Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Objekt der Theologie; das Ziel als bewegendes; nahes, fernes Ziel; Prinzipien - Wissen Gottes

Kurzinhalt: Theology does not begin from sensible data but from truths revealed by God and believed by us; and theology attains, not the kind of understanding that would suffice for discovering with certitude what is true, but ...

Textausschnitt: 107c Fourth, besides the object of intellect in the sense of its goal (being) and its object in the sense of immanent term (intelligible truth), there is also the object in the sense of whatever moves us to understand. The object that moves us to understand, the one proper to us and proportionate to us in our present state, is the intelligibility or nature that exists in corporeal matter. It follows that in this life we cannot understand or conceive God or angels except through analogies; but we do await another life in which the divine quiddity or essence will move our intellect without mediation. (Fs)

107d Thus, the object that moves us to theological understanding is, remotely, the divine essence or quiddity and, proximately, the truth that God has revealed to us about God, that God proposes to us through the church, and that we accept in faith. (Fs)

107e For this reason theology differs from the natural sciences, which begin from sensible data and proceed through understanding to the discovery of what is true. Theology does not begin from sensible data but from truths revealed by God and believed by us;1 and theology attains, not the kind of understanding that would suffice for discovering with certitude what is true, but that obscure, analogical, and imperfect understanding that throws some light on the truth already known from elsewhere, and enables us to possess it more fully. (Fs)

109a Moreover, since the object that moves us to theological understanding is revealed truth, the principles of theological science are called articles of faith. Furthermore, since it is the property of a subordinate science to receive its principles from another science, theology is likened to a subordinate science in that it begins from those principles that it receives from divine knowledge through revelation and faith. Finally, since no science as science is measured by the prescientific knowledge from which it begins, it is incorrect to measure theological science as science by the knowledge of faith from which it begins. (Fs)