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How do you go about thinking theologically? I’ve been thinking about this for quite a number of years now, and it’s been something I’ve been interested in since listening to Peter Jensen answer questions in my first year Doctrine lectures. You could tell that there was a certain method to the way he considered and answered questions. There was definitely a particular way of thinking theologically – but what was it?

And so I read up on theological method – and let me tell you, there are some really strange books out there on theological method. But I think I’ve worked out that there are two key components in a sound theological method…

1. Two channels of thought

Just say you want to work out how to think theologically about a particular subject. Well, there are two complementary channels that will feed in to your theological method.

The first of these channels are individual Bible passages that we can think of that relate to that particular subject. Now you might initially only think of a handful that may be half-related, but that’s alright – there is more to the method.

The second of these two channels is the gospel itself. And for this we are trying to think about what the gospel itself says about the particular subject. A simple way is to think of the Two Ways To Live boxes, and to consider in which of the six 2WTL boxes this subject fits. This will give you a clue as to what the gospel might have to add to our understanding about this subject.

The two channels are related to each other as detail (individual Bible passages) relates to big picture (gospel message), as diachronic (individual Bible passages) relates to synchronic (gospel message), as micro relates to macro, as trees relates to forest. They are not in conflict with each other, but both are necessary for each other.

And as you put your findings from the first and second channel together, and you are not yet there, but certainly on your way to thinking theologically.

If, on the other hand, you only used the first channel and neglected to use the second, you might find yourself just creating a word study on your subject, or possibly a biblical theology of your subject – but you wouldn’t be thinking theologically.

Not only that, by inexpertly selecting some passages (and not others by our biblical ignorance), and then neglecting to check whether your conclusion is actually in line with the gospel message, you are actually in danger of creating theologies that are not Christian.

2. Recursion

The second key concept is your theological method is recursion. That is, you don’t actually just do the two-channel thing once. You actually go back and do it several times, feeding your findings back in through the system.

In your first step as you considered the gospel it might have triggered a whole new potential area of exploration. Well as you feed those findings back in, you would look for individual biblical passages related to that. And at the same time, you would also consider the individual Bible passages you first thought of, and consider the gospel implications of these. This next recursion would lead to further observations.

And you wouldn’t just stick with once or twice, you would continue to feed these observations through recursively, as in the following diagram…

In the diagram above you would start your theological reflection at A by considering relevant Bible passages, then considering how these fit into the gospel message at B, then searching out more Bible passages suggested at C, and then once more considering how those passages fit into the gospel message at D. At the same time you would also be starting your theological reflection at 1 by considering the implications of the gospel for the subject, then moving to 2 by searcing out Bible passages that come to mind, then moving to 3 where we reflect again how the gospel sheds light on those passages, and then moving to 4 where you would be checking out Bible passages that suggest themselves.

There are two diagrams to the right, each showing how to get from A to B in terms of thinking theologically. The diagram at the top shows a simple one step theological method. This assumes you can somehow get directly from A to B in one step.

However the diagram at the bottom shows what is really going on with this recursive theological method. Here the process is actually a spiral, and we progressively get closer and closer from A to B with each iteration of the cycle. As a faithful Christian applies the theological method to their subject again and again, we get closer and closer to a theologically sound statement on the subject. We become more certain that we’ve considered relevant passages, we make sure that we consider these parts in light of the whole, we make sure that our statement is in line with the overall message of the Bible itself. And this is what we are doing when we are thinking theologically.

If one neglected to recursively apply the theological method, then one would end up with theologies that might be unsound, missing out on insights that could have been gained from further iterations. However, it would not have been a bad first go.

3. Expert theologians

So is this what people are doing when they are thinking theologically? Do they laboriously and self consciously work through all these different steps? Probably not in a laborious fashion. But that’s because people train themselves to work through these steps instinctively!

But in order to get better at thinking theologically, it’s obvious that one should work at both a) increasing one’s familiarity with Scriptural passages, and b) sharpening one’s understanding of the gospel…

[ PS: a group of ND'ers have been studying Doctrine 1 for PTC, and interstingly, the first chapter is about the gospel - because the gospel is the foundation for thinking theologically! ]