What is Theology Proper?

Summary

Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung: "What is Theology Proper?" - Episode Summary

Introduction to Theology Proper

In the episode titled "What is Theology Proper?" released on February 4, 2025, Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church and host of the Doctrine Matters podcast, delves into the foundational aspects of systematic theology, specifically focusing on Theology Proper—the study of the nature and work of God. This episode serves as a pivotal exploration for listeners seeking to understand how theological language shapes our comprehension of divine attributes and actions.

Understanding Theology Proper

The discussion begins with an explanation of Theology Proper, a term used to describe the branch of theology that examines the very being of God and His actions. DeYoung emphasizes the importance of categorizing theological concepts to facilitate clearer understanding and communication about God. He states, “We’re talking about the being of God and the works of God” (01:11).

The Language of Theology: Univocal, Equivocal, or Analogical

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting how language relates to theological discourse. DeYoung introduces three key modes of language usage when referring to God:

1. Univocal Language: This suggests that words have a single, identical meaning across different contexts. For example, saying "God is good" in the same sense as "this pizza is good." DeYoung critiques this approach, noting, “Goodness does not relate to God the same way it relates to other things” (02:29), highlighting the ontological gap between Creator and creation.

2. Equivocal Language: Here, the same word carries entirely different meanings in different contexts, akin to the word "bank" referring to both a riverbank and a financial institution. DeYoung argues that equating God's attributes with human attributes in this manner undermines meaningful theological discourse: “If God is good means nothing like Sam is good or Jill is good, then how can we say anything meaningful about God with human language?” (07:04).

3. Analogical Language: Positioned as the preferred method, analogical language acknowledges similarities and differences between how terms apply to God and humans. DeYoung explains, “Our words about God are analogical… they communicate truth about God” (07:19), allowing meaningful yet respectful discourse about the divine.

Analogical Language: Bridging Understanding

DeYoung underscores that analogical language maintains a balance, recognizing that while humans are made in God’s image and thus share certain attributes, God’s nature surpasses human comprehension. He remarks, “God is not incomprehensible, but he is inexhaustible” (09:01), emphasizing that while finite beings cannot fully grasp the infinite nature of God, meaningful truths can still be communicated through analogical statements.

Defining God as Spirit

The conversation transitions to a foundational biblical definition of God provided by Jesus: “God is Spirit” (10:22), emphasizing His immateriality. DeYoung expands on this by referencing biblical texts such as Isaiah 31, which contrasts the spiritual nature of God with the fleshly, material nature of created beings. He asserts, “God is spirit absolutely” (11:09), clarifying that this means God is not only invisible and non-physical but also possesses intrinsic spiritual substance.

Substantiality and Personality of God

Drawing on William Shedd, a 19th-century theologian, DeYoung introduces two critical predicates for understanding God’s spirituality:

1. Substantiality: This refers to God being a real, independent being rather than a mere idea or force. DeYoung explains, “Substantiality means that God is an essence or a substance” (13:05), ensuring that God is recognized as a tangible presence in spiritual terms, not reducible to abstract concepts.

2. Personality: This attribute highlights God’s self-awareness and agency. DeYoung emphasizes, “God is a knowing subject. He knows things and he is an object that can be known” (15:03), illustrating that God possesses personal attributes such as self-consciousness and the ability to make free, intentional decisions.

These two aspects—substantiality and personality—are essential for a comprehensive understanding of God’s nature. DeYoung states, “God has substance in fact as independent and uncaused in his existence” (14:05), and further clarifies that God’s personality entails, “His decisions are freely chosen, self-directed” (15:36).

Conclusion

Throughout the episode, Kevin DeYoung methodically builds a coherent framework for Theology Proper by clarifying how theological language functions and by defining key attributes of God. By advocating for analogical language, he provides listeners with tools to engage in meaningful theological discussions that honor the transcendence and immanence of God. The episode concludes with a reminder of the ongoing journey of understanding God’s nature, encouraging listeners to continue exploring these profound theological concepts.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "We’re talking about the being of God and the works of God." — Kevin DeYoung (01:11)
• "Goodness does not relate to God the same way it relates to other things." — Unknown Speaker 2 (02:29)
• "If God is good means nothing like Sam is good or Jill is good, then how can we say anything meaningful about God with human language?" — Unknown Speaker 2 (07:04)
• "Our words about God are analogical… they communicate truth about God." — Unknown Speaker 2 (07:19)
• "God is spirit absolutely." — Unknown Speaker 1 (11:09)
• "Substantiality means that God is an essence or a substance." — Unknown Speaker 1 (13:05)
• "He is a knowing subject. He knows things and he is an object that can be known." — Unknown Speaker 2 (15:03)

Further Resources

For those interested in delving deeper into Theology Proper and the concepts discussed in this episode, Kevin DeYoung recommends exploring his year-long mini systematic theology book, Daily Doctrine, available in print or audio through Crossway.

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This summary captures the essential discussions and insights from the "What is Theology Proper?" episode of Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and seekers alike.

Transcript

[Kevin DeYoung]

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.

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We'll pull from the church's long history.

[Kevin DeYoung]

Complex debates, and over the course of.

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The year, the hope is that we'll.

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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.

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Before we get to the doctrine of God Proper, we've been looking at prolegomena. That's a big word that means first words. So introductory, prefatory material, trying to lay.

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Some of the groundwork. And part of that is talking about.

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The doctrine of Scripture. And that's where we were last week.

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Now we turn to theology proper. This whole study is about theology, but.

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As we look at the different categories, there's something called theology proper, which is just a way of saying we're talking about the being of God and the works of God. And as we think first introduce this big category of the doctrine of God, I thought we'd try to explain some new categories that may not be familiar but are really important in the history of theology and help us to think and really to speak about this doctrine.

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In the right way.

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So first I want to think about what are the words that we're using to talk about God?

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The language of theology itself.

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And typically, theologians have said our words.

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For God can be thought of in.

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One of three ways. Univocal, equivocal, or analogical. Let's look at each of those. So language can be univocal, and if you're picturing that word in your mind, it just looks like uni vocal. So that means that the language has only one meaning in theology. This means that whatever is predicated of.

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Various things under the same word carries the same meaning.

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So if we say God is good.

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The word good carries the same meaning.

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As if we say those flowers are good or that spaghetti is good.

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So right away, we should be suspicious.

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That this isn't exactly the case, because.

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Goodness relates to things differently than they relate to God. So God is good in his essence.

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You cannot remove goodness and still have God. But by contrast, you could.

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You can have flowers that are not good, you can have spaghetti that is not good.

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You can have pizza that is not good. Once I had to start eating Gluten free.

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I had pizza.

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That was not good. Good.

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So goodness does not relate to God.

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The same way it relates to other things. God does not belong to the same.

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Genus as his creation. That is, he is not in the.

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Same class of things as any other thing.

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So our language for God cannot be.

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Entirely univocal because otherwise the term suggests.

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The possibility of more than one member in that class.

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Let me try to explain. So if goodness is not the essence of God, but is something like we describe spaghetti and we describe God, and.

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There'S a way for God to not have goodness, then it would suggest that there is a class of beings we.

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Call God, and some of those members are good and others are not. But God is in a class of all by himself. If we say the dog is happy.

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We do not mean the exact same.

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Thing as if we say the man is happy. Dogs show happiness. They, they, they wag their tail or.

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They go chase a ball.

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And there may be some things that are like that. If we say the man is happy, and yet man is a different kind of being. He experiences happiness in a different way.

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And if we as human beings are.

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Talking about happiness, we don't exactly know what a dog feels like when it feels happy. So there is an ontological gap between people and dogs that doesn't allow for completely univocal language. If I say, I'm having a good day, my dog is having a good day, there's some relation, but we don't know. They're not exactly the same kind of statement. And so if that's true between a.

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Person and a dog, then how much.

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Greater distance is there between human language.

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And God as he is in himself?

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So all of this is to say univocal. We are not using words in a univocal way, that they mean exactly the same thing relative to our human words.

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And to God himself.

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So a second category is equivocal. You can see that this is sort.

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Of the opposite of what univocal means. Equivocal indicates that the same word means two different things.

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For example, if I say, row your boat to the south bank and deposit your check in the bank at the bottom of the hill, it's the same word, bank. But a native English speaker understands that I'm using bank in two different ways.

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That one is referring to the wall.

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Of a river, and the other is a financial institution where you deposit money.

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Now, the word equivocates. Bank has an equal voice.

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So that's where we get the word equa vocal. It has an Equal voice. And yet it does not mean the same thing. We use the word somebody is equivocating. We mean they're hesitating between two opinions.

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And that gets you in the ballpark.

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Of what we mean here we're saying we use a word, same word, but it means two different things. So this is not exactly the way we want to describe our God language either. So if univocal was, yep, God is good, pizza is good, goodness there means the same thing. No, no, there's an ontological gap. But if we say it's really equivocal, just like the river bank and the financial bank, same word, but they mean two different things, well then we don't even. Why even bother doing theology? If God is good means nothing like.

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Sam is good or Jill is good, then how can we say anything meaningful about God with human language? So not univocal, not equivocal.

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The answer to the question how do we speak about God?

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Is to insist that our words about God are analogical.

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And that's what most theologians have argued.

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There is a great ontological distance between God and man, which means that our.

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Words for God are never exactly the.

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Same thing as those words we use for man.

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And yet there is a similarity between.

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God and human beings.

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After all, we are made in his image. And language was God's idea. He chose to reveal himself in human language.

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So he wouldn't reveal himself in human.

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Language if there was nothing meaningful to communicate, if the words just were some hidden, mysterious code we didn't really know. And to say God is good and Sam is good do not mean anything the same. No, we insist that there is an analogical meaning.

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If God's eternal power and divine nature.

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Can be clearly perceived in the created.

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World, how much more can human language, which is a gift from the word.

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Remember the Logos is the word made flesh. There's a reason that God uses that language to describe his incarnate Son, because it is God's self revelation. He reveals Himself to us through the Word. So it does say our human words.

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About God say something meaningful and discernible about God.

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They cannot capture God, but they do communicate truth about God. Even if the infinite God is beyond our finite comprehension, so we cannot exhaust our knowledge of God.

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We never know God as God knows himself.

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But there is real, meaningful human language that can speak of God analogically, communicates.

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True things, though not exhaustively.

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Another way that classic Protestant orthodoxy has put it is to say that God has a way to speak of himself that is archetypal. He has an archetypal knowledge.

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And our language or our understanding of.

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God is ek typal, E C and then typal. So if you read old reformed dogmatics.

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You will often find that language, God's.

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Knowledge of himself is archetypal.

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Only God knows God as God, but.

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But we can say true things, but it is through his revelation. And our knowledge is ectypal. So God is not incomprehensible, but he is inexhaustible. We can't know everything about Him. Now if your brains can take just a little bit more under this doctrine of God, really just again laying some of the groundwork. So we talked about the language, the.

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Words that we use.

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I want us to think about one.

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Of the shortest definitions of God in the Bible.

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It's the one Jesus gave to the.

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Samaritan woman at the well.

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John 4:24 he says God is spirit. What do we mean when we say God is spirit? Most people probably understand that to mean the opposite of material. And that is some of what Jesus is getting at. God is a spiritual being rather than a material being. At Mount Sinai we're told he had.

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No form, he could not be seen. Isaiah 31 says the Egyptians are man and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit.

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So there we see an opposite flesh and spirit.

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Proper worship of God.

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This is Jesus point there in John.

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4 is a matter of the spirit.

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Rather than determined by physical location. That's what the woman was asking. Which mountain? Here the spirituality of God is another way of speaking of his immateriality. So that's true. But it's more than that. It's more than just saying that God.

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Is invisible or He's a spirit and.

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He doesn't have a body. We also want to affirm that God is spirit itself. That is spirit absolutely.

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There's a reason that 1 Timothy 1:17.

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Puts eternal, immortal and invisible together as attributes of the one God.

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Why those three eternal, immortal, invisible?

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Because they're all related. That God cannot be seen, that he is invisible means he is also free.

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From the limitations of of time and space. So eternal, immortal, invisible.

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He has immortality and eternity because he alone has absolute spirituality. The Westminster Confession Chapter two, Article one says God is a most pure spirit. Now admittedly this is some philosophical language.

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That we're not always familiar with.

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But there are important points that the.

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Confession is trying to underscore and I.

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Think they are fair inferences from Jesus dogmatic pronouncement that God is spirit.

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So God's spirituality is not only his.

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Non physicality William Shedd, the 19th century theologian, argued that two predicates are fundamentally.

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Important in determining the idea of God as spirit.

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So not just invisible and not physical, but substantiality and personality.

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So we need both of those words to help understand what is meant by.

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The spirituality of God.

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So the first word that Shed mentions there, substantiality, what we mean is that God is an essence or a substance. Now why does this matter?

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This is a actually really important point because it means that God is not a mere idea or a construction of the mind. So you see, if we say God is spirit and he's non material, we might think that he's an idea like.

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Justice or righteousness, or just something that.

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We have in the mind.

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Or he's a power or an influence.

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Or an energy, or that he's a.

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Property or a quality.

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But what we want to say by substantiality is that he is, and here's.

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A Latin word, ens.

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Which is Latin from the verb essay to be, meaning.

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As a spiritual substance.

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God does not occupy space, that is physical space, because he's immaterial.

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He's spirit.

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But he is still a real being.

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That's what we're trying to get at.

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With this term because we think of you're not real if you don't occupy physical space that we can point to you and we can draw a circle around you and say there you are and there you aren't. But God is spirit. Yet we don't want to think that means he's just an idea or an.

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Energy or a power.

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He has substance in fact as independent.

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And uncaused in his existence. God is being in the most absolute sense.

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So Shed says we want the word substantiality.

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We also want the word personality.

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We mean here that God is a personal being. In talking about the personality, the one true God, we are talking about his self consciousness and his self determination.

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Self consciousness.

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If that is a difficult concept, just think God is self knowing. He's self contemplating. That's what we mean. He's a personal being in that he.

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Is a knowing subject. He knows things and he is an.

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Object that can be known.

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He's aware of himself. He's aware of others.

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Again, he's not just a mental category or idea.

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He's not an impersonal force.

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He's self aware and self determination.

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It means God has agency.

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His decisions are freely chosen, self directed. Now we need to be clear.

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This word personality.

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We're not yet talking about the three.

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Persons of the Trinity.

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They're related ideas.

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God is one personal being.

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Who exists eternally as three distinct divine Persons.

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There is a single consciousness in God, a single self determined will, not three.

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Centers of consciousness, not three wills. But there are nevertheless, and we'll come to the doctrine of the Trinity in time.

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There are three subsistences with the Godhead, so this means the one God is fully personal in himself and by himself.

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And here's how shed puts it by.

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Reason of the three Persons, the Divine.

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Essence is self contemplative, self cognitive, and self communing. Or as Jesus put it, God is Spirit and we want to affirm he is Spirit.

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Absolutely.

[Kevin DeYoung]

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, you 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.

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Org.

[Kevin DeYoung]

The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit crossway.

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Org.