Ogden, Theology and Religoius Studies

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion, X L V I / 1 , 3-15

Theology and Religious Studies:Their Difference and theDifference It Makes

Schubert M. Ogden

ABSTRACTOn the conventional account, theology differs from other forms ofreflection, including religious studies, for one or both of two reasons: (1)because it has to appeal to special criteria of truth for some if not all of its

assertions; and (2) because the theologian has to be a believer who alreadyholds these assertions to be true. But, since by contemporary standards,either of these is also a reason for dismissing theology as illegitimate, theperennial task of achieving an adeq uate theological self-understanding tod ayis widely supposed to confront a dilemm a: one m ust choose, finally, betw eena theology that is really different from religious studies only because it alsofails to comply with current standards of reflection and a theology that is infull com plianc e with such stan da rds on ly because its difference from religiou sstudies is merely verbal and so does not really make a difference, anyhow.The q uestion, con seque ntly, is whether it is possible to provide an accou nt ofthe difference between theology and religious studies other than theconventional account.One way of arguing for an affirmative answer is to establish thefollowing three claims: (1) that religious studies differ from the study ofreligion generally in being constituted as such by the question as to theme anin g and tru th of religion as itself a claim to tru th ; (2) tha t this differenceremains even in the case of full compliance with contemporary standards ofreflection, since it entails neither special criteria of truth for religiousassertions nor special qualifications for students of religion; and (3) that,analogously, theology would be different from religious studies, as well asfrom oth er forms of reflection, even it it were in full com plianc e with the s am estandards of reflection, since the sufficient ground of its difference is thequestion that constitutes it a distinct field of reflectionnamely, the

Schubert M. Ogden is Professor of Theology and Director of the GraduateProgram in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University. This PresidentialAdd ress was given at the An nua l Mee ting of the Am erican Academ y of Religion in Sa nFrancisco, California, on December 30, 1977.


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Schubert M. Ogdenreflective question as to the meaning and truth of the Christian religion, orwitness of faith.Having established these claims, the argument concludes that thesupposed dilemma is merely that and that there remains the distinctpossibility of a theology that is in full compliance with contemporarystandards of reflection even while being really and not merely verballydifferent from every other field of study.

T he aim of this address is to exten d the ran ge of altern ative s for dealingwith a problem with which Christian theologians today are wellacquainted. Accordingly, the word " theolog y" is used throug hou t thediscussion , no t in the generic sense in which we often need to use it, bu t in thespecific sense expressed by the phrase "Ch ristian the olo gy ."T ha t this entails acorresponding restriction of the relevance of the discussion, however, is farfrom obvious; for there is reason to believe that, just as the problem itself isnot peculiar to Christian theology, so the discussion of alternative ways ofdealing with it also has a wider bearing.

The problem at its core is a perennial theological problem, since amongthe ques tions th at theology m ust always ask and answ er is the question, W hatis theology? In this, as in other i m po rtan t respects, theology is very m uch likephilosophy , as distinct from history, the special sciences, and the various art s,none of which bears philosophy's responsibility for critically constitutingitself as a distinct form of reflection. Being a form of reflection that, for all ofits depen dence on a particular history, is and must be as basic and ascomprehensive as philosophy, theology always bears the same responsibilityfor critically understanding itself and reflectively establishing the necessaryconditions of its own possibility. B ut wh at ma kes this perennial responsibilityparticularly problematic today is the evident incompatibility betweentheology's conv entiona l self-understanding and w hat are now widely acceptedas standards of reflection. Indeed, the very claims that theologians usuallyinsist on in establish ing the necessary cond itio ns of theological reflection raisethe profoun dest do ub ts about its legitimacy, given current stan dard s of whatany form of reflection is supposed to be.

The claims to which I refer are mainly two: (1) that theology as such hasto app eal to special criteria of tru th for so m e if no t all of its assert ions ; and (2)that the theolog ian as such has to be a believer already comm itted to the truthof the assertio ns th at theo logical reflection seeks to establish. Ac cordin g to allthe usual answers to the question of what theology itself is, it is necessary toinsist on one or bo th of these claims if the olo gy is to be critically constit uted asa distinct form of reflection. And yet to insist on either claim is to run intocontemporary counterclaims with respect to what can alone count aslegitimate reflection. According to such counterclaims, no form of reflectionappealing to special criteria of tru th can to th at extent be legitimate, since noassertion can possibly be established a s true except by appealing to completelygeneral criteria applicable to any other assertion of the same logical type. And


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Theology and Religious Studieseven more obvious, according to the same contemporary standards, is theillegitimacy of any form of reflection requiring anyone engaging in it toalready believe the assertions that reflection alone can critically establish, asdistinct from being able and willing to ask the question to which all suchassertions are the answer. On the other hand, to accede to such counterclaimsto the point of abandoning both of the claims on which theologians are wontto insist is, from the standpoint of their insistence, to deny the very conditionsnecessary to theology's being a distinct form of human reflection.In its logical structure, then, the problem before us is a special case of thedilemma with which theology today is commonly supposed to be confronted.If its self-understanding as theology succeeds in being appropriate to theChristian witness of faith, in that it understands itself to be a form of reflectiondistinct from every other, it cannot at the same time understand itself in termsof contemporary standards of reflection. If, on the contrary, its self-understanding succeeds in being understandable to human existence today, inthat it does understand itself in terms of these standards, it cannot alsounderstand itself to be a distinct form of reflection. Because, either way, it isimpossible to satisfy both of the demands that an adequate theological self-understanding must satisfy, neither of the usual alternatives for dealing withthe problem offers anything like a real solution.

There is a particular formulation of this dilemma on which I now want tofocus our attention. This is the formulation according to which any theologythat did understand itself in terms of current standards of reflection could notat the same time make good the claim to be different from religious studies.Conversely, this formulation holds that any theology that did make good itsclaim to be different from religious studies could do so only by insisting on atleast one of the two claims that are incompatible with such current standards,which is to say, either that theology must appeal at some point to specialcriteria of truth to establish its assertions or that the theologian must believethese assertions to be true even before seeking to establish them. That thiskind of reasoning is commonly expressed or implied in theological discussionsof our problem will be acknowledged at once by anyone familiar with them.But what I find just as significant is the extent to which the same reasoningappears in discussions of religious studies by students of religion as well. Onthe accounts by such students of the difference of their own form of reflectionfrom that distinctive of theology, this difference is commonly represented asprimarily if not exclusively negative, in that certain conditions taken to benecessary to the possibility of theology are held not to be necessary to thepossibility of religious studies. Specifically, religious studies are representedas different from theology mainly because they require no appeal to specialcriteria to establish their assertions as true and because they require no priorbelief in the truth of their assertions from the student of religion.

It is not surprising, of course, that students of religion should commonlyunderstand their form of reflection in this negative way. For it is mainly bydifferentiating itself from theology, and hence by defining itself over againsttheology's own conventional self-definition, that the field of religious studies


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Schubert M. Ogdenhas gradually established itself as a distinct field. Even so, theologians havelong since ceased to be alone in reasoning as thou gh there are only two clear-cut alternatives for dealing with our problem. Students of religion, also,enforce the suppo sition th at we must ch oose, finally, between a theology th atis really different from religious studies only because it also fails to complywith current standards of reflection and a theology that is in full compliancewith such s tan da rds only beca use its difference from religious studies is merelyverbal and so does not really make a difference, anyhow.

I trust you will understand, then, why this has seemed to me anappropriate occasion to argue for my conviction that these are not the onlyalternatives between which one m ay reasonab ly choose and th at the supposeddilemma, consequently, is merely that. In any event, my purpose in thefollowing discussion is to provide an account of the difference betweentheology and religious studies other than the conventional theologicalaccoun t. Since it is just this conventional a ccoun t tha t gene rates bo th of theusual alternatives for dealing with our p roblem , to show, as I hope to do, thatit is not the only account that can be given is to point the way of escapebetween the horns of the supposed dilemma. This is so, at any rate, if, on therevisionary account I hope to provide, the difference between the two fieldsreally does make a difference even when theology, no less than religiousstudies, is so understood as to comply fully with contemporary standards ofreflection.

IIThe main task now before us is to clarify what is properly understood by"religious studies." I take it that this phrase is now used as widely as it isbecause many of us here have come to prefer speaking of "religious studies"rather than simply "religion" in designating the departments of whichpresuma bly m ost of us are mem bers. "Dep artm ent of Religio n" tends toconvey pretty much the same meaning to many persons as "Department of

Theology," and yet most of us are convinced that it properly has a differentmeaning that somehow needs to be expressed. A department, or school, oftheology may very well teach theology rather as a department of biologyteaches biology, or a department of physics, physics. But a department ofreligion is not in business to teach religion but exists, rath er, to teach w hat ca nbe learned and taught about religion as itself the object of a certain kind ofstudy or studies, somewhat as living things are the object of biology, ornatural things generally are the object of physics. Consequently, the phrase"religious studies" recommends itself to us as more likely to convey what ourdepartments in the college or university are all about. And yet it is interestingthat the phrase we use is "religious studies," not "studies of religion." Ofcourse, to speak of the Department of Studies of Religion would besufficiently awk ward to prov ide a plausible exp lanatio n of our not doing so.But perh aps we speak as we do because we are also aware that not every studythat somehow has religion as its object need be the kind of study that ourdep artme nts properly exist to carry on . To decide this issue, howev er, requires


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Theology and Religious Studiesthat we look mo re closely at th e m eanin g of "religious stud ies" by way ofsummary clarifications of both of its constitutive terms, "religion" and"study."

The starting point for both clarifications is a general observation abouthu m an ex istencenam ely, that to be hum an at all is bo th to live by faith andto seek und erstan ding . F or ou r imm ediate purp ose, which is to clarify wh at isproperly meant by "religion," it is the first part of this observation that isimportant .Th e faith to which I refer in observ ing tha t each of us lives by faith is ourbasic confidence or assu rance simply as hu m an beings that life is wo rth living.T o live in any case, even as an a nim al, is one and the same with accepting one'slife in its larger setting and adjusting oneself to it. This is why George

Santayana goes so far as to speak of "animal faith," meaning thereby theinalienable confidence of all animal life in its environment as generallypermissive of its struggle to live and to reproduce its kind. In the case of thehu m an anim al, how ever, vitality is not only expressed in the sphere of mind orconsciousness, but is also raised to the still higher level of spirit, of reflectiveunderstanding, or self-consciousness. Consequently, human acceptance oflife and adjustment to it can no longer be merely instinctive but must be amatter of free and responsible consent. We cannot merely live our life butmust, as we say, lead it; and this means that we can live and act, finally, onlyaccording to certain principles of truth, beauty, and goodness that weunderstand to be normative for our existence. Necessarily implied by thisunderstanding is the confidence or assurance that these norms have anunconditional validity and that a life lived in accordance with them is trulyw orth living. In this sense, ou r experien ce of ourselves and ou r fellow beings inrelation to reality as a whole is always essentially an experience gro un ded infaith. We are selves at all only because of our inalienable trust that our ownexistence and existence generally are some how justified and m ade meaningfulby the whole to which we know ourselves to belong.I do not mean by this that the faith by which we live is necessarilyauth entic or that the beliefs throu gh which it finds expression can only be true .Such an inference can be made, I think, only because we often fail to makecertain necessary distinctions. We assume uncritically that "faith" is to beun de rsto od in a wholly positive or eulogistic sense as referring solely to true orauthentic faithrather as we often take "worth" to mean only good, or"value," exclusively positive value. But this assumption, natural andunderstandable as it may be, restricts our grasp of all that "faith" means andimplies. Even a false or ina uth en tic faith is no t simply the absen ce of faith b utis faith itself in its negative modesomewhat as evil is the negative mode of

worth, or disvalue the negative mode of value. And this, of course, is why ananim al lacking in the distinctively hu ma n cap acity of reflective consciousnessnot only could not believe in the hu m an w ay, but could no t disbelieve in tha tway, either. On the other h and , given animals endowed with this capa city, orin other words, given human beings such as ourselves, faith in some mode isnot an option but a necessity. We unavoidably live by faith because we exist


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Schubert M. Ogdenunderstandingly or reflectively, because we can exist at all only by somehowconsenting to our own existence and to existence as such in confident trust.This is not to imply, however, that such trust may be simply taken forgranted as in no way problematic. Even though we have no alternative,finally, but to trust somehow that life is worth livingeverything we think,say, or do necessarily implying such a trusthow exactly we are tounderstand our faith is so far from being unproblematic as to be continuallycalled into quesiton. The reason for th is, generally speaking, is that our life isperforce lived under conditions that threaten to undermine any naiveassurance we may have as to its final worth. There are the inescapable factsthat we must suffer and d ie, that we involve ourselves in guilt, and that all ourundertakings are exposed to the workings of chance. Or, again, there is theloneliness that comes over us in even the most intimate of human relationshipsand, still worse, the gnawing of doubt and the threat of final meaninglessnesswhen we recognize, as we must, that our most basic beliefs are just the ones ofwhose truth we must be the least certain at the level of explicit belief. To besure, none of these conditions would pose the kind of problem it does for usbut for our prior assurance that it has been given to us to live and that to do sois, after all, worthwhile. This is why the question of faith, to which religiousconcepts and symbols in one way or another offer an answer, is never thequestion whether there is a ground of basic confidence in life's worthanymore than the question answered by a properly scientific assertion is whetherthere is a world of fact somehow sufficiently ordered that our experiences inthe past and present warrant our having certain expectations for the future.Rather, the question of faith is always how the ground of confidence can be soconceived and symbolized that our consent to life can be true and authenticjust as the question of science is always how we are to understand the de actoorder that the world necessarily has, so that we can not only survive in it butalso prosper. Nevertheless, the negativities of our existence, if we reflect onthem, profoundly challenge our basic confidence, driving us beyond anysimple understanding of it. In this way, the conditions of life as weunavoidably live it create the profound need for re-assurance, for anunderstanding of ourselves and the world in relation to reality as a whole thatwill enable us to make sense of the basic faith we inevitably have.

It is to just this need to make sense somehow of our basic faith in theultimate worth of life that religion is the response. All the various religions,including what I should not hesitate to call "the Christian religion," are somany attempts under the pressure of this need to solve the problem ofunderstanding our basic faith, given the negativities of our existence. Thus theChristian symbols of resurrection and immortality, for example, evidentlyfunction to provide the necessary reassurance as to the ultimate meaning oflife, given enough reflection on the boundary s ituation of death and transienceto shatter any naive assurance that life is worth living. How different religions,in particular, provide such reassurance, or with what radicality of insight, is,naturally, historically variable, depending on which of the conditions ofhuman existence are taken to focus the problem and on the depth at which


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Theology and Religious Studiesthose conditions are grappled with and understood. Even so, the end of anyreligion, properly so-called, is so to conceive and symbolize the greatinescapabilities of life as to solve the problem of our existence as such: theproblem of having to believe somehow in the ultimate worth of life underconditions that make such a faith seem all but impossible.

Thus , as I am using the terms, "faith" and "religion" are not simplyequivalent. In the relatively strict sense in which I speak of it, religion is notidentica l w ith o ur basic faith in the wor th of life bu t is to be distinguished fromit as its primary explicit expression in meaningful symbolsspecifically, inbeliefs, rites, and forms of social organization that together provide aparticular answer to the question of the ultimate meaning of our life, or towha t I have otherwise spoken of as the question of faith. Accordingly, on myusage, P aul Tillich's famous statemen t th at religion is the substance of culture,while culture is the form of religion has to be reformulated so that it is faithwhich is the substan ce of cultu re, while religion is the par ticu lar cultu ral formin which that substance is first of all made explicit.

So un ders tood , religion is one form of culture a m on g others and yet, forall tha t, un iqu e. Since it is the p rim ary exp lication of the basic faith implicitlypresupposed by all the other cultural forms, it is in its own way basic to thewhole of human existence, and hence more than merely coordinate inimportance with these other forms. This bears underscoring because one ofthe illusions fostered by the mo de rn differentiation of culture is tha t religion issimply one more activity alongside of others, having its own special field andits own peculiar ways of cultivating that field.

This understanding seems to me to have the merit of taking the term"religion" more in the sense in which it is ordinarily understood both bycommon sense and by the historical, scientific, and philosophicalunderstanding of religion, as over against the use that has becomecharacteristic of apologetic theologians bent on making a case for theChristian or some o ther religion in a secularized w orld. At the sam e time, theclarification I have suggested understands "religion" in a functional sensesufficiently formal to include cultural forms or movements that others,assuming a nonfunctional, or substantive, understanding, would speak of as,at most, "quasi-religions," or, possibly, "religion surrogates." ThusCo mm unism , for instance, m ight be quite properly spok en of as a religion inmy sense, provided only that it is taken to be not only a certain und erstand ingof our basic faith but also a whole symbolic structure of beliefs, rites, andsocial organiza tions w hereby that un ders tand ing is expressed and enforcedin short, provided that it is taken to be the primary cultural form throughwhich certain men and women today have come to understand their basichuman faith.

There are two further points more or less clearly implied by what hasalready been said. The first is that religion never exists in general, any morethan any o ther form of culture does, but always only as a religion, which hasits origin and principle in some particular occasion of insight, be it"hierophany" or "revelation." Correlative with this originating occasion of


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10 Schubert M. Ogdeninsight, then, is a particular form of faith, or understanding of existence,which in turn provides the foundation for a whole symbolic structure ofbeliefs, rites, and social organizations. How this structure is elaborated andhow differentiated it becom es from the othe r form s of cult ure, are , aga in,open to wide historical variations, as is the extent to which the claims itexpresses and implies may eventually be subjected to the higher level ofreflection tha t is pro perly called "th eol og y" in the generic sense of th at w ord .In any event, the only thing directly accessible to us when we speak of"religion" is some p articu lar religion or religions, some particu lar w ay or waysof conceiving and symbolizing ourselves and our world in relation to themystery encom passing our existence. Co nsequen tly, even the true religion, ifthere be such a th ing , could not be identified w ith religion in gene ral or simplyas such. It could only be one particu lar religion am on g others, distinguishedfrom all the rest solely by the unique adequacy with which its particularconcepts and symbols answ ered to the need that each religion exists to m eet.

Th e second po int is that a partic ular religion can answer to this need onlybecause or insofar as the determinative use of its concepts and symbols is abroad ly cog nitive use. W hatev er else a religion is or involves, it crucially is orinvolves conceptualizing and symbolizing a comprehensive understanding ofhum an existence th at claims to be true. To be sure, a religion is not the sam e asa metaphysics that pursues the question of the ultimate whole of reality initself in abst rac tio n from the qu estio n of the mean ing of tha t reality for us. Onthe contrary, religious concepts and symbols are rightly said to be"existential" precisely because they express claims about the whole of realityonly by also openin g up o ur ow n possibilities of self-understanding in relationto it. Thu s such con cepts and sym bols typically function not only indicatively,to express assertions, but also, expressively, to convey feelings andconvictions, and imperatively, to enjoin others to certain beliefs or actions.But as i m po rtant as it is to recognize their existential function, to ignore tha treligious concepts and symbols also function metaphysically to assert orimply that certain things are ultimately the case is to make it impossible toexplain how they could meet the need they clearly exist to meet. I take it thatClifford Ge ertz intend s to mak e this sam e point when he observes that " theempirical differentia of religious activity or religious experience would notexist" if religious symbols did not formulate "a basic congruence between apartic ular style of life and a specific (if, m ost often, imp licit) me tap hy sic" (64 2,652).

Assuming that "religion" has now been clarified sufficiently for ourpurposes, we may tu rn to the second term "st ud y" by recalling the other partof my initial anth ropo logica l observation . Just as we are beings who perforcelive by faith, so we are also beings who of necessity seek understanding. Ofcourse , a clear im plicatio n of w hat I have said ab ou t o ur living by faith is tha twe already have und ersta ndin g before we ever seek it. Mo reove r, the basicprocess of accu lturation by which alone any of us ever becomes hum an is oneand the same with the process by which we come to un derstan d ourselves andour world in a certain waynamely, by internalizing the norms of truth,


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Theology and Religious Studies 11goo dnes s, and beauty objectified in the language and cu lture in which we arereared. Normally, this also includes internalizing the religion, or theparticu lar u nde rstand ing of basic faith, typical of this same cultural trad itio n.Yet we even more o bviously internalize the stock of empirical knowledge andskills available to ou r society, or to ou r ow n social class location w ithin it. Butwhile we thus always already have some understanding both of the ultimatewhole of reality revealed by our basic faith and of the natural and humanworld disclosed through our particular experiences, it is also true that we doand must seek more understanding than we already have. We learn only toosoon that much that appears to be the case is no t really the case at all and tha tthe same is true of much that is said to be the case by our fellows in society.Unexpected experiences force revisions in our stock of empirical knowledgeand skills, and the need to bring our basic norms to bear in novel situation s, orthe realization that the norms themselves are controversial and in need ofjustification, drives us to seek yet a deeper un derstan ding even of them . M oreimportant still, just as understanding is the sine qua non of the distinctivelyhuman way of living at all, so it is also the necessary condition of thedistinctively human way of living abundantly. Consequently, since the art oflife, as W hitehe ad says, is no t only to live, bu t to live well and to live bet ter, t hefunction of und ersta nd ing in its service of the art of life is to seek by way ofreflection more and better understanding than any we already have so tha t wemay not only survive but prosper. This remains true, indeed, even if werecognize, as I believe we mu st, th at disinterested reflection for its ow n sake isone of the constitutive elements in that more abundant life, the quest forwhich is the underlying motivation of our search for understanding.

It is in this eminently pragmatic context that all the forms of reflectionsystematic and historical as well as practicaloriginate. Simply because ofour nature and situation as human beings, we both can and must ask theque stio n, W hat is really the case?, in all the main ways constitut ive n ot only ofthe various arts such as law, medicine, engineering, and ed ucation , but also ofphilosoph y and the special sciences, natural and hum an, as well as of history.M oreove r, we have two contro lling purposes in asking this reflective questio nin the different ways in which we can and m ust ask it: (1) to get answ ers to ou rque stion s for the sak e of the answ ers, for w hich we always have a m ore or lessurgen t need; and (2) to get answ ers to the questio ns for the sake of ask ing th eque stion s themselves mo re effectively whether in orde r to secure still m oreadequate answers than we would otherwise obtain or in order to realize asfully as possible our distinctively human capacity for such reflection. Thissecond purpose is further reinforced by the awareness that gradually emergesin history that all answers are really only ways of formulating questions,anyh ow . Because even the most reflective hum an u nde rstand ing can never bemore than fragmentary, the gap between our subjective understanding andthe reality that is its object is never closed, and hau nted by the aw areness t ha tthis is so, we are driven to persist in asking our questions.

What is properly meant by "study" is the reflective effort at furtherund erstand ing that originates un der these basic cond itions, w hich is to say, in


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12 Schubert M. Ogdenour capacity for more adequate understanding than we already have, in thesituation that drives us to seek such understanding, and with these twocon trolling purp oses in seeking it. Thu s the end of all study is the end of moreadequate understanding, and that for the sake, finally, of a more abundanthuman life. But what is distinctive of any study, properly so-called, is how itpursues this endnam ely, deliberately, method ically, and in a reasoned way.Whatever the form of the reflective questionhistorical, systematic, orpracticalit constitutes a proper study only insofar as it is asked intentionallyand in accordance with a definite procedure and any answer given to it issupported by good and sufficient reasons.

This would seem to indicate, then, that, if what are referred to as"religious studies" are prope rly so designated, they can only be so m any waysof seeking jus t such a reflective u nd ers tan din g of wh at is really the case abo utreligion, to the end, finally, of a fuller realization of our distinctivepossibilities as human beings. But this is to return to the issue raised earlierwhe ther this necessary condition of properly speaking of "religious studie s" isalso a sufficient condition. Is any deliberate, methodical, and reasonedpursuit of the question, What is really the case about religion?, a religiousstudy in the proper sense of the words?

That it is quite properly spoken of as a study of religion seems clearenough. And yet just as clear is that such a study not only may be butfrequently is undertaken in several fields, none of which has religion as itsconstitutive object of study. Thus sociology or psychology, as well asphilosop hy or h istory, normally involve the stud y of religion, because, giventheir own constitutive questions as forms of reflection, religion in one way oranother falls within the horizon of their fields of inquiry. But what clearlydecides the issue against allowing that any study of religion is eo ipso areligious stud y is th at religion itself is crucially a matter of answering on e formof the reflective q ues tion as to what really is the case. Because religion exists,as I have argued, to give answer to the question of faith by expressing acomprehensive understanding of our existence in relation to ultimatemystery, the only study of religion as such, and, in that sense, religious study,is some way or other of reflectively u nd ers tan din g religion as an an swer to th atquestion of faith. In other words, if the constitutive question of religiousstudies is, What is really the case about religion?, this is so only because orinsofar as that question is understood to ask about the meaning and truth ofreligion as itself a claim to truth.

To be sure, experience confirms in fact what is already evident inprinciple, that to ask and answer this question is to constitute not one butseveral forms of study historical an d p ractica l as well as systematic. And thisexplains, of course, why the sociology of religion is not only a concern ofsociologists, or the philosophy of religion, of philosophers. But what makesany such study of religion a constituent part of religious studies, as distinctfrom some other field like sociology or philosophy, is that it is itselfconstituted by, and in some way contributes toward answering, this onereflective question as to the meaning and truth of religion, given ouruniversally human question about the ultimate meaning of our life.


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Theology and Religious Studies 13Assuming now that there is this difference between religious studies assuch and all oth er studies of religion, exactly w hat k ind of a difference is it? AsI have just indicated, the sociology of religion is a concern of students of

religion as well as of sociolog ists, and the sam e ma y be said, mutatis mutandis,of the philo sop hy of religion, the psy cholo gy of religion , and so on. But this isto say that it is the same sociology of religion, philosophy of religion, and soon, that is and must be of concern to students in both of the respective fields,because or insofar as it is a study that springs from the same intention,proceeds by the same method, and judges by the same criteria. Howeverdifferent the questions ultimately constituting some form of study aconstituent part of different fields, it is immediately constituted by thequestio n tha t it exists to ask and answer; and it is this question, rath er tha n thequestions constituting the different fields, that determines its task, method,and criteria. The difference of religious studies, then, does not entail anydifference in the criteria of tru th of consti tuen t p arts of the field as c om pare dwith those of studies of religion generally. No r is there any rea son t o supp oseotherwise simply because one insists, as I have, that religious studies areconstituted as a distinct form of reflection by the question as to the m eaningan d tru th of religion. Fo r even if the criteria of religious trut h are sufficientlydifferent from those of oth er fields of inq uiry to be jud ged sui generis, this canonly be the jud gm ent of the same philoso phy of religion tha t is as mu ch aconcern of philosophers as of students of religion.

If the difference of religious stu dies in no way implies their hav ing specialcriteria of tru th , how ever, it jus t as little implies th at t he stu den t of religion assuch must already be religious. True, I have implied by my account that thestudent of religion in the strict sense in which I have been using the phrasem ust b e able and willing to ask th e que stion of faith to which religion exists toprovide the answer; and if such ability and willingness are taken to besufficient conditions of being "religious," then, of course, the student ofreligion must already be so. But on my own use of the term and, as I haveexplained, on what I take to be the use both of common sense and of seriousstudy, such conditions are not sufficient but only necessary conditions ofbeing religious, religion itself not being constituted except by some answer tothe question of faith, and hence neither by the question itself nor by the basicconfidence underlying it. Co nsequen tly, I see no good re ason to suppose thatthe student of religion as such needs to be any more religious than thesociologist or the philosopher, who are also, in their ways, students ofreligion. Th e only qua lification require d of either kind of stud ent is the abilityand willingness to ask the question constitutive of their respective field ofstudy; an d in the one case no less than in the other tha t question arises quitena tura lly in any hu m an existenc e that is sufficiently reflective.

The conclusion seems warranted, then, that, since the difference ofreligious studies entails neither special criteria for its assertions nor specialqualific ations for its stu den ts, it wou ld rem ain even if one were to deny bo th ofthese possible grounds for claiming it, being sufficiently accounted for solelyby the question that constitutes them a single field of study. Because anyreligious study is ultimately constituted as such by the question as to the


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14 Schubert M. Ogdenmea ning and tru th of religion, this que stion alone not only unites it with everyother religious study but also differentiates it from all other forms ofreflection, inclu ding even such stu dies of religion as are ultim ately con stitu tedby other questions. But if the question constituting religious studies itselfsuffices to ground their difference, there can be no doubt about its reallymaking a difference. For even the same form of study, having the identicaltask, method, and criteria, becomes significantly different contingently uponbeing ultimately constituted by the question of religious studies, as distinct,say, from that constitu ting sociology. W hereas in the one case the whole po intof the study is to co ntribu te someh ow tow ard answ ering the question as to theregularities exhibited by human life in society, in the other, the very samestudy, pursued by persons h aving no different qualifications and jud gin g byno different criteria, has the very different point of somehow increasing ourunderstanding of the meaning and truth of religion. In short, the questionconstituting religious studies makes them all really and not merely verballydifferent from every other because it makes them all constitutent parts of asingle field-encompassing field whose own difference from every other isindubitably real.

I l lThe claim I now wish to urge is that one can provide a strictly an alogo usacco unt of the difference of theolog y as a field of study from religious studies.By "theo logy" here I m ean, natu rally, specifically C hristian theolog y. But justwhat is meant by the term in that specific sense?One may say that in its generic sense, which corresponds to the genericsense of "reli gio n," "th eo log y" designates a higher level of reflection to w hichthe claims of a pa rticu lar religion m ay possibly be subjected. This wou ld seemto indicate that "theology" in the specific sense of "Christian theology" mustbe reflection on th e claims exp ressed o r implied by the Christian religionor,

as one m ight prefer to say, the C hristia n w itness of faith, seeing tha t religion isnot the only, even if the m ost explicit prima ry, form of culture throu gh whichChristian faith both can and should bear witness. Assuming, then, that suchreflection could be properly called a study, we could further infer thattheology must consist in asking in a deliberate, meth odical, and reasoned way,W hat is really the case ab ou t the C hrist ian religion or witness of faith? F inally,recognizing that the Christian religion, like every other, is constituted by anexplicit answer to the question of faiththis same answer being attestedimplicitly by all other forms of Christian witnesswe could conclude thattheology must so understand its question as to ask about the meaning andtruth of the Christian religion as itself a claim to truth.Th us to und erstand theology , how ever, is obviously to raise the issue ofits difference from religious studies. For if theology is, in effect, study of theCh ristian religion so as to answ er the reflective q uestio n as to its m ean ing an dtruth, the same may also be said of religious studies, at least on the account Ihave given here and assum ing only that , as study of the meanin g and trut h ofreligion generally, they surely must include such study of the Christian


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Theology and Religious Studies 15religion in particular. Nor is the fact that the object of theology's study is notonly the Christian religion as such but all forms of implicit Christian witnessas well sufficient to establish any difference. For it is not only the Christianreligion but, as we have seen, any religion that expresses a faith implicitlyattested by all other cu ltural form s, and so religious studies themselves m usthave as much reason as theology could have to study the Christian religiononly in the contex t of the Ch ristian w itness of faith th roug h culture generally.Is this to imply, then, that the difference of theology from religious studies ismerely verbal, because any study of the Christian religion so as to determ ineits meaning and truth is eo ipso theology in the proper sense of the word?

Clearly, the question is analogous to the one asked earlier about anystudy of religion already being properly a religious study. But, as I haveindicated, my conviction is tha t it may also be given an analog ous answ er, andthat means, of course, a negative answer. Even though religious studiesthemselves certainly can and should inquire about the meaning and truth ofthe Christian religion, provided that it exists and can be the object of theirstudy, the very fact th at we mu st add this provision rem inds us that th ey are inno way constituted as a field by the question as to the meaning and truth ofthis particular religionany more, say, than a sociology that certainly canand should ask ab ou t religion generally is constituted as such by the questionas to the meaning and truth of religion. The pertinent question, in otherwords, is not whether the Christian religion with its claim to truth is also anobject of religious studies, which it plainly is, but, rather, whether it is theirconstitutive object, the object inquiry about which constitutes them as adistinct field of study . The a nsw er to this qu estio n, howe ver, is perfectly clear,since the existence of the Christian religion as such is not in the least amongthe necessary conditions of the possibility of the field of religious studies. Itwo uld, or, at a ny rat e, could ex ist as a distinct field of stud y whe ther o r not theChristian religion, or any other particu lar religion, existed, provided only th atthere were at least some human beings who were religious in one way oranother and there was someone both able and willing to pursue the questionas to the meaning and truth of their particular religion.

And yet just as clear is tha t theolog y as such would not be so much as evenpossible except for the prior existence of the Christian witness of faith,assum ing, at least, tha t it is precisely this witness that is theology's constitutiveobject. But this assum ption we are entitled to m ake, if, as I m ainta in, theologynot only asks the question as to the meaning and truth of this particularwitness but is constituted as such precisely by doing soanalogously to theway in which religious studies not only ask about the meaning and truth ofreligion generally but could not exist as such but for asking this question.Of course, in the case of theology, also, to ask its constitutive question isto con stitu te not on e bu t several forms of stud y, as is evident no t only from thevery meaning of the question itself but also from the actual orga nizatio n of thefield as a whole into the three main disciplines of historical, systematic, andpractical theology. And, again, this explains why there is considerableoverlapping between theology and one or mo re religious studies or studies ofreligion generallyin that the history of Christianity, say, is not only a


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16 Schubert M. Ogdenconcern of students of religion or historians, or the meaning of the concept"God," a concern of philosophers of religion or philosophical theologians.But an ana log ou s rule also applies here insofar as what m akes any such studyof Christianity or of the concept "God" a constituent part of theology, asdistinct from som e ot her field like religious studies or philo soph y, is tha t it isitself constituted by, and in some way contributes toward answering, thequestion of theologythe reflective question as to the meaning and truth ofthe Christian witness as an answer to our own question of faith as humanbeings.

Because in theology's case also, howeve r, the groun d of its difference as afield of study is precisely its constitutive question, its difference from religiousstudies would remain even if one were to deny both that it requires specialcriteria for its assertions and that it requires special qualifications oftheologians. This is because there is as little reason here as in the analogouscase of religious studies to suppo se that the different ques tion theology as suchis constituted to ask entails either a difference in the criteria of truth of itsconstituent disciplines, as compared with those of cognate fields of study, orelse that the theologian as such must already believe in the truth of theChristian witness of faith. Even if the whole point of historical theology, forexam ple, is to contribu te in some way tow ard increasing our un derstand ing ofthe meaning and truth of just this witness of faith, it is in no way required tojudge by different criteria of truth from those appealed to in the history ofreligions and history generally. As a m atte r of fact, it could n ot app eal to an ydifferent criteria and still ma ke its necessary con trib utio n to the inquiry of thefield as a whole. And so, too, even in the case of systematic theology, whichdirectly asks the question of the truth of the Christian witness. It need in noway appea l to special criteria to judg e the tru th of this particu lar witness, and ,in fact, d are not do so if it is to be at all ap pr op ria te t o the universal claim ofthat witness itself. It is jus t as certain th at o ne does not in the least have to be aChristian believer before one can ask and answer theology's constitutivequestion. Here, too, the only necessary conditions of asking and answeringthat question are the prior existence of its constitutive object and of somesubject able and w illing to ask abo ut tha t object. But the sufficient grou nd ofthere being such a subject in the case of theology's question is there beingsom eone able and willing to ask the questio n of faith; and since one becomes aChristian not merely by asking that universal question but only by giving aspecific answer to it, being a Christian clearly is not among the necessaryconditions of being a theologian.

The supposition is plainly false, then, that theology could make good itsclaim to be different from religious studies only by failing to comply withcon tem pora ry stan dard s of reflection. Even if it were so to unde rstan d itself asto comply fully with such standards, by acknowledging only completelygeneral criteria of truth and requiring no other qualifications of its studentsthan any study must require, theology could still make good its claim to bedifferent simply by pointin g to the ques tion b ut for asking which it could notexist at all. Nor can there be any doubt whatever whether the difference itsquestion suffices to ground really makes a difference. For while theology


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The ology and Religious Studies 17certainly is not alone in asking about the meaning and truth of the Christianwitness of faith, it certainly is alone in being constituted as such, as the singlefield-encompassing field of study it is, by just this particular question.

Thus, the conventional account notwithstanding, the supposed dilemmais merely that, and the usual alternatives are not the only alternatives fordealing with the problem of theology's self-understanding. Because theologycan be in full compliance with contemporary standards of reflection evenwhile being really and not merely verbally different from every other fieldofstudy, there remains the distinct possibility of a real solution to our problema solution tha t will be adequate at once to the witness of faith itself and to thereflection of our own time.

WORKS CONSULTED

Geertz, Clifford1968 "Religion as a Cultura l Sy stem ." The Religious Situation, ed. Donald

R. Cutler. Boston: Beacon Press: 639-88.Santayana, George

1923 Scepticism and Animal Faith: Introduction to a System ofPhilosophy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Tillich, Paul

1959 Gesam melte Werke, I: Friihe Hauptwerke. Stuttgart: EvangelischesVerlagswerk.

Whitehead, A. N.1929 The Function of Reason. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Ogden, Theology and Religoius Studies

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