3 Reasons Why You Aren't Allowed to Be Theologically Dumb
Chris Martin
Everyone’s a theologian because everyone thinks something about God, even if your thought about him is that you think he’s not real. Everyone operates with a theology. There are Christian theologians, Buddhist theologians, Muslim theologians, Atheist theologians, and all other sorts.
You’re a theologian.
For the Christian, that means something unique. The Christian cannot be a passive theologian who has idle thoughts about God here and there. Christians are called to be active theologians who are constantly trying to learn more about the God we worship.
In my experience, Millennial evangelicals care far more about loving God with their hearts than they do loving God with their minds, and as a result, the God they love is nothing more than a construction of who they want God to be.
When you love God with your heart but not your mind, you end up loving the god of your imagination, not the God of the universe.
In our present age, you better know why you believe what you believe or you won’t believe it long.
This is why so many young people (and people in general, really) deny God in hard times. When the God you claim to love is a God that protects you from anything bad, you’re not worshiping the Christian God—you’re worshiping a fantasy god you’ve created in your mind that vaguely resembles the God of the Bible.
Here are three reasons you need to love God with your mind and not be theologically dumb:
1. You can’t love what you don’t understand.
When you love God with your heart but not your mind, you end up loving the god of your imagination, not the God of the universe.
A lot of young people don’t like studying theology because it seems cold, boring, and not really necessary to be a Christian.
The problem with that is the Bible:
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” -Deuteronomy 6:5
“There’s no ‘mind’ there!” you might say. Don’t be fooled. In the Hebrew, “heart” = mind. See Jesus’ recitation of this verse in Matthew 22:37:
“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'”
Realistically, think about it: it’s going to be hard to love Someone you don’t understand.
You question how God can exist when bad things happen, which is natural, but if you understand who he is, you’re less likely to blame him and forsake him when sin invades creation.
Think about the people closest to you. You love them more than you love random strangers on the street. Why? Because you know them. If you’re married, think about how difficult it would be to love your spouse if you didn’t really know him or her.
How could my poor wife love me despite my fashion choices if she didn’t know I am colorblind?
Knowledge deepens love. How much more might you love God if you would invest the time to know him more?