The Relevance of the Study of Christian Theology in the University and Society Today

To ask the question of the relevance of Christian theology, we first have to ask what Christian theology is. At its simplest and widest, as Thomas Aquinas put it (or nearly), it is the study of God and all things in relation to God.1 In particular, it is the attempt to understand, probe and build on the basic Christian confession of one God in three persons, revealed in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son. This definition outlines a particular subject matter: theologians ask questions about the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of salvation; they ask questions about the Scriptures in which their convictions are rooted, and other texts in which they are transmitted. At the same time, the definition both demands and enables a particular way of asking questions, because God, of course, is not simply an object of enquiry; if he is anything, he is the source and end of all being. As Kierkegaard showed so meticulously, humans’ relations with God are necessarily subjective and personal, because God defies objectification.2 To assume an ‘objective’, disengaged standpoint from which to investigate God’s existence and character therefore misses an essential part of what one seeks to understand, namely that there is no such standpoint. And so theologians ask (always tacitly, and sometimes explicitly): – What object or objects does our enquiry have in view? – Who does the enquiring, and how are they related to these objects? – What form does knowledge or understanding take within this relationship? – How is such knowledge acquired, expressed, and transmitted?