“The event of revelation . . . can take reason wholly by surprise, even shatter its expectations, demand a rethinking of everything it previously thought from top to bottom, and yet remain perfectly rational . . . on one condition only: that it is the very nature of reason in its normal, everyday constitution, to be taken by surprise.”1
What can it mean to say that Christianity is true? This seemingly simple question contains a profound theoretical difficulty. We would be unable to affirm the truth of Christianity unless it made a claim on the assent of human reason, but such a claim is possible only if it in turn resonates in some respect within reason’s own intrinsic necessities. To ask the question concerning the truth of Christianity plunges us immediately into a problem that lies at the center of fundamental theology, the discipline that inquires into the possibility of theology.2 As a logos, a rational discourse, about God, theology is in some sense a human activity. But what distinguishes theology from philosophy, which possesses its own discourse about God, is that theology has its ultimate foundation not in reason’s own exigencies, nor in natural evidences, but in that which properly speaking comes from beyond reason’s horizon, and indeed in some sense from beyond the world itself: namely, in revelation.3 Is rational discourse about God, then, possible? Indeed, is there in principle such a thing as a reasonable theologian?
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