Is systematic theology sinful? (Scholasticism part II)

Is it sinful to arrange theological truth in a systematic manner? Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, in Resident Aliens, critique Paul Tillich for writing a "Systematic Theology," which they claim puts philosophical and apologetic interests over faithfulness to the Gospel. They contrast Tillich with Karl Barth, noting that Church Dogmatics seems like a much more theologically meaningful title for a presentation of Christian doctrine.

I've often heard people refer to Barth as a more "ad hoc" rather than systematic thinker, but I think this is actually a result of misreading Barth's style - particularly his use of repetition. Barth is actually just as systematic and philosophically rigorous as Aquinas. In the first volume of the Church Dogmatics, Barth summarizes a short section on systematic presentations of doctrine with the words "fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet." Barth says, following a similar interest in Protestant Scholasticism, that Preachers need an organized, philosophically rigorous dogmatics in order to not contradict themselves. (Part of the way I'm reading Barth currently is to look at his reception of Protestant Scholasticism, an aspect of Barth's thought that John Webster points to.) This is different from saying that we need our dogmatics to answer every question posed by modern science or philosophy.

Yet at the same time you hear this language of "sin" or "unfaithfulness" sometimes used for systematic presentations of doctrine like in Paul Tillich or in "Neo-Scholastic" Catholic theology. You often hear that theologians writing systematic presentations of doctrine lose the mystery or impose alien categories on the Gospel.

Thinking through Christian teaching in a systematic way is good when it is used to excite the intellect towards the contemplation of God. Aquinas receives from Augustine and the Greek Fathers a strong notion of theology as a participation in God's own triune life through contemplation. Yet when one writes or teaches systematic theology not trying to seek to know God's will and to love God more deeply, but for the end of human intellectual satisfaction, then perhaps one has a problem. One of my professors at Duke, Willie Jennings, said that its important to always return to the fact that we are creatures when we are doing theology. He said that acknowledging that we are creatures frees our desire to know from the fear of not knowing or the obsession of knowing completely.

Why scholasticism is necessary for theology, part I

If you read theologians writing in the early 20th century, especially Catholic theologians associated with "Ressourcement" leading up to Vatican II, you often hear pretty strong words against "scholasticism." Protestant theologians like John Milbank tend to critique later Catholic scholasticism as well for corrupting the theology of Thomas Aquinas by downplaying the central Neoplatonic elements in his thought (which did happen).

Scholasticism can be defined historically as a web of theological works that began to be written in the Middle Ages that sought to give systematic expositions of Christian doctrine. Peter Lombard, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas are all examples of "scholastic" authors in this vein. Recent scholarship tends to emphasize that scholastic works often had a lot to do with education. We can see an example of this in Aquinas. In the prologue to Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, Aquinas says that he wrote the work for students to help counter "the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments" in theological education in his day. Scholars these days often focus on the implied readers of scholastic texts and the history of their reception just as much as the philosophical ideas they express.

Scholasticism is marked not only by system and organization, but also usually by a precise terminology that allows the authors to write and explain things quickly. This terminology, or "apparatus," is usually derived partly from Aristotle, and is often difficult for beginners.

"Scholasticism" in this way has been a historical force in theology for centuries. After the Reformation, Protestants developed their own form of scholasticism that drew, surprisingly enough, on Thomas Aquinas as a guide. Eastern Orthodoxy also had their own scholasticism, which also benefitted from dialogue with Aquinas (Gregory Palamas read Aquinas).

Yet theologians from all three areas, Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox, all had some kind of reaction against scholasticism some time in the 19th and 20th centuries. But there were some voices, like Karl Barth on the Protestant side, who thought that scholasticism as a historical form of discourse gave theology something essential. I'll explore some pro/con arguments for scholasticism from a theological perspective in a later post.

Should we use denominational labels?

A new question I've been wondering about has to do with denominational labels. How much emphasis should we place on using them? This blog has a big one - I identify myself as an "ecumenical Baptist" - but what if this very definition is problematic? In my regular bible reading I've recently come across 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul chastises the Corinthians for divisions, with Corinthian Christians claiming "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas" (1:12-13). Paul says later in 1 Cor. 2 that "we have the mind of Christ." Is our strong emphasis on denominational labels and identities - Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, and so on - holding us back from a more profound identity to which we are called? Would Paul accuse us of saying "I belong to the Baptist identity" or "I belong to the Methodists" instead of saying "I belong to Christ"? Is there something at stake in our language as Christians when we identify ourselves by denominations, rather than as Christians? (A profound gift of recent theology being the discovery that language is so important to who we are as Christians.)

One of the first things I learned in religious studies is where all the denominations came from and what they represent. This is something I loved learning, as I was puzzled as a kid what all the different labels, labels like "Methodist" or "Presbyterian," meant and why some of my friends went to different churches than me. For a long time I tended to give a slight sneer to people who said "I'm just Christian" when I asked for their denominational background. I thought that by calling themselves "just Christian" they were passing over a wealth of theological history and distinctiveness, but perhaps they read 1 Cor. 2 more than I did, and were expressing a more profound theological point than I was realizing.

In my mind, the best Protestant theologians are those who write as if their theology was "for Christians," rather than a particular expression of a historical group. Karl Barth's theology was entitled Church Dogmatics. He wrote assuming that his theological work expressed the way God relates to Christians, and assumed, whether we agree with him or not, that the historical form of Protestantism is the way God intended the Church to exist in the world. Robert Jenson's Systematic theology is a recent example: he says his theology assumes that the Body of Christ is one body, although he laments ecclesial divisions at the beginning of the work. I wonder if theologies that emphasize ecclesial location, like "Baptist theology," "Radical Reformation theology," or "Anglican theology" demonstrate not humility or attention to detail, but a lack of theological verve in the face of our call to have "the mind of Christ" that Paul talks about.

Theology as Spiritual Exercise?

I'd like to explore in the next few posts through examining the idea that theology should be seen primarily as a spiritual exercise, in contrast to other models. Such a view has implications for the connection between theology, especially academic theology, and the local church, and for how theology and doctrine divide people in ecumenical discussion.

When I was in undergrad and graduate school I was largely taught that theology should play a regulating role, ensuring that people's speech about God not overstep certain boundaries. A lot of theologians that influenced me early on, like James McClendon, pointed in this direction (McClendon says this especially regarding the Trinity). Many thinkers working from supposedly "post-metaphysical" perspectives, or those who like McClendon are heavily influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, take this view.

Since being at a Catholic University I've heard from many folks here that theology should function as a kind of academic apology for the Gospel. One of my teachers at Dayton works hard to expose students to theologians like David Tracy, who I might summarize as a kind of "apologetic" theology, trying to make the Gospel accountable to the different publics of the society, the academy, and the Church itself. "Apologetics" is probably too loaded a word here, but it's hard for me to think of another: theology in this view isn't trying to "prove" itself as much as locate itself in academic and larger social discussions about life, ethics, and meaning.

Should theology be a spiritual exercise? As far back as Peter Lombard, scholastic theologians have been saying that one of the reasons for theology is for the "consolation and delight" of the faithful. Medieval scholastic theologians like Aquinas were fond of quoting 1 Peter 3:15 as a rationale for their writing - "always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you." Should we do theology as meditation on the Trinity, as a kind of spiritual exercise or contemplation? This view seems to make theology more "for everyone" than the first two options, which are in different ways more prevalent in contemporary theology. Seeing theology as a spiritual exercise means we can say theology is a way to love God with our minds.

Hanging out with other ecumenical Baptists

When one friend of mine saw the title of my blog, he asked if it was a contradiction in terms. However, I'm glad to say that I'm a little late posting this week because I've spent this weekend talking with other "ecumenical Baptists" at the annual meeting of CTS/NABPR in Portland, Oregon. This meeting is special to me for several reasons. The CTS, the “College Theology Society,” is a group of Catholic theologians and scholars with an interesting history documented by one of my professors at Dayton, Sandra Yocum. NABPR is the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion, but the group of Baptists that meets jointly with CTS is actually a special “region-at-large” that meets especially for the purpose of discussion with Catholic theologians. This is my third year at the conference, with the conference the previous year being held at Notre Dame, and the year before that in Rhode Island.

The group of Baptist theologians who attend CTS/NABPR consists of several professors who influenced me early on, along with lots of folks from Dayton, Duke, Baylor, and Campbell, and I've even got a family member in the group. This meeting has become something of a hub for theologians interested in thinking through what Steve Harmon calls “Baptist Catholicity.”

The CTS/NABPR partnership was actually started by an important Baptist theologian, James McClendon, who worked with Terence Tilley to set up the joint meeting. The partnership has been going for 13 years now, and the group of Baptists interested in the meeting has been steadily increasing. I enjoy going to these meetings to compare academic notes with other Baptists who are interested in thinking about ecumenical topics, topics like whether or not we could describe a “canon” of the Church Fathers and Mothers, or the contribution of Black Baptist groups to the largely Catholic theological question of “nature and grace” (these latter referring to two great papers by Scott Rushing at Baylor and Derek Hatch from Dayton, respectively). I enjoy listening to the papers, but the best part is catching up with friends and professors from around the country and being extreme theology nerds for a few days.

Does pen and paper matter for theology?

I've always been drawn to folks who write theology about theology. Reinhard Huetter, one of my professors at Duke, is a good example of a "theologian's theologian," at least with his book Suffering Divine Things. As I'm reading Barth's Church Dogmatics I'm realizing that at least volume one is really something like "how theology should work," a methodological preface to dogmatics, rather than a dogmatic exposition itself (dogmatics itself being partly the task of the
Preacher in the local church).

Yet even Barth and Huetter don't seem concrete enough in terms of giving a "theological" reading of the material and social location of the theologian. How does theology's primary location at major universities like Duke or Chicago affect the discipline? A professor of mine here at Dayton, Vincent Miller, says that theology isn't doing its job if it ignores how even little things like garage door openers change our lives and set out our context.

We can think in an even more basic, material way. What is proper for a theologian to write on? Pen and paper? A computer? Do these things make a difference? Shelby Foote wrote only with a Dip pen, rather than with a typewriter or with regular pens, because he wanted to craft his sentences slowly and have them fully formed in his head before he wrote them on the page. Should theologians, as stewards of the Word of God and as those filled with the Holy Spirit, write with similar concrete means of care?

I think a lot of "ressourcement" theology in the 20th century really came about to address material and methodological questions in theology like these. This includes both the Catholic ressourcement movement of theologians like Henri de Lubac and attempts by Protestants like Karl Barth to bring about a "ressourcement" of the Reformers and the Protestant scholastics in the face of liberal protestantism. Yet even here I'd be interested in going beyond these theological retrievals to look at the "material" aspects of some of sources of the Christian tradition, beyond just mining ancient and medieval Christianity for "ideas." (Re: the first question in my post on an early church course, I actually tend towards the historical option). This blog seems to have two emphases so far, both of which seem crucial and also neglected in ecumenism: one is looking for philosophical presuppositions in theology ("ecumenism and philosophy"), and the other is asking this material/concrete question. So far this has taken the form of looking at the history of genres and forms of theology.