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Theology's historical task: The problem of the disciplines
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
John Henry Newman came to see the need to frame what was in effect a new discipline of the history of theology, with rules and subject-matter which would make it a practical working instrument, but with a flexibility which would allow for insights about the interconnectedness and coherence of a living body of knowledge which was sustained in a vital community. This recognition, and Newman’s own response to it are instructive because, mutatis mutandis, we stand in much the same need now. Unlike the history of (say) philosophy or science, the history of Christian theology deals with subject-matter which is understood to be of its nature continuous and semper eadem But it clearly changes within that continuity. And that poses special problems historiographically.
We can get a glimpse of the way one thing led to the other in Newman’s arriving at these perceptions in a letter written in 1826. Newman begins by suggesting that it might be put to the test whether the Anglican divines from the sixteenth century onwards, if read so as to eliminate the adversariality of the polemic in which many of them had been engaged, had amongst them set out an account of their beliefs which formed a coherent and harmonious whole.
‘My dear Rickards,—In our last conversation I think you asked me whether any use had occurred to my mind to which your knowledge of our old divines might be applied. Now one has struck me,—so I write. Yet very probably the idea is so obvious that it will not be new to you, and. … I begin by assuming that the old worthies of our Church are neither Orthodox nor Evangelical … now it would be a most useful thing to give a kind of summary of their opinions. … if, then, in a calm, candid, impartial manner, their views were sought out and developed, would not the effect be good in a variety of ways?
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- Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
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