One of the most serious criticism of theology generally as a field is that it simply has nothing to study — if there is no God, then there would be no point to a “study of God.” Even if the existence of God is merely in doubt, then a “study of God” would seem to be rather ill conceived. You can’t readily study something that has a dubious existence. First you have to come up with some sort of god, then perhaps a real and substantive “study” can begin.
- The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.
- Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine was no atheist, even though his critics accused him of atheism, but he did dissent quite vigorously from traditional Christianity. He wouldn’t have rejected any sort of theology out of hand, but he did reject theology as practiced in Christian churches.
For rationalists like Paine, knowledge of God — insofar as it was attainable at all — could only be found in the study of the world around us. Christianity, however, is a revealed religion. A central tenet of Christian dogma is that the will of God can be discovered through the study of scriptures which God has either caused to be written or has at least inspired.
People like Paine rejected written revelations. For them, studying revelations was the study of nothing. Nothing could be founded upon them, they had no authority, they offered no data, they demonstrated nothing, they produced no principles, and they led to no conclusions. Revelations were essentially useless, at least in a religious context, and the smart thing to do was to dispense with them as quickly as possible.
This did not always mean dispensing with theism entirely, but in many cases it has led to that. It is difficult to maintain belief in God while also abandoning all of the support structures that have help up that belief in the past. People raised on Christian dogma have understandable difficulty dispensing with the majority of that dogma while maintaining a few basic propositions. Some manage it, there is no doubt about it, but for many others once the skepticism starts it’s hard to stop.
That, I think, is a good thing. People shouldn’t try to halt their skepticism and doubt a few doors that they wish to keep sacred. Belief in the existence of God should be no more inviolate than belief in the authority of the Bible or the authority of priests. Paine recognized that theology in Christian churches as baseless, but he should have gone further and seen that theology in general is no better off.
