Richard Dawkins whether wonders Theology is a subject at all, and a friend asks whether someone doing theology can ever get it wrong.
So what is theology? The first thing to say is that Theology is not doctrine/dogma. Doctrine and it development over the centuries is one of the objects of study within the academic discipline of theology, but it is not theology.
As an under graduate I studied the core areas as well as the options around that core. The core subjects with the academic discipline of theology are doctrine and its development, the critical study the New Testament and Hebrew Scriptures, the philosophy of religion, the history of the religion of Israel and the history of Christianity. Within the latter history the first five centuries are a key area of study within the subject of theology. In all these areas the same critical rigour one finds in any other of the liberal arts subject is taught.
That is certainly how theology is taught in British Universities.
I wonder sometimes why Richard Dawkins doesn’t know this, he only need visit the faculty web pages of his own University to find out.
For me Theology is the critical study of religion, religious beliefs and practices, the development of belief and belief in contemporary society. To study theology one must learn how to be an historian and anthropologist, a philosopher and linguist but most of all one must learn to be critical of one’s own beliefs and the beliefs of others. The first essay I given as an undergraduate was titled, ‘Old Testament Study demands a combination of faith and reason. Discuss.’ The readings set for the essay were in themselves an introduction the critical thinking.
So that’s what academic theology is all about, but what of my friends question Can someone doing theology get it wrong? In the academy as with any other subject it is possible to get it wrong, any one saying Nestorius was a monophysite, has got the wrong answer.
I sense however that that is not what my friend means. You see to Athanasius, Arius was wrong because he denied the divinity of Christ whereas to Arius, Athanasius was wrong because Athanasius proclaimed Christ’s divinity. But these are just religious opinions of which we can ask; ‘What would it take to disconfirm this opinion?’ If the answer is, ‘Nothing’ they can be treated as what they are opinion and no more. Yet even here logic and reason are not redundant. Opinions even when un-falsifiable must be consistent with one another. So whilst both Nestorius and Cyril agreed with Athanasius, Nestorius got it wrong because he would not accept the logical correlate of Christ’s divinity, namely the doctrine that Mary was the theotokos, the bearer or mother of God. If Mary is not the God bearer, then who is Christ? One can’t accept one opinion without accepting the other. These are still opinions, but they form part of a logically consistent set of opinions. Can you do theology and get it wrong? Sort of.
When we do theology in the church we are reflecting upon all what has been believed in the past and reflecting also on what has changed in our understanding of the world today. From those reflections the church continues to create a meaningful narrative by which it can live its life of faith. But the theological narrative should never be a fixed narrative. It is narrative that is still in the process of formation and as such is never the final word. Whilst this narrative theology can never be wholly right, its very falsifiablility should ensure its continued place at the heart of the community of faith and doubt (the Church).
To finish then two statements on the dangers of theology, both of which have been addressed to me by religious conservatives.
‘Don’t go and study theology, theology will lead you away cross.’
‘The problem with the study of theology is that people who start it begin with a simple faith and end up with complex doubts.’
If that is true, then the friends of reason have nothing to fear and everything to applaud in the study of Theology.
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