Forthcoming as a chapter in, Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Process and Wesleyan Theologies in Dialogue, ed. Bryan Stone and Thomas Oord (Nashville: Kingswood Books/Abingdon, 2001).

Putting Reason in its Place: Wesleyan Theology or Ontotheology?*

Alan G. Padgett

There has been a happy marriage between Wesleyan theology and process philosophy for the last several decades. Other chapters in this book attest to the continuing vitality of this union of a particular Christian theological tradition and a specific metaphysical school. My purpose in this chapter is to raise a voice of caution. In the past, process theology has tended to privilege reason or metaphysics over Scripture and tradition. In this essay, I give some reasons why this has been a problem, and may indeed continue to be unless care is taken by process thinkers. The question here is not whether faith and reason, or theology and philosophy, belong together. The question is how. My entry into this question will be through Martin Heidegger’s well-known rejection of ontotheology, although in the end I will turn Heidegger on his head.

Recent work in process theology has moved in the direction of humility in metaphysics and rationality, combined with a greater respect for tradition. Examples of this would include John Cobb’s recent book on Wesleyan theology, Charles Hartshorne’s collection of essays on moderation in philosophy, Marjorie Suchocki’s book on sin, along with her recent essay on John Wesley’s theology of prayer.[1] This is a salutary movement in process theology, one I would like to commend. The present volume of essays continues this important change in at least some process thinkers who are also Wesleyans. In the past, however, process thought was not nearly so humble, nor so interested in valuing the sources of Christian thought in Scripture and tradition. My basic concern is that even in the examination of Scripture and tradition, process theologians may continue to give explanatory priority to metaphysics and/or philosophical rationality. Process theologians have rightly complained that classical theism is too tied to Greek metaphysics. My complaint is that Wesleyan theology must not be too tied to process metaphysics, either.

This essay is primarily about method: method in metaphysics and method in theology. A careful and thorough reply to process theology would include a detailed critique of process metaphysics, especially the work of Alfred North Whitehead. Although we have neither time nor space for such a venture here and now, I do want to note that I have found a number of important doctrines in process philosophy. There is, after all, much of value in process thought. I have chosen to focus on the key problem with process theology, a problem in metaphysical and theological method, rather than any particular doctrine. This problem is well captured by Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20^th century.

The problem can be stated very briefly. In the past process theology has allowed philosophy to set the terms for the Christian theological quest to know God. However, because Christian theology is based upon revelation, it can and must resist this move. The path to truth about God is based upon faith and comes through revelation, especially that revelation in Jesus Christ that is made available to us in the witness of Scripture, as the Spirit gives us new eyes to see the truth.[2] Tradition, spiritual practises, reason and experience are secondary to this primary witness. Philosophy may, indeed, teach us something about God. But for a theology dedicated to the truth about God in Jesus Christ, special revelation is the primary source of truth about God. Philosophical theology must accommodate itself to revelation, not the other way around, if indeed revelation is what it claims to be: knowledge of God beyond reason (but not contrary to reason).

This is an old debate, and process thinkers have, for example, already replied to Barth and his school. But the postmodern twist has put new bite into the criticism of the pretensions of philosophical systems, or meta-narratives, to encompass all of reality – including God – into one vast regime of Truth with a capital T. Of course, we could have learned this lesson if we had listened carefully to John Dewey’s Gifford Lectures of 1929, on the quest for certainty.[3] But Dewey was ahead of his time, and did not write in French! The philosophy of Whitehead represents the last great philosophical system in Anglo-American thought (at least so far), and is a primary example of what postmodern critics have aimed at, that is, a totalizing metanarrative. But we anticipate ourselves. To grasp the power of the postmodern critique, we should begin with Martin Heidegger.

Heidegger’s own very early metaphysical speculations developed into his classic phenomenological study of human Being (Dasein) in Being and Time (1927).[4] In that text he begins his path toward the suspicion of metaphysics. Take, for example, his section on a “destruction of the history of ontology” (Introduction, § II.6). Heidegger famously takes Western, traditional metaphysics to task for forgetting Being (with a capital B) in its focus on things. His main task in this book remains a positive one, attempting to explicate the “positive aspects” of Being.[5] After this work, Heidegger became more suspicious of metaphysics, and eventually argued we should “overcome” it. One text along this journey is his 1957 volume, Identity and Difference.[6] In this work, Heidegger sets forth the ontotheological constitution of metaphysics and is critical of it. We cannot do justice to the whole of Heidegger’s text here, but seek only to outline his implicit argument against process metaphysics, and indeed all metaphysical systems that claim a systematic, unitary knowledge of God and existence. While Heidegger’s critique is couched in terms of Aristotelian philosophy, Whitehead’s system is just as problematic and falls under the same ontotheological critique.[7]

The problem, Heidegger states, is how God comes into philosophy. Theology cannot be allowed to dictate answers to philosophy, according to Heidegger. “God [der Gott] can come into philosophy only insofar as philosophy, of its own accord and by its own nature, requires and determines that and how God enters into it,” he claims.[8] And again, “We can properly think through the question, How does God enter into philosophy?, only when that to which God is to come has become sufficiently clear: that is, philosophy itself.”[9] In my own language, Heidegger is concerned for the integrity of philosophy as a rational disciple of the University, and for the methodological focus and limits of philosophy. If any other science or discipline can dictate answers in advance for philosophy, he held, then philosophy loses its purpose. He states, “It would be rash to assert that metaphysics is theology because it is ontology,”[10] fully aware that Aristotle called part of his metaphysics “theology.” He makes this clear in an earlier lecture, Introduction to Metaphysics:[11]

Anyone for whom the Bible is divine revelation and truth has the answer to the question ‘Why is there beings rather than nothing’ even before it is asked: everything, that is, except God himself has been created by him. God himself, the Incarnate Creator, ‘is.’ One who holds to such faith can in a way participate in the asking of our questions but he cannot really question without ceasing to be a believer and taking all the consequences of such a step.

Because Christian theology is based upon Christian revelation and Christian faith, it cannot be philosophy and should never pretend to be. For Heidegger, the ontotheological problem of metaphysics is this: in assuming that it knows all about God, it short-circuits the due attention that Being deserves, and distorts both God and Being in the process.

I believe Heidegger makes some valid points here, ideas we may find in other writers but which are nevertheless important. But I want to defend the distinction between philosophy and theology from the other side, that is, from the side of theology. Just as the philosopher rightly defends the autonomy of her discipline against theological pre-emption, so the theologian can and must defend revelation, and the theology based upon it, from philosophical pre-emption. In the past, the writings of process theologians accepted Scripture and Tradition to the extent and degree they fit into a Whiteheadian metaphysical system, or into an a priori conception of what counts as rational.[12]

But what is wrong with this? If a system of metaphysics is true, do we not want to fit our theology to the truth it contains? Shall theology be irrational? The problem here has to do with, in Heidegger’s words, how God enters into metaphysics. The God of metaphysics, as Pascal knew long ago, is not the God of religion, and philosophy is not concerned with the goals and modes of knowing found in religion, namely, salvation and revelation. Christianity is devoted, first and foremost, to Jesus Christ. The Bible, as the book of Christ, is the primary witness to the revelation of God in Christ, at least for Christians. Ecumenical, long-standing Tradition provides us with a deeply Christian understanding of that Book. By putting metaphysics or rationality on top, some process thinkers in the past tended to distort theology from the very start. The goal of Christian theology is a knowledge of God based upon special revelation. The task of theology is not to develop an abstract notion of God, still less to construct systems of logical propositions. The true task of theology, grounded in religious practise and revelatory claims, is to know God and enjoy Her forever. As Suchocki recently wrote, “theologians work out the reasonableness of faith within a particular construal of reality that is already shaped by Christian faith . . . Faith does not have to live from pretensions of universal truth, as if it were a God’s-eye perspective.”[13]

Why is theology necessarily grounded in revelation? To ask this question another way, why does Wesleyan theology rightly insist on the primacy of Scripture as source and norm of thinking about God? Contemporary American Wesleyan theologians are well aware of the so-called “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.”[14] This phrase, developed by Albert Outler, is inadequate in its expression, but the substance captures an important aspect of Wesley’s thought: the primacy of Scripture, and the importance of Tradition. I call this ordering of theological sources the Wesleyan Norms. In my understanding, both the Spirit and human community are at work in all of the norms. Good and helpful theological traditions, in Wesley’s own texts, are gestured to under a number of signs: “Christian antiquity,” or the “analogy of faith,” or the “Church of England.”[15] Such Tradition, with a capital T, was a major factor in Wesley’s own theological thinking, and should remain a norm for us today, under the primacy of Scripture. The substance of the Wesleyan Norms does capture in a simple way the priority of norms in Wesley’s own theology. Wesley, along with the vast majority of Christian thinkers throughout the world and throughout the history of theology, would put Scripture ahead of reason and metaphysics as source and norm for deeply meaningful religious truth. But are they correct on this score?

Before continuing on with this theme of Scripture and revelation, I should like briefly to consider what role philosophy does, in my view, rightly play in theology. I do not want my process friends to think I am some kind of bibliomaniac, with no place for philosophical reflection in theology. In his contribution to the famous Christian Century series on “How My Mind has Changed,” John Cobb was critical of christocentric theology, stating: “the attempt to rest belief in God solely on Jesus Christ is, from the historical perspective, questionable and, from the perspective of systematic theology, illusory.”[16] I agree here with Cobb. But the question, again, is about the role and priority of metaphysical theism. What role does philosophy play in theological reflection?

For one thing, philosophical training can bring clarity and logic to the reflective, systematic and constructive tasks of Christian theology. Philosophy may also provide key ideas necessary to explicate revelation. More than this, philosophers may pose problems of internal coherence, within the patterns of life and thought that is Christian tradition, religion and theology. This is a valuable service, and one theologians have not ignored over the long history of engagement with philosophical partners. Philosophy can also pose other questions to the Christian religion, giving shape in sharp and poignant ways to the problems of our place and time. But the content of the concept of God, the Blessed Trinity, for and within the Christian religion, cannot be determined by philosophy, even for its own place and time. The gospel is the center of Christianity and the focus of theological reflection. There is a unique reasonableness to the pattern of gospel truth, a deep grammar theology must attend to, which is logically prior to any and all claims from science, philosophy and the world to set the universal standards of reason.[17] There may be some very vague notion of common sense among most people, but there is no developed, neutral system of standard truths and logics to which theology must conform, upon peril of being irrational. Rather, theology can and must shape that inchoate, incipient common sense to fit the patterns of gospel truth before turning to other proposed logics. We should not say that gospel truth, and it alone, determines the content of the Christian doctrine of God. But Wesleyan theologians must say that revelation is the primary source of the knowledge of God. To help people outside the faith, we should not jettison our special revelation and our special way of life. On the contrary, to help people grapple with questions and minister to the suffering, we need the strengths of faith and revelation in Jesus Christ. In Christian theology and in Christian mission, the struggle for peace and justice, evangelism, and worship, Jesus Christ is Lord. Philosophy must return to its own domain and discipline if it seeks to rule.

But why is this so? Why does Christian theology strive for a knowledge of God that is first and foremost grounded in the revelation and person of Jesus? The first, simple reason is that philosophy has sometimes come to dominate the partnership, setting forth a supposed “rational” and universal picture of God that was then developed in theological terms. In such cases, theology has given up its true role in the Church: to seek a saving knowledge of God in Jesus Christ and special revelation. The second reason is more profound. There is no universal, trans-cultural and extra-perspectival ground upon which a human being can seek to know God. There are various systems of logic, various traditions of rationality. The various world religions have within them claims to special revelation, but these claims are conflicting and dissonant. Significant, saving knowledge of God, the sort that gives life meaning and purpose, is to be found neither in comparative philosophy of religion nor in metaphysics. We can and must seek deep religious truth in particular religious traditions and communities, shaped by their particular vision of Ultimate Reality, the meaning of life, ethical practises and religious worship. The theologian has no special place or pure, rational insight, but shares this common human condition relative to a deeply meaningful knowledge of God. As Heidegger rightly wrote about the God of the philosophers, “Humanity can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui humanity can neither fall to its knees in awe nor can it play music and dance before this god.”[18] Generic theology have we none, or at least none that is of any deeply religious significance.

Natural theology may have a place in Christian thought and mission, but is it a severely limited place, as handmaiden to evangelical faith. We cannot agree with Cobb’s earlier statement that, to reflect on “the whole range of intellectual questions with which modern [humanity] is fated to struggle, natural theology . . . must eschew appeal to any authority not recognized outside the church, such as Scripture, revelation, tradition, or personal religious experience.”[19] As a definition this is fine, but it has not been a happy project. In its own terms, natural theology alone has not found answers to our deepest questions and longings. This is not to say that natural theology has no place in the church. But my point is that we can and must return to the roots of Christian religion and call people into that deeper truth which is founded exactly and centrally upon Scripture, revelation, tradition, and personal religious experience.

In his 1965 volume, A Christian Natural Theology, Cobb argued against the popular “God is dead” movement that we have good reasons to believe there is a God. The reasons Cobb gave are basically those of a Whiteheadean philosophy of religion. He recognized that all philosophy begins from some perspective, but a natural theology must not appeal to specifically Christian sources of truth. This seems correct. On the other hand, even those doing specifically Christian theology must accept some philosophical teachings. We always presuppose some philosophical doctrines, in developing systematic theology. “The problem, then, is how the theologian should reach his [sic] conclusions on those broader questions of general reflection presupposed in his work. . . What the theologian thus chooses functions for him as a natural theology.”[20] Cobb argues that we must choose carefully the philosophical system which we, as Christian theologians, will then “adopt and adapt” into our systematic theology.

There is much of value in Cobb’s arguments concerning theology and philosophy. My point in this chapter is to call into question the need for Christian theology to adopt and adapt a complete philosophical system or metaphysics. I would likewise reject Cobb’s argument for the priority of natural theology in doctrinal development. It is true that in developing a systematic theology, we always must include some philosophical ideas. But it seems to me a very large jump from this truism to the claim that Christian theology must adopt and adapt a whole system of philosophy. I believe the theologian is better off accepting philosophical notions on a piecemeal basis, seeking the inner coherence of Gospel truth and adapting those philosophical doctrines which may help us, in particular times and places, to advance that truth.

Theologies then find themselves in particular religious traditions, accepting the vision, worship, prayer and practise that is most meaningful; i.e., the way of action and faith within a religion that best makes sense of life. A Christian theology that knows what it is, that is conscious of these facts of particularity, will place Jesus Christ at the center of our quest to know God in a deeply personal way. The traditions and practises of the vast consensus of Christians before us, the saints, martyrs and apostles, will all point us to Him. And in pointing us to Him, they will also point to his Book, the book of Christ, that is the Scriptures. Wesley was one with this great witness, in declaring himself to be a man of one book. Of course Wesley did not only read the Bible: he was very learned. But the Bible was central to his knowledge of Christ and his practise of Christianity. The Bible is not alone in bearing witness to the truth of God. Ecumenical, classical tradition also helps us to understand Scripture, and guides us into deeper understanding of Christ (hence Wesley’s “analogy of faith”). Our own encounter with Christ, in the power of the Spirit, is a massively important source for our knowledge of him. But these latter sources are subject to the normativity of the Bible, not the other way around.

The meaning of the Bible as text is never fixed, of course, and this witness comes to us in human language and history. But these facts do not alter the primary claim of the principle that, of all the sources of our knowledge of God in the Christian religion, Scripture is primary. The primacy of metaphysics or generic rationality can lead to a distortion of genuine Christian theology and cannot be accepted by a Christian doctrinal method that understands itself. It should and must reject all claims to supposed universal reason and experience that arise from philosophical systems. We cannot agree, therefore, with Cobb and Griffin when they stated that the problem of philosophical distortion of theology lies in finding the right philosophy![21] Instead a Christian theology that understands its place and role in the world will always and everywhere give epistemic honor to our Savior, Jesus Christ. Philosophical systems per se do not enter into it.

Shall philosophy, then, have nothing to do with God? Such a view is too extreme, too contrary to history, to be accurate. Philosophers can and should discuss God. But metaphysics needs to be much more humble than it is in Whitehead’s system and in some of his descendants. My own view is that after the postmodern critique of enlightenment pretensions to complete Truth with a capital T, metaphysics must remain close to a variety of experiences, close to life and the arts and sciences, close to human beings. Rather than seeking grand unified systems, metaphysics should humble itself before ordinary life and the multiplicities of our various experiences, contexts, and stories as human beings. Metaphysics can proceed, if at all, only in a piecemeal fashion. The age of grand metaphysical systems is over, or at least it ought to be. But a humble, piecemeal metaphysics is doubly suspect when it seeks to set the terms for Christian theology.

Whitehead did indeed place too much confidence in his metaphysical system, as a few remarks in his lectures on science and the modern world make clear.[22] In Science and the Modern World he claimed, for example, that “these metaphysical chapters are purely descriptive.”[23] Now whatever else metaphysics may be, it is always very theoretical and speculative. I have become convinced, through both philosophical hermeneutics and the philosophy of science, that all descriptions are already theory-laden. Since metaphysics is an abstract, philosophical theory of what lies behind our everyday experience, attempting to make sense of results from all the arts and sciences, it is the most theory-laden of all. Whitehead fooled himself when he thought his metaphysics was purely descriptive, and later did not make such a mistake. Of course, this is only one example of the problem I am pointing to, not a systematic examination of Whitehead’s complete writings.

Whitehead fell into the same trap, the Enlightenment ideal of pure access to truth, when he made more claims for metaphysics. This standpoint, he tells us, is “antecedent to any special investigation.”[24] Within metaphysics we “put ourselves at the standpoint of a dispassionate consideration of the nature of things.”[25] I believe that Whitehead’s project of a critique of abstractions (and this chapter of Science and the Modern World is called “Abstractions”) is a valuable one. But his ambition of perfectly clear, “purely descriptive,” “dispassionate” metaphysics which is “antecedent to any special investigation” is simply unbelievable today, and for good reasons. Perspective and presupposition enter into all epistemic investigation, and a fortiori into metaphysics.

Whitehead developed his early speculations in metaphysics into a grand system of ideas in his Gifford Lectures, Process and Reality (1929).[26] In this text it is clear that Whitehead aims to construct a totalizing metanarrative, that is, a grand system of ideas that everything and everyone must fit into. He sets the task of speculative philosophy as nothing less than “the coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.”[27] The goal of metaphysics, he tells us, is to know the essence of the Universe. “The doctrine of necessity in universality means that there is an essence to the universe which forbids relationships beyond itself, as a violation of its rationality. Speculative philosophy seeks that essence.”[28] To be fair, Whitehead then goes on to note that this is an ideal, a goal which philosophers will never achieve. He recognizes that his understanding of metaphysics may seem “overambitious,”[29] but presses forward because rationality demands the attempt at a system of ideas which describes absolutely everything.[30]

I have come to believe that these goals for metaphysics are problematic. I do agree that philosophy should be coherent, but when ideas clash who gets to mediate the debate? There are no neutral, value-free, universal and objective sets of criteria by which to mediate between all of the already-partial, already-theory-laden experiences of all human beings. Even the attempt seeks to obliterate Otherness, diversity, variety – the spice of life. Is it even possible to create a system of necessary ideas that will describe the world? Will the philosopher take a God’s eye view, knowing all necessary truths and the inter-locking systems of the entire Universe? The over-ambitious character of these goals, which Whitehead shares with Leibniz and a whole host of others, is clear at the end of the twentieth century. Philosophy in general, and metaphysics in particular, must adopt more modest goals, and be more realistic about its limitations. I do accept the idea that philosophy is based in part upon rational truth, or a priori judgements, which I call noetic insights.[31] But noetic insight must be subject to critical, on-going, and communal testing. They may claim to be based upon reason and intuition, but are in fact always and everywhere open to revision. Here Kant’s method in metaphysics must be openly repudiated.

But why? What is wrong with a set of a priori categories, analytic and synthetic, given as a provisional but total description of reality? One answer is inductive and historical: they have, so far, always proved inadequate. Another is the more general point that our access to reality is, at best, distorted. Experience does not give us pure sense data. Rather, experience is already and always my experience, rooted and grounded in my body, my worldview, which is limited to my place and time. It is thought, not experience, which reaches beyond these limitations, if anything does. Finally, such totalizing claims have obliterated otherness, and distorted, at times even harmed, the ideas and bodies of our neighbours. One thinks here of the a priori attachment to “doing one’s duty,” a notion we can trace back to Kant, which we find in Adolf Eichmann’s memoirs.

Metaphysics should be provisional, grounded in local knowledge, in one’s limited understanding of the world we live in, and the things we can learn from the arts and sciences. Metaphysics is a descriptive philosophy, as Whitehead saw, but it is a humble, piecemeal task. Grand systems of logically necessary ideas do not, and cannot, describe the rich variety and diversity we discover in the world around us. The analysis of a single concept in metaphysics, done correctly, is an amazing achievement, and one with which we should rest happy. Done properly, the analysis of that single concept will need to be open to the experience of all humanity and the teachings of all the disciplines of the university. Even when this task is done, and it never will be fully, there is no reason at all to believe that a grand system of such concepts can ever be constructed or that there will be logical, necessary connections between these contingent, humble, and provisional analyses.

Most of my process friends are attracted to process theism not because it provides a grand metaphysical scheme, but because of its theology, especially its understanding of God and the world. If you press them, they will refer to the metaphysics. If you criticize the metaphysics, they will appeal to the theology. It is time, I think, to end this philosophical shell game.

The justification of theological concepts, even after proposed revisions from philosophy, comes neither from appeal to metaphysical systems nor from alien notions of rationality. Rather, such Christian theological justification comes in the lengthy process of communal discussion, and of comparing the idea to careful work in biblical, historical, practical and moral theology. The pattern of Christian truth is found in Christianity, not in general revelation. Of course, we turn to culture, reason, science and art to criticize, revise and apply theology. We also turn to these areas for some of the questions and problems that prompt our quest for understanding God. But in this hermeneutical circle, Wesleyan theology gives priority to Scripture and the consensual Tradition of the Church, and returns to these points again for guidance and insight.

In this essay, I have tried to turn Heidegger on his head. He claimed that faith corrupts philosophy. Instead, I have argued in the other direction, that too strong or too early a commitment to philosophy distorts the development of truth and reason from Christian sources of insight, especially the whole Bible read in the light of Christ, and the unified, pre-European Christian tradition. I would now like to anticipate the criticisms that process theology might make of this position and respond to them.

In the 1960’s, John Cobb and James Robinson edited a volume on the later Heidegger and theology.[32] Given Cobb’s contribution to that volume, I believe I can anticipate some criticisms of my position. First, the text of Scripture is not unified, but diverse and even conflicting. As he wrote then, “Once we acknowledge diversity in the Christian witness, we are placed as theologians in a situation closely parallel to that of the philosophers.”[33] Second, tradition is at least as harmful and distorting as it is helpful. Again, to quote Cobb: “The history of Christian witness poses – it does not answer – the theological questions for our own day . . . [O]nly by this same act of liberation [from tradition] can we attain a renewed openness to God such as that of primitive Christian witness” (188). Finally, what happens when those outside the Christian faith demand some proof for our beliefs? Shall we not appeal to philosophy at that point? Here we might cite Whitehead, who once wrote that “Religion collapses unless its main positions command immediacy of assent.”[34] Even if these criticisms are not those of Cobb today, some response to them seems in order.

First of all, I do not believe the diversity of Scripture puts us in a place similar to that of the philosopher. We have a text that, despite its diversity, has an overall consonance and resonance, especially when read as a whole and with Christ at the center. We have a tradition of reading the text that can give shape to the task of Biblical theology today without determining the outcome in advance. I would reject the notion that the authority of Scripture is based upon the speculative results of historical critical scholarship. Biblical criticism helps us to understand the final form of the text, but criticism does not replace the text. Scriptural authority rests upon the texts themselves. And I do not think these texts are a wax nose that may be shaped into any idea we like: there is a responsible hermeneutics which can guide a faithful reading of the Bible for the purpose of doctrine and life.[35]

Secondly, I do not accept Heidegger’s radical rejection of tradition. Rather, with Hans-Georg Gadamer, I believe that traditions are both necessary and sometimes quite helpful. There is a common core to Christian tradition, especially in its pre-European, intercultural witness to the catholic faith. Of course, slavish attachment to the past is not something I have in mind, but rather a willingness to go with tradition when in doubt and to be guided and shaped by the living faith of classical Christianity.

Finally, the question of proof or grounds for belief is bound to come up in discussion with one of America’s foremost natural theologians! Here I can only repeat my previous point that natural theology should have a very limited role. It has no place in the development of doctrine because it rejects from the start the very sources of insight upon which Christian truth is founded. At best, it can defend a few limited ideas drawn from Christian theological reflection. I believe we should give reasons for our faith when called upon. Perhaps we can show that other systems of belief and life have problems, or defend an idea or two in an ad hoc manner in discussion with a particular person or worldview. But natural theology, by definition, cannot determine the content of Christian doctrine. We may have to be satisfied with simply explaining genuine Christian faith as best we can and inviting others to participate in its life, thought, and worship.

The knowledge of God, I have argued in this chapter, depends neither upon philosophical systems, nor on supposedly universal concepts and logics. Rather, human reason must be cleansed and redeemed by faith for a meaningful knowledge of God to progress. We should and can discover the deeper patterns of truth and insight in scripture and tradition, to guide our minds’ progress to God. In this manner, to know God truly and enjoy Her forever is the true goal of theology.[36]

* I would like to dedicate this essay to John Cobb, Jr., a man of many virtues, intellectual and personal: a model of Christian grace in scholarship.