In that struggle, the theological community seemed to have charted progress in their endeavour to demonstrate that theology was in fact a science. It was demonstrated that theology consistently fulfilled the traditional criteria for knowledge: Firstly, it has a definite subject matter, which is God's revelation of himself. Secondly, theology deals with objective matters, not mere subjective advancements by armchair theologians. Thirdly, theology has a definite methodology for investigating its subject matter. Fourthly, it has a method for demonstrating the validity of its propositions. Fifthly, coherence is guarded among the propositions pertaining to its subject matter. Theology was, hence, proven to be a legitimate field of science in itself.

But what consequently happened, in my assessment of this event, was also that theology lost its language of passion. This was perhaps due to the fear of the theological community of employing language that would provoke scorn among the people of the scientific community. So we dispensed with our emotive descriptions of metaphysical realities and confined these propositions within the realm of dispassionate intellectual discourse.

In the good old fashioned spirit of Protestantism, I begin this train of thought by echoing one prominent motto of the Reformers: ecclesia reformata, ecclesia semper reformanda (the reformed church must always be the church which is reforming itself). With the journey that the Christian community has been through thus far, I believe it is time for us to re-examine and reform the way theology has been articulated in the life of the Church. In so doing, I am also hoping that the relational dimension (as opposed to the mere propositional dimension) of my being Asian will be of useful contribution to the theological language of God's people.

Of course, this argument can be approached from various perspectives. Since the doctrine of the Trinity serves as one of the most distinctive and unique beliefs of the Christian community, I shall dwell on a briefly sustained exploration of how the developments of this doctrine in the twentieth century should provoke the recovery of passionate expression in our theological discourse.

Karl Barth is known for his insistence upon the human incapacity in the entire process of revelation. For him, sinful humanity is incapable of hearing the Word of God or receiving the revelation of God. And yet, the reality is that this sinful humanity has heard the Word of God, for it is this Word that has made humanity conscious of its own sinfulness. So if humanity is incapable of hearing the Word, how is it that it has heard the Word?

For Barth, humanity is passive in the entire process of revelation, for it is solely subject to the sovereignty of God. Revelation was possible only because of God's ability of effecting self-revelation to humanity despite its sinfulness. And because revelation is a reiteration in time of what God is in eternity, there must be direct correspondence between the Revealer and the revelation itself. For this reason, the Father was revealed in the Son. Now, although the Father has revealed himself in the Son, sinful humanity remains incapable of recognising that revelation as one of being a divine revelation. This enablement comes only from the Holy Spirit.

The whole point of recognising Barth's contribution to this discussion lies in the reality of God having to reveal himself relationally to the world, and with his help, enabling the world to find a language of articulation following humankind's recognition of his revelation. Relationality precedes proposition. The fact of our abilty to advance propositions regarding such metaphysical realities is conditioned upon the relational aspect of God's confrontation. This therefore begs the question of why this element of relationality is dismissed when subsequent propositional advancements are articulated.

Robert Jenson further develops Barth's characteristic persistence on humankind's full dependence upon God's revelation. He explains that in the Old Testament, the God of Israel had to be set apart and distinguished from other gods of the polytheistic world. Similarly, in the New Testament, God had to be distinguished from the various deities that were worshipped in Asia Minor. As a result, he had to be assigned a proper name; and that name was "Father, Son and Holy Spirit".

For Jenson, the doctrine of the Trinity is an enunciation of who our God is in order to prevent the Christian community from being absorbed by rival conceptions of the divine. Further to that, it must be pointed out that the names "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" are not names that we have chosen, but rather, names that we have received and been authorised to use in stating the identity of the God we worship. Of course, it can be observed herein that Jenson speaks along Barth's lines pertaining to the priority of God's self-revelation over any human constructions of the divine. Once again, we are confronted with the story of the God who reveals himself relationally by assigning himself a name for his people.

My guess is that Karl Rahner would add, in a consistent echo, that God's revelation of himself took place in the form of the economic Trinity within human salvation history. It was from humankind's recognition of the economic Trinity within salvation history that subsequent enunciations pertaining to the immanent Trinity were made possible. The economic Trinity forms the basis of our understanding of the immanent Trinity. The way in which God is known relationally through history is the way he actually is.

If the Trinitarian God has revealed himself in the most relational way possible through the incarnation, and if (according to Barth) it is the Holy Spirit who enables humankind to recognise the truth of that revelation, how is it that the relational element of our articulation is absent today?

We need to recover a methodology of passionate discourse without feeling any sense of intimidation from the standards of contemporary scientific language. The definite object of our "scientific study" happens to be a Being worthy of our highest measure of devotion and passion. He happens to be the Being upon whom the existence of all other beings (or even the possibility of existence itself) depends. Let us use words like "wow" if we must, for that may just be the most appropriate doxological expression from the depths of the human soul.

(This is one heck of a long entry for a blog. I think I deserve a nice nap.)