Torrance: knowing God according to his nature
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This series explores T.F. Torrance in Plain English in which author Stephen D. Morrison unpacks nine key ideas in Thomas F. (T. F.) Torrance's Christ-centered, Trinitarian theology. For other posts in this series, click a number: 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . Last time we looked at T.F.'s theological method, which yields what he calls a scientific theology . This post looks at a fundamental precept of that method: We know God truly only when we know him in accordance with his nature (thus scientifically). For T. F., knowledge in any field of inquiry (be it a natural science or Christian theology) is true only to the extent that it accords with the actual nature of the reality it seeks to describe. Borrowing a phrase from Greek, T. F. calls such knowledge kata physin (κατα φυσιν) --- knowledge that is according to nature. As Morrison notes, "Behind kata physin is the notion that every reality has its own intrinsic rationality to know it by" (p.