Thursday, March 8, 2012

Theology is a modest happy free critical science!

In my theology discussion group this saturday we are reading the first three chapters of Karl Barth's Evangelical Theology: An Introduction [my choice!].

Theology is a "science" [wissenschaft = a discipline of study] because it seeks
"to apprehend a specific object and its environment in the manner directed by the phenomonen itself...to understand it on its own terms and to speak of it along with all the implications of its existence." 
page 3
Evangelical theology is modest theology, because it is determined to be so by its object, that is, by him who is its subject. 
page 7
theology is, for all its modesty, in an exemplary way a free science. This means it is a science which joyfully respects the mystery of the freedom of its object and which, in turn, is again and again freed by its object from any dependence on subordinate presuppositions. 
page 9
evangelical theology is an eminently critical science, for it is continually exposed to judgment and never relieved of the crisis in which it is placed by its object, or, rather to say, by its living subject.
page 10
 Evangelical theology is concerned with Immanuel, God with us! Having this God for its object, it can be nothing else but the most thankful and happy science!
page 12

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