THE MISSION OF THE TRINITY

Singaporean theologian Simon Chan says 'missional theology' has not gone far enough.

Interview by Andy Crouch | posted 6/04/2007 09:26AM

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/june/11.48.html

Simon Chan may be the world's most liturgically minded Pentecostal. The Earnest Lau professor of systematic theology at Trinity Theological College in Singapore is both a scholar of Pentecostalism and a leader in the Assemblies of God, but his recent books, Spiritual Theology and Liturgical Theology, engage with wider and older Christian traditions as well. Worship, Chan believes, is not just a function of the church, but the church's very reason for being. Our big question for 2007 focuses on global mission: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world? Christian Vision Project editorial director Andy Crouch interviewed Chan while Chan was a visiting scholar at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, to find out whether fully joining God's mission may require that we unlearn some of our assumptions about mission itself.

You have written a great deal about liturgical theology, but missional theology seems more popular these days.

I think that missional theology is a very positive development. But some missional theology has not gone far enough. It hasn't asked, What is the mission of the Trinity? And the answer to that question is communion. Ultimately, all things are to be brought back into communion with the triune God. Communion is the ultimate end, not mission.

If we see communion as central to the life of the church, we are going to have an important place for mission. And this is reflected in the ancient fourfold structure of worship: gathering, proclaiming the Word, celebrating the Eucharist, and going out into the world. The last, of course, is mission. But mission takes its place within a larger structure. It is this sense of communion that the evangelical world especially needs. Communion is not just introspection or fellowship among ourselves. It involves, ultimately, seeing God and seeing the heart of God as well, which is his love for the world.

In many services today, the dismissal into the world is quite perfunctory. But if you go to an Orthodox service, you'll be amazed at the elaborate way in which the end of the service is conducted. It's not just a word of dismissal—there are whole prayers and litanies that prepare us to go back out into the world.

If liturgical worship is such a good preparation for mission, why are Pentecostalism and evangelicalism, which hardly follow the ancient structure of worship, growing so fast?

In the modern age, the free churches are evangelistically successful, but in the broader history of mission that hasn't always been true. Europe was evangelized in the early centuries by missionaries who were certainly not free-church evangelicals. And think of the spread of the Orthodox Church from Russia to northern Africa.

In Singapore, we keep very close statistics about the growth of the Assemblies of God, which is currently the second-largest Protestant denomination in the country. We are good at evangelizing, bringing people in, but we have also noticed that many of those people that we have brought into our churches would over time go to more traditional churches and seeker-friendly megachurches. Our net growth isn't really that much, but in terms of bringing people in, yes, we have significant numbers of people being brought into the church for the first time. It may be that in God's providence he is using free churches, Pentecostals, and charismatics to reach out to the world, but I still believe that his aim is to embrace them all within the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

Surely part of Pentecostalism's success is its ability to adapt rapidly in a technological culture.

Pentecostals are definitely very adaptable. They are quick to seize upon new opportunities for the sake of the gospel. They make use of the technologies of the times. There is a certain habit of mind that enables them to readily leave behind things that don't work and to move on to things that they think will work. Whereas the liturgy creates a different habit of mind, a habit of stability. This has its strengths and weaknesses, just as the Pentecostal mindset has its strengths and weaknesses. But in my view, in the modern world especially, the danger of a short memory far outweighs the danger of not being willing to change.

Many people would say the opposite: For the church to succeed in its mission, it needs to be ready to change.

But is that true in the long run? Coming from a Pentecostal background, I'm more sensitive to the dangers that a church is exposed to when it forgets its history.

What is the place of new communication technologies in worship and mission?

I believe that if we have a clear, coherent ecclesiology, if we know what it is to be the church, then technology will have its proper place. It's when we lack a clear understanding of our own identity and are driven by a pragmatic understanding of the church and its mission that technology becomes a threat to the life of the church. For too long, evangelicals have been driven by a rather shallow understanding of the church. We tend to see the church as a kind of pragmatic organization to fulfill certain tasks. And of course, if the church is viewed in this way, then we use technology very uncritically as long as those tasks are done.

This is especially important when it comes to the ultimate meaning of communion. Technology has created what we call virtual reality. It can give you a sense of intimacy. But whether it is real intimacy or not is quite another matter. I think this is where the Christian understanding of community enables us to look beyond what modern technology can offer, because the Christian understanding of real communion is embodied communion. Communion means bodily presence. That's at the heart of our incarnational theology, God coming to us in person; it's the meaning of the resurrection of the body. So no matter what virtual reality technology can create, it will never be an adequate substitute for communion.

But a high-definition video screen seems to bring us much closer to the preacher. Does that sense of intimacy happen in liturgical worship?

The traditional liturgy doesn't exist primarily to foster interpersonal relationships. It operates on a very different paradigm. In the liturgy we are, in a very real sense, objectively recognizing God for who he is. And in the midst of proclaiming who God is, we encounter God. At the end of the day, we may not be particularly drawn toward individuals, but in a good liturgy, we are drawn to God. We recognize him for who he is.

What can liturgical traditions learn from the charismatic and Pentecostal stream?

I think they need to be willing to recognize that God can and often does surprise us. We cannot control God. The Pentecostal willingness to change things at the spur of the moment may not be a bad thing at times! Liturgical churches need to be open to what Jonathan Edwards called "the surprising works of God."

What do we need to learn and unlearn about making disciples?

We need to rediscover this ancient word, catechism. In a way, it is very straightforward. Its purpose is to help people become the body of Christ and be incorporated into the church. And I don't think that the modern church can improve very much on what has already been given: the creeds, the great commandments, the Lord's Prayer. Those are the basic things that help the church develop its identity as the church of Jesus Christ. We can certainly add other training programs, but I think the catechism should be central to any training of disciples.

Now, the traditional approach was rote learning, asking questions and memorizing the responses. That may not be the most useful approach now, although it's surprising how some of those things we learn by rote stick at the back of our minds for a lifetime. But there are many other things that need to be addressed as the church enters into new contexts. The basic content of the catechism needs to address contextual issues.

For example, in some parts of the world, in the course of catechetical instruction, when we come to the Christian's renunciation of the world and of idolatry, that can quite literally mean that you have to give up your fetishes and idols. It's not metaphorical. Similarly, exorcism, which is still practiced in a liturgical way in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches when people are being prepared for baptism, may be much more than just a ritual in some parts of the world. People who are involved in black magic and the like actually have to renounce these things and have demons cast out of them.

In our context in Singapore, the act of baptism is seen even by non-Christians as the most critical moment of a person's life. Traditional Chinese do not mind their children going to church. In fact, they'll say, well, the church can teach you good things—but don't get baptized. Because the moment you get baptized, you burn your bridge with traditional religion. They understand baptism better than some of our evangelical Christians!

I'm an advisor to a local Assemblies of God church, and I know some of the people in our church who have been in our church for years, who have even taken up leadership positions in the church but who are not baptized.

What does the Asian church have to contribute to our understanding of discipleship and mission?

I believe the traditional Asian family structure, with its emphasis on extended family and authority within the family, could be very helpful to the Western church and its tendency to atomize the Christian community into autonomous individuals. Western people have great difficulty understanding that a hierarchical structure is not necessarily opposed to individual freedom. They tend to think of hierarchy as an arrangement of domination. But that is not the way we see it in Asia.

Likewise, in our more traditional cultures, the value attached to marriage helps us in instructing people in the importance of baptism. When you go through that process, there's a profound and permanent change of relationship and status. But in the context where marriage is a kind of convenient arrangement, it's very difficult to teach sacramental theology. So in a way, I can see why free churches in the West talk a lot about the church and leave out the sacraments.

Can't modernity be described as a loss of sacramentality? There's nothing particularly special about the world, and we can remake it as we will.

That's right. But I think in many traditional societies outside the West, the sense of the sacred is still strong. It is beginning to give way as modernity comes in, especially in urban places. But in many other contexts, the sacred is still there. I think that provides a good point of contact for linking them with the Christian faith. This is one of the reasons why Christianity has a special appeal among what we might call tribal societies, where there is still a strong sense of the sacramental universe.

What does the church need to learn and unlearn about mission in your cultural setting?

Unfortunately, when Asian churches start to be involved in cross-cultural mission, especially churches in the more affluent societies like Korea and Singapore, many of them seem to repeat the mistakes of earlier missionaries. For example, after Cambodia opened up to the rest of the world, mission groups, many originating in Asia, rushed in. There are countless mission groups working in Cambodia. But they simply perpetuate the denominationalism that they so strenuously condemned in their own countries. So we haven't quite learned our lesson.

Asian Christians, too, can come with the same colonial mentality that Westerners once did, thinking that we've got all the answers because we have the money.

It's kind of reassuring as a Westerner to know we're not the only ones who make these mistakes.

At the same time, there's a lot to be thankful for. Many Asian churches are devoting huge amounts of money to the mission field. I was telling a colleague here at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary yesterday that some megachurches have mission budgets that are bigger than the budget of Trinity Theological College! And they are using that to go and preach the gospel. We can be thankful for that. But at the same time, we need to look at mission in the longer term and engage in things that are going to bear lasting fruit. There are still many parts of Asia, especially tribal regions, where the Bible is not available in the local language. I believe that the key to long-term mission success is to place the Bible in the hands of people in their local language. But this kind of work requires years and years of commitment. And I'm afraid that many of our churches are just not patient. They want to get things done quickly. They want to have results. They want statistics to show.

I suppose translation is just one aspect of contextualization, and it takes a long time to get it right.

Exactly. You need to have people who are willing to live in the place for a long period of time to do translation well. It can't be done quickly without doing harm to the very culture that you're seeking to serve.

REVIEW ON "THEOLOGICAL THEOLOGY"

John Webster, “Theological Theology,” in Confessing God: Essays in Christian Dogmatics II [London, New York: T&T Clark, 2005]

ABSTRACT
In this article I will present and review the thought of John Webster, specifically on his first chapter essay which talked much about doing Christian theology in the modern university. I appreciate his great effort to set Christian theology free from the Enlightenment project in which reason is to be the supreme one. Through his theological theology’s breakthrough, he suggested that every Christian theologian must work with its own theology instead of copying the intellectual procedure from another disciplines. To put it in another word, every theologian should sustain its distinctiveness. By doing that manner, theology may give a significant contribution to the modern university that is under influence by the Enlightenment project. In this regard, theology will suggest to the university to maintain the confident sense of the importance of non-conformity and see the differences not as a curse but a given condition for the university’s life. But unfortunately, I would think that his great emphasis on the distinctiveness of Christian theology will lead into another problem, so-called isolation. If this is so, then how might Christian theologians give a contribution in spreading God’s salvific narrative that is embodied in the life of Jesus Christ to the university and the world? I believe that problem of isolation would give no contribution to outsiders; otherwise, it will allow outsiders to put theology back to the corner just as modern universities do so far. Thus, I would suggest that we mustn’t leave non-Christian disciplines at all; otherwise, we must locate its disciplines in the theological realm wisely and properly. However, I still acknowledge that his essay has given inspirations for theologians in doing the Christian theology, especially in the postmodern world.


OVERVIEW
As an introduction of an inaugural lecture in the University of Oxford, Webster described one of the criteria of a healthy university, that is, its ability to sustain lively self-critical disagreement about its intellectual life. That is to say, that the university is supposed to maintain the conflict for correcting and reformulating the fundamental intellectual and spiritual ideals. As well as theologians, they “ought to be busy about this kind of dispute, both among themselves and in their extra-mural conversations.”[1] From this sort of manner among the university’s life, hopefully Christian theology will transform human life and thought by inexhaustible suggestiveness and provocative effect.

But the problem nowadays is that Christian theology is not taken seriously in modern Western universities anymore. Christian theology has not been in a good position in the face of modern universities. The existence of Christian theology has declined as an unimportant subject in the universities’ life. If one day theology were absent, the university’s pursuit of its ideals would in no way be imperilled.[2]

Why is it? Why has the Christian theology been declined by the modern university? One of the reasons, according to Webster, is because of the history of the modern research university and its ethos of scholarship has had as one of its major corollaries the marginalization of moral and religious conviction, and thus the discouragement of theological enquiry.[3] What he meant is that modern universities have been familiar with the method of enquiry or in Webster words it is called “anthropology of enquiry”. He stated: “That [anthropology of enquiry] is to say, underlying its specific practices and preferred modes of research, its norms of acceptability and its structures of evaluation, is an account of the intellectual life, of what intellectual selfhood ought to look like.” [4] With such method, they will discuss and review the issues on the earth.

That anthropology is bound up with some of the most potent and spiritual ideal of modernity; and it is an extension of the ideal of freedom from determination by situation. It means that anthropology of enquiry is a method that doesn’t acknowledge that what people think and do is according to his/her background. On this matter, Webster added: “No background is needed; indeed, if the intellectual life is to proceed properly, then the enquirer has to leave all particular convictions at the portal of the university before stepping inside, such convictions have to be factored out from the very beginning.”[5]

In such method, everyone will be asked to identify him/her self without any reference to the specific background, tradition, custom and whatsoever that is brought with him/her. One is encouraged to detach with such a particular background. Otherwise, one is encouraged to attach him/herself to reason. In other words, the method which is used in modern Western universities is dominated by ideals of procedural rationality, context and conviction independence, and representation and judgement.[6]

As a reaction of such method, Webster argued that this anthropology is not fit for theological enquiry which is informed by Christian conviction. It has proved very barren soil for theology because “[p]rocedurally, the method of enquiry has excluded ab ovo the modes of reflective activity which have been most commonly deployed in the traditions of Christian theology.”[7] But ironically and strangely, the Christian theology is not able to give a significant criticism to this barren intellectual context. “This is in itself an indication of how successfully the research university has been able to represent itself as definitive of rational practice tout court,” thus Webster stated.[8] And this too is the external factor that makes the decline of Christian theology in the university.

Now the question goes further, is the external factor the only reason that makes theology not attractive in the university? Webster went to another factor, so-called internal factor. As he quoted E. Charry, he said that, “If theology finds itself on the margins, responsibility may well lie not only with a desacralized culture, but ‘within the field of theology itself’.”[9] From the statement, Webster asked us to reconsider how we are doing the theology so far, whether we have a certain failure of theological nerve.

On this matter, he explained that most traditions of modern Christian theology in the west have very deeply internalized the anthropology of enquiry and so have found themselves alienated from the subject matters, the cultural, and intellectual processes of the Christian religion.[10] This would be the failure of theological nerve. To clarify what he meant Webster gave us two tangible examples. First, the example is taken from the matter of doctrine of revelation. In the magisterial Reformers, the doctrine of revelation was used for knowing God. They realized that man can’t know God unless God reveals himself to be known. That is what the doctrine of revelation was all about. But nowadays, revelation becomes predoctrinal, prolegomenal, the ground of doctrine which is explicable in relative isolation from other Christian doctrines, such as Christology and pneumatology. Second, the example is taken from the issue of the resurrection. The resurrection used to be an object of belief but now it becomes a ground of belief in the sense that it comes to perform a function in an apologetic strategy as part of the endeavour of fundamental theology to defend the possibility of revelation and special divine action.[11] From those two examples, we see that the contents and operations of theology are no longer determined by theological considerations themselves but by another disciplines. In my own words, we are not doing theology by theology.

It could have happened because theology is steadily assimilated to those of standard rational discourse. Webster stated:
The canon gradually shifts from being that on the basis of which theology proceeds to that into whose transcendental conditions theology enquires. This shift involves retiring the rhetoric of commentary, paraphrase and reiteration, for those ways of doing theological work cannot serve the goal of enquiry, which is proof underived from the terms of the tradition itself. They are replaced, therefore, by modes of theological discourse which reflect a quite different set of interest, whose key feature is undetermination by the self-representations of the tradition of Christian practice.[12]

So far, Webster has presented two factors that make for the decline of theology in modern universities. Firstly, it is because of the anthropology of enquiry that has dominated the modern university; and secondly, it is because of the certain failure in doing the theology itself.
Now we see that the problem is not simply about the failure of theology to keep pace with modernity or see how that theology was turfed out by rationalism, but it is rather a matter of seeing how internal disarray incapacited theology all the more because it left theologians with such a reduced intellectual capital to draw upon as they sought to make judgments about the ideals, academic and spiritual, which presented themselves for their attention with such institutional force.[13]

And yet, those ideals and the institutions in themselves are showing signs of strains. What have often been judged to be invariant principles of rational enquiry by the university actually are customs that have to do with the plausibility structures which surround them. Though the academy always acknowledges itself as a place of total, interest-free reflection, but its reflective practices have sometimes contradicted with that acknowledgment. To concretize his explanation, Webster stated:
In representing itself as a sort of disinterested tribunal, the university may in important respects obscure from itself and others the real character of its operations: its place as a regulator and distributor of cultural capital, its proposing of ideals of acceptable intellectual practice, its commitment to determinate moral and political goals.[14]

Exploring the matter above, though Christian theology has been in decline for a long time, it still has a chance to give a significance breakthrough in the academy’s life. Now the question is how might Christian theology offer a significance breakthrough for the academy’s life? In this regard, Webster proposed that first of all, when we are doing the theology, we should hold fast to its own concerns, pursue its own goals and fulfil its own responsibilities by making full use of its own procedures. To put in another word, we should hold fast the distinctiveness of Christian theology. Webster said that:
. . . [T]he most demanding task is that of re-establishing theology’s relation to the culture of Christian faith and practice from which it so often find itself dissociated. . . . . Christian theology’s culture is that of Christian faith—its store of memories, its lexical stock, its ideas, its institutions and roles, its habits of prayer and service and witness, the whole conglomeration of activities through which it offers a ‘reading’ reality.[15]

From his saying, we may see that Webster asked us to sustain the uniqueness of Christianity instead of casting it out to get along with another method or disciplines. This sustaining action is called theological theology. When we are able to sustain the theological theology, then we will have a confidence to articulate a distinctively theological account of the content, methods and goals.[16] And above all, it also makes theologians worth talking to, because he/she has something different among the other disciplines.

In doing so, our theological theology will surely be a particular contribution to the university’s life too. Christian theology will suggest a different model of academic life by going about its business, by skilful, reflective, self critical practice within its own world of discourse.[17] The university is encouraged to maintain the confident sense of the importance of non-conformity and see the differences not a curse but a given condition for the university’s life. If this is happening in the university life, then the energetic, curious and fruitful conversations about differing visions of human life and thought will be maintained. As a conclusion, Webster said that, “Theological theology has much to contribute to the fostering of that kind of intellectual polity and the academy has every reason to expect much from its contribution.[18]

REVIEW
In this review section, first of all, I acknowledge that surely what Webster presented to us has given an insightful information and deep analysis on looking at the position of Christian theology in the face of modern universities. In his essay, he tried to set Christian theology operations free from the distortion of the Enlightenment project that characterize modernity condition.[19] Related to this matter, Kevin J. Vanhoozer described that, “Modern thought was characterized by a drive for certitude, universality, and perhaps, above all, mastery. . . . [it] may be understood broadly as the attempt to bring critical rationality and scientific method to bear not only on the natural world but on humanity . . . even ‘divinity.’”[20] It sought the universal emancipation through the universal and supremacy of human reason that can be seen in the technology development, science and democracy.

Ironically, modern Christian theology has lost its prestige by internalizing the Enlightenment project. Stanley Grenz rightly observed that in the premodern era, divine revelation has been a final arbiter of truth and the task of human reason was to understand the truth that was revealed in the revelation. Reason will be used for demonstrating the invincible of the revealing truths and reconciling experience with the understanding of the cosmic drama taught by the Christian faith. But otherwise, Enlightenment theologians began to appeal to human reason rather than externally imposed revelation as a final arbiter of truth. They use their reason to determine what constitutes revelation.[21] In McGrath’s words, “Enlightenment rationalism, then, upheld the sovereignty or reason, arguing that human reason was capable of establishing all that it was necessary to know about religion without recourse to the idea of “revelation.’”[22]

In this regard, Paul Tillich’s method of correlation is an example of theology which let modern thought forms set the agenda of doing Christian theology.[23] In his method, Tillich tried to propose a theological method that would be faithful to the original Christian message and contemporary life. Tillich offered his method of correlation, which explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence. The questions are raised by philosophy through careful examination of human existence. And the theologian must do his/her function as a philosopher in this first step of theology. The second step, the theologian draws on the symbols of divine revelation to articulate answers relating to the questions implied in human existence that philosophy can discover but not answer. But in fact, his employment of the method of correlation did not match with his idealistic description of its method. Theologian Kenneth Hamilton accuses Tillich of allowing a philosophical system of ontological speculation to predetermine and control the content of the Christian message. In actual practice, he interpreted the language of Christian faith so as to make it conform to his preconceived ontological system. Therefore, Hamilton stated: “To see Tillich’s system as a whole is to see that it is incompatible with the Christian gospel. From the perspective of results the system is something the believer has to meet with a ‘No!’, since to accept it would be to put aside the kerygma in favour of a logos philosophy functioning as a self-contained and authoritative theology.”[24] Tillich’s system will only show us that he was immersed by the supremacy of human reason of the Enlightenment project.

From this sort of doing theology, Webster tries to revitalize the distinctiveness of Christian theology by sustaining the theological theology. It is a method of theology that showing the faithfulness to the richness of Christian culture and serving to “highlight the fact that there is no non-local public, no rationality abstract from social practice, no sphere where everything is open for total reflection.”[25] It is a method that recognises that everyone and everything on earth has their own background. If theologians continue to internalize the Enlightenment project, then Webster correctly said that Christian theology will be found increasingly alienated from the subject matters and the cultural and intellectual processes of the Christian religion.
If theologians have done the theological theology that is proposed by Webster, Christian theology will make modern universities realise that, “Learning is not some eternal essence that happens to enter history at particular times and places, but a long enduring social practice whose goals, methods, standards of excellence, and legitimating and orienting frameworks of conviction change drastically over time and are often deeply contested.”[26] Theological theology will be a significant contribution for the university’s life.

Until that point, I’m in the line with Webster in the sense that knowledge is not disembodied. Therefore, one, whether as a theologian or non-theologian, must recognise his/her backgrounds which can’t be detached. But on the other side, I’d think that Webster has gone too far when he emphasised that theologians must do the Christian theology by its own concerns, pursuing its own goals and fulfilling its own responsibilities by making full use of its own procedures. Obviously, Webster stated: “. . . the most fruitful contribution which theology can make to the wider world of learning is by demonstrating a stubborn yet cheerful insistence on what Barth called ‘the great epistemological caveat’ . . . [T]he way of thought [of theology] . . . is not secure except in the reality of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit’.”[27] From that statement, it implies that theologian is suggested to do the Christian theology by its own theology without looking at another disciplines anymore.

I would think that his thought is echoing from Barth’s theological method. As Barth was attempting to break with liberal theology, he eschewed the natural theology. His refutation to the natural theology can be seen from his statement: “. . . if we only lend our little finger to natural theology, there necessarily follows the denial of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. . . . Rebus sic stantibus, any other source [other than the revelation of God in Jesus Christ] could only be myth and therefore the end of all things and certainly the end of the church.”[28] Barth assumed that any other source has been contaminated by sin. And therefore, it cannot be used for knowing God, or in the broad sense, theological method. Our theological method must rely only on the special revelation.

In this regard, Grenz and Olson rightly criticize Barth by questioning that, “If there are no intelligible bridge connecting theology with other disciplines or with common human experience, how can Christian belief appear to outsiders as anything but esoteric?”[29] Grenz and Olson believe that in some sense the bridging connections between theology and other disciplines are needed for showing what Christian belief looks like. If there is no such connection, then Christianity possibly becomes an “untouchable” religion. And furthermore, Christianity will be isolated from other religions. Such a result could be seen too in Webster’s theological theology when he tried to emphasise too much on the distinctiveness of Christian theology. His proposal would be suffered with an isolation problem and soon theology would be an alienated subject matter within the university, especially, and the world, generally. If this is so, then how might Christian theologians give a contribution in spreading a story that is embodied in the life of Jesus Christ to the university and the world? I believe that problem of isolation would give no contribution to outsiders; otherwise, it will allow outsiders to put theology back to the corner just as modern universities do so far. Hamilton reminds the theologians that, “[t]here is the danger of a progressive isolation of religion in society as a consequence of separating sacred and secular concepts and values.”[30] Therefore, I suggest that in doing our theology we mustn’t leave non-Christian disciplines at all; otherwise, we must locate its disciplines in the theological realm wisely and properly.

Enclosing my review, I would say that theological theology project of Webster must be highly appreciated because it gives significant inspirations for doing theology in the postmodern world. His essay is particularly strong in criticizing theologians who internalized the Enlightenment project in doing their theology and regaining the distinctiveness of Christian theology. Finally, I would recommend his brilliant essay to be used as a “mirror” for our theology today.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics II/1, The Doctrine of God, Part 1, trans. T.H.L. Parker et al. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957.

Descartes, René. “Meditations on First Philosophy” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, ed. Lawrence Cahoone. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Frame, John M. The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987.

Grenz, Stanely. Primer on Postmodernism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.

Grenz, Stanley and Olson, Roger E. 20th Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age. England: Paternoster, 1992.

Hamilton, Kenneth. The System and The Gospel: A Critique of Paul Tillich. New York: Macmillan, 1963.

Lonergan, Bernard J. F. Method in Theology. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971.

McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.

Vanhoozer, Kevin. “Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity: A Report on Knowledge (of God)” in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Webster, John. Confessing God: Essays in Christian Dogmatics II. London, New York: T&T Clark, 2005.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. “The Travail of Theology in the Modern Academy” in The Future of Theology: Essays in Honor of Jürgen Moltmann, ed. Miroslav Volf [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.

FOOTNOTES
[1] Webster, “Theological Theology,” 11.
[2] Ibid., 12.
[3] Ibid., 12.
[4] Ibid., 4.
[5] In the same understanding, Nicholas Wolterstorff explained the matter in a more detail way. He explained, “Before entering the university halls of learning we are to strip off all our particularities—our particularities of gender, race, nationality, religion, social class, age—and enter purely as normal adult human beings. . . . Black history, feminist sociology, Muslim political theory, and liberation theology, whatever may be said for their practice in other contexts, had had no place within the halls of the modern public university (“The Travail of Theology in the Modern Academy” in The Future of Theology: Essays in Honor of Jürgen Moltmann, ed. Miroslav Volf [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 38).
[6] Webster, Confessing, 15.
[7] Ibid., 17.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., 17.
[10] Ibid. 12. Through the survey of Michael Buckley, Webster traces the history of the alienation of theology. The history of the alienation started in the very early modern period when theology left its own ground in order to debate with natural philosophy over the existence of God. The result is that theology became a disciplina otisia in the justification and establishment of its own subject matter (Ibid., 18).
[11] Ibid., 19-20.
[12] Ibid., 21.
[13] Ibid., 23.
[14] Ibid., 24 .
[15] Ibid., 28-29.
[16] From the beginning, (in the introduction) we may see that Webster has encouraged the theologians to have a great confidence in doing their own theology. However, “[s]uch confidence is not a matter of mastery of its object . . . [i]t is rather what Calvin calls ‘the high confidence which befits a servant of God furnished with his sure commands’.” Webster tried to revitalized theologians’ confidence from the authority of the risen Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. See ibid., 5.
[17] Ibid., 28.
[18] Ibid., 31.
[19] Frenchman René Descartes is often considered as the father of modern philosophy. As a scientist, mathematician, and philosopher, Descartes’s intent was to devise a method of investigation that could facilitate the discovery of those truths that were absolutely certain. In his pursuit of certain knowledge, Descartes begin with doubt. For further reading on his personal diary that told about his journey from the despair of doubt to the peace of certainty, see René Descartes, “Meditations on First Philosophy” in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology, ed. Lawrence Cahoone (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 29-40.
[20] “Theology and the Condition of Postmodernity: A Report on Knowledge (of God)” in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 8
[21] Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 62.
[22] Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 182.
[23] There are several basic assumptions lies in his theology. They are: (1) Theology should be understood in apologetic way in the sense that theology must formulate and communicate its concepts in a way that truly speaks to the modern situation; (2) There are some common ground between the Christian message and the contemporary culture; (3) In direct contrast to Barth, he believed that philosophy is indispensable to theology. For him, there is no theologian should be taken seriously as a theologian if he does not take philosophy seriously; (4) He believes that ontology as a particular philosophy is the most useful to theology. At its root, then, philosophy is ontology and ontology, then, is absolutely crucial to Christian theology. See Stanley Grenz and Roger E. Olson, 20th Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age (England: Paternoster, 1992), 116-119. Another prominent Catholic theologian that internalized the Enlightenment project is Bernard Lonergan. I would think that the chapter one of his Method in Theology contains an obvious project of the Enlightenment. For further reading, see Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971).
[24] See The System and The Gospel: A Critique of Paul Tillich (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 227. For exploring his critique to Tillich’s system of thought, see p. 227-239.
[25] Webster, “Theological Theology,” 30.
[26] Wolterstorff, “The Travail of Theology in the Modern Academy,” 37.
[27] “Theological Theology,” 27.
[28] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1, The Doctrine of God, Part 1, trans. T.H.L. Parker et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 173,176. For an introduction into Barth’s thoughts, see The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
[29] 20th Century Theology, 75. Moreover, I would think that Barth forgot that natural theology as a part of general revelation also plays particular important roles in Christianity. For example, sociological science. John M. Frame exclaimed that one of the important roles playing by that science is helping in the communication of theology. Its studies can help theologians to contextualize the gospel to the particular culture. See John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987), 314-315. For a concise comparison views on natural theology, see McGrath, Christian Theology, 208-214.

[30] The System and the Gospel, 228.