Page History

...

3. "Bearing witness" is the whole life-praxis, secular as well as religious, expressive of the self-understanding, or understanding of existence, explicitly authorized by a religion. It belongs to bearing witness to make or imply certain claims to validity -- specificallyvalidity—specifically, the claim to be adequate to its content because it is both appropriate to the explicit primal source authorizing it and credible to human existence; and the claim to be fitting to its situation. But whether these claims are valid is never settled simply by making or implying them. On the contrary, if and when they become sufficiently problematic, nothing is to be done, provided communication is to continue and its commitments are to be kept, but to shift from the primary level of making or implying the claims to the secondary level of critically validating them -- andthem—and, in this sense, to do theology.

4. "Doing theology," then, is critically reflecting on the self-understanding and life-praxis explicitly authorized by a religion -- the religion—the life-praxis alone being actually given for reflection. "Critically reflecting" here includes, first, critically interpreting the meaning of bearing witness, and then, second, critically validating the claims to validity that bearing witness makes or implies.

5. Bearing witness and doing theology are as distinct as they are inseparable and therefore no more to be identified or confused than opposed or played off against one another. This is because the two forms of activity or praxis belong respectively on the two different but related levels of existing understandingly -- bearing understandingly—bearing witness belonging on the primary level where we somehow understand ourselves and lead our lives accordingly; doing theology, on the secondary level where we critically interpret the meaning of our life-praxis and critically validate its claims to validity.

...

9. Doing systematic theology, however, so as to critically validate bearing witness's claim to credibility is not possible without also doing the philosophical reflection necessary to determining our true and authentic self-understanding, or understanding of existence. Doing such philosophical reflection -- orreflection—or, more simply, "doing philosophy"-- requires —requires doing two different but closely related kinds of reflection. The reason for this is that there are two parts to determining what is to count as the true and authentic self-understanding, or understanding of our existence -- an existence—an "in principle" part and an "in fact" part." Doing the first, "in principle" part requires doing the critical reflection proper to the philosophy of religion, understood as logical analysis of the "deep structure," or logical kind of meaning, expressed not only by religious language but also by the implicit bearing witness that religious language explicitly authorizes. By means of such analysis, two things can be determined: (1) that it is only by its substantial agreement with the true and authentic self-understanding, or understanding of our existence, that bearing witness can be validated as credible; and (2) that a self-understanding, or understanding of existence, can be true and authentic if, and only if, it is appropriate to, and hence authorized by, ultimate reality itself, whose meaning for us, for how we are to understand ourselves and lead our lives, is determined by its structure in itself.

...