Chapter IWhether There Is a Theology

Being about to speak of theology, the common treasury of divine and saving wisdom, we first humbly pray God, best and greatest, from whom all wisdom and every good gift proceed, that in this most holy subject he would deign to shine before us with the light of his eternal Spirit and to lead us into all truth, according to his promise in Christ Jesus; and next, that if by God's blessing we bring forward anything saving and good in this matter, he would make that same blessing of his saving to all who will read this work of our lamp; so that his glory may be established in us all, and we may grow in him, until we have risen to the full stature of the perfect man and have attained the fullness of Christ.

But since in every undertaking one must first take care to define the words for things and the things signified by the words, lest we wander rashly from the plan we have set, we shall do both briefly in this chapter before we begin to speak of the matter itself. With the road paved, as it were, in this way, and a convenient approach opened to the things we are to discuss, we trust that everything will be far plainer to the reader.

Concerning the name theology, then, we lay down the following: Thesis I. Theology signifies either the discourse of God himself, or discourse and reasoning about the deity, to use the words of Augustine, City of God 8.1. We shall speak of the latter sense. If we attend to its etymology, then, this name has two significations, each of them received in the settled usage of Greek. For as θεοπρόπιον is an oracle that God utters, and θεοσημεία a sign that God shows, so also theology is the discourse that God himself utters in created things. Nevertheless, the other signification seems always to have been more in use in Greek, so that by the name theology we understand the discourse itself that is uttered about God, or the account of divine things; just as among the orthodox Fathers θεοσοφία was the name given to the wisdom of divine things. These two not only can agree with the true nature of theology, but must agree with it of themselves and must exist together inseparably (ἀχωρίστως). But since both interpretations cannot properly be assigned to this name in the same place and be contained in the force (as they say) of the word, we undertake from here on to explain the latter signification; especially since God has also spoken many things in the past, or may speak in the future, that do not pertain at all to the substance [p. 46] of theology. For theology, like every science, is of common things, whereas the speech of God is not seldom occupied with particular things as well.

Concerning this theology, then, the first question that seems to us to need settling is whether that which we commonly call theology is anything at all. For since, of the things named in our speech, some exist in the nature of things and others do not, and some can be known and others cannot, we would labor in vain over a thing that neither existed nor could be known by man. Thesis II. That there is a theology is taught by the things themselves and by the consent of all peoples. By the things: for God exists, and he is the principle of all good in the nature of things, and he speaks and acts as God. By consent: for all acknowledge by the light of nature that this is so. It could be shown by many arguments from things, and very luminous ones, that the theology whose meaning we have just marked out truly exists. But for the present these two seem to suffice for the discourse we have undertaken; the rest we shall put off to another time, if God wills. The first [col. 1375] argument is the things themselves, that is, the subject of theology itself; the second is the consent of all peoples, and the natural knowledge of that subject, insofar as that subject can come into the knowledge of men. Now there is no doubt that there is some knowledge of the things that exist, and that the knowledge of them is in those who know, according to their mode and capacity. If, then, God exists, and is a knower, we must certainly say that God is a knower of himself according to his own mode: that is, infinite, and knowing himself by an infinite and wholly divine knowledge. If God is the principle of all good in the nature of things, we conclude from this, quite rightly, that all creatures that obtain the good of intellect and knowledge from that universal principle are endowed with at least some knowledge of God and of theology, by which each may acknowledge the principle from which it came forth. If God speaks, and speaks not only of particular things but also of common things that pertain to the true knowledge of himself; if, finally, he acts as God toward all creatures, impressing on the nature of some obscure traces of his majesty and on others a sure image, then there must certainly be a theology, which created things perceive by communication, and which God possesses in himself with such perfection that it can be neither grasped nor recounted as it deserves, but only lightly touched according to the small measure of our weakness. And as we confirm by the argument from that wonderful subject that theology exists, so also by the argument from ourselves and our own nature we all acknowledge that there is some theology. For if you regard nature according to the common order of this universe, it surely declares the glory of God, and as it were proclaims aloud and points out with outstretched finger that discourse and account of the deity which we call theology. If you regard the common nature of the human race, there is in it so great a light of nature, and so common an innate notion, that it has taught all men that there is some theology and divine wisdom as surely as it teaches that there is a God. If, finally, each of us examines himself and searches more deeply, as it were, into the winding inner chambers and most hidden recesses of our mind, there will be nothing in us that does not show that there is a theology and most plainly refute those who deny it. So great is the force of nature; so great, the force of truth.

These things are so known to all in common, and so set before each one by God, that no man, however rude or savage and estranged from all humanity, can be ignorant that the theology of which we speak exists. But what we are taught in common by the implanted light of nature is obscured by the blindness and weakness of each one's particular nature, and the edge of our mind is somehow blunted, so that the particular nature in each of us does not rightly perceive the very thing that common nature teaches. So it happens that we see something of the truth as through a shadow and from afar; but because of the darkness that is born in us and surrounds us, we see falsely the very truth of God that we do see. This we state as follows: Thesis III. But although everyone believes that there is a [p. 47] theology, among the common people it is spoken of equivocally (ὁμωνύμως). For one is true, the other false and a matter of opinion. The equivocation we posit here arises when the truth of the thing is compared with our false and corrupt judgment and sense. From the truth of the thing it comes that theology is the wisdom of divine things, of whatever kind and whosesoever it may finally be, and is even called true; but from the depravity of our judgment, a kind of phlegm that robs our minds of the sense of spiritual taste, it comes that in this most weighty matter, as in others, we embrace the false for the true. Therefore, [col. 1376] according to the truth of the thing, some theology is called wholly true, named univocally; but according to the opinion we have conceived by our depraved and stupefied judgment, there is also something called theology equivocally, which we call false and a matter of opinion: false, because it is (as they say) the whole sky away from the truth of the subject that properly belongs to theology; a matter of opinion, because it subsists (if that is subsisting) only by opinion in our mind and imagination, which fashions mere dreams and mockeries in place of truth, and idols and goat-stags in place of the true God. It is not our plan to say much about false and opinative theology, since in attaining the true theology the labor is most profitable and error dangerous, while in searching out the false the labor is profitless and error far removed from grave danger. Yet to say something of it in passing, as far as pertains to demonstrating this homonymy, we lay down the following: Thesis IV. False theology is twofold: one common, the other philosophical. The common is that which, settling in the imperfect principles of our nature, does not rise higher by reasoning. The philosophical is that which by error of reasoning has run off into false conclusions, and from those principles has produced the fabulous, the natural, and the civil. In these few words, we think, both the single body, as it were, of false theology can be outlined and its several parts and members can be shown one by one. For the root (so to speak) and head of this false theology is what we call common theology; its body lies in the philosophical, which has since run riot into three very broad and densely overgrown branches. We call common theology that which is common to all, such as its principles and the common notions and precepts sketched in our minds: a theology that is neither broken in (so to speak) by the cultivation of reasoning nor increased by help supervening from elsewhere, but rests in its own condition and imperfect notions and sinks, as it were, into the dregs of its natural imperfection and corruption. We call philosophical that which, through cultivation and additions within and without joined to that common theology, and through error of reasoning and the meandering, as it were, of our mind, lifts itself up to conclusions about divine things that are wholly false, and therefore foreign both to their truth and to the duty of our piety toward God. As soon as this trunk began to grow, as it were, from the root of common theology, this philosophical theology spread at once into the three branches we distinguished above by name: fabulous, natural, and civil theology, as Augustine explained from Varro and Seneca in City of God 6.5. They called mythical or fabulous the kind that the poets chiefly use for the pleasure of the theater; natural or physical the kind of theology that philosophers use in their schools and general curricula to interpret the world and to search out natural truth; and finally political or civil the kind that the more powerful employed to establish certain laws of cities and commonwealths by the authority of religion. Pleasure gave birth to the first, natural inquiry to the second, and to the third the public utility that rests on human society. It is beyond belief into how many and how various errors these three kinds have run off in every time and place, until God graciously disclosed his truth. But in this place we have no intention of dealing with the false; our purpose is rather to set forth the truth of that saving theology. Very many authors, moreover, have most diligently pruned that whole forest of false theology,¹ and Augustine, in three books, [p. 48] the sixth, seventh, and eighth of the City of God, uprooted it most devoutly and diligently. Leaving aside, then, any discussion of false theology, which is nothing but an opinion and shadow of a wisdom that seizes on anything whatever in place of divine things; leaving aside, I say, the false, we shall pass, with God as our author, to the definition and investigation of the true.