The theme of this post is that spiritual theology became separate from doctrinal theology in the Middle Ages and Reformation and that this has seriously damaged the transforming power of Christianity. The purpose of this blog is to inspire Christian leaders and theologians to reunite spiritual theology with doctrinal theology, and to encourage believers to read spiritual theology. The ultimate purpose is to free believers from the burden, boredom and pain of bad spiritual theology, and edify and equip believers to live effective Christlike lives in the Spirit.
This blog is based on the chapter in the book Flourish titled: “Reuniting Spiritual Theology with Doctrinal Theology, or Why Church Can Be Boring or Hurtful”.
“Spiritual theology” can be defined as the study of how Christians grow spiritually including patterns and stages of growth in their relationships. It also includes the biblical and doctrinal structures behind spiritual growth. It is what the Reformers referred to as “sanctification”, although their explanations of sanctification were fairly brief and did not cover many biblically and historically prominent topics. Spiritual theology is also sometimes referred to “ascetical theology”. Thus, when the writings of great teachers are grouped by type their spiritual theology is found in their “ascetical works”. Sometimes ascetic theology is focused on the purgative dimension of the Christian life, but that is not necessarily the case. Spiritual theology is also sometimes divided up between ascetical theology and “mystical theology”, with the latter referring to the more obvious supernatural experiences of God.
In the Middle Ages theologians began to separate doctrinal theology from spiritual theology, or perhaps just neglect spiritual theology. Before then theology and practice were integrated. Classic works that integrated spiritual theology with doctrine include Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine in the 5th century and Bernard of Clairvaux’s Commentary on the Song of Songs in the early 12th century. After Bernard theology became focused on greater systematization of doctrine, and spiritual theology (or sanctification as the Reformers came to call it) received less attention in theological systems.
The classic example of greater systematization is Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, written near the end of the 13th century which became the dominant theology in the Roman Catholic Church. The Summa contains helpful teachings on practice of the faith but it is dominated by detailed intellectual analysis of doctrine. Aquinas does discuss spiritual growth, but it was much less emphasized than in previous centuries. Perhaps this was due to medieval scholasticism and the growing influence of Aristotle’s amazing systematization of philosophy. It may also be due to the general human tendency to dwell on the intellectual since that is easier than focusing on how we need to change. At any rate, spiritual theology, or practice, was becoming mostly separate from doctrinal theology.
With the Reformation theology became almost exclusively about “what is” instead of “how do we grow and live”, i.e. it became focused on doctrine rather than practice. This was probably because the Reformers wanted to thoroughly address the great doctrinal abuses of the roman church and provide a coherent alternative. The theologies of the Reformers had only short discussions of sanctification.
Unfortunately this had the effect of making Christians into doctrinaire debaters. Within 150 years of Luther the Lutheran church in Germany had become dry and unrelational. Marie Richard states:
“In protecting the truth, the people had lost that chief treasure with which religious truth is designed to endow the human heart—brotherly love.”
(Marie Richard, Philip Jacob Spener and His Work, (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), p.5. This book is available free on Google Play Books.)
She goes on to state:
“These made of Luther’s glorious theology, which had been framed as an expression of inner life, a philosophy of religion, whose importance was its correct and orthodox expression, and its intellectual apprehension, rather than its influence upon life or conscience.” (Richard, Philip Jacob Spener and His Work, p.6.)
The next posts in this series will look at how this problem affects the Church today and whether Christianity transforms society mostly through doctrine or practice.
The book Fourish : A Guide to Your Growth in God’s Community can be found on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Flourish-Growth-Community-Living-Gospel/dp/0986382302 .
