Chapter IIWhat Theology Is

True theology, then, since it is the highest wisdom, of the highest breadth and dignity in itself and of the highest usefulness to us (provided only that we receive it from the Lord with humility of mind and awareness of our own slightness), can be defined in various ways, as many have done. But since, of so many definitions, that one seems most to be approved [col. 1375] which truly expresses the whole account and nature of the thing by the simplest rules of art, we choose here to define theology by its genus and difference, in words as few in number as possible, but as full of meaning as possible. For since the best authors direct that every simple question under discussion be given its own proper definition, according to its genus and (as they call it) specific difference, we judge that both can be most fittingly delivered as follows: Thesis V. Theology is wisdom concerning divine things. For wisdom is the true genus of true theology; and we set down its difference under the name of divine things, those, that is, which are truly divine. And first, we call theology wisdom because it embraces in itself, in a wholly surpassing way, absolutely all the properties that pertain to understanding, knowledge, and saving use, both from nature and above nature: as the most certain discloser of principles, the most ample chief of all the sciences, contemplative and practical (θεωρητικῶν καὶ πρακτικῶν), and the wisest arbiter of all actions and reasonings, beyond all exception. For it is this that teaches us to apprehend any simple principles, whether implanted in us by nature or inspired through God's grace, and those immediate (as they are commonly called), unmoved, and necessary; this, to compose and divide what has been apprehended; this, to reason in a divine way from what has been composed and divided; this, by reasonings, to rise to knowledge itself, supremely necessary, most certain, and content with the contemplation of eternal truth alone, immutable and most constant. For why should the wise man not rest in that divine certainty which is present both in the things themselves that theology delivers as they are, and in the very mind of the knower, as they are known by him divinely through theology? All these virtues we have just named, which have their seat in the understanding, are commonly ascribed to the sciences popularly called contemplative. This same wisdom shows best the necessary mode of our true holiness and righteousness: a mode, I say, certain and most self-sufficient (αὐταρκέστατον). It sets before our eyes the highest end, both in nature and above the nature of things; and that supernatural end alone is truly the end set before nature, or (if one should choose to add other ends besides) it must be called by far the most excellent end. In these things consists all the praise of the sciences that are usually called active. Finally, it is the true-born mother and queen of the sciences, of those, that is, which truly are and are called sciences; and the highest perfection of principles, of reasonings and the conclusions drawn from them, of sciences, of use, of actions, of all judgments, and of the whole of reason pertaining to all these things: judging most perfectly, and ordering most wisely, whatever proceeds from understanding, reason, and knowledge. Therefore they wrong true theology [p. 49] who define it by the name of understanding alone, or of science, or of art. For understanding, which is concerned only with principles, lays the foundation of reason and exercises the very work of reason that we call reasoning; science draws its conclusions from principles by just reasoning; and art, proceeding from understanding and science, terminates in some work. But our theology comprehends all these at once: the understanding of principles, the science of conclusions and determinations, and the most wholesome art of our work, insofar as we strive toward God. None of these can be judged with certainty, or ordered fittingly, or carried out savingly, by anything at all except wisdom. Since this is so, no other genus can be assigned to theology than wisdom, which judges of the principles of the sciences in the understanding and of their conclusions, embraces by its power all that is necessary to the perfection of every good, and uses them all most wisely.

To this genus we certainly seem to apply its own and (so to speak) most proper difference when we say that it is the wisdom of divine things. When we speak of divine things, we embrace in them a threefold (so to speak) wonderful virtue and condition: first, that the object with which theology is concerned is divine; next, that the mode of that wisdom is divine; and finally, that its end also is divine and most perfect. These three virtues or conditions must concur together for a just account both of all the sciences, contemplative and practical (θεωρητικῶν καὶ πρακτικῶν), and of this wisdom, easily the chief of them all. For if you look to the object or matter of this wisdom, it is God, and whatever is God's, and whatever is from God and is ordered to God. If you look to its mode, it is divine in its principle, action, and effect, not only transcending all human things [col. 1376] infinitely, but flying far beyond this whole nature. If you look to the end itself, God is its end, and that saving and glorious vision of God himself toward which we strive under the guidance of this wisdom. Toward this end all of us who have been sealed by the Spirit of promise through God's grace so run, not as uncertainly; so exercise our arms in boxing, not as beating the air (1 Cor. 9:26). Finally, forgetting those things which are behind and pressing earnestly toward those which are before, we are carried without ceasing toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus our Savior (Phil. 3:14).