We all think theologically, its just a matter of degree: therefore we are not all theologians
In the midst of the interesting debate sparked off by Geoffrey Holsclaw concerning who qualifies as a theologian a sentiment has been expressed by some. It can be summed up in the phrase, ‘we all think theologically, therefore we are all theologians’. Or, in a slightly weaker guise, ‘if one thinks theologically, one is a theologian’. Of course the debate itself is attempting to work out what it means to think theologically. Is theology necessarily connected with thinking about God? Is it something one can only do from within a confessional community? Is theology a specifically Christian mode of reflection etc.
But lets bracket out these questions for a moment as the Church and Pomo site has a good discussion on these issues already. Instead lets assume that everyone does think theologically from time to time so that we can interrogate whether that means everyone is a theologian. This of course does not mean that everyone is a good theologian. The claim is that we should really talk about different degrees of theological reflection (from sustained and coherent to fleeting and incoherent).
The interesting thing about this statement is that it both seems eminently reasonable and unreasonable at one and the same time. In a way it seems to be both obviously true and obviously false. What I would like to do is attempt to clarify why this is the case by arguing that the confusion comes from a misunderstanding of the idea of ‘degrees’.
I remember in the early days of my philosophy training the lecturers, in a vain attempt to make philosophy appeal to the first year students, would start their classes with mind experiments. One of these mind experiments involved asking when a pile of sand could be called a beach. We know that a single grain of sand is not a beach and we know that the place where we sunbathed last year is. So how many grains of sand does it take?
By thinking in this way we are confronted with the idea that quantitive change leads to qualitative change. While 100 grains of sand is not a beach, nor 101 grains, the minor quantitive changes gradually build to the point when we acknowledge a qualitative change (the point when the majority of us would say that the pile of sand was a beach). The move from the mere quantitative changes to the qualitative (or substantial) change happens in peoples perception. We can, for simplicity, identify three different moments,
- The point when the vast majority would simply see a pile of sand
- The point where the majority would be divided
- The point where the vast majority would see a beach
In a similar way is this not how we should approach the question of who is a theologian? While it seems obvious that Karl Barth, for example, is a theologian it seems equally obvious that my three year old nephew is not. The majority of people would easily be able to tell the difference, just as it is obvious that my local GP is a doctor while the mechanic who puts a plaster on the grazed knee of their child is not.
There is however a grey zone where the serious debates take place. This is how we ought to approach the question that Geoffrey has raised. It is taking place in the grey zone where the perception of quantitative change begins to blur into qualitative change. And this can go two ways, as the conversations take place some whom we previously thought where theologians may, for the majority in the debate, begin to look more like, say, sociologists of religion.
So instead of saying that we are all theologians and that it is just a matter of degree, perhaps we should rather say that it is precisely because it is all just a matter of degree that we are not all theologians.
Tags: Geoffrey Holsclaw, theologian, theology
June 25th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
A pile of sand, no matter how large, without an ocean lapping its edge, is a desert.
Couldn’t resist.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
In thinking about this question, I am wondering, what is the purpose of theology and can this help you to discover who to award the “beach” status to? If it is an intellectual exercise of “sustained and coherent” reflection it seems only the intellectuals, whether in role or practice, can be the beach. Yet this is a disappointing idea. What about the idea of theology as fundamentally relational or ineradicably linked with lived experience and action? Surely this theology requires theologians with different qualifications. Perhaps even your three year old nephew could contribute? Have you attempted to listen to what he has to say in this arena? Children are very good at relational and experiential active reflection!
June 25th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Paratheo, you asked, “What about the idea of theology as fundamentally relational or ineradicably linked with lived experience and action?”
Spot on!
And I believe this is where Peter is going when he writes of “degrees.”
Mother Teresa was light-year-degrees ahead of me in the theology of ministering to those that others ignored.
But I have degrees above her in dealing with people locked in pornagraphy addiction.
So perhaps your question, along with Peter’s concept, bring us to a possible conclusion that a theologian in early church history may not be a theologian in emergence.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Nathanael, could you elaborate your last sentence? It brought to mind a very general observation made by Jaroslav Pelikan that the theologians of the early church were also in vast majority the pastors/bishops of the early church. And what we have had since the reformation time is the notion of theologian as an academic.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I guess what I’m trying to say is that to the degree that I am immersed in something I will be well versed in it.
But if it is something in which I have little experience, I should remain silent and listen.
Going back to Peter’s thought’s, I would not want my doctor messing with my fuel injection on my vintage 1985 Nissan Sentra.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Nathanael – a desert is somewhere where it doesn’t get precipitation. My kids sand pit gets plenty of rain and no ocean and therefore cannot be a desert. My local beach has a sea…
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
My first thought upon reading the title was that I kicked a ball earlier and yet I am not a footballer… But you already covered that.
However, it did make me think. I am a theologian and a university gave me a piece of paper. I am a guitarist and a university didn’t give me a piece of paper to prove it.
Now my personal ontology is all confused :/
June 25th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Thanks for the stirring conversation. At first, I contemplated on this conversation looking from within the faith community. I believe as Stanley Grenz wrote that “theology is the task of the faith community.” The community seeking understanding through a communal epistemology where there is a historical context for the reflection and the articulation of God’s activity and the community’s understanding of God. Granted there would seem to be a need for some within this community to be more coherent in their articulations and musings. However, my thought is that even your young nephew can contribute to the understanding of the community through relationship whether or not it is deep or coherent. My son singing songs of faith prior to acknowledging faith can be theological statements that strengthen my vision of God. Again, within a faith community I see the task for all to be theologians. I would hope this view would help people open up to the responsibility and the importance for everyone to wrestle, reflect, ponder, and act upon their theological reflections breaking down hierarchal systems as well as opening up the conversations of faith to the margins.
I do understand that community has been flattened through technology and I believe in the basis ecological principle that nothing exists in isolation, so, it would be hard for me to counter my above thoughts as it relates to people outside of a faith community due to the fact that people reflect and teach and write within some aspect of community. I would claim all people are theologians whether unknowingly, reluctantly, recreationally or vocationally whether others perceive it to be or not.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Despite the fact that I agree not all are theologians, we each have ideas about God that could be/tends to be called theology. I’m curious as to how we delineate between the two. I surmise the reason many assert that “we are all theologians” has to do with acknowledging that we each have the space and power to change our theology and to recognize how our theology informs us. I don’t think that requires me to call my seven year old, nor my engineer husband, a theologian. But I also want people to recognize how their thoughts on God affect their lives, actions, etc. and realize that it is their duty to think critically about these matters.
In that sense, what Zizek is doing is letting us listen in on his (brilliant) thoughts on how his ideas of God connect to his ideas of other things, and life and culture in general. He is providing us access to his theology even though he may not want to be called a theologian.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“Vintage” Nissan Sentra becomes another discussion on degrees I think!
June 25th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Thanks for that post (6/25). I rescind my dismay at the argument around who is/isn’t a theologian. The sand analogy is gorgeous.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I have enjoyed the readings from the last couple of days. thank you for the mental exercise i needed it.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Maybe people aren’t theologians and philosophers (meaning they have not been systematic in their approach), but they can have their own theologies and philosophies. Don’t you think?
June 26th, 2009 at 12:36 am
I think the beauty of the sand analogy is that it actually allows us to dwell in a place of uncertainty. Sand can move. Beaches can deconstruct. In the end the most beautiful beach, can – given the right conditions – turn into a rocky or muddy wasteland.
And thus in my opinion, theology needs to be comfortable with this position of (non)speaking about G(o)d. Zizek might just be the gentle breeze that shifts the sand on which we walk and helps us to imagine a new landscape. Detractors would probably question the sand analogy and prefer to see theology as rocks. A rock is a rock, now matter how big it is. (Until the right combination of wind, waves and ice turns it into sand).
June 26th, 2009 at 2:05 am
Danielle- I like your last couple sentences , whether or not Zizek is a theologian, his theology is important at least in connection to his larger body of work.
Weiers-Beautiful remarks, however more parenthesis are necessary when (s(peak))(in)g a(bo(u)t G)(o)-d…
(only teasing)
June 26th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Sabio – I propose that one of the things which limits the application of the term “theologian” is precisely the assumption that it must be systematic.
Returning to Nathanael’s first comment, I believe he has actually hit upon something quite significant. I want to tease out a few ideas from the analogy and the picture which Pete has provided. Nathanael’s comment is right on in just this way: the beach is not made a beach by the quantity of sand, and I think that quantity of sand does not in itself lead to qualitative or substantive change. It is the interaction with and presence of the ocean moves the pile of sand to become a beach. Who is a theologian? The one who stands on the shore – the place where there is sufficient quantity of sand to make a difference, and where there is constant movement of the ocean over that sand.
Another way of looking at the picture is to notice, lamentably, that the beach itself seems to be the only place where there is no (obvious) life: There is life in the ocean (we know the life is there, although we cannot see it from a surface perspective) and there is evident life further in from the beach, but the beach itself seems to be a rather barren area between the two. Maybe theology and theologians stand in a place of death.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Joseph,
I like where you’re going with the life being in the ocean.
In 2007, I wrote this poem:
http://www.borrowedbreath.com/2007/08/02/ocean-of-love/
The beauty of the ocean metaphor is that when we drown in Christ, we actually live and breath in the power of the resurrection. It is no longer about us.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:56 am
Hi Pete, I wonder if you believe in the truth of the metaphor of sand to a beach compared to theological thoughts to a theologican.
My first thought was almost exactly the same as Nathanael’s initial comment.
A pile of sand is not is a beach contingent on not one, but (at least) three conditions:
1. The size must be sufficiently large.
2. There must be a body of water present (who is again sufficiently large)
3. The “pile” must be flattened out
So no matter how many gains of sand you add to the pile, if condition 2 and 3 is not satisfied, you will never have made a beach.
Now, do you believe that the metaphor holds true, and that there are other conditions to the definition of a theologian than merely the amount of theological thoughts?
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Nathanael: I sensed something in your initial comment which I believe speaks something into the question. That is, a theologian cannot merely be analagous to a sociologist of religion, for then the theologian becomes simply an observer, and not necessarily a participant.
There is an historical trend (here I agree with Gadamer in the first part of his Truth and Method) which continues today, namely that the humanities tend to borrow their methods from the natural sciences. So, for instance, in asking “who is a theologian?, the first task is to see theology not as a science observing and describing an Object. The becoming of a theologian is thus not strictly dependant upon the amount or even quality of reflective thought; it is more properly dependant upon the enounter between the community (the trees on the shore) and the Divine (the ocean). Like the god Hermes (the messenger of the gods to humanity – hermeneutics) the theologian is one marked by reflection on the relationship between the shore and the ocean.
July 5th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Wow, all this discussion makes me so glad I just got to enjoy a week on the beach in Destin, FL.
Amazing that I could have been on an actual beach and had none of the above thoughts…now I am in my living room (not on a beach) and am thinking about a beach in ways I never have!
Thank you all so much.
Ah, am I now a theologian?