Faith is an existential loving knowledge of God. God reveals himself,
his love and, at the same time, his loving concern for us. Theology is
faith searching for insight more than human insight searching for faith.
For those who live an intensive life of prayer, theology is an act of
faith that leads to an ever-deepening knowledge of God and his saving
design.
A living faith brings trustful and faithful adherence to God's
self-revelation. “Now this is eternal life:, that they should know you,
the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John
17 :3 ). Christ is the way and the
truth, who brings us to know the Father and to recognize the loftiness of
our vocation as sons and daughters of the one God and Father.
In faith we know the most wonderful gifts of God; beyond the power of
human reason to fathom: gifts which self-seeking men can never receive.
“At that very moment he rejoiced {in} the
Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the
learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has
been your gracious will”. Then turning to his disciples he said,
"All things are handed over to me by the Father. No one knows who the
Son is except the Father and who the Father is except the Son and anyone
to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” (Luke
10: 21-22).
It is not God who conceals himself from the arrogant; it is man's very
arrogance that makes him unable to discover God's self-revealing love. God
wants to reveal himself to all people; and therefore he gives us the grace
to pray humbly and to thank him for each new step in an ever-growing
knowledge of his love and his design.
For those who have no way of knowing Christ because he is not rightly
proclaimed to them, their neighbor can be the image of God, to lead them
to a vital knowledge of what is good and right and just; and this can be a
way of salvation. Those who know Christ with a living faith are the chosen
instruments to make him known to others. As image and likeness of God,
each of us becomes a very essential part of God's revelation and so a
motive of faith for all people, but especially for those who know Jesus
Christ.
For the theologian, a basic task is to work out a synthesis between the
knowledge of man derived from the revelation in Christ, and that kind of
knowledge, which is the result of shared experience and reflection. In
this effort he cannot ignore the behavioral sciences that help us to come
to a more concrete knowledge of the human person today.
The main
purpose of theology is always to find a vital synthesis between love of
God and love of our neighbor, in view of the present
opportunities. Without a spirit
of prayer, this is impossible. A mere intellectual synthesis, severed from
experience of life and/or from adoration, can lead only to illusions,
abstractions, and alienation. Prayer, however, as Jesus Christ taught it,
as adoration of God in spirit and in truth, is the heart both of theology
and of an existential synthesis between the knowledge and love of God and
the knowledge and love of man. We pray for the light and warmth that the
Holy Spirit gives, and that enable us to love man and the world with the
same love with which Christ, our Savior, has loved us.
A theology that is reduced to an intellectual technique, or even worse,
to a battlefield of philosophical reasoning when antagonisms are bred
against followers of other schools or trend of thought, is utterly lacking
the heart and mind for the truth of salvation. It can provoke a sharp
crisis of faith; and the theologian who indulges in this kind of
`theology' may have already lost faith without knowing it, while he is
fighting fanatically for the most complete catalogue of formulations.
A theology that lacks an adoring awareness of God's presence is an
embodiment of alienation and leads inevitably to a kind of orthodox
heterodoxy, since those who do not entrust themselves humbly and
gratefully to God will always make partial choices, emphasizing only those
things that do not challenge their own ways. Such a theology can
communicate a great man; particular data, but cannot lead to the kind of
knowledge of God and man that brings salvation.
Some people say, “I don't need time for prayer; my whole life is
prayer.” Some theologians may think, “All my theology is prayer; I
don't have to set time apart for prayer.”
It is true that, according to God's design, all theology and all
Christian life is prayer. However, in the hands of us sinners, the ideal
seldom becomes the reality. We all have to strive constantly to be true
Christians, and equally, the theologian has to strive unceasingly to make
theology a truthful adoration of God.
We need to help each other in this endeavor. And while we do so, we
become more fully aware of our need of God’s help for our on-going
conversion. Faith lives and becomes more vital in the community of
believers that helps us to grow in the spirit of prayer.
Condensed from Prayer:
The Integration of Faith & Life,, © 1975, Fides Publishers, Inc.
Notre Dame, Indiana
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