I read a blog post recently that claimed that having right theology does not mean that we know God. I agree. It is possible to have a clear understanding from Scripture of a specific doctrine or truth, and have no relationship. The same is true in all areas of life. Facebook allows me to know all about a lot of people, but I don’t really know them. (Now, granted, everything I read about people on facebook isn’t always true, but that’s beside the point I’m trying to make here.) To really understand a person, I have to not only know true things about them, but I have to spend time with them, listen to them, and be open with them.
The author of this blog post went on to make the claim, however, that it is possible to have a right relationship with God without having good theology. I realize I may be running into an issue of semantics here, but based on the rest of what the author had to say, I don’t think I’m misrepresenting his argument. His next claim was that what is really important is that you focus primarily on the relationship, and the truth about God should be secondary. If we’re focused on a right relationship, then eventually we’ll start to have the right ideas about God, maybe. Even if that happens, though, don’t claim it as a hard and fast “truth.”
I think my first reaction was empathy. I really can understand where he’s coming from. As someone who hears informal theological debates all the time, and has even participated in some, I get so tired of encountering people who think that they have God completely figured out, and that their way of thinking about Him is the only right way. It is irritating, and ultimately feels like a waste of time talking to them.
I had a second reaction to his thought, though, one that deserves some careful consideration, and that is this: In our search for a relationship, have we minimized the importance of truth? In our quest for intimacy with the God who wants connection and intimacy with us, have we forsaken some of the clear ways that He has revealed how to attain that intimacy?
I think that, sadly, a lot of times this is precisely what we’ve done. Granted, God has not revealed all things perfectly to us now. There are always going to be doctrinal disputes, because we all learn at different paces, in different ways, and through different circumstances in our lives. Each story of relationship with God is different, because people are different. But that doesn’t minimize the importance of truth. How tragic that in our relationship with the One who is Truth, we’ve decided we can believe what we want to about Him.
Obviously relationship is important. But I think the relationship has to be built on a solid foundation of basic truth about God. (/|\)