Theory or Practice?

"In A Preface to Christian Theology, John Mackay illustrated two kinds of interests in Christian things by picturing persons sitting on the high front balcony of a Spanish house watching travellers go by on the road below. The 'balconeers' can overhear the travellers' talk and chat with them; they may comment critically on the way that the travellers walk; or they may discuss questions about the road, how it can exist at all or lead anywhere, what might be seen from different points along it, and so forth; but they are onlookers, and their problems which, though they have their theoretical angle, are essentially practical--problems of the 'which-way-to-go' and 'how-to-make-it' type, problems which call not merely for comprehension but for decision and action too.

Balconeers and travellers may think over the same area, yet their problems differ. Thus (for instance) in relation to evil, the balconeer's problem is to find a theoretical explanation of how evil can consist with God's sovereignty and goodness, but the traveller's problem is how to master evil and bring good out of it.

Or again, in relation to sin, the balconeer asks whether racial sinfulness and personal perversity are really credible, while the traveller, knowing sin from within, asks what hope there is of deliverance.

Or take the problem of the Godhead; while the balconeer is asking how one God can conceivably be three, what sort of unity three could have, and how three who make one can be persons, the traveller wants to know how to show proper honour, love and trust towards the three persons who are now together at work to bring him out of sin to glory."

Where are you, on the balcony or on the road?

Quoted in the Foreward of J.I.Packer's, Knowing God.