Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 72

48

THE SECOND DIFFICULTY

§ 29.

[Div.

J

which has no existence outside of your This springs from the fact that the object of closely interwoven with our subjectivity, and is

to a pseudo-object,

imagination.

Theology

lies

therefore incapable of being absolutely objectified.

man

A

blind

no more able to furnish a scientific study of the phenomenon of color, or a deaf person to develop a theory of music, than a scholar whose organ for the world of the is

divine has become inactive or defective

is

capable of furnish-

ing a theological study, simply because he has none other

than a hearsay knowledge of the object Theology investiHence no escape is here possible from the refraction gates. of subjectivity. This should the more seriously be taken into our account because this refraction springs not merely from the circumference of our subjective existence, but is organically related to the deepest root of our life and to the very foundation of our consciousness.

Whether

this imiDossibility

Theology does or does Theology can only later

of completely objectifying the object of

not destroy the scientific character of on be investigated here we do not deal with the object of Theology but with Theology itself as object of Theological ;

Encyclopedia and of this it is evident that Theology itself cannot be presented as an absolute and constant object, because its own object cannot escape from the refraction of ;

our subjectivity.

If a scientific investigator,

and in casu the

writer of an Encyclopedia, could investigate his object with-

out himself believing in the existence of his object,

it

might

be possible for the Encyclopedist at least to keep himself But this is out of the question. outside of this difference. Faith in the existence of the object to be investigated is the

qua non of all scientific investigation. No theological Encyclopedist is conceivable except one to whom Theology has existence, neither can Theology have existence to him unless it also has an object in whose reality he equally As an actual fact it is seen that all writers of believes. Theological Encyclopedias take for their object of investigation that which they conceive to be Theology, and also that conditio sine

every theologian assumes something as object of Theology which to him has real existence. Thus one link locks into

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