Santa Clara University Scholar Commons Jesuit School of Theology 2006 The Discipline of Christian Spirituality and Catholic Theology Sandra Marie Schneiders Jesuit School of Theology/Graduate Theological Union, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/jst Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Schneiders, Sandra Marie “The Discipline of Christian Spirituality and Catholic Theology.” In Exploring Christian Spirituality: Essays in Honor of Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM. Edited by Bruce H. Lescher and Elizabeth Liebert, 196-212. New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2006. Copyright © 2006 Paulist Press. Reprinted with permission. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Jesuit School of Theology by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 10 THE DISCIPLINE OF CHRIST IAN SPIRITUALITY AND CAT HOLIC THEOLOGY Sandra M . Schneiders, IHM INTRODUCT ION This essay originated in a request from the spirituality semi­ nar of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) for a paper to focus its 2006 session on the relationship between theol­ ogy, as it has traditionally been understood in the academy, and Christian spirituality, as it is the specialized interest of some of its members. The request offered me the stimulus to rethink a sub­ ject I have addressed more than once in the past thirty years of trying to help this new field of study articulate its identity and clarify its relationship with other disciplines. Responses to my previous attempts by scholars in the field-who have raised ques­ tions about my position, amplified it with considerations from other disciplines and diverse classroom experience, or strenuously disagreed with me-have enlightened me and modified my think­ ing. So this opportunity to "try again" was welcome, as was the request of the editors of this volume to publish the essay, which would bring it to a wider audience than the CTSA participants. Although I am now writing for an audience that includes non­ Catholics and perhaps non-academics, traces of the original con­ cern with Catholic theologians and of the oral form of the original presentation will be discernible. I trust my readers can make the necessary adjustments. 196 Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM I was asked to provide a starting point for the discussion by addressing the questions, What role does theology as a discipline play in studying spirituality from the perspective of a particular religious tradition? Does theology have a unique role or is it only one discipline among many? I want to begin by raising some ques­ tions about this implied dichotomy: "unique" or "only one among many." It is somewhat like asking whether the account of creation in Genesis is "historical" or "only a myth," implying that these are the only two choices, that they are necessarily mutually exclusive, and that they involve a choice between hier­ archical alternatives. Let us begin by deleting the "only," which implies that being one among many is something negative. I will contend that theology does indeed play a unique role in the disci­ pline of spirituality if by unique we mean not hegemonic or supe­ rior but a role that nothing else plays. The same, however, could be said of some other disciplines that also play a unique but not hegemonic role in the discipline of Christian spirituality: for example, church history, biblical studies, and the human sciences. So, my short answer to the question would be that theology plays a unique role in the discipline of spirituality as one discipline among others within this interdisciplinary field.' However, I would prefer to abandon that question altogether, since it does not get us very far in understanding the identity of spirituality as a field of study or the relationship between spirituality and theol­ ogy, which is the real question with which we are struggling. Before offering some suggestions on a reformulated ques­ tion-namely, How are the two disciplines distinct and how are they related?-! need to make some rather extended preliminary observations. It is crucial to keep in mind that the term theology is used today in the academy in two very different ways, both of which have implications for our understanding of spirituality as an aca­ demic discipline. One meaning, which might be called "restrictive" or "exclusive," refers only to what has come to be called system­ atic theology, under which cluster a number of subdisciplines such as trinitarian theology, christology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, moral theology, and so 011.2 Spirituality, as it is understood today among many of its practitioners, myself included, is not among 197 The Discipline of Christian Spirituality and Catholic Theology these subdisciplines . In other words, it is not the systematic theol­ ogy of the spiritual life in the way that trinitarian theology is the systematic theology of the triune God. The other meaning of the term theology, much broader and more inclusive, refers to all confess ionally committed religious studies within the Christian tradition. So a theology department at a Catholic or Lutheran university might include not only sys­ tematic theology but also biblical studies, church history, pastoral ministry studies, practical theology, world religions, comparative theology, ecumenical theology, theology and aesthetics, and a number of other areas of inquiry. I would suggest that Christian spirituality as an academic di scipline, while not a subdiscipline of systematic theology, is a legitimate member of the inclusive house­ hold of theology broadly understood as confessionally committed study of reality within a Christian perspective . A second preliminary remark concerns some hidden or not­ so-clandestine misconceptions about the relationship between the disciplines of spirituality and theology, which I hope are dis­ appearing from the horizon but that, for reasons of intellectual hygiene, need to be named and, at least in my view, rejected. It has been suggested, for example, that spiritu ality is really just " theology done right"; that is, theology done with heart as well as head engaged. Closely related is the suggestion that spiritual­ ity is a temporarily useful corrective to a rationalistic and desic­ cated abstract theology. According to this theory, once theology has relearned to take human experience seriously and has recom­ mitted itself to the ultimately transformative rather than purely academic purpose of theological scholarship, spirituality-like the Communist state-will wither away since it will have done its job. In my opinion these understandings of spirituality as "theology on steroid s" or, worse ye t, "bad theology in therapy" are nei ther accurate nor very flattering either to genuine th eology (which is neither anemic nor abstractly rationalistic) or to con­ temporary spirituality. Another theory, equally unflattering, is that spirituality is theology for the intellectuall y underendowed. A quick perusal of the roster of scholars who today li st spiritu­ ality as their primary academic locati on should definitively lay to rest th is theory. 198 Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM While rejecting these hypotheses, which I consider miscon­ ceived, we can profit by acknowledging the historical situation to which they indirectly point. Until the High Middle Ages, theology was not equated with dogmatics (the forerunner of systematic theology) and was not divided into subdisciplines such as chris­ tology and ecclesiology, nor was it separated from biblical studies or spirituality. All theology was faith seeking understanding; it was also understanding seeking transformation, the transforma­ tion of self and world in God through Christ in the power of the Spirit. In other words, theology referred primarily to the global and integrated enterprise of living the spiritual life, and that enter­ prise was nourished by meditating on the Bible as scripture, thinking clearly and faithfully within and about the tradition, practicing personal prayer, celebrating liturgically within the believing community, and living the life of the Beatitudes that Jesus preached. The theologian was defined as one who prayed truly. Some people, especially bishops and monastics, devoted themselves professionally to this shared Christian enterprise for the sake of their fellow Christians and so were also called, in a more technical sense, theologians. In other words, theology was spirituality understood not as an academic discipline but as living fa ith seeking understanding for the purpose of transformation in Christ. Origen, Antony, Augustine, Gertrude the Great, Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, and Julian of Norwich were theologians in this sense of the word, giants of the spiritual life who were original and articulate teachers and guides of their fellow believers. There are scholars in both spirituality and theology today who long fo r the reconstitution in the modern context of this pre­ modern integral approach to theology as theoretically reflective and articulate "lived spirituality." I share their nostalgia fo r but not their confidence in such a revival. The Enlightenment has happened. Humpty Dumpty, mortarboard and all, has tumbled fro m the wa ll and cannot, I am afraid, be put back together again. The multiplication of disciplines defined by distinct material and formal obj ects and methods of study is a fact of the academy born of, and expressive of, our Western intellectual Weltanschauung. I suspect that multi-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity are our 199 The Discipline of Christian Sp irituality and Catholic Theology characteristic and probably only ways of dealing with the exces­ sive fr agmentation that is the downside of the critical revolution. A return to an intellectual and academic unity that characterized an earlier time, however desirable, is probably not reall y possible. Finally, as my last introductory remark, I would like to say that, just as the term theology has both an exclusive meaning and an inclusive meaning, spirituality is a also a term used in two quite different ways.