faith religion and theology by brenan hill

faith religion and theology by brenan hill

Faith, Religion, and Theology

1. Introduction

In his essay “Cognitive Dualism and the Task of Theology,” Brian Leftow takes a step which is almost a reverse of Flanagan’s position, in proposing to borrow a distinction from philosophy of mind as a means of defending the distinct subject matter of theology. Working from a view of the human person as constituted by mind and body, Leftow adopts a version of Descartes’ thesis that the two substances can be understood in relative independence. He suggests that anything which can be described in neutral terms and be known by virtue of common human experience belongs to a ‘bodily’ science and therefore to philosophy rather than to theology. The latter is a descriptive and explanatory discipline concerning those aspects of human life that are known only in the context of the relationship between humanity and God. Leftow’s essay provides an example of the kind of detailed and cautious analysis that we hope to encourage and is a valuable attempt to spell out the implications of certain views about theological methodology.

The volume then moves on to address a cluster of issues broadly related to the question of whether theology has a distinct subject matter of its own, or whether it can be assimilated to a species of philosophy or religious studies. John Hare argues that the modern preference for ‘doing theology’ over the writing of works that are overtly ‘theological’ stems from a too narrow understanding of what theology is. He claims that insofar as philosophy seeks to address the meaning of life through the kinds of normative reflection with which Hare is himself engaged, it is in danger of duplicating theology. Simulation to religious studies is equally problematic, since the definition of theology in terms of an academic study of religion leaves the student with no reason to engage religious primary sources rather than secondary literature. It is Owen Flanagan’s position that theology can be subsumed under the cognitive and existential of (descriptive) metaphysics and philosophy of religion, but that this is not something with which theologians ought to be content. He argues that if there is a separate subject matter of theology, it is that which concerns the texts and activities thought by the confession of.

The engagement between theology and other forms of reasoning is a predominant feature of the modern era, and one that has exercised a key influence over “Faith, Religion, and Theology”. It is therefore fitting that the essays in this volume should begin by exploring the status of theology as an academic discipline. This issue is taken up by Hilary Putnam and George Lindbeck, who both identify theology in its modern context as ‘hermeneutical’ – that is, they see it as a form of investigation into truths already known or intimated. In different ways, Putnam’s idealism and Lindbeck’s postliberalism present theology as fascinated by the prospect of revising the grammar or conceptual framework of a given religious tradition, and one which thereby seeks to derive illuminating new descriptions and explanations of human life within the world.

2. Understanding Faith

Even a professed atheist must understand his rejection of faith in this context. Furthermore, any discipline that deals with human dynamics and human welfare must ask about the place of faith, its structure and function, and its malaises and miracles. So faith has been an important, often criticized, dimension of human living in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and ethics. Finally, a reflection upon faith is a deep and sometimes unsettling personal enquiry into oneself. Any man is likely to find himself a strange and ambivalent being in his fidelitous and his faithless moments.

But faith is not an exclusive concern of religion. No man lives by bread alone, says the Old Testament; or again, man lives not by bread alone but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Oppressive and narrow as myopic religion sometimes has been, faith has an important positive or negative relationship to all values and ultimates that have guided human living.

Faith is an inescapable dimension of the human enterprise that involves man at all levels. This attempt to understand faith means delving into the depth of each discipline. Theology obviously is interested in faith. What does faith mean and involve? In a given religion, how does it differ from superstition? How is it related to values and to ultimate concerns? What is its structure and dynamics? On what grounds can a man commend a faith to others or criticize the faith of others? What is the interrelationship of faith with vision, with love, and with action? These are rather typical theological questions.

3. Exploring Different Religions

In exploring different religions, we learn a great deal about our own. If the religion we are studying is not our own, we come to understand that other cultures and other people have an approach to the divine, which is as meaningful to them as ours is to us. We gain insight into the vast complexity of human culture. We learn that the different religions of the world often have beliefs and practices which seem on the surface to be identical, but which have vastly different meanings and purposes. We learn to distinguish between the external forms of religion and its internal meaning. We come to see that while the sacred writings, the myths and the ritual of religions are often profoundly moving, their real significance is rarely to be found in the superhuman stories which they tell, nor in the events which they celebrate. The real point is usually to lead the human beings into a particular kind of life or to enable them to understand life in a particular way. When we bring the light of intelligent sympathy to the study of other religions, we always gain in understanding of our own. It is important to emphasize that an understanding of other religions does not necessarily imply sympathy with their beliefs and practices, so much as it implies sympathetic understanding of the ways in which the adherent of the religion sees his own beliefs and practices. It is also important to underscore the fact that knowledgeable sympathetic understanding of other religions is a rare accomplishment, so deeply are most of us convinced that our own religion is the only true one. But the open-minded study of other religions is one of the best ways to become aware of the complex richness of our own religious traditions, and so it is to be encouraged for all who seek human understanding. How then, should we begin to study a religion other than our own in order to gain sympathetic understanding of it?

4. Theological Perspectives

How does theology seek to provide an organizing vision and understanding of the world? There is no one answer to this question since theology and reflective religious belief have taken many forms through the centuries. As we have indicated, however, we believe that theology at its best is a form of critical reflection on the religiousness of religion and on the possibility of living a life of faith. Such reflections occur in response to a variety of factors. These include the experience of contradiction, incoherence, or a lack of fit between religious symbols and the realities to which they refer. They also occur in response to experience of the depth of religion, its capacity to evoke a sense of wonder and mystery, its power to evoke a sense of value and obligation, and its ability to provide orienting and sustaining ends and purposes for human life. Finally, they occur in response to a sense of critical threat to religion or the life of faith. Theologians often are moved to reflection when religious symbols and ways of life appear to be losing their plausibility, when religion is felt to be marginalized in public life, or when it is co-opted by social, political, economic, or psychological forces. Reflection may also be spurred by the acute perception of a double life lived by religious persons or groups, when a wide disparity between professed faith and actual existence calls for a diagnostic judgment on what has gone wrong or an articulation of alternative possibilities.

5. Conclusion

Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off’, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Scholars, theologians, and religious leaders can go on to develop and sometimes refine one’s faith. But it will always come down to whether or not one can hold true to what his heart and soul knows to be true. You are not mad, and don’t you see if you are not, then the things that reason on moods would bounce are not necessarily true about you. Who is skulking safe now? Is it safer being him who he really is, or under the appearance of him on of the other’s fancy? Now faith is speculative. In other words, one can never be absolutely certain what God has in store for us. But following faith, when one looks back on it, belief or faith itself has been nothing but a series of acts of faith and commitment to a saving faith and belief. Step one, albeit perhaps only an inclination step, which saves him from some worse act or thoughts. Step two, where he committed himself to Christ and things of a Christian. Step three, a made decision to accept one’s salvation. Step four, a resolution of your will affect some change in your life by God’s grace. Step five, an act of witness or of a changed life in light of the Gospel. And with living a life faithful to what God has planned for him, a Christian will at last find eternal life with God.