Chapter 2: The Nature of Theology as a Science

The abstract notion of theology — In what sense the scholastics contend it is a science — Their opinion rejected — The apostle proves that theology is alien from all human science, 1 Cor. 2 — The terms "to initiate" (myein), "mystery" (mysterion), "to perfect" (teleioun), "perfect" (teleios), and related words — Who the Pauline theologian is — The fruitless labor of the many who attempt to force theology into the rules of the human arts and sciences — The absurdities and foolishness of the scholastics.

I. There is no reason for us to linger over the questions debated by many concerning the abstract, as they call it, and artificial notion of theology, since they do not appear to pertain to the exposition of its nature. For whether it is an art or a science; and if it is to be called a science, whether it is theoretical or practical, or indeed mixed from both; what its proper and immediate object is; what its genus, what its differentia, what its end — these and many other entirely futile questions have been debated variously and subtly by theologians of every kind, who mingle the philosophy of Aristotle's school with the simplicity of Christianity: by so much understanding they understand nothing. For since Aristotle had made mention of theology as a kind of knowledge, and had taught that it is the most excellent of the contemplative sciences, the scholastics — especially those for whom Thomas is next to God, and from whom to dissent was treated as a matter of religion — contended that Christian theology is a science, and indeed a speculative one. That the name of art ought to be banished from this business is at last the consensus of all. Whether the definitions of science — in which, of course, what it is according to one and what according to another is declared at each person's pleasure — have anything in common with theology, will be considered. Since, therefore, the things themselves, namely the arts and sciences, along with their descriptions and definitions, are uncertain and arbitrary — whether, for instance, art is the imitation of things, or whether something is a kind of science that exhibits the matter under discussion — all labor and ingenuity in reducing these so varied things to order will be in vain. Now, regarding what are called technical sciences, which look to conclusions drawn from better-known principles and receive their names from their proper objects — whether attention is given to the doctrine itself by which the things they treat are artificially arranged, or to the faculty or habit of the mind by which we comprehend that doctrine — it is evident that no common ground can exist between a doctrine that always rests upon certain foundations and theorems which are not only consonant with human reason but also kindred to it (as every science is), and a mystery that surpasses every purely natural or rational capacity. For it is the common conviction of all that God cannot be rightly known except through God. The so-called scientific habit is a conformity of the mind to such doctrine, arising from the disciplinary action of kindred principles flowing back upon it; so that it cannot express that divine power of the mind which is theology, and which rests upon the veracity of the One who reveals. Moreover, the object of theology, since in some sense it is God Himself, is infinitely more distant from the objects of all the sciences than those objects are from nothing itself; so far is it from being the case that, in any respect, theology could share anything in common with any of the arts or sciences.

II. The apostle also, in the most explicit terms, in that passage where he treats these matters deliberately and expressly, shows that Christian theology is alien from all human wisdom and science: "My word," he says, "and my preaching" — that is, both the knowledge and the doctrine — "not in persuasive words of human wisdom" (in which all human art and science so-called ordinarily consists), "but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (for just as the mathematicians have their demonstrations, and the dialecticians theirs, so also our doctrine consists in demonstration — but a spiritual and powerful demonstration, which is as far removed from human wisdom as heaven is from earth). Then he adds the reason and end of this distinction: "That your faith" (that is, the assent rendered to our doctrine) "might not be in the wisdom of men" (as it would be if theology rested on the same or similar principles, form, and end as the arts and sciences of the philosophers), "but in the power of God" (who efficaciously works this wisdom through His Spirit). "But we speak wisdom among the perfect" — "wisdom not of this age" (not the wisdom that proceeds from human learning): "but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, hidden" (and what agreement can the wisdom of God in mystery have with any human disciplines? Indeed), "God has revealed it to us through His Spirit" (human wisdom teaches these things in a wholly different manner). — 1 Corinthians 2:4, 5, 6, 10. Whether, therefore, you consider the origin of theology, or its subject, or its end, or its manner of learning and teaching, or finally its whole nature and use, it is evident that it can in no way be numbered among the human sciences — whether speculative or practical — such that it ought to be bound by their rules or methods. Indeed, the very terms "method," "methodology," and "art," which are proper to the sciences, have no place here according to Scripture. Moreover, the word myein, and from it mysterion — of which the apostle treats in the most holy sense — consistently denotes, even among the pagans themselves, something sufficiently alien from all other sciences: it is a mystery. Myein means to initiate, or to instruct in sacred things; and mysterion is derived from this passively. The author of the Etymologicum Magnum says something slightly different but to the same effect: "Mystes," he says, "comes from myein, meaning to withdraw; for closing the senses and becoming free from the attendant cares, they thus receive the divine illuminations." And Iamblichus, as cited by Photius (codex 94), says that the mysteries are derived from myein — but this is incorrectly, as the logic of the etymology he offers itself demonstrates.

III. Concerning Pythagoras, who was instructed in the wisdom of nearly all nations, Laertius affirms that he "participated in all the sacred rites, both of the Greeks and of the barbarians" — "He was initiated into the sacred ceremonies of both the barbarians and the Greeks." For that wisdom which those ancient philosophers went abroad to seek in their travels was nothing other than the practice of religious worship, as Lactantius testifies; for he says: "I am accustomed to wonder that, when Pythagoras —"

— to the Magi and even as far as the Persians, in order to learn the rites and sacred customs of those nations (for they suspected that wisdom resided in religion), yet they did not approach the Jews," book 4, De Vera Sapientia. — that he would initiate a man as a sorcerer, and would not reveal the Eleusinian mysteries to one who was not pure from demons. Mystodas therefore means to be instructed in sacred things; which is also more clearly evident from the response of Apollonius. "Concerning the sacred rites," he said, "I know more than you." And among the Fathers, as Budaeus testifies, the word memyemenos, by itself and without any addition, signifies one who is learned in the sacred Scriptures. Concerning the word mysterion in Paul, Chrysostom says it means "what is secret, wonderful, and unknown" — that is, naturally speaking; others say it means things hidden and known to few, and not to be communicated except to the initiated — that is, "we speak wisdom among those" who are mature. IV. This is not as though, among us, sacred things were mysteries that it would be lawful to expound only after some sacrament of silence had been administered beforehand, since Christ took care that all the mysteries which He Himself taught privately, in accordance with the manner of His ministry, should be proclaimed openly in the light of men and upon the housetops (Matthew 10:27).

V. Among the ancient pagans it was indeed unlawful to divulge mysteries to the common people: "They do not consider it lawful to commit to writing what they teach concerning sacred things," says Caesar of the Druids, book 6 of the Gallic War. For this reason, those being initiated were everywhere bound by an oath lest they let anything slip. Hence Herodotus, writing of himself after he had learned the Egyptian sacred rites from the people of Heliopolis, says (book 2): "Now, the sacred things that they related to me concerning the gods, I am not eager to set forth in writing, since I consider that all men" (namely, the initiated) "know the same things about them as I do." The gospel doctrine has not been designated by the name of mystery for this kind of reason, but because the things themselves revealed in it exceed every purely natural human capacity (1 Corinthians 2:7, 14). VI. In order, therefore, for anyone to receive and understand "wisdom hidden in a mystery," it is necessary that he himself be initiated — that is, instructed in the secret things of the divine will by the Holy Spirit. Nor are any called "perfect" (teleioi) by Paul other than the initiated — that is, those instructed by the Holy Spirit, of whom he there treats.

— instructed. For teleioun means to consecrate and to initiate; hence among the ancients, baptism also is called teleiosis (consecration). The Septuagint employs the word for consecration or dedication (Exodus 29, "to fill the hands of them," verses 33 and 35); nor does the term appear to be expounded any differently in the Epistle to the Hebrews 2:10, "to perfect the author of salvation through sufferings." Moreover, the rites are mysteries, as Budaeus proves from Plato; and the sacred rites of every kind, and the initiated who have been purified by sacrifices, are so designated by Philostratus in the Life of Apollonius, book 4, chapter 6. He, therefore, who is perfect (teleios), that is, instructed by the Spirit by which we are initiated into the Christian sacred rites, and who is initiated (memyemenos) by Him who alone reveals "the mystery of His will," and that through "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation" (Ephesians 1:9, 17) — he is the Pauline theologian. Concerning the use of the arts and sciences in learning divine truth, something will be said afterwards. In the meantime, it was not hidden even from the pagans themselves that theology is a certain mysterious and divine wisdom, and cannot be circumscribed by those terms or transmitted by those rules whose limits all the arts and sciences endure. And it has perhaps happened for no other reason that those who have expended much labor on this matter — wishing to describe theology precisely according to the rules and methods of the other sciences, concerning its definition, genus, differentiae, proper object, subject, immediate end, and many other such things (about which sacred Scripture does not breathe a word) — are divided by opinions that are as far apart as possible, and fight against one another in a remarkable fashion. For while they strive to reduce the mystery of divine truth revealed from the bosom of God to the flexible and arbitrary rules of the human arts and sciences, shaping it with philosophical terms of some kind (which all truth, both natural and supernatural, could very willingly have done without, had Aristotle not thought otherwise), and while they impede the mystery by those very things with which it refuses to share any community, they accomplish nothing other than to render what is in itself and by its own nature most certain, most evident, and most accessible to the rational mind, into something most uncertain, ambiguous, manifold, and obscure. Learned men indeed, resting on divine revelation in sacred Scripture in the place of innate principles — in a process not unlike the advancement of the other sciences, in which some discover something and others, with easier labor, add to their discoveries — have built up a certain doctrine, comprehending principles, theorems, theses, and conclusions after the pattern of the other sciences, which they call theology. But that doctrine, since it has neither self-evident credibility as such, nor need of supernatural faith by which to be received, nor does it attain any end of theology whether theoretical or practical, is not theology properly so called. From the investigation of that doctrine, a certain habit of mind is acquired, consonant with the impression received from it, which the scholastics contend is neither faith nor natural knowledge. And this is the theology of the schools, concerning whose nature and use something will be said below. Let us therefore, if the truth may be told, permit the innumerable disputes of this kind — and let us gladly allow theology to enjoy the freedom with which sacred Scripture has with so liberal a hand declared it free.

VII. Whatever words the Holy Spirit has seen fit to use in setting forth this matter, the scholastics have vexed every one of them, more than enough, with their disputes. It is universally acknowledged that Scripture calls by the names of knowledge, prudence, wisdom, and doctrine that understanding by which God directs men in the contemplation of God and His works, and in rendering obedience to Him — that knowledge with which God desires us to be imbued. Seized, as has been said, by an itch for disputation, they therefore contend pertinaciously whether theology is a science, and that either speculative or practical, or a prudence, or a wisdom. But whatever term one has thought fit to place in the subject-position, they all immediately weigh its philosophical definitions to inquire subtly whether it can be adapted to theology. Those who would have theology be wisdom (that one may estimate from this single head all the labor of these men) think it their assigned task to trace out everything attributed to human wisdom in the writings of the philosophers and show that it aptly squares with theology. Yet whatever this work may amount to, when they imagine they have accomplished it — through long digressions, subtle fictions, and conclusions of the most audacious absurdity — as though the business were well done and the opinions of all others refuted, they conclude, at the top of their voice on behalf of whichever school they lead or follow, that theology is wisdom. And so, being utterly ignorant of the mind of the Holy Spirit in these terms — knowledge, prudence, wisdom, doctrine, and the rest of that kind — they strain all the sinews and eyes of their ingenuity (as many of them are brilliant in the most idiotic way) to change the wisdom of God hidden in mystery into the wretched, imperfect, and indeed foolish wisdom of this world, and to circumscribe it within limits of some kind; than which fiction nothing more dangerous or more diametrically opposed to the apostolic doctrine could ever have been devised. The students of sacred wisdom ought therefore to despise these thorny contests of the scholastics and others, which they set before their theological treatises, nailing the cross to wretched readers who would not wish to waste their time unprofitably — or rather, to go astray — since the truth itself, which is to be sought from them by infinite labor, is not really there, on account of the incongruity of the proposed subject.