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What is Theology?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

John Hartland-Swann
Affiliation:
University of Malaya

Extract

Professor Lewis's paper, which appeared in a recent issue of this journal, raised many interesting problems. I propose, however, to deal only with the principal question which Mr. Lewis himself stated as follows: Just what is theology, what does it do? Mr. Lewis's own answer as to what it does—or rather what it should do to-day—an answer which came rightly enough at the end of his paper, was, briefly, that theology should become creative as opposed to static. That is to say, it should, on the analogy of art criticism, “‘render’ the religious experiences of the past by performing upon them as a whole, and with all the help which careful scholarship can provide, an operation not dissimilar to that performed in the complete symbolism of the original experience upon the elements of more overt meaning within it.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1954

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References

1 This paper was read before the Oxford University Socratic Club on May 19, 1952, in reply to Prof. Lewis's paper of the same title.