We
should say something here about the study of faith which is theology. First
attention needs to be made to the difference between the practical character of
Christian life and faith and theology as a science, a theoretical
enterprise. It is unfortunate that some
like to speak of the “theology” of the Apostles, or to think of the Bible as a
book of theology. For example, Paul’s
use of the word “doctrine” (eg in 2 Timothy 3:10) indicates something that has
to be “followed” not something that is primarily an object of academic
study. When as Christians we read and
meditate on the Bible we do so for a practical purpose, to enter into a closer
relationship with the Lord, to hear God’s Word in our hearts, to not only hear,
but also to do the Word of God. As such
the difference between ordinary “Bible study” and theological study is very
great, Ouweneel compares it to the difference between the eater and the chemist
in the case of bread (Ouweneel 2014, 5).
The
relationship between theology and philosophy has been somewhat fraught in the
history of western thought. Since
theology is a human activity it is far from static and undergoes constant
development as can be seen from a comparison of a standard theological work
from the 17th century and one from the 21st century. Theology cannot avoid the powerful influence
of “the course of this world” (Eph. 2:2), the spirits of the age or Zeitgeist. The spirit of each age comes to fullest
theoretical expression within the philosophies of each age, whether pagan
Greek, scholastic, enlightenment or postmodern.
This, alongside the fact that theology is a special science, means that
theology cannot avoid philosophical presuppositions. Unfortunately, one of the
most persistent views among orthodox theologians concerning the relation
between theology and philosophy is the scholastic separation between philosophy
as essentially natural and religiously neutral academic pursuit and theology as
uniquely Christian and sacred. The
reformational view is that philosophy is not religiously neutral and plays an
important role in relation to the special sciences this means that the
development of a Christian philosophy is vital for the continual task of a
theoretically elaborated Christian theology.
There is a danger here though of a one-sided emphasis since philosophy
never stands on its own but must be informed by the special sciences and this
is no different for theology. This means that Christian theology may also play
a role in serving the development of Christian philosophy. Here we can recommend the work of Renato
Coletto who has developed a “network” model, based on the Christian value of
mutual service, of how the different sciences relate to each other including
theology and philosophy. The persistent view that Christian thinking, in all
its forms, is really essentially and only theological thinking is perhaps one
of the biggest barriers to the genuine reformation of scholarship as envisioned
by reformational philosophy.
The
classic definition of theology, deriving from its name, is that theology is the
science that studies God. This cannot be accepted on a reformational view since
science proceeds through theoretical analysis that takes one of the modal
aspects as its lens and God is not subject to the modal spheres, but rather is
their creator. This means that God cannot be subjected to theoretical analysis.
This would pose a serious problem if we restricted knowledge to theoretical
knowledge as it would imply that knowledge of God would be impossible. However
we have already indicated that religion is fundamental to our lives as made in
God’s image and as always already responding to God in everything we do. As
such knowledge of God is both as natural and as mysterious as knowledge of
ourselves. While this knowledge can be considered theoretically, it is not
itself theoretical. As with the difference between reading the Bible as
followers of Jesus Christ and studying the Bible theoretically, which may be
one part of our whole of life following of Jesus, there is a similar difference
between knowing God and theoretically reflecting on that knowledge. We shall
turn to the related question of God and philosophy in the next section.
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