SOURCES OF THEOLOGY
Four main sources have been acknowledged within the Christian
tradition:
1. Scripture
2. Tradition
3. Reason
4. Religious experience
1. SCRIPTURE
The terms “Bible” and “Scripture,” along with the derived
adjectives “biblical” and “scriptural,” are virtually interchangeable. Both
designate a body of texts which are recognized as having authority for
Christian thinking. It must be stressed that the Bible is not merely the object
of formal academic study within Christianity; it is also read and expounded
within the context of public worship, and is the subject of meditation and
devotion on the part of individual Christians.
(a) The Old Testament
The term “Old Testament” is used by Christian writers to refer to
those books of the Christian Bible which were (and still are) regarded as
sacred by Judaism. For Christians, the Old Testament is seen as setting the
scene for the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, who brings its leading themes and
institutions to fulfillment. Early Christians – including Jesus himself and
many of the writers of the New Testament – simply used the word “scripture” or
“writing” (Greek: graphe) to refer to
what is now known as the Old Testament.
This means that the same collection of texts is referred to in
different ways by different groups. This has led to some proposals for renaming
this collection of texts, none of which has gained general acceptance. Three
may be noted.
1. The Hebrew Bible.
This way of referring to the Old Testament stresses the fact that it was
written in Hebrew, and is sacred to the Hebrew people. However, it fails to do
justice to the way in which Christianity sees an essential continuity between
the Old and New Testaments. A minor difficulty is also caused by the fact that
parts of the Old Testament are written in Aramaic, rather than Hebrew.
2. The First Testament. This way of referring to
the collection of texts avoids using the word “old,” which is held by some to
be pejorative. “Old,” it is argued, means “outdated” or “invalid.” Referring to
the Old Testament as the “First Testament” and the New as the “Second
Testament” stresses the continuity between the two collections of texts.
3. Tanakh – an acronym of the Hebrew
words for “law, prophets, and writings (torah,
nevi’im, ketuvim),” which is the standard Jewish description of the works
that Christians call the “Old Testament.” This is perfectly acceptable for use
within Judaism, but does not reflect the specifically Christian understanding
of continuity between Israel and the church.
(b) The New Testament
The New Testament, which consists of 27 books, is considerably
shorter than the Old Testament. It is written entirely in a late form of Greek,
widely spoken in the eastern Mediterranean world of the time. The New Testament
opens with the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The word
“gospel” basically means “good news.” Each of the four gospel writers – or
“evangelists,” as they are sometimes known – sets out the basic events lying
behind the good news. These four books describe the life of Jesus Christ, which
reaches its climax in his resurrection, as well as presenting his teachings.
This is followed by an
account of the expansion of Christianity addressed in the fifth work to be
found in the New Testament, the full title of which is “The Acts of the
Apostles,” but which is more usually referred to simply as “Acts.” The gospel
of Luke and Acts are widely agreed to have been written by the same person:
Luke. he next major section of material in the New Testament comprises the letters,
sometimes still referred to by the older English word epistles. These
letters provide teaching concerning both Christian beliefs and behavior, as
important today as they were when they were first written. Most of the letters
were written by Paul, whose conversion to the Christian faith led him to
undertake a major program of evangelism and church planting. Many of his
letters were written to churches he had planted, giving them advice. Other
letters are attributed to the apostles Peter and John. The term pastoral
letters is sometimes used to refer to the two letters Paul addressed to
Timothy and his letter to Titus, which deal particularly with issues of
pastoral importance.
The New Testament then
ends with the book of Revelation, which stands in a class of its own. It represents
a vision of the end of history, in which the writer is allowed to see into
heaven, and gain a glimpse of the new Jerusalem which is prepared for
believers.
2. TRADITION
The word “tradition” comes from the Latin
term traditio which means “handing over,” “handing down,” or “handing
on.” The idea is found in the New Testament. Paul, for example, informs his
readers that he is handing on to them those core teachings of the Christian
faith that he has himself received from other people (1 Corinthians 15: 1–4).
The term can refer both to the action of passing teachings on to others –
something that Paul insists must be done within the church – and to the body of
teachings passed on in this manner. Tradition can thus be understood as a process
as well as a body of teaching. True tradition is always a living
tradition. It changes while remaining always the same. It changes because it
faces different situations, not because its essential content is modified. This
content is not an abstract proposition; it is the living Christ Himself, who
said, “I am the Truth.”
It will thus be clear
that the word “tradition” implies not merely something that is handed down, but
an active process of reflection by which theological or spiritual insights are
valued, assessed, and transmitted from one generation to another. Three broad
approaches to tradition may be detected within Christian theology, and will be
considered in what follows.
(a) A
single-source theory of tradition
Scripture
could not be allowed to be interpreted in any arbitrary or self-serving way: it
had to be interpreted within the context of the historical continuity of the
Christian church. The parameters of its interpretation were historically fixed
and “given.” “Tradition” here means simply “a traditional way of interpreting
Scripture within the community of faith.” This is a single-source
theory of theology: theology is based upon Scripture, and “tradition” refers to
a “traditional way of interpreting Scripture.”
(b) A dual-source theory of
tradition
“Tradition”
was understood to be a separate and distinct source of revelation, in
addition to Scripture. Scripture, it was argued, was silent on a number of
points, but God had providentially arranged for a second source of revelation
to supplement this deficiency: a stream of unwritten tradition, going back to
the apostles themselves. This tradition was passed down from one generation to
another within the church. This is a dual-source theory of tradition:
tradition is based upon two quite distinct sources, Scripture and unwritten
tradition.
(b) The total rejection of
tradition
Radical
theologians of the sixteenth century argues that every individual had the right
to interpret Scripture as he or she pleased, subject to the guidance of the Holy
Spirit. The way was thus opened for individualism, with the private judgment of
the individual raised above the corporate judgment of the church. This approach
was developed further during the Enlightenment, which was anxious to liberate
itself from the shackles of tradition. A respect for tradition was thus seen as
capitulation to the authority of the past, a self-imposed bondage to outdated
social, political, and religious structures.
3. REASON
The
third major resource to be considered is human reason. Although the importance
of reason for Christian theology has always been recognized, it assumed an
especial importance at the time of the Enlightenment. We open our discussion by
considering the changing emphasis which has come to be placed upon reason
within the Christian tradition.
Reason and revelation: three models
As human beings are
rational creatures, it is to be expected that reason should have a major role
to play in theology.
It will be helpful to
survey attitudes since the patristic period, during which three broad
categories of positions can be discerned.
(a) Theology is a
rational discipline
This
position, associated with writers such as Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274), works
on the assumption that the Christian faith is fundamentally rational, and can
thus be both supported and explored by reason. Faith goes beyond reason, having
access to truths and insights of revelation, which reason could not hope to
fathom or discover unaided. Reason has the role of building upon what is known
by revelation, exploring what its implications might be. It rests upon rational
foundations, but the building erected on that foundation goes far beyond what
reason can uncover. Philosophy is thus the ancilla theologiae, “the
handmaid of theology”.
(b) Theology is the republication of the insights of reason
By the
middle of the seventeenth century, especially in England and Germany, a new
attitude began to develop. If faith is rational, they argued, it must be
capable of being deduced in its entirety by reason. Every aspect of faith,
every item of Christian belief, must be shown to derive from human reason. Reason
thus came to be regarded as being capable of establishing what is right without
needing any assistance from revelation. Christianity has to follow reason,
being accepted where it endorses what reason has to say, and being disregarded
where it goes its own way.
(c)Theology is redundant;
reason reigns supreme
Finally,
this potentially rationalist position was pushed to its logical outcome. As a
matter of fact, it was argued, Christianity does include a series of major
beliefs which are inconsistent with reason. Reason has the right to judge
religion because it stands above it. This approach is usually termed
“Enlightenment rationalism”.
4. RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE
“Experience”
is an imprecise term. The origins of the word are relatively well understood:
it derives from the Latin term experientia,
which could be interpreted as “that which arises out of traveling through
life.” In this broad sense, it means “an accumulated body of knowledge, arising
through first-hand encounter with life.” When one speaks of “an experienced
teacher” or “an experienced doctor,” the implication is that they have learned
their craft through first-hand application. It has come to refer to the
inner life of individuals, in which those individuals become aware of their own
subjective feelings and emotions. It relates to the inward and subjective world
of experience, as opposed to the outward world of everyday life.
Harvard
psychologist William James (1842–1910) identified four characteristics of such
religious experience:
(i) Ineffability:
The experience “defies expression”; it cannot be described adequately in words.
“Its quality must be directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred
to others.”
(ii) Noetic quality: Such an experience is seen to
possess authority, giving insight and knowledge into deep truths, which are
sustained over time. These “states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by
the discursive intellect” are understood to be “illuminations, revelations,
full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain.”
(iii) Transiency: “Mystical states cannot be
sustained for long.” Usually, they last from a few seconds to minutes and their
quality cannot be accurately remembered, though the experience is recognized if
it recurs. “When faded, their quality can but imperfectly be reproduced in
memory.”
(iv) Passivity: “Although the oncoming of mystical
states may be facilitated by preliminary voluntary operations,” once they have
begun, the mystic feels out of control as if he or she “were grasped and held
by a superior power.”
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