Self-Consciousness and the Normative in Christian Theology

Extract

If Christian theology is that enterprise whose essential purpose is to understand the faith of the Christian Church, then it must approach that faith from the perspective not only of its transcendent source, but also as a human achievement, a creative interpretation of those events in which transcendent reality discloses itself for appropriation. Few theologians would deny that theology has to do primarily with the ways in which ultimate reality becomes manifest in human beings' faithful responses, in belief and trust, to its self-disclosures, preparatory and decisive. But the implications of such a view are not always confronted straightforwardly, especially for the suitable normative principles by which theology must assess the adequacy of the church's expressions of its faith. This essay seeks to probe how an account of the Christian faith could proceed whose norm (that is: whose principle for determining whether any claim about transcendent reality is both Christian and true) derives not from the revelatory source of faith but from the dynamic of human creativity within which alone faith's source, in being interpreted, becomes clear, cogent, and decisive for conscious existence.