Lecture 1: a) Introductions: b)The Sources of Theology

1.1 Introductions

This module will survey some main themes and issues in Theology in order to give you a theological foundation to draw on in the other modules of the MA. For some of you who have already theological qualifications, this may be largely a refresher, for others of you there will be some new and unfamiliar ideas. Whatever, I hope we can co-operate together to become more able at applying theology to issues of mission and within the theology of mission specifically to justice and peace.

Today is concerned with introductions: Introductions to each other, introductions to the idea of theology and the sources of theology, introduction to the structure of this module and introduction to materials we shall use in this module and a brief discussion of the styles and audiences of theology. We’ll do some introductory exercise, I’ll then shape out some of the dynamics and tensions of this thing called theology today. Then, we’ll have a break for a cup of coffee and then we’ll come back and I’ll talk through some practicalities of this module, give you some reading lists and talk about seminars, essays and so forth. That will probably fill all our allotted time, but if we rattle through things quickly and have time in hand, I’ve got some more material up my sleeve to make sure you get your money’s worth.

First off. Introductions. Let’s just go round one by one and briefly introduce ourselves. Who we are, what, if any, background in theology we have and something about ourselves, like a hobby, a favourite film or your favourite football team.

Look at this picture:

 Monet La Japonaise

what do you see?

Please note there is no right or wrong answer in my mind. The question is what do you see. Unless you choose to deceive the rest of the group, your answer is the correct one for you.

Each of us sees through our own eyes, with our history, our culture, our experiences our background of knowledge and interpretation. Yet there is something we are looking at. Theology is both "God-talk" and "our talk about God" or better our talk about God and the things of God and our articulation of our selves before God. Our perception and the realities we perceive are in conversation.

Look at these definitions of theology.

Handout MIL 4002: 1. What is this thing called Theology?

qeoj (theos) -God logia (logia) - Talk: i.e. Discourse about God

"For the [early Greek theologians] theologia is both narrower and wider than our term 'theology'. It is narrower in that it is strictly discourse about God: in the Cappadocian Fathers it means the doctrine of the Trinity, God as He is in Himself, in contrast to oikonomia, the doctrine of God's dealings with His creation; though it can be used to include that. .... At the same time theologia for the Fathers is broader than our term, for it means not just the doctrine of the Trinity, but contemplation of the Trinity."Louth

"If you are a theologian you pray truly, and if you pray truly, you are a theologian."

Fides quaerens intellectum - "Faith seeking understanding"

"I am not trying, O Lord, to penetrate thy loftiness, for I cannot begin to match my understanding with it, but I desire in some measure to understand thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand (Credo ut intellegam)." Anselm

"Theology is the science of faith. It is the conscious and methodical explanation and explication of the divine revelation received in faith" Rahner

"Theological reflection is the discipline of exploring individual and corporate experience in the conversation with the wisdom of a religious heritage. The conversation is a genuine dialogue that seeks to hear from our own beliefs, actions and perspectives, as well as those of the tradition. It respects the integrity of both. Theological reflection therefore may confirm, challenge, clarify, and expand how we understand our own experience and how we understand the religious tradition. the outcome is new truth and meaning for living."

O'Connell Killen and de Beer

"Theology has to stop explaining the world, and start transforming it" Bonino

"Theology as grammar" Wittgenstein

Are you drawn to any of them?

Do any repel you?

Do any baffle you?

Let's consider four tensions which mark the field of Theology: Timeless Truth and History, Science or Art, Professional or Popular, Universal or Local

1.11 Timeless Truth and History:

Theology sometimes gives the illusion of being timeless and unchangeable. It is not. It is rooted in history and experience. It may well be that there is a truth beyond time and history in the constancy of God, but that truth can only be approached by us from our position in time and in history. Specific forces have meant that particular questions have been raised at particular times. One aspect of this is that much of the most important theological statements arose out of controversy. They were reacting to circumstances, arguments or perceived errors. This often means that they were partial, that is to say they are not complete, yet alone final statements. Consider Paul. His letters were writing to particular communities with particular concerns. In different circumstances we can trace different responses. All of his writing is in the context of addressing the needs of the people he was writing to at that time. In 1 Cor he calls for "putting away" a wrong-doer from the community (1 Cor 5:13) yet in 2 Cor, writing to the same community he speaks of reconciliation. (2 Cor 5: 20) it is tempting to imagine that a particular incident was in the Apostle's mind which at the time of the first letter was to be met by excluding a particular person or persons and by the second letter these same were ready to be let back into the Church. That is speculation. All we can say with some certainty is that there are specific stories behind these texts, they grow out of a particular context.

Augustine of Hippo has been arguably the most influential theologian in at least the Western Church but never wrote anything like a total systematic theology. All his work is rooted in history, it is contextual. His most important works were in response to the culture shock of the sack of Rome and in refutation of Donatism and Pelagianism. We'll think more about Pelagianism in a couple of weeks time. I'm sure you have all heard the quotation from Augustine "we are an Easter People and Alleluia is our Song." Great words, but they were first preached in a very specific context. Place yourselves in North Africa after 410. The Church was bitterly divided, Paganism was still a live threat, being a Christian was not easy and there were all sorts of temptations to lapse. Rome, the symbol of civilisation had fallen to looting Goth invaders, everything was crumbling. And then Augustine in Africa had a word for the times, taking the people out of their immediate sense of collapse and giving them hope. These words were addressed in a series of sermons to those who were afraid and in despair; they are brave words of confidence giving heart to a people whose confidence was evaporating. Augustine's words spoke to people who were confused, they gave an identity to people who felt that they no longer knew who they were and they became a focus for loyalty at a time when all the symbols for loyalty were proving fallible. "We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song." This is theology encountering history and addressed to people in their situation.

On your handout (at foot of this page) I have sketched out a rapid and very incomplete sketch of the history of Theology. I don't want us to spend too much time on this now or to discuss it in detail, but I offer it as a resource to place our discussions in a timeline. Here are a number of key events, personalities and issues many of whom we will meet over the next few months. In this, the development of theology relates to a number of key periods of thought marked in bold type. One thing to note is that when we get to the modern age it does suggest several contemporary theologies and we could add others. There is no single modern theology which we are obliged to buy into but rather a number of different, even contradictory approaches that influence the rather open field of theology today.

There is also a distinction in the history of ideas, which you may come across, which divides theology into three phases: Pre-Critical, Critical and Post-Critical. This places the locus of interpretation at the Enlightenment and the beginning of the Modern Age. Rationalism, Individualism, Empiricism and social change in the C18th and C19th brought enormous new questions into theology. Biblical criticism, questioning of Christian Origins, human explanations of religion and the higher profile of materialism and personal feelings over the supernatural and the settled order of classic Christian dogma, opened a new world and possibly undermined the old way of doing things. In Catholic theology the nineteenth century response to the rise of criticism was largely to re-assert an authoritarian view of dogma and the Church. Neo-Scholasticism became enshrined as the only way of thinking and Catholics were expected to learn the answers which had already been worked out. In many ways Catholicism caught up with the critical age at Vatican II. There is an image of the pre-Concilliar Church that all the answers were worked out and the way to do theology was to look up the answer in the manual. Thankfully we have moved beyond this, we are encouraged to think through questions, to draw theology from our lives. This does not mean that everything in the manuals was wrong, but rather, every answer that is meaningful today must be shown to be meaningful today otherwise it will be simply irrelevant. We live in an age today when critical questions have been asked of everything, there is no avoiding of this and indeed we should welcome it. Every theological approach is therefore post-critical and must take on board critical questions.

Every age of Christian living has much to contribute. There is continuity with those who have gone before us. We shall not therefore abandon the continuous theological traditions and disputes from Athanasius to Zwingli from Aquinas to Zinzendorf, just because they did not have the good fortune to live in the C20th. Although their ages may have had different emphases, what they said still has much to teach us and we shall learn from them. But again, we must not seal up our inheritance into some glass case in a museum. The resources we have received must speak to our present experience and be applied in our situation. This MA is in Applied Theology, so our theology must be applied to our present context, or rather contexts.

As we shall see, out of the interaction between early Christian thinkers and Philosophies grew distinct understandings of God, out of proposed error, heresy, came the statements of theological reflection which became orthodox Christian doctrine. Christian doctrine has often emerged when Christians argue. Disagreements and misunderstandings of theological language between Antioch and Alexandria in the 4th and 5th Century, The great Schism between East and West, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism, Liberalism and so forth all signify moments in the history of theology when particular debates sharpened understanding. These debates were of course frequently more violent and destructive than the eirenic term "debate" rather coyly suggests but the result for us is that disagreement has shaped our thinking. Today there has been a proper desire for unity and mutual understanding represented by the ecumenical movement. Our doing of theology today therefore has to seek to learn healing from the divisions of the past without losing the meaning of why these arguments were seen as so important.

In looking at theological statements we have received we shall have to consider the forces which have shaped them, the culture, the politics, the intellectual climate, the history. So too, in doing theology today, we must be conscious of our own contexts. There are forces around us which influence the way we think and indeed cause us to ask particular questions. Our theology must be rooted in our history, our culture, our experience. Again we will speak at greater length of this later, for the moment can I just throw a seed into your minds which may germinate later. In my opinion, which you may choose to argue with, modern culture almost anywhere, is not monolithic, our contemporary world is best described in terms of pluralism and fragmentation. Therefore I suggest that to address this Theology has to be both open-ended and open-minded, but held together by a central unity in what we call revelation, that is to say what the Christian Community has seen as the things which have been given to us by God.

1.12 Science or Art?

Theology was known in the Middle Ages as "The Queen of the Sciences". Science here is not perhaps exactly the same as what we would now mean by scientific. Nonetheless, many today would insist that theology should be a science. This does not mean that theology should be a subset of physics or that it should only follow an experimental method. Scientific here points to rigour, close observation and the rational approach to objective truth capable of public analysis. My own first degree was Biochemistry, and my basic worldview is as a scientist, and we’ll talk about some issues connected with that in a few weeks time. However there are also those who suggest that theology is a craft (Dulles) or theological reflection is an art (Killen and de Beer). Art and craft suggest something intuitive and imaginative. It may not be irrational but could well be considered non-rational. Art functions through allusion and suggestion. It is something that speaks to the internal dimensions and through the perception of subjects. Theology as an art is subjective, or perhaps better inter-subjective. Its location is the person and interpersonal relationships and associations of persons. Its meaning is found in the expressive power of ideas. I think that in Theology we must keep a creative tension between Art and Science, between subjective and objective, between imagination and rigorous analysis.

There is a division here between objective and subjective, between examining from the outside and experiencing from the inside, or if you will, between head and heart. However, the purpose of theology is to marry together these divided parts: Faith and Understanding inform each other. Knowledge is illuminated by belief. It is quite possible to talk about religion or religions without any faith commitment: but that is not Theology. Religious Studies at school and University is taking over from Theology precisely because of this. Admirable as it may be as an academic discipline it does not require any participation or sympathy of the student with the study. Christian Theology demands Christian practice and Christian commitment. Applied Theology insists on this demand even more forcibly.

Here, as in many other things, I find myself indebted to Anselm, an C11th Archbishop of Canterbury. If you ever get the chance go to Bec, about an hour's drive south of Le Havre in Normandy. It is a beautiful place, the monks and nuns in the linked communities are lovely and sing wonderfully, but above all there is Anselm in a simple tomb in the centre of the powerfully simple chapel. Anselm writes devotional material infused with intelligent insight. From within the faith experience he gives us carefully thought out analysis. So far as I can think of nobody who has expressed the task of a theologian better than he did when he wrote fides quaerens intellectum: "faith seeking understanding". Devotion seems today to be inappropriate for a university academic discipline. But in that case Theology is going to be in a state of tension in a modern university because Theology is the thinking through of faith. Yes we must use proper criticism. We must ask questions, even difficult questions, we must use our minds to make sense of things. But Theology is also about belief, about worship and about faith. What we are doing in theological reflection is bringing all our faculties to bear on understanding our faith.

1.13 Professional or Popular.

There is a human tendency to create specialisms and experts. Clearly there is an international elite of theologians. There are the famous names, the influential thinkers. And yes we shall be getting more familiar with the thinking of some of these. However, we are not to observe theology from the outside. We are to participate. Theological reflection is something all Christians can take part in. All of us need to employ our capacities for thinking so that our faith can seek understanding. Indeed we can go further. Important insights today point to Theology as something which grows from Christians gathering together and making sense of their situations and their faith. Powerful contemporary theology reflect this non-elitist, popular reclamation of the right to speak of the things of God and the duties of Christians in their situation. This, for instance, is one of the fundamental assertions of Liberation Theology.

In various ways, most of the powerful contemporary schools of theology arise from listening to peoples' experience and learning from contexts. The theology of mission is a theology of encounter with the lives of people and communities; a theology of justice and peace is the engagement with the social, political, economic and cultural forces which effect people and communities. Applied Theology underlines this emphasis; Theology cannot be applied in a vacuum but it is worked out in context to speak to that context finding in the faith "ever ancient and always new" things to make sense of contemporary experience. For our particular purposes applied theology is something you shall do. It isn't something you will pick up off a shelf, though reading some books will help. Your reflection and your discussions and your listening as well as your reading of theological texts, will feed in to your active doing of theology.

1.14 Universal or Local

This last point leads us to an important tension in theology at the heart of applied theology for mission or justice and peace. That is the tension between a Gospel known as a universal truth rooted in Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today and for ever, the Catholic faith which has been taught in every place by all people and through all times and the historically rooted faith and interpretation, the locally meaningful working out of what God is saying in a particular situation at a particular time and through a particular culture going through particular strains and pressures. Part of theology is contextual interpretation; interpretation of Scripture and the Church's traditions in such a way as they speak to a context, and interpretation of a context so that it enables us to understand more deeply what God is doing with his people here and now. Christian experience is always conditioned by the context in which it is lived and that context has many dimensions, economic, social, political, philosophical, historical, cultural, religious, the adjectives could proliferate. A contextual theology is one which grows out of the questions raised by the context and uses the meaningful language that makes sense within that context. This necessarily leads to a diversity in the application of theology. In the post-Christian west missionary theology must address the secularised non-believer, In many other places the core issues must be issues of deprivation and poverty; thus in Latin America contextual theology is concerned with integral human liberation; issues of peace and social justice apply universally, but in specific places there may also be other influences, thus in Africa there is also a strong element in local theologies which stress the cultural dimension and the need to find authentic African expressions of Christianity, In much of Asia a priority seems to be dialogue with the overwhelming majority who are adherents of non-Christian faiths.

Once upon a time it was common to talk of "Systematic Theology", But the System seems dead: or at least not very well. The term Systematic Theology is mainly used when a concept, ideology or philosophy organises material and the whole of theology is presented from a specific angle. This does seem the task of a former generation. Systems have failed - today Theology integrates eclectic sources in order to make sense of our present situation and experiences. We shall not be taking any single approach and building everything upon it. Many such books are in the Library and you can learn much from them, but we will allow ourselves the luxury of considering many points of view. We shall take our theology from many angles and from many sources. Amongst such sources are:

It is not my purpose to sign you up to any particular System but to make you aware of the breadth of influences in contemporary theology that feed into current thinking and action on mission, justice and peace.

1.2 Some practicalities

1.21 Review of books: Bibliography

"Be not Afraid" You are not expected to read everything on this list. This is a guide and a resource but not a test. Some of these are more central than others, Some of them will be useful in preparing for particular Seminars or particular essays and you each only need prepare one seminar and one essay.

If you did feel able to afford to buy any books then Bosch and either or both of the McGrath books will be the most useful to you. Bosch is the defining textbook on mission for this generation. You do not have to agree with everything in it, but in discussing the theology of mission you do have to take notice of it. McG Introduction is a very good entry level introduction to theology. It will therefore be of special use to those of you who haven't done much formal theology. McG Reader is a very good, wide selection of key texts particularly in the historical development of theology and some contemporary voices. Fiorenza and Galvin: like most multi-author collections it is a mixed bag, but when it is good it is very good.

Kairos: The one book I do want you all to have read so that we can discuss it in detail as a case study. But, getting hold of a copy may be difficult. It is only a small book, but copies of it seem to have walked from theological libraries all over London and it is now out of print. There is a copy in the Library here and my own personal copy is in the Librarian's office and he will give you access to it in the Library, i.e. it isn’t for loan. If you can find it elsewhere, great.

1.22 Structure of Seminars

For each of the Seminars all of us will need to have read some short pieces, normally just a few pages long. These we will discuss in the Seminar. All of these are in the library. However, there only tends to be one copy of each in our Library. So please learn and practice skills of co-operation. As far as possible please keep the books or periodicals needed for the week's reading in the Library so everyone can get access. Some of you may well be able to find other copies of things elsewhere, and if you can find things in other libraries, please do so as this will ease the pressure on everyone else. It crossed my mind to photocopy the relevant bits for you all week by week, however, consultation on copyright law has revealed that it would be illegal for me to make such multiple copies. However, all of you, as individuals can, without infringing copyright, go into the library and make photocopies for your private study. I cannot, of course, legally tell you to do this, but you're quick enough to get my drift. There was a series of photocopies made by those who did this course last year in the Library – it may still be there. The general rule, I think, is that you may make one photocopy of one article in a periodical or up to 10% of a book, without infringing the law, providing it is for your own personal study.

From October 22nd onwards I expect that one of you will have done some additional reading each week and have prepared an appropriate seminar presentation. That's to say a 10-15 minute presentation which will lead into group discussion. What I want the seminar leaders each week to do is to take something from the readings that everyone has read and develop it in some way relevant to Mission or Peace and Justice. I have made a couple of suggestions each week of possible seminar topics, but please note that these are but guides. I hope it will work that we’ll have had a lecture in the field the previous week and in your seminars you can make some connections and apply the principles we’ve discussed to something out of your own experience or your interests. You are free to take the relevant area of discussion in any direction you want and if you can draw on something in your own experience then so much the better. I have a list with lots of gaps, if you could sign up for which ever week you'd like and then discuss with me individually what title you'd like to give your seminar. Some of you might want to do your seminar early, others later, whatever this list will be filled on a first come first served basis, so do some thinking and then choose what you want to do. But please choose early, or else I'll have to twist some arms; it might be helpful if those of you with theological qualifications volunteer to do the earlier seminars. The additional reading on these lists may help you read deeper around the subject of your seminar and we can discuss other material you may wish to consult.

The main personal piece of work that you each need to do for this module is to write an essay of around 3,000 words. These must be in by Dec10th and it's up to you to organise for yourself when you want to write it. They will be marked by the time you come back after Christmas. Part of the oral examination at the end of the course will be you discussing your essay. Examination regulations mean that at the bottom line I need to give you the essay title rather than you make up your own, but we can talk through to come up with a title acceptable to me, you and the University of Middlesex. Obviously other modules will also be making demands upon you. I guess that you'll probably be having to do three or four pieces of work, i.e. after a brief settling in period, one essay or whatever, every three weeks. Be wise and don't leave them all until December! Life will be easier for you if you do get an essay finished every month including October. Again I have given you a series of suggested titles to act as a guide and you will be able to find resources through this bibliography. Do a bit of thinking and reading around, and then please come and discuss with me what you want to write about and we'll negotiate a title suitable to your interests and try and come up with a bespoke reading list. It would be to your own good if you could begin to think of a title soon and sort one with me out within the next month or so.

Theology in History: A Sketch

0 AD Christ, the New Testament, the Apostolic Era, "Primitive Christianity"

100 Sub-Apostolic Ignatius of Antioch(c35-107) Persecution

Justin Martyr(c100-165) Apologetics

200 Clement of Alexandria (c150-215)

Tertullian (c160 -225)

Origen (c185- 254)

300 312 Constantine becomes Emperor -- Christianity becomes the religion of the Empire

Patristic Athanasius (296-373) Arianism

325,327 Council of Nicea Ambrose 339-397 Church State relations

400 Augustine of Hippo 354-430

451 Chalcedon Benedict c480-550 Monasticism

500 Gregory the Great 540-604 Church Reform

600 John of Damascus 675-749 Consolidation E'n Thlgy

700 725-842 Iconoclastic controversy

800 800 Crowning of Charlemagne

900 Simeon the New Theologian 949-1022 Theosis/Hesychasm

1000 1054 Great Schism Anselm 1033-1109 Systemization of Thlgy

1100 Abelard 1079-1142

1200 Scholasticism Aquinas c1225-1274

1300 Gregory of Palamas c1296-1359 Hesychasm

1400 Jan Hus c1372-1415 Reformation of Church

1500 Reformation Luther 1483-1546 Justification

Calvin 1509-1564

Counter-R'f'm'n Bellarmine 1542-1621

1600 Paschal 1623-1662 Jansenism

1700 Enlightenment (Aufklärung) Kant 1724-1804 Idealism

1800 Neo-Scholasticism

Romanticism Schleiermacher 1768-1834 "Feeling" in Theology

1870 Vatican I Newman 1801-1890 Development

1900 Tyrell 1861-1909 Modernism

Bultmann 1884-1976 Existentialism

Barth 1886-1968 Neo-Orthodoxy

1950 Tillich 1886-1965 Non-theism

1965 Vatican II Rahner 1904-1984 Transcendental Thomism

Balthasar 1905-1988 Th'gical aesthetics/drama

Moltmann \_ New Eschatology

Pannenburg /

Gutiérrez Liberation Theology

Song, Nyamati Asian, African etc.)Theology

Ruether Feminist Theology

Lindbeck Post-Liberal