Introduction:
Before we deal with
details of Systematic theology we should remind ourselves that what we are talking
about is the story of what God has done as found in the Bible. The Christian gospel and the Christian faith
are this kind of thing, and the Christian theology is the attempt to understand
and to interpret this story of what God has done. Here we will deal first with the nature of
theology and then with necessity of theology:
1 Nature of theology:
Systematic or dogmatic theology is the methodical investigation and
interpretation of the content of Christian faith. It is the orderly clarification and explanation
of what is affirmed in the Christian message.
Theology is an activity or a function of the church carried out by
members of the church. The church has to
reflect on its faith and message in every age, so that it can interpret and
present them in a way that can be understood in each new period. So the theological task of the church is to
interpret its faith and message in a way that can be understood and affirmed in
each new age.
The church has a
mission to speak about God to the world.
It uses language about God in all of its activities, e.g. worship,
preaching, pastoral care etc. Therefore,
the function and task of theology is to test, analyze and revise the language
which the church uses about God, to test it by its norm, namely, God’s self-disclosure
to which testimony is given in the Bible.
This testing is necessary because the church’s language about God is
fallible and can fall into error and confusion.
Finally, human language itself is constantly changing in meaning and
thus must be regularly revised in order to maintain a continuity of
meaning. Thus theology is something
necessary in the life of the church as we will see below:
2. Necessity of theology:
It is said that
theology is not the essence of the church and it is possible to be a Christian
without theology. Then, why is theology
necessary in the life of the church? We
will see why theology is necessary:
(a) Theology necessary to determine
Christian faith: Theology is necessary in order to
determine what is essential to the Christian faith and message and what is not
essential, what is central and what is peripheral. Theology is necessary in order to determine
what is and what is not part of Christian faith. When misunderstanding and distortions of
Christian faith arise in the church, it becomes necessary to distinguish true
doctrine from rise. For example, the
only thing which saved the church from Gnosticism, Arianism, Apollinarianism
was hard theological work.
(b) Theology necessary for teaching: After preaching there must be teaching in the
church, catedietical instruction, explaining what the Christian faith means and
requires. The simplest kind of teaching,
even of the youngest children, is full of theological content. There are several references in the NT to the
necessity of teaching and teachers.
(c) Theology necessary for translation: The Bible as the main source and standard of
Christian teaching is not uniform. The
Bible does not present a simple unity of teaching but rather a multiplicity of
different approaches which must be resolved by critical reflections, by
theological work. Further, the thought
categories of the Bible must be translated into the thought categories of the
present. Our understanding of ourselves,
our language and concepts, the issue we face and the questions we raise about
Christian faith change from age to age.
In such a situation or context, we cannot require modern people to
return to the thought world of the first century nor can we present the thought
world of the Bible untranslated. The
work of theology is, therefore, essentially translation.
(d) Theology necessary to distinguish
Christian message: The Christian message which is based on the
Bible must be distinguished from the scientific picture of the world of the
first century. The geology, theology and
historiography of the Bible have no authority for us and must be distinguished
from the faith testimony of the Bible.
Bultmann has raised this issue in a new way in our day and thus pointed
up the necessity of theology again.
Conclusion:
Theology is normative
in the sense of attempting to determine what is the true Christian faith to
distinguish true doctrine from false doctrine, to determine what is and what is
not part of Christian faith. Thus one of
the functions of theology is to scrutinize, criticize, and if necessary, to
reform the church’s formation of its faith in creeds, conciliar decisions, and
confessions.
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