Mere Christianity - Theology

In my college years, when I really started to get serious about following after God, I hated the word "theology." I thought, "The study of God! How dare we, the creation, think we could study our Creator in the same way scientists study animals and matter and things like that; as if our minds were capable of figuring Him out." I've matured a bit since then and realized that theology is not a bad word, and not always a bad concept if approached and used in the right way.

C.S. Lewis' had some great thoughts and analogies to explain why theology is important. These quotes come after his recounting a conversation with a man who shared about a real encounter with God that he had in the desert. This man said that Lewis' theological ideas (founded on Christian theology) were petty, pedantic and unreal to anyone who had met the real thing. Lewis' didn't doubt the experience this man claimed to have had, but continued on with this thought...

"...if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point...(the map) is based on what hundreds of thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere (beyond the beach), the map is absolutely necessary."

"Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God...if you want to get an further, you must use the map."

"...Theology is practical: especially now... Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently if you do not listen to theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones- bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas."