Theology
THEOLOGY
Discourse about God either from the point of view of what can be known about Him from the created world by the natural power of reason (natural theology) or from the point of view of a revelation given by God and received by man in faith (sacred theology).
The Word. Theology is the Greek word θεολογία, nowhere used in the Bible. In the sense of the rationale (λόγος) of the gods it was used by Plato (Rep. 379A) for demythologizing the Greek poets, but by Aristotle (Meta. 1026a) for the part of philosophy that explains the cosmos in terms of an unmoved mover. Applied also to the civic cult of pagan gods of Greece and Rome, the term was repugnant to early Christians. But as gnosis (biblical) had acquired more dangerous connotations, Origen turned to theologia to express the Christian understanding of God as distinguished from Christian faith. In the struggle with Arianism, this "explanation of God" (theologia ) came to be used for Christian knowledge about the Persons of the Trinity (Athanasius, Oratio 1 contra Arianos 18; Patrologia Graeca 26:49) as distinct from what refers to God's plan of salvation through Christ (οἰκονομία; see economy, divine). Pseudo-Dionysius used theologia for mysticism. The Western Fathers scarcely used the word. Augustine (Civ. 6.5) made critical use of the Stoa's threefold division into physical, mythic, and civic-cult theology (cf. also Tertullian, Nationes 2.1; Patrologia Latina 1:585–588) and regarded the (meta-) physical as true. But he used the name "Christian doctrine" for all Christian knowledge and understanding of God. After 1100 Abelard was the first to apply the term "theology" to methodical (dialectical) investigation of the whole Christian teaching (Sic et Non ). The great theologians of the 13th century preferred such terms as "sacred doctrine" or "erudition," "Scripture," or the "Sacred Page." Even St. Thomas Aquinas rarely used the word theologia and then restricted it to the scientific function within sacred teaching (sacra doctrina ), a broader term he used for the subject of his Summa theologiae. It was chiefly St. Thomas who worked out the theory of theology as a science of revealed truth, carefully distinguishing it from philosophy. Since then the term as used by Christians of their doctrine has meant the methodical elaboration of the truths of divine revelation by reason enlightened by faith; briefly, the science (in some sense) of Christian faith.
Theology of revelation. Theology in the Christian context may be described as "faith seeking understanding" (see fides quaerens intellectum). It is a branch of learning in which a Christian, using his reason enlightened by divine faith, seeks to understand the mysteries of God revealed in and through history (Eph 1.9). It involves a methodical investigation, presupposes Christian faith, and always proceeds in the light of this faith to its goal of understanding. What it tries to understand is God's revelation of Himself and of His love for man—that is, the mysteries hidden in God but revealed to men through His Spirit (1 Cor 2.7–16). These mysteries, it is true, so excel the created intellect that even after being revealed and accepted by faith, they remain veiled in obscurity. "Nevertheless if reason enlightened by faith studies the mysteries in a serious, dedicated, and humble way, it does achieve … some understanding of them and a most profitable one" (Vatican I in H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum 3016). It is this understanding that theology strives to attain—a knowledge that is not faith but an understanding of faith, a knowledge that is not infused but acquired with human effort, a knowledge that differs radically from philosophical knowledge about God because its object is revealed mystery and because it engages not reason alone but reason enlightened by faith. It is an understanding that although imperfect will continue to grow until faith is dissolved in the vision of God Himself. "Let there be growth… and all possible progress in understanding, knowledge, and wisdom whether in single individuals or in the whole body, in each man as well as in the entire Church, according to the stage of their development" (Vatican I quoting Vincent of Lerins in ibid. 3020).
Source: revelation heard in faith. Theology therefore has its external source in divine revelation and its internal source in reason enlightened by divine faith. In revelation God speaks to man, personally inviting him to share His own divine life. From His transcendent world, God has broken into history to bring man, set on the path of sin and destruction, the good news of His love. This love He manifested by mighty deeds to save His people: divine interventions into history, whose meaning He revealed through Moses and the Prophets. To enable His people to hear His revealing word, He communicated the first beginnings of divine life by putting faith into their hearts, calling them interiorly as well as by external words and actions to respond to His love. As His design was to give Himself and His divine life completely to men, He became one of them in the Person of His Son, so that a man could be God, live the life of God in the flesh, and give perfect human expression in being, thought, word, and action to the mystery of His complete self-gift to men. Moreover, this self-gift of God, given to His people from outside them, was expressed in human writing composed under His inspiration from within His people as its own record of faith.
This revelation, consisting of both divine intervention and revealing word heard in faith, includes not only the ontological gift of divinity itself to human nature but also the definitive expression of this gift in its human dimensions in the word Incarnate. Here perhaps one has the fundamental reason why there can be no new revelation. The definitive Word of the Father had been spoken, and there was nothing more for the Father to say. He had only to send His Spirit so that His Word of life would live and grow in the hearts of men. Christ's own humanly fashioned knowledge of what He saw in the Father was God's own translation of His mystery into human concepts and language. To this man who is the revelation of the Father the whole of the Old Testament points. To this man as revealer of the Father the apostles give wit ness. And this apostolic witness to divine life given in Christ and through Him to all men has been handed over to the Church to proclaim, protect, and interpret.
This progressive revelation of God's Word in history constitutes an experience of faith that formed the people of God. This experience was relived by faith, enriched by reflection, formulated in human concepts, and affirmed in judgments that God inspired His human authors to write down in sacred books. The Apostles and disciples themselves in reflecting on the fullness of revelation in Christ came to understand better and to formulate more clearly under the light of His Spirit the meaning of what they had seen and heard and believed. Later articulation and understanding of what this revelation contained continued always to be grounded in and to be interpreted by the faith of the Apostles. This faith lives on in the Church, which continues to repeat, interpret, and further transpose it into the language and cultures and developed understandings of all peoples, calling them to the Father by the Spirit (see accommodation).
Tradition and magisterium. Although the revelation of God culminating in Christ was crystallized in writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the understanding that the apostolic community had of these writings was passed on to further generations in ways other than writing. These other ways are called tradition [see tradition (in theology)] and include the liturgy and customs of the Christian community by which the experience of faith—especially the paschal experience of the risen Lord—is passed on from the apostolic community to later ages. Although a good number of theologians think that at least some truths of revelation were passed on that are not contained in Scripture, others, such as J. Geiselmann, E. Ortigues, and G. Tavard, maintain that Scripture gives the content of tradition, whereas tradition provides the interpretation and mode of understanding according to which Scripture is received by postapostolic Christians. Thus tradition as a source of revelation for theology can never be separated from Scripture. Although distinct, they make up one authoritative source of revelation. And any progress in the understanding of revelation stems from both as they are united in the life of the Church.
Tradition represents the Church's continued possession and faithful transmission of the original experience of faith in God's Word, together with its progressive understanding and expression in the life of the Church. Tradition is a broader reality than the magisterium, or teaching authority of the church for the magisterium is only a part of tradition. It is an active element within tradition that not only pushes tradition forward but gives it authentic, even infallible, expression. Tradition belongs to the whole Church, to laity as well as to hierarchy. The same is true of theology, which is the ferment within tradition where both laity and clergy reflect on the truths of revelation as they have been progressively understood in the Church in order to achieve under the guidance of the magisterium an understanding that is fuller, more accurate, and more suited to the current age. Thus Scripture handed down in the Church and therefore as interpreted by tradition (which includes the magisterium) is the source from which theology receives the revelation given men in Christ.
Theology, then, is nothing but the effort of God's people, committed in faith to their Lord, trying to understand in a reflective and orderly way what has been revealed to them in Him. It is the endeavor of the Church to understand itself ever more fully as the sacrament of God's Word in the world and to express this understanding for itself and for its members. Theology is not the whole life of the Church, but the Church could not live and grow without theology. But just as God's revelation was not given all at once in history, but gradually until it reached its fullness and completeness in the risen Lord, so too the assimilation by His people of that revelation has been a gradual process conditioned by history, even after the definitive revelation in Christ. Similarly the assimilation of this revelation in an individual is a historical process beginning with personal commitment to God in faith. The commitment grows as the individual listens in faith to the Word of God in the Church, continually asking and trying to answer from the sources what it means, how it is understood and to be understood better, how it is lived and to be lived better in his community. This process of growth in understanding reaches its culmination only when the Word of God is given immediately to men in the beatific vision.
Theology as understanding the faith. Since Aristotle it has been customary to distinguish two operations of the human intellect; the first, called apprehension, corresponds to the question "What is it?" or "Why is it?" It grasps the meaning or reason or cause of a thing or of a truth and strives to conceive and formulate a definition or hypothesis about it. The second operation, called judgment, corresponds to the question "Is it so?" It considers the evidence, evaluates it, and finally affirms on the basis of evidence that "it is so" or "it is not so." Only in this second operation is there found properly human knowledge, for only in this operation is existence affirmed. understanding in the first operation spontaneously tends toward judgment, and judgment invites to further understanding because man naturally desires to understand better what he already knows to exist or to be true.
Both apprehension and judgment are concerned with existing reality or being. Just as the being that is the proportioned object of man's intellect is one, although it is composed of structure (essence) and its actuality (act of existence), so the act of human knowledge is one but is composed of apprehension (understanding) and an act of judgment, by which the understanding is known to be true. And it is one and the same being that is understood by apprehension and affirmed to be by judgment.
Understanding: First Operation of Human Intellect. All understanding takes place in the first operation of the mind. In trying to understand the mysteries believed by faith, the question is not whether the mysteries are true (Christians believe that) but why or how they are true. One strives for insight to conceive ways of understanding it as well as possible. Each new insight into the mystery, however, brings up the question "Is it a true insight?" And this question is answered only in a judgment based on sufficient evidence. If true, then further questions arise in the first operation of the mind, "How, why?" It is in this continued cyclic process that understanding grows. Understanding itself is the fruit of the first operation of the mind. It can be more or less adequate or complete, but of itself it is neither true nor false. Understanding is true or false only when in the second operation one affirms on sufficient evidence that it is so or not so. The second operation does not produce understanding but only decides whether understanding is true or not. Theology, of course, wants understanding that is true.
The distinction and connection of these two operations in theology are explained by St. Thomas Aquinas as follows:
[E]very activity is to be carried on in a manner consonant with its end. Theological discussion, however, can be ordered to a double end. Some discussions aim at resolving doubts as to whether a thing is so; and in this type of theological discussion, those authorities should be used who are accepted by those with whom one is discussing. But there is another type of discussion used by the masters in the schools that aims not at the removal of error but at the instruction of the listeners, that they may be led to an understanding of the truth in question; and in this type, one ought to employ reasons which penetrate to the roots of the truth and make known how the proposition is true; otherwise, if the master answers the question merely by appealing to authorities, the listener will be certain that the thing is so, but he will not have gained any knowledge or understanding, and will go away with nothing in his head. [Quodl. 4.9.3]
As will be seen, positive theology is concerned with the truth of understanding; speculative theology is concerned with understanding what is true. Even though God has revealed Himself to men in a way that surpasses any natural knowledge of God, since the mystery of God is never known in this life except through the mediacy of creatures, theological understanding will always be imperfect, analogical, and obscure. Because human understanding is conditioned by its history, lives in history, and grows in history, theological understanding too is historical, continually evolving and growing. Moreover, because human intelligence is dynamic and strives always to find some unity and order in what it knows, theological understanding will tend toward synthesis, even though any synthesis it achieves will itself be analogical, obscure, and evolving. But in spite of these limitations, such understanding is most fruitful and rewarding.
Conditions of Theological Understanding. Owing to the lack of proportion between man and God, theology can never arrive at intrinsic principles self-evident to men for understanding the mysteries—analytic principles that transcend the evolution of human understanding. Hence it does not have such principles or intrinsic reasons for demonstrating the truth of what it knows. Moreover, Jan. 8, 2002 it cannot conceive hypotheses that are clearly understood to be possible, since such hypotheses are also the product of human understanding of mysteries and so themselves are analogical and obscure.
Nevertheless, theology does attain truth. First of all, the sources of revelation as handed on by the Church contain many certain truths from which as premises theology can determine with certainty the truthfulness of theological conclusions. Second, the more fully the implications of any theological conception or hypothesis agree with all that the theologian knows from faith (analogy of faith) or other sources of knowledge, the more certain he can be of the truth of his hypotheses.
Levels of Understanding. As with all human knowledge, theology can know the same object better and better, and this evolution in no way denies the identity of the object or truth that is known. Unlike the natural sciences, which are ever closer approximations to truth and are never closed until the last measurement is in, theology begins with absolutely certain truths of faith, and, as understanding develops, it constantly adheres to the same truths. This evolution occurs in one's very way of understanding. For example, in reading a foreign language a person may understand the meaning of each word in a sentence but still not understand the meaning of the sentence. Or he may have some understanding of the every individual sentence in a paragraph and still not understand the meaning of the whole paragraph. In each rereading of the paragraph he brings questions about what he does not understand. Eventually he can understand the whole paragraph as a unity, seeing in one act of understanding the whole and all its parts in relation to the whole. It is the same thing he is understanding from start to finish, but his way of understanding has been changing from understanding one thing by itself to understanding several things together and finally understanding all together.
The understanding of revelation likewise evolves from one way of understanding (e.g., catechetical understanding) to a more exact way of understanding the same truths (with careful exegesis) to a way of understanding many truths together (in biblical themes, for example) to ever more exact and comprehensive ways of understanding discovered in positive and speculative and historical theology. Thus, understanding the faith can be pursued on different levels: e.g., catechetical, humanistic, scientific. The term "theology" has generally been reserved for the scientific level, but with the development of "college theology" at mid-20th century, it has been applied widely to the humanistic level.
Scientific theology takes a reflectively critical stance toward its work. It is usually divided into positive and speculative theology. Exegesis [see exegesis, biblical] as well as biblical, liturgical (see liturgy, articles on), conciliar, and kerygmatic theology refer to parts of, or approaches used in, this twofold division.
Positive theology. The total task of positive theology is to discover and explain the relation between the contemporary dogmatic-theological context and its sources in revelation. Its functions are (1) to discover the truths of revelation in their original historical contexts (exegesis), (2) to discover and explain the development of revelation itself within the whole context of the Bible (biblical theology), (3) to discover, determine, and explain the true development that has occurred in understanding these truths in history from the close of revelation to the present day, and (4) to further the true understanding of revelation thus far achieved in the contemporary dogmatic-theological context from further examination of its sources in history (3 and 4: dogmatic theology).
Thus, positive theology includes exegesis, Biblical theology, and dogmatic theology. Its method basically is historical. It employs scientific exegesis as well as analysis and comparison of texts and contexts in search of reasons verifiable in history that may be used to determine, account for, and further develop the contemporary understanding of revelation. The exegete is concerned with explaining with all the resources at his disposal the explicit meanings of texts in particular authors (scriptural, liturgical, patristic, conciliar, etc.). His question is: "What does this particular text or this particular book mean in its particular context?" The biblical theologian is concerned with the genesis and dialectical development of revelation as it comes to be expressed in the succeeding authors and books of Scripture and finds its goal and full meaning in Christ. The dogmatic theologian is concerned with the genesis and dialectical development of this understanding of revelation gradually unfolding in different successive contexts in the Church up to the present. From his faith he may know the direction in which this understanding is evolving; but he cannot chart its course a priori, because development often results from conflicts of opinion and is determined by contingent factors, such as something's having been overlooked.
Context. Diversity of contexts is a vital consideration in positive theology. Context itself involves what is over and beyond the text itself. It denotes "the remainder" that is pertinent to any statement—a somewhat indeterminate group of other statements, outlooks, attitudes, ways of conceiving things, which qualify, explain, and complement the particular statement under consideration. The context in which the positive theologian lives and therefore the one out of which he works is the contemporary dogmatic-theological context; that is, what is currently taught and understood in the Church, what is taken for granted in the faith of the Church, what is taught and learned in schools of theology, what is set forth in contemporary scriptural, liturgical, patristic, and conciliar studies, including what is pertinent in contemporary philosophy and science for the understanding of dogmatic and theological statements (e.g., for understanding K. Rahner's supernatural existential). In regard to this context, the dogmatic theologian has two functions in positive theology: (1) the understanding of the connection between the contemporary theological knowledge and its sources in revelation and (2) the further development of the contemporary dogmatic-theological context.
The work of positive theology thus evidently concerns history, which is its laboratory. But it goes beyond the historical as event or datum for the theologian approaches Scripture and tradition in the light of his faith. He accepts the statements of Scripture and the witness of tradition in the Church not merely as historical facts or events but as statements of truth, as God's word in the Church, as something not to be contradicted.
Transcending Particular Context. Truth is transcendent. Because truth is an unconditioned affirmation of being, it is not relative to or dependent on any finite subject who knows it. It is neither confined to the subject nor dependent on his knowing it. The very same truth can be known by many, or known by one and believed on his authority by another. Moreover, truth is in a sense independent of the context in which it was first uttered. For although a statement is never without a context and its meaning can be determined only by the context in which it is uttered, still once the meaning in its original context is determined, the same meaning, the same truth, can be expressed in another context in which understanding of the realities involved is much more developed. For example, the truth enunciated by Christ at the Last Supper, "This is my body," is the same truth that is expressed in terms of a more developed understanding of reality in another age by the Council of Trent, when it said that the whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the body of Christ and that this change is properly called transubstantiation.
It is precisely this transcendence of truth that grounds the possibility of the development of doctrine—a transference, a transposition, that takes truths in the sense that they have in one context (in one mode of apprehension, one set of images or concepts) and expresses the same truths, the same meanings, in another context wherein understanding has undergone development. An important fundamental task of the dogmatic theologian is to show how the truths that have been defined by the Church, the dogmas believed in the contemporary context, have evolved from their original expression in revelation (Pius XII; cf. H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum 3886): for example, how the truth that one confesses in the Credo at Mass, that the Son of God is consubstantial with the Father (originally defined at Nicaea I), is the same truth that is expressed, but less clearly, in the Scriptures; how the truth about the Trinity that one professes each Sunday in the Preface of the Mass, "unity in essence, distinction in Persons, and equality in majesty," is contained in the deposit of faith. In showing the relation between this contemporary expression of faith and its sources in revelation, the dogmatic theologian is elucidating in a meaningful way the content of the contemporary dogmatic-theological context.
Thematization. This process with which the dogmatic theologian is concerned is sometimes called the process of thematization. This means a transference from one type of apprehension and expression of truth to another type of apprehension and expression of the same truth. This process of itself neither changes the thing that is known nor does it make one's previous knowledge false, but it adds further knowledge, further clarification in a new mode of apprehension.
Thematization is a universal human phenomenon; it occurs in all the human sciences. Some obvious examples of this process are the doctor's examining his patient, the psychologist's examining his client, the judge's examining the accused. It is the same illness that the patient experiences and the doctor is investigating. The questions the doctor puts to the patient arise out of the context of the doctor's knowledge of medicine. As he listens to the patient describing his experience in the categories of common sense, the doctor interprets this description, translating and transposing it into the categories of medicine. The final result is that the doctor knows the illness of the patient better than the patient himself does. Evident here are two contexts: the experiential context of the patient expressed in the language of common sense, and the context of medical knowledge. The doctor must reconceive what is going on in the patient from the viewpoint of his own medical knowledge and translate this into the terms of his science. This example illustrates how one and the same reality and truths about the same reality can be transposed from one context and mode of apprehension to another. The positive dogmatic theologian studies this process as it is operative in the development of doctrine.
Contemporary Context: A Starting Point. Beginners normally start from the understanding of revelation that they have, usually from a simple statement of revealed truth as taught by the Church. Leading theologians today, such as K. Rahner and Y. M. J. Congar, are insistent on starting from the contemporary theological context. Rahner nearly always starts with an accurate, penetrating account of the current status of any doctrine he takes up for consideration. However, his concern usually is to develop further the contemporary context rather than to trace the genesis of its dogmas from their sources. Starting from the contemporary context in positive theology is recommended by Pius XII: "Together with the sources of positive theology God has given His Church a living teaching authority to make clear and explain what was left obscure in the deposit of faith and only present there implicitly… [Some mistakenly] use what is obscure to explain what is clear, as if the opposite procedure did not plainly recommend itself" (ibid. 3886).
Everyone starts with the understanding that he has, which is conditioned by the contemporary context. Insofar as the positive theologian is concerned with the contemporary context, he will return to the sources in order to understand better just where the turning points are in the process of development, and thus he may be saved from going down blind alleys. He then concentrates on these genetic moments to discover the elements of change in the apprehension and expression of the truth under consideration. After studying and comparing the differences (for example, the different modes of conceiving the divinity of the Son before Nicaea I), he then tries to account for these differences.
The Dialectical Element and True Development. The process he is studying is not one of pure development. For in the process there occur conflicts and oppositions, and here the dialectical element enters the process. For usually definitions of dogmas do not occur without condemnations of heresies; and these also form part of the history. Insofar as the theologian can find in the history itself the reason or norm for judging "this is true development and that is false," he is accomplishing his task of showing how the formulas employed in the definition have their foundation in the original sources. The theologian knows, of course, from the infallible teaching of the Church that later developments that are defined as revealed are contained in the deposit of faith. But he cannot be content with authority. His task is to show how the doctrine is contained in the original sources, not just to agree with authority. And he fulfills this task only insofar as his study of history reveals reasons and norms for judging the true development. Insofar as the dialectical element, the conflict between position and counterposition, reveals an element of aberration in the counterposition, the theologian can provide from history itself an objective criterion of judgment by which he can pass from mere history to doctrine. A good example of this passage from history to doctrine is an essay of A. Grillmeier, SJ, "Die theologische und sprachliche Vorbereitung der Christologischen Formel von Chalkedon," in Das Konzil von Chalkedon (Würzburg 1951) 1:1–242. Thus history provides the laboratory in which the theologian is able to give an account of the true development of doctrine, in which he can study how the human mind under the light of faith has struggled to give more exact expression to its increased understanding of the sources of revelation.
Reading the Text. An important caution for the positive theologian is not to read anything into the relevant historical text that is not there explicitly. He must examine each text in its own context to determine what its author explicitly intended to say. It seems he should not be concerned with what is implicit in the text for what is implicit for the interpreter may not have been implicit in the mind of the original author. Moreover, what is implied will come out in subsequent developments. Unless the theologian gets back to the thought as it was expressed prior to its development, how it was conceived before its explicitation or thematization, he can never account for the development. Thus, in achieving an understanding of how the contemporary context is reduced to its sources in revelation, the positive theologian can enrich and clarify contemporary understanding and formulation of revelation.
In attending carefully to what is said and to the context in which it is said, the dogmatic theologian, like the doctor or psychologist, will be bringing all the knowledge he has to bear on understanding what is said, reconceiving it in terms of contemporary theological knowledge, checking to see whether this interpretation takes into account all the evidence down to the least pertinent detail. If so, then he can conclude that the contemporary interpretation is correct and faithful to the sources, that this understanding is a true development of the understanding expressed in the sources.
Developing Contemporary Context. The second task of the dogmatic theologian is to develop further the contemporary theological context. His questions usually arise out of this context. That is, from inadequacies and obscurities that appear in it from his study of the sources or from contemporary scriptural, patristic, or conciliary studies or from confrontation with the contemporary human sciences. He knows that subsequent restatements of the truths contained in Scripture and tradition in terms of the developed understanding achieved by philosophy and science frequently fail to recapture the whole truth originally stated. In the course of controversy and development the new categories in which the original truth is reexpressed, especially if they are abstract, leave behind some of the richness of meaning contained in the original sources—for example, in the more primitive and picturesque images and metaphors of the biblical world. Thus there can be aspects of the truth that have been pushed to the periphery in theological and dogmatic development and perhaps forgotten (though never really lost). These aspects can be brought to light again and given their proper perspective in the contemporary context. In fact, by serious study of the sources the theologian will always find new light, because these sources are inexhaustible.
If he finds, with the help of contemporary biblical and other studies, certain elements or aspects of the truth that may not fit in well with the contemporary conception of the truth, even elements that have been overlooked in the course of theological development, then he will be led to reconsider this conception, to probe more deeply into the analogies that have been used, and even to go on to fashion new concepts to express the new insights that he has won. One can see this process at work, for example, in the writings of K. Rahner (e.g., on monogenism, on concupiscence, on death), in the works of B. Lonergan[e.g., on the consciousness of Christ: De Verbo Incarnato (2d ed. Rome 1964) 267–310], and in other contemporary theologians.
Thus, the positive theologian is concerned with understanding the truths of revelation as this understanding has developed and has been verified in history. In this process, he arrives at some understanding of the mysteries, at insights with their conceptualizations in which he understands many things and many truths not separately but together.
Speculative theology. Whereas positive theology is concerned with understanding the connection or relation between the present dogmatic-theological context and its origins in revelation, speculative theology is concerned with this context in relation to its goal of understanding, namely, a comprehensive understanding of the truths of revelation in an ordered synthesis. It pursues this goal (1) by comparing the mysteries with things, laws, and relationships that are naturally known and with which the mysteries have a certain similarity or proportion (analogia ); (2) by comparing the mysteries among themselves in order to understand better their interrelationship, coherence, and order; and (3) by reflecting on the connection of the various mysteries and their implications with the supernatural end of man (cf. Vatican I in H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum 3016). The synthesis envisaged here is a comprehensive, scientific synthesis of revealed truths. It should be noted, however, that the theological syntheses, which are nothing but intelligible patterns of understanding, can be and have been achieved in categories other than those of scientific speculative theology.
Biblical Syntheses. For example, a biblical theologian can gather the events and truths of Scripture into an intelligible pattern by using biblical themes or categories; for example, as W. Eichrodt has done under the category of covenant for the OT or as S. Lyonnet has done for Pauline soteriology. Such syntheses can be very important and useful for understanding Scripture, and they help to put all its parts into perspective even, perhaps, for the exegete. Although a biblical synthesis in its very intention and organization goes beyond the expressed thought of any biblical author (and in this regard it is no longer biblical), it is still limited to the type of understanding possessed by the biblical writers.
It is a fact that the dynamism of the Christian mind manifested in history pushed beyond biblical categories to express more accurately and with fuller understanding the same truths that are expressed in the Bible. Even within the Bible, there is noticeable a movement that goes beyond mere description of concrete events and actions to more abstract expressions. This is true especially in the later sapiential books, where, for example, the description of God in action, image, symbol, and metaphor is transposed to a type of conceptualization that is more abstract and analogical; here, for example, God is called eternal, almighty, omniscient, etc. The thinking man, as he reads the Bible, comes face to face with questions that cannot be answered in the descriptive categories of the Bible; for example, the early Christological controversies could not be resolved within biblical categories but demanded clearer, more precise, and even more abstract expression of the mystery of Christ in such concepts as consubstantiality, Person, nature, and operation.
Humanistic Syntheses. Theological synthesis can also be achieved in contemporary humanistic categories, such as the whole Christ, the people of God, salvation history, and Christ the sacrament of encounter with God, and also possibly within the categories of phenomenology. Such syntheses are also important and useful, especially since they are made in terms more familiar and more readily understood by the contemporary educated man who is not a scientific speculative theologian. Moreover, such syntheses carry within them something of the power of concrete symbol and metaphor that are effective in moving men to religious response. This type of synthesis is of great importance in the aggiornamento of the Church, in keeping its kerygma continually up to date in a language that is meaningful to modern man. Humanistic syntheses, whether biblical or contemporary (and much of the biblical is still contemporary), are the work of intelligence, even specialized intelligence, operating in the concrete world of common sense. These syntheses are achieved in language that can be used in preaching the word of God. Thus they are kerygmatic in character rather than scientifically speculative.
Franciscan Synthesis. The synthesis achieved in the Augustinian tradition, especially by St. Bonaventure and the Franciscan school, might be described as affectively contemplative or mystical rather than scientifically speculative. At the root of the reaction in medieval augus tinianism against the use of Aristotle in theology was the rejection of the role of any intrinsic analogy in theology. For this school human reason was competent in regard to terrestrial things but not for spiritual and eternal realities. Science and philosophy could not enter internally into a theological elaboration of revealed truth; they were useful only as a propaedeutic for sharpening and training the mind or for providing extrinsic illustrations to explain the biblical images and symbols borrowed from the created world. There was no possibility for the human mind, even enlightened by faith, to ascend from creatures by an analogy of proportionality to some understanding of the divine mysteries; only the Scriptures and their interpretation by the Fathers and the holy men of God read and studied under the divine illumination given through the infused gifts of wisdom and understanding could manifest the true value and usefulness that creatures have. Whatever is true in philosophy is to be found in Scripture. Thus theology is a work of divine illumination rather than a work of reason enlightened by faith. In this tradition theology is primarily practical and affective rather than speculative; it is mystical in its mode rather than rational.
Scientific Speculative Synthesis. Each synthesis has its own special value in bringing to light the riches of revelation. If the theologian considers only those that are humanistic or phenomenological, he is neglecting a great deal of understanding of revelation in his work. Synthesis in scientific speculative theology means a systematic understanding of the truths of revelation achieved by defining as accurately as possible the (quasi) reasons of these truths and by comparing them with one another in order to understand them in an ordered unity coherent with but not measured by a reasoned conception of reality.
In this part of theology, reason enlightened by faith is used not to demonstrate the truths of revelation but to show how these truths fit coherently with or flow from a hypothesis that is postulated (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1a, 32.1 ad 2). The goal or purpose of any synthesis is not certitude but understanding; and in scientific synthesis it is the understanding of what is already established with more or less certitude in positive theology but in a unified way that is consciously consistent with the nature and laws of being and the principles of its affirmation in truth.
The normal way of coming to this understanding is from the analogy of nature and from the internal coherence of the mysteries themselves. Without a naturally known term of comparison, the speculative theologian does not begin with his feet on the ground and, in applying the analogue to the mystery, can never find the point at which the analogy is transcended for analogy involves a twofold ignorance. One knows something that is similar and at the same time dissimilar; but he does not know either what the dissimilar element is or how significant it might be. The danger is in not paying enough attention to the dissimilar element, which can be recognized for what it is not by any appeal to a priori principles but by testing each point in the sources of revelation and by comparing it with the other mysteries. Whatever in the analogy or in the theory developed from analogy is not coherent with the understanding of revelation witnessed to in tradition becomes suspect.
Still it is only by locating a naturally known term of comparison, conceiving it adequately, and exploiting it fully, applying it exactly to all the data in the sources, that one can understand where the analogue is transcended—where the mystery is. Hence, although the validity of any understanding of mystery as it is achieved in speculative theology depends on the validity of the knowledge of nature that is used as an analogue and on the transcendent range of the human intellect, it depends principally on enduring contact with the sources of revelation that are the ultimate criterion of its truth. Thus, it is not surprising that the scientific synthesis in speculative theology that came into existence with the acceptance and use in theology of a philosophy of nature and a philosophy of being lost its vitality in the measure in which it lost contact with the sources of revelation.
Role of Analogy. From experience and reflective introspection, one learns that the proper and proportionate object of the human intellect is the intelligible in the sensible. However, as intellect, it is not limited in its range to this object, as is evidenced by the fact that man desires to know everything, not just material reality. And in pursuing a knowledge of things transcending its proper object, the human intellect proceeds by way of analogy with what it knows properly. Because effects are similar to their causes, the knowledge of the material world can be a stepping-stone to an analogical knowledge of its cause. Whereas the medium through which the philosopher pursues his knowledge of God is the material world of creation, the medium through which the theologian pursues his knowledge is the revelation God has given of Himself in history. Since God is simple and uncaused, there is no real order of reasons or causes in Him. But there can be an order in man's analogical knowledge insofar as one truth man believes or knows about God can be seen to be the reason in man's understanding of another truth that he believes or knows. Thus, the human mind can perceive in some fashion how the truths it believes or knows about God can be related to each other in man's understanding from the analogy of the order of causes that it knows in material creation.
Order in Understanding. For example, in one's study of God, when he discovers some analogous conception from which all else in his knowledge of God follows, he can understand this as nature or essence and construct an order in his analogical understanding of the attributes of God for essence in creatures is that from which the properties of being flow. Likewise, in the study of the Trinity one believes that there are in the one God two processions, three Persons, four relations, etc. Although in God Himself there is no priority whatever of substance over procession or relation or Person, nevertheless in one's analogical conception of these truths there is a priority such that the analogical conception of distinct Persons presupposes in human understanding a conception of opposed relations, which in turn presuppose intelligible emanations or processions.
Thus, by the hypothesis of intelligible emanations in God, the theologian can come to understand something of the implications of his own understanding of the Trinity and through this some understanding of the Trinity itself; that is, how the truths he believes can be understood in some way as a unity of truths, reflecting dimly the simple understanding that God has of Himself. A good illustration of this speculative procedure in regard to the Trinity is found in P. McShane, SJ, "The Hypothesis of Intelligible Emanations in God," Theological Studies 23 (1962) 545–568; in regard to original sin and the order of grace, see the synthesis proposed by R. J. Pendergast, SJ, "The Supernatural Existential, Human Generation, and Original Sin," Downside Review 82 (1964) 1–24; on the theory itself of speculative theology, see B. Lonergan, SJ, De constitutione Christi (3d ed. Rome 1961) 42–56.
The role of analogy is at the heart of scientific speculative theology. A hypothesis developed carefully on the basis of analogy can attain the status of theory if all the conclusions that can be drawn from the hypothesis agree with everything one believes or knows from other sources. Theory can sometimes even attain the status of truth, if in the judgment of wisdom made by the Church it is witnessed to as a true development of the understanding of revelation; for example, the basic theorem of the supernatural seems to be the object of this witness by the Church in Vatican Council I (H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum 3015–20).
Primary Synthetic Principle. Scientific syntheses in regard to the whole of revelation have rarely appeared in history and began only in the Middle Ages. Such syntheses stem from analogical conceptions or hypotheses that serve as primary principles for composing the truths of revelation into a pattern of unified understanding. For example, "the whole Christ," conceived after the analogy of the human organism, was suggested as such a principle by Cassiodorus and developed to a certain extent by Robert of Melun, Robert Kilwardby, Odo Rigaldus, William of Melitona, Gabriel Biel, and Peter of Ailly; it has been taken up again in great detail by É. Mersch, "L'Objet de la théologie et le Christus totus, " Recherches de science religieuse 26 (1936) 129–157. The conception of all revealed truth in terms of "things and signs" suggested by Augustine was taken up by Peter Lombard. The conception of God as alpha and omega, principle and end, was the fundamental synthetic principle for Albert the Great and his disciple Ulric of Strassburg. St. Thomas Aquinas invented a term to express the fundamental analogical conception underlying his synthesis: God as revealable (Deus in quantum revelabile ), a conception that is not at all the same as the later Thomistic conception, "virtually revealed" (virtualiter revelatum ). Perhaps no on has explored the meaning of revelabile in St. Thomas better than É. Gilson in Le Thomisme (5th ed. Paris 1944) 8–41. [Cf. G. Van Ackeren, SJ, Sacra doctrina: The Subject of the First Question of the Summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas (Rome 1952) 110–112.] Thomas's revelabile
has never been seriously challenged, perhaps because relatively little attention has been paid to it. K. Rahner's outline of the dogmatic synthesis of theology [ Theological Investigations, v. 1, tr. C. Ernst (Baltimore, Md. 1961) 19–37] is a thought-provoking attempt. It draws on M. heidegger's existentialism for its categories, and its basic theorem seems to be that all truths in theology can be understood in their unity only in terms of the humanity of the Word Incarnate, the revealer of the Father, and His personal encounter with men. Rahner's projected synthesis seems to be a kind of theological anthropology, which has not been worked out as yet. Whether this conception is a further development of St. Thomas's revelabile remains to be investigated.
Living Contact with the Sources. In any case, the scientific speculative theologian must constantly remember that revelation was not given merely to satisfy man's mind but to enable him to live ever more fully the life of God given in Christ. This revelation has been given in concrete terms that engage the whole of man's being. Revelation is not a theory or a system, and the facts and truths of revelation do not fall easily into systematic order. Theories and systems, however, are unavoidable means by which the human mind extends its grasp upon reality, but they bear within themselves the limitations of an intellect that must use abstraction to progress in understanding. And something of the reality of the concrete existent is lost in the process, something of the richness and variety and depth of reality is compromised when put into systems that after all are constructs of the human mind; and hence any speculative synthesis that does not live within the sources of revelation is doomed to failure.
Just as man's life is not one type of activity but a composite of activities, more meaningful as they are distinguished and specialized and then unified in operation, so theology is not just one type of understanding (e.g., scientific) but a composite of various types of understanding that are distinguished and specialized but also unified in mutual interdependence in the accomplishment of its total task. Hence for the biblical scholar to say to the speculative theologian that he has no need of him is as harmful to theology as for the speculative theologian to take this attitude toward the exegete or biblical theologian [B. Lonergan, Divinarum personarum conceptionem analogicam evolvit (Rome 1957) 37–38].
Comparison of positive and speculative theology. In brief, then, positive theology discovers, analyzes, and determines as precisely as possible the content of revelation by investigating the analyses and consequent understanding that have been achieved and verified in history. Speculative theology, however, aims at achieving an ordered exposition of whatever understanding of the truths of revelation has been discovered and demonstrated (with varying degrees of certitude) in positive theology. Moreover, in its return to the sources, positive theology returns to the primitive, descriptive, and metaphorical way of understanding found in Scripture and moves to the more developed way of understanding achieved by insights verified in the witness of tradition. The movement of knowledge here is historical, moving from what is first known historically to the unknown, from what comes first in the acquisition of knowledge, from what is more obvious and manifest (prius quoad nos ) to what is first in the order of being and intelligibility (prius quoad se ).
For example, from the titles and description of Christ and His work in the Scriptures (descriptive understanding), positive theology finds in history the emergence of a new type of understanding of the constitution of Christ and His achievement in terms of Person, consubstantiality, natures, operations, acts, and effects, together with their mutual relations—an understanding confirmed by the witness of Christian tradition. These insights give a more accurate and deeper understanding of the unity, duality, and activity of Christ expressed in the witness of the Church and provide theological principles for understanding the teachings of Scripture in a unified, synthetic manner.
Speculative theology, however, follows a different order. It begins not with what is most manifest in the Scriptures but with what is deepest in the constitution of Christ Himself, the personal union of natures in the Word wherein everything in Christ and all that He does as related in Scripture finds its unity in being, its ontological order, and its explanation. Thus, whereas positive theology may be said to begin from Scripture, speculative theology ends in the Scripture. Enduring contact with the sources of revelation is the only way to assure that what is understood in synthesis is really the same truths that are contained in Scripture and tradition, and not theological speculations that have been divorced from their anchor in revealed truth.
Is theology practical? Because revelation is not merely a word about Someone but a word from Someone to someone heard in faith, a transforming salvific word, understanding the word involves understanding the response and transformation called forth and expected by the word. God Himself is not only the object moving the intellect through the external medium of revelation and the internal light of faith to some understanding of His mysteries in truth. He is also the supreme personal good that imperatively calls man's whole being to personal fulfillment in Him. By understanding this truth, the intellect inspires, illuminates, and directs the will toward total commitment to God in love. As the Word sent from the Father breathes forth love, so the Word sent into the mind of man breathes forth, as it were, the life of the Spirit. It is the Word of God that establishes the authentic Christian "can," "ought," and "may" in answer to the question "What must I do that I may enter eternal life?" Hence, theology, the understanding of the Word, must unfold the Christian imperative, the urgency of love (caritas Christi urget nos ) to be incarnated in every human activity. It must lay out the pattern according to which the inner dynamic of the Christian commitment must work to assume mankind (individual, society, culture) into the current of God's salvific love—a work primarily achieved through participation in Christ's sacramental actions in the liturgy.
Practical theology (moral, ascetical, liturgical, practical), a poor term to describe what is meant, is concerned with the total response expected of man in hearing the word of salvation. It is not actually distinct from positive and speculative theology. In positive theology, faith uses historical reason to clarify the meaning as heard in the faith of the Church; in speculative theology, reason enlightened by faith endeavors to grasp a fuller understanding of this word and its expected response in the heart of man. Practical theology is that aspect of both positive and speculative theology that is directly concerned with man's response to God's revelation in full Christian living. Unfortunately, in the centuries following the Middle Ages it became separated from positive and speculative theology, and only since the 20th century has it been revitalized through a liturgical, kerygmatic, and pastoral renaissance.
The study of total Christian response to revelation as unfolded in individual, community, and liturgical action, if it remains on the level of principles and general applications, is referred to sometimes as speculatively practical theology. The existential engagement of this understanding of the word in directing human activity in one's personal life in community is called the practically practical aspect of theology—a work of prudence, according to St. Thomas, whose theory of scientific theology did not explicitly extend to the understanding of human action in its concrete individuality.
With the development of historical consciousness and the consequent specialization of intelligence with respect to concrete historical reality, modern theology demands not only a theology of salvation history (which of course is made up of concrete events and acts) but a theology of existential Christian living (which is actualized only in the concrete Christian response). Here one becomes concerned with theology as a rationally developed Christian wisdom, which is not really possessed unless it manifests itself in wise Christian activity. A man may know what Christian wisdom requires of him in a concrete situation, but his wisdom breaks down unless he actually follows its direction. Practical theology therefore is an understanding of how the Incarnation of the Word is to be extended in space and time through individual and community action.
See Also: analogy of faith; analogy, theological use of; doctrine, development of; methodology (theology); mystery (in theology); reasoning, theological; revelation, theology of; scholasticism; symbol in revelation; theological terminology; theology, articles on; theology, history of; theology, influence of greek philosophy on.
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