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Theological amnesia
A reflection on Clive James, literature, and theology.
It would be an understatement to say I’m taken with Clive James’s Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time. I’m positively obsessed. I’ve never read anything like it. I’m smitten with the prose and gobsmacked by the coverage. The man has read everything, or at least he makes me feel like I’ve read next to nothing.
One thing he hasn’t read, though, is theology. You might even say he hasn’t read Christians. Of the more than 100 authors and artists that he canvasses, mostly from the twentieth century, maybe five are religious, and their religion is not, in his view, part of their genius. Sure, he likes Chesterton and Waugh and Kołakowski. But those exceptions prove the rule. James cares (cared—he passed away at 80 the same month the first Covid cases began appearing in Wuhan, quite a time to lose such a vital voice in politics and culture) about influence, stature, prestige, literature, artistry, and above these and all else two things: style on the page and wisdom in the world. The latter, to James, meant a rejection of ideology—in twentieth century garb, fascism and communism in equal parts—without apology or compromise. He was a pure product of the postwar period; his heroes were the post-Left French who suffered for their apostasies, like Aron and Furet and Revel. He was right to honor them.
Right, I say, in what he honored, but wrong in what he ignored. Even on his own terms, James should have read, memorialized, and found profit in Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Maritain, Eliot, Belloc, Knox, Greene, Undset, Bonhoeffer, Barth, Weil, Mauriac, Bernanos, de Lubac, Auden, Lewis, Tolkien, Fermor, Solzhenitsyn, Ratzinger, Percy, Illich, Berry, MacIntyre, Taylor, Levertov, and so many others. Instead, it’s as if religion in any form except the severely private disappears from the world by the end of the long nineteenth century. You certainly wouldn’t know that theists of any kind put pen to page in the twentieth, much less that it was good, sometimes, and that their words and deeds regularly made a difference on the public stage.
A writer like James, for all his erudition, has amnesia of his own, both in the immediate past and in the distant past. It’s a deficit common to most of his peers: highbrow journalists and elite critics who can’t bother to glance in the direction of the pious (at least, not without cringing). The deficit may be understandable, but it’s not defensible. It renders all that they write incomplete from the outset, by definition. Not just their knowledge but their love is circumscribed artificially by choice, and this alienates them from every human culture of which we have evidence. At one point James comments that humans wrote poetry before prose, spoke before they wrote, and sang before they spoke in sentences. He leaves the observation there, hanging, but he should have known better. After all, what did humans do both before and by means of song and speech and poetry and prose?
They prayed. Let the reader understand.
100 theologians before the 20th century
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 108)
- St. Justin Martyr (100-165)
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202)
- St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
- Tertullian (c. 155-240)
- Origen (c. 184-253)
- St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258)
- Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339)
- St. Athanasius (c. 297-373)
10.
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373)
- St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-368)
- St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-386)
- St. Basil the Great (c. 329-379)
- St. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330-390)
- St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395)
- St. Ambrose (c. 340-397)
- St. Jerome (c. 343-420)
- St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)
- St. Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430)
- St. John Cassian (c. 360-435)
- St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444)
- St. Peter Chrysologus (c. 400-450)
- Pope St. Leo the Great (c. 400-461)
- St. Severinus Boethius (477-524)
- St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604)
- St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636)
- Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 565-625)
- St. John Climacus (c. 579-649)
- St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662)
- St. Isaac of Nineveh (c. 613-700)
- St. Bede the Venerable (c. 673-735)
- St. John Damascene (c. 675-749)
- Theodore Abu Qurrah (c. 750-820)
- St. Theodore of Studium (c. 759-826)
- St. Photius the Great (c. 810-893)
- John Scotus Eriugena (c. 815-877)
- St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)
- St. Gregory of Narek (951-1003)
- St. Peter Damian (1007-1072)
- Michael Psellos (1017-1078)
- St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
- Peter Abelard (c. 1079-1142)
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153)
- Peter Lombard (c. 1096-1160)
- Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096-1141)
- St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
- Nicholas of Methone (1100-1165)
- Richard of St. Victor (1110-1173)
- Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135-1202)
- Alexander of Hales (1185-1245)
- St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)
- St. Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280)
- St. Bonaventure (c. 1217-1274)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
- Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328)
- Dante Alighieri (c. 1265-1321)
- Bl. John Duns Scotus (1265-1308)
- William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347)
- Bl. John van Ruysbroeck (c. 1293-1381)
- Bl. Henry Suso (1295-1366)
- St. Gregory Palamas (c. 1296-1357)
- Johannes Tauler (1300-1361)
- St. Nicholas Kabasilas (1319-1392)
- John Wycliffe (c. 1320-1384)
- Julian of Norwich (c. 1343-1420)
- St. Catherine of Siena (c. 1347-1380)
- Jan Hus (c. 1372-1415)
- St. Symeon of Thessaloniki (c. 1381-1429)
- St. Mark of Ephesus (1392-1444)
- Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
- Denys the Carthusian (1402-1471)
- Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
- Thomas Cajetan (1469-1534)
- St. Thomas More (1478-1535)
- Balthasar Hubmaier (1480-1528)
- Martin Luther (1483-1546)
- Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)
- Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566)
- Thomas Müntzer (1489-1525)
- Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
- St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)
- Martin Bucer (1491-1551)
- Menno Simmons (1496-1561)
- Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)
- Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562)
- St. John of Ávila (1500-1569)
- Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575)
- John Calvin (1509-1564)
- John Knox (1514-1572)
- St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)
- Theodore Beza (1519-1605)
- St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597)
- Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586)
- Domingo Báñez (1528-1604)
- Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583)
- Luis de Molina (1535-1600)
- St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
- St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621)
- Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)
- Richard Hooker (1554-1600)
- Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626)
- Johann Arndt (1555-1621)
- Johannes Althusius (1557-1638)
- William Perkins (1558-1602)
- St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619)
- Jacob Arminius (1560-1609)
- Amandus Polanus (1561-1610)
- St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
- Jakob Böhme (1575-1624)
- William Ames (1576-1633)
- Johann Gerhard (1582-1637)
- Meletios Syrigos (1585-1664)
- John of St Thomas (1589-1644)
- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)
- John Milton (1608-1674)
- John Owen (1616-1683)
- Francis Turretin (1623-1687)
- Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706)
- Philipp Spener (1635-1705)
- Thomas Traherne (c. 1636-1674)
- Patriarch Dositheos II of Jerusalem (1641-1707)
- August Hermann Francke (1663-1727)
- St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
- Nicolaus Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
- Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
- John Wesley (1703-1791)
- St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain (1749-1809)
- St. Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833)
- Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
- St. Philaret of Moscow (1782-1867)
- Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860)
- Johann Adam Möhler (1796-1838)
- Charles Hodge (1797-1878)
- St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
- John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886)
- Alexei Khomiakov (1804-1860)
- F. D. Maurice (1805-1872)
- David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874)
- Isaak August Dorner (1809-1884)
- Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903)
- Heinrich Schmid (1811-1885)
- St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
- J. C. Ryle (1816-1900)
- Philip Schaff (1819-1893)
- Heinrich Heppe (1820-1879)
- Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889)
- John of Kronstadt (1829-1909)
- Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)
- B. B. Warfield (1851-1921)
- Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900)
- Herman Bavinck (1854-1921)
- Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923)
- St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897)
- Evagrius Ponticus
- The Cloud of Unknowing
- Theologia Germanica
- Francisco de Vitoria
- Jose de Acosta
- Gerard Winstanley
- Blaise Pascal
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- David
Walker
- Søren Kierkegaard
- Rauschenbusch
- Alcuin of York
- Rabanus Maurus
- Paschasius Radbertus
- Cassiodorus
- G. W. F. Hegel
- George MacDonald
- Ignaz von Döllinger
- Tobias Beck
- Adolf von Harnack
- Giovanni Perrone
- Franz Overbeck
- August Vilmar
- Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
- Léon Bloy
Must theologians be faithful? A question for Volf and Croasmun
(Full disclosure: Miroslav and Matthew are at Yale, and were there when I earned my doctorate; the former was a teacher, the latter a fellow student and friend. Take that for what it's worth. Here on out I'll call them V&C.)
Consider the following quotes (bolded emphases all mine):
- "execution of the central theological task requires a certain kind of affinity between the life the theologian seeks to articulate and the life the theologian seeks to lead." (118)
- "an affinity between theologians' lives and the basic vision of the true life that they seek to articulate is a condition of the adequacy of their thought." (119)
- "It would be incongruous for theologians to articulate and commend as true a life that they themselves had no aspiration of embracing. They would then be a bit like a nutritionist who won't eat her fruits and vegetables while urging her patients to do so." (120)
- "Misalignment between lives and visions ... is prone to undermine the veracity of [theologians'] work because it hinders their ability to adequately perceive and articulate these vision." (120)
- "living a certain kind of life doesn't determine the perception and articulation of visions, but only exerts significant pressure on them." (120)
- "Just as reasons, though important, don't suffice to embrace a vision of the good life, so reasons, though even more important, don't suffice to discern how to live it out. Our contention is that an abiding aspirational alignment of the self with the vision and its values is essential as well." (122)
- "[it is a requirement] that there be affinity between the kind of life theologians aspire to live and the primary vision they seek to articulate." (122)
- "Only those who are and continue to be 'spiritual' can ... perceive 'spiritual things.'" (125)
- "[An ideal but impossible claim would be] that only the saints can potentially be true theologians." (129)
- "Consequently, we argue for an affinity, rather than a strict homomorphy, of theologians' lives with the primary Christian vision of flourishing (always, of course, an affinity with the primary vision as they understand it)." (129)
- "Imperfect lives, imperfect articulations of the true life—yet lives that strive to align themselves with Christ's—and articulation that, rooted in this transformative striving, seek to serve Christ's mission to make the world God's home: this sort of affinity of life with the true life is what's needed for theologians to do their work well." (134)
- "Truth seeking is a constitutive dimension of living the true life; and living the true life—always proleptically and therefore aspirationally—is a condition of the search for its truthful articulation." (137)
- The best theologian will be a saint, i.e., a baptized believer whose life is maximally faithful to Christ.
- All theologians ought to strive to be saints.
- All theologians ought to strive to align their lives with their articulated vision of faithfulness to Christ.
- Saints are likelier to be better theologians than those who are not.
- A necessary but not sufficient condition of faithful theology is sainthood, that is, faithfulness to Christ.
- A necessary but not sufficient condition of faithful theology is imperfect but real alignment between the life of a theologian and his or her articulation of faithfulness to Christ.
- One of the criteria for evaluating a theologian's proposals and arguments is the lived faithfulness to Christ on the part of the theologian in question.
- One of the criteria for evaluating a theologian's proposals and arguments is the alignment between that theologian's life with his or her articulation of faithfulness to Christ.
Is it truly a condition of theology done well that the person making the theological proposals be herself (even somewhat) faithful either to Christ or to her understanding of Christ's will? Is such faithfulness, moreover, a legitimate criterion for evaluating said proposals—so that, if we knew of the theologian's utter unfaithfulness (even attempted), such knowledge would thereby falsify or disqualify her proposals outright?
I remain unpersuaded either that V&C really mean to make either of these claims or that either of them is a good idea.
It seems to me that V&C are making a materially prescriptive argument—"this is how theology ought to be done and how theologians ought to understand their work"—underwritten by a generically descriptive argument—"the sort of practice theology is and the sort of subject it is about means necessarily that it is self-involving in a manner different from algebra or astronomy"—but not anything more. We should not, I repeat not, include our judgments of the character of theologians' lives in our evaluation of their ideas, proposals, and arguments. If a serial adulterer were to write an essay against adultery, and meant it (i.e., it was not an exercise in deception), the thesis, the reasons offered in support, and the argument as a whole would not be correctly evaluated in connection with the author's sins. They would stand or fall on the merits. Such an author is precisely analogous to the comparison V&C make to the nutritionist: she is not wrong to recommend fruits and vegetables; she is merely a hypocrite.
And here's the kicker: All theologians are hypocrites. That's what makes them uniformly unsaintly, even those canonized after the fact. For saints are recognized postmortem, not in their lifetime. And that for good reason.
(I should add: It's even odder, in my view, to say that theologians' work should be judged in accordance with the affinity between their lives and their ideas, rather than their lives and the gospel as such. Barth and Tillich and Yoder, for example, all offered ample justification in their work for their misdeeds. Properly understood, however, their actions were wrong and unjustifiable regardless of the reasons they offered, precisely because they are and ought to be measured against that which is objective—the moral law, the will of God—not their own subjective understanding of it or their rationalization in the face of its challenge.)
So it is true that there should be an affinity between theologian's lives and ideas. Theologians of Christ should imitate Christ in their lives. And it is plausible to believe that their theology might improve as a result: that their vision into the things of God might prove clearer as a consequence.
But the unfaithful write good and true theology, too, and have done so since time immemorial. We ought to consider such theology in exactly the way we do all theology. For it is up to us to judge the theology only. God will judge the theologian.