Theology as First Order, Supra-Theoretical

"According to Dooyeweerd, we must not confuse theology as a second-order discipline of theoretical reflection with the biblical ground-motive or religious commitment, which is pre-theoretical (or supra-theoretical). Insofar as theology is understood as the special science of the pistic aspect, RO's project of positioning all other sciences in relation to theology would, in fact, amount to absolutizing one of the aspects of creation over the others - resulting in making theology (and/or the pistic aspect) an idol. The result would be a kind of theological reductionism akin to a naturalistic reductionism that reduces all the other aspects to the biotic."

James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, p. 173