Course XXXIV - Teaching 6: Properties of Theology

To know certain thing, object or discipline, always you start by knowing its qualities or properties. So, see which those properties of Theology are.
These properties are essentially of two aspects: absolute, exclusive, and fit to theology itself; and relative, complementing it and especially fit to human sciences in general.
Now you will see which properties are fit to the first group.
Theology is rigorous science.
Necessarily, so that certain discipline becomes science its conclusions should be perfectly concordant and contained in its principles. But it is impossible to get the evidence of conclusions if you do not have the evidence of principles.
So, how can you get the evidence of conclusions, if theological principles are based upon faith on a revealed truth that is not an evident principle?
In order to overcome this pitfall, Thomas Aquinas offered a remarkable subtlety. He introduced the concept of subordinated science and subordinating science.
Theology is not an ordinary science: it is science subordinated to the divine science. So, Theology is based upon principles of an obviously higher science –divine science–, and in this way, by depending on it, its principles do not need to be evident in its own science, since they are so in another higher science.
So, Theology is a science subordinated to the divine science because its principles get evidence in the Science of God.
But in man, Theology remains detached from its subordinating science, because you get its principles just through articles of faith, through Revelation. But for the time being this substitutes the clear vision of God, which a man can achieve through beatific vision. When a man reaches it, he will get the evidence of principles now possessed only by faith, which he will not need to get the clear vision. So, Theology is a science based on evident divine principles, which for the time being and till the time of a higher enlightenment are accepted through faith. So, formally speaking, Theology gives only the evidence of a conclusion, but not of the concluded thing.
Theological conclusion is the name of a conclusion deduced from a principle or divinely revealed truth. A deduction can be made from two revealed premises, or from a revealed premise and another premise certainly known through true natural reason. Cannot there be a theological conclusion if no premise has been revealed.
Now, as there are explicit revealed verities and other implicit revealed verities, you can infer that there is a whole spectrum of chances of achieving a true theological conclusion, but you ever need a formal or virtually revealed premise.
As you can assume, on the long way traveled through by the theological science, this science has received many tendencies and influences. So, you can find those who have gone from the revealed to the non-revealed thing. This way they have tried and even succeeded in taking Theology away from its true field, that of the Divine Revelation.
That is why the true Theology must be limited and limits itself from the explicitly revealed thing till the implicitly revealed thing. This way, the true Theology keeps on subject to the revealed truth, to the divine science, of which it is subordinated science.
Unity of the Theological Science
Another property of Theology is its fundamental unity. If Theology thinks about the most varied subjects and aspects, it is essentially one because of its objective formal motive, which is virtual revelation. We have seen how the purpose of Theology is the discovery, the virtual conclusion, implied by the revealed truth.
Virtual Revelation is essentially one and the same in the whole Theology because it comes from a formal, unique and essential truth.
Thence its indivisible unity impeding its division into other various sciences.
A revealed truth is always the main cause of every theological conclusion, and when a human rational premise intervenes, first it is always analyzed and judged on the light of the revealed truth, becoming then an auxiliary, an instrument of the revealed premise.
This way unity is preserved and explained.
Theology is both speculative and practical at the same time
Another property of Theology is simultaneous practicality and speculation.
But not always it has been though in this way.
Some times, the Catholic Theology particularly tended to practicality, to the extent of being divided into three parts:
About things to enjoy: one and trine God.
About those things to use: all created things, sacraments and virtues.
About persons whose use created goods and will enjoy eternal goods: angels and men.
Its bearings are quite practical, and its object to achieve the Highest Good, which is God.
But later, the Catholic Theology experienced a great turn under Tomas Aquinas’ influence, who guided it more and more backward, to its early speculative field, but preserving the practical aspect.
Till our days, it has preserved this character, and the Catholic Theology in agreement with purpose and finality of Theology.
But naturally, one has to admit that a purely speculative truth deduced, radiates its own light over the whole field of being, and in this way is practically applied with its clear concepts and teachings of love and understanding.
Theology is the Highest Wisdom
.We are told Theology is the Highest or Absolute Wisdom because is double knowledge about things: through first and universal principles of reason (logical order), and through first efficient cause, example and end of all, which is God.
This Absolute Wisdom is: A quite universal science because it comprises all those things that reason is unable to do.
It is a quite true science because demonstrates its own conclusions by means of obvious principles of reason and by means of first and second causes of ontological kind, that is, divine (metaphysical) kind. Finally, it is the highest science that demonstrates by means of the highest causes, by means of the reality and even of knowledge.
So, a wisdom and the highest science, Theology: judges all other sciences; arranges all of them for its own purpose, and uses all lower sciences for its own benefit and advantage.
Theology is science that demonstrates through authority
Theology is a science that, through rigorous demonstration, deduces conclusions from explicitly and formally revealed verities. So, Theology is rigorously demonstrative in regard to its own conclusions, and as these conclusions rest on verities of faith, which have been revealed by God, you may come to the conclusion that Theology is able to demonstrate through authority.
But how will act a theologian in front of a rival who does not admit the revealed truth?
As verities of faith are infallible because are divine ones, cannot there be a real opposition between them and human science.
Therefore, a theologian must solve opposite arguments because all of them are forcibly solvable. Of course, when he attempts it, you cannot always be sure of their right or real solution.
If the argument is formally wrong, its solution is ever possible. The big issue is when the argument is defective as for doctrine, because a sure solution implies evident knowledge, evidence of the divine mystery, which is unknown.
In these events, nobody has the evidence about the mystery, and a theologian can reply the argument “necessarily” does not demonstrate the impossibility of the mystery, and this does not admit a reply because one never can demonstrate that the mystery under discussion is necessarily impossible.