Theology: Who Needs It?
Every durable human endeavor rests on ideas. Businesses, universities, legal systems and nations do not arise from instinct alone; they are built on conclusions about what is real, what is good, what matters, and what obligations we owe one another. These conclusions may be carefully examined or lazily inherited, but they are never absent. In that sense, ideas function like DNA: invisible most of the time, decisive everywhere.
Thinking goes wrong in two primary ways. First, when its premises are false. Second, when its reasoning from those premises is invalid. The consequences are not merely academic. Faulty thinking produces real-world suffering—often slowly, sometimes spectacularly. This is why philosophical clarity matters so much. There are far more ways to build a clock that does not keep time than one that does, and most errors do not announce themselves as errors until long after the mechanism is set in motion.
Theology sits beneath philosophy because it addresses the questions philosophy must quietly assume but cannot finally answer on its own. It names what is ultimate, where authority lies, what grounds moral obligation, and why human beings possess dignity at all. Without answers to those questions—explicit or implicit—“love of wisdom” floats unmoored. We can reason skillfully and still build toward something misguided, or worse, destructive. That is why rigorous inquiry into theological foundations is not a retreat from reason, but foundational to it.
The first questions of theology are not obscure or sectarian. They arise naturally the moment we think seriously about human life. What makes human beings special? Or are they just animals driven by instinct who happen to read and write? Are value judgements arbitrary and subjective? Or, are some things objectively good or evil? If so, who determines that distinction? What is the purpose of human life? Why should anyone accept moral obligation when it conflicts with self-interest?
It might be there that the field gets a bad reputation: lots of folks postulating about unprovable things sure doesn’t interest me much. But ignoring these questions altogether is not neutrality; it is neglect. Theology is like personal hygiene. One can approach it carefully and deliberately, or it will be handled poorly by default. Choosing to ignore bacteria is a choice to smell bad. Choosing to evade foundational questions is a choice to build philosophy on unexamined precepts.
Every culture, institution, and individual life runs on a working theology, whether it is articulated or not. Some of these theologies are coherent and life-giving. Others are internally inconsistent, incomplete, or false at precisely the point where it matters most. The danger is not usually obvious at first. Systems built on weak foundations often function impressively for a time, especially when supported by inherited moral capital. Their failures tend to appear later, downstream, and at scale.
This is why intellectual rigor at the level of first principles is not an academic luxury. It is an ethical necessity. Commitments amplify their objects. Faithfulness strengthens whatever it is attached to. When the underlying conclusions about reality, authority, and human worth are sound, endurance produces stability and flourishing. When they are not, perseverance accelerates distortion. Getting the foundations right matters more than being committed, because commitment to the wrong thing is not neutral—it is destructive.
The danger of weak foundations is not that they fail immediately. It is that they often work—sometimes remarkably well—for a time. Ideas that are mostly right can generate real progress, order, and even beauty. But when they are wrong at a load-bearing point, the cost is deferred rather than avoided. The error compounds quietly as structures grow, commitments deepen, and generations inherit conclusions they did not examine for themselves. By the time failure becomes visible, it is usually widespread and difficult to reverse.
This is why precision at the level of first principles matters so much. Faith, loyalty, and endurance are powerful forces. They preserve and amplify whatever they are attached to. When attached to sound conclusions, they produce stability and flourishing. When attached to false ones, they accelerate distortion. Failed faith in what is true can be corrected. Successful faith in what is false is far harder to undo.
Any institution that matters will attract both people seeking refuge and people seeking power/victims. Some institutions develop strong internal immune systems—mechanisms to identify abuse, protect the vulnerable, and correct themselves. Others do not. Though predators exist in all human systems, a failed religious institution damages trust most severely, because it corrupts the very categories by which people understand safety, meaning, and moral authority.
To confuse abuse with the thing abused is a further tragedy. Power that can be abused existed for a reason before the abuse occurred. To eliminate a force for good because it has been infiltrated by evil is rarely wise. In the construction world, foundation repair is a legitimate and necessary business; foundation removal is not. Fighting to reclaim institutions that have caused such intimate harm is not work for the weak. That battle is often abandoned not for strategic reasons, but because the hurt is profound and unresolved.
Theology often gives rise to religion, and this is where matters can become delicate. In practice, it is not uncommon to encounter religious leaders who seem curiously resistant to theological inquiry. In such cases, faith can be misrepresented as something opposed to reason, and questioning is framed as disloyalty rather than diligence. The irony is that the very feature that gives faith its moral weight—endurance over time—is sometimes used to justify the suspension of critical thinking altogether. This inversion should raise concern. Any system that demands long-term commitment while discouraging examination of its foundations is asking not for faith, but for submission. Caution is warranted.
If we care about the kind of world we are building—about freedom, dignity, and the possibility of shared flourishing—then we cannot afford to treat theological questions as optional or impolite. The task is not to impose answers, but to insist on rigor. To clarify the premises we are living by. To test them honestly against history, coherence, and consequence. And only then to build deliberately, aware that what we construct will shape not just institutions, but the lives and imaginations of those who come after us.
Faith preserves what reason concludes. But it cannot tell us whether those conclusions are worth preserving. A ladder may be well built and a climber disciplined, yet both are wasted if the ascent leads nowhere worth reaching. The question remains unavoidable: what is ultimate—and why?