYoung explores whether theology should be primarily speculative, practical, or a harmonious blend of both.

Introduction to the Debate

[00:05] Kevin DeYoung opens the discussion by contextualizing theology within the broader scope of Christian doctrine. He emphasizes that theology is not merely an academic pursuit but a vital framework that shapes the believer's understanding of God and His workings in the world. DeYoung introduces the central question of the episode:

"Is theology to be speculative or practical? Is theology chiefly speculative or practical?" [00:35]

He notes that while many listeners might instinctively view theology as inherently practical, theologians have engaged in nuanced debates about its speculative dimensions.

Historical Perspectives on Theology

Thomas Aquinas: Theology as a Speculative Science

DeYoung references Thomas Aquinas, a towering figure in Christian theology, who posited that sacred doctrine is fundamentally speculative. Aquinas contrasted speculative theology with practical science, asserting:

"Practical science is concerned with human operations, but Christian theology is chiefly concerned with God." [02:15]

For Aquinas, the ultimate goal of theology is the perfect knowledge of God, leading to eternal bliss—a vision that transcends mere practical application.

Francis Turretin: A Balanced Approach

Moving forward to the 17th century, DeYoung introduces Francis Turretin, whose theological insights significantly influenced Protestant thought. Turretin argued for a mixed approach to theology, balancing both theoretical and practical elements:

"True theology is mixed. It is partly theoretical and partly practical." [04:10]

Turretin emphasized that theological mysteries should inspire believers to action, ensuring that doctrine permeates both the mind and the life of the individual. He cautioned against heretical movements of his time that sought to reduce theology to mere practicality, thereby neglecting essential doctrines like the Trinity and the Incarnation.

The Interplay of Faith and Reason

DeYoung transitions to the relationship between faith and reason, addressing the common misconceptions that pit the two against each other. He outlines several key markers, many inspired by Turretin, to elucidate their harmonious relationship:

Reason as an Instrument, Not Arbiter:

"Human reason is not the rule by which the doctrines of Christianity are to be judged." [10:45]

Reason serves as a tool to comprehend and articulate theological truths rather than the ultimate determinant of belief.
Appropriating Theology through Reason:

"We’re right to draw necessary consequences, inferences from Scripture." [12:30]

DeYoung cites Jesus' defense of the resurrection as an example of using reason to support faith, illustrating that theological assertions can and should be reasoned from scriptural premises.
Avoiding Fideism:

"Fideism is just believing, just willing yourself. I just believe it." [15:20]

He warns against fideism—the notion of faith devoid of reason—advocating instead for a faith that engages the intellect and seeks understanding.

DeYoung underscores that while certain divine mysteries may remain beyond human comprehension, this does not necessitate a rejection of reason in theological exploration. Instead, he champions a balanced approach where faith and reason coexist as complementary forces.

Contemporary Relevance and Application

Addressing modern-day implications, DeYoung warns against contemporary movements that echo Turretin's concerns—those who might dismiss the speculative aspects of theology as irrelevant to practical living. He stresses that:

"Theology is always relevant, but sometimes that chief relevance is simply to behold God." [20:00]

Understanding God intellectually enhances the believer's relational and practical engagement with Him, ensuring that doctrine isn't merely abstract but transforms lives.

Conclusion: A Call for a Balanced Theological Pursuit

DeYoung concludes by reaffirming that theology should embrace both its speculative and practical dimensions. He encapsulates his stance with the sentiment that:

"Faith and reason are friends, not enemies." [25:30]

Through a thoughtful integration of historical insights and contemporary applications, DeYoung encourages believers to pursue a theology that deepens their understanding of God while simultaneously shaping their daily lives.

Key Takeaways

Balanced Theology: Theology encompasses both speculative knowledge about God and practical application in believers' lives.
Historical Insights: Figures like Aquinas and Turretin provide foundational perspectives on the role of reason and practice in theology.
Faith and Reason: These are not opposing forces but are mutually supportive in the pursuit of understanding God.
Avoiding Extremes: Reject both pure speculation detached from practice and practical theology devoid of intellectual rigor.

Notable Quotes

Kevin DeYoung: "Is theology to be speculative or practical? Is theology chiefly speculative or practical?" [00:35]
Turretin (as referenced by DeYoung): "True theology is mixed. It is partly theoretical and partly practical." [04:10]
Kevin DeYoung: "Faith and reason are friends, not enemies." [25:30]

Further Resources

DeYoung encourages listeners to continue their theological education through resources such as his mini systematic theology book, Daily Doctrine, available in both print and audio formats from Crossway.org. He also invites listeners to engage with their pastors for additional materials and insights.

This episode of Doctrine Matters serves as a profound exploration of the dual nature of theology, advocating for a harmonious integration of speculative inquiry and practical application. By bridging historical theological thought with contemporary relevance, Kevin DeYoung provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of how theology can enrich both the mind and the life of the believer.

Transcript

Kevin DeYoung (0:05)

Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith. We'll pull from the church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of the year, the hope is that we'll begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters. Last week on Doctrine Matters, we kick things off by talking about theology itself. What is it? Why do we study it? How do we study it? Why is it important? And this week we have a particular question which flows from that first discussion about theology. Now, this question may sound a little esoteric at first, may even sound silly, but it's a question that theologians have wrestled with for a long time. And here's how they put it. Is theology to be speculative or practical? Is theology chiefly speculative or practical? Now, most people listening to this think that's kind of a ridiculous question because obviously theology is practical. That's chiefly what it is. And we hear the word practical as good. Yep. Makes a difference in my life. And speculative sounds to us something undesirable. The, the typical how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? Could God make a rock so big he can't lift it? Things that just seem to be idle speculation. Why would we want speculation to. Or theology to be speculative? But that's not what theologians have meant by this question. And it's actually a surprisingly relevant question. It's not as simple as it sounds. Thomas Aquinas, for example. So he's a 13th century theologian who, though we usually associate him with the Catholic Church, he was very influential for Protestant theology as well. He argued that sacred doctrine is a speculative science because practical science is concerned with human operations, but Christian theology is chiefly concerned with God. Now, he does say that it is some of both, but his point was, well, practical makes it sound like what we're mainly concerned about is just how we do things, how we live life operations in the world. Well, if you look at it that way. Well, no, theology has to do first of all with God. Aquinas said the goal of theology is the perfect knowledge of God in which consists eternal bliss. Now, another theologian, now we're going into the 1600s named Francis Turretin, and you're going to hear his name a lot. He's one of my favorite theologians, most influential for me, and he's kind of in the stream of Aquinas, at least in using many of these same distinctions. So he addresses this question too. 2. And he says that true theology is mixed. I like that. So he's giving some both. And he said it is partly theoretical and partly practical. So he says that the mysteries of the faith are meant to move us to do things, to operation. So on the one hand, we don't want to say it's just speculative or theoretical, because living a Christian life, theology is not meant to just stay in the head and the heart, you might say, but also move out in the hands and the feet. Right. Doctrine doesn't count for much if it doesn't sink down into the deepest part of us. We want truth that leads to godliness. That's Titus 1:1. So practical, he says, but also theoretical or speculative. Again, remember, this is not a negative term. It doesn't mean someone just leaning back in their chair and stroking their chin and just pondering the sou of one hand clapping and a tree falling in the woods with no one around. No, what he means is a theological inquiry is worthwhile on its own if it teaches us something about God. That is, beholding God face to face is the ultimate reward, what theologians have called the beatific vision, whether that's in the life to come or even how much we can see of God. Now. Turreton actually was afraid that the heretical groups in his day wanted to make theology exclusively practical. Now, that's something to keep in mind when. Because we can hear that same thing today. Oh, well, you make theology, it's irrelevant. What we need is practical. Tell me how this theology helps me live my daily life. Well, in the 17th century, some of those heretical groups were saying the same thing because they didn't want to talk about the doctrine of the Trinity or the Incarnation. And what it did is it paved the way for universalism, a view that everyone is saved, or Unitarianism, a denial of the Trinity, that God is one God, three persons, equal in rank and power and glory, sharing one divine essence. This was a convenient way for heretical groups to. To hide their heresy about the person of Christ, about the nature of the atonement and sin, about heaven and hell, about the Trinity. And so we're right in our day to be a little nervous if someone says the only theology that counts is the theology that can be put into practice. Well, yes, theology is always relevant, but sometimes that chief relevance is Simply to behold God, to know more of what God is like in the face of Christ. So is theology speculative or is it practical? We want to say that it is both. It's mixed and we want to aim at both. A related issue is, and we talked about this last week, is the connection between faith and reason. There would be a lot of people on both sides of the equation who would say faith and reason are not friends. You might have it from the faith side, people who are nervous and they think, well, is this an Enlightenment idea? Or reason is going to supplant Christianity. And then we can't believe in miracles or divine things. And it might also come from the other side, people who are very rational and reasonable, and they think faith is just believing just for the sake of believing. You just kind of will yourself to believe. You believe utter contradictions, and you just do so because that's what Christians or people of faith do. But throughout the history of the Church, a lot of thought has been given, and the best theologians have always insisted that faith and reason, though they operate in different ways, are ultimately not in conflict. This is not something that people just started talking about in the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, but from the very beginning that reason has been seen properly as a support, not a threat to faith. Here's a few markers to put in the ground, and many of these I'm pulling from Francis Turretin. But here's one. Human reason is not the rule by which the doctrines of Christianity are to be judged. That means, okay, we want to start out and say, when we talk about reason, we don't mean that the final arbiter of whether you can believe something or not is whether your reason can explain it. So we don't want to say that reason is that final arbiter. Another way you might say is reason does not have the principal office in matters of faith, but has an instrumental one. Reason does not tell us whether something is to be believed, but it is the instrument we use in order to understand and explain. So it's. It's not the goalie. It's not like this has got to get by reason. And if reason doesn't like it, then you can't believe it. But reason is the means by which we receive the thing, by which we understand the thing. And ultimately, if we had the mind of God, there would be no contradiction with reason. So here's a second point, because reason is used in an instrumental sense. So we appropriate theology by reason, our understanding, our minds. So we're not just intuiting it it's not just a feeling. It's not a cloud of unknowing. We're using mental capacity because of all of that. We're right to draw necessary consequences, inferences from Scripture. Jesus did this all the time. Just to give one example, it was a very common debate on, you know, the resurrection. And actually the Pharisees and the Sadducees debated whether the resurrection, a bodily resurrection, would happen. And the Pharisees in this case were the good guys. They believed in a resurrection. The Sadducees didn't. Jesus proves his defense of the resurrection by saying God is the God of the living, not the dead. They might say that's not a very good argument. And he just points to Abraham as living. But he said, look, that that shows us that there is yet a new resurrected body to come for Abraham, who is in an eternal bliss now alive. That's Jesus drawing an inference. We're right to do that because of reason. A third statement, a third stake in the ground. We might say reason, though it does not carry a primary force, it can be used in a secondary sense. So it's not blind faith. There are sometimes we believe things that we cannot see all the way to the bottom. How do you fully reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility? Well, there are a lot of things that we can say, and we'll probably get to that one in a number of weeks, but there's ultimately some questions we just can't answer. We're finite. God is infinite. We don't completely have the mind of God, as God knows his own mind. But that's not to say that we just believe things blindly or that we're wrong to point to evidence or there's no good reasons to believe. So the word sometimes that's used is fidism. F I, D E I S M. So fide is the Latin word for faith. So fiddeism is just believing, just willing yourself. I just believe it. There's no good reason to believe it. I don't know why I'm believing it. I don't understand it, but I just believe that's not how we should think of the Christian life. Rather, Christian faith goes together with reason. So we have to distinguish between something which is incomprehensible and something that is impossible. So incomprehensible I can't fully grasp it or understand it or explain it. And impossible. Well, a square has three sides. That's an impossibility. All this to say here will bring it to a close that reason and philosophy even can have a proper use in theology. Certainly true that you can get some bad idea. You can let philosophy or reason take control of the conversation, can introduce questions or absurdities that aren't worth talking about. But at its best, reason and philosophy can be valuable handmaidens to theology. That's often the language of a handmaiden. So come alongside help support. Not the first place, the second place, the the Coming alongside support sometimes can prepare the way for people to believe things, maybe show the irrationality of unbelief of non Christian ideas. It can prepare the way, it can help us receive. And ultimately it helps us to know God as He truly is. Because our God is a God of light and not confusion. He's a God of truth and not error. And everything in the mind of God makes perfect, complete and rational sense to God. And though there will be many mysteries that are beyond our final comprehension in this life, we want to appropriate them and understand them as best we can. And that means seeing that faith and reason are friends, not enemies. Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters, and if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from Crossway.org the doctrine matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit Crossway.org.