claims, pins, and lanes

Over the last two days I read 'A short introduction to the philosophy of science' which was a really good primer for the main issues - induction, deduction, falsifiability, paradigm change, theory/data relation, inference to best explanation etc. I wanted to brush up on those ideas precisely because they become germane to the construction of Christology. We look at Jesus' life as 'data' and from that construct a 'theory' of Christology. Some people get a bit allergic to the word 'theory' as if it means the same as 'hypothesis' - which it doesn't. The worry seems to be that if I say Christology is a theory, that it's "one theory among others", that I'm not sure if it's true. But that's not really the way the language of theory works. For example, we say "the theory of gravity" but it's not as if we're in doubt about the existence of gravity; jump out a window if you're not sure.

Theory is the language one uses about a description of reality that is meant to make sense of the data and phenomena that appear to us, to go behind the scenes as it were, to give an explanation of why we see what we see.

And this is the kind of thing going on in Christology. We 'see' the life of Jesus, the miracles, the teaching, the parables, the prophetic action, the resurrection, the post-ressurection appearances, the ascension. From that, the Church began to come to a realisation of the profound reality that had been responsible for those phenomenon and were led to conclude that Jesus was God. The relation between his divinity and humanity is what Christology is trying to explain. And so I'm heading out the door right now to go and read at the coffee shop for 2 hours. I may not end up agreeing with Pannenberg, but he sets out the whole argument perhaps better than anyone, and because of that I can only gain from reading him.

Pins and lanes is because I'm going bowling tonight! Didn't do anything for my birthday, and this isn't a birthday thing for me, but my friend is paying as a belated gift. It's all good. You know I'll win, or die trying.