Chapter 46 of 163

Commitment and Neutrality in Theology

To what extent should theologians be “committed?” To put this question in an especially pointed way: can Christian theology be taught or appreciated by someone who is not a Christian? Is commitment to the Christian faith an essential qualification for anyone who wants to teach or study Christian theology?

This question has been discussed at length within the Christian tradition. The debate is usually regarded as having got fully under way in the twelfth century, with the founding of the University of Paris. Public confrontations developed between thinkers who believed that theology was about a committed defense of the Christian faith (Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090–1153), and those who insisted that theology was an academic discipline, demanding detachment on the part of its practitioners (Peter Abelard). Significantly, the former tended to be based in monasteries and the latter in universities. The debate remains unresolved, in that each view has a number of significant arguments in its favor. The following are the main points put forward by each side. First, let us consider two arguments for detachment and neutrality.

A total detachment on the part of a scholar is necessary in the quest for truth. If a scholar is already committed to a theory (such as the truth of Christianity), this will prejudice his or her evaluation of the material to be studied. The Enlightenment advocated the idea of a disinterested, skeptical inquirer, and questioned whether the ideas “commitment” and “truth” were mutually compatible. The only person who is intellectually qualified to pass judgment on the Christian faith is someone who is neutral toward it, not someone who is committed to it.

Theology must be prepared to ask hard questions about its own intellectual credibility, methods, and ideas. The critical environment of a modern university forces theologians to ask the hard questions that otherwise might not get asked. Thus Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928–2014) argues that theology needs to be present in a university context, in order that it may be confronted by – and respond to – critical questions. A similar approach is taken by the American Catholic theologian David Tracy (born 1939), who stresses that Christianity needs to ground Christian truth claims in public, universal norms of intelligibility and justification.

Having considered two of the arguments advocated for neutrality, we may now note three in support of commitment.

Latin American liberation theologians have been scathing about the notion of “academic detachment,” regarding this as a severe hindrance to the cause of social justice and political transformation. If something is true, ought one not to be committed to it? Basing their arguments partly on Marxist principles and partly on some fairly traditional Christian ideas, liberation theologians have argued that there is no tension between truth and commitment: indeed, the former demands the latter.

Scholarship is in reality precommitted to certain ideas and values, whether these are explicitly identified or not. As the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) pointed out, “the prestructured lies everywhere.” Might not the same be true of theology? Even those who claim to be “detached” might, in reality, turn out to be servants of hidden precommitments and presuppositions.

Christian theology arises in response to the faith of a community. It is, to use the celebrated phrase of Anselm of Canterbury, fides quaerens intellectum, “faith seeking understanding” (see p. 84). Faith thus implies commitment. To study Christian theology as a purely academic subject, from a disinterested standpoint, is to lose sight of the fact that Christianity is about proclamation, prayer, and worship. It is these activities that give rise to theology – and, if a theologian does not proclaim the faith, pray to God, and worship the risen Christ, he or she cannot really be said to have understood what theology is all about.

Each of these arguments for and against neutrality has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, consider the suggestion that only someone outside the Christian faith can provide a reliable account of its ideas; that is, that the person best qualified to write about Christian theology is someone who is not a Christian. This suggestion has its strengths. An outside observer is more likely to ask hard questions, to make critical judgments, and to notice the strangeness of things which those inside the Christian faith take as self-evident. Yet, because the outside observer does not share the inner dynamics of the Christian faith – such as its life of prayer or worship – he or she will not be able to understand the motivation for theological development. A critical perspective is achieved at the cost of a lack of understanding.

For reasons such as these, the debate about commitment in theology has found itself at something of a stalemate. In recent decades, however, a social development has taken place which is tending to lead to Christian theology being studied in seminaries, rather than universities – and hence in a committed context. With the rise of multiculturalism in Europe, North America, and Australia, there has been increasing disquiet within secular circles over the privileged status of Christian theology in the universities. Why should Christian – and not Jewish or Islamic – thought be given this special status?

As mentioned above, the result of this development in the United States has been the birth of “faculties of religion” or “faculties of religious studies,” which aim to study a variety of specific religions, or religion in general, rather than Christianity. As most individuals studying Christian theology do so with a view to ordination, the result of this has tended to be an exodus of students to the seminaries, where Christian theology is taught. Thus a number of significant recent theologians – including major European Catholic theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88) and Yves Congar (1904–95) – have never held university appointments. Equally, many modern American evangelical theologians prefer to remain in seminary contexts rather than work within the “religious studies” faculties of secular universities.

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