Resources for Doing Theology
When we talk about biblical authority and similar constructs, what we're talking about are the resources for doing theology. Theology is, of course, in simple terms, thinking about God. So, how do we think about God and the things of God? Where do we go for the sources of doing theology. Perhaps the word authority is inappropriate. When I spoke of the Quadrilateral in an earlier post I was thinking in terms of the resources and perhaps the context in which we do theology. Yesterday I posted a piece from Disciples theologian Joe Jones. Jones has questions about the role of reason and experience, for the very reasons that Allan Bevere raised -- whose reason and experience. Now he doesn't discount reason and experience, but he wants to place them not as a source of theology, but as a process (reasoning) and a context (experience).
So what are the sources for doing theology?
Jones suggests four -- Scripture (of course), Church tradition, and added to these two are contemporary learning; as well as past and current cultures. These latter two are similar to the prior suggestions, but they are less individualistic.
I actually like this, and I think this is helpful in the current debates. As we think about God and about the things of God, contemporary learning -- especially science -- must have a role. Culture also plays a role -- not as an authority -- but as a resource. The question is, how do these all fit together?
On "Contemporary Learning," Jones notes that learning is a better word than knowledge, because this "source is wide and fluid in content." As a source, it is subject to change, because what we know today might be reformulated tomorrow. So, how does this work?
As for human culture -- this "includes all the ways in which cultures or social worlds, with their structures, relations and relationships, powers, values, meanings, languages, traditions of practices, and artifacts, shape our experience and lives." (Jones, Grammar of Theology, p. 121). Culture, he says "may not play an extraordinarily large role in the execution of the task of systematic theology," but it should play a large role in the church's witness.
I'd like to throw out for discussion these two suggested sources -- learning and culture. How might they help us understand and move forward in the present debates!
Theologizing cannot be done apart from experience, reasoning, and imagination, but these are not in and of themselves sources of theological judgment and affirmation. If experience is the ubiquitous medium of theology, then reasoning and imagination are the indispensable tools of theology's use of the sources. (Joe Jones, The Grammar of Theology, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002, p. 119).
So what are the sources for doing theology?
Jones suggests four -- Scripture (of course), Church tradition, and added to these two are contemporary learning; as well as past and current cultures. These latter two are similar to the prior suggestions, but they are less individualistic.
I actually like this, and I think this is helpful in the current debates. As we think about God and about the things of God, contemporary learning -- especially science -- must have a role. Culture also plays a role -- not as an authority -- but as a resource. The question is, how do these all fit together?
On "Contemporary Learning," Jones notes that learning is a better word than knowledge, because this "source is wide and fluid in content." As a source, it is subject to change, because what we know today might be reformulated tomorrow. So, how does this work?
For something to claim us as learning, it must be embedded in communal practices of (a) disciplined inquiry and investigation, (b) procedures of discussion and argument, and (c) criteria of judgment about subject matter. Such learning includes the natural sciences as well as the social sciences and humanities. And the so called facts and truths of such learning are also quite fluid and revisable, and the practices of identifying such facts and truths are embedded in concrete social traditions and discourses. (Jones, Grammar of Theology, p. 119).
As for human culture -- this "includes all the ways in which cultures or social worlds, with their structures, relations and relationships, powers, values, meanings, languages, traditions of practices, and artifacts, shape our experience and lives." (Jones, Grammar of Theology, p. 121). Culture, he says "may not play an extraordinarily large role in the execution of the task of systematic theology," but it should play a large role in the church's witness.
I'd like to throw out for discussion these two suggested sources -- learning and culture. How might they help us understand and move forward in the present debates!
Comments
That being said, it seem to me that what you call theology, and what Jones described as being composed of or sourced by Scripture and Church Tradition, can be re-termed more simply as "how do we know about matters of divinity," and Jones’ answer is apparently, from Scripture and and Church Tradition. (Roman Catholics would also include within the later source the "teaching Magisterium of the Church.")
If 'theology' is the work of discerning things divine, are we limited to Scripture and Tradition?
Isn't Scripture merely previous prophetic revelation which has been adopted by Church Tradition as authentically inspired? In this sense isn't Scripture just more Church Tradition?
Setting that aside, I turn to the question of whether 'experience' is a part of theology or merely a background on which we work out theology.
It seems to me that experience must be an integral part of theology. For me theology is not an abstract work of the imagination. That would make it an exercise, a game. For imagination to evolve into theology it must encompass experience, it must be part of our experience of reality. One must not only be able to read about things divine but one must actually experience them. Whether through an appreciation of the Divine expressing itself through the mundanely natural world or expressing itself through the miraculous, or expressing itself through personal private revelation, one's actual experience of Divine is critical to the one's theological efforts.
Even Scripture acknowledges time and again the critical role which experience plays in the history of the Judeo-Christian religion's relationship with God. God intervenes repeatedly in history, elevating the theological discussion from one of mere abstraction to actual experience. Scripture affirms that experience of the Divine counts.
In contemporary times we want to eliminate the Scriptural reliance on the miraculous, but in doing so we ignore the message - that miracles count and believers are right to look to them for confirmation of the divine. We risk rendering theology (and religion itself) irrelevant - if it is a mere abstract and imaginative exercise - it is surely something we can do without. If theology does not have an experiential component, it becomes a mere competitor for the human imagination and thus nothing more than an amusement.
John
Joe Jones isn't limiting the sources of doing theology to Scripture and Tradition. What he's doing is adding in learning and culture -- which he believes are more helpful in doing theology than are experience and "reason." Both of which are not easily defined.
Miracles become the difficult issue for us. In Acts, for instance, miracles serve as a means of confirming the message. Miracles don't just happen willy nilly, they happen for a purpose. But Science (contemporary learning) raises questions that must be addressed if we are going to think about God and God's interactions with the world.
I was responding to: "Now he doesn't discount reason and experience, but he wants to place them not as a source of theology, but as a process (reasoning) and a context (experience)."
Moreover, I am not suggesting miracles happen willy nilly - of course they happen for a purpose; and they are recorded in Scripture for a purpose.
And of course miracles present difficulties for us. They should challenge us.
We make a mistake though, when we read of them in Scripture and think that with our science we are clever enough not to be taken in by faux miraculous. We scoff at the naivety of the Scripture witnesses, writers, and their immediate audiences. I think we fail to credit them with due intelligence - they knew they were witnessing something that defied the laws of nature as they perceived them. Certainly they were occasionally taken in by charlatans; we are not immune (some would point to GWB others to Obama as immediate proof).
But if we accept the truth of Scripture we have to discern what that truth is. We can get bogged down in details or we can look at overall themes. You could argue with Gary all day about whether Lazarus was raised from the dead or whether there was some scientific explanation for what happened.
Instead, we can look at the same story and see "Miracle" writ large. Scripture preserved the story of this miracle for a purpose - and I am certain that the purpose was not to raise questions about the authenticity of the event or to scoff at the naivety of the witnesses. The theological purpose I discern is that God wants us to accept that truth that God intervened in what the witnesses thought was a normal, mundane natural process (the death of a human being) and the lesson for them and for us is that God will intervene again.
The theological lesson from the miracle is not that we have better science today, but that God is active in human history and is prepared to break the rules (of nature and history) when it suits God's purposes and that purpose may be to stir us from our unbelief.
John
The way my simple mind understands this is scripture is the divinely revealed word of God. The apostles had the authority to teach "as from God" and therefor their teaches are lifted up with Jesus. For me, scripture stands alone and is superior. I also worry when we start to discount scripture, we run the risk of pulling away cornerstones. ie: Can a man really raise up from the dead after 3 years? But as Paul says, if Jesus didn't rise than our faith is useless.
How does tradition come in? Clearly the Bible does not spell out every piece of doctrine. How many times to have communion, baptism, etc.. this may be considered "disputable matters" as Paul says. However, there are meaty issues like the Trinity which isn't spelled out in scripture, but lifted up tradition.
Experience.. to me is the personal application. We all come on this blog to share our personal experience. It makes faith real and personal. However, I am very cautious to lift up my experience to trump the above matters... which seems to be the case now.
Culture.. thats the context we apply the above. Take slave/master verses, clearly we don't have that system today. We don't throw out the scripture as irrelevant, but rather apply it to our current culture. But I have VERY strong feelings about letting culture again trump the above!
-chuck
The point of all of this is to say that we don't do theology in a vacuum.
We say -- how do you know about God? Well, as a Christian I start with Scripture, but how do I read this and understand this? Remember, the Bible was written over a course of maybe a 1000 years, with the most recent additions made 1900 years ago. These documents were passed around and along from one generation to another, before finally being brought together in a whole.
This isn't the Koran, which by Muslim tradition was delivered to one person? Nor is it the Book of Mormon. This is a book that has a long history.
As Christians we receive it as revelation, but we read it in a larger context that includes church tradition -- a tradition that defined the parameters of Scripture and defined doctrines like the Trinity. We read it in the light of learning and we read it in the light of culture -- both past and present.
You bring up slavery. Paul essentially tells slaves to obey their masters. What does that mean? How is it authoritative? I don't think you can simply reapply it and say employees, follow directions. This is about slavery, something that was considered normal in that era. Today, we would see it not only as abnormal but immoral. So, how do we read this? Was Paul wrong? Was Paul speaking for God?
It's complicated, so we have to reconsider what we know and believe from one generation to the next.
I like Karl Barth's notion that Scripture is the Witness to God's Revelation in Jesus Christ.
Culture is the context in which the message is put forth. The message must take into account the limits which culture attempts to place on the message, both in terms of ethical barriers to be challenged, as well as communcational filters through which the message has to be strained to reach an attentive audience.
So while a cultural may present for example new social justice targets towards which the message needs to be interpreted and redirected, the culture should not change the core content of the message (i.e., love, forgiveness, healing, service, and sacrifice). Think here about liberation theology - a new adaptation of the message which would have been meaningless in Greco-Roman culture.
At the same time culture presents a medium which must be taken into account and for which the message needs to be adapted, so as to be audible by the people. For example, a Roman Catholic mass presented in Latin and in 15th century trappings in 1965 may not appear relevant to the vast majority of Roman Catholic adherents. Attendance at mass becomes a passive activity and is no longer active liturgy.
So today Christianity presents its message in contemporary music styles and with more intensive use of modern audio visual media.
But through all, the core of the message remains consistent.
John