Theology is a strange discipline—that much I’ve learned in the two-ish years that I’ve studied it. One the one hand, I have found that theology can easily become, if you’ll forgive me, philosophically lazy, particularly when dealing in the theologies of revealed religions. I say this not to disparage it, but simply as an observation of the frustration I’ve sometimes felt when dealing in theological ideas. That is, if one accepts, as Anselm says, a definition of theology as “faith seeking understanding”, one is well-set to rationalise one’s beliefs rather than critically examine them. You can box yourselves in, not allowing yourself to go places that your faith would rather not take you. I’m referring, of course, to the doubt that is proper any intelligent person who calls themselves religious. What does it mean to make your faith vulnerable to questioning as, say, Abraham was vulnerable when God commanded him to sacrifice his son? Surely it’s not to adhere dogmatically to the dictates of whatever you were taught in Sunday School: it is far more uncomfortable than that, yet it’s a rare sight for me to encounter someone whose religious beliefs, their spiritual lives, be led by the questions they ask. Sometimes it’s as though their practice and intellect are alien to one another, thus rendering any theology they do spiritually un-gratifying.
But this is not always the case, and so I ponder what theology is for someone whose faith has been crucified—that is, what is theology worth for someone who deconstructs, doesn’t believe, or doubts? What is theology for someone who won’t box themselves in to their traditions? This I call a-theology: the anti-theological understanding of the study of theology. It is, in effect, meta-theological, viewing the discipline of theology from outside itself, not faith seeking understanding but seeking to understand faith and what it means. In essence, it is a study of the religious constructions of meaning.
The fact is that, while our society in the Western world has undoubtedly become far more secular, it is not, as it is sometimes called, post-Christian. Ours is a deeply Christian society, at least insofar as it is European. The values and assumptions that underly the philosophical outlook of the Western was shaped by Christianity, only now those values can be wielded against Christianity itself. For example, while science was inspired in those natural philosophers who sought to understand God’s creation, it has developed into an understanding of creation cut-off from God. There is, too, a tinge of Protestant Christianity in our economic life, as we implicitly seem to believe that work in itself—no matter how alienating, debasing, or even necessary—is dignified and praiseworthy, as anthropologist David Graeber points out in Bullshit Jobs. Even here, in Canada, where Christianity seems more dead than alive to the public, our national motto is drawn from Psalm 72, which undoubtedly echoes the concern for welfare that would echo the, at times, cooperative nature of relations between the English majority and French minority. (The indigenous peoples, of course, were screwed over, but now we are starting to see greater concern and awareness of their role in Canadian society, as well. For further reading, I’d recommend John Ralston Saul’s A Fair Country.)
Theology underpins all of these societal developments just as many societal developments have underpinned theology. It is no coincidence, after all, that the figure of the Messiah would become so prominent in a culture that was oppressed throughout its history, by the Babylonians, Romans, later-Europeans, and so on. Is this theology at its best, its most interesting, its most relevant—a philosophical anthropology with hardly anything to do with God at all? I’ll leave that for you to decide, though I have my own opinion. What seems undeniable, however, is that theology’s only place is in the long-abandoned medieval abbeys, studied by men in flowing robes with questionable tonsures. Quite the contrary: for so long as man is a murderer—as Nieztsche said, “God is dead and we have killed him—theology will have its place, if only as a grieving act of remembrance.
Does this, then, offer us a place when we can begin to reconstruct? Partly. I am cautious about this, as reconstruction can, again, veer into rationalisation of the old orthodoxy, the consequence of a feigned deconstruction yet again seeking to apologise for one’s beliefs. That being said, mourning is a place where we begin to live anew, however shaped by what we’ve lost. In yet another idea derivative of our cultural theology, with death and loss, it is still possible for us to find life and gain. Will this look like what we had before, or ought it to? Certainly not! It will never be the same again. Pandora’s box, you may recall, could not be closed after it had been opened. Could Adam and Even un-eat the fruit of the tree? No! We cannot resurrect a god we’ve killed. Nevertheless, we can be all the better for the moral and spiritual journey we’ve experienced, or else what would life be for?
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