A system of theology inevitably leads to painting yourself into a corner. This happens because it is based on a completely faulty assumption that God works reasonably. The only way you can have a completely rational system of thought pertaining to God is if God himself operates rationally. Jesus himself, apparently, didn't see God in this way. There's a story where he's meeting with a religious leader named Nicodemus and he equates the Spirit of God to the wind. He says, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." This means that God's Spirit (his essence and power) is unpredictable and wild. In my mind, this puts a nail in the coffin of systematic theology, and the person to nail the coffin shut is the very person whom so many people have devoted their lives to understanding systematically. Irony is a lovely thing.
As if that doesn't do it, just look at God's track record throughout the Bible. He's erratic, working this way one time, then another way another time. This is why reason alone is so dangerous when discussing God (If God worked this way in Genesis, then he works that way all the time...). Systematic theology seeks to divorce God from human experience and emotion and stick solely to what we observe in Scripture. The problem with that should be obvious. How can we confine an infinite God into our finite minds? A finite being can't lock an infinitely creative Being into its mind. It just doesn't work that way. Do you see how I just used reason to show that reason doesn't always work when relating to God? And here lies the paradox.
Reason is of some use, but it ultimately fails to do what it sets out to do in relation to God. It seeks to pin down God and make him smaller. This is like trying to harness the power of a hurricane in a small glass jar. Sorry about your luck, but it just ain't happening. There are things we can learn about the nature of God from Scripture and using our powers of reason. However, there is a great deal we can learn about him outside of Scripture as we listen to our hearts and observe all that he has created. If I want to know the heart of an artist that I find captivating, just reading about him doesn't bring me all that close to knowing who that artist really is. If I want to ultimately know more about that artist, and the true heart of the artist, I have to observe his art. I have to spend time with it and figure out what the artist was trying to convey through his art.
I find the Artist captivating, but try as I might, I just can't fit all of who he is and what he means into my tiny mind.
R.I.P. Systematic Theology "He tried to shrink God down to his size, but God would have none of it."
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