HERMENEUTIC OF CONTINUITY AND THEOLOGICAL FORMATION

The foundation of theology is Scripture. In an attempt to give a necessary clarification of this statement, I allude to the words of Anthony Akinwale: “The Bible contains the word of God. But the word of God is not contained by the Bible…” Since theology is fundamentally a speech about God, that speech has to be first of all ‘a speech from God’ before it can be ‘a speech about God’. In other words, theology is a reflection on God who speaks (Word – Logos) and about his word that he speaks in Scripture and Tradition. This is the sense in which one understands Akinwale’s statement, and how one ought to understand the basis of theology in Scripture. Hermeneutics is the branch of theology that deals with the principles of Biblical interpretation. Correct hermeneutical approach is therefore essential to a proper understanding of the truth revealed by God. For example, it is essential to the full understanding of the OT to employ a hermeneutic that many OT texts are types or prefigurements of Christ and his fulfilment of Scripture in the NT. One very important interpretive principle that Augustine enunciates in his De Doctrina Christiana is that one text of Scripture cannot be preferred to another or played off against another. The real truth conforms to everything that has been revealed. What this paper attempts to do is to apply this same principle of interpretation to how theology is done. In this understanding, Scripture cannot be reflected upon to the exclusion of the Magisterium and the tradition of the Christian faith, rooted in the Apostles and reflected upon by the Fathers of the Church.

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