Theology gets a bad rap, often seen as a bunch of eggheads asking questions that no one really cares about. In the Middle Ages, it revolved around how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, or so the legend goes. Today it focuses on doctrinal subtleties and commandments that most people would rather do away with.
Theology matters, however, because truth matters. God is Truth and he has revealed himself to us so that we can know him, come to know ourselves, and live in a loving communion with him.
What is theology? Aquinas calls it a science, an organized body of knowledge that proceeds from the truths of a higher science, namely God’s own knowledge of himself. Through faith, God enables us to know him in a way that goes beyond the natural grasp of reason. This supernatural knowledge enlivens the mind, awakening reason to a new way of seeing: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
We all desire to the know the truth and theology reflects the need to think about and understand the faith, our knowledge of the highest and most important realities.
The Church gives us this time of Lent for renewal and purification. It is a time, of course, for breaking off our attachments to things, although it should also involve more time for reflection and prayer. Yes, Lent is a great time to study theology! Although we may not all pick a work of academic theology, we should all seek to understand our faith better, following the example of Our Lady, who “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).
The more we know, the more we can love and can understand the movements of God in our lives. Theology entails a lifelong task of coming to know God more, of encountering him in Scripture, meditating upon the mysteries of faith and conforming our minds to the truth.
For those ready for a more serious dive into academic theology, there are some amazing resources recently translated and made available by Emmaus Academic Press. The first is Mauro Gagliardi’s Truth Is a Synthesis: Catholic Dogmatic Theology (2020), translated from Italian, which provides a thorough overview, at just over 1,000 pages of the central doctrines of the faith.
While firmly rooted in the great theological tradition, it leads the modern reader into an active search for truth:
Theology is not in the realm of opinion, but rather that of healthy debate and engagement, a search for Truth in an ever more perfect way. Moreover, theology does not study the sources of faith merely out of a historical interest …. Certainly the historical approach to texts is necessary, but it is not everything. There must be an ‘alethic’ approach (from the Greek aletheia, meaning ‘truth’). The theologian studies the sources to discover and learn in a deeper way the Truth, which is always ‘relevant’ and never ‘overcome’” (98).
While standing against contemporary relativism, a deep dive into the Church’s theological tradition can guide us along the divine way of truth.
Even if theology is not simply the study of historical sources, we do need models in this search for truth, mentors in how to think rightly in relation to faith. Emmaus Academic has undertaken a project of enormous importance in making one of these guides accessible, translating Father Matthias Scheeben’s (1835-88) magnum opus, his Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics, into English for the first time in nine volumes. Scheeben was one of the greatest theologians of the 19th century, who in a mystical fashion, both prayerful and penetrating, leads his readers into the great mysteries of faith.
At the beginning of the first volume, Scheeben relates how theology not only teaches us about God but should also lead us to him, because “a teaching that has God as its object and its principle must therefore have God also as its goal and lead to Him, and therefore must teach and bring about the religious union of man with God” (Vol. 1, 2019, 1). Scheeben’s theology bears witness to how theology not only instructs but should lead us into a greater love of God.
In addition, through a partnership with the Aquinas Institute, Emmaus Academic is making St. Thomas Aquinas’s opera omnia available for the first time in English. Although the Angelic Doctor’s two great summas, the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles, have been long available in English, another major work, written earlier in his life, his Commentary on the Sentences, will be available in translation for the first time (with four volumes already available), as well as other important works, such as his biblical commentaries. Along with Scheeben’s Dogmatics, the appearance of these works is of monumental importance for theology.
Theology does not focus on arcane questions or mere opinion. It helps us to grasp the realities that God has revealed to us so that we can know him and share in his own divine life. Although many people today cast doubt upon our ability to know anything with certainty, theology rests firmly upon the fact that God has spoken to us and calls us into a communion of knowledge and love with him.
As we take more time for prayer during Lent, we can grow in our understanding of our faith as we encounter the One who is Truth itself.
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The problem with theologians, as I see it, is the same problem with much of academia – “publish or perish”. To get your latest paper or book published there is a tendency to create novel concepts that get noticed. We see the same thing in popular media, and with Easter right around the corner, I’m sure we will begin to read articles and see TV programs that talk about new or rehashed ideas that sound like a Dan Brown novel.
We read: “Theology matters, however, because truth matters. God is Truth and he has revealed himself to us so that we can know him, come to know ourselves, and live in a loving communion with him.” And that “theology rests firmly upon the fact that God has spoken to us and calls us into a communion of knowledge and love with him.”
But with T.S. Eliot: then “. . . falls the Shadow.” My dissertation chairman, in a secular university, pensively confided to our coffee table gathering: “My wife is Catholic; I am Episcopalian, and I don’t really know if God talks to people.” So, how to connect to a worn down, contemporary audience who simply and even innocently do not “get” even the language of theology? “Truth, Supernatural, Revelation,” or even “relativism,” that sort of thing?
Nothing is more unwelcome than the answer to a question that has not been asked…
The question (!), then, which first might be asked—-before proposing the answer—-is the raw question central especially to Aquinas’s thought: how to account not for the nature of things or for the way that all stuff changes (Aristotle’s “motion”, and the natural or even social sciences)? How to account for the prerequisite existence of stuff, the self-evident fact that things exist at all? Instead of not? A universe instead of a void?
A great opening question while simply sitting around a coffee table. A “closed book” test! Ah, but there’s the constant pull of business as usual, and the lobotomized Administrative State, and the bigger One World Order, the Death Star!
With us still is the ghost of Karl Marx: “the question of contingency is not permitted [!] to socialist man.” Not permitted…as in public schools.
But, might some ask further—-instead of being just another, bigger and mythical thing—-if God is the free and freely shared act of existence–fully pervading all things, but ALSO fully transcending all things? And then, like my professor, “does God actually talk to people?”
The historical event and fact—-and not the mere “idea”—-of the Incarnation? The Word made flesh? A good question. And, with Dr. R. Jared Staudt, there must be a few goods books about that.
Peter your consequent question of God’s ability to speak to us appears related to this axial question, “How to account for the prerequisite existence of stuff, the self-evident fact that things exist at all? Instead of not? A universe instead of a void?” (Beaulieu).
To ask the question why transient things exist at all is to ask the question why does God exist. So in order to comprehend the secondary question quote we must reference God’s existence. When Moses asked before the burning bush who do I tell the people you are, God says tell them I Am sent you [I Am Who Am]. To ask the question, therefore why is there a God, is to presuppose a cause. And there is none. If there were a cause it would be superior to God, a contradiction. God simply Is, absolute and unqualified in his existence.
Similarly in reference to transient existence their existence depends on God [the Word] who is Pure Act, in which there is no sequence or need for a preexisting “stuff”. God’s Act of Existence is all inclusive, created things existing in time and place sequentially although not in sequence of the divinity’s Pure Act.
Matter [and form], the logical “preexisting stuff” is a principle of the intellect [a true principle of knowledge] in understanding being [form is a logical but true principle of knowledge as act on matter]. It [matter] then is not a thing or stuff.
We may equate from this that Being is good. That good is equivalent to being. That’s important in response to the question on whether God can speak to us? Yes. He can effect action [speaking in time] as he did to Moses later in the Incarnation without interior change in his Being because he is as said Pure Act. That purity of act sans sequence expresses itself temporally by necessity in our realm of created existence. His goodness assures us of that communication. Good then according to Aquinas is convertible with being (ST 1a2ae 18, 3). Evil then has no correspondence to being, rather it’s accidental to being because it exists in the will of man. And by its nature is contrary to being and life itself.
I seem to disagree: “To ask the question why transient things exist at all is to ask the question why [!] does God exist.”
Instead, to ask why things exist at all, rather than not, is to begin to wonder if [!] God (Creator) exists. This question does NOT presuppose a superior cause prior to God. Quite the opposite, as you also say later.
What I wrote tracks with the rest of your response (except I did not say that matter/form is “a thing or stuff”). Perhaps we can agree that we agree, as I think has always been the case!
Yes, I see what you mean. If the question is posed by one who has not yet arrived at belief the question should lead [by argument of causality] to belief, whereas I assumed it was couched as a hypothetical question posed by a believer.
Theology matters because The Word Of Perfect Love Incarnate, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, Matters.
For all those who have been “sleeping in Gethsemane”, Stay Awake!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjeIhEl9Rw
Dear Blessed Mother Mary, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque,and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, hear our Prayers and intercede for us that Pope Benedict XVI , and all those Faithful Bishops, In union with Christ and His Church, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, will do The Consecration Of Russia to your Immaculate Heart exactly as you requested.
Faith, belief is nurtured by theology. Holy Scripture is our guide to a godly life. The Lord provides us work that is fulfilling because it is ordained by Him. We are created in Him to do good through Jesus Christ. We do not boast in the work we do, for He has enabled us to reach the goals set out for us.
We feel we have fallen short and not done all that we wished to do, however He sets the bar so we can passover and achieve what He has established for us.
Praise the name of the Lord.