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LIR RESPATI BUMIDAYA

Debating the nature of systematic theology

Once again a prolonged absence can only be explained by my preoccupation with other responsibilities. I apologise to those who were expecting me to keep up a constant flow of new material. I wish I had been able to meet those expectations. However, I've now given the blog a fresh look (thanks to the new 'Dynamic View' feature of Blogger.com) and my hope is now to return to posting at least once a week. I realise that I have a number of series to complete but there are always new things to add as well.

One of the big questions which keeps bubbling to the surface in the circles in which I move, is the nature of a biblical systematic theology. How prominent should the Bible be in our theologising? How do we keep systematic theology from becoming little more than historical theology? What exactly do we mean by systematic theology? Of course however we answer those questions there must be room for the variety that stems from our different personalities and backgrounds. But since most of my friends are concerned to be clearly and unambiguously biblical in their theologising, you might expect some family resemblances.

I hope to return to these questions in a few weeks' time. However, I was fascinated to discover a controversy over just this subject in the early years of the University of Oxford. A recent book by Ulrich Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology (Washington: Catholic University of America, 2010) drew my attention to a controversy in the years 1313–1317 over a matter of principle: 'what should have priority in university theology, the Sentences [of Peter the Lombard] or the Bible?' (pp. 126–7). The mendicant orders who had a long association with the universities were determined to preserve the traditional emphasis on the teaching of the Bible. New additions to the theology faculty were bringing a different emphasis from the universities of Paris and Bologna.

Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253) had been a staunch advocate of the priority of the biblical text in theological education. He was convinced that 'the Bible and theology (as sacra pagina) are still one. Perhaps even stronger still, Roger Bacon (1220–1292) emphasised that the real concern of theologians is 'circa textum sacrum sciendum' ['understanding the sacred text']. (p. 127) He railed against the move towards focussing on questions, as the more recent theological treatises had most clearly done. He apparently considered compiling theological questions as 'in principle a betrayal of theology as scriptural exegesis' (p. 128) The innovation of the Parisians, to concentrate on the summa of a particular magister, most often the Sentences, he denounced as sin.

Leinsle's conclusion is salutary:

This biblical reaction to the situation in Paris and Bologna came too late, however, to do anything about the decline in biblical theology and the rise of the questions and commentaries on the Sentences. (p. 129)

So it seems debates about the place of Scripture in the practice of systematic theology, and what is implied in our answer to that question about the nature of systematic theology itself, have a very long pedigree.