Part One: Theology

Chapter 4: The Purpose of Theology

p. 24 We have said that Christian theology consists in setting forth the content of Christianity and in understanding the truth of Christianity rightly and surely.¹ This demands a comprehensive and systematic reflection on Christian truth. Here it is presupposed that Christianity is, before anything else, a life and a lived experience² grounded in historical authority. This life, this lived experience, is what theology joins together, relates, and systematizes. We therefore hold that doctrine arises after there has been lived religious experience, and that theology comes after there has been religion. Christianity, so to speak, produces theology, and in turn p. 25 may be said to require theology.

First, Christian theology investigates the historical development of Christianity and its forms of thought.³ It seeks to understand the religious truth expressed in the life of faith of the saints and sages of old, in the dogmas of the body of believers, and in the institutions and rites of the church. When theology attends only to the forms that have appeared in history, its results easily become superficial; and while it honors tradition, it easily falls into an exclusive self-exaltation. Yet this study preserves the distinctive historical and social character of Christianity; it examines the process by which Christian thought has been expressed and has developed so as to meet the social structures and the demands of the age; and it enables us to view Christianity whole and in long perspective.

Second, Christian theology seeks to establish the basic theory of Christianity by the method of conceptual thought. By this we mean to hold a more just and more certain conviction. Generally speaking, even among people of considerable knowledge there are many whose understanding of religion is deficient. Even among Christians there are many whose faith has no sure theoretical ground. Most of them believe because others believe, and think it enough to say whatever others say. We must therefore digest Christianity with our own minds,⁴ and know surely why we believe, what we believe, and what comes of believing.

Third, Christian theology seeks to provide a dynamic standard for the Christian's life. Theology has often been misunderstood, as though it meant setting out vast⁵ theories or dry, tasteless doctrines. Some think theology is p. 26 the intellectual game of a very few scholars. But just as true theology is not established apart from the religious life, true religion requires a sound theology. There are many roads in the world, but the right road is hard to find. Theology seeks to show us a practical guide for life, so that we may walk the right road in the life of faith.

But can theology really achieve such a purpose?

What someone who first studies theology feels, before anything else, is not that theology solves our problems of faith. It is rather that theology brings about negative results: it raises many problems it cannot itself resolve, makes a once-simple head complicated, and goes so far as to destroy a once-peaceful foundation of faith. Because in theology what was vague becomes clear, foundations that were imperfect are shaken, and traditions that rested on misunderstanding are exposed, there will be many cases in which it brings negative results for the beginner. But only after dogmatism and blind obedience have been destroyed in this way can one strive, on a new foundation, toward an accurate understanding. Nothing worth harvesting is gained without effort. Faith requires intellectual training.

But what, down to the present, has theology actually done to make us understand the truth of Christianity? The purpose of establishing basic theory is good, but past theological effort seems, on the whole, to have left the impression that it manufactured "uncertain empty arguments and countless theories"⁶ and brought very little to a final conclusion. The Imitation of Christ praises p. 27 simple faith, and speaks of the meaninglessness of theological speculation as follows: "Even though you enter into profound argument about the Trinity, if you have no humility and so grieve the heart of the Three, what profit is there in that argument? Truly, it is not clever scholarly terms that make a person holy and righteous. Therefore I would rather be one who knows how to repent of sin than one who is skilled in definitions."⁷ The point is that theology has already written tens of thousands of books and fashioned clever terms, yet instead of resolving the problems of faith by them, each person has been busy making a theory of his own and each denomination has held a different creed, so that theology has rather fostered prejudice and hostility, and has gone so far as to commit cruel slaughter. (Uchimura Tatsuzō, trans., Imitāsho Kurisuchi, Book I, ch. 2.)⁸

Even if the merits and faults of theology lie in its complicating of simple faith, this is not confined to the domain of theology alone. When the natural environment or social phenomena are made objects of study, and precise observation and reflection are applied to them to "organize common sense,"⁹ theories arise and systems come to differ. Yet here too we can make clear why divergent theories arise, and can find unity in the manifold. In the same way, in theology too, we can recognize the historical place of its theories and dissenting views, and press on toward a new unity. Even supposing that theology down to the present has contributed little to us, if theological thought is itself a thing of value, we must press forward without the least hesitation. Pioneers make a greater contribution than the enterprises they accomplish, and heroes leave a greater merit than the results that meet the eye.¹⁰

p. 28 Religion is life.¹¹ Life demands reflection. "A life without reflection is a life without worth."¹² Without reflection one cannot get beyond the limits of common sense. Reflection may at first glance seem wasted labor, and it demands great sacrifice. But life is itself the subject of purposes, inclinations, and desires, and has reflection and choice as its marks; and even to determine the most effective and proper attitude toward the natural or social environment that surrounds it, life needs unceasing sifting and deliberation. Reflecting on the facts of religion may be as hard as making oil out of coal.¹³ But however hard and laborious, what must be done must be done. Restating and elaborating¹⁴ are unavoidable in fixing vague conceptual content. Our life of faith, in "pre-theological concepts," forms the material¹⁵ of theology. Theology therefore breaks up tradition that has had no criticism at all, and opens up the road¹⁶ until it reaches the final point of certainty.

Second, theology is not only a means of reflecting on the life of faith. Since the element of thought is contained in lived religious experience, thought itself becomes a principal part constituting faith. Thought is therefore one of the movements that give faith life.¹⁷ We said that the religious life comes first, and theology after it.¹⁸ But that statement described a logical order; it did not mean an order in lived experience. Speculative activity is not a method added onto religious faith from outside, or as an appendage. For thought is one of the factors that constitute faith. Without coming to know, lived religious experience is impossible; and without fixing a concrete direction, the value of religion p. 29 cannot be judged. Some will perhaps take the statement that there is an intellectual element in religious experience to be, on the contrary, hostile to faith. But this misunderstanding arises, for the most part, because the meaning of the term "knowledge"¹⁹ has not been precisely defined. If the word "knowledge" is used to mean assent to a fixed opinion or announcement, then "the intellectual element of religious experience" will also mean uncritical, silent acquiescence in doctrine, which is a kind of religious intellectualism.²⁰ On the other hand, if the word "knowledge" refers to the results of natural science in its mechanistic aspect, or to metaphysical norms concerning pure ideas, then religion may have some relation to such knowledge, but that knowledge is not religion, and it is clearly distinguished from religious knowledge. But suppose we take the word "knowledge" in a broader sense, so that it includes first being conscious of something, or experiencing it, and then refers to a state in which the content is not a vague consciousness but has been concretely judged and distinguished. Then "the intellectual element of religious experience" means, first, that I am in a "state of awakening," aware that I have faith; and next, it indicates that the content of this experience can be distinguished with certainty. The very phrase "religious experience" already indicates a conscious phenomenon. Its conscious content must therefore be capable of being analyzed by the one who experiences it, and of being explained or asserted in some form or other. Here thought about religion becomes necessary.

Since reflecting on religion in this way is grounded in a characteristic of human nature, the theological effort that sets out from logical necessity rises to an attachment to, and even a passion for, religious truth. There is, so to speak, a kind of "artistic creativity" bound up with it. Human beings act at the same time as they seek to conceive. When their concepts are just, human beings act p. 30 according to the form of those concepts. Theology, therefore, does not mean to enjoy "the happiness of contemplation"²¹ by itself alone. The results of knowing are received into the life of value, and reality in turn is defined by the demands of value;²² and "doing theology"²³ includes a passion to love the truth and to try to live by the truth. While we contemplate and search out religious truth, we come to realize how profound religion is, and how beautiful and rich its life is; and by this we receive the unceasing stimulus and encouragement of faith.