Let’s Go to Theology Class: Literature and Theology

Written by Steven Barto, B.S. Psy, M.T.S.

This blog post is the last discussion in Topics in Theology at Colorado Christian University in pursuit of my Master’s in Theological Studies (M.T.S.) I will be starting a Master’s in Divinity (MDiv) at Denver Seminary in April 2021.

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“I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” (C.S. Lewis)

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12, ESV).

One of my classmates made a statement this week that was more reminder than eureka! He said we are afforded “partial” vision in this physical world. Systematic theology, exegesis, and hermenuetics lead down the proverbial path of intersection between what we see and what exists. We presently have a somewhat cloudy and restricted understanding of love. The incarnation of Jesus Christ allows us to enter into a conversation about the story of redemption. God’s grace allows us to see and hear what we need to see and hear, when we need to see and hear it.

Specific to this process, Jesus helps us die to ourselves so that we can begin to live in agape love. It is amazing how opens the opportunity to become like Him; to emulate him in our actions and words. As an apologist, I must engage people “relationally,” which helps make them “spiritually” accessible. I am preparing for a relational-incarnational approach to apologetics. I must know Holy Scripture through a valid perspective, a sound rationale, and a fulfilling mode of being. So, how can we best present the Christian worldview in a manner that reaches beyond “canned” answers. Through relationship.

A Muslim acquaintance told me that Muslims will not listen to our thoughts on Chrisianity unless we first begin a relationship. Further, Nabeel Qureshi said in one of his lectures that Muslims come to America and are flooded with images of American’s overeating, touring the towns in expensive cars, attending movies and watching Rap videos that feature sex and partially-clad women, beaches filled with half-naked sunbathers. Muslim immigrants associate America’s behavior with Christianity.

I agree with C.S. Lewis’s perspective on the pitfalls of reductionist materialism. This term is generally an “identity theory” that says there is no independent, universal level of phenomena in the world, especially regarding morality. Reality is seen by many experts as mere neurochemical function; nothing exists over and above cognition. It is through reductionist materalism that we encounter the deficiency of our relational experiences. And it just might be the root cause of man’s failure to hold a consistent, universal sense of spirituality throughout his life.

The relational-incarnational model of apologetics is necessarily built from the personal repentance, vulnerability, self-sacrifice and shared humanity of the apologist (evangelist). I cannot help but wonder if identity theory is at least a stepchild of identity politics—the strange twenty-first century political theory that has been consistently convincing individuals away from responsibility and care (agape love) for the “community,” and pushes stark individualism and relativism on us through any number of media. Identity politics tends to create the sense that we are, each of us, an island. Certainly, universal morality gets sacrificed in the name of autonomy.

Our failure to recognize personal biases, misconceptions, and presuppositions is alarming. The definition of “worldview” is “… a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic make-up of the world” (1). My classmate said, “This is for me a central Christian theme about special revelation, the subjective nature of visions, and the intimacy of a God that leaves footprints in his wake for our discovery and salvation.”

C.S. Lewis was a gifted Christian author whose skills were extremely useful in sharing his conversion from theism to a relationship with Jesus Christ. Lewis shared his path to Christianity with the world in such a fashion that it was no mere incoherent mystery. Indeed, he expressed (in several of his works) that divine love is the ultimate life-giving mystery—God gives His Son over to sacrificial death to save the world. Many theologians tend to insist on having “the last word.” We need to forego imposing lables or categories on those with whom we speak about Christ. If not, we risk dismissing those who think and believe differently than we do.

Notes

(1) David N. Entwistle, Integrative Approach to Psychology and Christianity, 3rd ed. (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2015), 61.