The Death of Theology God

Introduction

- Christian theology in tandem with and in reaction to the Zeitgeist

- The importance of the postmodern criticism of grand-narrative

- The impact upon Christian theology

Theology and Modernity

- Modern thought; a totalizing influence with grand claims and optimistic potential

o The idea of finding demonstrable truth once and for all time

o The interference of Christian ‘mythology’ and ‘ignorance’

- The terms, concepts, and understandings of modernity had to be embodied in order to be dealt with and discussed

- Theology did not attempt to refute modernity – as it was understandably attracted to the end-game of modernity – but rather to redefine it with the Christian grand-narrative

"The Postmodern Condition"

- For a great many reasons (war and the decreasing hope in an increasingly better world, sympathetic attitudes towards previously disregarded viewpoints, an increasing awareness of the limits of knowledge) the modern vision grew to become unbelievable, and with it, the totalizing manner with which modernity conducted itself

- What resulted has been called post-modernity, defined simplistically as “an incredulity towards metanarratives” (Lyotard)

- Taylor: the end of modernity is the death of God, the disappearance of the self, the end of history, and the closing of the book.

The Theological Response

- Rejection of the criticism

o Counteractive evangelical and fundamentalist movements

- Acknowledgment of the criticism/working within the criticism

o Emerging church movement, radical orthodoxy, post-critical theology

§ I shall be engaging post-critical theology specifically under the mindset that theology has not gone far enough in its utilization of the critique of grand/metanarrative

o Process theology, liberation theology, existential theology, hermeneutical theology

- Acceptance of the criticism

o I consider this to be a rarity, though many who acknowledge the criticism would disagree; Taylor’s Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology is the work I shall be engaging as an acceptance of the criticism

Post-Criticalism and Grand Narrative

- Post-criticalism – as manifest in The Art of Reading Scripture – begins with an acknowledgment of “the postmodern condition”; it concludes this acknowledgment with the idea that it has overcome (or eluded) the bulk of this critique

o Insofar as the Biblical narrative does not justify the structure, it is not considered to be judged under Lyotard’s “grand narrative” criticism

o Is this finally the case? Is the bulk of this criticism directed at the justification mechanism or rather at the totalizing nature of the grand-narrative explanation?

- If this is the case – that the grand-explanation is under criticism concurrent to the grand-justification, and not an independent and un-criticized entity – then the very supporting structures beneath post-critical theology are still under criticism.

o I shall proceed within the idea that post-critical theology has not justified itself under Lyotard, and that this justification may be irrelevant; if Lyotard does not judge the Christian grand-narrative to be tyrannical, than I shall

Post-Criticalism and Pre-modern Readings

- A generalized and poetic statement: that post-criticalism believes the texts of the ancients to have been liberated from the oppression of critical theology

o As such, texts that could not be read believably before may now be read as having insight

- I propose that this is a somewhat unrealistic idea; I believe that the “fires” of modern criticism have made their mark, and that this mark is not easily reversed or ignored. It has, in fact, given us new eyes, eyes that cannot embrace these texts as holistically as might be desired by post-critical theology

- “We must begin wherever we are and the thought of the trace… has already taught us that it was impossible to justify a point of departure absolutely. Wherever we are: in a text where we already believe ourselves to be”; could pre-modern readings and understandings of Scripture and tradition possibly qualify? For myself, they cannot.

Introduction to "Higher Criticism"

- “Higher criticism” is the rather privileged name given to the groups of Biblical criticisms (studies, investigations) interested in the origins of any particular text.

o Like anything else, higher criticism possesses its own set of assumptions, one of which is the idea that the world in and around the time of the Bible functioned more or less as our world does; that is to say, the general outworking of the physical reality (physics, biology, etc) was the same yesterday as it is today.

o Such a conclusion, necessarily, negates things like ‘divine revelation’ and such

- Higher criticism utilizes the idea that the Bible has been composed of by a great many purely human authors; texts are divided to produce distinct traditions, ethical and communal assumptions are placed upon the texts as being behind the texts, and very natural explanations are given for the writing of the Bible

"Higher Criticism" and Believability

- Higher criticism is certainly not without its profound difficulties, especially when one considers the basis of its assumption and method. It is, after all, quite fully a product of late modern thought that was still able to state itself in flagrantly elevatory terms.

- What higher criticism does have in its favour, however, is the fact that it has been a part of the way in which we read the Bible for some time now; ‘contradictions’ within the Bible are more openly acknowledged, interpretation and perspective are given preference, many do not practice a Scriptural reading that understands all aspects of the Bible to be equally inspired, etc…

o In other words, higher criticism still remains believable, even with all its faults; it has almost become a part of the contemporary Western ethos

- While for some – like the post-critical theologians – higher criticism has proven to be vacuous and desert-like, others, such as myself, have enjoyed the desert and found it to be a comfortable home

Divided Text as Discordant Justice

- In addition to being believable, higher-criticism functions beneficially within the grand/metanarrative criticism

o The division of texts allows discord within the canon; voices and ideas that might easily be sidelined as ‘obscure’, ‘mysterious’, or ‘misunderstood’ in light of the ‘bigger picture’ are allowed to speak as one of many traditions and/or ideas present within a text

o Contradictions and incompatibilities are allowed

o Theology then does not become a privilege, but rather a difficult task

- Optimism depending, this may function either as a blessing or as a curse

o Negatively, theology is not simple under this view; it is not merely a process of listening to the divine word and living in light of it, but rather, people become responsible for their conclusions; God cannot be deferred to quite so easily

o Positively, theology is not oppressive under this view; contradictory ideas and differing thoughts cannot be seen as products of sinfulness, inadequate revelation, or simple heresy, but rather are understood as being attempts at understanding God that must be judged with relative and fluctuant categories.

A/theological proposal

- The death of God as the end of metaphysics of presence; the end of metaphysics of presence as the end of grand narrative; the end of grand narrative as the end of justification; the end of justification as the end of the self-enclosed revelation

- God as god; God as flux; God as mystery (and a brief treatment of apophatic theology)

- History as perspective; Christianity as a voice among many; the gospel as phenomenology

- The self in other-terms; the creative, the responsible

- The pharmakon of the structure; the give and take of revelation; inheritance and response, gift and responsibility