What is Theology?
At the beginning of a work like this, something must be said about the nature of theology. After all, if theology is not defined, it will be impossible to communicate anything about theology. For the purposes of this work, theology is simply referring to ultimate beliefs about God, about humanity and about the relationship between the two. Theology is a subjective accounting of an objective reality. Because of this, theology is always marginalized and relativized by the reality it seeks to bring to articulation. If there arises a conflict between the reality of God and our statements about God, our statements must be rethought, revised, and restated, so that this conflict might be resolved.
Another important point about theology is that it is not just something for academics and professional theologians to discuss. Indeed, everyone has a theology because everyone has things that they finally believe about God. Individual people might not speak about those fundamental convictions using theological jargon, they may not think that they are “doing” theology, but that does not change the fact that everyone indeed has a theology. Even atheists have ultimate beliefs about God, namely, that there isn’t one. With this in mind, it is important for one’s own ultimate beliefs to come into contact and be in dialogue with opposing viewpoints. Ideally, as many people encounter God and strive to articulate their fundamental convictions about this reality, we can engage in a kind of “theological triangulation” where the tensions between the witnesses can come together to yield a more dynamic and authentic understanding of God.
Stevick, now that I'm on my summer break, I will endeavor, as promised, to read through what you have written thus far for your systematic theology. I'm reading and commenting sequentially, so I apologize if any present comments are answered in subsequent sections.
ReplyDeleteI would encourage you to expand your definition of theology beyond God, human, and the relationship between the two. Theology also has much to say about the way God and humans relate to both creatures and the world. A systematic theology ought to address these diagonal and horizontal relationships in addition to the vertical dimension between God and humanity.
This may be a good place to introduce the specific theological subjects you will address: Christology, Soteriology, Pneumatology, Eschatology, etc. and ones that you will probably omit (I'm assuming you probably won't devote much time to Maryology).
Finally, I would like to see you unpack your presumption of a fundamentally objective reality. I'm feeling some tension between this underlying objectivity and the subjectivity that you acknowledge is inherent in all theology. Indeed, this subjectivity is not only found in theology but in all experience as well. If this is so, then even if there were an objective reality, it would always be obfuscated by the fog of radical subjectivity. Even in the incarnation, we still experience Jesus as distinct subjects. Thus, it seems like it would be sufficient to say "theology is a subjective accounting of an experienced reality" rather than an objective reality. Thoughts?
Wei-erh,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your suggestions. I appreciate your input. I will respond to your suggestions one at a time, explaining why I made the choices I did (as each of them was very deliberate).
1. The reason that I limited my definition of theology the way I did is because, though a Christian theology certainly does have implications for our interaction with creatures and the world, it is not, in my mind, a constitutive aspect of our theological reflections. That is, such interaction flows from the basic divine/human relation. They are involved, but they are distinctly peripheral issues. This is not intended to make them seem unimportant, but rather to put them in their appropriate place.
2. My main conviction for this project is to be a radically Christocentric reflection on the Christian faith. To me (to tip my hand to the next comment), theology is a radically a posteriori discipline and conclusions cannot be determined beforehand. I aim (though I am certain to fail to one degree or another on this) to present the ideas in a way that I think makes the most sense from an empistemological stance (that is, discussion of Jesus before making conclusions about God, the Holy Spirit, the Christian life, etc.). There will certainly be room for disagreement (perhaps even from you), but that is something that I will have to live with.
3. There is indeed a tension between my affirmation of a fundamentally objective reality and the subjectivity involved in our theological activity. However, it is a tension and not a contradiction. I am a critical realist, so I believe that we really can have access to reality, but that access is neither necessary nor automatic. As this theology is primarily to help me clarify my thoughts and secondarily to help lay people, I did not feel it was appropriate to drag everyone who may read this into the difficult mires of modern and post-modern epistemological issues. However, I find a critical realist point of view to be more convincing than any non-realist or anti-realist perspective (such as idealism, positivism, radical skepticism, among others); I also think it is most congenial to Christian faith as revealed through Christ. In my opinion, detailed epistemological discussion should take place in an a posteriori exercise where we ask “How do we know what we know” rather than “How can we know things.”
Surely we could go back and forth on these things, but hopefully, this helps to clarify some of my convictions and reasoning.