More on Post-Critical Theology

I blogged yesterday about critical, counter-critical, and post-critical theology (as understood by the late Avery Cardinal Dulles).

One way of illustrating the difference between the three is to look at the different ways in which they talk about dogma.

Critical theology will either ignore dogmatic teaching altogether, or else it will call it into question (explicitly or implicitly), or else it will re-interpret it in ways which, in effect, empty it of its original meaning.

The resurrection, for example, will be presented as an experience on the part of the disciples that Jesus was still with them, rather than as the physical event of resurrection which is clearly what Scripture and Tradition have in mind.

Again, critical theology will talk about the incarnation, for example, in a way which suggests the divinity of Jesus consists simply in his being perfectly human.

Post-critical theology, which has it roots in the writings of figures such as de Lubac, Balthasar, and Rahner – all of whom wrote both before and after Vatican 2 – looks for fresh and creative ways in which to talk about dogma, but its purpose is always to defend, explore and elucidate the Church’s teaching, not to critique it.

Rahner (pictured above) is often accused of weakening the doctrine of the incarnation (among other doctrines), but his goal was always to present Catholic dogma in a way which would clarify and inspire, and never to challenge it or call it into question.

Indeed, having been opposed to the dogmatic definition of the Assumption in 1950 (in which he nevertheless believed), he subsequently wrote that the duty of Catholic theologians was to defend and explain the teachings of the Church – and he duly threw his weight behind explaining the dogma.

One might very well call into question Rahner’s success in finding fresh and creative ways in which to explain and defend the teachings of the Church, but one could never question his complete sincerity in seeking to do so.

With critical theologians such as Küng and Schillebeeckx the situation is very different. Rahner can be accused, at worst, of being unsuccessful in his attempt to defend and explain the Church’s teachings, but Küng and Schillebeeckx can be accused of actively challenging traditional and magisterial understandings of the Church’s dogmatic teaching.

There is a certain heroism about the attempt (however flawed) of de Lubac, Balthasar and Rahner to expand the horizons of Catholic theology and to enrich its understanding and presentation of Catholic Tradition, and the nobility of what they were attempting to achieve deserves to be acknowledged, even by those who think that they failed to achieve it.

Küng and Schillebeeckx, together with others like them, however, set out not to defend and explain but to deconstruct and reconstruct – and in doing so presented Catholic theology not only in a changed “style” (to use Balthasar’s expression) but with a drastically altered content and drastically altered conclusions.

The counter-critical response to all this is a simple one. All theological creativity is dangerous (the argument goes), because, however well-intentioned it might be at the outset, it inevitably ends up with Küng and Schillebeeckx, and with the confusion that is caused when critical theology filters into the seminaries and is passed on to the laity in the form of poor catechesis.

However, I don’t believe that it’s helpful to reject theological creativity just because many have used that creativity in order to undermine the Church. The answer isn’t less creativity in theology so much as better creativity – creativity which starts out from the presupposition that Catholic Tradition and Magisterium are to be believed, and that they are the object of our humble faith and obedience, not of our suspicion.

It isn’t the attempt to find new ways of expressing ancient truths which is the problem (though such attempts can often run into trouble). Rather, it’s the attitude of mind of the theologian that determines the orthodoxy or otherwise of the theology that he produces.

As Avery Dulles showed, what matters is the fundamental attitude of the theologian to the Church, and to the Church’s Tradition and Magisterium.