12. Fully Critical Reflection

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In what sense, exactly, is doing theology a form of "fully critical reflection"?

Doing theology is a form of "fully critical reflection" in that (1) in addition to being critical interpretation of the meaning of bearing witness, it is also critical validation of the clams to validity made or implied in bearing witness; (2) it critically validates all, not merely some, of these claims, whenever they become problematic enough to warrant such validation; and (3) it is more, rather than less, critical because it both critically interprets the meaning of bearing witness and critically validates its claims to validity, not on the primary level of self-understanding and life-praxis, but on the secondary level of critical reflection and proper theory.

This means, among other things, that doing theology as a form of "fully critical reflection" always involves beginning again ab ovo, or—to change the metaphor from Barth's to Maurice's—it involves digging down beneath all mere authorities to the primal sources of authority, i.e., the implicit primal source in common human experience and understanding of ultimate reality in its meaning for us; and the explicit primal source in specifically Christian experience and understanding of Jesus as of decisive significance for human existence.

15 February 2001; 17 November 2008