On Remembering Theology

By Lewis Ayres, Ph.D.

Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology at Durham University, U.K.

The Notre Dame theologian Cyril O’Regan speaks of some key intellectual giants of modernity as “mis-remembering” the tradition. This is, I think, a helpful way of considering the manner in which many modern figures have seen the need for a “reconstruction” of Christian doctrine, based on what turns out to be a forgetting of the very character of that which needs supposedly to be reconstructed! Such a criticism may be levelled at some of the more obvious exponents of Enlightenment, such as Kant, but also at those who have seen themselves not as simply rejecting tradition but somehow reinvigorating its heart – figures such as Hegel. It is a criticism which also may encompass many modern theologians writing on the Trinity, especially those who tell us that western theology somehow failed to sustain an adequate theology of the Trinity, but in the interests of courtesy I will name no examples. Against this background, one of the most important theological tasks of our day is recovering our ability to remember better the tradition, especially as it speaks to us of the most fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.

If we are to better and more appropriately remember the tradition, I suspect that we will need, first, to think hard about the divisions between sub-disciplines that theologians often assume, and into which most of us are trained. Our accounts of theology all too easily assume that the activity is structured as it is out of necessity, rather than as the product of a wide range of intellectual forces over recent history. The separation of “biblical studies'' and “theology” has come under particularly close examination in recent years, as scholars across different Christian traditions have recognised that the modern diremption between these disciplines is deeply interwoven with the desire of some early modern biblical scholars in the eighteenth century to differentiate themselves from medieval and Patristic exegetes, and then equally deeply shaped by the culture of the modern university. We have begun to think about the relationship between theology and the study of Scripture in the light of some basic theological questions: given the role that Scripture plays in God’s economy of revelation and salvation, we should read it in these ways. . . . There will be a variety of answers to these questions, depending on the theological tradition from within which one speaks. Our answers to these theological questions need not entail abandoning the riches that modern biblical study has given us, but they should guide and supplement those riches with others, especially as we grow in appreciation of how we have been led to see new depths in Scripture over the course of the Spirit’s guidance of the Church.

The same sort of investigation also needs to be applied to the manner in which we commonly differentiate “systematic” and “historical” theology; the former often presents itself, for example, as studying the interrelationship between doctrines, or as approaching the new questions that face each generation. And yet, in actual fact, “systematics” easily becomes an exercise in moving around on the theological chessboard only modern-shaped pieces. If I study the Christology of Maximus, I am a historian; if I study that of Rahner, I can call myself a “systematician”! The very shape of this supposedly obvious distinction between disciplines may, in fact, only aid the forgetting and mis-remembering with which I began. Against this background we need a theological account of the role that the tradition plays in our theological thinking. In my own Roman Catholic context, a great deal of fruitful thought was given to this question in the decades leading up to the Second Vatican Council, but since Yves Congar OP published his monumental Tradition and Traditions, consideration of this question has oddly tailed off.

I have been particularly concerned, because much of my own work has focused on early Christian theologians, with how we envision the early Christian period. One of the best accounts of what it means to speak of the “fathers of the Church'' is found in the then- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s 1982 Principles of Catholic Theology. While Ratzinger says that of course there are people who might be counted as Fathers or Mothers of the Church in any age, there is a distinctive importance rightfully accorded the early Christian period. We might, he suggests, reflect on Christ as God’s Word spoken in the world, and then conceive of the early Christian period, the Patristic period, as the God-given, Spirit-given “constitutive answer to the Word.” How we should respond to the word, in theological contemplation, in liturgical worship, in the forms of our common and individual life is either set by this period, or at least grows from the roots then set in the ground of history through the Spirit’s work. Early Christian life and theology is, then, secondary to the Word spoken in Christ, but it shapes the forms of Christian response and encounter, and as such has a permanent place in our attention. There is, of course, much more that might be said. Elsewhere I have suggested that we may think of the act of handing on – the act of traditio – as an essential part of the theological act. Moreover, when we recognise that the “constitutive answer” of the early Christian period is given to us by the Spirit then perhaps we must also recognise that it is not just the bare terms of conciliar statements – such as the Nicene creed or the definition of Chalcedon – that should (quite rightly) command our attention, but the theologians who nurtured those bare statements and in whose light they should be read.

The French theologian Marie Dominique Chenu wrote this in 1937 about the history of theology:

The theologian's first concern, in dignity as well as in order, is to know that history, and to equip himself to this effect. This is no transitory requirement, which one can hurriedly abandon to specialists at the door of the laboratory of speculation, but a permanent devotion in which the mind immerses itself. . . In this conception of theology, Holy Scripture and Tradition are not primarily a collection of arguments to be used in the Schools and their disputed questions. They are primarily what is given, to be scrutinised, known, and loved for themselves. . .

I have written here only about the theology of the early church; Chenu’s point was about the broader history of the tradition. There is, then, much more to be said about the shape of the tradition more broadly, who should be remembered, how different moments in the tradition should be conceived. Doing is a key task for our generation if we are to learn to remember better, and hence to think better theologically. Of course, we must not only think about this in theoretical terms, we need also to read the Fathers as living voices, attending to them as we learn to speak in theological terms.

Lewis Ayres is Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology at Durham University in the United Kingdom. Between 2009 and 2013, he served as the inaugural holder of the Bede Chair of Catholic Theology at Durham. The core of Dr. Ayres’s research has been Trinitarian theology in Augustine and in the Greek writers of the fourth century. Ayres's period of research into patristic pneumatology has resulted in a collaborative translation of patristic texts on the Holy Spirit, but as yet the much anticipated monograph on the subject has not appeared. Besides Trinitarian theology in this pivotal period he is also interested in the later development of Trinitarian theology and in the place of Scripture in Early Christianity – both the history of Christian reading practices from the late 2nd century and the history of what can be termed the theology of Scripture itself. He is at present writing a monograph that will concern the shifts in Patristic exegesis between AD 150 and 250. Dr. Ayres is the author of Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford University Press, 2006). Nashotah House is pleased to welcome Dr. Ayres, who will be teaching the course Augustine Through his Sermons this Summer (2022). Visiting students and auditors welcome. To learn more about this class and Nashotah House’s other Summer Courses, please click here or the image above.