Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1995 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

THEOLOGY OF PROVOCATIVE RECEPTIVITY 17
terms have kept their meaning, while only the order has changed. This
suggestion is incorrect and too superficial, for it overlooks that really
new and different questions are raised and discussed. These questions
are related to context, historicity, experience. These questions can be
formulated since over the centuries philosophy, history, sociology,
psychology etc. have developed terms and theories dealing with
precisely these issues (37, p. 358; cf. 30, p. 77 for a different
argument against the reversal).
So instead of reversing the classical definition, De Grijs wants
to maintain it and to understand it in the light of modern
developments. The decisive difference between past and present is the
absence of an unquestioned faith and the presence of permanent
questions within faith, such as 'is it really the case?', 'how do you
know?', 'what is its meaning and its purpose?'. While in the past the
strange gospel was heard in a self-evident Christian existence, in the
present the strange gospel is heard in a strange and restless existence.
This means that the new question is: what relation is there between
my/our experience of faith and the data of faith (fides ex audituï, and
in which relation stand these in turn to the experience of all people -
not just believers. So, theology has the new task "to relate what was
heard to those that search, are talked to, listen" (37, p. 359). This
kind of questions and answers De Grijs calls "categorical", for one
attempts not to undo the data of faith, the many events and
experiences from their strangeness, particularity and limitations, but
one attempts to understand them in their particularity, uniqueness and
historicity. In other words the attention is focused on the diversity, the
empirical character of the data, on the data on their own. The
understanding remains within the category of the data (cf. 25, p. 304).
So, this type of theology, this "categorical theology", is concerned
with "the images of God, the words of God, the concepts of God, the
doctrine of the Old Testament about God, the witnesses of the councils
and the fathers of the church, Bonaventure's doctrine of God etc."
(37, p. 360), but not with God. In the categorical reflection God self
is not considered, for the question about God self "can not be
categorically reflected upon" (37, p. 360).
God self is central to the other type of theology, which De
Grijs qualifies as "transcendental", "speculative" or "contemplative".
This last qualification occurs in the title of De Grijs' contribution to a