In a way I quite understand why some people are put off
by Theology. I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the RA.F., an
old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, "I've no use for all that stuff.
But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him:
out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I
don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone
who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!"
Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he
had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned
from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from
something real to something less real.
In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic
from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will
be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves
to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly
only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In
the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have
found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of
experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while
yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different
experiences together.
In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map
is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach,
your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going
to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.
Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and
thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and
less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are
not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience
of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God—experiences compared
with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own
are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any
further, you must use the map.
You see, what happened to that man in the desert may have
been real, and was certainly exciting, but nothing comes of it. It leads
nowhere. There is nothing to do about it In fact, that is just why a vague religion—all
about feeling God in nature, and so on—is so attractive. It is all thrills and
no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to
Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal
life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without
going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.
In other words, Theology is practical: especially now. In
the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was
possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is not so now.
Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not
listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It
will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.
For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties
today, are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.
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