I once tried to get out of an introduction to theology class at Duke. I had been a religion major in undergrad and read a decent amount of theology books, blogs, and so on, and I therefore decided that this class would be too easy for me. When I went to talk to Paul Griffiths, the chair of the theology dept that year, he gave me a kind of verbal quiz instead of asking for the usual previously written papers or syllabi from previous courses. It wasn't really meant as a test to let me into the class or not, but rather to make me ask questions to myself about how advanced in theological studies I really was. He asked me "how does the two-natures doctrine of Jesus as divine and human relate to soteriology?" I fired back, "that which is not assumed is not healed," a commonplace from Gregory of Nazianzus."Well, what does that mean? Describe how that works exactly." Paul Griffiths asked me. I couldn't answer.
I realized later looking back on this and other events that my theological education up to that point had largely been about learning phrases like this from theologians and treating them like scripture. I had the bad habit of prooftexting from the tradition with no regard to what the phrases really meant. I suppose there is a point when one is learning theology that this kind of pedagogy is necessary, but at the same time Paul Griffiths was suggesting to me that to learn theology, you have to move beyond the citation of authority and to start learning the internal grammar of the subject matter. (I ended up taking intro to theology, which was a great class).
The problem is that a lot of theology today seems to be stuck in the theologian-as-authority view. Theologians who gain a certain amount of popular esteem are used in arguments like scripture prooftexts. This involves philosophers too - I've seen John Webster complain about the way Ludwig Wittgenstein seems to be quoted in an "oracular" fashion by theologians in North America. We could perhaps also say the same for the current Christian interest in atheist philosophers like Slavoj Zizek.
What, pedagogically, would theology look like if we focused more on learning the practice of theology as in really getting to the ground of its subject matter? What if theology courses involved only asking questions like: how does your understanding of the second person of the Trinity affect everything else in theology? How are the Son and the Spirit "sent" to us when we worship God or participate in the liturgy? How can you begin to describe in words the wonder of God's salvation for us in Jesus Christ?
You just like picking on Zizek because you don't understand him. :) Otherwise, good post, and good story about Griffiths.
ReplyDeleteHa, you're right! I'm waiting for your book on theology and Zizek to explain all his stuff to me.
ReplyDeletei feel like silas just proved your point (in a toolish way)...zizek! i get it! and you dont! DONE! --brantley
ReplyDeleteI like your post (and this blog) a lot.
ReplyDeleteBut I've been experimenting with the thought that one part of learning the "internal grammar" of theology is doing theology devotionally. Not that you can "really" get into Nazianzen's head and life, but we are missing something in his writings if we miss the position from which he approached theology, as someone becoming a disciple and as a churchman.
There are plenty of texts very important to the life of the church which are terrible if they are read as quickly as a graduate curriculum demands. It has to mean something for the church when we read and hate those texts anyway. It has to mean something for the church when its theologians are asked to master the facts and theories of the tradition instead of marinating in the tradition and being flavored by it.
As for Griffiths' question, I learned (a good part of)the answer in a hospital room, not by reading more Nazianzen. It's striking to me that Griffiths' questions were not from a place of hitting you over the head with his expertise, his degrees, his publications, but from his wisdom.