Friday, June 03, 2005

Modeling God

My bible study is a group of mostly nerdy guys. We've been studying Mere Christianity for what seems like forever. This week we got to the start of the fourth "book" in Mere Christianity which is a discussion of the trinity and includes some discussion on the worth of theology in general.

Lewis defines theology as "the science of God" which is a turn of phrase that is both profound and useful. He compares theology to geography. Compared to actually going somewhere, learning geography is a much less satisfying experience. Maps and pictures lack the fullness and richness of the actual place. However geography is necessary to get you across continents and oceans. An understanding of geography can take you places you have never been before and could never have gotten to on your own. This is because geography encapsulates the experiences of thousands of people.

So theology is important. However being nerds we don't have the problem of thinking too little of theology. We have a problem of wasting too much of our time discussing theology and too little applying it to our lives and walk. How much time do we spend thinking of theology instead of being in prayer?

Several of us are in the statistical and scientific modeling business. Models are inherently simplifications of what is going on in the real world. As such, they always will contain some level of inaccuracy. But their simplicity is also their power. There is an old but profound saying in modeling:
All models are wrong, but some models are useful.
Theology is like that too. Theology is not God. It is how we think about God. God is vast and, to our human minds, inherently incomprehensible. We will never know the end of Him and that may be our major occupation in Heaven. Theology is merely how we model and conceptualize God. This brings about a corollary to the previous statement:
All theology is wrong, but some of it is useful.
Before we start a huge argument with our Christian brothers, we need to have this perspective about what we are fighting over.

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