72. The general rule for understanding . . .

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1. The general rule for understanding the tasks and methods of Christian theology is that tasks determine methods, even as tasks are determined by questions.

2. Consequently, just as the questions of Christian theology are subject to analysis at several different levels of generality/specificity, so are its tasks and methods.

3. Thus one can say that, because the question of Christian theology as a field is, Are the claims made or implied by Christian witness valid claims?, its methods as a field are the methods one must follow to accomplish its tasks, even as its tasks are the tasks one must perform to answer its question.

4. And so, too, at the less general, more specific, levels of disciplines, specialties, subspecialties, subsubspecialties, etc.: questions determine tasks, and tasks, in turn, determine methods.

5. At any level, from the most general to the most specific, the questions and, therefore, the tasks and methods of Christian theology may also belong to other nontheological or secular fields, disciplines, specialties, subspecialties, subsubspecialties, etc.

6. Indeed, even the constitutive question of Christian theology as a field, and hence all its tasks and methods, may also belong to some other nontheological or secular field or fields.

7. If its constitutive question does belong to another field, however, this question neither is nor can be the constitutive question of the other field, but can only be one of the questions constituted by some other constitutive question; and the same is true, mutatis mutandis, of its tasks and methods: they may also belong to another nontheological or secular field, but they cannot be constitutive of it.

8. On the other hand, any question constituted by another nontheological or secular field may also be a proper question of Christian theology, and the same is true of the tasks determined by the question and of the methods determined by the tasks.

9. But no question constituted by another nontheological or secular field, or constitutive of any of its disciplines, specialties, subspecialties, subsubspecialties, etc. may also be a proper question of Christian theology unless it is either constitutive of Christian theology as a field or is constituted by its constitutive question and, therefore, is constitutive of one of its own disciplines, specialties, subspecialties, subsubspecialties, etc.; and the same is true of the tasks determined by the question and of the methods determined by the tasks.

10. Thus, if a given method is a proper method of Christian theology, this can only be because it is a method determined by one of the proper tasks of Christian theology, which must itself be determined by one of the proper questions of Christian theology, none of which is proper unless it is either the question constitutive of Christian theology as a field or one of the questions constituted by this question and, therefore, in turn constitutive at the disciplinary, specialty, subspecialty, subsubspecialty, etc. levels.

October 1992