Theological Method: A Guide for the Perplexed PDF
Preview Theological Method: A Guide for the Perplexed
Theological Method ii a GuIDe FOR THe PeRPleXeD Theological Method Paul l. allen Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London New York SE1 7NX NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Paul L. Allen, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Paul L. Allen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: HB: 978-0-5670-1947-9 PB: 978-0-5671-1908-7 e-ISBN: 978-0-5672-5686-7 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India COnTenTs Acknowledgements vi Preface vii Introduction: Is there a theological epistemology? 1 1 Paul the theologian 23 2 The patristic era 49 3 Augustine and the method of Christian conversion 73 4 Medieval theology – Not just sacred doctrine 89 5 The meaning of sola scriptura 117 6 Early modern theology – The rise of explicit methodology 143 7 Modern theological methods – Correlation and anti-correlation 167 8 Contemporary theological method as wisdom 207 Notes 229 Bibliography 245 Index 257 aCknOwleDGemenTs First, I want to thank T&T Clark, especially Tom Kraft, whose patience and forbearance has been a source of great serenity and confidence. I want also to thank Kathryn Sawyer, who helped me at the beginning stages of research for the first part of the book. Her timely management of library resources and her deft touch with respect to annotations on certain material were crucial in the early stages. I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to the friars and staff of Blackfriars Hall, especially Regent Fr. Richard Finn, O.P. and Vice Regent Fr. Richard Conrad, O.P., each of whose gift of hospitality was a treat. Thanks to various other members of the Dominican Priory of the Holy Ghost in Oxford, for their beautiful liturgies and the friendships that we sustained over a few months while my family and I were in Oxford and while I ensconced myself in the library. Thanks, too, must go to the staff at the Faculty of Theology Library and the Bodleian Library. Heartfelt thanks are also due to David Graham, Provost of Concordia University, who approved the six- month sabbatical during which much of the research and writing of this book took place. I remain very grateful for the support made available during the time spent in Oxford. I want to thank very much the following persons whose various comments aided the book’s emergence in vital ways: Daniel J. R. Kirk, Mark Scott, Matthew Anderson and Jason Zuidema. Thanks are also due to members of the 2011 Method Seminar for their comments on a draft of Chapter Seven. Needless to say, any errors of thinking that are reflected in this text are mine alone. Most of all, I am grateful to my wife Monica and our two children, Jeremy and Sarah, whose patience, joy and sense of what is important are my guides. This book is dedicated to them. PReFaCe This book was generated by two causes, as Aristotle might say – a primary and a secondary. Directly, I chanced upon T&T Clark’s search for titles in their Guide for the Perplexed series while browsing Ben Myers’s indispensable and winsome ‘Faith & Theology’ blog in 2008. This coincided with some substantial misgivings I had been having at that time over how to structure the graduate course in theological method that I taught every other year through my department. It struck me then that students studying theological method are in need of material that brings together three things. First, a reflection on the important methodical developments in the history of theology is required. Second, a substantial yet not overwhelming presentation of philosophical topoi relevant to the study of theology is needed, a kind of reading and discussion of theological prolegomena. And, third, students of theological method need to read a great book, or at least part thereof, dealing with theological method which can transform their own thinking onto a radically new horizon of understanding. My problem at that time was that the students were getting the third element by reading Lonergan’s Method in Theology but not the first two elements. Many students have been riveted by a reading of Lonergan’s Method in Theology, which held out the promise of an explanatory scheme to account for an incredible range of theological material, but some students were not persuaded by what appeared to be an overly abstract presentation of a system that seemed almost too neat to be true. But even for the majority of students who were impressed by the scale of Lonergan’s accomplishment, it was still apparent to me that without some greater sense of the historical parameters around which theological method is circumscribed, a familiarity with some, or even all, of Lonergan’s great book could not serve as a satisfactory substitute. What was needed somehow viii PReFaCe was a more rounded appreciation of just what reflection on practising theology means. Hence, I speculated about whether it would be possible to describe, in a relatively brief format, just those very parameters of theological method in a way that might lead – perhaps not inexorably but at least smoothly – into the kinds of questions and solutions that Lonergan offers like no one else. Thus, in this book, the main objective is to survey and analyse the history of Christian reflection regarding how we speak of God and the life of the world in relation to God. By no means can a single volume cover even the most important figures, church traditions or theological movements in this respect. But it is my hope that this book might serve as a bridge to the more extensive engagements with theological method that might be undertaken subsequent to a reading of this expository account. Since this book deals with the first element of describing the ways that theologians have ordered theology, I do not deal with the more formidable introduction to philosophy that is no doubt a necessary aid in understanding theological method. Nor do I engage in extensive discussion of Lonergan’s own positions on theological method, as appealing as that was to attempt. Nevertheless, there is some analysis of figures and texts employed with the help of Lonergan’s insights, which are kept at some distance from the immediate task at hand. Particularly when it is apparent to me that theological method has run into some dead ends or limitations of some kind, I tend to mention an aspect of Lonergan’s work that is germane to a diagnosis of that limitation. But, given the relative brevity of this book and its veritable fountain of possibilities lurking at every turn, I severely limit the ways I introduce Lonergan in order to do justice to both the material at hand and thereby retain the fast clip in which material is introduced. In addition to which, I might add, there is a considerable secondary literature available on Lonergan’s theological method. I have no wish to duplicate that material here. Nevertheless, I am convinced that some of the secondary material in Lonergan studies is in need of complementary insights and judgements from a deeper engagement with the Christian tradition as such, but this work can only begin to indicate ways forwards in that vast and comprehensive task. This book does not substitute for a presentation of the relationships between philosophy and theology – Diogenes Allen’s Philosophy PReFaCe ix for Understanding Theology, 2nd edition (Nashville, Tenn.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), is an ideal text that meets that particular objective. What this book does do is provide a wide- angle lens on the horizon of Christian theology, with the peaks and valleys of theological method revealed in cursory snapshots over the bulk of its 2000-year history.
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