Jaarboek Thomas Instituut 1995 - Thomas Instituut te Utrecht

18 H.W.M. RIKHOF
book about Kreling, late professor in Dogmatic Theology at the
Catholic University of Nijmegen. Although he writes a long and
substantial article about Kreling, in this analysis his own views shine
through, both in his criticism on certain shortcomings of Kreling's
theology as in the apparent sympathy with which he writes. Kreling,
he remarks somewhere else in a commemorative article, is in many
respects his teacher, because he was taught dogmatic theology by one
of Kreling's pupils, Haarsma, and for a short period by Kreling
himself. "But perhaps Kreling became mostly my teacher after his
death, when I started to read and study all his work" (29, p. 392).
De Grijs' affinity with Kreling's contemplative theology
shows itself in his use of terms characteristic of this type of theology
in most of his articles: "open" and "openness", "receptive" and
"receptivity" , "inclined to". The terms indicate the passive
characteristics of the intellect, "directed rather to receive knowledge
and understanding than. to take or to make it" (30, p. 71). Because of
this receptivity, theological interpretation or theological hermeneia is
understood primarily as understanding and not as translating. Because
of this receptivity, the theologian needs a certain discipline, a certain
intellectual attitude: "to be open for the reality of the divine mystery
implies for the theologian that his personal prejudices, insights,
feelings are kept back fully and consciously" (30, p. 87). When on
this point De Grijs voices some criticism on Kreling, it becomes clear
that this reticence is not so easily reached and is certainly not meant as
an escape. Kreling has not seen how deep 'interestedness' and
historicity determine theological thinking. Awareness of this
determination and a continuous reflection on one's own activity are
required in order to think better and purer (30, pp. 87-88). This
insight De Grijs expresses also as the metanoia essential for doing
theology. By metanoia he does not understand "some pious action",
but that the theologian "let one's own existence, life, concern, ideals,
mind, heart be penetrated - in a conscious, chosen, unconditional and
permanent attention to the Triune God, as the driving force and the
principle of our searching, questioning and studying" (47, p. 365).
His affinity with this type of theology shows itself also in his
insistence on the need of concepts and of conceptual clarity. In a
passage in one of the "Letters about time and eternity, living and
dying, present and past" De Grijs makes this point about concepts in a