Theology and History: An Outline of Methodological Challenges in Fundamental Theology

Abstract

The article aims to bring together the ambiguities that arise in the course of determining the relationship between theology and the historical sciences. Just as the understanding of the relationship between the natural sciences and theology has developed due to the growth of methodological self-awareness of these disciplines, especially regarding their temporality, a similar progress could be expected in the research on relationship between theology and the historical sciences. It seems that the topic still needs to be synthesized on the ground of fundamental theology. For the theologian, a hermeneutical point of reference on the issue under discussion, can be the ruling of the Second Vatican Council in the 36th paragraph of the Constitution Gaudium et Spes. The temporality of theology features at least three dimensions: God’s Revelation occurrence in time, the occurrence in time of scientific reflection on this Revelation, and the dependence of the understanding and interpretation of both on the data provided by the historical sciences. The solution to the aporias arising in these processes can be the theological study of historiographical doctrines and the historical study of the history of Christianity, self-aware and critical of the historiographical doctrines being accepted.