The badge of my present University includes a Latin motto. I must confess that I had seen it lots of times but never really noticed it until last year. It reads: Initium Sapientiae Timor Domini, the Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom.
It is a quote from Scripture. In Psalm 111:10 we read that:
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practise it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever!”
In other words, you cannot even begin to be wise until you have learned the fear of the Lord. Wisdom depends upon a sense of reverence for God, of respect, of the genuine fear that comes from knowing that someone else is immeasurably more powerful, wise, good and authoritative than you are.
It is a sentiment that I recognise from my time in court, particularly in the higher courts. Only a fool went into the Court of Appeal (or, I am sure, even more so the Supreme Court) without a healthy fear of the venerable, esteemed, brilliant and ruthless minds one was going to find there. The beginning of making good and wise submissions, of success, was to revere and respect the judges.
I wonder what it would mean for that sentiment to be taken seriously in contemporary theological discussion, writing and debate.
As I have attended conferences, read papers and responded to them over the last few years I have been first struck, and then alarmed, by the lack of fear of God that accompanies a lot of Western theology. Theological work ought to be characterised by respect for God, by a sense that it really matters and will be judged. It should be underpinned by the knowledge that whatever we say (and of course it will be inadequate), we are seeking to speak of, and on behalf of, the Supreme Judge of the Universe.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take risks or be willing to disagree and dispute, and think creatively. But our discourse should reflect the fact that how we speak of God matters and that it matters primarily not because it impacts on other people but because God himself matters most of all.
Too much theological work in the West is flimsy. It lacks moral and intellectual seriousness, sometimes shown by a lack of rigour or work. It is willing to speak about God in ways that do not treat him seriously and show a lack of respect for his people, his church and those who have gone before us.
A Couple of Examples
I think, for example, of a paper I heard presented recently. The burden of the paper, explicitly, was that St Paul was a misogynist. It is an interesting contention, and one that should not be made lightly since it involves an attack on the moral and intellectual character of one of the leading Christian thinkers in history and a man venerated as a servant of God in every part of the church. It also involves impugning the moral credibility and reliability of Paul’s writings, particularly in the New Testament.
These would be big charges to bring against anyone, let alone someone of the intellectual and spiritual stature of Paul. Yet the paper tried to argue for Paul’s misogyny on the basis of a single passage (1 Corinthians 15 in case you’re interested), extracted from its context, without addressing (or even, I checked in questions, considering) the intention of that passage or alternative interpretations of it. The paper didn’t even address or reflect upon what Paul said in the rest of that letter.
There are interesting questions about how Paul deals with men and women, and particularly how we apply that in the contemporary church. But the paper didn’t seem to be a good faith attempt to ask them. It was a hatchet job given without any sense that the way one speaks about God’s servants, or Scripture, has any consequences at all. There was no fear of the Lord.
Others have identified similar trends in different parts of the church. Mark Bauerlein at First Things wrote a brilliant piece addressing the way that Professors in New Testament Theology (in this instance in a Roman Catholic context) use Queer Theory and other branches of Critical Theory in their studies of the New Testament.
Conveying what the New Testament author actually meant, let alone putting a particular text in its ecclesial and canonical context, has ceased to be the primary goal. Instead the primary goal is to demonstrate the writer’s sophistication and facility with whatever contemporary interpretative fad presently holds sway.
Again, there is precious little evidence that theology as a discipline, or the ideas that it proposes matters. But they do. They matter because God does.
The Fear of Human Beings
In Proverbs 29:25 a second type of fear is identified, the fear of human beings. That type of fear is, we are told, “a snare”. To be anxious about what people think of us is a trap. And it is one we fall into again, and again, and again.
In this context, the location of theological discourse in the Academy (where funding often depends on demonstrating social utility), and the missional desire to bring people close to Jesus, is a major risk. When the primary driver of our work is whether we are going to be approved by other people (and particularly by those outside the church), and the criteria of a good or bad point is that approval, then we are at risk of going wrong. We are facing the wrong audience, seeking the wrong endorsement, trying to be relevant to the wrong issues.
This isn’t to adopt the classic conservative rhetorical approach of denouncing anyone who isn’t abrasive or rude to their opponents as displaying the “fear of man”. Sometimes it is good to get along with people and to be wise and discerning about what we say (just look at St Paul before Festus and Agrippa in Acts 25). We must, of course, be respectful and kind as far as we are able. Moreover, good theology will always end up serving people and the mission of the church.
But there is such a thing as showing too much respect to human beings. Ultimately the most important thing in theological debate and writing is to speak faithfully and well of God for his sake. People come second.
In this we are following the example of Jesus who put the commandments into exactly that order:
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
First God. Then people.
Practical Pay Off
What might this mean in practice for theological writing and debate?
I propose a simple rule that helped immeasurably when we were involved in litigation:
All of us involved in teaching, research and preaching should imagine that we will have to read out every word we write or say in public, in the presence of Christ and before all the great theologians of history.
If anything is likely to root us in the fear of the Lord, and therefore in wisdom, it is that. It also has the advantage of being absolutely true.
Deep Church 