Page History

...

Is theology a science?
Unfortunately, the answer given to this question in Notebooks, 10 September 2002; rev. 6 April 2004, simply will not do. Although the answer itself still seems to me to be correct--theology is not a science, properly so-called--the argument given in support of this answer is seriously confusing and confused
The essential point of a more adequate answer may be made as follows: Whereas a science, properly so-called, is not only constituted but also proximately oriented by an intellectual question, theology is oriented, proximately as well as remotely, not by an intellectual question, but by an existential question, i.e., the existential question about the meaning of uitilllate uitimate reality for us.
This obviously presupposes that one can and should distinguish between two levels of orientation, proximate and remote. Just as properly intellectual questions are commonly derived by abstraction from properly existential questions, so properly intellectual questions commonly remain oriented by the existential questions from which they are abstracted. Therefore, a science constituted as well as proximately oriented by an intellectual question lllay be oriented remotely by the existential question from which that intellectual question has beenderived.
Another point that needs to be kept in mind is that theology, by definition, is theoretical, in that it is constituted as such, as theology, by strictly theoretical questions as to meaning and validity, whereas a science mayor may not be theoretical, being already constituted (as well as proximately oriented) by the intellectual question it exists to answer.
.Finally, the concluding paragraph of the earlier answer seems to me to be as valid as ever. Theology, like philosophy, is properly a form of wisdom, not of science---that form, namely, which has to do with the meaning of ultimate reality, including strictly ultimate reality, for us.
24 June 2006; rev. 14 June 2009

...