AN INTRODUCTION TO THEOLOGY

(Notes by Bishop Batumalai)

A.    WHAT IS THEOLOGY

Theology is mainly concerned with God and religion.  There are different goals of theology  (eg. Asian or

Malaysian theology).

1.    The God–question

    Theology is generally understood as the discourse on God or God-talk.  God’s existence cannot be

taken for granted.  Does God exist?  Even if God exists, can we know anything about Him?  Can we

speak of God meaningfully?

The Existence of God:  On the existence of God there are generally three views: Atheism, Agnosticism and

Theism.
a)    Atheism is a stance that rejects the existence of God (eg. Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud).
b)    Agnostics simply say that they do not know whether God exists or not.  With or without God,

the world will go on.  Even some of the religious traditions are non-theistic (eg. Theravada Buddhism).
c)    Theism is conceived differently by different religions and philosophical systems.  Along with

Christianity, Judaism and Islam speak about personal God.  Some certain absolute philosophical systems

conceive an impersonal God.  St. Thomas Aquinas gave 5 proofs for the existence of God.  They are

cosmological arguments, drawn from the cosmology of the time.  However these proofs are abstract and

philosophical.  In principle, we can say that human person can come to the knowledge of God with the

light of reason.

2.    Can we speak of God?

The mystical tradition says no.  But the biblical tradition and the mainly Christian tradition affirm that

we can speak about God and we can have positive understanding of God.

a)    All creatures bear a certain resemblance of God, most especially man, created in the image and

likeness of God.  However God transcends all creatures.  Our human words always fall short of the

mystery of God.

    In other words, human persons can have some knowledge of God, but their knowledge of God is

limited. (Rom. 3:23).

3.    The knowledge of God as ANALOGICAL

    Analogical is contrasted with ‘univocal’ and ‘equivocal’.  Universal means that a particular

word or language is used with the same meaning.  For God and creatures the same term or same language

cannot be used with the same meaning because God belongs to the order of ‘infinite’ whereas the creatures

belong to the order of ‘finite’.  The whole theological enterprise is possible only with the role of analogy.  The

theory of analogy was developed by Aristotle.  If there is no such ‘correspondence’ between God and

humans, we cannot know God.  Jesus taught us to call God ‘our Father’.

4.    God – Experience

    The reality of religion and religious experience is a very complex one, which has been the object

of study by various sciences such as: history of religion, anthropology of religion, sociology of religion,

psychology of religion, phenomenology of religion, philosophy of religion, psychology of religion and theology

of religion.

One may have a variety of religious experience: eg. Burning bush (Ex. 3: 2-6, the experience of the glory and

brightness of the Sun (eg.  Transfiguration Mt. 17: 1-13).  God cannot be fully understood and God–

experience cannot be articulated in ordinary day to day language.  Some one said:  Theology uses ordinary

language in an extraordinary way.

5.    Religious Language as Symbolic Language

    Two examples of symbols may be given:  Jesus Christ is the supreme symbol of Christianity.  In

Jesus the divine and the human met together and united in the supreme way.  In Jesus we meet God,

experience God and he is the medium of God’s self-communication.  Jesus said, if you have seen me you

have seen the Father.  Jesus Christ is the sacrament of God.  In the Eucharist the Christian community is

expressed, and experienced and mediated by the Eucharist.  But Christ’s presence in the Church and in the

world is already there; it is a reality, even prior to the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the symbol of this

presence.  God’s revelation or self-gift reaches us only through our mind, reason, body and sense perception.

This may be mediated through symbols.  Both natural theology and Christian theology has symbolic

function.


B.    VARIOUS DEFINITIONS OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

God fully revealed his plan by sending us His beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

1.    Theologia:  The term ‘theology’ derives from the Greek words, theos (God) and logos (word,

discourse, science) which literally means ‘discourse on God’, ‘science of God’, ‘God-talk’.

2.    Faith seeking Understanding:  St. Anselm defined theology as fides quaerens intellectum, ‘faith

seeking understanding’.  Theology is a search to understand God’s Words and actions revealed in human

history for the salvation of humankind.


Anselm would also say: I believe in order to understand.  Faith alone can lead to real understand; God’s

Word alone can be the ultimate answer.  Fideism accepts everything revealed by God without any attempt

to scrutinize it by reason.  Rationalism rejects everything that is not clearly understood by reason.  Since

God’s word is truth (John 17:17) the human search for truth-philosophy, can help to understand God’s

Word better.

One is called to understand and explain in the best possible way.  Every new generation has to struggle

and give an account of their faith in their own times, ‘an account we must give ourselves and others of the

truth of our hope (1 Peter 3:15).  No one can ever resolve completely the tension between faith and reason,

between theology and the mystery (eg. Easter Church).  This polarity is healthy and fruitful, and is the

source of all theological creativity and newness.

3.    Western approach tended to be more rational, academic, abstract and philosophical, whereas

the Eastern approach was more Biblical, Patristic and Liturgical.  Theology is the understanding and

explanation of God’s Word and action, revealed in history, especially in Jesus Christ.  Liturgical experience

will be the unique source of theology.  All the Christian belief and doctrines have their origin in the liturgy

and prayers of the Church.  Creeds were primarily confession and proclamations of experience and liturgy.

Prayers and liturgies are the products of faith experience.  The East rejects a sterile liturgy lacking in faith

– experience.

4.    Theology as Faith – Reflection on Reality
The Protestant reformers related to this and proposed the sola scriptura (scripture alone).  Later, the

Enlightenment and rationalism dismissed all authorities, whether Bible or the Church, and theology

became once again pure philosophical and rational.

The task of theology was understood as identifying, analyzing and articulating this experience in order to

draw its consequences for the life of the community.  Political theology and Liberation theologies

emphasized the changing reality with special focus on the society rather than on the individual.  Theology

is discussed everything from the perspective of faith or under the light of faith.  Later ‘theology from above’

to complement ‘theology from below’.  Man must explain.

5.    Theology as Theological anthropology
‘Anthropocentricity’ and ‘theocentricity’ complement each other.  The object of theology is not God as such

but man as related to God (or God became Man).  What theology discusses is God’s plan of human

salvation as revealed by God.  Hence theology deals formally not with God, but human beings in relation

to God, their fundamental openness to God, about the mystery of God’s plan for human salvation (Hebrew

1:1).  Theology speaks more about humans than about God.  Hence theology can be rightly understood as

Theological Anthropology.  Christology have to be read and understood anthropologically (God became

Man).

6.    Theology as Critical Reflection on Christian Praxis
Gusavo Gutierrez defined “theology as a critical reflection on Christian praxis in the light of the Word (A

Theology of Liberation (1965) pp 6-15).  The Church is not to be centered upon itself, but upon the

Kingdom of God.  Christian faith is, there, not simply a set of truths to be understood and formulated by

theology, but it is the call for a praxis and commitment for the transformation of the world into the

Kingdom of God.  Theology is a critical reflection on Christian praxis.  ‘Liberation theology’ is not a special

branch of theology, but a new way of doing theology.

7.    Theology as Hermeneutics
The Church has the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the

Gospel.  This interpretation is the main task of theology.  Theology may be also defined as hermeneutics.

One need to study the bible, history (the past and the present) and the current situations to make reflections.

Theology is the interpretation of Christian faith in the context of contemporary existential realities and the

interpretation of contemporary realities in the lifht of the Word of God.  The content of Christian faith

needs continuous interpretation and re-interpretation, so that it may become understandable and relevant

for every new age.  Theology is therefore an ongoing, continuous process of hermeneutics or interpretation.

8.    Theology as Interpretation of the Christian Story
It began with the Christian story: the story of God’s entry into human history, the story of God becoming

man in Jesus Christ in order to save the whole of humankind from sin and death.

9.    A Working Definition of Theology
Christian theology is a systematic and critical interpretation on the meaning of human life and reality in

general from the perspective of the Revelation in Jesus Christ on the one hand, and reinterpretation of

Christian Faith on the other, in the light of the new experience and context of the changing realities of the

world, in and by the believing community.  Theology is a critical discipline in its prophetic character as it

challenges the present Christian faith and praxis to become what it ought to be and to constantly purify

and reform itself, and thus to unfold itself until the eschatological fulfillment.  Theological reflection and

interpretation deal with the ultimate meaning and mystery of human life and of reality, including the

human, the cosmic and the Divine, from the perspective of Christian revelation, as enshrined in the Bible

and the Christian tradition.  Theological interpretations have to face modern realities (eg. Science).  The

whole process of theologizing takes place within the Christian community.  Christian theology is not simply

produced by the creative minds of individual theologians independent of the Christian community or the

Church.  Theologians are called to be spokesman of the community even in their prophetic criticism.

C.    CREATIVE POLARITIES IN THEOLOGIZING

    Theological activity has several inherent tensions, conflicts, struggles and dialectics or polarities.

 It faces many issues, questions and dimension of theology.  Let us highlight a few concerns.

1.    Mystery and Intelligibility
Both faith and reason have their own roles in theology.  However, theology distances itself equally both

from Fideism and Rationalism, and keeps the middle way.  The starting point of theology is not rational

evidence, but faith-experience.  Theological understanding is a never–ending search and continuing process.

Faith alone can lead to real and fuller understanding, as faith alone can give the ultimate answers.  In

theological reflections, there will be always a tension and dialectics between faith and reason, mystery and

intellibility.  We can speak about God and the mystery of God’s plan.

2.    Identity and Change
    God’s Word, as spoken through the Prophets, as enshrined in the Scriptures, (eg. Exodus,

Covenant, Incarnation, Death & Resurrection of Jesus) reveal God’s plan of human salvation.  Our

understanding of God needs continuous reform and interpretation.  Christian theology thus involves a

creative tension between continuity and change.

3.    Committed and Critical
    Theology is therefore, a committed engagement.  It is not a mere abstract, speculative and

academic discipline, but a practical discipline that challenges and change our life.  A theologian has to

believe and live what he teaches.  Theologizing is a critical activity.

4.    Community and Individual Theologian
    Individual theologians share in the faith of the community, though they have their own

personal experience, vision and charisma.  All quest for theological understanding takes place in the

community.  The Christian community is, however, a pilgrim community, conditioned by its own historical

situation, and it needs continuous reform and renewal.

5.    One and Many, Transcendental and Historical
    In Christianity there exist, however, various traditions or denominations, such as, Catholic,

Orthodox, Protestant and Pentecostal.  Each of these traditions has its own theology (eg. Catechism of the

Catholic Church (1994).  Theologizing is thus a constant movement between the one and the many, the

universal and the particular.

6.    Universal and Contextual theology
    Thomas Aquinan was considered for centuries as theologia perennis, a perennial theology, for

the entire Catholic Church.  He made a new and radical theological synthesis using the philosophy of

Aristotle.  In fact, his theological thinking was not acceptable to many at that time.  His books were burned

by the Bishop of Paris soon after his death.  His theology was the product of his own time, conditioned by

the medieval socio – cultural realities and Aristotelian philosophical system.  No theology is perennial.  All

theologies are contextual, i.e. conditions by the historical, social and cultural content.

    We would like to mention some of the latest trends:
    a) Liberation Theology which attempts to theologize in the context of the socio-economic and

political realities of poverty, exploitation, and injustice.
    b)  Feminist Theology is theological reflection on the part of women in the context of their

marginalization and inequality.
    c)  Black Theology is along the same line.  This is a theological reflection on the part of black

people who are discriminated and segregated by white people with racial prejudice.
    d)  Dalit Theology is being developed in India to articulate the aspirations of the Dalits or the

outcast for freedom, justice, equality.
    e)  Similarly, ‘Tribal Theologies’ are emerging today from the context of tribal people.

D.    GOALS OF THEOLOGIZING

    The goal of theology is conceived as authentic human existence by the right understanding of the

human person in relation to God and to other humans and to the entire universe.  We would like to list the

different goals of theologizing.

1.    The origin and core of Christianity is the Christ-event and the Christ-experience.  In Jesus Christ

we saw the face of God.  This faith-experience is transmitted from generation to generation by the Church

through the mediation of Scriptures, tradition, worship, liturgy, prayers, doctrines, beliefs, discipline and

catechesis.  Theology’s primary task is, therefore, to awaken, strengthen and communicate the faith

experience.

2.    Theology also contains analyses, elaborates and systematizes the faith and thus helps to

understand and assimilate it better and better.  Theologizing is an on going and continuous process, which

leads to ever new understanding of faith.

3.    The Word of God or God’s revelation is always communicated by the human word.  The

scripture, God’s words were written by human.  It is the task of theology to sieve the human words in the

Bible and to discover within them and beyond them the real Word of God.

4.    Theology is both an interpretative and prophetic role.  It has to help the church in its process if

discernment as regards the practices of the Christian community.

5.    One of the primary roles of theology is the systematic exposition of the Christian faith.  Theology

shows the unity and coherence of faith by deeper analysis, by moving back to the centre.  The foundation of

the Christian faith is the “Mystery of Christ” and the salvation in Christ.

6.    The pastoral role of strengthening the faith and empowering Christian life is another important

goal of theology.  Theologians are to be believers, men and women of deep faith, and they should exercise

their role of theologizing with great responsibility.  All theologizing is to protect, safeguard, deepen and

strengthen the faith of ordinary Christian believers.  The ultimate role of faith is to transform the lives of

individual persons by responding to the divine call and awakening each person to the presence of the Divine

within and leading everyone thus to the real inner self in communion with God in Jesus Christ.

7.    The pastoral responsibility is to individual Christians, the Church and to the mission and

witness of the Church.  The Church lives by mission as fire exists by burning.  A Church is not oriented to

the mission of the Church of the Church or one that has no witnessing value, is not worth the name.  The

theology must clarify the very concept and practice of the mission for every new age.

8.    The goal of theologizing is not only the transformation of individual Christians and the

renewal or reform of the Church, but also the transformation of the whole world into the Kingdom of God.

Following Jesus, the Church must preach about the Kingdom of God:  Let thy Kingdom come.  The final

goal of theologizing is to enhance, promote and realize the Kingdom of God on this earth and beyond it.


E.    FOUNDATION OF THEOLOGY

The foundations of Christian theology are Faith and Revelation.  Christianity began with Abba experience

of Jesus Christ and the experience of the disciples of Jesus who found in Jesus their God and Saviour.

Faith and Revelation, though they are distinct, cannot be separated.  They are two sides of the same

process, and they are foundations of theology.

1.    FAITH:  The attitude of faith is a universal human phenomenon.  The transcendental object

or supreme value or ultimate meaning to which a person clings and which guides and inspires our whole

life and action, and to which we have absolute commitment, can be called ‘faith’.  Paul Tillich, the

famous Protestant theologian, in his book, DYNAMICS OF FAITH (1958) defines faith as ‘ultimate

concern’ the state of being ultimately concerned.

Abraham is called the ‘Father of faith’, ‘the father of all who believe (Rom.4:3).  ‘By faith, Abraham

obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to rece3ive as an inheritance; and he went

out, not knowing where he was to go (Heb.11:8; Gen. 12:1-4).

Christian faith has its own specificity and uniqueness.  It is ‘faith in Jesus Christ’ that in him God has

fully manifested and spoken definitely.  In Jesus not only God revealed himself, but also in him God has

revealed what a human person and humanity is.  According to Christian faith Jesus Christ is ‘Word of

God-incarnate’.

Christian faith is the total response and commitment of the whole person to God as revealed in Jesus

Christ.  Beliefs are doctrines, which are the rational and cognitive dimensions and conceptual expressions of

the content of faith.  Faith is a personal relationship and commitment to God.  Secondly, with regard to

the content of faith and its understanding and expression there will be differences according to time, history,

culture and the though patterns.  Thirdly, faith itself is a perilous journey between faith and unfaith, belief

and unbelief in one’s own life.  Fourthly, if faith is a personal relationship and commitment, there is need

of passing from conventional faith to real faith.  Children receive faith from their parents and community,

and it is only gradually they personally appropriate and make it personal.  Many in Europe and in other

countries may not have personal faith.

Our Christian faith must be manifested in life, action, praxis and ethical life.  Love of God has to be

manifested in one’s behavior, not in what one says, but in what one does.  Theological task, according to

Liberation theology, does not merely understanding reality but CHANGING OR TRANSFORMING IT.

Jon Sobrino said “To know the truth is to do the truth; to know Jesus is to follow Jesus”.

Faith is a free gift of God.  It is never imposed upon anybody.  It is to be received as a human free act.  It

is a free response to God’s self-gift.  The analysis of faith will point to God’s self-revelation.

2.    REVELATION:  Faith and Revelation, though distinct and distinguishable, are inseparably

united.  They are two sides of the same event.  One cannot exist without the other.  The object of faith is

God.  Revelation is God’s self-communication to humans and faith is the response on the human life.

Revelation is to be received, perceived, grasped and responded to.  God in His goodness chose to reveal or give

himself to humankind.  God revealed himself and his plan of human salvation in history by calling

Abraham, by liberating Israel from Egypt and by promising to humankind a Saviour.  Jesus commissioned

his Apostles and disciples to proclaim and communicate this revelation.  God’s revelation is an utterly

gratuitous self-gift of God.  Jesus Christ is the fullness of God’s revelation.  There will be no further

revelation.

What type of challenges we face in our age of pluralism, relativity of history, cultures and religions.  Any

claim to monopoly of relation by Christianity will be to explain the relationship of God’s revelation in

Christ and in other religions.

Revelation is not our discovery but God’s self-disclosure of Himself.  Christian revelation is a personal

encounter with Jesus Christ, not simply some knowledge.

Revelation is thus a very complex reality and so is its concept.  It has various components, which are often

singled out and emphasized and thus various models of revelation are presented.
a) Revelation as doctrine is one model.
b) Another model conceives revelation as the presence within the believer as a personal encounter with God.

It is not a mere communication of some knowledge, but the presence of the living and life-giving God.
c)  A third model conceives revelation as experience. d)  Revelation as history is a fourth model.  It is an

event of history, a universal and public historical event that can be historically established by its analysis

and interpreted as an act of God in human history.


F.    SOURCES OF THEOLOGY

    Reformers, especially Luther and Calvin, proposed and defended the SOLO SCRIPTURA

principles.  What the Reformers meant was that the Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit, contained

everything necessary for our salvation.

    There was the theory of ‘two sources’ of revelation: Scripture and Tradition.  Tradition (with

capital T) is the entire Gospel, which contains the foundational revelation and faith experience of the early

Christian community.  Hence to some tradition is more than the Scriptures and the sum total of the beliefs,

practices and worship of the community.  Its content is the self –communication of God, which is mediated

by all these means.
Tradition is thus handed down through various traditions (with small ‘t’).

    Revelation or Gospel, the Good News, is God’s gift of self-communication and His plan of

human salvation in Jesus Christ.  Christ commissioned the Apostles to impart to all people the ‘Gospel’.

Three Sources of Theology

a)    Sacred Scriptures
The Church holds that the Scriptures, both the O.T. and the N.T. are records of God’s revelation and of the

faith experience o the people of Israel and of the Apostolic Church.
    Theology is most powerfully strengthened and constantly rejuvenated by that word.  The

authority of the Scripture is derived ultimately from the authority of Jesus who is the definitive revelation of

God.  One of the essential tasks of theology is precisely this interpretation of the Scriptures in the light of the

central Christian faith and in the light of the contemporary human experience in the context of the realities

of today.

b)    Tradition and traditions
This faith-experience is expressed, reenacted and mediated through the Christian Tradition, or Apostolic

tradition.  Written Scriptures are one of the most important components of the one tradition.  There are

various other constitutive components and elements of the traditions, which we may call traditions (with

the small ‘t’).

c)    Reasons   To be edited by Bishop Batumalai
  

G.    RESOURCES OF THEOLOGY

1.    People and their Experience
One of the primary resources of theology is people and their experience.  God’s self-gift or self-communication

or revelation is directed to all people, irrespective of caste, creed, nationality (Acts 10:34-35).

2.    Cultural Resources: On the other hand, humans create culture, they are the artisan and author

of their own culture, by which they develop and refine their own talents and qualities and control their

surroundings and the world by their knowledge and labour.  Diversity of cultures is a human and

historical reality.  Each culture is unique, something to be understood from within, having its own values

meaning systems, symbols, its own inner logic and connections, so that cultures cannot be easily compared

or classified.
The relationship among faith, religion and culture is complex one.  God is present and active among all

peoples of all races, nationalities and culture.  Christian faith and the Gospel are clearly meant for all

peoples and cultures.  Finally, if God and His Spirit are present and active in all peoples and cultures,

Christian theology has to change its traditional method of mission and evangelization.

3.    Diverse Religion tradition
In recent times, the Christian approach to other religions has undergone a radical change.  In history of

Christianity’s encounter with other religions, we could identify 3 distinct stages.  In the first stage,

Christianity with its universal and absolute claims saw the other religions as a threat to its own existence,

survival and growth.  Secondly, Christianity began to look to other religions more closely and scientifically

and to accept human values and truths contained in them, though they were not considered on par with

Christianity.  The other religions were considered as human and natural, whereas Christianity was

considered as supernatural and divinely revealed, and thus the fulfillment of all other religions.

4.    The peoples (Movement and the Voice of the Marginalized)
The history of Israel in the O.T. is the story of a people’s movement (e.g. Exodus).  In the N.T. the Jesus’

Community or the Church was a people’s movement.  The Bible is thus a witness and a call to identify the

people’s movement today.
There are numerous people’s movements today, such as human rights movement, women’s movements,

peasants’ movements, Tribal people’s movement etc.

5.    The Cry of the Poor
In the socio-economic realm today the gulf between the rich and the poor is ever widening due to the

structures of injustice.  There are many reasons for this gap (eg. The Western development model,

globalization, market economy).  The Church and theology today, therefore, have to take an unambiguous

option for the poor, and to listen to their cry.
Liberation theologians today speak of the epistemological privilege of the poor.  God is present among the

poor.  God speaks today in a very special way through the cry of the poor, their struggles, aspirations,

visions and hopes, and theology should be specially attend to them along with the other historical sources of

Christian theology.

H.    THEOLOGIES IN THE BIBLE

          The Bible is divinely inspired.  God inspired the human and it w as written by chosen

people.  God acted in them.  God did not dictate to them.

    The Bible is a library, a collection of books and consequently of theologies.  For instance, in the

Hebrew Scriptures, (the O.T.), one can find a Yahwist Theology, and Elohist Theology, a Priestly

Theology, a Deuteronomic Theology and Wisdom Theologies, to name a few.

    In the N.T., it is not illogical to speak of a Mathean theology, a Marcan theology, a Lucan

theology and a Johannine theology.  God’s unique message is expressed in a multiple way for their various

needs.

I.    CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGIES
  
Contextual Theologies manifested a particular sensitivity to three areas:

a)    Context:  There was a growing awareness that context has a deep impact on theological

reflection.  In contexts where issues of oppression and conflict were a reality, social, economic and political

questions tended to engage the energies.

b)    Procedure:  Theological reflection tended to constellate in ‘school’ around theological luminaries

such as eg. Karl Barth, Karl Rahner and others.

c)    History:  While the perennial and enduring realities are not overlooked, special attention is

paid to the historical dimension.

    The three principal roots underpinning the new awareness which characterizes Contextual

Theologies, are: Gospel, Church and culture.


J.    INSTANCES OF CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGIES

a)    Continental and National Contextual Theologies
    Contextual Theologies can be continental (Asian theology, Latin American Theology, or Indian

Theology.

b)    The Theology of Secularisation:  D. Bonhoeffer highlights the thrust of this stance, posing query:

 How can we speak of God in ‘wordly terms’?

c)    The ‘Death of God’ Theology:  The concern is how can we talk about God in a contemporary

urbanized, industrialized and technological society.

d)    Black Theology:  This is from the Black Community in USA.

e)    Feminist Theology:  Feminist Theologies articulate the struggle of women who are facing

discrimination on the basis of their gender, and struggling to formulate the Christian experience in terms of

a God.

f)    Ecofeminism:  This attempt to link the twin oppression of women and the rest of nature.

Ecofeminism argues that the connections between the oppression of women and the rest of nature must be

recognized and acknowledged.

g)    Dalit Theology:  They are the socially and structurally oppressed class of India.  The Dalit

theology strives for the liberation of these oppressed from the false consciousness of pollution, and protest

against the social system that has created it and supports it.

h)    Minjung Theology from Korea:  They are the powerless and oppressed people.


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