A Starting Point For Theology
Fr. Brian Carpenter
Originally posted on 11/29/2009

Recently I had two conversations with two different friends who both were sincerely trying to understand their Catholic faith. In the course of these conversations, it occurred to me that neither had truly been taught the process of how to enter into a theological discourse.

St. Anselm defined theology as "faith seeking understanding." This is a phrase I have heard several times in my life, but never fully understood until recently. What Saint Anselm's definition tells us is that to even begin a theological discourse, we must first have faith. Rephrased, faith must be our starting point.

In my conversation with my friends, which were very different in subject matter, what became clear is that as they tried to enter into theological discourse, they did not start from a position of faith. Rather, they started from a position that wanted to study the faith to ensure that what the Catholic Church teaches is indeed correct.

The problem with this, is of course, that it subjects the teachings of the Catholic Church to some "higher" (and presumably earthly) authority. For example, it assumed that the Catholic Church could possibly have an "incorrect" teaching. The problem with holding this view is that for a person to declare a teaching of the Church "incorrect" they must do so by subjecting it to some other authoritative standard. For example, a person who claims that the bread and wine do not become the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass might claim that all you need to do is examine a consecrated host and unconsecrated host under a microscope to determine that they are materially the same. The problem (or at least the one I am addressing) with this is that it assumes that science is the ultimate authority, and not Jesus Christ. It does not start from the point of faith that Jesus Christ is the Truth, and the source of all truth. Rather it gives this honor to science.

The same thing holds true with moral truths. Some people feel the need to scour through every Church document to ensure that they agree with every Church teaching before they are willing to accept the Catholic faith. Aside from the impracticality of this solution (there are far too many Church documents to reasonably expect that a person could read them all), there is a fundamental problem with this mentality - it assumes that the individual doing the studying is infallible, while the Church is potentially fallible.

The real question in both of these cases comes down to this: Do I believe the Church to be who She claims to be. If the answer to this is yes, then what this means is that we must accept the Church's claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, and free from Moral error. In essence, it means that by definition, the teachings of the Church must be correct. This does not mean that individual members of the Church enjoy this same level of guidance by the Holy Spirit. Individuals (including the pope when he is not speaking ex-cathedra, or from the Chair of Peter) can do and say things that are morally wrong. What it does mean, however, is that the Church itself is free from moral and religious error in its official teachings.

That is the starting point of faith that St. Anselm references in his definition of theology. Theology does not call into question the correctness of Church teachings. Theology leads us to seek ways of understanding what we already know to be true. In other words, the question is not whether the Church's teaching are true, but how do I understand and implement these teachings that I already know to be true.

In the case of a person skeptical about a religious truth such as transubstantiation (the changing of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ), the issue is not "prove to me that this actually happens" but "How do I understand this reality?" In the case of a person who is seeking answers to complicated moral questions, the question is not "Do I agree that there are no moral errors in the teachings of the Church" but rather "how do I allow the Church's teachings, which are true and free from moral error, to inform my own life."

The difference in these two stances are that the former don't see the faith as true. They see it as something that should be subjected to some external source of truth. The latter are theological because they start from faith, and use the truth of the faith to help understand the world.

This former attitude is ultimately a denial of the Church, as it assumes that the Church and its teachings should be subjected to worldly authorities. But for those who wish to enter into true theological discourse, the starting point must be one that begins with faith. It must be one that holds the Church cannot error when teaching on morals or religion. Therefore it is the values and claims of the world that should be subjected to the truth found in the teachings of the Catholic Church. The Church's teachings should not be called into question based on a secular understanding of the world. Rather, secular understandings should be judged by the truth of the Church's teachings.