Introducing the Theological Engineer

 

What is a theological engineer? I’m guessing (hoping) that some of you may be reading this because you are wondering what I mean by that phrase. Theology is doctrines about God, framed as a science; an engineer designs, builds, or otherwise works with engines, for some definition of engine – most broadly anything ingenious – but that doesn’t get us very far.

Is it someone who designs gods? That is something writers of fantasy fiction do, with varying degrees of success. Terry Pratchett, one of the foremost fantasists of his time, designed a number of gods; while they worked well in their stories, within his Discworld setting, they don’t actually make very satisfying gods. Lois McMaster Bujold has created some much more believable gods in her Quintarian books; she makes some very astute theological comments both in her fantasy and in her science fiction writing, and I’d like to write an article for this blog exploring this. One day. (Don’t hold your breath!) But that’s not what I mean.

Is it someone who designs doctrines about God, or about gods? I’m inclined to say that more than enough of that goes on already, except that I probably shall be doing that at some point! But that is not what I mean, either.

I have called this blog The Theological Engineer simply because I shall be taking an engineer’s approach to theology.

An engineer is concerned with what works. Theory is important – many times in my career as an engineer I lamented the way colleagues got into difficulties because they didn’t understand the theory behind what they were doing – but not of prime importance. So I shall be looking at different approaches to understanding God, and asking “What works?”

An engineer is usually concerned with solving problems. Many people have problems understanding, or relating to, God; and these need solutions. But different people have different problems, and I hope to be able to address them without taking a “one size fits all” approach. (The maxim, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” aptly describes people who do take such an approach. This is apparently called Baruch’s Observation, but I don’t think it has any connection with the apocryphal book of the Bible!) However, much of my theological thought at present is shaped by the particular problems suffered by my wife, Temple Cloud, and I may sometimes present solutions that are relevant to her, but only of peripheral interest to most other readers.

Finally, the title reflects my own background. I am a Christian; my degree was in electrical science; I worked as an engineer for most of my career; I then took another degree, this time in theology. I sometimes get the impression (although I have no actual data to back this up!) that people with strong religious belief, but a scientific turn of mind, often pursue careers in the applied sciences – engineering, medicine, and so on – rather than confront a perceived conflict of world-view by studying, say, physics (where cosmology might conflict) or biology (where evolutionary theory might conflict). This is not me! I am a scientific rationalist, but I recognise the limitations of science in describing the universe (another possible subject for a blog post, perhaps).

My scientific background, however, means that I am not a fundamentalist. Indeed, I find that many Christians, given a doctrine that the Bible is the Word of God, place on the Bible a burden of authority that I think it cannot bear. This is a hobby horse of mine, and will probably be the subject of numerous posts, if the blog survives long enough.

On the other hand, some schools of liberal Bible scholarship lose sight of the Bible’s status as a holy book. They sometimes seem to be studying a document, while at the same time forgetting why it is worthy of such detailed study, and I hope to write on this subject, too. For the moment, suffice it to say that being a scientific rationalist means that I don’t pre-judge things to be impossible simply because they are outside modern (post-Enlightenment) scientific experience. Still less do I believe that if something cannot be proved by science, one must regard it as false. (I am told that this view derives from Logical Positivism, which regards such questions as meaningless; but to me, this attitude is more aptly described as Illogical Negativism!)

Other posts may re-work essays from my theology degree, or respond to books or articles I have read.

Whatever the subject, please comment! Ask questions! If you disagree with me, say why (but please recognise that “because the Bible says so” is not a valid reason. I may also need to write a blog post explaining why not...)

My aim is to post something here roughly once a week, but I am not committing to a fixed schedule. Most of the posts will be about theology, but I may occasionally include something about music, or science, or jurisprudence.