Do We Speak Well of God?
July 9, 2021
Anthony Costello
In a recent lecture, theologian Kevin Vanhoozer described the task of theology very simply. Theology is “speaking well of God.” To my mind this phrase gets at the heart of the theological enterprise. On the one hand it is vague enough to leave needed wiggle-room. Yet it also has enough meat to give us a sense of where and how to begin. At the same time, it implicitly constrains the task of theologizing, since we understand what it means to speak badly of something, or someone.
For example, clearly one can say too much about a thing. One can overstep one’s bounds or “put one’s foot in one’s mouth” by blathering on. Conversely, one can also fail to say enough about something, not speaking up when one should. In the first case, we can go beyond our knowledge base. We speculate too much about an object of inquiry. In the second, we deflate the base of knowledge we do have and not say something we should. Therefore,