Theology, what it is

wiselife · #1 4th July 2009, 05:28 PM

Theology is a science(*), that using a systematic method and aided by other sciences examines rationally the contents of the public revelation in order to better understand it, examine critically its internal coherence and provide a guide for action according to the faith.

It's not a direct communion with God (mysticism); nor it tries to describe the experience of the believer (phenomenology), nor should try to prove or disprove God or the Faith (philosophy). It takes God and Christian revelation (**) as a given, as natural sciences assume the universe is not chaotic.

(*) Understood in the broader sense.
(**) In the case of Christian theology

BrendanMark · #2 4th July 2009, 06:47 PM

Theology is ultimately about infinite mystery beyond rationality, at least for much of the Christian tradition. Theology is the use of reason to get us to the infinite mystery beyond itself - and has been in the Western tradition since Plato's Parmenides.

For when reason has been pressed to the point at which its questions become unanswerable, it does not thereby demonstrate a space which could not be occupied, some ‘otherness’ lacking every character and description except that of ‘otherness’; but rather one which is demonstrably occupied by that which we could not comprehend, the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and so their Lord; and being the origin of all things ‘out of nothing’, necessarily containing all the perfections of all the things created, and for that reason too, unknowable to us, because too comprehensively intelligible; but if unknowable because possessing every perfection, then also, and for that same reason, nameable by every name; and so to be praised by every form of creaturely praise.

. . . such is the ‘reason’ which knows God, the God who can be proved: in proving which, reason proves but the existence of a mystery, the mystery of creation. And in proving that, reason discovers itself to have been created by the mystery it shows to exist.
Turner, Denys – Faith, Reason and the Existence of God [Cambridge 2004 p122]

BrendanMark · #3 4th July 2009, 06:59 PM

Oh, and theology is certainly not a science in the modern sense (since William of Ockham, basically): it produces no testable hypotheses nor verifiable experimental results. It is a legitimate (and glorious!) aspect of Western philosophy and inquiry, but science in the modern sense it is not. Losse's History of the Philosophy of Science is a good reference and background.

MrPolo · #4 4th July 2009, 07:25 PM

The short answer is the study of God.

I'm curious, when you say the study of public revelation, to what do you refer? (as a Catholic I obviously believe divine revelation does not come in the form of Scripture alone). But I also think the study of natural law would be involved.

wiselife · #5 5th July 2009, 01:14 AM

Originally Posted by BrendanMark

Oh, and theology is certainly not a science in the modern sense (since William of Ockham, basically): it produces no testable hypotheses nor verifiable experimental results. It is a legitimate (and glorious!) aspect of Western philosophy and inquiry, but science in the modern sense it is not. Losse's History of the Philosophy of Science is a good reference and background.

That's the positivist sense of science

I am using a more broad definition of science to stress theology requires a rational method and not the use of "cause I think so".

wiselife · #6 5th July 2009, 01:20 AM

Originally Posted by MrPolo

The short answer is the study of God.

I'm curious, when you say the study of public revelation, to what do you refer? (as a Catholic I obviously believe divine revelation does not come in the form of Scripture alone). But I also think the study of natural law would be involved.

Public revelation: Available to all.

Private revelation: Available to just one Christian.

Obviously the Bible is public revelation. What about Tradition? It could be, if you can prove it is indeed from the apostles and it doesn't contradict Scripture. That IF was what troubled Luther. (But please address that in another thread if you must).

BrendanMark · #7 5th July 2009, 01:34 AM

It isn't the "positivist" sense of science but the experimental method that is the basis of modern scientific method. Theology has no objectively verifiable hypotheses by repeatable experiment. It has rational method, but that isn't science the way histroy is also not science although legitimate inquiry that should not conflict with science - but history is not archaeology. Different subjects and disciplines.

Just being pedantic.

From the distinction between the acts [proper to faith and those proper to theology] it cannot be proved that theology is a science. For every [properly theological] act that a believer has can be had by a nonbeliever who is trained in theology. After all, such a nonbeliever could defend and confirm the faith, persuade believers and nonbelievers, and reply to the arguments of heretics and nonbelievers in just the way that any believer could. And yet it is obvious that such a nonbeliever would not have scientia properly speaking. Therefore, from such acts it cannot be proved that theology is a science properly speaking.
Commentary on the Sentences – William of Ockham; “Ockham on Faith and Reason” Alfred J. Freddoso – Cambridge Companion to Ockham [Cambridge 1999 p337]

The strangeness is not in the first section, but in the idea ‘that such a nonbeliever would not have scientia properly speaking.” Why not? He would have knowledge based on the grasp of the first principles, or intellectus. It would seem that scientia without belief is not scientia “properly speaking” to a medieval theologian, and understandably so. What we would call an intellectual understanding, even superbly and profoundly grasped, is not what Ockham truly means by sceintia. Everything stems from and returns to the deus in medieval theology. Knowledge that doesn’t stem from and [indicate a] return to the divine is sophistry at best and heresy at worst.

In doing this Ockham inadvertently changed what we meant by science, by trying to clarify and celebrate theology. If theology, the Queen of Sciences, wasn’t science at all anymore, what did that mean in the long term for both theology and science? Certainly a separation that has lasted to this day, if nothing else. Whilst I aware of the limits of Popperian falsifiability, it reamins a good rule of thumb for what is a scientific question properly speaking and what is outside the bounds of scientific inquiry.

Such a question is that of God (in whom I have faith, I should stress).

wiselife · #8 5th July 2009, 02:19 AM

Originally Posted by BrendanMark

It isn't the "positivist" sense of science but the experimental method that is the basis of modern scientific method. Theology has no objectively verifiable hypotheses by repeatable experiment. It has rational method, but that isn't science the way histroy is also not science although legitimate inquiry that should not conflict with science - but history is not archaeology. Different subjects and disciplines.

Yes, but I happen to not be a positivist, because positivism effectively reduces the world that can be known to what can be tested in an experiment. I am not using science as an attribute of theology in that restricted sense by in the broader sense of systematic study of a subject matter.

Our friend Popper is speaking about science from a positivist point of view, of course (which is NOT what I'm speaking about). That said there are thesis in Theology that can be disproved, provided that you a) agree on what's Revelation and b) agree on using a systematic method. Our problems in this forum is that we don't agree in either. For some say Revelation includes the Bible, Tradition and the Magisterium, for others it's Tradition that includes the Bible, yet for others is the Bible alone. (And let's not dwell on the concept of the inspiration of the Bible

).

BrendanMark · #9 5th July 2009, 02:46 AM

Very good points, but science as experimental method is not the same thing as positivism or materialism, although both make claims based on a blinkered and restrictive view of experimental method and science.

That's what I am being pedantic about, I guess. Finding agreement on what constitutes valid Revelation and the systematic method employed have little to do with science, but more with metaphysics, as far as I can see.

Glad to be corrected, of course.

wiselife · #10 5th July 2009, 03:04 AM

Originally Posted by BrendanMark

That's what I am being pedantic about, I guess. Finding agreement on what constitutes valid Revelation and the systematic method employed have little to do with science, but more with metaphysics, as far as I can see.

Oh, of course. What's more I think that, in practice, it's a matter of trust (in whoever transmitted us the faith) and our own personal experiences. Finding agreement on what constitutes revelation goes beyond the scope of theology, it's a "fact of faith", so to speak. In other words, faith must supply that data.

And that's why disagreements are so common, and probably unavoidable.