"Accidental Theology"

I'm reading Christian Wiman's My Bright Abyss now, so this comment from an interview stood out for me:

I read a lot of theology, even though I am almost always frustrated by it. Thomas Merton once said that trying "to solve the problem of God" is like trying to see your own eyes. No doubt that's part of it. There is something absurd about formulating faith, systematizing God. I am usually more moved—and more moved toward God—by what one might call accidental theology, the best of which is often art, sometimes even determinedly secular art. I am moved by works of art that don't so much strive to make meaning as allow meaning to stream through them.

I'm less frustrated with reading (and writing about) theology than he is, but I like what he calls the "accidental theology" of art, even secular art. I like running across these inadvertent presentations of truth, too.

 

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