In his profession of faith Pope Paul VI said : "The Church, most assuredly, has always the duty to carry on the effort to study more deeply and to present in a manner even better adapted to successive generations the unfathomable mysteries of God, rich for all in the fruits of salvation. But at the same time the Will the devewpment of new greatest care must be taken, insights, new philosophical while fulfilling the indispensabases lead to a new ble duty of research, to do no theology? injury to the teachings of Christian doctrine." Again the bishops of the province of Baltimore and Washington in a CHARLES R. MEYER letter to their priests stated : "Theology apparently is embarking upon a period of renewal which may prove as promising and exciting as that of the sacred liturgy. Instead of merely repeating what others have said in the past, today's theologians are grappling with new problems, asking new questions, and using new techniques to discover answers. They have at their disposal resources which were not available to their predecessors. There is nothing wrong or even unusual about this--they are simply doing for our day what the Fathers and Scholastics did for theirs." Our first thought in trying to understand and reconcile these statements is to make a basic distinction between theology and faith. Faith is a kind of divine knowledge based upon God's revelation to DOCTRINAL VI
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