“Everything happens for a reason.” Perhaps you’ve heard that before. Perhaps you’ve said it. I’d like to suggest that there’s a world of difference between “Everything happens for a reason,” and “God gives reason to everything that happens.” The first is Christian superstition; the second declares the glory of God.

For years my wife was the director of a crisis pregnancy center in our town. She comforted and held women of nearly all ages as they faced unexpected news, or had nowhere to turn when everyone had walked out on them. One of the most memorable moments my wife experienced was when a teenage girl, a Christian, received the news that her pregnancy test was positive. The young girl’s world was undone. She cried in my wife’s arms and asked, “How could God let this happen to me?” There on the couch was not the right moment to chide the girl about the sum of her personal choices. She needed comfort. But during the ensuing months, through Bible studies and parenting classes, the young woman learned that the freedoms given to us by the Creator are also accompanied by the results of our choices. God respects us so much that He allows the choices we make to have meaning.

Finally the months came to term and a beautiful new life entered the world. The teenage mother returned to my wife’s office to show off her trophy of new life, a baby fearfully and wonderfully knit by God. This time the excited young mother declared, “You see, everything happens for a reason!” The beginning of her pregnancy had been met with recriminations against God. The birth of her child was met with a joyful ignorance about the gentle ways of the Father.

The idea that God is somehow pulling the levelers behind the screen of life is what I call Christian fatalism: God is all-powerful. His will cannot be denied. Therefore everything that happens must have been part of his plan from the beginning. He was behind everything all along. Isn’t God great?

It’s true: God does manage to draw wonderful outcomes from the foolishness of men. But that is only a small part of the truth: it is also true that the glory of God’s power and wisdom is frequently on display in human affairs in spite of our choices, not because of them. Part of the glory of God is his ability to accomplish his will in the midst of the complexity of a billion human choices. He does not over-rule our lives. He works within them. He is forgiving, patient, and kind. He knows our weaknesses and chooses to partner with us anyway. What some mean for evil, God turns into good. But he is never the author of that evil.

The twin dangers of Christian fatalism are that believers—who ought to be disciples—first come to believe that their sinful choices have been the will of God all along, and second, believers are tempted to believe that whatever happens in life must be ordained by God.

The first danger strips away responsibility for our choices and undermines the call of God to repentance as a way of life. Repentance is not simply the doorway into life with God; it is the hallway as well. The New Testament word for repentance is metanoia, which means simply to change one’s mind, or even better, to re-think our way of life. This rethinking should be an on-going way of life. The Apostle Paul tells us “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Renewal comes from a continual re-thinking every aspect of life. First God forgives us at the beginning of our relationship, then he teaches us a new way to live.

The second danger of Christian fatalism is that believers accept each event in life as part of God’s foreordained plan. I have watched followers of Jesus embrace tragedy as if it was sent from God. Sickness is a prime example. Many of God’s children embrace sickness as part of God’s dealings in their lives. I have heard some Christians refer to cancer as “my gift from God” because they have learned so much through the ordeal of treatment. The clear revelation of scripture is that God is holy and good. He is the Father of lights, the giver of every good and perfect gift. Testing and failure do not come from him. He is not the source of sickness and disease. It’s true that in our sickness we can experience the grace of God or develop Christian virtues such as long-suffering. But that is something very different from ascribing the source of our illness to the heavenly Father. What earthly parent would infect a child with disease in order to teach character lessons? Why would the perfect heavenly Father do what is unthinkable among us?

Sin and sorrow have been loosed on the earth from the very days of the Garden of Eden. We may at times be subject to them, but our Father has never inflicted them upon us for our good. Christian fatalism lures us into a false expression of God’s sovereignty and separates from his glory. Perhaps we can discover more his greatness by standing with Him against the sin and sorrow of our age.

How do you know that’s true? How do we know anything we believe is true? Since there are many hotly debated ideas about the nature of truth, allow me to simply state my working definition. A statement is true if it communicates the way things actually are.

Through the years, people have understood that it’s important for one’s beliefs to be true, so important that complex philosophical systems in the field of epistemology have been developed to explore the nature of knowledge and truth. When Jesus stood before Pilate (John 18:37), the procurator asked him if he was truly a king. Jesus explained that he was a king but unlike the kings of the earth who rule by force, his power of influence came because he spoke the truth to people. Speaking truth to the masses was not exactly the way Roman rulers did business. Therefore, Jesus continued to explain that those who are of the truth—i.e., those who genuinely desire to know what is true—will believe and act on what he, Jesus, taught. Jesus’ statement to Pilate was packed with such powerful truth that Pilate was forced to make a choice to believe it or dismiss it as folly. Pilate chose the second option when he left the judgment hall while questioning the very nature of truth.

Jesus taught we would find our freedom from the captive nature of sin by knowing the truth. Since the archenemy of God and humanity is Satan, whom Jesus called the father of lies, it is easy to see that the enemy must hold people captive by lies and deception. Jesus taught that if one would abide in his word then that one would know the truth and would be made free from sin. (John 8:31) The faith that saves us from sin must be founded on truth. However, we need to realize that most things we believe are not believed to be true because of direct observation but because we have trusted the words of people we’ve judged to be reliable.

We spend most of our time in school simply hearing and believing what someone we think is trustworthy said about what is true. Ironically, most of the things we are told is true by our teachers are things they know because some source they trust told them it was true. For example, most educated people believe that the building blocks of matter are atoms but few have ever conducted the experimentation or worked through the math that verifies this belief—most would not even know how. There are, however, many scientists around who have and they agree that their research reveals the reality of atoms. We know little of the integrity of any of these experts but we still judge their statements to be true based on the many who agree.

This is the way people decide to believe most of what they believe. Knowing this, Jesus was able to deal with Thomas’ doubts.

When Jesus made his first appearance to his frighten followers, Thomas was absent. When Thomas returned and his friends told him they had seen Jesus and he was alive, he refused to believe it. He demanded empirical evidence. Jesus appeared a second time when Thomas was there and called for him to come and get the empirical evidence his belief demanded. This dispelled Thomas’ unbelief and falling down he worshiped the Lord acknowledging him as God.

Jesus then makes an interesting statement. People who do not require physical proof but believe because they have heard the truth about him from trustworthy people are going to walk in the blessings that truth brings. Jesus was trying to get Thomas to understand that if his trusted friends said they saw Jesus alive, that should have been sufficient for Thomas to have confidence that it was true.

Many doubters will say, just as Thomas did, I refuse to believe unless I have scientific (empirical) evidence. I ask, “Why don’t you hold the same level of skepticism for scientific facts or historical facts you believe? How do you know Abraham Lincoln existed, for instance?”

“Well,” they say, “there are thousands of people who claim to have known him and they wrote about him.” There are also multitudes of trustworthy people who walked with Jesus and have said they knew him. In the majority of belief matters, that is all the proof we will ever get. If it’s good enough for our knowledge of science or history, why do people make an exception for the one who came to bear witness to the truth and taught his followers the importance of being truthful?

For many, the term theology brings to mind the image of an old bearded scholar sitting in a dusty library pouring over ancient texts and quibbling over minute doctrinal points such as how many angels can dance on the point of a needle.

However, this view is anything but Biblical.  Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and the Son whom you have sent.”  (John 17:3)   The word “theology” comes from the Greek words for God (theos) and words/knowledge (logos).  Theology is, simply put, knowledge of God.  And since Christians all claim to have a relationship with God including thinking thoughts about Him and saying things about Him, all Christians are by definition theologians. The question is not “Do we as Christians need to do theology?”  Rather, the question is “Are we as Christians doing good theology or bad theology?”

Theology should permeate the everyday life of any Christian.  The choices we make, words we speak and even thoughts we think are all based on our varying degrees of knowledge of God.  Does this mean that every layperson is required to read the great theological works of the past two millennia?  No (although it most certainly would benefit one if they do!).   Rather, the Christian should live every day of his or her life with a conscious effort to more fully know God.

Of course in order for those in the pews to realize this those in the pulpit must encourage it!  More than that, the Pastor should be a model theologian within his or her the church.  Pastors should set the example of what it means to live theologically and should make a conscious effort to demystify and destigmatize theology from the pop-notions and urban legends that have unfortunately been attached to it.  For when it comes down to it, a pastor has little chance of being effective in ministry without a firm theological ground upon which to stand.  This is one of the reasons churches in general–mainline, evangelical, and Catholic/Orthodox alike–are in such a state of theological disarray.  For without knowledge of God, how can one share such knowledge with others?  Pastors must strive to build a theological framework with which to operate…and it must be one based upon Scripture if they truly desire to speak the Word of God to their congregation.  By framework, I mean a comprehensive view of God based upon his entire revelation throughout the whole of Scripture.  Upon such a framework can he or she lay out a theological vision for the church that can be put before the congregation.  Such a vision then becomes a means by which they as a church are guided as they strive to be the Body of Christ in this world and fulfill the great commission.  Theology is not a nice idea or side-hobby.  It is at the core of the Church’s life!

One thing must be clarified, however.  The pastor is still called to shepherd the flock.  Therefore, balance must be maintained between study and other pastoral responsibilities.  For example, though Jonathan Edwards is known by many as the greatest American theologian, he does not have that same reputation as a pastor.  Rarely did he visit or interact with his congregation.  He was too busy in his studies for such duties.  And he is but one example of such imbalance among many, unfortunately.  (Of course I would argue that there are many more who fall on the opposite side of error–pastors who are excellent at interacting with people, but completely lacking in solid theological grounding!).  All of this serves to illustrate and important point:  The pastor should not be looked upon to be the sole theologian within the church!  Such a burden no pastor could bear!  Rather, churches should be FILLED with passionate followers of Jesus who seek to honor Him as much as they are able with whatever means God has given them.  There is no reason why any curious and dedicated believer should not be encouraged and guided in a deeper study of God by the pastors and leaders of his or her church community.  With the abundance of high-quality FREE resources available in this day and age, anyone can have access to a wealth of knowledge that even the greatest theologians of the past could never dream of having.

This brings us back to our original point:  ALL who bear the name “Christian” or “Follower of Jesus” must do theology.  It simply won’t do for a person to say, “I dont need theology, just give me Jesus!“  For what this statement actually says is, “I dont need knowledge or understanding of God, just give me the benefits!“  This is not only intellectually lazy, it’s completely selfish.  Imagine telling someone you love, “I don’t want to know very much about you or tell people about you; I just want to enjoy having you love me!“  Would any of us dream of doing this to someone we truly loved?  Why then do so many of us do it to God every day?  We are called above all to love the LORD our God with all our “heart, soul, mind, and strength” (Mark 12:30).

If one rejects theology, one is actually rejecting Jesus.  For He and He alone is the true “Logos” of “theos.”

For those wishing to do theology but don’t know where to begin I recommend the following online resources:
http://www.gcts.edu/ockenga/dimensions/about.php
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/
http://www.benwitherington.com/
http://www.ccel.org/
http://www.rzim.org/

I also recommend the following books for beginner theologians (i.e. anyone wanting to know God better!):
“Basic Christianity” by John Stott
“Simply Christian” by N.T. Wright
“Christian Theology: An Introduction” and “The Christian Theology Reader” by Alister McGrath
“Questions to All Your Answers” by Roger Olson