{"id":39195,"date":"2026-04-19T03:42:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=39195"},"modified":"2026-04-19T03:51:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T08:51:27","slug":"experience-with-god-taught-me-that-my-theology-was-too-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=39195","title":{"rendered":"Experience with God taught me that my theology was too small"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I used to be certain.<\/p>\n

Not just confident or comfortable, but certain in the way only a young person can be when handed a complete system and told it explains everything. I had been taught a theology that divided the world neatly into what was true and what was false. It came with answers for every question that mattered and, more importantly, it came with the assumption that those answers were final.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t question it. Why would I? It was what I had been given. It felt like truth because it felt like home.<\/p>\n

When I listen to people argue about theology now, I often recognize something uncomfortably familiar. I hear the same tone of certainty I once had. I see people defending systems they didn\u2019t build but have fully embraced. They assume their conclusions are objectively true and everything else is objectively wrong.<\/p>\n

I understand that mindset because I once lived there.<\/p>\n

What changed wasn\u2019t some moment of doubt. I didn\u2019t doubt God. It was a long, slow realization that the system I trusted wasn\u2019t as complete as I had believed. The more I studied the history of theology instead of just repeating what I had been taught, the more I saw how much of what I believed had been shaped by culture, tradition and human interpretation.<\/p>\n

That realization didn\u2019t destroy my Christian faith. It did something far more unsettling. It forced me to take responsibility for it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s seductive to believe we can know all truth if we just adopt the right system. That idea runs deeper than theology. It shows up in philosophy, politics and even science. There\u2019s a quiet assumption behind many belief systems that says if you accept the right framework, you can deduce everything else with certainty.<\/p>\n

I once believed that. Now I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve found instead is that the truth we can be certain about is surprisingly narrow. It\u2019s grounded in experience. It\u2019s shaped by intuition. And even then, it\u2019s incomplete. If we\u2019re honest, we have to admit we\u2019re going to be wrong about a lot of what we believe. We\u2019re also going to have to live with uncertainty.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a comfortable place to be. Certainty is easier. Certainty feels safer. But certainty often comes at the cost of honesty.<\/p>\n

The only way I\u2019ve found to remain intellectually honest and spiritually open is to become comfortable saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d about a lot of things.<\/p>\n

That phrase would have felt like failure to my younger self. Now it feels like humility.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m more certain today of the reality of God than I\u2019ve ever been. But my certainty isn\u2019t rooted in a system anymore. It\u2019s rooted in experience. I know God in the way you know something that can\u2019t be fully explained. It\u2019s real, but it\u2019s not easily reduced to words or formulas.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where the tension begins.<\/p>\n

Because we all want to explain what we\u2019ve experienced. We want to define it, categorize it and, eventually, control it. We build theological systems that try to capture something that is, by its nature, larger than our ability to contain it.<\/p>\n

We take something infinite and try to fit it into something finite.<\/p>\n

We build boxes. And then we label them with confidence.<\/p>\n

Most people don\u2019t arrive at their religious identity through careful theological reasoning. They inherit it. They absorb it from their culture. It becomes part of what feels normal long before it becomes something they examine.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why theological debates often feel less like a search for truth and more like arguments over the rules of a game. Whatever version of the rules you grew up with feels correct. Everything else feels wrong.<\/p>\n

We rarely notice how much of what we believe is shaped by familiarity.<\/p>\n

I see this most clearly in myself. When I hear someone express a belief that contradicts my own, my first instinct isn\u2019t curiosity. It\u2019s judgment. I think, \u201cHow could anyone believe that?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the obvious answer hits me.<\/p>\n

They believe it for the same reason I believe what I believe. It makes sense to them. It fits their experience. It feels like truth. Or else it was just what they were taught.<\/p>\n

To them, my beliefs are just as questionable.<\/p>\n

That realization doesn\u2019t mean all ideas are equally valid. But it does mean that humility is necessary if we\u2019re serious about truth. It also means we should be cautious about confusing confidence with accuracy.<\/p>\n

In many churches today, I see another layer to this problem. We\u2019ve learned how to create powerful emotional experiences. We build environments that foster connection, inspiration and a sense of belonging. There\u2019s real value in that. Community matters. Shared experience matters.<\/p>\n

But I sometimes wonder whether we\u2019re mistaking those experiences for something deeper. It\u2019s possible to feel something powerful without actually encountering God. It\u2019s possible to substitute a carefully crafted emotional experience for the thing our souls are actually searching for.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t say that as a conclusion. I say it as a question I can\u2019t shake.<\/p>\n

Because the more I\u2019ve let go of certainty, the more I\u2019ve become aware of how much I don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

And strangely, that awareness has made my faith stronger, not weaker.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no longer trying to defend a system that explains everything. I\u2019m trying to remain open to a reality about a God who I can\u2019t fully grasp.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m more interested now in experiencing God than in explaining him. More interested in recognizing truth than in proving it. More willing to admit that whatever I understand is only a small part of something much larger.<\/p>\n

If my beliefs today were identical to what they were when I was 25, that would probably say more about my unwillingness to question them than about their accuracy.<\/p>\n

Growth requires change. And change requires the willingness to be wrong.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have everything figured out anymore. I\u2019m not pretending to know everything.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m more convinced than ever that God is real.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m more aware than ever that he is far bigger than anything I can fit into a theological box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to be certain. Not just confident or comfortable, but certain in the way only a young person can be when handed a complete system and told it explains everything. I had been taught a theology that divided the world neatly into what was true and what was false. It came with answers for Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-acb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39195"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39216,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39195\/revisions\/39216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}