103. Granted that theology is properly done . . .

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Granted that theology is properly done on a perspective rather than from it, why does the idea persist that it is done from a perspective as well as on one?

One reason for its persistence, I suggest, is that, while theology certainly does not—and cannot—reflect from the same perspective on which it has the task of reflecting, it nevertheless does reflect from a perspective as well as on one, the two perspectives being different and not the same.

Their difference can be clarified by employing a properly philosophical analysis of the structure of inquiry of the sort provided, in the case of religious inquiry, by the somewhat different analyses of William A. Christian and Alasdair McKinnon. According to these analyses, religious inquiry, like any other, has its roots in a certain human interest involving a basic supposition, which in turn makes possible a basic question and a corresponding basic commitment. These basic elements together constitute the inquiry in question as the kind of inquiry it is, and as such they may be said quite appropriately to constitute the perspective from which the inquiry is done. But religious inquiry also includes—indeed, properly consists in—consideration of alternative possible answers to its basic question. Any such answer can be analyzed as involving some suggestion that suggests a basic proposal as to how the basic question is to be answered and allows for the explication or elaboration of this proposal in terms of doctrinal propositions. All of these elements together constitute any answer to be considered in the process of religious inquiry and, as such, may be said quite appropriately to constitute the perspective, i.e., really one of many possible perspectives, on which religious inquiry is done.

Employing this analysis, then, one can distinguish the perspective of the question from which Christian theology is properly done—this being the religious and, ultimately, the existential question —from the perspective of the answer on which Christian theology is done—this being the answer which is specific to Christian faith and witness. Being a special case of religious inquiry, Christian theology can be done only from a religious or existential perspective. But being Christian theology, rather than Christian faith and witness, Christian theology cannot be done from the perspective of such faith and witness, but only on it, as critical reflection on the claims to validity that it itself makes or implies as, and just because it is, the perspective of Christian faith and witness.

Among the other consequences of recognizing this is that one can see more than one sense in which "faith seeking understanding" is an appropriate characterization of Christian theology (notwithstanding the sense in which it is clearly inappropriate). Not only is it the case that the Christian witness of faith can become the object of theological reflection only insofar as it indirectly becomes the subject of such reflection as well (cf. OT: 2); it is also the case that it is indeed faith which is seeking understanding through theological reflection, even though the faith in question is not—and cannot be—specifically Christian faith, but is, rather, religious faith, or, at the least, the existential faith without which we neither would nor could exist as the kind of faithing and understanding beings that we in fact are.

October 1992