Why Doctrine Matters, by Mike Higton (Grove Doctrine D1)

Mike Higton, Why Doctrine Matters. Grove Doctrine D1 (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2020)

Rather than delivering a detailed study of, say, en-/anhypostasis or the Gottschalk controversy, Mike Higton has wisely started the new Grove Doctrine series with an account of why doctrine matters for Christian discipleship and the Church. In my own experience, I have often perceived that many Christians do not see much point in delving into the intricacies of Christian belief, instead preferring to keep things at the level of ‘a simple faith’. Higton appears to recognise this and related issues and frames his thoughts largely as a response to an important question:

What does it mean to say that doctrinal theology can help us to know God better, but that knowing lots of doctrinal theology does not mean that you know God well? (p. 3)

Higton explores how and why teaching and doctrinal theology came to be so important for Christians (chapter two), how doctrinal theology relates to the Bible (chapter three), how doctrinal theology helps us to know God (chapter four), and, finally, why doctrinal theology matters (chapter five). Chapter four is arguably the centre of Higton’s study, as here, using Ephesians 4, he explains that ‘knowledge serves love’ (p. 17), and that doctrinal theology, as genuine (though not exhaustive) knowledge of God, does so particularly by warning against those things that hamper Christian faith and discipleship, and by offering imaginative resources for articulating the gospel message in new circumstances.

There is much to appreciate in Why Doctrine Matters, not least a recognition that doctrinal theologians are not without fault or sin:

The work of doctrinal theologians is . . . supposed to be a support for wise discipleship. That does therefore mean that we cannot separate theologians’ words and lives too neatly. Theologians, like all Christians, fail, but sometimes a theologian’s life belies [their] words particularly starkly. In such cases it is important at least to ask whether their theology somehow enabled or encouraged their sin—whether it failed, somehow, to warn them or resource them for holy living. (p. 20)

And Why Doctrine Matters contains probably the best (and most accurate) definition of a doctrinal theologian I’ve ever encountered:

Doctrinal theologians are not doing something fundamentally different from ordinary believers who ponder doctrinal ideas; they are simply pursuing that task with an eccentric level of explicitness and intensity. (p. 4)

Why Doctrine Matters is available for £3.95 from the Grove Books website (in both print and electronic formats), as well as through Christian bookshops.