On the other hand, theology could be provisionally described as that which attempts to come to grips with this life-giving experi­ence, to describe the source from which everything is suspended and from which our faith is born. In faith God is experienced as the abso­lute subject who grasps us, while in theology we set about reflecting upon this subject.   

Faith and theology, in this reading, seem inextricably intertwined, as there can be no experience of faith divorced from an inter­pretation of it. Indeed, Christianity without theology could never really be ‘Christian’, for the term presupposes that one interprets the encounter with God in relation to the Judeo-Christian scriptures. According to this logic, theology, in its modern form, has been con­cerned with upholding and defending the notion of orthodoxy as that which articulates a correct understanding of God.