A free theologian, free according to our definition, will be found ready, willing, and able always to begin his thinking at the beginning. This means his recognition of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the directive for his reasoning. In his reflections and statements he will always first proceed from God’s relationship to man and only then continue with man’s relationship to God. There is an abundance of serious, pious, learned, and ingenious theological undertaking. But lacking the sky-light and hence serenity, the theologian remains a gloomy visitor upon this earth of darkness, an unpleasant instructor of his brethren, whose teaching, at best, compares with the somber music of Beethoven and Brahms! The thoughtful theologian who refuses to begin with God is bound to begin with misery, individual and corporate, with the chaos which threatens him and the world around him, with anxieties and problems. He will turn around in circles and end up precisely where he started. Cut off from the fresh air, he considers it to be his bounden duty not to let others breathe fresh air either. Only the radical turnabout we have been advocating here could rescue him. Nobody has accomplished this turnabout once and forever. Man has been set free for this very event, this act of obedience which calls for repetition every day, every hour, whenever a new theological task presents itself. There is no reason for complaint about the impossibility of such a turnabout. True, this turnabout is not a dialectical right to be learned and then used merrily again and again. Without the invocation “Our Father, who art in heaven!” this turnabout cannot take place. This is why it is imperative to recognize the essence of theology as lying in the liturgical action of adoration, thanksgiving, and petition. The old saying Lex orandi lex credendi, far from being a pious statement, is one of the most profound descriptions of the theological method. We cannot do without this turnabout. The free and true theologian lives from it. In the invocation, in he giving of thanks, in the petition, this turnabout is realized and the theologian is allowed to live out the freedom of thought which he enjoys as a child of God.

~The Humanity of God, 89-90.