Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1995 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

16 H.W.M. RIKHOF
truthfully about God, however fragmentarily, can only take place in
one never ending movement and orientation towards God... ";
" ... those who do theology should first and foremost demand what the
direction of one's own theological attention is. Only if one as a
theologian finds oneself in the ongoing process of reaching past
oneself towards the mystery of God, one is able to evaluate
theologically and to use in a fruitful way the philological, historical,
philosophical, empirical research one is engaged in (47, p. 363).
Theology stands or falls with "a conscious direction of the attention to
God" (47, p. 362). Therefore: theology is sermo de Deo.
Against this background De Grijs' other remarks about
theology and about doing theology in the present time become clear:
his analysis and evaluation of the changes in doing theology, the
distinction he makes between categorical and transcendental reflections
and his constant insistence on the importance and necessity of the
speculative, contemplative theology within the whole of theology. To
elaborate this the other definition of theology can be used, for it points
to theology as an intellectual enterprise and can help to specify further
what kinds of understanding are required in theology.
Fides quaerens intellectum. This classical definition of
theology is sometimes turned around in order to accommodate a new
type of theology (37, p. 358). While the theology of the past explained
a self-evident faith, the theology of the present searches for a context
in which to place faith. That self-evidence of faith and of the Christian
existence has disappeared over the centuries, gradually but irresistibly.
In the so-called anthropological tum, the human individual becomes
the focus of attention; in the socio-centric tum that takes place in the
second half of this century, several attempts are made to place the
isolated human individual back in social structures. These turns raise
questions to which classical theology with its focus on the mystery of
God cannot provide answers. And so a new type of theology emerges.
De Grijs acknowledges this historical process and its impact on
theology, recognises also the incapacity of the classical theology to
respond to these new questions, but disagrees with the solution to
redefine the classical definition, fides quaerens intellectum, by
reversing the order. Such a reversal relegates classical theology to the
past without a thorough analysis or argumentation - an attitude which
does not befit academic endeavour. Moreover, it suggests that the