What is Theology? Can it be Compared to a Science? (Machen)

Machen gives a very helpful definition of theology and an explanation of why it is comparable to science:

“Theology, we hold, is not an attempt to express in merely symbolic terms an inner experience which must be expressed in different terms in subsequent generations; but is a setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based. It is not indeed a complete setting forth of those facts, and therefore progress in thelogy becomes possible; but it may be true so far as it goes; and only because there is that possibility of attaining truth and of setting it forth ever more completely can there be progress. Theology, in other words, is just as much a science as is chemistry; and like the science of chemistry it is capable of advance. The two sciences, it is true, differ widely in their subject matter; they differ widely in the character of the evidence upon which their conclusions are based; in particular they differ widely in the qualificiations required of the investigator: but they are both sciences, becaue they are both concerned with the acquisition and orderly arrangement of a body of truth.”

From “What is Faith” p32-33