If we consider theology as the study of God, or the study of the divine, or the study of the nature of God, then the definition that Mueller puts forth for theology and his justification for taking part in its study make a lot of sense. He breaks down the word into its two Greek roots: theos for “god” and logos for “word” or “understanding” (Mueller 2011, p. 28), and that leaves one with a wide range of possible interpretations. Given that Mueller has an “S.J.” after his name, of course, we must conclude that he will take on a very specific world view in his discussion of theology – that of a Jesuit priest within the Roman Catholic church. So what could have been a fairly wide-ranging discussion, it turns, will follow a fairly rigidly established set of doctrinal paths within the exploration of the nature of God, following the teachings that the Catholic Church had had in place for centuries. However, the justification that Mueller puts forth for the study of theology cracks the process open a little wider, suggesting that some broader sojourning might be welcome in this consideration. He uses the Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling with God one night on the ford of the Jabbok River, on the night before Jacob is set to meet his brother Esau, after decades of separation across the Fertile Crescent. Jacob is particularly nervous about this meeting, because he had fled from his home as a young man, after hearing that his brother wanted to murder him. After all, Jacob had cheated Esau out of the older son’s blessing by putting on goat skins and bringing his father Isaac his favorite meal while Esau was still out hunting (taking advantage of Isaac’s very weak vision), and after that had fled across the Middle East to go back to his mother’s people and find a wife. On that crucial night, a strange man accosts Jacob and wrestles with him throughout the night. The question that Jacob asks – and which the man refuses to answer – is what the man’s name is. The man refuses to answer the question, but he cannot overcome Jacob by wrestling either, until he touches Jacob’s hip socket and dislocates it, freeing himself. The man does bestow this blessing: You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28 NIV). The idea that God rewards this sort of striving is an instructive one, because it suggests that the simple obedience to which so many of our parents and our ministers would point us may in fact be misguided. Instead, though, theology becomes a form of wrestling, as we try to figure out just who God is. The images of animals lining up, two by two, in front of an ark, on a flannel board, might amuse us as children, but as we become autonomous adults and have to take responsibility for the decisions that we make, we need a more mature understanding of God and what his plan is for our lives. This is where a mature study of theology must come in. While there are doctrinal points on which members of the Roman Catholic faith are expected to come to agreement, there are many areas of understanding that require some hard work spent alone, with just a Bible and one’s prayers to guide one, in addition to conversations with one’s priest. Without that work, though, one’s faith remains simply the one that one took from one’s parents or that one took from one’s priest. Jacob did not become a patriarch until he wrestled with God; no man becomes a complete believer without theology.
References
Mueller, J.J. (ed.), 2011. Theological foundations: Concepts and methods for
understanding Christian faith. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic.
