The Basis of Theology
-the God about whom theol. speaks pursues us, acts so as to overtake us, acquaints us with himself, and therein discloses himself to us: God gives himself to us and illumines us concerning all that he has done.
-speculation doesn’t yield knowledge of God.
-we do not search for God; we flee him, and know him only as he overtakes us.
-theology is a rational explication of our understanding of the God whom we now know.
Note the nature of biblical “knowing.”
-scripture and HS are the source of our knowing (encountering) God; theol. is the intellectual activity by which truth about God is formulated and its meaning clarified.
Objections to Theology
1] It appears to contradict the immediacy, intimacy, intensity and simplicity of faith.
2] It appears to undercut the urgency of action (we are to be “doers” of the word) in the midst of a world whose suffering is incomprehensible.
3] It appears to be “dogmatic” in the worst sense of the term.
4] It appears fixated on disputes of earlier centuries.
Why Theology is Necessary
1] It forfends amnesia, and all the problems associated with amnesia. (See objection #4.)
It provides the “ballast” in the keel of the good ship “church.”
2] It is necessary in the struggle against false teaching.
3] It provides instruction in faith.
4] It apprehends the totality of the biblical witness.
It apprehends the integration of this totality.
5] It honours the concern for T/truth.
In Short
1] Faith seeks understanding. God is to be loved with the mind.
We cannot commend what we do not understand, however slightly.
2] Faith engages that world which God has refused to abandon. How does the Christian mind relate to philosophy, economics, psychology, ecology, the arts?
3] A church that disdains theology is saying
(i) there is no substance to the gospel
(ii) there is no such thing as T/truth
(iii) intellectual “mush” is God-honouring
(iv) the past cannot inform us at all.