The Craft of Theology E-Book

Avery Dulles

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 469

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 1995

Beschreibung

Avery Dulles's theological career has spanned one of the most creative and confusing periods in the history of the church. With the goal of integrating new information from philosophy and the sciences into a deeper understanding of the world and society, the many theological schools pursued independent agendas, with the net effect of a loss of coherence. It is Fr. Dulles's contention that theological schools have drifted so far apart that what seems false and dangerous to one school seems almost self-evident to another. Theologians lack a common language, common goals, and common norms.
Exploring the possibilities for greater consensus, The Craft of Theology illustrates how a "post-critical" theology can draw on the riches of Scripture and tradition as it reflects on the faith of the church in new contexts. Fr. Dulles discusses the freedom of theology within the university and sets forth principles for a fresh dialogue with philosophy, the sciences, and other Christian churches.

Leseprobe

The Crossroad Publishing Company

370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Copyright © 1992 by Avery Dulles, S.J.

Chapters 13 and 14 copyright © 1995 by Avery Dulles, S.J.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dulles, Avery Robert, 1918—

The craft of theology : from symbol to system / Avery Dulles.—New expanded ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8245-1456-4

1. Theology. 2. Catholic Church—Doctrines. I. Title.

BR118.D85 1995

230’.2’01—dc20

94-39432 CIP    

Nihil Obstat: Francis J. McAree, S.T.D., Censor Librorum

Imprimatur: + Patrick Sheridan, D.D., Vicar General, Archdiocese of New York

Date: February 11, 1992; July 26, 1994

Contents

Introduction to the Expanded Edition

Introduction

Abbreviations

1.Toward a Postcritical Theology

2.Theology and Symbolic Communication

3.The Problem of Method: From Scholasticism to Models

4.Fundamental Theology and the Dynamics of Conversion

5.The Uses of Scripture in Theology

6.Tradition as a Theological Source

7.The Magisterium and Theological Dissent

8.Theology and Philosophy

9.Theology and the Physical Sciences

10.University Theology in Service to the Church

11.The Teaching Mission of the Church and Academic Freedom

12.Method in Ecumenical Theology

13.Theology and Worship

14.Historical Method and the Reality of Christ

Notes

Sources

Introduction to the Expanded Edition

More than two years after its original appearance, this book is being reissued in paperback. I have taken the occasion to add two new chapters, which I believe will fill in some gaps in the earlier edition. These chapters, composed as articles in 1992, were not published until after the original manuscript had gone to press, but now they can be reprinted as chapters 13 and 14.

Chapter 13, dealing with liturgy and the “rule of prayer” as a theological source, takes up a theme broached in the first chapter, but insufficiently developed there. Chapter 14, devoted to the quest of the historical Jesus, expands upon some material treated rather briefly in chapter 5. Each of these new chapters, in my opinion, deals with crucially important questions of method, sharply controverted in our day.

I have felt a certain temptation to add further chapters discussing subjects such as symbol and dogma, magisterium and reception, religious experience and praxis. It is difficult to set limits to a book on theological method, because that method is not a self-contained discipline. If the method is truly theological and ecclesial, as I have argued that it must be, it cannot be studied apart from disciplines dealing with revelation, faith, and the Church. My ideas of these last themes are expounded to some extent in other books, to which I refer in my text or in footnotes. I may add now my recent book, The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith (1994), which, like my works on revelation and ecclesiology, provides background for my reflections on method.

While recognizing the inevitable incompleteness of a book on method such as this, I hope that it can, in combination with these other works, supply the fundamental tools for the study of theology. As any theologian knows, questions of method are never settled once for all. The method is subject to continual modification as theology grapples with new questions.

In this edition I have left chapters 1 through 12 unaltered. Even the pagination remains the same.

Michaelmas, 1994

Avery Dulles, S.J.

Introduction

During the 1940s, when I was a student of philosophy, one of my professors advised me against becoming a theologian on the ground that theology gave no scope for original thought. Many Catholics, I suspect, would have shared that assessment, but I found it rather puzzling even at the time. In any case I did go into theology, and I have found it an exciting and challenging career.

At Vatican II (1962–65) a certain number of theological opinions that had previously been suspect seemed to win official endorsement. This shift contributed to a new theological climate in which novelty was not only tolerated but glorified. Many took it for granted that the heterodoxy of today would become the orthodoxy of tomorrow. To be a leader, then, was to venture onto new and dangerous territory, and to say what no Catholic theologian had yet dared to say.

Abetted by journalists craving for headlines and publishers eager to market their latest wares, certain “progressive” theologians have been outdoing one another in originality. Practically every doctrine that had been constitutive of Catholic orthodoxy has been contested by some prominent author. Papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Assumption of Mary, the virginal conception of Jesus, his bodily resurrection, the divinity of Christ, and the Trinity itself were either denied or radically reinterpreted to mean what they had never before been thought to mean.

During the decade after Vatican II the Holy See and the bishops were almost powerless to prevent the dismemberment and reconstruction of Catholic theology by revisionist theologians. Any efforts by church authorities to set limits were denounced in certain quarters as repressive and inquisitorial. Under Pope John Paul II, since 1978, the papal and episcopal magisterium has in some measure reasserted itself, but its efforts are still met with great suspicion and, in some circles, bitterness. Liberal and radical theologians form coalitions, gather signatures, and issue manifestos deploring infringements of their autonomy. Meanwhile certain conservative factions, vainly striving for a restoration of the past, denounce the hierarchy for its alleged permissiveness.

It is quite possible, of course, for magisterial interventions to be inopportune, but in other cases they may be necessary to prevent the erosion of the faith. In any case, commands and prohibitions from the hierarchy cannot be a substitute for good theology. Theology should be able to discipline itself by consensus-forming procedures.

The present confusion is to some extent a reaction against the excessive uniformity that obtained in the decades before Vatican II. At that time a single theological school, neo-scholasticism, was dominant. Identifying their own theses too closely with Catholic faith, the neo-scholastic theologians resisted the emergence of other types of theology based more directly on Scripture, on the fathers, or on contemporary experience. They gave quasi-canonical status to concepts derived from Aristotelian philosophy.

Today, however, we are faced by the opposite problem. The different theological schools have drifted so far apart that what seems false and dangerous to one school seems almost self-evident to another. Theologians lack a common language, common goals, and common norms. Civil argument has ceased to function, and in its absence opposing parties seek to discredit one another by impugning the motives or competence of their adversaries.

In any field of learning such radical diversity would be debilitating. History would not be taken seriously if historians had no agreed method of resolving disputes about whether some past event had actually occurred. Medical experts are supposed to have commonly accepted norms about the signs of health and disease and about methods of curing diverse ailments. Even if the agreement is not universal, there is at least a prevalent and normative methodology. Members of the profession share a common vision of what they are about. The same can hardly be said of theology today, even within a single ecclesial body, such as the Catholic Church.

For the better health of theology I believe that its ecclesial character needs to be more clearly recognized. Theology must serve the Church and be accountable to it. While theology needs to have a measure of autonomy in order to perform its distinctive service, it loses its identity if it ceases to be a reflection on the faith of the Church. Needless to say, problems can arise about how to determine the faith of the Church, and these will be dealt with in the chapters that follow.

Within this ecclesial framework it is proper that there be a variety of theological schools. Different theologians can concentrate on different sets of problems, work with different presuppositions, consider different bodies of data, and address different publics. Many functional specializations can arise, but all must contribute to a common enterprise.

The twelve chapters of this book were originally composed for different occasions, as appears from the list of sources at the end. All twelve, however, have been reworked for inclusion in the present book, which is intended to have greater unity than a simple collection.

The first three chapters deal rather generally with contemporary problems of theological method. The first concentrates on the role of critical thinking, the second on symbolic communication, and the third on the use of models. All three chapters give reasons for holding that the neo-scholasticism of the recent past is no longer adequate for the present day. That system does not do justice to the personalist, symbolic, and mystical dimensions of faith. But theology cannot content itself with being merely descriptive or phenomenological. It must seriously grapple with questions of consistency and truth.

Chapter 4 deals with fundamental theology. It embodies a critique of certain types of apologetics that were until recently current in Catholic circles. At the same time it rules out an irrational leap of faith. It adverts to the illuminative and transformative power of the grace given through the gospel itself.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 deal with three normative sources that are recognized by Vatican II as inseparable from one another: Scripture, tradition, and the ecclesiastical magisterium. Under the heading of the magisterium I take up the delicate problem of theological dissent.

In chapters 8 and 9 I explore the relation of theology to two cognate disciplines—philosophy and physical science. In the first of these two chapters I point out the intimate connection between systematic theology and the type of metaphysical realism that was embodied in scholasticism, both medieval and modern. Without calling for a specifically Christian or Catholic philosophy, I raise questions about whether certain modern systems can adequately replace this realist tradition, which has been presupposed in a great deal of papal and conciliar teaching. In the next chapter I propose a dialogic relationship between theology and the physical sciences. The principles developed in these two chapters would be applicable, with certain adaptations, to the relationship between theology and other disciplines not treated in this book, such as history, psychology, and the social sciences.

In chapters 10 and 11 I turn to the theme of university theology, which seems to require treatment in view of the growing importance of universities as theological centers. I give special attention to the currently debated problem of academic freedom, scarcely touched on in the classical treatments of theological method.

Finally, in chapter 12 I discuss the problem of method in ecumenical theology. After dealing in the first section with interreligious dialogue, I go on in the remainder of the chapter to treat at greater length the theology of intra-Christian ecumenism. Ecumenism, I contend, is best understood not as a separate branch of theology but rather as a dimension of all good theology.

I am aware, of course, that many of my ideas are personal, and will not be universally acceptable, even in Catholic circles. I hope, however, that this book will help to reestablish a broader community of discourse so that theology, building on its own past, can achieve greater consensus and more effectively serve the entire People of God as it builds itself up in unity and love.

Different people have inspired and assisted me with different chapters. I cannot here acknowledge them all, but I would like to express special thanks to two colleagues from the Theology Department of Fordham University. The Reverend William V. Dych, S.J., read most of the chapters in their formative stages, and the Reverend Richard J. Viladesau perused the final text. Both have given me valuable suggestions from which I have sought to profit. Among the efficient and helpful members of the staff of the Crossroad Publishing Company, I am especially indebted to Frank Oveis, senior editor. And finally, I must mention my assistant, Dr. Anne-Marie Kirmse, O.P., who in typing and editing took infinite pains to assure correctness of style, consistency, and accuracy in many places where these qualities were originally absent.

Feast of the Epiphany, 1992

Avery Dulles, S.J.

Abbreviations

AAS

Acta Apostolicae Sedis

(Rome, 1909ff.).

ASS

Acta Sanctae Sedis

(Rome, 1865–1908).

DS

Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum

, ed. H. Denzinger, rev. A. Schönmetzer, 36th ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1976).

EB

Enchiridion Biblicum. Documenta Ecclesiastica Sacram Scripturam Spectantia

. 4th ed., rev. (Rome: Arnodo, 1961).

LTK

2

Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche,

ed. Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner.

PG

Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca,

ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1857ff.)

PL

Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina,

ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1844ff.)

1.

Toward a Postcritical Theology

Many recent books on theology contain proposals for a restructuring of theology on the basis of principles proper to our own age. Various attempts have been made to show that we live in a new era in which the prevalent methods of the “modern” period are outdated. Many such works contain in their titles the term “postmodern” or some near equivalent.1

Labels such as “postmodern,” “postliberal,” and “postcritical” are likely to be rather manipulative. They seem to put unfair demands on people to conform to what the speaker proclaims as the spirit of the age, with the implication that previous approaches are obsolete. But at the same time the prevalence of such terminology indicates a widespread perception that we are moving, or have already moved, into a period radically unlike the past few centuries, necessitating an abrupt shift of theological style comparable in magnitude to the shift that occurred with the dissemination of printed literature in the sixteenth century. Without wishing to exaggerate the discontinuity, I share this perception to some degree. The history of theology over the centuries, I submit, can be clarified by the successive attitudes toward criticism; for example, the precritical, the critical, and the postcritical.

From Precritical to Postcritical

Was there ever a precritical era in theology? In a sense, no. Theology is by its very nature a disciplined reflection on faith, one that attempts to distinguish methodically between truth and illusion and to ground its affirmations on principles rather than on blind impulses. In that sense it involves the use of criticism. In the patristic and medieval periods Greek philosophy, including Aristotelian logic, was used to refute heresy, reconcile the authorities, and establish particular doctrines as consonant with revelation. Everything was measured against divine revelation as enshrined in the canonical Scriptures and in the definitions of popes and councils. But criticism was not leveled at the canonical sources themselves. A privileged position was given to authoritative statements of the word of God. In this qualified sense the theology of the early centuries may be called precritical.

The critical era was ushered in when observation and mathematics were used to overthrow the authority of Aristotle in the realm of science. Francis Bacon and Galileo heralded the arrival of the new science. Shortly afterward philosophers, under the guidance of Descartes and Spinoza, attempted to erect comprehensive systems by adopting a quasi-mathematical method. Beginning with universal methodic doubt, they rejected whatever could not be verified by reduction to self-evident facts and principles. The critical program, after being launched in continental Europe, took an empiricist turn in England with Locke and Hume, both of whom applied their methodology to theological questions. Theologians, in their estimation, would be unwarranted in requiring the faithful to believe anything as true before it had been submitted to the acids of doubt and criticism. A few Protestant liberals and at least one Catholic theologian (Georg Hermes [1775–1831]) accepted the critical program, but the vast majority reacted defensively against it.

One reaction that became popular toward the end of the eighteenth century may be called the paracritical. Critical doubt and rational testing, it was held, were proper and necessary in the sphere of science and speculative knowledge. Faith and religion, however, were assigned to a separate sphere in which sentiment and volition were sovereign. Theology was seen as an attempt to describe and analyze the dictates of religious feeling. This dichotomy between scientific and religious discourse, having received its philosophical charter from Immanuel Kant, prevailed in Lutheran pietism, in nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism, and in Protestant and Catholic Modernism. Indeed, it still flourishes in certain circles influenced by neopositivism and linguistic analysis.

A second reaction to the critical movement was what may be called the countercritical. It strove to fight against criticism with its own weapons. Many theologians contended that the truth of Christianity could be vindicated by a rigorously critical approach to the sources and exact syllogistic logic. This approach, which insisted strongly on miracles as evidential signs, reached its culmination in early twentieth-century apologetics, both Protestant and Catholic. Hilarin Felder, O.M. Cap., in his two-volume work Christ and the Critics, which appeared in German in 1911, undertook to “summon the opponents of the Christian revelation before the bar of fair, unclouded history”2 and to prove by strict historical method that the Gospels are “in their full extent and in the strictest sense of the word, historical authorities and scientific evidence.”3 The neo-scholastic theology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while rigorously orthodox, was heavily infected by Cartesian rationalism and mathematicism.

The Critique of Criticism

In the second half of the twentieth century the approach that I call postcritical has been emerging not only among theologians but among philosophers of stature, such as Michael Polanyi, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur. Analogous themes may be found in the sociological writings of Peter Berger and Robert Bellah. Among theologians, authors such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and George Lindbeck are at least in some respects postcritical. Postcritical, indeed, may be used as an umbrella term to include a variety of positions, some more traditionalist and others more innovative. In the following presentation I shall give my own methodological proposals, without attempting to speak for any other theologian. Students of Michael Polanyi will find it easy to detect his influence upon this chapter.

Postcritical thinking does not reject criticism but carries it to new lengths, scrutinizing the presuppositions and methods of the critical program itself. It has drawn attention to the following five flaws.

First, the critical program was animated by a bias toward doubt, with the implied assumption that the royal road to truth consists in uprooting all voluntary commitments. In the estimation of critical thinkers, probity requires one to abandon any convictions that can be doubted rather than to maintain such convictions in the face of possible doubt. This bias was understandable enough in the time of the religious wars, when fanatical overcommitment was a major threat to civic peace, but is a distinct liability in a time when moral and religious convictions have been thoroughly eroded by skepticism. Our contemporaries, well aware that religious tenets are capable of being questioned, need to be shown how firm religious commitments may nevertheless be responsible.

In the second place, the critical program failed to recognize that doubt itself, and consequently criticism, rests on a fiduciary basis. If I doubt something I am implicitly affirming that it does not measure up to my standards of evidence. Such a doubt presupposes a network of beliefs concerning the possibilities of proof—beliefs that could in their turn be doubted. The postulates of Euclidean geometry and the testimony of the senses, taken as indubitable by some positivists, can be shown to be fiduciary in character.

Thirdly, it is impossible to apply the critical program consistently. We do not have stringent evidence for even the most obvious facts, such as the existence of the external world or the reliability of the physical and behavioral laws upon which all our ideas of worldly realities, past, present, and future, inevitably rest. Universal doubt is so repugnant to human nature that it is in fact unrealizable. If carried out, it would dissolve the very principles required for reconstructing the edifice of knowledge, as Descartes found when he tried to build a bridge between the mind and the external world.

Proponents of the critical program have rarely attempted to carry it through without restriction. Most have applied the program selectively with a view to destroying certain beliefs, such as those of revealed religion. In their hands the critical program has served to promote, in a covert way, liberal and naturalistic belief-systems such as positivism and scientific humanism.

In the fourth place, the critical program neglects the social dimension of knowledge. Implicitly it assumes that each individual is in a position to command all the evidence relevant for solving the question at hand. Although critical philosophers have in fact depended upon predecessors and colleagues, they tend to speak as though they were individually self-sufficient.

Fifthly and most fundamentally, the critical program overlooked the tacit dimension of knowledge. It gave no cognitive value to what Pascal meant by the “reasons of the heart” and what Newman meant by “presumptions,” “antecedent dispositions,” and the “instincts of an educated conscience.” Yet these precritical orientations are essential. Even on the most primitive level of visual perception I have to depend on clues that I cannot specify, still less defend, by formal argument. Uninterpreted visual signals, if they may be said to exist at all, are situated at a level below that of explicit awareness. Still more palpably, tacit presuppositions are operative in all human knowledge concerning the facts of history, the findings of science, and the data of religious faith.4

The critical program has been under attack for at least a generation, not only in theology but also in philosophy, science, history, and literary criticism. The collapse of that program carries with it certain dangers, especially for theology. The critical program undergirded the not inconsiderable theological achievements both of liberal Protestantism and of various reactions against liberal theology such as neo-scholasticism. The widespread rejection of both the critical and the countercritical alternatives in our own day produces a vacuum and casts doubt upon the viability of the theological enterprise itself. Anticritical and paracritical theories that depict faith as a matter of arbitrary prejudice or blind emotion deprive theology of its cognitive import. We are faced today by an urgent need to overcome the present sense of drift and confusion and to establish an intellectually respectable method. My intention in the present chapter is to take a step in this direction.

The Sources as Clues

Postcritical theology, as I use the term, begins with a presupposition or prejudice in favor of faith. Its fundamental attitude is a hermeneutics of trust, not of suspicion. Its purpose is constructive, not destructive. This is not to deny that people are entitled to doubt what they have reason to regard as false or unfounded. The doubter can be a serious thinker, candidly examining the claims made for religion. But theology, as commonly understood, is the kind of inquiry that takes place from within a religious commitment. Drawing on the convictions instilled by faith, the theologian uses them as resources for the proper task of theology, which is the understanding of faith.

For the postcritical theologian the affirmations of faith cannot be rightly probed except from within the horizon of faith. A computer may be able to derive conclusions from creedal statements or dogmas considered as bare propositions. To the believer, however, the formulations of faith are binding and meaningful insofar as they express aspects of a total vision or idea that can never be fully objectified. The contents of faith are known not by merely detached observation but by indwelling or participation, somewhat as we know our own body with its powers and weaknesses.

Theology is, moreover, an ecclesial discipline. It is done in the Church because the Church is the primary bearer of faith. Christ delivered his revelation to a community of disciples; the Holy Spirit descended upon a gathered community. Any individual can lose or betray the faith, but the Church as a whole has the promise of indefectibility because Christ has promised to be with it through his Spirit to the end of the age. A theologian who departs from the Church and seeks to work without the support of fellow believers has forfeited a necessary resource for the theological enterprise.

Theology, then, is a methodical effort to articulate the truth implied in Christian faith, the faith of the Church. The method cannot be pursued by the techniques of mathematics or syllogistic logic, but it depends on a kind of connoisseurship derived from personal appropriation of the living faith of the Church.5 The correct articulation of the meaning of the Christian symbols is not a science learned out of books alone but rather an art acquired through familiarity by being at home in the community in which the symbols function. To apprehend the meaning of the symbols, it is not enough to gaze at them in a detached manner as objects and dissect them under a logical microscope. The joint meaning of the symbols cannot be discerned unless one relies confidently on the symbols as clues, and attends to the realities to which they point. From within this stance of faith the theologian seeks to formulate in explicit terms what the Christian symbols have to say to the questions that call for solution.

Liturgy has regularly been recognized as a prime theological source and it is securely established in this role by postcritical theology. The rule of prayer, as the axiom has it, establishes the rule of belief. The Church was assured of the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit because, or at least partly because, divine functions were attributed to them in prayer and sacramental worship. The Church was able to define that Mary was Mother of God because it had long invoked her as theotokos. It was certain that Christ was truly present in the consecrated elements because it worshiped him there. It knew that even infants needed to be redeemed by Christ because it had from the beginning practiced infant baptism.

If theology is not to regress, it must retain its close bonds with prayer and worship. In contemporary speculations about God theologians will do well to take account not only of abstract philosophical reasoning but also of the requirements of worship. If God were not personal and distinct from the world, how would our life of prayer be affected? Would we still be able to adore God, to call him Father, to thank him for all the blessings of life? If God were not sovereign over history, could we still have the kind of theological trust and hope that have been characteristic of believers? Theology should not allow truth to be subordinated to practical concerns, but it should turn to the praxis of the Church as a locus for the discernment of theological truth.

Postcritical theology gives new vitality to classical theological loci such as the “sense of the faithful.” Johann Adam Möhler maintained that the Holy Spirit had imprinted on the Church “a peculiarly Christian tact, a deep sure-guiding feeling” that leads it into all truth.6 Newman, in his famous essay On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, described it as “a sort of instinct, or phronema, deep in the bosom of the mystical body of Christ,”7 enabling the faithful as a collectivity to distinguish between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The theologian, quite evidently, must possess this subjective sense of the faith. Through indwelling in the community of faith one acquires a kind of connaturality or connoisseurship that enables one to judge what is or is not consonant with revelation. In applying this sense of the faith one apprehends the clues in a subsidiary or tacit manner and concentrates on their joint meaning.

The liturgy and the sense of the faithful are particular forms of tradition, which is likewise reckoned among the sources of theology.8 As Maurice Blondel pointed out in his History and Dogma, tradition is not a mere surrogate for written records. It preserves the past not as a dead memory but as a living reality, and points toward the future, which it conquers and illumines. Tradition, says Blondel, “is the guardian of the initial gift insofar as it has not yet been formulated nor even expressly understood.”9 Consisting predominantly of tacit knowledge, tradition perpetuates itself not primarily by explicit statement but rather by gesture, deed, and example, including ritual actions. The theologian who wishes to draw on the full riches of tradition seeks to dwell within it so as to assimilate the unspecifiable lore that it transmits.

In addition to these nonwritten sources the theologian has the Holy Scriptures.10 In the words of Albert Outler, “the aim of postliberal hermeneutics is to reposition Holy Scripture as a unique linguistic medium of God’s self-communication to the human family” and “as the human medium of a divine revelation that has endured and will endure in and through the cultural metamorphoses that succeed each other as history unfolds.”11 The Bible for the theologian is not simply a mine of historical information or a collection of divine oracles, each having independent weight, regardless of literary genre and context. Postcritical theology treats the Bible in its totality as a set of clues that serve to focus the Christian vision of reality from manifold perspectives. Within the Bible the figure of Jesus Christ stands out as God’s supreme self-disclosure. Any viable theological proposal must be seen as consistent with the biblical clues and as carrying forward the intentions imbedded in them.

Theology, to be sure, does not discount propositional speech. The Bible contains many clear doctrinal statements; others are embodied in the creeds and dogmas of the Church and in the accepted doctrines of the theological schools. Recognizing these statements as trustworthy articulations of the Christian idea, the theologian may use them as axioms around which to build a system. Such axioms prove their value by facilitating coherent discourse about the contents of lived faith. The axioms, however, cannot be reliably interpreted except by believers who have acquired the necessary skills through their participation in the community of faith. Systematization in theology can never be complete, for the true object of theology is the unfathomable mystery of God, attained by tacit rather than explicit awareness. Every theological system is deficient, but some systems are superior to others, especially for making the faith intelligible to a given cultural group at a given period of history.

The Validation of Discoveries

The questions confronting the present-day theologian arise from apparent gaps or contradictions in the normative sources, or from the deficiencies perceived in past theological syntheses, or from objections arising out of contemporary experience or knowledge. Theology, then, can never be static. It must deal with new questions put to the Church by the course of events and by the circumstances of life in the world. Continual creativity is needed to implant the faith in new cultures and to keep the teaching of the Church abreast of the growth of secular knowledge. New questions demand new answers, but the answers of theology must always grow out of the Church’s heritage of faith.

Theology begins with wonder and with unanswered questions. These questions, arising in the minds of committed believers, stimulate a confident search for solutions that are foreseen to some extent by the shape of the problems themselves. On the trail of a solution the theologian combs the inventory of Scripture and tradition, including the statements of the magisterium and of previous theologians, hoping to find in these sources clues that can be integrated by a feat of imagination so as to provide an answer to the problem at hand. As one comes closer to a solution, one can experience the thrill of moving along what Polanyi calls “the gradient of deepening coherence” until one reaches the point at which one feels entitled to claim a discovery.12 The solution, when it arrives, is already accredited in part by the anticipations that preceded it. It gives rise to a sense of heuristic satisfaction that is the surest test of an authentic discovery. Every major achievement in theology has aesthetic qualities that, as Hans Urs von Balthasar has taught our generation, reflect the glory of God shining on the face of Jesus Christ.13

The “eureka syndrome,” as it may be called, makes a valid solution a happy dwelling place of the mind. By a kind of discernment of spirits the theologian becomes convinced that the proposed solution tallies with the tacit demands of faith. This single criterion, though it may serve to validate the discovery in the mind of the theologian, may require further validation, at least for the community of faith. Such confirmation may be provided by the cognitive fruitfulness of the theory and the approval of respected judges.

By the cognitive fruitfulness of the theory I mean its capacity not only to answer the precise question that was originally asked but also to illuminate problems not originally envisaged. By being applied to new questions the theory can, of course, be further enriched, even corrected, but if it does prove applicable, it is to that extent confirmed. In theology, as in the profane sciences, every genuine discovery opens up a path that leads to a host of further discoveries, each of which confirms, enriches, and in some measure corrects the initial discovery. Intimations of such cognitive fruitfulness are a powerful factor in winning acceptance for novel theories.

A further factor that can confirm or throw doubt upon a theological proposal is its acceptance by other believers, especially those whose openness and competence are recognized. Every new convert becomes a living witness to the value of the theory, and every prudent person who, after due deliberation, rejects the theory, becomes a source of doubt about the validity of the theory itself.

Among the “significant others” to whom theologians present their findings are pastoral leaders called to serve as judges of the faith.14 They are not necessarily competent to assess the theory from the standpoint of its technical correctness, but they are commissioned, and presumably qualified, to decide whether the theological proposal is helpful or injurious to the corporate faith and witness of the Church. As trusted bearers of the tradition of faith, bishops must have a profound sense of orthodoxy. They normally draw on their tacit sense of the faith, and on that of their faithful, to decide what should and should not be preached in the community. The ecclesiastical magisterium need not always give reasons for its judgments, and the reasons, when given, need not be probative. In this respect the pronouncements of the magisterium may be compared to the decisions of a civil judge, who is trusted to make the right decision even when his or her explicit argumentation may be faulty.

Besides the official or ecclesiastical magisterium there is in the Church what some have called a “second magisterium” of scholars. Their concern is with theological competence rather than directly with the impact of scholarship on the community of faith. The theological confraternity exercises a kind of peer control over its members in much the same way as scientists do in the scientific community. The scholarly magisterium is by no means democratic. Like the ecclesiastical magisterium it perpetuates itself by co-option. Acknowledged scholars hold key positions in theological schools. They control the admission of new candidates into their ranks by teaching them, by awarding degrees, by voting on academic appointments, promotions, and tenure. These same professors usually control membership and appointment to office in scholarly societies; they are referees for scholarly journals and reviewers of books.

No one scholar is an authority on the whole field of theology. Rather, the scholars apportion the territory among themselves, so that some of their number are competent in each specialization. Individuals work primarily in their own specialties, but they are somewhat able to judge the work done in immediately adjacent fields, so that among them scholars can exercise a kind of joint control. By their mutual trust they are normally able to arrive at a mediated consensus regarding the value of new theories.

The control exercised by the dual magisterium of bishops and scholars is on the whole beneficial to theology. Since the Christian faith is knowable only from within the tradition, those who transmit the tradition must not be allowed to dilute it by ideas and values that have not been refined, as it were, in the fire of discipleship. Like other cognitive minorities, Christians have to take strong measures to prevent their special witness from being corrupted. It is essential, therefore, that the destinies of the community be in the hands of persons thoroughly steeped in the authentic tradition and loyal to it. Democratization, in the sense of an equal distribution of authority among the totality of the members, would bring about a rapid assimilation of the Church to secular society, as a result of which the salt might lose its savor.

From Faith to Understanding

It is much debated whether the methods and findings of theology must be public in the sense of being accessible to persons outside the community of faith. In critical and countercritical theology reliance was placed on hard evidence that would appear cogent to everyone capable of reasoning correctly. Paracritical theology, on the other hand, was content to operate in an intellectual ghetto and to address only the private experience of believers. Postcritical theology, as I use the term, takes an intermediate position. Avoiding the objectivism of critical theology and the subjectivism of the paracritical, it intends to speak about reality as actually constituted and to make statements of universal validity. It points to the deficiencies of any system that purports to dispense with faith. Recognizing that every affirmation rests upon some kind of faith, postcritical theology frankly relies on convictions born of Christian faith. It does not pretend that its arguments can be conclusive to thinkers who do not have the same faith-commitment. It nevertheless invites the uncommitted reader to enter into the universe of faith and seeks to foster conversion.

Postcritical theology, aware of the tacit dimension, avoids the rationalism of critical and countercritical apologetics.15 It does not seek to argue people into faith by indisputable evidence. On the other hand, it avoids the fideism that substitutes emotion or blind choice for cognition in the sphere of religion. The postcritical theologian points to the necessity of conversion as a self-modifying act that enables one to look at the world with new eyes. To the extent that faith rests on a specific commitment, it is indemonstrable to outsiders. While the cognitive advantages of believing can be persuasively presented, the truth of the faith cannot be established from within the framework of the unconverted.

Not least among the merits of postcritical theology, in my view, is its ability to maintain a dynamic equilibrium between continuity and innovation. Looking on tradition primarily as the bearer of tacit knowledge, it recognizes that fidelity to the tradition may be consonant with certain innovations in the formulation of doctrine. While critical theology was unduly allergic to the authority of tradition, and while countercritical theology was unduly suspicious of originality, each is given its due in postcritical theology. Postcritical theology has its home within the Church as a community of faith, but it dares on occasion to break through the accepted frameworks in its passionate exploration of the mystery to which the Church bears witness.

Constructive innovations must be positively encouraged. The good health of the Church demands continual revitalization by new ideas. Nearly every creative theologian has at one time or another been suspected of corrupting the faith. When a new insight, apparently at odds with the tradition, is advanced by a theologian of stature, or by a group of such theologians, the magisterium and the theological community are put to the test. Mistakes are sometimes made, either in condemning theories that later prove to have been sound, or in failing to condemn theories that later prove detrimental to the faith.

Room must be made for responsible dissent in the Church, but dissent must not be glorified as though church authorities were generally ignorant, self-serving, and narrow-minded. Caricatures of this kind undermine the Church as a community of faith. Theology itself demands a basic confidence in the Church and its official leadership as the transmitters of the heritage of faith. In the last analysis the Church exists only to the extent that its members rely on its corporate decisions as predominantly correct.

Arising out of a passionate quest to articulate tacitly held truth that defies adequate formulation, postcritical theology is not a strictly deductive or empirical science. Yet it is deeply concerned with truth; it intends to put the mind in contact with a reality antecedent to itself. The great masters of theology, such as John and Paul, Origen and Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Barth, and Rahner, have brilliantly depicted how Christian faith can nourish the quest for understanding. Their output, comparable in some ways to masterpieces of music, painting, and literature, is a brilliant imaginative construction that exhibits the beauty and illuminative power of faith itself. Such theology continues to inspire multitudes of Christians who are influenced by it either directly or indirectly.

The critical program lost sight of the creative dimensions of theology, and the defensive theology of the countercritical movement shared the same blindness. Some romantic theology of the paracritical variety cultivated beauty and sentiment at the expense of truth. Postcritical theology seeks to reunite the creative with the cognitive, the beautiful with the true. In so doing it can greatly contribute to the vitality of the Church, which depends in no small measure on whether contemporary Christians can hold forth a vision of reality that is plausible, comprehensive, and appealing. Personally I am convinced that such a vision can be found in Christ and in full fidelity to the Christian sources.

2.

Theology and Symbolic Communication

Three Styles of Theology

In his intriguing book The Nature of Doctrine,1 George Lindbeck discusses three styles of theology: the propositionalist-cognitive, the experiential-expressive, and the cultural-linguistic. Each of these theological styles has its own view of the nature of doctrine. For the first, doctrines are informative propositions about objective realities; for the second, they are expressive symbols of the inner sentiments of the faithful; for the third, they are communally authoritative rules of speech and behavior.

In Roman Catholic theology all three of these types are easily verified. In scholasticism, including the neo-scholasticism of the recent past, the first approach is dominant. Revelation is understood as divine doctrine—that is to say, a body of truth that is intended to inform people about the nature of ultimate reality so that they may rightly direct their lives to their last end. The primary content of this body of doctrine is God himself, three persons in one nature. Secondarily, revelation gives information about created realities in relation to God, and especially about Christ. Within Christology the central theme is the ontological constitution of the God-man, which is the ground of his redemptive action. Theology in this model is a deductive science that uses the propositions of revelation as premises.

In the second type of theology, revelation is held to consist of privileged inner experiences. The historical and dogmatic contents of faith are of interest only to the extent that they serve to intensify or illuminate present encounters with the divine. Doctrine aims to express and communicate the experience of grace. In the words of Schleiermacher, “Christian doctrines are accounts of the Christian religious affections set forth in speech.”2 This type of theology flowered in Catholic Modernism. It also permeates much of the existential phenomenology and theological empiricism that became popular since Vatican II.

The most recent trend, and the most difficult to describe, is the third. It corresponds to what I have called in chapter 1 the postcritical turn. My own description of it will differ enough from Lindbeck’s to merit a different name. Instead of cultural-linguistic I shall call it ecclesial-transformative. Revelation, I would say, is regarded as a real and efficacious self-communication of God, the transcendent mystery, to the believing community. The deeper insights of revelatory knowledge are imparted, not in the first instance through propositional discourse, but through participation in the life and worship of the Church. To become religious, says Lindbeck, “is to interiorize a set of skills by practice and training. One learns how to feel, act, and think in conformity with a religious tradition that is, in its inner structure, far richer and more subtle than can be explicitly articulated.”3

The role of symbolic communication is differently conceived in each of the three approaches. In the first, symbol is subordinate to propositional speech; it is intended to illustrate for the senses and imagination what can be clearly understood only by discursive reason. The symbols of the Bible, like all other symbols, are obscure. In order to convey any definite truth or meaning, it is alleged, they must be fully translated into literal statements.

In the second approach doctrines are seen as “noninformative and nondiscursive symbols of inner feelings, attitudes, or existential orientations.”4 Symbols are products of the transformed consciousness, projections or constructions that express the immediate action of God on the human spirit. Besides manifesting religious experience, symbols serve to sensitize people to the presence of the divine in their own lives.

In the third approach symbols have greater cognitive importance. They are signs imbued with a plenitude or depth of meaning that surpasses the capacities of conceptual thinking and propositional speech. A symbol, in this perspective, is a perceptible sign that evokes a realization of that which surpasses ordinary objective cognition. Symbolic knowledge is self-involving, for the symbol “speaks to us only insofar as it lures us to situate ourselves mentally within the universe of meaning and value which it opens up to us.”5

In this third view, with which I associate myself, religions are predominantly characterized by their symbols. The Christian religion is a set of relationships with God mediated by the Christian symbols. These symbols are imbedded in the Bible and in the living tradition of the Christian community. The symbols do not operate in isolation; they mutually condition and illuminate one another. Christianity, therefore, cannot be reduced to a single symbol, even that of Jesus Christ. The Christ-symbol does not function except in the context of the Old Testament background and the response of the Christian community to Jesus, as known fundamentally from the New Testament. “The basic biblical descriptions of Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, Lord, etc., not to mention more obviously metaphorical descriptions such as Light of the World, Good Shepherd, True Vine, and the like, are achievements of the religious imagination relying on symbolic materials made available by the religious traditions of ancient Israel.”6

In the ecclesial-transformative approach, the primary subject matter of theology is taken to be the saving self-communication of God through the symbolic events and words of Scripture, especially in Jesus Christ as the “mediator and fullness of all revelation.”7 A privileged locus for the apprehension of this subject matter is the worship of the Church, in which the biblical and traditional symbols are proclaimed and “re-presented” in ways that call for active participation (at least in mind and heart) on the part of the congregation. The interplay of symbols in community worship arouses and directs the worshipers’ tacit powers of apprehension so as to instill a personal familiarity with the Christian mysteries. The symbolic language of primary religious discourse can never be left behind if the dogmas and theological formulations of Christian faith are to be rightly appreciated. As Geoffrey Wainwright has said,

This communion with God, symbolically focused in liturgy, is the primary locus of religious language for the Christian. Theological language belongs to the second order: it is the language of reflexion upon the primary experience. The language of worship mediates the substance on which theologians reflect; without that substance, theological talk would have no referent.8

This third approach leaves room for more than one concept of theology, more than one mode in which faith may be understood. Mystical writers such as Dionysius the Areopagite and John of the Cross have favored a “symbolic theology” in which the imagination is stimulated so as to evoke and invoke the presence of the spiritual world.9 The purification and transformation of the human spirit through submission to the power of the symbols is regarded as essential for the attainment of contemplation, the primary concern of such theology. Less contemplative, more academic types of theology are also compatible with the ecclesial-transformative approach. The “scientific” theology that has developed in universities and other institutions of higher learning since the twelfth century does not commonly engage in symbolic discourse; rather, it reflects rationally upon the faith of the Church, including the nature and meaning of the Christian symbols.

Ecclesial-transformative theology, in a form that I can personally accept, rests on a kind of symbolic realism in which reality is held to have a symbolic structure. Karl Rahner, among others, has set forth an impressive ontology of the symbol, which will be the basis for some of the reflections that follow. He maintains that “all beings are by their nature symbolic, because they necessarily ‘express’ themselves in order to attain their own nature.”10 By a “symbol” or “symbolic reality” he means “the self-realization of a being in the other, which is constitutive of its essence.”11

This ontology of symbol may be illustrated by reference to theological anthropology. The human person, it is held, consists of a spirit that realizes itself in the body to which it is dialectically united. The body is, so to speak, the self as other. It is not a mere appendage of a spirit that has its own existence, but is the self-expression of the spirit in a form other than its own. The two-in-oneness of body and spirit characterizes the whole of human life. The human spirit achieves selfhood and maturity not by withdrawal from the body but by developing its thoughts, attitudes, and commitments through the body.

To be human is to be socially and historically constituted. As social beings, human persons realize themselves through bodily communication, which is symbolic insofar as the bodily gestures and actions manifest the ideas and ideals of individuals in community. As historical beings, men and women achieve the benefits of culture by appropriating the insights of their forebears, as these insights are transmitted in the cultural heritage. The assimilation of social and historical symbols requires readiness to open oneself to the ideas and values that these symbols embody. The same principles apply to religion, which is an instance of social and historical existence. Christian symbols call for openness; they both demand and make possible a radical change in the hearers’ attitudes and behavior. Thus revelation and redemption are two aspects of the same coin. Faith is not just an act of the intellect but a transformation of the whole person in response to God’s initiatives, conveyed through the religious community and its tradition.

Theology and Communication

These preliminary remarks about symbol in relation to revelation and doctrine have considerable importance for one’s understanding of the relationship between communications and theology, the topic of the present chapter. In the past the formal object, or subject matter, of theology has usually been identified in terms of what God is, or has done, but not in terms of communication, considered as a sharing of conscious life. To Karl Rahner, more than others, belongs the credit for having redefined the formal object of theology in a way that brings out the communications dimension.12 Classical Thomism, he points out, held that the formal object of theology is “God in his godhead” (Deus sub ratione deitatis), but this definition was not very helpful in delineating the vital, mysterious, and salvific character of revelation. The classical view, according to Rahner, is acceptable if God is here understood not as a self-enclosed Necessary Being—the static object of some kind of natural theology—but precisely in his self-communication. The central concern of theology is with three great mysteries, all of which involve the divine self-communication. The first of these, the Trinity, is the inner self-communication of divine life within the godhead. The second, the Incarnation, refers to the self-communication of the divine Word to a particular human nature. The third great mystery is that of the divinization of human persons, either in this life through grace or in the life to come through what is called the light of glory. This divinization involves the self-communication of the Holy Spirit.

It may be objected, of course, that Rahner’s redefinition of the formal object of theology is not particularly helpful for overcoming the gap between theology and communications, since he is evidently referring to the immediate self-bestowal of the divine, not to the external means whereby human beings communicate with one another. But when Rahner’s concept of self-communication is linked up with his anthropology and his doctrine of symbol, as previously set forth, the implications for our subject become evident. God’s revelation, if it is to come home to human beings as embodied spirits, must come to expression through tangible, social, and historically transmitted symbols. The divine self-communication, therefore, has a social and symbolic dimension.

It is not my intent in this chapter to deal with the complex question of the propagation of the faith in the modern world, or with the effects of the new media of social communication upon the prospects for Christianity.13 In keeping with the plan of the present volume, I shall concentrate on the communications dimension inherent in theology as a methodical reflection on Christian faith. My contention will be that theology is at every point concerned with the realities of communication, and especially with what I have called symbolic communication.

Fundamental Theology

In certain theological disciplines, such as fundamental theology, the communications dimension has long been recognized. In classical scholasticism, revelation, the primary theme of this discipline, was understood as a type of communication from God to his intelligent creatures. This communication has been seen as mediated through words and confirmed by significant actions. Contemporary theologians of the ecclesial-transformative school would generally reaffirm this traditional view but, as I have already indicated, they would add that any event of revelation must have a symbolic character. Whether in their original bestowal or in their transmission by the faith-community, the revelatory signs must evoke what lies beyond the range of explicit statement; otherwise they could not be capable of radically reshaping the minds and lives of the recipients. As bearers of God’s self-communication, these signs both call for, and have the power to effect, conversion. Revelation is salvific because it introduces one to a world of meaning and value that unaided human effort could neither disclose nor attain.14

Any revelatory sign or symbol may be called, in a generic sense, the word of God. As word it has three dimensions, corresponding to the three “persons” recognized in grammar.15 In its first-person dimension the word is an expressive symbol, manifesting the previously hidden thoughts and attitudes of the speaker. In its second-person dimension the word is address: it summons others to hear and be attentive. In its third-person dimension the word has a content: something is communicated from the speaker or writer to the hearers or readers. Without all these three dimensions a theology of revelation would be incomplete. God by his symbolic action manifests himself as revealer; he summons human beings to be attentive and responsive; and he gives them ideas and insights that they would otherwise lack.

Fundamental theology has traditionally dealt with Scripture and tradition as sources, or preferably channels, of revelation. Holy Scripture, as the abiding symbolic self-expression of the People of God in the formative phase of its history, remains an essential resource for the Church in maintaining continuity with its divinely given origins.16