Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

Theology is a discussion of experience.  It is a work of describing experience.  It is work.  Hard work.  And it describes a definite set of experience: being whole, which means able to work.

Theology is orderly discussion of the experience of being whole.  It may essay a comprehensive or a limited discussion.  Whichever, it is orderly in the sense of being reasonable.  Theology, while neither subordinate nor beholden to logic (reason), which is the structure of both the universe and the mind, yet neither challenges nor subverts logic (reason).  Nor destroys it.  Nor seeks to.  Theology is Logos (Reason) in operation.  Logos is logistics.  Order is mind in action.  At work.  Productive labor.  Reason is idea in theology.

Theology can occur in any language.  Words – thought, spoken or written – music, pictures, architecture, gardening, intimacy, cookery, perfumery – or any combination of the same – are languages fit for theological expression.  The experience of being whole – health, salute, santé, Gesundheit – being comprehensive per se and sui generis, any language in range of human ability may be used for theological expression.

Doctrine is permanently accurate description of experience.  Theology includes doctrine but doctrine does not necessarily include theology.  Realms of experience not of direct theological interest may be described with permanent accuracy and thus have made doctrines regarding them.  (For example, Newton’s Laws of Motion, von Clausewitz’s Three Constants of War.)  Before a description of experience can become a doctrine, its accuracy must be confirmed by repeated experience over time.  A description of experience found to be accurate indefinitely is a doctrine.  A description of experience found to be accurate now and perhaps later but not indefinitely is a conclusion.

Theology engages doctrines, not conclusions.  Experience is of two kinds: universal (permanent) and unique (fleeting).  About universal experience, doctrines are possible and popular.  About unique experience, conclusions are desirable and dangerous.  Existence may be described, abstrusely, as a ceaseless dialectic of doctrines and conclusions.

The archaeological record shows that the tangibles, the carnalities of human existence – to include the mind – are inconstant.  The literary record shows that the intangibles, the mysteries of human existence – to include the heart – are invariable.  The archaeological record occasions conclusions while the literary record occasions doctrines.  Both belong to the grand pageantry of life.

Every experience of a theological interest correlates with an extant doctrine which describes that experience.  Every extant doctrine correlates with an experience, often if not always one of theological interest.  One arrives at a doctrine wrestling with an experience.  Another arrives at an experience wrestling with a doctrine.  Between these approaches who can say one is preferable?  Surely it is a matter of personal taste, history and destiny.

Dogma is codified doctrine.  It is description of experience set down systematically and comprehensively in writing.  Making dogma gives doctrine the appearance of law, the hint of compulsion.  Codification is an innuendo of prescription.  Doctrine, which is description, becomes dogma, which implies prescription, when committed to explication.  Dogma makes doctrine hinky.  Prescription rouses antagonism and occasions chafe.

There is nothing inherently wrong or bad in or about dogma.  It fact, dogma is useful and in any case inevitable and unavoidable.  However, it is also deceptive and dangerous.  Explication of what is essentially whispered wisdom invites idolatry of word, book and sometimes even person.  Encasing the experience of wisdom in a stationary structure of logic distorts experience and wisdom born of it.  Logic – order – is five-dimensional at least, and freezing it in time, space, causality or substance, even for a worthy purpose, such as systematic description, impugns it.

Theology is deemed The Queen of the Sciences because its starting and ending point is phenomenology.  It deals with observable experience, both direct (unmediated by the senses) and indirect (mediated by the senses).  Its internal checks, also, are phenomenological.  Accordingly, theology has no a priori doctrines, although it does have a priori assumptions, chief among them the congruence of the structure of being with the structure of the mind, of Reason with Logos.

(The foregoing statements renounce the customary distinction between philosophy and theology because it is a non-distinction.  What starts as philosophy becomes theology and what starts as theology becomes philosophy.  Each implies the other, nay, compels it.)

Also assumed by theology is that whatever humans put mind, heart or hand to is accessible to observation and worth scrutiny.  And again, assumed by theology is that what produces is useful and what does not is not.  Cheats and idlers despise theology.

(Deconstructionism/post-modernism denies the congruence of being [as existence] with mind [as words].  Its proponents are obliged to use that congruence in order to deny it.  Attack is a form of affirmation.  Funny people on a riotous mission.)

The origin of theology is one’s self.  The Theos-Logistician goes to God as iron to a magnet.  It is home.  One cries for God as a baby cries for food.  It is natural.

Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone. In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distill to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain. Here, again, the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty. In particular, the miserable ruin into which the revolt of the first man has plunged us, compels us to turn our eyes upwards; not only that while hungry and famishing we may thence ask what we want, but being aroused by fear may learn humility. For as there exists in man something like a world of misery, and ever since we were stripped of the divine attire our naked shame discloses an immense series of disgraceful properties every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God. Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us, that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.  (Emphasis added.)

John Calvin
Paragraph 1, Chapter 1
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Basle, 1st August 1536

With subsistence in God alone the origin of theology, what more is there to say about it except, Do it. … ?

Theology is a descriptive expression of universal experience in a language usable by humans.  If it is not universal, it is not theology.  If it is not experience, it is not theology.  If it is prescriptive, it is not theology.  If it is not in human language, it is not theology.  If it is not expressive, it is not theology.  If it is not usable, it is not theology.  Those eliminators guarantee theology is neither a trivial nor a peer-reviewed pursuit.

A final observation.  Theology cannot be done outside the spiritual community comprising those called to Himself by God.  There are no religious studies.  By definition a theologian is a kitten inside the Divine litter basket.  If he is not there, and knows it, he is not a theologian.

The ancient way of saying this inside The Church is by St. Cyprian of Carthage: Salus extra ecclesiam non est.  Modernly rendered: extra ecclesiam nulla salus.  That is a fun one to exegete.  Remember that it expresses universal experience.  So, get to work!

Update 1: Paul A. Rahe: Political theater and coordinated disinformation are the order of the day.

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA