Here's John Webster's take on the task of Systematic Theology and its importance--it is an effort at theological prolegomena. Great stuff.
Let me note three things in particular:
1) Theology should be conceived of in terms of contemplative intelligence rather than apologetics.
2) "A definition of theology and its various tasks thus rests upon teaching about God and the human good; and the deepest disagreements about the nature of theology comonly arise, not simply from divergent conceptions of scientia, but from differing understandings of God and the creatures of God."
3) "The Holy Trinity is the ontological principle (pricipium essendi) of Christian theology; its external or objective cognitive principle (principium cognoscendi externum) is the Word of God presented through the embassy of the prophets and apostles; its internal or subjective cognitive principle (principium cognoscendi internum is the redeemed intelligence of the saints."
Therefore, along with teaching the ontological principle (the Trinity) on the basis of the objective cognitive principle (Word of God) we need to ask how to help our students develop a redeemed intelligence (the subjective cognitive principle) in order to develop theological wisdom.
My reflections on Webster’s constant reference to “mind” and “reason” (which might sound overly ‘intellectual’ or ‘irrelevant’? Or maybe not):
ReplyDeleteOn something like a Thomistic/Aristotelian conception of the person (which is, more or less, what we teach in Spifo), the way in which the human person engages desire and truth is this: In a human, desire and passion follow what the person takes to be their end, or their good. The will is the part of us that is attracted to what the mind presents to the will as its good or its end. (It would be a useful exercise to reflect carefully on a culture that takes the end or goal as the maximization of desire and attraction as ends in themselves). This is saying something fairly basic, I think. We humans are the sorts of creatures who do things to achieve purposes that we can articulate, and the ‘engine’ that gets us off of our duff to pursue those ends is the attraction to the those ends, which is the will.
Now, if this is true, then our students must have rightly ordered passions, that is passions and desires that have as their objective the right ends. But this means, then, that our students must learn to articulate carefully and reflectively what the right ends are. Of course, we say that the end is knowing and loving God, and so the proper object of study in order to be able to think theologically is God himself, and everything else as it relates to God. However, God transcends our ability to comprehend him (though we know him), and so articulating the right ends requires the whole spectrum of intellectual virtues: intellectual humility, patience, care, practical wisdom, contemplation etc. I think this is our contribution as an academic department to the formation of our students, namely, teaching them to think well about God and everything as it relates to God. We help them practice engaging scripture, historical theology, and contemporary theology by way of the intellectual virtues. “The life of the mind” (as though there is “real” life, and then there is what academics do in their offices) is an unfortunate phrase, for there simply is no Christian life at all without the mind insofar as what we act on what we take to be our end. To speak of embodied Christianity is to speak of a human life ordered rightly to its proper end, which requires both mind and body.