Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Page 52

1. Theology as the Queen of the Sciences
Christian theology has, of course, origins that go back to the very begin-
nings of the Christian faith. Prior to the middle ages, theology was studied by
scholars and monks, mainly in monastic settings. It was reflection on faith, in
Anselm’s terms ''fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking to understand itself,
the critical exploration, appropriation and commending of faith. The ulti-
mate goal of this study was the beatific vision, fellowship with God, wisdom,
and at a more mundane level, the equipping of clergy and the people of God
for their tasks. In as far as faith involved discipleship, and was an orientation,
a formation, of the whole person rather than a simple act of intellectual as-
sent, theology was understood as a practical matter. Contemplation could not
be separated from action, any more than faith could be separated from the
Church, the community of faith.
In the middle ages universities developed in Europe and provided a new set-
ting for the study of theology. Dr Gillian Evans has traced the medieval devel-
opment of theology as it became an academic discipline. In the twelfth century
theology as ‘speculatio’was understood as a ‘gazing on the divine’ which was seen
as ‘essentially a devotional exercise’. By the late twelfth century, Dr Evans argues,
speculative theology had been stripped of all such elements: it became an activ-
ity of the mind in which religious emotion had little or no place ... the divorce
of contemplation from abstract thought of an academic kind was complete’.3
Throughout the Middle Ages, theology was generally regarded as the
Queen ofthe Sciences in universities which were, almost without exception, ec-
clesiastical foundations, whose primary task was the training of clergy and the
critical formulation of church teaching. But was theology as such a theoretical
science in the Aristotelian sense, or a practical science - again as understood
by Aristotle? Thomas Aquinas endeavoured to demonstrate that theology was
a theoretical science, a sophia, in Aristotle’s sense because it is an end in itself,
whereas practical knowledge is directed towards other ends and other goods.4
Other medieval theologians, such as Duns Scotus and the nominalists who
were so influential on the Protestant Reformers, taught that theology was a
3 Gillian Evans, OldArts and New Theology: The Beginnings ofTheology as an Academic Discipline. Oxford: OUP,
1980, p.93.
4 W.Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy ofScience. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986, p. 232.