"What's the point of theology?" asks Clayboy.

He suggests three reasons people might use to show there isn't any point, and adds a couple of nice quotes to show that anyone who is interested in God has a theology of sorts. But he ends his little reflection by saying "I’m sure it’s far too simple for real theologians, but it seems to work for me."

Only on his last point do I disagree. There's all the difference in the world between simple and easy. It's one of the biggest mistakes people make to believe that if it's really good theology (or philosophy, or any other kind of theory) then you won't understand what you hear. The truth is that if you are listening to a real genius they will make something extraordinarily complex sound reasonably understandable.

When I was heading off to Cambridge, I told my Dad (who is something of a brainbox) that I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough, wouldn't understand what they were talking about. "Nonsense, pet," replied my Dad, "If they are any good they will be able to explain what they mean. If you don't understand it's not that you're stupid it's that they haven't really got a grip on what they are trying to tell you."

Experience has borne out the truth of what he said. The really extraordinary scholars, the ones who have a really good grip on their subject, are usually able to tell you what they are doing. The ones who sound mystically brilliant – as if they, and they only have percieved the mysteries of the universe – are either beginners, or middleweights who are still trying to grasp their own subject, or playing that academic game of deliberate obfuscation.

One of my lecturers told a story about Karl Barth, one of the most brilliant and verbose theologians of the twentieth century. Barth was once asked if it was possible to summarize, fairly simply, the essence of his theology. Barth sat in his chair, puffed on his pipe a little while he thought, and then said,

"Jesus loves me, this I know.
For the Bible tells me so."