By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Theology in the sense of critical reflection on the validity claims expressed or implied by Christian witness, is itself a particular form of praxis. Therefore, if Hough and Cobb are right, it, too, involves both "practical thinking" and "reflective practice," and the theologian, accordingly, must be a "practical thinker" and also a "reflective practitioner."
But, as Hough and Cobb recognize (92), the same would be true of any other particular form of praxis. To be and to act as a good anything requires (1) understanding who one is as that kind of thing (i.e., "reflective practice"); (2) thinking about what one is to do in the present situation, given the fact that one is that kind of thing (i.e., "practical thinking"); and (3) critically reflecting on what one does in trying to do what one is to do as that kind of thing, so as to explicate the theory implicit in the doing in the light of the doing, and then to improve the doing in the light of the explicated theory (118).
September 1987; rev. 11 November 2009
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