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The Architecture of Theology: Structure, System, and Ratio A. N The Architecture of Theology: Structure, System, and Ratio A. N. Williams Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199236367 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2011 Página 1 de 225 Preface The pages that follow represent an essay in the reading of Christian theology. The reading they offer attempts to shed light on the Christian tradition by viewing it through a particular lens. All lenses have the potential to distort what they attempt to magnify or clarify, and this one does not purport to be an exception. I do not suggest this interpretation is the only way of reading Christian theology, or even the best way, but offer it only as parsing of the tradition that may account for some of its salient features in the forms it has taken down the centuries. I have attempted to illustrate this reading by reference to specific authors and texts (Chapter 3 is wholly devoted to an intensive reading of a small selection of texts). To give a fuller illustration would have been eminently possible, had space been no consideration. As it is, I have focused on a fairly small number of authors, but have within that straitened compass attempted to include authors from a variety of periods, writing in different styles, and with different theological convictions. I can only hope that readers who find some interest in the suggestions made here will be prompted to turn afresh to their own reading of theology, querying both well-known texts and new ones in light of them. My purpose is not to persuade readers of the inevitability of my own ideas, but to foster a richer dialogue between the reader and the extraordinary panoply of texts that comprise the Christian theological tradition. (p. viii ) Acknowledgements This book is dedicated, not to a theologian, but a teacher, literary critic, and poet. Frank McKay taught me Malory in my first degree and the English metaphysical poets in my second. Although he was gravely disappointed when I chose not to continue on to doctoral work in literature, he later enthusiastically supported my decision to begin studying theology. His constant presence in my thoughts and prayers over the years is a testimony to the transformative power of a good teacher, a power far beyond what most scholarly books will ever have. I am grateful to the New Zealand Province of the Society of Mary for allowing me to remember Frank in this volume. My thanks go also to: the British Academy, whose generous award of a research grant in the academic years 2008–10 gave me the time and tranquillity to write this book; the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge for granting funds for the compiling of the index; and Giles Waller, who compiled it. A special vote of thanks goes to John Webster, an early and constant supporter of the project, even though his views do not always concur with my own. His generosity of spirit has been a constant comfort to me in a labour that often seemed dauntingly large for my talents. As always, I am indebted to my ever‐patient husband, Dale Gingrich, for suffering through the litany of woes chanted drearily through the writing of yet another book. And finally, I am thankful that the solitude in which a writer is Página 2 de 225 necessarily confined was often interrupted by Pushkin and Persika, whose tails brought tidings of the world beyond my study and who provided a feline interpretative lens on the cosmos. (p. xii ). Introduction Abstract and Keywords The book's argument is surveyed: systematic theology has in the past been unhelpfully defined by a genre definition, because of suspicion of the notion of ‗system‘. Christian theology, it is suggested, is inherently systematic. The structure of theological arguments will be located in relation to debates in philosophical epistemology over the relative merits of foundationalism and coherentism. The interpretation of theological warrants (scripture, tradition, and reason) will be surveyed; these have functioned rather differently in theological arguments from the way in which past debates have claimed. Theology, it is argued, is a form of double mimesis in its rationality and relationality, mirroring the qualities of its two chief subjects, God and humanity. Theological aesthetics will be examined, and specifically, the notion that the beauty of argumentative structures may distract away from truth. Finally, the book will suggest that theology, in its systematicity, may be viewed as a prelude to contemplation. Keywords: systematic theology, epistemology, mimesis, rationality, relationality, aesthetics, beauty, contemplation When did Christian theology become systematic? The conventional answer to this question would hold that the system arose in the Middle Ages, with the school summae. To ask the question, however, begs the logically prior one of what one means by ‗systematic‘. The medieval summae are systematic theologies in the sense that they present a reasonably comprehensive account of Christian theology in an orderly fashion, making their way methodically through the terrain, locus by locus. If the summae are definitive of systematic theology (and one could query the assumption that they should be), then the implied definition of systematicity they yield is a genre definition: a systematic theology in this sense is defined by its scope and the structure of the text that embodies it. This genre‐based understanding of systematicity has been the dominant—if not the exclusive—one, and its hegemony has arguably obscured a deeper sense in which theology may be systematic: by exhibiting an impetus towards coherence and comprehensiveness. Theology may in this sense be said to be systematic when it traces links between discrete theological loci, or when the treatment of a single locus or issue is shaped by the awareness of its potential to interlock with other loci, indeed in some cases, its dependence on them for its own shape. Theology that is in this sense systematic may be likened to a jigsaw puzzle: even if one does not have all the pieces, the shape of any one of them reflects its orientation towards Página 3 de 225 others as parts of a larger pattern. When there are enough such pieces to hand, a complete picture forms, but even in the absence of a whole, unified image, a solitary piece displays by its very shape its trajectory towards linkage. We may therefore distinguish two senses of the term ‗systematic theology‘: one which uses ‗theology‘ as a countable noun (one that can be preceded by an article and can be made plural); hence the phrase ‗a systematic theology‘ designates a body of prose intended to give a reasonably comprehensive account of Christian doctrine, ordered locus by locus (call this Type 1 systematic theology or simply Type 1 theology). Although the exact scope and ordering of loci may vary considerably from author to author, such theologies are easily recognizable as belonging to the same genre. In the second sense, (p. 2 ) ‗systematic theology‘ is used as an uncountable noun (one needing no preceding article and not susceptible to being made plural); call this Type 2 systematic theology or Type 2 theology. In this sense, ‗systematic theology‘ designates theological writing in which the treatment of any one locus indicates, at least in some measure, how it is informed by other loci or how it will itself determine the shape of others. Systematic theology in this sense implicitly assumes an oikonomia, a providentially ordered creation intended for harmony with its maker and therefore, for harmony within itself. It assumes equally a notion of ratio: of divine determination reflected in order and the human discernment of this ordering. If we accept the distinction of Type 1 and Type 2 theologies, a curious consequent emerges: the first category contains relatively little theology of enduring value, while the second category contains the majority of the theology that has stood the test of time. Once one begins to look for systematic theologies set out in the conventional way, covering the major doctrines of the Christian faith locus by locus, one begins to notice how few have lasted. From the patristic period, we might consider as a possible candidate Origen's On First Principles, although its status as even a brief system has been denied by Origen scholars,1 and the fragmentary state of the extant texts necessarily renders any determination about it somewhat tentative. One might point to Gregory Nyssen's Great Catechetical Oration as a miniature, though so miniature that its inclusion in the category is de facto doubtful. The strongest candidate from the period is John Damascene's On the Orthodox Faith, although its status as a systematic theology has also been denied.2 The first thousand years of the Christian tradition thus yields no work that incontestably counts as a systematic theology. Conventional wisdom would hold that the great explosion (perhaps even the beginning) of systematic theology came in the Middle Ages, when the production of summae became something of a cottage industry, yet out of this vast quarry, only one continues to be widely read, and only one has become part of the great dialogue of voices that is the Christian tradition, Aquinas's Summa theologiae. If we were willing to stretch the genre criteria a little, a case could be made for Anselm's Monologion, Proslogion and Why the God‐Man? which, taken together, cover most of the key loci of a system.3 Even so, their scope is scarcely greater than Origen's On First Principles, although the texts themselves are in a more satisfactory condition. Página 4 de 225 (p. 3 ) The Reformation produced fewer in the way of systematic theologies, not surprisingly, given the polemical and ad hoc character of thought in the period; and the only system of enduring quality from this era comes from the pen of a second‐generation reformer, Jean Calvin.
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