Introducing Christian Theology

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;  

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;  

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. 

And for all this, nature is never spent;  

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went  

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent  

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ (1844-1889)

Many will be familiar with this relatively famous poem of Hopkins which presents us with a Christian theological reading of nature. God is creator and sustainer of the universe despite humanity’s apparent inability to see or feel this divine presence. How can we explain this spiritual alienation from nature and God? In a word: industrialization. The repetitiveness of human labour and the exploitation and degradation of nature have robbed humans of sensitivity to the natural and spiritual worlds. Yet, all is not lost. Permeating the world is a deep ‘freshness’ testifying to the continual renewing power of God’s creation. This is more than a distant hope because God’s Spirit ‘broods’ over and nurtures our bruised and broken world with the promise of grace and re-creation.

Evidently, Hopkins’ poem expresses a human relatedness to mystery, as well the search for truth, beauty and goodness, in explicitly Christian terms. In the first part of this page we will spread our wings a little broader in order to show that the relationship to mystery and the search for meaning and transcendence in life is arguably a universal human experience. How we interpret this ‘religious’ sensibility has become an important issue especially in our post-Enlightenment world with its secular, scientific and even atheistic challenges to religious belief. We will then discuss ways in which faith, religion and theology are best understood. Finally, we investigate major sources of Christian theology and different historical and contemporary approaches to doing theology.

Human Life and Mystery

However else we define human life; the element of mystery is never far from view. It has been said that humans live within mystery as fish live in the sea: we may not be always conscious of it, but all our human experiences connect us to a wider world and universe in which we live, breathe and move. This dimension of mystery has been called by many names: the Transcendent, the ultimate, the sacred, the more, the whole, the all-encompassing, the inexhaustible. Our awareness of mystery arises when we confront the big questions of life and death, or when we experience acute suffering or failure in our lives. John Shea captures this in the following words:

When we reach our limits, when our ordered worlds collapse, when we cannot enact our moral ideals, when we are disenchanted, we often enter into the awareness of Mystery. We are inescapably related to this Mystery which is immanent and transcendent, which issues invitations we must respond to, which is ambiguous about its intentions, and which is real and important beyond all else. Our dwelling within Mystery is both menacing and promising, a relationship of exceeding darkness and undeserved light. In this situation with this awareness we do a distinctively human thing. We gather together and tell stories of God to calm our terror and hold our hope on high. [John Shea, Stories of God. Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1978, p. 39]

Of course, not all people link the reality of mystery to the reality of God. The “new atheists” are currently suggesting there is no Ultimate Reality to whom we can turn “to calm our terror and hold our hope on high.” Nonetheless, we can all agree that human life, relationship to mystery and the God-question are intimately related.

We can also agree that to be human is to be situated in a web of relationships with human others, society and its institutions, other creatures and the wider non-human universe. Each of these relationships is shrouded with varying degrees of mystery. As human beings, we are also a mystery to ourselves. As we go through life, at various levels of conscious and unconscious thought, we find ourselves asking: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? We also find there is no once and for all answer to such questions. In other words, human life is less a state than a process, a journey, an adventure. To be human is to be an explorer, not just of the external world but also of the inner world. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, for example, perceived human travels across the seas as symbolic spiritual quests for personal identity. Likewise, scientific fiction stories of travels to other galaxies may be interpreted as classic searches for human identity in an often hostile universe.

The Human/Religious Quest

We live in a mysterious world that can be both life-affirming and life-destroying. Life sometimes appears chaotic, disordered, even tragic and cruel. Yet, throughout history, humans have continually displayed aspirations for order, truth, beauty and goodness. Theses aspirations or impulses represent ways in which humans seek to make sense of their lives and world. These fundamental human attitudes are responses the mystery of life. They are expressed in cultural and religious terms.

Trust: The Quest for Order

Despite life’s chaotic turns and daily stories of human and natural tragedies on our TV screens, humans tend to cling to the notion that the world is ordered and trustworthy. Even though mistrust, suspicion and cynicism sometimes overwhelm people to the point of mental illness, murder or suicide, most humans carry on their lives with a sense of the fundamental trustworthiness of reality. Story-telling, myth-making, song-writing, poetry reading are all ways in which humans seek this sense of order at the base of life’s apparent chaos. Sociologist Peter Berger describes everyday human activities such as laughing, playing games, cleaning the house, doing the gardening, organising the office or arranging social activities as “signals of transcendence” or signs of some larger life-pattern.

What this impulse says is: “I am connected to a larger world”; or “I matter because I am part of a network of relationships.” Telling stories of one’s beginnings has long been acknowledged as a way of grounding one’s identity in the present world. They may be stories of family, cultural or religious origins. This has become an important aspect of emigrant communities, not least in modern Australia. On the wider level, stories of European settlement in Australia become a kind of map to read current black-white tensions and the search for an Australian identity. Despite the chaos and devastation that European settlement brought to Aboriginal Australia, there is a hope, optimism or trust that rituals of reconciliation will bring harmony, cohesion and order to our lives.

In fact, it is the primal religious traditions and Indigenous communities who, above all others, celebrate the fundamental order of the cosmos through their beliefs and rituals. The question of human identity is closely aligned to the notion of cosmic harmony. If the gods are angry, disorder will be felt at all levels of existence. To appease the gods through sacrificial offerings, right action or what many a tradition will simply call a ‘holy life,’ is the goal of human life, the path to inner peace, the purpose of human existence. Personal identity is a divine vocation, a response to some greater call. Individuals matter when they perceive their lives in terms of their place in the cosmos and their relationship with all creatures.

Enchantment: The Quest for Truth

Human identity has long been associated with the search for truth. Jesus, for example, is reported to have said “the truth will set you free.” In western cultures, the notion of truth has been stripped of its original sense which was more the “love of wisdom.” This is more than a movement of the mind (intellectual truth); it also embraces the movement of the heart (existential truth). It is the impulse for human authenticity. The problem is that we find ourselves in a world with diverse, even contradictory, claims to truth. As the caption goes: “There are so many kinds of voices in the world.” Indeed, there are! The genuine truth-seeker, however, will not be impressed with an approach that says only one voice is true and all the others wrong. He or she will be more concerned to find truth in every voice, and to hear the harmony of the many voices brought together in song. To change metaphors, there is a place for all the colours of the rainbow. If there is only one truth, such truth finally eludes us. Eastern philosophy prefers to say there is only one reality and many expressions of truth. Moreover, it is stated: “Truth is not something we possess, but something that possesses us.”

In the religious traditions, the truth-seeker is typified by the contemplative monk or the Indian sanyasi. This is not to say that anyone cannot be a monk at heart. Anyone can pray; contemplation is open to all; meditation today is practised by millions, East and West, both within and outside the religions. The human impulse at work here is the desire for union with the divine power, cosmic energy, spiritual force or ultimate reality that sustains our existence. Another expression for this impulse is enchantment with the unknown. This is evident not only in the mystical search for union with the divine, but also in drug-induced experiences leading to ecstatic states of transformed consciousness. Use of drugs is not unknown in some religious traditions as a way of promoting ecstatic or mystical states of consciousness. From a purely sociological perspective, the very success of the religious traditions testifies to the universal human impulse to find one’s identity through mystical, ecstatic or transformed states of mind, what the religions refer to as “inner conversion.” On a psychological and spiritual level, the mystical search for the oneness of truth is an attempt to find coherence or unity within the great variety and diversity of experiences. In terms of the religious traditions: God is one; all is Brahman; love is all. We want to be united with that which is the source of all life, being, truth. Life is more than a series of disconnected moments and broken fragments. Quite evidently, this is also the aspiration expressed in romantic love: the desire to become one with the beloved even at the risk of losing one’s identity. Does not Catherine say in Wuthering Heights, “I am Heathcliff!” Or, from the Song of Songs, “I and my beloved are one.”

Adventure: The Quest for Beauty

“Our hearts are restless” (St Augustine) and so we search for some new experience that will allow the beauty of life to show itself. We go on holidays, do a retreat, change jobs or schools or friends. We need some new adventure “to stir the soul” and make us alive to our human identity. The requirement of adventure is that we leave our familiar world. While the human spirit needs order and familiarity, it also needs a little chaos, the moments of surprise, the experience of the different and the ‘other.’ The desire for adventure may be expressed in religious or non-religious terms but is, at heart, related to the human desire to overcome pain, suffering, boredom and disillusionment. Many people feel today as if they are cogs in the machine of life. They feel the need for something new, a total metanoia, a complete change of mind, heart and spirit. This is evident in the way that new religious and new age movements are springing up around the world.

This is also the place for silence and fasting symbolized in the hermit or ascetic of the religious traditions. The hippie may be a modern-day equivalent. Here, the approach to mystery is less one of mysticism and contemplation than silence and emptiness. It may involve both a personal and cultural experience of what St John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul.” If the sense of the divine mystery, by whatever name, is being lost from contemporary experience, there is a sense in which we need to experience that alienation and sense of loss. As many a tradition or philosophy will say, we are beings in solidarity with every living creature and the whole of creation. This may not be the time for God-talk but a time to experience the abyss or silence of God. In Christian terms, we need to experience the reality of the Cross in order to know the beauty of Resurrection.

In Australia, this impulse is experienced as a reticence to speak of God, a kind of metaphysical silence before the great questions of life. There is something about Australians that prefers to speak in silences rather than in words. We feel safer with the ultimate things being left unsaid. At its best, the beauty of the sacred is held in silence–in much the same way as one appreciates the beauty of a morning sunrise or a rose that has just bloomed. This way of silence can be understood positively as an expression of the distaste for any too narrow vision. We need to ‘let go’ our too familiar and over-comfortable ideas of what reality is and who God is–to let things ‘speak’ for themselves or, indeed, “to let God be God!” (Meister Eckhart, a medieval Christian mystic).

Morality: The Quest for Goodness

Humans also demonstrate an aspiration toward moral goodness. This is what we call conscience, that innate sense of right and wrong experienced as desire to do the right thing or guilt when one has done wrong. Of course, humans are not only attracted to goodness; they are also attracted to evil. Different traditions place different emphases on this fundamental orientation toward goodness or evil; they also differ in the way in which they interpret moral goodness. Religious traditions have often been criticised for their narrowness of vision in regard to ethics and morality. Western culture generally can be criticised for an over-emphasis on privatized morality and individual conscience at the expense of social and political ethics. Nonetheless, there is little dissention from the fundamental idea of a human moral aspiration toward goodness at least in terms of an ethical ideal. As is said, “there is honour even among thieves.”

Moral perfection may elude us, but to be human is to live with the experience of dislocation between who we are and who we feel called to be. Moreover, we know that our call to be other is a call to be-for-others: we feel at least some responsibility for shaping the world in which we live, to make it a better place in which people can live in justice, love and peace. The impulse toward goodness is, then, an aspiration to love others, even those who may not love us in return. Self-sacrificing love is epitomized in all the great religious leaders and reformers without neglecting the secular saints who were prepared to live their lives, and even to die, for the sake of some greater good for society and humanity at large. In our judgment, these people may have been misguided in their particular visions for a better world; but we do not doubt their witness to the human urge to overturn inequality, promote justice, defend liberty.

Expressed more concretely, this is the way of action and hope. Jesus becomes the “Man for Others”; Buddha becomes the source of compassion for all living creatures; Allah is the one who inspires merciful praxis; Marx is committed to the liberation of the proletariat; even liberal capitalism wants to promote the wellbeing of the individual. We hear now of option for the poor, solidarity with others, co-responsibility in the human enterprise. All these are metaphors which express the moral aspiration toward social and political ethics. At base, they represent the urge of the human spirit to transform the world. The prophet—in religious or secular guise—is the pre-eminent spokesperson for this way of ethical justice.

Religion and/or Science

So far, we have provided a description or phenomenology of human and religious experience. We have suggested that human life is a network of relationships with intimate others, wider society, other creatures and the cosmos. The relationship with mystery is not an additional experience, but a dimension within all experience and every relationship. We have also seen that the quest for meaning is expressed in the search for order, truth, beauty and goodness. However, the question arises as to how we can judge the truth or veracity of our findings.

People may conclude that a ‘religious’ view of the world and human life has now been overtaken by science. There are others who suggest that science itself is fundamentally flawed and that religion alone can guide us to the truth. These positions are in marked contrast to most of the founders of modern science in the seventeenth century. They were mainly devout Christians, theists who believed in a personal God and understood their scientific work as a study of the handiwork of the Creator. By the eighteenth century, many scientists became deists, those who continued to recognise the Creator of the universe, but no longer believed in a personal God actively involved in the world and human life. Hostility between science and religion developed in the nineteenth century, particularly in response to the Darwinian theory of evolution (even though Darwin himself did not displace God’s design in the evolutionary process).

From the mid-twentieth century onwards, the relationship between religion and science has developed in multiple directions. This could not be otherwise as new scientific developments challenged many religious beliefs. However, religion’s encounter with science has not been one-sidedly oppositional. Certainly, science has changed our understanding of religious faith; but so too have developments in religion influenced scientific understanding.

Our possible understanding of the relationship between religion and science may be best scrutinised according to the following models:

1. Conflict. Science and religion are fundamentally irreconcilable. Biblical fundamentalists hold that the Creation story of Genesis is literally true: God created the world in seven days; evolution is unacceptable on biblical grounds. Atheistic scientists claim the evidence for evolution is incontrovertible and incompatible with any kind of theism. Historically, one need only think of such examples as the church’s persecution of Galileo or widespread rejection of Darwin on religious grounds. In terms of procedure, science claims to put all its finding to experimental testing; whereas religious believers continue to believe in a good God even in the face of enormous evil and suffering.
2. Contrast / Independence.    Science and religion deal with different questions, procedures and spheres of enquiry. For example, science asks: What is the age of the universe? When and how did the earth form?; What does the geological, archaeological and biological evidence suggest about the emergence of human life? Religion asks a different set of questions: Why do we exist? How did we come to be?; Who created the universe?; What is the relationship between humans and a ‘higher power’? How should we live in relationship with each other? Science is concerned with how things happen in nature, religion with why anything exists; science is about causes, religion about meaning; science with solvable problems, religion with unsolvable mystery. The problem is not science, but ‘scientism’, itself a belief that only science provides insight into truth or reality.
3. Contact / Dialogue. Acknowledging differences between science and religion does not rule out important points of contact. Scientific knowledge broadens the horizon of religious faith; religious faith deepens our understanding of the universe. Both science and religion use metaphors to describe and interpret empirical data. Both use conceptual models and analogies to imagine what cannot be directly observed (God and subatomic particles, for example). Similarly, God can be conceived as the determiner of the indeterminacies left open by quantum physics. While respecting the integrity of each other’s fields, science and religion are engaged as dialogue partners in critical reflection.
4. Confirmation / Integration. Science and religion not only complement one another; they are intimately related. Both rely on an at least implicit faith in a real, intelligible universe; both are inspired by the quest for a unifying knowledge of this reality. We are dealing with an integrated approach to the understanding of reality. We may even posit the further idea that science validates assumptions originally derived from religion, such as the rationality and intelligibility of the universe. In the opposite direction, religion’s trust in the ultimate order of things validates the scientific quest for insight, rationality and coherence. The anthropic principle, which signifies the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life, is in the minds of some (though not all) a mutual validation of scientific and religious insights.

There has been an explosion of writings on the subject of the relationship between science, religion and theology. Typical questions are: Does science rule out a personal God? Does evolution rule out God’s existence? Is life reducible to chemistry? Was the universe created? Why is there complexity in nature? Does the universe have a purpose? Is religion or science (or both) responsible for the ecological crisis? You may like to add your own questions.

Watch the short video by scientist Leonard Mlodinow (Science, Religion and the Natural World – video shown below). Reflect on his understanding of the relationship between science and religion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=Dqm_zyjrNTw

-> Which model of the relationship between science and religion do you favour? Why?

“A Biologist’s View of Science and Religion: Barbour’s Four Models”

https://scienceandtheology.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/science-and-religion-barbours-4-models/

Theism versus Atheism

The science-religion debate focuses on the theistic religious traditions, particularly the Abrahamic monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There are other kinds of religious traditions which are variously (though not always accurately) described as non-theistic, polytheistic or primal. Typically, they do not posit belief in a personal-creator God in the manner of the Abrahamic traditions. Be that as it may, our focus here is on the monotheistic traditions which have distinct claims about nature, creation and the world that are the subject of recent virulent attack from the so-called “new atheists.” The issue is not only one of science versus religion but encompasses other areas such as the ecological crisis, terrorism, war and violence. Influential publications include: Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004); Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006); Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007); and Michel Onfray, Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (2007).

There have been many respondents to these works including:  David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion (2009), John Cornwell, Darwin’s Angel (2007); John Lennox, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? (2009); and Alister McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion (2007); and John Haught, God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchins (2008). These authors point out that the atheistic critique of religion is not especially new. Theism has always had to contend with the so-called theodicy problem: how can we believe in a God who is totally good and powerful in the face of evident suffering and evil in the world? If the new atheists go further in their critique of theism, it is their argument that belief in God is actually the cause of evil. The respondents take these and other critiques of theism seriously as they seek to provide a more rational foundation for religious faith. As we shall see, this is the task of theology.

Viewing Activity:

Watch the video by Alister McGrath (Atheist Turned Christian – video shown below). Reflect on how effectively you think he explains his conversion from atheism to Christian belief?

Reflection Activity 4:

Critically reflect on the statement: “While religion may sometimes be the cause of evil, without religion there is no basis for human morality.”

Further Reading:

Richard R. Gaillardetz, “Catholicism and the New Atheism“

https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/655/article/catholicism-and-new-atheism

Scott Hahn & Benjamin Wiker, “Answering the New Atheism: Dawkins Dismantled“

http://www.staycatholic.com/answering_the_new_atheism.htm\

Faith, Religion and Theology

Faith

People who identify as belonging to a particular religion are often referred to as people of faith. This would seem to imply that people who do not belong to a religion are without faith. However, faith may also be conceived as an existential human attitude in response to the mystery of life. As such, to be human is to have faith which will be expressed through different beliefs, religious or otherwise. However, we do not have faith in beliefs, doctrines or other things, but in the “the ever inexhaustible mystery, beyond the reach of objective knowledge” [Raimon Panikkar, Myth, Faith and Heremeneutics (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 6]. In this sense, both theist and atheist are people of faith even if their beliefs (in God or no-God) are diametrically opposed.

In religious terms, faith is often described as a divine gift and the trusting acceptance of that gift. It inspires a particular way of believing and acting. Faith is also dynamic and ever-changing. On one occasion Jesus says to his own disciples: “You of little faith!” (Mtt. 16:8). On another occasion he compares the faith of his own people with that of the Roman centurion: “I have not found such great faith in Israel” (Mtt. 8:10). People pray that their faith will grow and become strong. Consequently, while faith and religion may be intimately linked, they are not identical.

Religion

While religion may be defined as the human movement towards ultimacy, it differs from faith in that it also describes particular beliefs, rituals and laws adopted by particular religious traditions. Some definitions emphasise the former; others the latter. For example, Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich describes religion as “the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning of life.” [Paul Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter with World Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 4]. For Tillich, religion represents something more than the human quest or search for meaning; it also represents a communication from, relationship with or experience of what is often called ‘the sacred.’ This sense of communication from an ultimate or divine source which, in turn, responds to the human quest for order, truth, beauty, goodness and meaning, is captured by Paul Connelly: http://www.darc.org/connelly/religion1.html

Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses. [Definition of Religion and Related Terms]

How we understand the ‘sacred’ and the ‘spiritual’ will be strongly influenced by the particular religious tradition and its founding religious event. In one sense, the role of religion is to keep the founding event—for Christians, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus—alive and meaningful for subsequent generations. In other terms, we may say that the nature and purpose of religion is to keep faith alive.

Before moving onto a discussion of theology, we need to note there is no clear, once-for-all, accepted understanding of religion. Obviously, religion will be defined differently not only according to one’s religious (non-)beliefs, but also according to diverse approaches of philosophers, theologians and behavioural scientists.

Viewing Activity:

Watch the video entitled “What is Religion?” (shown below). Note the array of different definitions of religion.

Reflection Activity 5:

In response to the video and your reflection, formulate your own definition of religion.

Theology

Theology reflects critically on religious experience and beliefs. The word ‘theology’ literally means ‘the study of (logos) God (theos)’. Sometimes it is simply referred to as ‘God Talk’. When people ask the ‘big questions’ and find some answer with reference to a divine being, they are engaging in theology. In this way, theology is a process, but the term is also used for the product of that thinking. The formulated response to those questions is ‘theology’. Thus, it is both process and product. Obviously, there are diverse theologies according to diverse traditions (Jewish, Islamic, etc.). Here we are focussing on Christian theology especially from a Catholic perspective.

A classic definition of theology comes from St Anselm, a twelfth century theologian, who defined it simply as ‘faith seeking understanding’. John Macquarrie, a contemporary theologian, expands this further. ‘Theology may be defined as the study which, through participation in and reflection upon a religious faith, seeks to express the content of this faith in the clearest and most coherent language available’. [John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (London: SCM Press, 1977), 1]. In seeking to understand and interpret religious faith and beliefs, Anselm and Macquarrie presume that theology is done by active believers in the tradition. Other contemporary theologians, notably David Tracy, allow for the possibility of non-believers doing theology. This is however a minority position.

In line with our understanding of human relationship to mystery, we may also describe theology as ‘understanding seeking faith’. Since our relationship with mystery is integral to all our human knowing and living, the study of a religious tradition, especially from the ‘inside,’ will hopefully bring one closer to the ultimate truth. Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, understood the theologian as primarily a searcher and questioner for whom God, or what he called “Absolute Mystery,” is the ultimate answer. Christian theologians are those who hear and reflect on the Word explicitly addressed to them through Jesus Christ. For Rahner, the Word is also mysteriously addressed to others through their own life-situations and religious traditions.

Viewing Activity:

Watch the video by John Thornhill SM “Introduction to Catholic Theology” (shown below):

Reflection Activity 6:

Do you agree or disagree that one needs to be a believer in a particular tradition in order to be a theologian of that tradition?

Theological Sources and Approaches

In order to ‘do theology’ one must have some experience of the Divine Mystery and of the way in which that Divine Mystery is present and active in our world and lives. How do we come to have these experiences of what Christians call God? What, in fact, are the sources for or influences on theology? How do we come to experience or know God? There are a number of elements we need to consider.

1. : Christians (and others) believe that God has taken the initiative and revealed or shown something of the Divine Mystery to humanity. Only because of this is it possible for humans to know something of God . . . and to know something of what God is like. God or the Divine Mystery is revealed in many ways: the beauty of nature, birth of a child; liberation of a captive and suffering people; the person of Jesus who died and rose again for the world’s salvation; and in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the church and world. The nature of revelation, a difficult category, is developed below.
2. : This contains the memories and interpretations of the Jewish people and their reflection on how they perceived God acting in their history. For Christians, Scripture also contains the memories and interpretations of the earliest Christians as they reflected on the mission, ministry, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As such, the Scriptures are the primary source for coming to know how God and God’s actions are experienced and known.
3. :  Scripture is not our only source for knowing God as it is constantly being reinterpreted by successive generations to make sense and to give meaning in a world which does not stay the same. This ongoing process of interpretation and application, of handing on the revealed truths about God and making sense of them anew is known as tradition.
4. : Coming to know God and how God acts, what God is like, presupposes an experience. There would be nothing to seek understanding of unless we have had some experience of God in our own lives. We are not necessarily talking here about some sort of ‘personal revelation’ or God appearing to us individually but rather the attempt to make sense of our experiences in the light of the faith we have in a creator God with whom we are called to be in relationship. Our experiences in life can influence our formation of theology as well. For example, an experience of suffering or persecution means that we may bring a particular emphasis to our interpretations. This should alert us to the possible limitations inherent in experience as a source of theology.
5. : We might describe culture as the milieu in which we live. Each person is born into a concrete place and time shaped by different circumstances. This will influence the way we articulate and respond to our experiences of God. The way the medieval theologians articulated their understanding of faith may not resonate in this culture. This does not mean the medieval writers got it wrong; it simply means we need to find a new way of articulating this faith which will have greater meaning within this culture. Their articulation is a legitimate part of the ongoing tradition; so too will be the articulation of the present theologians.

These sources or influences are not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather the aim is simply to open up our thinking about what is involved in undertaking theology. Different sources take on different emphases according to the type of theology being done.

Reading Activity:

Scott D. Brisbane, “Sources of Theology”

http://scott.brisbane.id.au/theology/sources_of_theology.html

The Nature of Revelation

As the primary source for theology in the Christian tradition, it is important to understand what is meant by revelation. As the word implies, “revelation” concerns something previously unknown being ‘revealed’ or ‘communicated.’ But what is being revealed? Is it a set of truths to which believers give consent? Or is it something more personal, namely, the self-disclosure of God to people throughout history? In other words, is the category of experience, as well as reason, essential for a proper understanding of the role of revelation in Christian belief and theologizing?

For Catholics, the Second Vatican Council moved to a more personalist, existential interpretation of divine revelation as the self-communication of a loving God in human history which reaches its fullness in the person of Jesus Christ. Such an approach does not deny the reality that revelation makes truth-claims upon believers, but it gives priority to the relational encounter with God in faith.

As well, we need to consider the various ways in which God’s divine self-communication occurs in human lives. Everyone, regardless of their religious faith, is able to encounter the living God in various ways, such as through the experience of the created world and loving relationships. Christians also recognise the special case of the Jewish people who have their own experience of—and covenant with—God. Dermot Lane discusses these and other issues for a renewed understanding of revelation in the following article.

Reading Activity

Dermot A. Lane, “The Nature of Revelation,” The Experience of God: An Invitation to do Theology, rev. ed. (Dublin: Veritas, 2003), 46-72.

Reflection Activity 7:

In light of your reading and reflection:

1. Explain the difference between general (or universal) revelation and particular (or historical) revelation.
2. Lane proposes that Vatican II [especially The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation] gives us new insights into revelation. How would you summarise these new insights?

Theological Approaches

Theology does not occur in a vacuum. Theology develops historically and according to the different contexts and questions of the day. What is offered here is simply a general overview of diverse theological approaches in history and most recent times.

1. : Christian theology begins in the Scriptures of the New Testament when the various Christian communities expressed their various and often unique understanding of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. In the early centuries of the church, theological schools developed in different centres such as Rome, Antioch and Alexandria. We may extend this classical period to the “Christian apologists” and “Fathers of the Church” who rely increasingly on the neo-Platonic philosophies of the time to interpret the Scriptures and divine revelation. This period is often said to have ended, and reached its climax, in the writings of St Augustine (d. 430). These classical theologies continue to hold place of privilege in the life of all Christian churches.
2. : This period saw an explosion of theological works associated with the rise of universities. Names such as Anselm, Aquinas and Bonaventure profoundly influenced the direction of theology. Aquinas, for example, developed a whole theological system in dialogue with the philosophy of Aristotle. In many ways, this was a period of great openness to new theological ideas; but also, a period of great dispute and argument culminating in the Reformation. Henceforth, Catholic and Protestant theologies went in different directions—and most would agree to their mutual detriment.
3. : Especially in the period after World War II, European theologians became more aware that theology is historical. There was a “return to the sources” of Scripture and tradition, especially the patristics. Catholic scholars of note include Henri de Lubac, M. Chenu, and Yves Congar. Although their writings did not receive immediate approval, their influence in rapprochement with Protestant theology and at Vatican II was considerable.
4. : At the same time, other theologians such as Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan are noted for reflecting on theology from the perspective of the human subject. Revelation is only and always interpreted by the human person who comes to truth and knowledge through a dynamic process of seeking and questioning. Theology, then, is not only an intellectual exercise, but one which involves the human search for freedom, love and transcendence.
5. : In the latter part of the twentieth century, developments in theology were spearheaded by European political theologies (e.g. Metz & Schillebeeckx) and South American liberation theologies (e.g. Boff, Segundo, Gutierrez). Here, theology’s dialogue-partner is no longer philosophy but the social sciences. The focus is on the God of justice and liberation: where is God in a history flowing with the silent blood and tears of its victims? Related to these theologies are other expressions of praxis-oriented theologies, for example, feminist, black, indigenous and ecological theologies.
6. : If there is a new turn in theology today, this might be represented by these two words ‘mystical’ and ‘political’. Too often, theological polemics divide the world of theologians (and Christians in general) into conservatives and liberals. In reality, theology needs to be both: conservative in the best sense of being in deep dialogue with the Scriptures and tradition; liberal in the sense of responding to contemporary concerns. Or, to use the other two words: ‘mystical’ in the sense of a prayerful and reverential theology; ‘political’ in the sense of interpreting God’s Word for a world and church in profound need of divine truth, justice and freedom.

Further Reading:

Gerard Hall, “The Three Turns in Modern Theology” (Attached)

Reflection Activity 8:

Describe in your own words the major challenges faced by Australians today and suggest where theological insights could play a positive role.