Theology (1) Lecture Part I: Studying God

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Theology (1) Lecture Part I Studying God

• Jintae Kim, PhD
• Alliance Theological Seminary
• Nyack, NY 10960
• [phone]
• E-mail Jintae.kim_at_nyack.edu
• Website http//all4jesus.net

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Chapter 1What is theology?
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Common Features of Religion (Christian Theology,
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• (1) Belief in a Supreme Being or Concept
• (2) It involves a world-life view.
• (3) A Life Style based upon the view

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What is religion? (19-20)
Definition Remarks
Doctrine The middle ages through 18th century, particularly in the West. A set of belief. Philosophy.
Feeling Friedrich Schleiermacher. 19th c. through 20th c.
Morality Albert Ritschl, What is Christianity?
All of these Doctrine, Religious feeling, Ethical dimension
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Religion and Theology (21)

• The actual living-out and personal practice of
  religion, including the holding of doctrinal
  beliefs, occur on the level of primary experience.

• Theology is the second-level activity. It
  concerns with describing, analyzing, criticizing,
  and organizing the doctrines.

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 The Definition of Theology (Introducing,16)
Source Biblical The primary source of its content is the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments using the tools and methods of biblical research.
Method (1) Systematic It draws upon the whole of the Bible to coalesce the varied teachings into some type of harmonious or coherent whole.
(2) Philosophical Relates to the issues of general culture and learning.
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Application (1) Contemporary Without distorting the biblical materials, it uses language, concepts , and thought forms that make some sense in the context of the present time.
(2) Practical. Theology relates to living rather than merely to belief.
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Theological Studies
Biblical Studies Biblical Theology
Historical Studies Historical Theology
Doctrinal Studies Systematic Theology Scripture, God, man, Sin, Christ, Salvation, Church, Last Things (8 Loci)
Practical Studies Philosophical Theology
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The Necessity for Theology (17)

• (1) Is there really a need to study doctrine?
• (2) Isnt it sufficient if I simply love Jesus?
• (3) Doesnt it just cause division among
  Christians?

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3 Reasons to study theology (17)

• (1) Correct doctrinal beliefs are essential to
  the relationship between the believer and God.
• (2) because of the connection between truth and
  experience.
• (3) because there are many secular and religious
  systems of thought that compete for our devotion
  these days.

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2 Questions - Starting Point of Theology

• (1) Should theology begin with proving the
  existence of God?
• (2) Can we do theology without examining the the
  nature of revelation in the Scripture?

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• A. H. Strong The idea of God is a first truth.
  It is a rational intuition. It is not a piece of
  knowledge written on the soul, but an assumption
  which is so basic that all other knowledge
  depends upon it.

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3 Presuppositions in doing theology

• (1) God exists This point is assumed as a first
  truth or established by an empirical proof.
• (2) God has specially revealed himself in the
  Bible.
• (3) This special revelation must be investigated
  in order to determine what God has revealed.

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Theology vs Science
Augustine He preferred the term sapientia (wisdom) to scientia (knowledge). Sciences dealt with temporal things, wisdom related to the eternal matters, specifically to God as the highest good.
Thomas Aquinas Theology came to be thought of as the queen of the sciences. It is a derived science.
Karl Barth He argued vigorously for the autonomy of theology.
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6 Criteria of H. Scholz for theology to be science

• It must be free from internal contradiction.
• There must be a unity or coherence in its
  propositions.
• Its statements must be susceptible to testing.
• It must make no assertion which is physically and
  biologically impossible.
• It must be free from prejudice.
• Its propositions should be capable of being
  broken up into axioms and theorems and
  susceptible of proof on that basis.

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Theology as a science
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Critique of Sholz

• (1) The definition which virtually restricts
  science to natural science, and which then tends
  to restrict knowledge to science, is too narrow.

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5 Evidences for theology as science (Doctrine, 35)

• (1) It has a definite subject matter to
  investigate.
• (2) It deals with objective matters. It does not
  merely give expression to the subjective feelings
  of the theologian or of the Christian.

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• (3) It has a definite methodology for
  investigating its subject matter.
• (4) It has a method for verifying is
  propositions.
• (5) There is coherence among the propositions of
  its subject matter.

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Common Grounds with other sciences (Doctrines,35
Introducing, 18)

• (1) It is subject to certain basic principles or
  axioms.
• (2) It involves communicability.
• (3) It employs methods employed by other specific
  disciplines.
• (4) It shares some subject matter with other
  disciplines.

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Why The Bible?(Doctrines, 36-7)

• (1) Christianity is a movement which follows
  Jesus Christ. We would then logically look to him
  to state what is to be believed and what is to be
  done. We have very little information outside of
  the Bible regarding what Jesus taught and did.

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• (2) In making the Bible the primary or supreme
  source of our understanding, we are not
  completely excluding all other sources. But these
  will be secondary to the Bible.

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Theology and Philosophy
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5 Views on Relation between Theology and
Philosophy (Doctrines, 40-42)
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• (1) No relation Tertullian (c. 160-230), "What
  is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem?"
  
• (2) Theology elucidated by philosophy Augustine
• (3) Theology established by Philosophy Thomas
  Aquinas
• (4) Theology judged by philosophy Deism.
  Modernists.
• (5) Theology supplied by philosophy Hegel

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Some 20th Century Philosophies (Doctrines,
42-53)

• (1) Pragmatism - American, John Dewey, James
  Stuart Mill
• (2) Existentialism
• (3) Analytical Philosophy Bertrand Russell,
  Comte
• (4) Process Theology - Alfred North Whitehead
• (5) Deconstruction - postmodernity

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Pragmatism

• (1) American John Dewey, James Stuart Mill
• (2) No absolute truth. Truth experiencing
  consequences. Emphasis on the present.
• (3) Not Is it true that God exists? but Is it
  useful to believe that God exists?

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Existentialism

• (1) Origin Soren Kierkegaard Reacting against
  Hegels rational philosophy and Nietzsches
  atheistic emphasis upon the human will.
• (2) Philosophers De Cartes, Martin Heidegger,
  Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers

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• (3) Is it? is far more important than What is
  it?
• Limitation of human senses, Focusing in an
  individual, freedom, subjectivity.
• (4) Influence to Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Paul
  Tillich and Rudolph Bultmann

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Analytical Philosophy

• (1) Logical Positivism - Bertrand Russell, Comte
• (2) While traditional Philosophy focuses on What
  is right, What is true, and What is beautiful?,
  A.P. focuses on What do you mean by that?
• (3) Logical Positivism relying only on
  mathematical data and empirical data.

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Process Theology

• (1) Alfred North Whitehead
• (2) Change is the key to understanding of
  reality, in fact, that change is reality.

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Deconstruction

• (1) Derrida. Postmodernity
• (2) A rejection of any attempt to discover and to
  express an underlying pattern of reality.

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The 2 Principles in the Use of Philosophy
(Doctrines, 53-8)

• (1) Revelation rather than philosophy supplies
  the content of our theology.
• (2) Philosophy is a thought process, a thinking
  activity rather than a body of truths. The
  methodology is supplied by philosophy.

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The Method of Theology (Doctrines, 59-80)
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The Theological Scene Today

• (1) The tendency for theologies to have brief
  life-spans.
• (2) The demise of great schools of theology as
  such.
• (3) Disappearance of theological giants.

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3 Lessons

• (1) We should beware of too close an
  identification with any current mood in culture.
• (2) A degree of eclecticism is both possible and
  desirable.
• (3) It is important to maintain a degree of
  independence in ones approach to doing theology.

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The Process of Doing Theology (Introducing, 19-22)
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• (1) Collection of the Biblical materials.
• Identify all the relevant biblical passages
  dealing with the topic being investigated and
  then to interpret them very carefully using the
  very best of theological tools and methods.

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• (2) Unification of the Biblical materials.
• This assumes the unity and coherence among
  the several biblical materials and biblical
  witnesses.

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• (3) Analysis of meanings of biblical teachings
  Historical meaning
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• (4) Examination of Historical Treatments     
• (5) Identification of the Essence of the Doctrine
  Divine meaning

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• (6) Illumination from Sources Beyond the Bible
  Natural sciences, particularly geology
  archaeology.
• (7) Contemporary Expression of the Doctrine.
• Once we have determined the abiding essence
  or permanent content of the doctrine (divine
  meaning), we must express it in a fashion that is
  reasonably accessible to persons of our day.

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•  (8) Development of a Central Interpretive Motif
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• (9) Stratification of the Topics.
•       

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Chapter 2 Contemporizing the Christian Message
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3 Views on Contemporizing (Introducing, 25-26)
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• (1) We should present biblical concepts in
  biblical terminology.

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• (2) Portions of the biblical view are obsolete
  and therefore must be eliminated.

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• (3) They desire to retain the essential content
  of the biblical teaching and restate it or
  translate it into more modern concepts, to find
  contemporary equivalents for the concepts drawn
  from the biblical era.

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The Locus of Permanence in Christianity (26-27)

• The question is how to identify the unchangeable
  factor.
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• (1) Institutional Roman Catholic
• What is permanent and persistent throughout
  time is the institution of the Catholic church.

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• (2) Experience H. E. Fosdick (Social Gospel)
• Abiding experiences which are expressed in
  changing categories. Idea of evolution.

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• (3) Certain actions or a certain type of living
  Kant, Ritschl, W. Rauschenbusch.
• It is the teachings of Jesus regarding ethical
  living and the kingdom of God.
• (4) Doctrine J. G. Machen

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Two approaches to Contemporizing Theology  

• transformer? or translator?
•  

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• (1) If doctrine is the unchangeable factor in
  Christianity, it should be apparent that we
  advocate the approach of the translators. The
  process, however, is not as simple as finding
  21st c. equivalents for 1st c. concepts.

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• (2) Difficulty in translation -  It is impossible
  to find a perfect semantic equivalent in another
  language.

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• (3) The contemporizing of the Bible messages is
  often explained as a method used in a teaching of
  languages.
•  

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• (4) Then we should distinguish between the
  permanent or abiding essence of a concept and its
  temporary forms of expression. (ex God dwells in
  heaven ? transcendence of God) 

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The 5 Criteria of Permanence (28-30)

• (1) Constancy across cultures
• (2) Universal setting
• (3) A recognized permanent factor as a basis
• (4) Indissoluble link with an essential
  experience
• (5) Final position within progressive revelation