Systematic Theology: Chapter One

Theology as Faith Seeking Understanding

The word “theology” is derived from the combination of two Greek words: θεός (theos) + λόγος (logos), meaning the “study of God.” In its broadest sense, systematic theology is that branch of Christian theology that has to do with systematic and organized reflection on the subject matter of Christian faith. Augustine of Hippo is known for the saying “Crede ut intelligas” (“Believe that you may understand”).¹ Anselm of Canterbury modified this as “Credo ut intelligam” (“I believe in order to understand”), and Anselm’s motto fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”) is a helpful definition of theology.² Thomas Aquinas identified Sacra Doctrina (Holy Teaching or Sacred Doctrine) as the “science of God” and of all other things insofar as they have reference to God. Sacra Doctrina is the “highest wisdom” because it deals with the Highest Cause insofar as God (meaning the triune God) has made himself known in revelation.³ John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that theology had to do with the knowledge of God and of ourselves that leads to immortality.⁴

More recently, Thomas Oden writes that the subject matter of theology is the “Living God,” YHWH, “known in the faith of the worshiping Christian community” which lives out of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, and of all things as they relate to God. God is a personal Subject, a You or Thou, not an it. Theology is the “investigation and clarification of the internal consistency of [the church’s confessional] assertions . . . and the way they relate to the problems of daily life.”⁵

Karl Barth adds that the task of theology is in the service of the church. Theology exists in “the realm between the Scriptures and their exposition and proclamation.” Theology “is based upon the fact that God has spoken to humanity and that humanity may hear God’s word through grace.” Theology reminds the church that its life and work are “under the authority of the gospel and the law, that God should be heard.”⁶

The language of the previous paragraphs helps to unravel the meaning of theology. First, faith: In Greek, the single word πιστεύω (pisteuō)) can be translated either “I believe” or “I have faith,” and the corresponding noun πίστις (pistis) can be translated as either “belief” or “faith.” This ambiguity explains the contradiction that is not really a contradiction between the apostle Paul in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians and the epistle of James concerning justification by faith. Paul states in Romans 3:28 “that a human being is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου, dikaiousthai pistei anthrōpon chōris ergōn nomou),” while James writes that “a human being is justified by works and not by faith alone” (ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος καὶ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον, ex ergōn dikaioutai anthrōpos kai ouk ek pisteōs monon, James 2:24).

That the contradiction is only verbal becomes clear in James 2:19 when James writes: “You believe (πιστεύεις, pisteueis) that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe (πιστεύουσιν, pisteuousin)—and shudder.” As the English translation makes clear, James is understanding “faith” in the sense of an intellectual conviction: the demons believe that God exists. To the contrary, the apostle Paul uses the word “faith” in the sense of “trust,” not mere intellectual conviction. The demons may believe that there is a God, but they have not placed their complete trust and reliance on him in the manner in which Paul talks about justification by faith. In English, we mark the same distinction as one between “belief that” and “belief in.”

Latin distinguishes between fides qua and fides quae. Fides qua means “the faith which believes.” It refers to the subjective activity of “believing in” or “having faith.” This is the faith that justifies by trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Fides quae means “the faith which is believed.” This is the objective reality in which we place our faith. When the presiding minister says at the celebration of the Eucharist, “Let us confess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed,” he or she is referring to faith in the sense of fides quae. The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are summaries of this subject matter of the Christian faith: “God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,” “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,” “the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – these are the three triune persons who simply are the one God. This triune God is the objective reality in whom Christians place their faith, and the Creeds provide a short outline of who this God is, and what this God has done. Theology thus includes both fides qua and fides quae. “Faith seeking understanding” is the process by which those who have faith in the subjective sense (fides qua) come to understand and reflect about the object (or subject matter) of that faith (fides quae), that triune reality in which faith puts its trust.

What Faith Is Not

A description of theology as “faith seeking understanding,” helps to clear up some all too prevalent misunderstandings of the nature of both theology and faith. First, faith is not “fideism,” the common misconception that “faith” means implausible belief divorced from reason, that faith is mere credulity, or, in the words of the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass, believing in “impossible things.”⁷

If Augustine is known for the exhortation “Believe in order to understand,” Tertullian has been disparaged for supposedly having said “I believe because it is absurd” (Credo quia absurdum) and asking “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?”⁸ The notion that Christian faith is inherently at odds with reason has been a stereotype since the church’s beginnings. From the time of the second-century pagan philosopher Celsus to the (no longer) “New Atheism” of the early twenty-first century, non-Christians have complained about the gullibility of Christians who “believe” contrary to rational coherence.⁹ Three centuries ago, Joseph Butler, the Anglican theologian and apologist against Deism, had already remarked that during his own time Christianity was not so much thought to be false as absurd – “a subject of mirth and ridicule . . . for its having so long interrupted the pleasure of the world.”¹⁰

To the contrary, the writers of both the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and the New Testament/Christian Scriptures regularly assume that faith in the God of Abraham and the Father of Jesus Christ is reasonable, and rational reflection about and even struggling with faith is encouraged. In the book of Genesis, the patriarch Abraham engages in reasoned debate with God himself (who has appeared in the form of a theophany): “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25, RSV). The patriarch Jacob wrestles an entire night with the angel of the Lord until he is blessed (Gen. 32:22-31). Moses also engages in rational debate with God (Ex. 32:9-14).¹¹ The book of Job is a criticism of simplistic notions of divine providence and the relation between sin and human suffering. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “‘Let us reason together,’ says the Lord” (Is. 1:18, RSV). The wisdom literature of the Old Testament includes reflections on moral living (Proverbs) and issues of meaning and purpose (Ecclesiastes). The apocryphal/deuterocanonical books of Wisdom and Sirach contrast the two paths of folly and virtue, the latter of which they associate with God’s wisdom.

The same pattern appears in the New Testament. The paradoxical nature of Jesus’ teachings (especially his parables) challenges common sense notions of the “way things are” in the light of a radically different understanding of God as Father and his providential dealings with humanity. The apostle Paul contrasts superficial forms of wisdom with the divine wisdom revealed in Christ (1 Cor. 1:18-2:10). Not only Paul, but other letter writers in the New Testament address theological disagreement not merely with appeal to authority, but through reasoned engagement.¹² 1 Peter 3:15 addresses its readers to be ready always to “make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (ESV).

The beginnings of what will become the discipline of systematic theology appeared in the second century as Christian apologists such as Justin Martyr and Athenagoras responded to Jewish and pagan objections to Christian faith with appeals to reasoned argument.¹³ Clement of Alexandria’s three-volume work the Protrepticus, the Paedagogus, and the Stromata represent something like an early “Christian Gnosticism” in contrast to heretical dualist Gnosticism.¹⁴ Irenaeus of Lyons and Origen of Alexandria provide the first two examples of what will later be designated as systematic theology. Irenaeus’s arguments against second-century Gnosticism in Against Heresies are accompanied by a contrasting positive exposition of the content of the subject matter of Christian faith: the triune God, creation, sin, and redemption through the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ as “recapitulation” and the recreation of humanity¹⁵; Origen’s On First Principles is the first example of an organizationally structured systematic theology.¹⁶ All later theologies follow the precedents of Irenaeus and Origen as rational reflections on the subject matter of Christian faith.

If theology is not fideism, neither is it its opposite, rationalist foundationalism. Foundationalism is an Enlightenment-era methodological pattern beginning with René Descartes’s Cogito Ergo Sum (“I think; therefore, I am”) that combines a methodology of doubt with a demand for absolute certainty.¹⁷ Foundationalism establishes certainty through step-by-step rational arguments built open universally agreed upon indubitably certain “first principles.”

There are both rationalist (Cartesian) versions of foundationalism beginning with the knowing subject and empiricist versions (John Locke) beginning with the known object (sensory experience).¹⁸ In an attempt to meet Enlightenment skepticism on its own ground, post-Enlightenment theology all too often developed along foundationalist lines.

Cartesian theologies can be traced through the liberal Protestant beginnings of Friedrich Schleiermacher in which the starting point of theology is a religious “experience” of absolute dependence.¹⁹ Empiricist foundationalism is echoed in apologetic approaches that attempt to establish Christian faith through step-by-step proofs of the existence of God as a “first cause,” the resurrection of Jesus Christ as historically verifiable, and the trustworthiness of Scripture as demonstrated through fulfillment of prophecy.

Modern philosophies of science, language, and ethics have made clear the incoherence of foundationalism. In the area of philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn and Michael Polanyi made the case that scientific advances do not take place through mere accumulation of more physical evidence. Rather, scientific theories involve a theoretical dimension, and advances take place through shifts in interpretive “paradigms” that make sense of how evidence fits together. Scientific knowledge always includes a “tacit” dimension of “personal” knowledge.²⁰ In the area of linguistic philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein challenged the logical positivist notion that only the empirically verifiable is meaningful. Rather, all knowledge is linguistically mediated through shared communities participating in what Wittgenstein designated as “language games.”²¹ Against Enlightenment-era moral “emotivism” and post-modern identity politics that reduced all ethical conversations either to subjective preferences or to competing power claims, Alasdair MacIntyre argued for a return to virtue ethics rooted in communities of tradition.²²

In light of the above critiques of modern post-Enlightenment epistemologies, foundationalism collapses for the following reasons:

First, there are insufficient agreed-upon premises to establish objective foundations for knowledge, whether we begin with the knowing self or with appeals to empirical (sensory) knowledge or (individual or cultural) experience.

Second, the existence and necessity of language for communication means that all knowledge is necessarily mediated through communities of tradition. Communal knowledge and trust already exist prior to any attempts to build certainty upon self-evident foundational principles.

Third, it follows that knowledge begins not with doubt, but with trust. Doubt occurs only as a questioning that arises when inconsistencies or challenges arise in the area of what is already believed or known. However, apart from previous agreement concerning basic certainties, doubt has no underlying framework against which it can raise challenges. Unmitigated doubt leads not to certainty but to complete skepticism.

The above three observations mean that all knowledge is communal rather than individual, is rooted in traditions rather than built on the foundations of indubitable self-evident principles, and is thus a matter of “faith seeking understanding” rather than doubt seeking absolute certainty. In that sense, both the Christian and the unbeliever stand on the same level playing field. Both belong to communities of tradition in which they attempt to make sense of objective realities outside the self through interpretive linguistic paradigms or structures of knowledge, and in so doing either challenge or confirm what is already believed and known.

Finally, whether they begin with the knowing self or with appeals to empirical evidence, foundationalist theologies cannot get far enough. Cartesian approaches that begin with the knowing self find themselves unable to escape the limitations of the self, collapse into solipsism, and become subject to Feurbach’s critique that such schemas are projectionist. In the end, they speak not of God, but only of ourselves “with a loud voice.”²³

Empiricist (evidentialist) theologies come no closer to attaining a full-orbed Christian faith. Theologically, the question is not whether the existence of a “first cause” can be demonstrated, but whether the triune God revealed in the history of Israel, Jesus Christ, and the church, and witnessed to in the Scriptures and the church’s tradition, exists. Similarly, the question is not whether a good argument can be made that the man Jesus of Nazareth somehow survived crucifixion in the first-century, but whether the God who is the Father of Jesus Christ raised him from the dead, and whether the Word who is God’s eternal Son became human as Jesus Christ “for us and for our salvation.” Theologically, the question is not whether the truthfulness of Scripture can be rationally demonstrated through fulfilled prophecy, but whether the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ had previously established a covenant with the people of Israel which reached its fruition in the New Testament church as the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, faithfully witnessed to by prophets and apostles in the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

This means that the contemporary theologian can embrace without embarrassment the traditional understanding of theology as “faith seeking understanding.” Such a theology is both post-liberal and post-conservative in that it is not bound by either Cartesian or empiricist versions of Enlightenment foundationalism. Rather than following in the train of either Cartesian or Kantian epistemologies that attempt to establish absolute certainty by beginning with the knowing self, or, alternatively, with claims to empirical certainty about “facts” concerning which both believer and unbeliever are supposed to agree before conversation begins, theology begins with a “hermeneutic of trust” that embraces the entirety of Christian faith as having its own kind of intrinsic intelligibility which makes sense of both the knowing self and the known world because that sense is first located in the nature of the triune God who freely has created and redeemed both the world and the self.²⁴ Such an approach cannot claim absolute certainty, but it can affirm a “proper confidence.”²⁵

Such an approach to theology is traditionalist in that it echoes the way of doing theology found in such historic figures as the church fathers Irenaeus, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, and Augustine, but also medieval figures like Thomas Aquinas, and, one could argue, post-Reformation figures such as Richard Hooker (among Anglicans) or (among the Reformed), the later Mercersburg theology. But this approach is also contemporary in that it belongs to a school of theologies of “retrieval” beginning with the work of Karl Barth, and continuing (among Protestants and Anglicans) with figures such as Thomas F. Torrance and theologians associated with the journal Pro Ecclesia, and, among Roman Catholics, with the theology of ressourcement, associated with figures such as Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Faith and Its Object

Theology as “faith seeking understanding” presumes the following about its object. First is the priority of the known object to the knowing subject. If the triune God is the object in whom Christians place their faith, then God’s own reality must pre-exist our knowledge of him. Faith is not self-generated. Faith is not faith in faith, but faith in the God who has created the universe, entered into a covenant with the people of Israel, and redeemed fallen and sinful humanity through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Second is the knowability or inherent intelligibility of the known object, even though God by definition exceeds our knowledge. To speak of knowledge of God and to use language to speak of God is inherently paradoxical. Since God is the Creator and not one of the created objects in the world in which we know and love things, God is not one of the objects of our immediate knowledge. Given God’s transcendence to the created world, only God himself can provide us with knowledge about him. Because God transcends creation, language about God will always fall short of its object, yet because God is himself the source of our knowledge about and love of him, God can indeed be known through human language in that the God of revelation “accommodates” himself to the limitations of human language in making himself known.²⁶ Traditionally, theology has marked this contrast and yet correlation between the limitations of human knowledge given divine transcendence and the nonetheless certainty of knowledge of God given in revelation by assertions that God can be apprehended, but not comprehended. Thomas Aquinas stated that we can know “that” God is, but not “what” God is.²⁷ Given the radical distinction between God and creatures that is a corollary of divine transcendence, theologians have recognized that such language about God is symbolic, metaphorical, and analogical.²⁸

Again, given divine transcendence of creation, the approach of theology to its object is necessarily a posteriori, not a priori (Thomas Aquinas).²⁹ Theology is a matter of “following after” (nachfolgen, Karl Barth).³⁰ The approach is thus inductive, not deductive. Theology is not a matter of syllogistic rational deduction based on a few initial premises, but a constant returning to, further enfolding of, and being corrected by the intelligibility of the known object. Metaphorical, symbolic, and analogical language used to articulate understanding of God’s transcendent reality is in constant need of correction in light of the reality itself, rather than the necessarily limited nature of human knowledge and language imposing human constraints on God’s own reality. In the words of Hilary of Poitiers: “The word is subject to the reality, not the reality to the word” (Non sermoni res, sed rei sermo subiectus est).³¹

Because God is not one being among other created beings, God can not be known directly as we know physical objects, but rather is known mediately – through created effects. God is known through nature and physical objects as their transcendent creating cause, through his spoken word in revelation to prophets and apostles, through the humanity of Jesus Christ in whom God is uniquely present, through sacraments and other “instruments of grace.”³²

Concerning faith as the subjective response to divine revelation, faith is not a faculty like intellect or will, but is both a disposition (habitus) and an act.³³ By definition, faith looks not to itself, but to its object as does John the Baptist in Matthias Grunewald’s triptych of the crucifixion of Jesus. Again, faith is not faith in faith, nor faith in religious experience.

As an act and a disposition, faith involves both knowledge and will as motivated by passion or desire. Faith is knowledge of and love of God as human wills are moved by desire for the triune God who has revealed himself as the Supreme Good (Summum Bonum) who is both the cause and goal of all human desire and love. In the words of the well-known prayer of Augustine of Hippo: “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”³⁴

Finally, because God is triune, God is personal, and faith is a subjective response of knowing and loving the God who has revealed himself as Truth and Goodness. The triune God has made himself known through acts of love in which God has become friends with human beings: “I call you no more servants but friends” (John 15:15).³⁵ God’s ultimate goal in creating and redeeming humanity is that through Jesus Christ, God might share with human beings the eternal triune love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and enter into fellowship (communion [κοινωνία, koinonia]) with humanity. In creation and redemption, the triune God has revealed himself as Emmanuel (“God with us”).³⁶

The correlated themes of “friendship with God” and communion with God (“God with us”) have implications for a crucial historical distinction in theology – that between “law” and “gospel.” Karl Barth has suggested that in the historic distinction, gospel must come first. We can only come to recognize that we are sinners if we are first aware of God’s essential goodness and love for us.³⁷ Phillip Melanchthon, Martin Luther’s disciple, suggests in the “Apology for the Augsburg Confession” that we cannot love God if we do not first see God as a lovable object. The human heart cannot love a God whom it perceives as angry and threatening or giving commands of the law. God can only be loved if we first see that God loves us, God is merciful, and God is for us. Only then can we experience the gratitude that enables us to respond to God’s love with love of our own. If we understand God’s command as an expression of his love, we can respond with love in kind.³⁸

The Subject Matter of Theology: Knowing and Being

What is the basic structure of the Christian faith that needs to be understood? The objective content of faith (fides qua) as the “subject matter,” the “object,” “scope” (skopos, Athanasius)³⁹ or “reality,” “truth” (sach, Karl Barth)⁴⁰ in which subjective faith (fides quae) places its confidence can be elaborated through an outline of three basic levels of Christian knowing and being laid out in a classic distinction between the Order of Knowing (Ordo Cognoscendi) and the Order of Being (Ordo Essendi).⁴¹

If we begin with the ordo cognoscendi, the order in which we come to know, the first level of knowledge is the level of narrative and symbol (Level 1). Christianity is a story whose central character is God—a God who speaks and acts. The story is communicated through both narratives and symbols.

The story is a story about God, creation, and humanity. The story can be outlined in several key chapters: creation, fall, covenant, redemption, eschatology. At the core of the story is the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Christian living is a matter of being part of a community (the church) that lives out this story, that patterns its life within the parameters of its plot lines. Christians “indwell” the story through reading Scripture, through worship, through prayer, through living lives that exemplify the story.

The story is not “just a story,” however, in the manner of a fictional narrative; the story claims to be the one true story about the nature of reality. Thus, the narrative is referential. It refers beyond itself to the Level of History (Level 2).

Unlike pagan mythologies, the Christian story refers to datable events that took place in actual history. Moses and the Exodus can be approximately dated to sometime between 1500 and 1200 BCE. David was a real king who lived approximately 1000 BCE. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, most likely on Passover 29 CE.

The claim that the Christian story is the “true story” presupposes a philosophy of history.⁴² History is linear and has a goal and direction. History begins with God’s creation of the universe, has a center in God’s covenant with Israel, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and God’s presence in the church through his Holy Spirit, and moves to and culminates in the second coming of Jesus Christ and the eschaton, the recreation of the universe that is the teleological goal and culmination of the story.

The story includes events that are claimed to have happened, but which transcend ordinary historical causality, for example. God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The story claims that God has acted and spoken through prophets (in the history of Israel), in the incarnation of his Son Jesus, and through apostles (in the church). The canon of Scripture (level 1) is an inspired witness or record of this divine revelation and saving/redemptive activity in the history of Israel, of Jesus Christ, and of the apostolic church (level 2).

The story is referential not only in the direction of history. If the story is indeed the “one true story,” then a primary assumption of the story must be that the revelation of God in history is a true revelation of God’s nature and character. The God who is revealed in the history of Israel, Jesus Christ, and the church, is in himself who he has shown himself to be in this historical revelation.

Thus the story is referential in terms of ontology or metaphysics, the Level of Being (Existence, Reality, what things are in themselves, Level 3).

Christianity speaks of divine, created, and human realities. If God’s revelation in history is a reliable revelation of God’s nature and character, then the God who has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the history of Israel, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the church (the economic Trinity, level 2), must be triune in himself (in se, in God’s own nature). From all eternity, God is in himself this tripersonal reality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the immanent Trinity), three distinct relational persons in one Being (level 3).

Crucial events in the story touch not only on God’s own nature, but on other ontological realities: creation, redemption, grace, eschatology.

The relation between God and creation is unique. God transcends creation, yet is immediately present to it. The Christian understanding of creation is neither pantheism (identifying Creator and creature) nor dualism (positing an opposition between God and some dimension of created reality). All created being is real (because receiving its being from God), contingent (because it does not have to exist at all), and orderly (because God creates through his Word, and God is not arbitrary).

Humanity is created (as male and female) in the image of God (oriented toward union with God), has fallen through sin (from union with God), and has been redeemed (restored to union with God) through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Through the presence of the Holy Spirit, human beings are ontologically united to the risen Christ, and transformed morally and spiritually: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20, RSV). Thus Christian ontology demands an account of both anthropology and of grace.

At the heart of the Christian story is the incarnation of the Son of God as God become human in Jesus Christ, who, “for us, and our salvation, came down from heaven.” If God is in se (in God’s own Being) who God is in his revelation, then who Jesus Christ is “for us” (propter nos) is necessarily grounded in who Jesus Christ is in himself (in se). Otherwise, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ would not be a true revelation of God’s own being and character. The ontology of Jesus Christ’s personal identity as one who is fully God living as fully human is summarized in the Hypostatic Union: Jesus Christ’s personal identity is that of the eternally existing Son of God who has assumed a human nature at a particular place and time: Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human – a single divine person with two natures, one divine, one human (Councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon).

The intimate connection between Jesus Christ’s person and work (who Jesus is and what Jesus does) means that Christology is inextricably tied to the doctrine of the atonement: Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection are constitutive of salvation for all humanity, not merely illustrative of a salvation that might be found elsewhere or even perhaps everywhere. That is, Jesus actually saves sinners; Jesus does not just provide us a good example of how we might save ourselves. In addition, if Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection are constitutive of salvation, then this must be true for all human beings, every where and for all time. That is, Jesus is not just a way of salvation, or the way of salvation for Christians, but the single way of salvation for all human beings, everywhere, and for all time.

Finally, the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church has ontological implications as well. It is the Spirit who unites created, fallen, and redeemed humanity to the risen Christ, and Scripture uses the metaphors of both the Spirit indwelling the church (1 Cor. 6:19-20), and the church as located “in Christ” through the Spirit (Rom. 6:3; 8:1). Theology speaks of the ontological union between the risen Christ and the church using the terminology of sanctification, theosis, and participation. Sacramental theology speaks of Christ’s mediated presence in the church through the sacraments as “instrumental causes” (or means) of grace.

As noted above, the story includes events that are claimed to have happened, but which transcend ordinary immanent causality, for example, the Exodus of Israel from slavery and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The usual term used to describe these events is “miracle,” and, in a time in which many (including some Christians), believe that “miracles don’t happen,” Christian faith cannot avoid discussing the ontology of immediate divine acts in history (primary causality) that would be an exception to the ordinary mediated presence of God in time and space (secondary causality).

Finally, the story has an eschatological conclusion that transcends ordinary history, and will affect all reality (“new creation,” “new heavens and new earth”). This is fundamentally an ontological claim about the eventual nature and outcome of the entire universe.

The subject matter of theology can be approached from any of the three levels, a starting point in knowledge, a starting point in history, or a starting point in ontology. If theology begins with our current setting as Christians who know God through Scripture, worship, prayer, and Christian living (the ordo cognoscendi, level 1) story and symbol are first, and ontology (level 3) is last.⁴³

Beginning at the level of history (level 2), God’s saving activity in the history of Israel and Jesus Christ is first, but points beyond itself on the one hand to the triune God who has acted in history (level 3), and forward to the canonical Scriptures and the worship of the Christian community that witness to divine revelation in history, but also allow present participation in God’s triune life through worship and prayer, for example, “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24; level 1).

If theology begins at the level of being (ordo essendi, what things are in themselves), then ontology will be first (level 1), and knowledge of the story – Scripture, tradition, proclamation, worship and Christian living (level 3) – will be last. This is the standard approach of theologies that begin with the doctrine of God as One and as Three, and move from there to discuss creation, anthropology, covenant, Christology, grace, ecclesiology, and eschatology.

All three levels of knowing and being are integrally related, and depend on one another. In the ordo cognoscendi, the source of knowledge is: first, Scripture, and second, creeds, preaching, the worship of the church, tradition, and so on. At the level of history, the fundamental Christian claim is that God is in himself (in se) who he is in his revelation. The God who is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the history of Israel, of Jesus Christ, and the church is the triune God who in himself is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This triune God comes to be known through the reading of the Scriptures and the worship of the church. In the ordo essendi (the level of Being), the triune reality is first. God reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in history, and the church worships and participates in the life of the Trinity in the present because God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in se (in himself) from all eternity.

Doctrines and Practices

There is a close correlation between Christian doctrines and practices, that is worship, prayer, and Christian living (spirituality and ethics). Liturgical theologians (who study the history and theology of worship) have been particularly fond in recent decades of the expression lex orandi, lex credendi: the rule of praying (or worship) is the rule of believing (or faith).

Christian practices of worship, prayer, spirituality, and ethics are directly related to the Christian story, to history, and to ontology:

Created, fallen, and redeemed human beings are restored to union with Jesus Christ by living within the parameters of the Christian story. Faith, repentance, prayer, and worship in Word and Sacrament are the means by which Christians live out that Christian story. Christian ethics and spirituality are the outworking of the Christian story in our day-to-day lives.

Salvation is the re-creation of fallen and redeemed human beings through union with the crucified and risen Jesus Christ who is present in the church through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Practices such as prayer and worship in Word and Sacrament presume a unique ontological presence of the risen Jesus Christ to the church. The Christian claim is that the “Jesus of history” who is no longer present to the world in the same way in which he was physically present in Palestine during the first thirty years or so of the first century truly lives, and is genuinely ontologically present to and active in the church in a transcendent and sacramental manner.

Metaphor, History, and Ontology

The inherent connection between the three levels of knowing and being can be illustrated through the examples of three biblical metaphors (level 1) that touch on God’s presence at the levels of both history (level 2) and ontology (level 3). In the Christian story (the level of narrative), we find God’s presence identified with three spatial metaphors or symbols.

In the Old Testament, the God of Israel is associated with the metaphor of height: God’s throne is “in heaven” (1 Kings 22:19; Is. 6:1, 40:22). The New Testament appropriates this metaphor of height to speak of “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9, Luke 11:2) (The metaphor of height is a metaphor of transcendence.)⁴⁴

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is identified with the metaphors of Sonship (he is the “only Son” of the Father; John 1:14, 18; Matt. 11:27), but also with the metaphor of “incarnation” (the Word “took flesh . . . and dwelt among us”; John 1:14). The Son who existed in the form of God, “emptied himself” and took the “form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7). The metaphor of incarnation includes both height and depth imagery. The Son who dwelt with the Father “in heaven” descended to the level of humanity.

The Holy Spirit is identified in the New Testament with the metaphor of “indwelling.” The Spirit is “in” the church (1 Cor. 6:19-20). The metaphor associated with the Spirit is that of immanence (John 14:17; Rom. 8:9, 11).

The metaphors are located within narratives (story) that are rooted in particular historical events. The primary historical events associated with the transcendent God would be God’s covenant with Israel beginning with Abraham, the Exodus of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and the giving of the divine law at Mount Sinai. The God who is “wholly other” than his creation (“in heaven”) has entered into a relationship with a particular people (the nation of Israel) in time and space (history).

The primary historical event associated with the metaphor of incarnation would be the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus of Nazareth, who addressed the God of Israel as his Father, is shown truly to be the Son of God. God has become “incarnate” in Jesus Christ.

The historical event associated with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit would be the coming into existence of the church at Pentecost, following the resurrection and ascension of the Son. Through the indwelling Spirit, the church comes into existence as the new people of God. Through the indwelling Spirit, the church comes to share in the life of the risen Christ (union with Christ through the indwelling Spirit).

Each historical event points beyond itself to an ontological reality.

The God who dwells “in heaven” and made a covenant with Israel is the Creator God who brings the world into existence from nothing and transcends his creation.

The Son who became human, who died and rose to life again, is fully divine and fully human.

The Spirit who dwells in the Church, is not only fully God, but enables the church to share in the divine life of the triune God.

Each metaphor and symbol also receives its content from and is controlled by the literary structure of the biblical narratives, which are in turn controlled by their historical and ontological referents. Crucial to the narrative structure is that the meaning of the symbols is derived from the story, not vice versa. The symbols do not arive with an a priori self-evident meaning. Rather, the narrative structure of the texts provides content to the metaphors. For example, we know what it means for God to be Father not from a generic notion of “fatherhood” derived from experiences of human fathers, whether from historical patriarchal structures or from modern or post-modern critiques of patriarchy, but from the relationship of the earthly Jesus to the God he called “Father,” which, in turn, is grounded in the eternal ontological relations between the Father and the Son from all eternity. We know what it means for God to judge our sins not from human experiences of legal justice, but from the Christian doctrine of the atonement in which God passes judgment on human sin not through condemnation of the guilty, but from the acquittal of sinners through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:1).

Conclusion

Accordingly, God is in himself who he is in his revelation. If the revelation of God in the Christian story and in the history of salvation is a true revelation of God’s own identity, then revelation must be grounded in God’s very Being. The relations between the three persons made known in the Christian story and in the history of salvation (the economic Trinity) are grounded eternally in the divine nature. The God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the history of revelation must be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in himself from all eternity (the immanent Trinity). The doctrine of the Trinity is then the fundamental doctrine that grounds all theology.

Other doctrines share in this fundamental correlation between the three levels of knowing and being. The God who has created the world and entered into a covenant with the people of Israel is the same God who both transcends creation while being immanently present to it, who has created humanity as male and female in his image, a humanity that is oriented to teleological union with God in eschatological beatitude.

The man Jesus of Nazareth who proclaimed the presence of God’s kingdom, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose from the grave three days later, is the incarnate Son who became human “for our salvation,” whose atoning life and saving work are constitutive for human salvation.

The Holy Spirit present in the church is the third person of the Trinity, who unites created, sinful, and redeemed human beings to the crucified and risen humanity of Jesus Christ, enabling the church to share in a relational union or communion (koinonia) with the triune God. Human salvation consists in God becoming one with us in Christ so that we might become one with God through the indwelling Spirit.

Historic Christian theology has been structured along the lines of these correlations between the order of knowledge and the order of being. As seen in the Rule of Faith, the baptismal rite, baptismal catechesis, and early creeds, later confessional statements and catechisms, historic theology has a trinitarian structure: “We believe in God the Father Almighty . . . . in Jesus Christ . . . who for us and our salvation, came down from heaven . . . . in the Holy Spirit [and] one Holy Catholic Church.”

Historic Christian theology has a three-fold narrative/historical outline that begins with creation (“maker of heaven and earth”), moves to redemption (“for us and our salvation, he came down from heaven”), and concludes with eschatology (“the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come”).

Finally, historic Christian theology has a Christological center. The fundamental affirmation of Christian faith is that Jesus Christ saves – that the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ actually create salvation – for all people who have ever lived, for all time – that the Jesus of Nazareth who lived in Palestine in the early years of the first century is in himself the Son of God who “came down from heaven . . . for us and our salvation,” and is in himself the second person of the triune God, who has assumed a human nature, fully God and fully human.

This triune God revealed in history in covenant with the people of Israel, become incarnate in Jesus Christ, and present through the Holy Spirit in the church is the subject matter of theology as “faith seeking understanding,” both in the sense of the subjective faith that members of the church place in this God who has redeemed us in Christ, but also in the sense of the objective content – the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ – in whom Christians place their faith.

Appendix: Theology as Critical Realism

Crucial to the above discussion is the distinction between the order of knowledge (ordo cognoscendi) and the order of being (ordo essendi), and the three levels (moving from knowing to being) of (1) narrative/symbol, (2) history, and (3) ontology. A similar and parallel discussion occurs in the writings of Reformed theologian Thomas F. Torrance and Roman Catholic theologian Bernard Lonergan. The correlation between knowledge and being is a key feature in the theologies of both Torrance and Lonergan, and both use the terminology of “critical realism” to describe their projects. Both agree in describing the movement that we have called the move from narrative/symbol to history to ontology as a movement from what could be called “common sense realism” to a “critical realism,” and a move from knowledge of things as they relate to us to knowledge of realities in themselves.

Torrance describes a “stratified structure of knowledge” that corresponds to the three levels of knowing and being discussed above. Torrance designates the first level of knowledge as the “evangelical and doxological level.” It is the “basic level of experience and worship, in which we encounter God’s revealing and reconciling activity in the Gospel.” It is the level of day-to-day worship, in which the gospel is proclaimed through the reading and interpretation of Scripture that takes place corporately within the context of Christian fellowship in the church.⁴⁵

The second level is the “evangelical and doxological level,” and corresponds to the knowledge of God as the “economic Trinity,” as God has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the “structures of space and time” (history), in which God “remains what he is eternally in himself while communicating himself to us really and truly and without reserve in Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit.”⁴⁶

Torrance designates the third level as the “higher theological and scientific level,” in which we move from the level of God’s revelation in the economy of salvation to the “trinitarian relations immanant in God himself,” from the economic Trinity to the “Ontological Trinity” or the “Immanent Trinity.”⁴⁷ Torrance argues that this is the move made by the patristic church at the Christological councils of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. The “focal point” is Jesus Christ himself, and the fundamental assumption is that “what Jesus Christ is toward us in love and grace, in redemption and sanctification, in the mediation of divine life, he is inherently in himself in his own Being.”⁴⁸

Crucial to Torrance’s understanding of critical realism is the distinction between “signs” and “words” (or what we have called “symbols” and “narratives”) and the “realities” that signs intend. Signs and words are not the objects of our knowledge, but are rather “transparent media” through which realities are known. Even the words of the Bible do not point to themselves, but to the living God who has created and redeemed humanity. This does not mean that the interpretation of Scripture is a subjective task on the part of the reader, but that the reading of Scripture must be controlled by its objective subject matter, the triune God who has become incarnate in Jesus Christ.⁴⁹

Also crucial for Torrance is the distinction between symbolic thinking and what Torrance calls “scientific thinking” or, again, critical realism. The language of symbolism is concerned to describe things “as they appear to us.” The danger of a theology that does not move beyond symbols is that it will not move beyond thinking out of the center of the human subject to thinking out of a center in objective reality. In scientific thinking, symbols do not disappear; rather, they refer beyond themselves in order that we might understand things in accordance with their natures with their intrinsic relations. The move from primitive thinking to scientific thinking is that of passing from knowledge of things in relation to us to knowing them in themselves.⁵⁰ Theologically, this is the move from the symbols and narratives of the biblical texts to the economic history centered in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ to the immanent Trinity.

Bernard Lonergan distinguishes between the three levels of naive (or “common sense”) realism, dogmatic realism, and critical realism.⁵¹ The dogmatic development from the level of Scripture to the decrees of the ecumenical councils is a transition from one literary level to another, but also a differentiation of consciousness. The Scriptures are addressed to the whole person, while the dogmatic decrees of the councils address the enlightenment of the intellect. The Gospels and other New Testament writings teach the truth, but they do so by engaging our imaginations and affections, touching our hearts, and attracting our wills. Conciliar decrees condense Scripture, narrowing its words to a single basic proposition that speaks only to the mind. Lonergan characterizes this transition as one from “undifferentiated common sense” to an “intellectual pattern of experience.”⁵² The christological dogmas do not advance from obscurity to clarity, but from one kind of clarity to another. What Mark, Paul, and John thought about Christ was clear; yet their teaching acquired a new kind of clarity through the definition of Nicea.⁵³

What distinguished the Hebrew people from other ancient peoples was not “the simplicity of the Hebrew mind,” as this is something found among all ancient people.⁵⁴ Rather, in contrast to the Greeks, for example, the Hebrews conceived of God as a person whom they had come to know through certain concrete historical events. Their God was the God of the patriarchs and Moses, who performed deeds of power, who spoke to them, and made promises. In consequence, the Hebrew knowledge of God was truer than the Greeks; they had a greater deliverance from mythology, and had better means to live a good life.⁵⁵

The transition from naive realism to dogmatic and critical realism is, first, the move from symbolic language to realist language. Symbolic language is effective and necessary to penetrate our sensibilities and move our affections, but is fairly unreliable to communicate truth.⁵⁶ Symbolic language is corrected through the knowledge and nature of things.⁵⁷ Realism is a correspondence between reality and a truth acknowledged by the mind. Dogmatic realism is an acceptance of the word of God as true and speaking of things as they are. In dogmatic realism, the word of God is accepted as revealed and is preached, but without further reflection. Dogmatic realists cling to the reality of what is known through the word of God, but because they do not know the reasons for their position, are scarcely aware of its implications.⁵⁸

The Council of Nicea marks the transition from dogmatic realism to critical realism. Ironically, Arius laid the foundations by eliminating anthropomorphism and metaphorical language, and thus undercut naive realism. By asking the crucial theological question of whether the Son was Creator or creature, Arius put the question in terms of Christian categories rather than Platonic. He solved the problem rationalistically by stating that the Son was a creature.⁵⁹

By declaring that the Son is homoousious (consubstantial) with the Father, Nicea did something new. It went beyond relational language (Creator/creature, Redeemer/redeemed) to speak of the divine nature in itself, to an “ontological” understanding of God. Nicea was a transition from multiplicity to unity, from many titles and predicates to the consubstantiality of the Son. Nicea was also a transition from the word of God accommodated to a particular people at a particular time to the word of God affirmed by all peoples at all times. It was a transition from the mystery of God spoken of in symbolic language to the mystery of God spoken of in clear and distinct affirmations, the move from naive realism to dogmatic realism to critical realism.⁶⁰

Finally, the move to critical realism is the move that, prescinding from other aspects of the word of God, concentrates on the word as true. Athanasius began with the images of light and illumination common to the tradition and borrowed from the Scriptures. However, the notion of consubstantiality transcends sensual imagery. Athansius’s “rule” refers not to images, but to judgment of the word as true: If whatever is said of the Son is true of the Father except that the Son is not the Father, it follows that the Son is the same as the Father, yet not the same one as the Father. This is the meaning of “consubstantial” as used by Nicea.⁶¹