What is theology?

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STT said:
I was wondering what theology is if God is incomprehensible.
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God is radically other, in such a way that he remains mysterious and beyond our grasp.

And at the same time,

God is approachable through Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s full and final revelation of himself.

The key concept is to recognize that no dichotomy exists between mystery and coming to know. Mystery does not mean “incomprehensible”. Mystery is to be beyond our full grasp while drawing us in to knowing.

Like having a spouse. If you are truly listening in your relationship, you are discovering your spouse anew through time, and at the same time you can know your spouse well.
 
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God is incomprehensible, yes. But He has also revealed Himself. Theology is simply the study of God as He has revealed Himself.

That being said, good theology is never simply an academic “study” of God. Since God is a divine Person (or, rather, a Trinity of persons), we can only truly know Him by entering into relationship with Him - similar to how we can only truly know someone else by befriending them and having a relationship with them. Sure, we can know things about God without having a relationship with Him. But we can’t really know Him apart from relationship.
 
goout said:
God is radically other, in such a way that he remains mysterious and beyond our grasp.

And at the same time ,

God is approachable through Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s full and final revelation of himself.

The key concept is to recognize that no dichotomy exists between mystery and coming to know. Mystery does not mean “incomprehensible”. Mystery is to be beyond our full grasp while drawing us in to knowing.

Like having a spouse. If you are truly listening in your relationship, you are discovering your spouse anew through time, and at the same time you can know your spouse well.
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I understand what you are saying. However, my question is how theology could be about studying of God if God is incomprehensible? Incomprehensible things cannot be studied.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
God is incomprehensible, yes. But He has also revealed Himself. Theology is simply the study of God as He has revealed Himself.
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That is my problem. How could you study God, theology, if God is incomprehensible?
Phillip_Rolfes said:
That being said, good theology is never simply an academic “study” of God. Since God is a divine Person (or, rather, a Trinity of persons), we can only truly know Him by entering into relationship with Him - similar to how we can only truly know someone else by befriending them and having a relationship with them. Sure, we can know things about God without having a relationship with Him. But we can’t really know Him apart from relationship.
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Has anybody get involve in such a relationship with God to know Him? How could we know God if He is incomprehensible?
 
Maybe being more specific would help. God is incomprehensible in his nature. For example, we can’t understand through the light of natural reason that God is Trinity. That is incomprehensible to us. The only way we could know that God is Trinity is if He were to reveal that to us. Christians believe that God has revealed that to us in part through His written word (the Bible), and then completely in the person of Jesus Christ (whom we believe is God incarnate - i.e. made man/in the flesh).

Theology becomes, therefore, the study of what God has revealed to us about Himself.

I can’t speak for Protestants, but Catholics believe that the Church is the Bride of Christ, and therefore the Church (as a corporate whole) is in such a relationship with God that allows us to truly know Him.

Does that make the issue clear as mud?😆
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
Maybe being more specific would help. God is incomprehensible in his nature . For example, we can’t understand through the light of natural reason that God is Trinity. That is incomprehensible to us. The only way we could know that God is Trinity is if He were to reveal that to us. Christians believe that God has revealed that to us in part through His written word (the Bible), and then completely in the person of Jesus Christ (whom we believe is God incarnate - i.e. made man/in the flesh).

Theology becomes, therefore, the study of what God has revealed to us about Himself.

I can’t speak for Protestants, but Catholics believe that the Church is the Bride of Christ, and therefore the Church (as a corporate whole) is in such a relationship with God that allows us to truly know Him.

Does that make the issue clear as mud?
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That is to me is not study. It is simply accepting a fact about God, Trinity for example.
 
Fair enough. Perhaps I’m missing something in your question then…?
 
There is a speculative nature to theology. After all, God didn’t explicitly say in the Scriptures, “I am a Trinity of persons.” Our understanding of God as Trinity is something that was hammered out over the course of the first 300 years of the Church as theologians argued and debated how it was possible for God to be simultaneously One and Three. Similarly, not everyone universally accepted that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. But once we were able to work through those intellectual paradoxes, most theologians figured there was no longer any point debating them, and they became the foundation for further contemplating the mystery and mining additional paradoxes - in much the same way that the fact of 2+2=4 must be accepted before one can go on to study the enigma (for me) of advanced calculus.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
There is a speculative nature to theology. After all, God didn’t explicitly say in the Scriptures, “I am a Trinity of persons.” Our understanding of God as Trinity is something that was hammered out over the course of the first 300 years of the Church as theologians argued and debated how it was possible for God to be simultaneously One and Three. Similarly, not everyone universally accepted that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. But once we were able to work through those intellectual paradoxes, most theologians figured there was no longer any point debating them, and they became the foundation for further contemplating the mystery and mining additional paradoxes - in much the same way that the fact of 2+2=4 must be accepted before one can go on to study the enigma (for me) of advanced calculus.
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I see. I, however, think that something which is incomprehensible cannot be understood. Therefore, Trinity is a fact about God. Something which doesn’t make sense in our daily lives.
 
The Christian view - at least when it comes to speaking of and “studying” God - is that incomprehensible means something (or better, Someone) that cannot be fully understood. But there are things about God that can be understood. For example, we know that “God is love,” and we come to understand that fact by studying and contemplating how God has acted in history.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
The Christian view - at least when it comes to speaking of and “studying” God - is that incomprehensible means something (or better, Someone) that cannot be fully understood. But there are things about God that can be understood. For example, we know that “God is love,” and we come to understand that fact by studying and contemplating how God has acted in history.
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I see. Thanks.
 
STT said:
I, however, think that something which is incomprehensible cannot be understood.
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Do you have to understand a painter to study his painting? To study his brushstrokes? No.
 
The best definition of theology I ever learned was in three words: “Faith seeking understanding.”
 
Aquinas11 said:
Do you have to understand a painter to study his painting? To study his brushstrokes? No.
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Painting makes me experience something. I can, however, verbalize what I experienced and tell it to people such that we have common understanding of my experience, like the painting is beautiful.
 
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