You’re an idiot and God is not. That’s the shocking thesis of Revering God: How to Marvel at Your Maker by Thaddeus J. Williams, associate professor of systematic theology at Biola University.
We’re all theologians, even the most irreligious of us. Everyone wrestles with questions of the divine, but only some do it well. A good theologian, Williams argues, “realizes what a total idiot he or she is about the deepest things of God, yet seeks to mitigate his or her idiocy as much as possible by bringing it often to the Sacred Scriptures” (xvi). Good theologians are also fanatical about God’s glory, nerdy about knowing him, violent in their fight against sin, and enthralled by the Creator.
Amid a cultural pandemic of expressive individualism, Williams offers an antidote. He reminds us that despite all our best qualities and achievements, we’re “nowhere near as interesting, awesome, or worthy of worship as the Creator of the universe” (xiii). He calls us to reorient our hearts away from our culture and tear our eyes from our screens to behold God’s glory. He wants to teach us to be good theologians.
Countercultural Theology
Consistent with the theme of Williams’s Don’t Follow Your Heart, this book calls readers to resist cultural pressures as they think theologically. “We need an entire generation of [cultural] heretics, iconoclasts, renegades, mavericks, and rebels who refuse to march like good little cows, mooing in unison with the herd,” he writes (56). This generation of revolutionaries will confess the one true God, living in ways that rebel against the culture’s evolving norms.
Being countercultural in our day means believing that God is the author, source, and standard of reason. Williams shows that mere human inquiry leaves any person aimlessly dependent on authority sources that aren’t eternally reliable. The modern age assumes the autonomous discovery of knowledge; the Creator begs to differ. True wisdom is only found in confessing the true omniscient Being.
Being countercultural in our day means believing that God is the author, source, and standard of reason.
Furthermore, real satisfaction is only found in God. This is a radical claim in an age that looks for satisfaction in all kinds of outlets. For those plagued by feelings of shame, doubt, and anxiety, the goodness of God offers hope. God alone—not iPhones, Taylor Swift, or Double Stuf Oreos—satisfies the soul.
However, sometimes God feels distant. Yet this is how God draws his people toward himself. “God hides for our happiness,” Williams writes (55). Our world is filled with idols that autoplay, pop up, and send us unwanted alerts. In comparison, God seems remote. So we need to sit down, slow down, and ruminate on his character. That’s where true enjoyment is found.
Practical Theology
There’s “something utterly unique about the God we meet in the Bible,” Williams asserts (113). He’s not like the gods of the Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. We see his attributes in Scripture: God is victorious, transcendent, sovereign, and loving. There’s no god like him. And to really know God, we have to think theologically.
Therefore, the study of the triune God is immensely practical. It helps us live out apparent paradoxes in the teeth of cultural headwinds. For example, our loving God calls his people to love, yet he doesn’t endure sin. That’s hard to acknowledge in a culture that argues “sin is calling anything sin” (134). Yet our hope isn’t in increasing human wisdom. Only in God do we find the redemption of our souls.
Good theology puts on display the goodness and beauty of the divine life. The complexity of the truths about God is staggering. Yet God is simple.
And so, appealing to divine simplicity, Williams challenges God’s people to be “integrated selves centered on Christ” (194). Every act of Christ was “simultaneously an expression of faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love, discernment, purity, blamelessness, righteousness, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (195). May we all strive to live this kind of life that’s light-years away from expressive individualism.
Electric Theology
Williams’s rhetorical energy jars the stodgy theologian’s sensitivities. Yet the punchiness has a purpose: to keep the interest of a generation distracted by their phones. It electrifies the content to make it incandescent.
Each chapter explores an attribute of God, interlacing eclectic sources to make sound theological points. Williams talks about Batman, Star Wars, Elon Musk, and Joaquin Phoenix. He juxtaposes these references with traditional theological sources like Martin Luther, Herman Bavinck, Charles Taylor, Albert Camus, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. He includes excerpts from influential contemporary theologians to point readers toward further study. The combination of Scripture, historical thinkers, modern theologians, personal experiences, and pop culture works well. It’s a fun but bumpy ride.
The study of the triune God is immensely practical. It helps us live out apparent paradoxes in the teeth of cultural headwinds.
Though it’s bouncy, this isn’t a beach book. Readers can’t simply sit back and let the words float by. Feeding the longing of younger Christians for thick spiritual formation practices, Williams calls readers to meditate, pray, and reflect on God’s nature. He offers meaty passages to meditate on like Numbers 23:19: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.” His suggested prayers and exercises call for deep reflection and heartfelt repentance. Their purpose is always to turn attention to the one true God.
There’s so much to learn and enjoy in Revering God. It’s an accessible introduction to the doctrine of God, but one that doesn’t sacrifice substance for style. It helped me become a better theologian. It left me marveling at my Maker, dazzled once again by the light of our glorious God, even as it reminded me I am, in fact, an idiot.
The Gospel Coalition