I'm into a very big piece of work titled: 'What is the Relationship Between Christian Mission and Christian Education?' and am learning a whole lot from reading broadly and pulling ideas together.
One of the authors whose work I've been looking at is Nicholas Wolterstorff - a professor of philosophy at both Calvin College and Yale Divinity School in the States.
His work over many years has been massively influential in the sphere of Christian education. He obviously says lots of things, but when I read the below, I had to stick it up here. As someone who spent four years studying for a degree in Fine Art alongside a lifetime spent in churches, I can relate to this in a big way:
(he's talking about the planning of school buildings by Christians but this could easily translate to churches, homes, the setting for events, or whatever)
'...I submit that ugliness is ingratitude. Ugliness is irresponsible. Can anyone really believe that God approves of ugliness? Scripture presents God as delighting in his creation. Do you suppose that it is in the ugliness of things that God delights? Be aware that the aesthetic quality of your school says something about you, and then ask yourself, is what it says about me acceptable? And once again , beauty does not require big expense. Indeed, I would offer as a general principle that when people lavish money on their buildings, they almost always end up with monstrosities.'
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9 comments:
Ah! Theologists and their intimate knowledge of the mind of an ineffable being...
As H.L. Mencken said, "Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing."
Put a 'Discuss' on the end of that and you've got a 1st year essay topic for next term, Michael ;-)
Theology, as you know, is the Queen of the sciences - 'faith seeking understanding' as someone once said.
'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' and all that...
"The Queen of the sciences" - nice to see you have a well developed sense of the absurd.
surely the knowledge that all other disciplines end their quest for true understanding and insight at the feet of theology is simply common sense?
come on...
you know it to be true.
Surely the problem is that the 'quest' is the wrong way round. As you say, someone once called it 'faith seeking understanding' - so you have the answer to your quest - faith - and theology is your way of twisting logic and the world until it fits the 'answer'.
no no no and again no.
faith is not an answer.
it is the beginning of questions
faith in what? what is the object of faith? what is the end of faith?
what will the shape of a journey of faith be?
and on and on and on.
questions and more questions.
and the beginnings of answers perhaps.
but no twisting of anything.
science gives us truth by asking questions.
theology pokes at truth by asking questions.
science and theology go hand in hand. the truth of one, rightly understood, will confirm the truth in the other, rightly understood...
Yes, of course there are questions. If you start with an irrational, a priori 'faith', and your question is never going to be, 'Is this faith thing just b*****ks?' - then the next question is, 'How can I make any sense of this thing?' ... oh yes, lots of questions...
Let's not get on to the whole 'truth' thing... Suffice to say, I don't think science purports to give 'truth' - possibly provisional answers.
I can see that theology has learnt from science (it had to do some fancy footwork with Darwin for example) but I can think of nothing where science could benefit from theology. The two have no connection.
far from it.
most people of faith ask the questions you have mooted all the time.
the sciences were born out of the study of theology in that education as we experience it has its roots in monastic houses.
darwinian theories teach us about process but we require theology to help us make sense of those insights. the church took a while to understand this. but the church grows in its understanding of the way of things along with the entire human race.
science that closes its ears to the insights offered by serious theology is hobbled. it will only ever offer a partial picture if it is thus hindered.
Absolutely, if you are an intelligent 'person of faith' then you must be asking a lot of questions...
You could say Astronomy was born out of Astrology and Chemistry out of Alchemy, does that put Theology in the same class as those two?
Science never purports to give more than a 'partial picture'. It is not the answer to all things - science doesn't try and answer questions like 'how do I live a good life?' - these are for moral philosophers (theologians could jump in there with what God wants us to do but it's nothing to do with science)
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