Why Can't We All Just Get Along? A Theology of Conflict

In this paper, I argue that controversiality is a necessary feature of theology: It is a reasonable expectation that theological issues will be controversial because theology is a hermeneutical science: It seeks to justify the rational acceptability of faith within the contexts of our time. It does not seek to transform the act of faith into either uncontroversial knowledge or uncontroversial matters of taste. In this paper, I offer three arguments in support of this main thesis: The argument from the distinction between faith and knowledge, the argument from the concept of religious truth and the argument from reasonable pluralism. After these epistemological considerations which come mainly from Systematic Theology, I draw some conclusions for Practical Theology and RE at the end of the paper.