Theo 2 Unit I:1 Introduction to Theological Methodologies – 1 (Development)
1. In the history of the development of theology, there has been a movement from the world of common sense (the world of Scripture and tradition) to the world of theory (characteristic of philosophical theology) to the world of interiority (characteristic of the modern theology) to the non-foundational postmodern, postcolonial theologies.
2. The journey of faith from the biblical times to different cultural and linguistic societies demanded some theological and dogmatic process.
3. The dogmatic process or the Church’s understanding of revealed truth reveals an inner dynamic of human intelligence that demands an examination of the methods by which theology took different shapes and functions.
4. Method refers to a way of doing something (derived from the Greek metá, “after” and hodós, “way, movement, journey”).
Method is simply a tool, for the study of a subject.
5. Methodology is the philosophy of or justification for using a particular study method. It is
a philosophy of one’s approach to a subject or a problem or a question.
6. Methodology requires a critical attitude to the study of a subject as term suggests (method + logos (reason). One needs to develop critical questions if one really wants to understand a subject. Otherwise our knowledge would remain mere information borrowed or copied from somewhere.
7. The basic methodological problem for the theologian is how to differentiate the various theological development of theological process starting from common sense to critical theory, from substance to subjectivity; that is a critical attempt to know what we are doing.
8. Theology in modern times has become very conscious of itself and sees the need of exploring the subject more thoroughly. Methodological understanding of theology makes us more disciplined, less biased or ideologically driven. Methodology is the scientific aspect of theology. Contemporary theology problematizes the place of theory in theology.
9. In early Christian theology Platonism played a vital part not only in terms of structure but also very much of its soul. Justin Martyr, even regarded the Platonists as unknowing proto-Christians. It is utterly impossible to remove Platonism from Christianity without tearing Christianity to pieces.
10. Plato understood the self as divided between body and soul, with the soul more closely related to goodness and truth and body with carnality. This type of understanding human self clarifies later Christianity’s soul-body dualism. Plato’s theory of forms prefigured the Christian understanding of heaven as a perfect world, of which the physical realm is a mere imitation.
Both worldviews assumed the existence of absolute and unchanging reality truth.
11. Since the time of Augustine, theology continued to develop along the lines of Neoplatonism, a modern coinage to designate the philosophy developed by Plotinus and his disciples in the third century AD that offered a comprehensive understanding of the universe and the individual human being’s place in it.
12. There has been existing a dispute between Plato and Aristotle over whether or not the objects of mindful consciousness (abstract concepts, numbers, geometrical properties, and so forth) are ontologically prior to the physical realm and the neo Platonists agreed with Plato that mind exists prior to Physical reality (i.e., Mind over Matter) which became part of the Augustinian tradition later taken over by the Reformers of the 16th century.
13. Medieval Catholic theology after St. Thomas Aquinas found the Aristotelian notion of science as a sure foundation of knowledge and claimed universality and immutability of it until the coming of modern science. Intellectual revolution of the 18th century (Age of enlightenment) challenged all established ways of knowing, replacing them with probability and imagination which need no sure foundations of knowledge.
14. Modern science, as it refuses to accept sure foundations and claims every knowledge nothing more than probability, is concerned with the changeable and the contingent, with movement, with the particular, with what exists in fact, with the actual existence of human beings, instead of the ideal being of humanity.
15. The historical consciousness emerging from 16th century onwards was an early-modern paradigm shift (see The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962) pioneered by Christian scholars which led theology to shift from considering human as a substance to a consideration of human as subject.
16. The current theological concern has been more with the historical and concrete, with salvation history, than with universal conception of theories.
17. Contemporary theological problem is how to enlarge theological theories so as to make room for modern developments in the areas of science, technology and communication.
18. In this quest a number of theologians argue that theology is a continuous journey, an exploration to an ever new future, to the infinite space of human experience, never hoping to settle down to the past territories.
19. Though theology has been considered as Queen of Sciences in the mediaeval period, there are differences that sets apart theological method from scientific method. According to Paul Allen, author of the masterly work, Theological Method: A Guide for the Perplexed, (2012) one thing that sets apart theological method from scientific method is that the sources of theology are fluid, historically conditioned and has particular interpretive rules of individuals and traditions. Theology’s universality is not on account of a set of tasks as in science, but rather on account of its object - God.
20. However, as in science theological knowledge claims are provisional, even if the faith which is the basis of those claims is not. Theological method develops in a continuous dialogue with developments within philosophy, science, and the wider culture (Paul Allen). This aspect of theology is different from the traditional Indian understanding of science as that which is taught by the sages.
21. Bernard Lonergan explains method as understanding of knowing what kind of thing we know.
22. Theological methodology has the privilege of knowing what kind of thing it knows. This is because theology has its base on experiencing, understanding, judging or deciding or acting in some distinctive ways.
23. Theology is creative and sometimes artistic enterprise. It has to do with our subjectivity because it is making sense of our experience in some given way. Each theologian brings his or her own sense of priorities, hermeneutical principles and styles to bear on a theological question.
24. Faith, like science, is a commitment, “the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen” as philosopher Michael Polanyi has pointed out. So, more faith the better will be the outcome of one’s study, so long as one bears in mind the possibility of one’s own fallibility and the provisional nature of theological explanations.
25. Sometimes theologians have been categorized with the political labels such as conservative or liberal, left or right, fundamentalist or moderate, orthodox or heretic, evangelicals or pentecostals, charismatics or liberationists often derogatively. Such labelling is sometimes advantageous, but often a disaster for Christian theology as these are propagandistically “negative rhetoric and disrespect than anything that reflects Christianity.” as Paul Allen has observed.
26. The "heretic" label has been used throughout Christian history as a way of identifying someone who had swayed from some sort of theological orthodoxy, that is, the majority view point. Respect for alternative positions has turned out to be unacceptable.
27. For Edward Schillebeeckx (Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (ET, 1979) and Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (ET, 1980), "the creative and saving presence of God’s grace" becomes manifest "wherever human persons minister to one another, especially to the neighbor in need. Human love is an embodiment, a sacrament, of God’s love;" or "fragments of salvation."
Questions:
1. Explain the terms method and methodology.
2. Trace the development of theological methodology and elaborate how it brings clarity to our Theological understanding.
