"Is 'faith seeking understanding' a useful understanding of theology?"
Well, useful for what?
I think, for many people who do theology, it is one accurate description; it is for me. But I'm confident there are people studying theology -- though, I grant you, probably not engaging in theology, not creating theology -- for whom it is an academic practice, and has no bearing on their own inner life.
I suspect that too much of the time, theological thinking has been closer to "belief seeking explanation" or "bias seeking justification" than it has been to "faith seeking understanding."
Gordon Dickson once distinguished between faith and belief as (paraphrased), "belief is something you hold; faith is something you (do/are)" For me, I think, theology is a pitiful, limping, ham-handed attempt to take "how I experience God/s/myself/the world" out of the world of direct apprehension or even the world of non-verbal expression in art etc. and into the world of words, of expression- with- the- greatest- clarity- and- accuracy- and- completeness- I- can- manage. (And aren't *those* three always a balancing act!)
So is it "faith seeing understanding" or "faith seeking expression in a shared language" or what-- ? I don't know. I guess the visceral experience of faith seeking first some beginning of understanding, and then some beginning of expression in a form clear enough to be shared.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-17 03:38 pm (UTC)Well, useful for what?
I think, for many people who do theology, it is one accurate description; it is for me. But I'm confident there are people studying theology -- though, I grant you, probably not engaging in theology, not creating theology -- for whom it is an academic practice, and has no bearing on their own inner life.
I suspect that too much of the time, theological thinking has been closer to "belief seeking explanation" or "bias seeking justification" than it has been to "faith seeking understanding."
Gordon Dickson once distinguished between faith and belief as (paraphrased), "belief is something you hold; faith is something you (do/are)" For me, I think, theology is a pitiful, limping, ham-handed attempt to take "how I experience God/s/myself/the world" out of the world of direct apprehension or even the world of non-verbal expression in art etc. and into the world of words, of expression- with- the- greatest- clarity- and- accuracy- and- completeness- I- can- manage. (And aren't *those* three always a balancing act!)
So is it "faith seeing understanding" or "faith seeking expression in a shared language" or what-- ? I don't know. I guess the visceral experience of faith seeking first some beginning of understanding, and then some beginning of expression in a form clear enough to be shared.