Theology as an Evolving Endeavor

Our Portraits of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

To illustrate this important distinction, we’ll say Scripture, God’s authorized story about himself and his people (that is, his ‘revelation’), is analogous to the Sierra Nevada mountain range—vast in beauty and rich in diversity. Our attempts to understand and portray Scripture is analogous to trying to capture the fullness of the Sierra Nevadas in a painting or series of paintings. Impossible! However magnificent the paintings might be, however brilliant and gifted the artists, there is no way that even a dozen paintings could begin to presume to capture the fullness and grandeur of this mountain range.

How could one paint a portrait of the Sierras that would do them justice? How would we even know where to start? Which ecological region should we select? Do we choose a setting along the steep Eastern slopes or the more expansive Western? If the Western, which of biotic zones should we prefer: the Foothill Woodland and Chaparral Zone, the Lower and Upper Montane Forests, the Subalpine Forest, or the Alpine Zone? And the mountains change with passing seasons. Which time of the year do we paint? Summer or winter or spring or fall? And the light and shadows morph throughout the day—which time of day should we choose? Every selection necessarily excludes many alternatives. And once we have selected the ecological region, the time of year, and the time of day, what do we emphasize in our painting? Plant life? Or animal life? Do we make room for the human factor? This analogy makes it clear that there is a huge difference between the Sierras as they stand and our feeble attempts at portrayal.

Now of course we are attracted by the mountains. Like John Muir we want to explore them. Like Ansel Adams we want to photograph them and share our views with others. Like many Sacramento residents, we want to take our out-of-state friends to see the beauty of the Sierras and enjoy their riches.  Painting portraits of these mountains honors them. In fact, a good painting is an invitation for others to visit the mountains and to explore them first-hand. But we dare not presume that our paintings offer the best, final, comprehensive portrait of the mountains, as though no further exploration is in order. Imagine the absurdity if we claimed that since our paintings are the equivalent of the Sierras, no one need ever visit them again. Why bother hiking the mountains or trying to capture their beauty on canvas or film again when we have painted the definitive, not-to-be-equaled version? In fact, given the finality of our painting, we could just as well do away with the mountain range altogether. After all, it’s just redundant now, isn’t it?

Make the connection. God invites us to understand him and to attempt to explain him to others. Privilege! This God wants to be known! Like John Muir we are drawn to explore. Like Ansel Adams we want to share with others what we’ve seen. But we must acknowledge that our limited portraits, when compared with the real thing, are feeble attempts to capture the unfathomable, inscrutable vastness of God on one little piece of canvas.

What are the Limitations Inherent in our Portrayals?

• We are limited. Our subject matter, however, is limitless. We necessarily see but a small portion of divine reality. Our view is but one point of view. One point cannot claim to take in the whole. Our tiny perspective is so constrained, so narrow. How could one of our murals ever pretend to depict what God really is or portray the richness, depth, and variety of Scripture?
• We are fallen creatures. Our perspective is not only narrow, but our vision is fuzzy. We cracked Eikons (that is, faulty image-bearers) have cracked lenses in our eyes. Even the little we can understand, we may well misunderstand.
• Our lenses are colored, colored by our culture, our tradition, our experience, our education, our relationships, our decisions, our values.
• We are culturally embedded. We look at life from within the worldview we often uncritically adopt from our culture. This is why much of Scripture can be puzzling to us. Presuppositions an ancient writer like Moses, for example, took for granted and could leave unstated when writing to people who shared his worldview, we 21st-century readers find hard to grasp.
• We bring our personal perspectives to the task. We interpret the unknown in light of what we know. And what we know best is our own selves, the mix of culture, tradition, experience, education, relationships, decisions, and values that constitute who we are. We interpret God and his activities in this light. We can’t help it. Here are but two example of our inherent biases of interpretation:
• The expansion of Euro-Americans into Western North America in the 19th century will be understood differently based on the point of view of the interpreter. To the pioneers and the military, it was a conquering of savage Indians and a claiming of land to which the whites were entitled. To the displaced Native Americans, it was a bloody conquest by oppressive, ruthless "emperial" invaders.
• "That all men are created equal" means different things to different people. To some of the signers of the US Declaration of Independence, "all men" means more precisely "all white, male land-owners;" matters of race, class, and gender were critical. To later generations, like our own, we interpret the phrase in light of our ideals--"all men" means all humanity, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic class, or gender.

What Things are Fitting for a Painter of the Divine?

• We should have a humble awareness of our inherent limitations.
• We should seek to discover the biases that skew our perspectives.
• We should have an incessant curiosity about the truths of God that exceed our little piece of canvas.
• We should continue our exploration with the help of others who have traveled different parts of the mountain range. We should be open and teachable, quick to listen to other perspectives and to learn from other explorers, especially those from other traditions and from other time periods. They have much to contribute to our understanding.
• We should be averse to the arrogant claim that our depiction is the best and in need of no further refinement or expansion.
• We should be very hesitant about criticizing other portraits that come from differing points of view.
• We should be mindful of our tendency to be reactionary and swing the pendulum to the other extreme from an opposing viewpoint.
• We should be mindful that our best theological constructions are provisional, that is, not final or fully worked out. God may be absolute, but we dare not claim the same for our formulations.

The Danger of Equating our Theology with God’s Revelation

We seek to understand God and Scripture, and, in part, we do, however limited and dim our view. We believe the Bible to be a primary means of God’s self-disclosure, his revelation. But we need to be careful what we mean when we say “we believe the Bible.” Some equate their beliefs with the Bible as though these two (Bible and beliefs) were equivalent, as though their second-order beliefs were on the same plane as the first-order truths of God and Scripture.

“…this view undermines or even denies any real distinction between revelation itself [that is, Scripture] and even the best nonrevelational interpretation of revelation [that is, our humanly devised theology]. This leaves the door wide open to fundamentalistic assertions that ‘MY bible says…’ That is, it leads to confusion between the Bible itself (or revelation itself) and a particular interpretation of its message. Many postconservative evangelicals believe this tendency appears in the way …[some] conservative evangelicals view their own theological affirmations; they present them as if they were not interpretations but simply restatements of the content of revelation itself. That leaves no room for disagreement without charges of heresy immediately resulting. Postconservatives think this is the true essence of fundamentalism: implicit if not explicit denial of the inevitable and universal gap between revelation and anyone’s interpretation of it in nonrevelatory language. It infects too much conservative evangelical theology”

Roger Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), p. 161.

With this false equation in hand (that is, that my theology is indistinguishable from biblical truths), some Bible-believers draw this unbecoming and unhealthy inference: “I believe the Bible, but I notice that your beliefs differ from mine. Since my beliefs are equivalent with Scripture, you must not believe the Bible.” And where does this lead? “Since you do not believe the Bible, you must not be as spiritual as I, or as mature as I, or as committed as I, or as educated as I.” It's scary how pride and judgmentalism can distort and abuse a book that was written to promote humility, love, service, and harmony.

The better path is to be conscious of our limitations and to adopt the posture that befits a painter of the Divine. “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.... And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace [or harmony] of Christ rule in your community’s hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace [or to Shalom]. And be thankful” (Col 3:12-15).  

Now this doesn’t mean all paintings are equally reflective of the Sierras. We are not to throw discernment to the wind. A painting of sand dunes and African camels is not a painting of the Sierras. But a humble, gracious spirit of discernment is a far cry from a haughty judgmentalism.

Come Explore!

So, we are called to explore the canyons, enjoy the sights, experience the wonder, examine the fauna and flora, hike the trails, and swim in the lakes. And all who are given the privilege of becoming acquainted first-hand with these beautiful mountains are invited to sketch out a painting and share it with others. As we view one another’s paintings and listen to each other’s stories, we will learn more of the Sierras and will be inspired to make them more our own. May this be true of our theological “paintings” as well. Come, explore! And let's do it together.