being mindful of the big picture

Even when I was working as an ordained minister, I was more interested in the discipline of theological reflection as a way of framing questions than of providing answers. It seemed to me that the primary value in a lot of serious theology (as opposed to ordinary folk theology) was that it provided something other than easy answers. I didn't ignore the extent to which official theological doctrine was about maintaining power over people. I have to admit that I wasn't above using my arcane knowledge of theology to augment the power I had over laity. Nonetheless, I was mainly interested in theology as a body of work that could be mined for helpful resources. It was less about the content than it was about the search itself.

So I don't believe that becoming trained to think theologically was a total waste of time. Being practiced in posing big questions is somewhat rare these days. Almost everybody is a specialist. Few know or even much care about how each specialty fits into the big picture. Theology, prior to the scientific revolution, used to have the role of determining how everything fit together. Today, it is the physicists who are the most serious contenders for the role of probing the biggest questions that can be imagined. They have the most sound knowledge about cosmology. They are the ones who are working on what they call, in all seriousness, "a theory of everything".

I have my doubts about the possibility of formulating a theory of everything, not because of the limitations of human beings, but instead because the ultimate secrets of life are probably not reducible to a single theoretical construct. It seems to me that the attributes that are most helpful in the search for answers to life's deepest and most challenging questions are open-mindedness, honesty, humility, and being prepared for mind-blowing, life-changing surprises. I'm not wanting to go back to the mystification within which theology has traditionally been shrouded; however, I do believe that we would do well to restore mystery to a position of centrality.