If theology is anything worthy of the name, it must take seriously real questions as real questions. The impulse to respond by circling the wagons, by treating the questions at a surface level as logical problems, by pretending to ask when we all know the right answer already, is apologetics not theology.
This is not to give the questions the last word, for a “foolish” consistency—“the hobgoblin of little minds”—can bedevil atheist and apologist alike. When we genuinely enter into the questions, living uncomfortably with them in a community of fellow questers, we are, at the best of times, brought back to the Question of God.
Note: I am neither a theologian nor the the son of a theologian, so you are welcome to nuance, qualify or reject these musings as you see fit. I am, however, taken by the NT scholar Markus Bockmuehl's description of theology in Seeing the Word. If theologians agree with his definition, you can sign me up.
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