Page History

There are at least two reasons for this. One is his confusing, if not confused, characterizations of the two poles. Thus, in many places, he speaks of them as "the two ways of thinking about theology" (p. 23), or "the two basic views of theology" (p. 27), only to speak of them elsewhere as "the two types of theology," or "the two kinds of theology" (p. 34). But, aside from the fact that the two poles assumed by the typology ought not to be thus confused with any of its five types, these two ways of speaking can be taken as equivalent only on one condition-namely, that any view of theology, or way of
2
thinking about it, is and must be itself theologicaLtheological Whether this condition obtains, however, Frei seems at best uncertain, referring to his typology in one place, indeed, as "a piece of conceptual analysis -- that is, in principle an exercise chiefly _about_ rather than _in_ theology, although in practice the distinction will not always be clear" (p. I; cf., however, p. 8). But even greater difficulties are created by his more specific characterizations of the two poles. Thus, for example, he can refer to the one pole both as "the philosophical kind of theology," i.e., "the kind of theology that \[is\] related to philosophy as the nearest fellow discipline in the academy" (p. 23), and as itself "philosophical theology," or "a philosophical discipline" (p. 34). Or, again, he can characterize it as "an academic discipline" (pp. 35, 65), or, simply, as "academic," in contrast to the other type of theology, which he characterizes as "church-oriented" (p. 68). Of course, there might be definitions of the operative terms here on which the equivalences implied between them would be intelligible even without the support of ordinary usage. But Frei quite fails to provide any such definitions, either explicitly as such or by implication.