Our Thoughts of God
A. W. Tozer once said that, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”1
Such a statement is bound to draw opposition from the tender-hearted believer. I have heard many a Christian protest about so and so who they know whose head is filled with this or that about theology, and all it has done is to make them arrogant or divisive or in bondage to precision. We can understand the misgiving well enough. Tozer’s statement is without qualification. I am not sure how he would have personally answered such replies.
But let us leave aside the truism that right belief ought to lead to holiness and humility. Would any of us doubt that the very sight of even the outer-glory of God or his voice thundering the words, “listen to him” (Mat. 17:5)—that such a sight or sound would positively bring us to our knees? Now what follows about the sort of person who has his theology but is nothing but a pain in the body of Christ? It seems to me that we have the wrong culprit if we are blaming the life of the mind per se.
Theology and Worldview
What does it really mean to have God “at the center” of one’s thinking? R. C. Sproul wrote that, “Reformed theology applies the doctrine of God relentlessly to all other doctrines, making it the chief control factor in all theology.”2 This means to remember that God is God when we come to lesser matters (and to remember that this means all other matters are lesser). If God is God, then what follows? In a word—everything. But then that also spells out a seemingly infinite array of things that cannot be.
There can be no covenant in which promises are not kept, or else consequences meted out when they are not. There can be no forgiveness without justice being satisfied. There can be no signs more real than their substance. There can be no event that is finally random or chaotic. There can be nothing impersonal that is not explained ultimately by what is personal. And there can be no rest that does not find its rest in him.
In the study of systematic theology, the doctrine of God comes first: before treating the nature of man, or sin, or the church, or last things. When we move outside of doctrine to ethics, here too God comes first. The soul, the culture, law and government, economics and sexuality, all of these are what they are because of what they say about God. He has designed them as such. Paul means it where he says, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16).
Here is the secret, then, to the truth in Tozer’s statement. It is not that the importance of our thoughts of God are important in spite of the heart or wisdom in everyday life. It is that the man’s heart that is devoid of theological thinking will shortly wither on the vine, however well his fruit may have appeared at first. And conversely, the mind awakened to the majesty of divine truth is daily renewing what nature and nurture may have previously corrupted.
Theology and Orthodoxy
In recent years even the Reformed community has seen a number of views about the Trinity or the divine attributes that are, well, let us say “less than orthodox.” Of course that is only a softer way of saying heresy. The H-word doesn’t bother people too much if we are speaking about someone who lived long ago. But if we use the same word in the present day, even about the same ideas, then we have supposedly committed an indecency. True, there is such a thing as a “heresy hunter,” and the advent of social media has only compounded all the problems associated with this type. However, the great need of the day is not avoiding giving offence to our fellows.
What God values in our thoughts of God ought to be uppermost in our minds. We are obsessed with offending mere mortals; but where is the fear of offending God? And lest anyone get the idea that God’s jealousy for his own name is somehow at odds with love of humanity, it should be pointed out that the soul apart from God will die. Would we love our fellow man? Then we will not want to point him or her to any “god” that is anything other than the true God. It is for this reason that James cautions us,
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness (3:1).
The questions of whether there are separate wills in God, or whether the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father, or whether God has parts or passions or potentiality, or whether he could will that he be other than he is—these may all seem abstract notions. They are deep and mysterious, and even the most seasoned theologian should tread lightly here. However, it is just for this reason that theologians and pastors should think twice before departing from language so well worn throughout church history.
Theology, Worship, and the Life to Come
1 John 3:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18 would teach us that it is by a kind of sight that we are transformed into that same image of Christ. The magnitude differs on that Day that John describes versus the daily process depicted by Paul. But notice that the method is the same in both. We become like what we behold. So worship and worldview come together in that Object that our souls are persuaded is ultimate.
In Psalm 27:4 we are given a glimpse of the heart of true worship and everlasting happiness all in one. There David says,
“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.”
If anyone says that heaven is so much more than the intellectual beholding of God, I say Amen—it is more, but it will not be less. Christ is redeeming the intellect along with the soul. More than that, it is not as though the mind is some unnatural appendage on that human nature! It is the very window out to the glory of God and so to appraise all other things in relation to God.
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1. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: HarperCollins, 1978), 1.
2. R. C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016), 31.
