Different Modes of Doing Theology

A very few books have had a such a strong influence on the development of the way I do theology that I find it hard to imagine what my theological outlook would be had I not read them.

One such book (really, a pamphlet) is Otto Hermann Pesch’s The God Question in Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther.

I have recently reread this short work, and have realized how much my memory of what it says has been shaped by my application of what it says.

In this blog post I want to spell out an application of a distinction that Pesch makes.

One of the basic distinctions I see in Pesch’s work is that made between Thomas’s ‘sapiential’ theology, and Luther’s ‘existential’ theology.


Sapiential theology is theology done in the 3rd person (or ‘spectator’) mode. That is, it is theology from the point of view of the onlooker.

A ‘sapiential’ theological reading of the doctrine of justification would include a spectator’s description what happens when God justifies a human being: of what happens when a flesh and blood human being, living in space and time, is justified by God’s grace, on account of Christ, through faith.

From this perspective a justified person would be one who does good works – the spectator would see good works naturally arise from the justified person. From a spectator’s point of view, the absence of good works would mean that the person is not in fact justified.


Existential theology is theology done in the 1st person mode. That is, it is theology from the point of view of the one directly experiencing what is happening.

An ‘existential’ reading of the doctrine of justification would ultimately sound more like a prayer addressed to God than anything else: it would include the response to God of one who has been graciously given the gift of faith in the merits of Christ.

From this perspective a justified person would be one who would never plead their good works before God –the individual before God would plead nothing but Christ. From the existential point of view to plead anything but Christ would be to reject the promises of God, and to rely on self.


So we get a paradox: to exclude good works in the sapiential reading of justification would be to deny justification; and to include good works in the existential reading of justification would be to deny justification. And yet the paradox is resolved by the reality: the justified person, who both does good works, and yet does not plead them.

Now it seems to me that these two modes of doing theology complement each other, and that by attending to the different modes we can get a more complete and helpful picture of the reality that they describe.

It also seems to me that much theological controversy would be moved in a more fruitful direction if such a distinction were explicitly understood and applied.

Dogmatic and Speculative Theology

These days I can't help but feel that dogmatic and speculative theology are natural partners. That is, I can't help but feel that where dogmatic theology is accepted as such (that is, as theologizing about truths of faith that both bind our conscience and invite our wholehearted trust), then speculation will spontaneously spring into being. And I can't help feel that this is healthy, and exactly as it should be.

So for example:

It seems to me that once we accept that Jesus really is true God and true Man, and once we accept that he was really born of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, then it is natural to speculate about Jesus' DNA.

It also seems to me that a lack of such speculation is a sign of failure to understand what the Scriptures teach.

Now: I think that serious problems occur when such speculation is done dogmatically. But I also think that when such speculation is seen as wholly inadmissible , then dogmatic theology can descend into a form of tribalism, with dogmatic formulations establishing theologically tribal boundaries, and not much else.

So far the blog.

OHEL

I've recently been reading C S Lewis' English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, and thought I'd post a few tasty quotes.

Lewis, in the introduction, has a fair bit to say about those who were reviving classical literature in Europe in the 1500s - the 'humanists'. He has a number of critical things to say, such as:

'No humanist is now remembered as a philosopher. They jeer and do not refute. The schoolman [scholastic philosopher] advanced, and supported, propositions about things: the humanist replied that his words were in elegant...The war between the humanists and the schoolmen was not a war of ideas: it was, on the humanists' side, a war against ideas...In the field of philosophy humanism, must be regarded, quite frankly, as a Philistine movement: even an obscurantist movement.'

It makes me think what an interesting specimen Lewis was: a classically educated man of letters who loved making fine distinctions in matters of logic.