A Good Theological Conversation:

“Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant…”

(John Calvin’s Institutes III.xxi.2)

A few nights back, Linda and I attended a book signing party at Inklings for Roy Goble celebrating the publication of his new book Salvaged. It took some doing. When the time came to go, we didn’t feel like going. Nevertheless, we did say “Yes” to the invitation, so we gathered our wits and made our way to the gathering. As often happens, once we were there, it was all good. Roy was good. The book was good. But, most of all, the people were good—good to be with, good to see, and good “to talk with face to face,” as the Apostle likes to say (2&3Jn).

George, for example, I hadn’t seen for a spell. As we talked face to face, the conversation drifted into his reading Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah, of all things! He was surprised by Calvin’s humility and his emphasis on the workings of the Holy Spirit. We discussed how Calvinist can appear spiritless and mechanical, but not so with Calvin.

That surprising Calvin conversation lingers. Why was our Calvin discussion so delightful? How is it that our theological conversations, that can turn argumentative and contentious, became on that night, so free and fun?

Maybe it’s the simple humanness of Calvin. Theology is, after all, a human endeavor. God doesn’t do theology. Mortals do. God just Is and Does: “I AM Who I AM”; or, just “I AM” for short (Ex 3). Since God doesn’t do theology, all theology is the doing of humans and thus flawed as all mortals are (1Cor 13:12-13):

For now we see through a glass darkly,

        but then we will see face to face.

Now I know only in part; then I will know fully,

        even as I have been fully known.

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;

        and the greatest of these is love.

Even though we “see through a glass darkly”; nevertheless, theology remains a noble and honorable task. As the wisest of mortals puts it (Pr 25:22):

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;

      to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

That’s what theologian do—they “search out a matter.” Like Mary, the mother of our Lord, who “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). Mary models how the church does theology: we ponder the words of Scripture and the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ. If anyone could make big claims, Mary could; but, she ponders.

The whole of it is always hidden in God himself. That’s why our best theologians, like John Calvin, encourage us “not to be ashamed to be ignorant of something, wherein there is a certain learned ignorance” (John Calvin’s Institutes III.xxi.2). When we acknowledge “a certain learned ignorance”; we are free for good and enriching theological conversation.