While my theological epistemology is multifaceted and nuanced, I will outline a brief account of how I form theology.

1. Whilst we are all subjective humans like everyone else, this does not mean we cannot know Truth

From the outset, I recognise that I am not an objective, neutral theological thinker. I enter life already formed by cultural languages, symbols, metaphors, and practices—and I can therefore interact with reality only through the lens of my upbringing and social location. This lens, often called a worldview or social imaginary, structures my experience and shapes how I perceive and interpret everything around me. To put it another way, no human being is born outside a world of ideas, assumptions, and practices. Even if we are not aware of it, we are like fish swimming in the waters of ideology, ethics, and cultural meaning. The patterns of thought, habits, and philosophies of the society we are born into seep into us from the very beginning. As the old saying goes, if you ask a fish about water, it will turn and wonder, “what is water?”. In other words, the world we are born into—our habits of thinking, our inherited philosophies, and our shared cultural assumptions—provides a frame of reference. However, this does not need to define or limit theological truth. Theological formation begins where we are, allowing Christ to meet us in our ordinary, familiar world, transforming it from within, and shaping our questions, understanding, and engagement with reality. In fact, this is what Jesus does. For example, Him saying “The kingdom is like yeast in dough” or “like treasure in a field” to bakers and farmers is Him drawing on the textures of their everyday lives, the kneading of dough, the smell of yeast rising, stumbling over rocky ground— so the kingdom became imaginable precisely because it is anchored in people’s ordinary experience. Yet those familiar images, sounds, tastes, sense of space, shared stories, everyday language, and traditions were turned upside down, opening space to imagine something new and to perceive a truth I had not seen before—a bit like how Jesus, in the parable of the hidden treasure, takes the everyday experience of a field and a man buying land, and then subverts expectations: the treasure is hidden, requiring sacrifice and a radical reorientation of life, revealing a value far greater than what is immediately apparent. In the same way, I recognise that I can only do theology within my own familiar symbols, habits, and frameworks, and yet this does not leave me without the ability to do theology. Rather, I can subvert those forms in Christlike ways so that the ultimate truth can be revealed. With this acknowledged, let us unpack how I form theology that I believe makes most sense of how the Biblical authors themselves – in particular Paul – does theology, and therefore how we all ought to do theology.

2. Truth has come close, therefore we subjective humans can know truth, though in humility and appropriate confidence

I begin with the well-argued assumption that the four biographical accounts of Jesus’ life—the Gospels—are trustworthy as collected eyewitness testimonies. This does not mean that the Gospels function like modern video recordings; ancient biographies do not work that way. Instead, they are carefully collected and curated memories of true events, compiled to tell the story of Jesus, with each one addressing a particular audience. This explains why each Gospel has its own “flavour,” a unique arrangement of events, and slight variations in details. However, the core events remain consistent, providing us with a reliable portrayal of Jesus’ personality, actions, and message. These accounts give us a window into what Jesus believed about the world, ethics, and the good life. Nonetheless, there is a degree of humility in this approach, as we are working with secondhand knowledge. When we speak of Jesus — who is the embodiment of truth — we do so as one who trusts that the Gospel writers, who recorded His words and actions, are closer to the truth than we are from our vantage point, 2000 years later. This doesn’t equate the Gospel witnesses with Jesus Himself, but it places their accounts closer to the original source. In these accounts, it’s clear that Jesus is depicted as the embodiment of God, reflecting the reality of the Father. To listen to and observe these depictions, then, is to encounter the Triune God’s personality, actions, and message.

Through Jesus, we begin to gain insight into God’s perspective on reality. This does not mean that we suddenly possess God’s “bird’s-eye view,” or that we ourselves become objective. We remain subjective creatures. What we do gain, however, is a subjective-yet-genuine understanding of our place, purpose, and value in the cosmos—discovered vicariously through our relationship with the Incarnate God as witnessed in Scripture, and experienced in our encounters with Jesus himself. This kind of knowing is relational. It acknowledges the reality of the Other, God as truly Other, while recognising that our access to this reality, though limited, can nonetheless grow in intimacy between the knower and the known as relationship deepens. This is the kind of knowing that, in the vein of the New Testament scholar N. T. Wright, might be described as an epistemology of love. This mode of knowing transcends the familiar objective–subjective binary in two ways. First, it refuses to put anyone or anything in a box, for to do so would be to arrogantly assume full comprehension of that which stands beyond us—an objectivist mistake. Yet neither does it presume that, because one cannot know the other exhaustively, one is therefore free to project whatever meanings or assumptions one wishes, while remaining in a posture of perpetual uncertainty. That, too, is a kind of false humility, one that fails to recognise that over time a person may genuinely come to know the other more truly. The key here is relationship: when someone seeks to love God, they neither stand over God as an analyst nor retreat into uncertainty as a skeptic, but enter a shared life in which genuine knowledge can emerge over time—not by control or detachment, but by faithful attention, trust, and responsiveness to who God has shown Himself to be in Jesus. This shared life is not self-generated, but is made possible by the Holy Spirit, who draws us into communion with the Son and patiently conforms our knowing to the shape of Christ’s relationship to the Father.

In this way, the incarnation of God in Jesus offers us both humility and confidence. Humility, because as subjective creatures we cannot fully comprehend Jesus. Yet confidence, because through Jesus’ life, words, and close proximity, we are granted a vicarious understanding of humanity from a divine perspective. So whilst fullness of God the Father is revealed in Jesus, this does not imply that we have plumbed the depths of that infinite fullness. Likewise, whatever we discover about Jesus through personal relationship with Him cannot contradict what is made clear in his life and teaching as presented in the Gospels. There may be more to know, but it does not supersede what we already see in Jesus. So, when it comes to topics Jesus spoke on, some topics allow for more metaphysical speculation than others. The gulf between our time and Jesus’ time, and the limited details Jesus provided on certain issues, requires us to tread carefully. As a rule, the less concrete and grounded a metaphysical claim is, the more flexible we can be in our thinking; conversely, the more concrete and grounded a claim is, the less flexible we can be. For example, eschatology. Jesus affirms a belief in resurrection and judgment and in His own bodily resurrection, accession, and promised return – this offers us a concrete and grounded truth about the future – there will be a resurrection, judgement, and a New Creation. Yet where there might be appropriate speculation are on things He didn’t touch on. For example, He doesn’t delve into the specifics of what this new cosmos—particularly if there are aliens or the implications for the New Creation if we become a multi-planetary species. On this, we have more room for speculation. Another is demonology. Jesus clearly speaks on and interacts directly with an evil being called the Devil & Demons, but He offers no detailed explanation of their origins or exact nature. Here, we might cautiously speculate about the origins of the Devil and demons, without being too dogmatic about knowing exactly what the Devil is like, yet all the while affirming the reality of a personified evil called the Devil as part of Jesus’ worldview.

3. Jesus, who is the Truth, also truthfully informs us how to be informed by Scripture in forming theology

However, forming theology is not just looking at Jesus. He is our starting point and brackets out anything that would contradict Him, however, beyond Jesus, how does the rest of the Hebrew Bible (i.e. the Old Testament) and the remaining New Testament canon come into play in theological formation? Overall, in the gospels, Jesus Himself affirms the overall meta-narrative of the Old and New Testament. He does this by pulling the Old Testament into Himself. Likewise, His ascension and promise to return also shape our understanding of the world’s future. Also, Jesus affirms the presence of the Holy Spirit, who continues God’s work between His ascension and return—not by revealing a rival truth to Jesus, but by illuminating, recalling, and deepening the Church’s grasp of what has already been revealed in Him.

Specifically, for this first part of the meta-narrative, the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus holds both a binding and authoritative relationship with the Old Testament, while also offering its reinterpretation through His own life & teachings. Not once does He question the validity of the Hebrew Bible as scripture, but rather He affirms the Old Testament; the Old Testament Scriptures, He seems to suggest, point toward Him and are not to be disregarded, but rather seen as a story waiting to reach its climax in Him. He affirms the Old Testament prophetic narrative that a day of resurrection and judgment is coming, and through His own life, death, and resurrection, He embodies the fulfilment of the Old Testament scripture and promises. So we are called to engage with the Old Testament as both authoritative and pointing toward the fulfilment found in Jesus. This approach informs how we read these texts—reverently, yet always in light of Jesus’ life and teachings.

Jesus’ relationship with the New Testament letters is similarly instructive. The early writers of the New Testament understood their work as authoritative to some degree, though perhaps not on par with the Hebrew Scriptures. These letters, written by those who were closer to the events of Jesus’ life, are trusted for their proximity to the truth Incarnate. By the time of the third century, it became apparent that these writings needed to be canonised in order to establish a clear collection of texts. These New Testament letters and narratives model for us early theologising as they take the Old Testament scriptures, see them as fulfilled in Jesus, and then take the life, death, and resurrection, and the eventual return of Jesus as the bracket of events to work within as they then developed their inspired ethics and other topics within their pastoral writings.

Zooming into the Bible specifically then, this is where the relationship between theology and biblical scholarship meets: For if we are to understand how to theologise then we want to study scripture rightly. For example, we might need to learn what might of been Paul’s understanding of ‘the mind’ to help us interact with modern philosophies of consciousness. Or we might need to learn how to read Genesis through Hebraic eyes in order to have a robust conversation with scientist in exploring the tension between the Bible’s story of creation and the scientific story. We need to constantly ‘thicken’ our view of our theological meta-narrative, that is, the Bible rightly interpreted through Jesus, to then do the further theological reflection.

4. Pulling these threads together, we have Jesus, who is the Truth, giving us right instruction on how the entire Bible is to be seen, and therefore how to be used in forming theology

Given all of this, we now have an account of the meta-narrative of the cosmos that can help us discern how to theologise. The writers of the earliest letters take the Hebrew Scriptures as a story pointing to Jesus—His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return—and weave them together to address ethical and theological concerns as they arise within the community. In doing so, they model a way of doing theology for us. They view the early Scriptures as a story that culminates in Jesus—with His life, death, and resurrection becoming the fulcrum point—and that then projects forward to New Creation. This framework gives these writers the freedom to reflect on the past, always fixated on Jesus, while keeping a keen eye on the future. It’s like discovering a new Shakespeare play that features William Shakespeare as a character, but with the final act missing, yet there are scribbled notes on how the play should end. Taking the early acts into account, you don’t repeat them when the missing act is performed, but you also don’t ignore either the character of William Shakespeare or the scribbled notes on the ending. Instead, you incorporate the story that has already been told, paying crucial attention to the fulcrum point of Shakespeare’s story arc, work towards the ending, which frees you to faithfully improvise as the final act is acted out towards its ends. In the same way, the writers of the New Testament ‘perform’ the final act in their own contexts as they address ethical and theological concerns in light of what they know about the overarching story of Scripture. So now, we do this when we address the ethical concerns of our own time & location, scripture-as-a-story-with-Jesus-front-and-centre as the framework through which we explore emerging topics.

However, this improvisation is not a free-for-all, nor is it left to human cleverness alone, but is carried out under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who attunes the Church to the original Author’s intent, keeps the performers aligned with the earlier acts, and gently resists improvisations that distort the play’s direction. Likewise, the Church historically sought to preserve the patterns of faithful performance in communal summaries of belief—the creeds. These creeds are like the annotated stage directions or notes on Shakespeare’s play: they do not replace the script, nor do they capture every nuance of the final act, but they very early on distilled centuries of reflection on Scripture, Christ, and the Spirit’s work in such a way that to ignore them risks the improvisation to become untethered—like a scene performed without any understanding of rhythm, key, or character motivation. By attending to the creeds, the Church is equipped to improvise faithfully: Scripture, tradition, and Spirit converge to guide interpretation and action, ensuring that our responses to new questions remain anchored in the God revealed in Jesus.

Much has changed throughout history, and we’ve made many discoveries (though this certainly isn’t a posture towards history that sees the past as ‘outdated’, with us as ‘progressed’). The world now is vastly different from the first century (and even the Scriptures themselves might allow for some metaphysical speculation, as previously discussed). Therefore, as topics arise, I apply this framework of theological and ethical improvisation. It’s neither ‘anything goes,’ nor is it a rigid, formulaic approach to topics. Instead, we seek to discern what is right in light of the earlier ‘acts,’ climaxing in Jesus, while honouring the theology of the New Testament and working towards the goals of New Creation — all animated by the Spirit, with annotated directions provided by the creeds.

Topics then become a conversation about how to be faithful in the here and now, but the conversation partners are not all on equal footing. Instead, it’s like the relationship between a parent and an adult child: the parent represents the framework above, and the topic is like the adult child. The rich dialogue between them is mature, taking seriously the considerations of the other, yet with the historical biblical-creedal meta narrative leading, whilst also considering how insights from various disciplines (such as psychology, philosophy, politics, anthropology, science, and more) can help create a nuanced, deeper, and more refined understanding of the world in which we live as created and sustained by God. Through the Son, by the Spirit, within the unfolding story of Scripture, and the Church’s faithful articulation of this story in the creeds, all equip us to live and improvise wisely toward New Creation, as we see the Father’s purposes in the world.

5. Given that I stated that we can engage in other disciplines (yet like a parent to a child), how can this be?

As for the validity of engaging in dialogue with these other topics, we can recognise their theological value in light of a theology of truth that extends beyond the Christian faith (yet in ways that don’t ultimately contradict the faith). This theology of finding truth outside of the Christian realm is as follows:

1. Because humans are made in God’s image, we should not be surprised when elements of truth surface through human endeavour, even without explicit connection to God. Think of a child and their parent—this child will naturally express characteristics that reflect their parent, as they share the same DNA. Similarly, art, philosophy, culture, and even religions can reflect aspects of who God is, even if they make no direct reference to God, all stemming from humans’ deepest instincts as image-bearers. However, like a child who has rebelled against their parent, the truth expressed can be suppressed, needing to be brought back into alignment with God. This is where theologians can help cultivate and bring to completion the deepest instincts of these truths, while also purging the parts that have been corrupted by rebellion.
2. Because God created the world, certain empirical truths can be embedded in the very fabric of creation (e.g. the sciences and natural philosophy). By studying the created order, we can learn much, including insights about God and His relationship to the world. As such, wisdom can be gleaned from disciplines like psychology, philosophy, biology, science, anthropology, and more, which can complement theological reflection. However, God’s creation carries a mystery, a raw energy, and a wildness that must not be overlooked. Likewise, Christians believe that the creation itself has fallen into disarray, so much so that even the current order of things is skewed. To observe creation and assume it is either inherently ordered or currently perfected, ignoring its complexity, is naive. Furthermore, it’s important to differentiate between raw data of studies and the interpretation of said raw data — sometimes we conflate the two too quickly. Theologians can offer humility in reckoning with the untamed nature of God’s creation and provide an interpretive grid that is theological, fostering data interpretation in Christlike ways.
3. Because God desires to redeem all things, the work of the Holy Spirit implicitly draws out what is of God and can be redeemed toward Christlike ways. Therefore, we should not be surprised to find God at work in places we didn’t expect—whether in other religions, cultures, movements, or even in the complexity of people’s lives. However, human rebellion leads us astray, so theologians must partner with the Spirit’s work more explicitly, supporting the Spirit’s actions in order to draw people towards the direction Jesus.
4. Because of Christ’s work and the ongoing work of the Spirit across culture, we shouldn’t be surprised when people do good, as the Christian revolution has subtly influenced public thought—think of concepts like humility, human rights, or institutions like public hospitals and schools, all of which were pioneered by Christianity. However, without God, these concepts and institutions can lose their grounding in Christ, they become ‘ethics gone wild’, leading to serious distortions of these concepts and institutions, which is why theologians are needed to help reframe and centre them back to the ways of Jesus, bringing out their best features.

These glimmers of life and truth outside of explicit faith can be summed up in what theologians have historically referred to as Common Grace. It is for these reasons that there is genuine learning to be gained from engaging in these various topics. However, on their own they can go astray, and so it is also for that reason that theologians are essential in theological dialogue and improvisational work, for they can bring correction and completion of these glimmers of God into the full revelation of God as revealed in Christ. Yet as stated earlier, they are like the relationship between a parent and an adult child: the parent represents the meta-narrative, and the topic is like the adult child – and intertwined in this dialogue is ongoing prayer and reflection as mediated by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who continues to refine what it means to think theologically as He inspires Christians in this engagement by pointing us back to Jesus, the rest of scripture (as fulfilled in Him), and the creeds – conforming our perception, imagination, and judgment to the shape of God’s purposes as unfolding in history. In this way, theological knowledge is not merely accumulated but cultivated as the Spirit reshapes us in truth.

In this way, rich theologies are formed—and perhaps re-formed—over time, all while still holding fast to the person of Jesus and the meta-narrative He embodies in His teachings, His view of Scripture, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His eventual return, of which is unchanging. And via Jesus, subsequently trusting the Old testament (rightly interpreted through Jesus), the remainder of the New Testament (rightly framed within the Kingdom that Jesus has bought and will one day bring), with the creeds serving as brief, guiding notes along the way.

Pulling it all together:

1. We recognise that no theological formation is fully objective—including our own. Yet using everyday language, symbols, and practices as bridges, we can articulate a faithful way of doing theology.
2. We trust the Gospel writings to provide a reliable picture of Jesus. While these accounts are neither unbiased nor exhaustive, they offer a trustworthy insight into His life, words, and actions.
3. Jesus claims to embody God, so through Him we gain a glimpse of divine reality. This doesn’t grant us exhaustive knowledge, but it gives us a relational, vicarious understanding of the world, human purpose, and God’s intentions.
4. On some topics, Jesus speaks clearly and concretely; on others, He leaves space for speculation. Where He is clear, we hold fast; where He is less explicit, we approach with thoughtful exploration, guided by the Spirit and by careful study.
5. Through His life and teachings, Jesus provides a meta-narrative. While we don’t have every detail, we can discern the overarching contours of God’s purposes and actions. Scripture, particularly the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, is to be read through this lens—authoritative, yet understood in light of Christ’s fulfilment.
6. The early Church recognised the value of canon and articulation of belief. Their writings, later codified as the New Testament, and the creeds—brief guiding notes from centuries of reflection—help us navigate faithful interpretation. These creeds are not Scripture themselves, but like annotated stage directions, they provide a rhythm, shape, and orientation for our improvisation in theology.
7. Returning to Scripture, engaging with culture, and reflecting on the insights of other disciplines are all part of the ongoing theological dialogue. Guided by the Spirit, informed by Jesus and the canonical Scriptures, and oriented by the creeds, we can engage the world thoughtfully, discerning how to live faithfully and cultivate theology in our time—always under the steadying hand of the God revealed in Christ.

One of the earliest and most influential Christian theologians who models this well is the Apostle Paul. He discerned God’s grand story, saw its climax in Jesus, and fixed his eyes on the horizon of New Creation. Yet, he did not remain abstracted from the world—he actively engaged with the wide Gentile landscape of ideology, philosophy, politics, and cultural practices. Paul saw both realities: God’s unfolding redemptive plan and the lived world of his audience.

As he addressed local congregations, he spoke their language, drawing from their philosophies and poetry—whether hinting at Stoicism in his letters or quoting Greek poets in Athens. But he did not leave them within those frameworks. Instead, he skillfully wove their cultural narratives into the One True Story, whose Author took on flesh. Just as Jesus incarnated into the world, Paul embedded himself within the cultures he engaged, contextualizing the gospel of the Kingdom of God for different places, peoples, and ethical situations. The gospel itself did not change, but his emphasis on different facets of God’s Kingdom shifted as he discerned what God was saying to His people. He drew upon the riches of scripture, yet as fulfilled in Jesus, and engaged theologically with the wider world by truly knowing the ideas of the wider world.

Paul’s theological epistemology was centred on Jesus, and his approach was deeply local, pastoral, prophetic, and reliant on the Holy Spirit to work through his words. In the same way, I seek to model my theology after his—rooted in the unchanging story of God yet attuned to the cultural and ethical realities of those I seek to reach.