All Hail Queen Theology, and God Save Plato.

I forget who said it but someone said "Theology is the queen of the sciences" This probably sounds strange to some of you. One, because some of you might completely divorce the concepts of theology from science. Science in our day and age refers specifically to the systematized study of the physical world, but to the ancient and/or medieval person it was a reference simply to the study of a subject. In other words, theology is "the STUDY of God" therefore it is a science. Having accepted this definition of science, the proposition itself might still seem to some of you to be very difficult to swallow. I can understand this sentiment, and I'm the theological director of a church!
To thinkers of the middle ages, theology and philosophy were synonymous. Not until the the "modern age" (1400's-now)(roughly)was it really conceived that they might be separate sciences. And many theologians in our day have followed suit, implying strongly that philosophy and theology are basic enemies. My view is not the medieval one, nor do I think that theology and philosophy are at odds with one another as is the modern tendency.(By the way, "modern" is not in reference to "the latest" which is a common vernacular conception, but to a specific time period in the history of the western world). I tend to think that they are two separate circles in the same plane,randomly moving about, sometimes meeting, and most of the time not. i.e. they can help one another sometimes, but they are definitely not the same thing, nor do they need each other to exist or proceed. With this said, I think that the major difference in our day and age is how these two beasts differ in their presuppositions about truth. Philosophy essentially has no unifying presupposition about truth. Theology is united in its presupposition that there is a higher power, and is often hampered in it's pursuit because of this. For generally, the unified purpose of philosophy is to discover, if not at least to articulate the truth. Theology proceeds from one unified non-negotiable, that God exists, but from there are endless possibilities of constructions of how God's existence can explain life, and men have fought and killed each other over the differences. Philosophy is generally not afraid of opposing positions. Theology has not this luxury. And this is why I, the theological director of Steamtown Church, and more attracted to philosophy than theology. For philosophy allows me to question really anything, theology not so much. But there is on thing that philosophy has never been able to figure out, and given its general makeup, seems doubtful that it ever could, and that is the truth, and this is the dreadful irony of philosophical pursuit. One must ask two questions after years of not being able to find the treasure chest:1)Is there is a treasure chest at all,or 2)Does he have the wrong map? We're now at a time where some of our society has decided that there's no map or treasure chest, just us. some still hold with great faith that there is both a treasure chest and a map, and Christians already have the treasure chest. I cannot be interested in a treasure I already have, therefore I cannot be interested, but I have seen that this treasure chest is really the treasure it claims to be over and over, and so I succumb that theology may be in fact the queen of the sciences, but if it be so, wherein is the need for study, since we already have the treasure chest? It is because the end is not to find the treasure, but to get everyone to buy in. But theology has a very tricky means of persuading someone that we really have the real treasure chest, because most people are still more interested in the search than they are the treasure, and would much rather seek after a dead end, than have a treasure handed to them. I am in this boat, and struggling to take the first step of Peter and walk towards my LORD, but it ought to be obvious by now that if I mistake the process for the point, then I have missed the point.