By Schubert Ogden
Upon further reflection, I doubt whether it is advisable to say, as I have, that, because doing theology takes place on the secondary level of critical reflection, it "not only ... is related indirectly even to Christian teaching, but also ... has another and quite different intention: not to answer the existential question, but to interpret the answer given to it by bearing Christian witness and to validate the claims to validity that this witness makes or implies" (Doing Theology Today: 27). Granted that theory intends to answer our vital questions only indirectly, it still seems strange and forced to say that it does not intend to answer them at all. Surely, it does intend to answer them, even if only in its indirect way as theory.
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