Does Being A Theologian Require Being A Religious Believer?
Earlier today Deane Gilbraith discussed Kurt Noll’s distinctions between theology and philosophers of religion from The Chronicle of Higher Education (which we linked to three weeks ago without much comment.) Gilbraith’s commentator Roland objected to Noll in the following way: On another line – ‘theologians practice and defend religion’. In short, theology is apologetics, a rearguard action. Oh come on, Noll (via Deano)! Why is it assumed that theologians must be believers? We don’t expect a teacher of French to be French, or a student of ancient Greece to believe in the Greek gods, or even an art critic to be an artist. So why does a theologian need to be a believer (in God I mean)? The sense in which a theologian must be a believer is that a theologian is, strictly speaking, distinguishable from a historian of religion or a philosopher, biologist, psychologist/anthropologist of it, etc. by his or her adoption of, and participation in, a religious tradition when seeking truth about t
