On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 00:07:47 EDT JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
> theologians who stray from the path of science.
> This is a merely semantic claim. You mean "systematic knowledge" by science,
> an old definition' I mean the sort of mathetmatically based empirical
> investigation into nature that most people today understand by science.
> Theologians do not send up Hubble telescopes to find God and determine His
> properties.
Nonetheless, theology, as an institution, is a science. Politically, I think it is a bad move to say that theology isn't a science. Then theologians can write whatever the hell they want. However, if theology is treated like a science, then theologians (because much of their research is publically funded, at least here in Canada) are 'forced' to be more scientific. And, as one might guess, the futility of attempting to study a Divine Being empirically is quite a challenge... in short - the more scientific theology gets, the more the entire discipline self-destructs.
> Yeah, well, just because some thosands of people do this stuff doesn't mean
> that "most" people are remotely interested, as you know.
I think there are quite a few people interested in theology... at least there is usually one or two books on best-seller lists that are written by people who could be considered theologians. Last month I saw a made-for-TV movie about Deitrich Bonhoffer...
Surely you are correct with the more academic stuff... but I still think that popular theology exerts a fair degree of influence... or at least an influence that shouldn't be underestimated...
ken