20 November 2012

Theology Is a Reverse Science

In general for some time past biblical scholarship has to a large extent failed in its duty to the Church, whose life the Bible nourishes, because its underlying presuppositions have been those of humanistic science. Our so-called theological studies have in many cases been studies in textual and documentary criticism, in archaeology, in comparative religion, or in the development of religious ideas, instead of being in the proper sense theological studies--that is, studies of human life . . . in relation to the truth of God, and of God's own redemptive action towards mankind.
Theology, it has well been said, is a kind of reverse science, dealing with all the things that other sciences deal with, but seeing them in relation to their First Cause and Final Cause. 
--A. G. Hebert, The Throne of David: A Study of the Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Jesus Christ and His Church (London: Faber and Faber, 1941), 31

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