The Theologian's Craft

What is it to "do theology"? Numerous conflicting and inadequate answers (e. g., Bultmannian existentialism, the post Bultmannian "New Hermeneutic") hold the field today; these have in common a basic misunderstanding as to the relation of theological theologizing to theory construction in other fields of knowledge, and a fundamental misconception in regard to the proper way of confirming or disconfirming theological judgments. In this essay, a detailed comparison between scientific and theological methodologies is set forth, and the artistic and sacred dimensions of theological theorizing are explicated by way of an original structural model suggested by Wittgensteinian philosophical and linguistic analysis.