The Proper End of Theology
On this final weekend before the beginning of a new semester at Westminster Theological Seminary, I’m desperately trying to finish several books on my “want-to-read” list before they are eclipsed by the “have-to-reads” of course requirements. (Not that many of our have-to-reads wouldn’t be want-to-reads anyway!) One of the books I’m finally getting through is John Franke’s The Character of Theology: An Introduction to Its Nature, Task, and Purpose. In a section about the nature of theology, I ran across the following quote from John Webster:
[Even though] technical sophistication [in devising terms and forms of arguments for theology] is not without its attendent perils, it is only vicious when it is allowed to drift free from the proper end of theolgy, which is the saints’ edification. (John Webster, Holiness [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], 4.)
In the part of his book where he gives that quote, Franke is reminding us that theology is always a second-order discipline, always a “human reflection on the primary stories, teachings, symbols, and practices of the Christian church” (Character of Theology, 104). So far I’m appreciating Franke’s call to approaching the task of doing theology with a humble sense of our human finitude and sinful tendencies without shrinking back from the delight that there is something real and worth finding in the task.
On a side note, I actually met John Franke last week at a home meeting we were both attending. Seems he already knew about me and this blog thanks to some mutual professorial friends, and he’s invited me to join him for a beer sometime.
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January 29th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
You’re becoming quite famous my friend! One day in the near future, I’ll be bragging to people that I once had a nice long telephone conversation with THE Mark Traphagen!
January 29th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
To be truly world famous in our day you need to be a sixteen year old girl wearing barely any clothes who has just enough talent to move her lips to a pre-recorded track. I in no way ever want to see John Franke or Peter Enns attempting any of that.
January 29th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
Mark,
“I in no way ever want to see John Franke or Peter Enns attempting any of that.” OK, i’m restraining myself–I’m not going to comment on that. If that doesn’t bring Pete back into the blog world, nothing will
January 29th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
I have a feeling I just planted a very disturbing image in my readers’ minds…and my own.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Mark,
I grant (as everyone does) that humans are finite and that their sin taints all theological efforts. But that does not imply by any means that theology is a “second order discipline”. I have heard this text from the book quoted numerous times now and that is quite scary. I have not read the book myself, so what do you think of the quote? Does the context make the comment legitimate? I have my doubts, but would like to hear your thoughts.
January 30th, 2006 at 10:41 am
Next thing you know, Burly is going to be making a Mark Traphagen fan site for you. Be afraid…
January 30th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Sorry, Mark, but Tom Petty beat you to that image! Check out the song “Joe” from “The Last DJ”–one of my favorite CDs of the past few year. (It’s on iTunes, by the way.)
January 30th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Luke,
By “second order” Franke means that theology (as a practice) is a human activity that seeks to interpret the first-order “stuff” of the actual word and deed revelations of God as recorded in Scripture. In other words, any work of theology you hold in your hand is not the thing itself–it is not the truth itself–but rather a human approach to the truth. I don’t see how you could view it any other way unless you’re going to say some theological works are actually inspired (which seems to be the way some people view their church confessions, though they would never say it).
January 31st, 2006 at 11:28 am
(a) I think such a definition of theology is reductionistic. Was Paul a theologian? Are his epistles a human approach to the truth rather than the truth itself? Sure, you could say that this is quibbling over semantics, but if such is the definition of theology, then how should we classify what biblical authors did?
(b) I’m not sure that that sort of framework is particularly helpful for evaluating confessional documents. As an almost random example, when WLC 2 asks “How doth it appear that there is a God?” and answers “The very light of nature in man, and the works of God, declare plainly that there is a God; but his Word and Spirit only do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation” I do not believe the divines were inspired. But how is this answer not “the truth itself”?
From what you’ve said it seems as though the potential is there in Franke to make truth some nebulous thing that exists within Scripture but cannot break free from it. I hope I’m misreading here, lest the task of theology become hopelessly irrelevant.
January 31st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
The task of theology IS hopelessly irrelevant.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Jason:
Good questions. One of the reasons I’m glad to finally be actually reading Franke’s book (instead of just critiques of it) is that I think I’m getting that what he’s saying is not as freaked out as some make it to be (even if in the end we don’t agree with all of it).
I’m on a short lunch break, so I’ll just have an initial stab at your first question with more to follow this evening.
[a] By “definition” I’m assuming you’re referring to the “second-order” part. So far (I’m 4/5ths through the book), Franke has not addressed directly what he might think the NT writers were doing, whether their theologizing was different in some ways from ours. He is clear that he believes their writings to be inspired and authoritative, although in his scheme there is an ongoing interplay of the Spirit enabling each local (in time and place) Christian community to interpret the Word through and for the culture in which it finds itself. When Franke calls theology a “second-order discipline,” I can only say for sure that he is talking about everyone who practices it after the inspired Scriptural authors. His take is that it is absolutely unavoidable that we act as interpreters of the text. Thus there is something between us and the “truth itself.” However, Franke does not think that therefore we are cut adrift and have no access to the truth. He sees the promise of the Spirit given to the church as our confidence that we are being led into all truth. But along the way, he calls us to humbly acknowledge that we are human interpreters who will sometimes get it wrong and sometimes get it right. This is why he calls for theology to be done within and for the church. He sees the church throughout its history as the place where the Spirit works to be constantly correcting and guiding us in our theologizing. He therefore calls upon theologians to be aware of the history of theology and church tradition even as they may be striking out in new directions because of more recent scholarship.
January 31st, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Response to Jason continued…
[b] Can a particular confession or creed contain within it good and useful representations of the truth? Certainly. I’m sure the best ones often do. But as products of finite and sinful human beings, they also will contain less-than-perfect representations of the truth and/or outright error. For example, in the original WCF there are the oft-cited examples of declaring the pope the Antichrist and support of divine right of kings. Both of these were expunged by later generations as error, but they seemed very right and useful to the original Westminster divines in the context of the social, religious, and political climate in which they lived. That climate changed, and the WCF had to be “re-contextualized” to fit. So it hardly seems genuine to maintain that the WCF somehow stands apart from contextualization.
Jason, you yourself told me that one of our WTS church history profs, famous for his disdain of postmodernism, himself admits in class that all theology is contextualized in history. Yet I’ve had other students who have taken his classes tell me that when it comes to the WCF, this same professor seems to deny any contextualization. Why this wall of near-papal infallibility around this document?
In Character of Theology, Franke is anything but anti-confessional. He is very supportive of creeds and confessions as very necessary and useful resources in the Church’s ongoing mission in the world. He calls for us to never do our theology in a historical vacuum. Our brothers and sisters who have labored with the Spirit in the Word before us have voices we do well to heed. But he sees the church as one that needs to continue confessing in each new time and place, and to confess in a way that both embraces the past but also recognizes the present, while feeling the pull of the eschatological perfection ahead. In sum, Franke would deny that his proposal makes theology “irrelevant.” While embracing postmodernism’s suspicion of foundational certainty (a suspicion that he sees as very in line with a Reformed anthropology), he rejects the brand of theoretical, academic postmodernism which denies that we can ever know truth or even that there exists such a thing as truth. Instead, he calls for us to work humbly, communally, and prayerfully…yet with real faith and hope because of our conviction that the Spirit works in us despite and often even through our weaknesses.
February 1st, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Sure, as one who thinks the American revision of the standards is preferable, there is no doubt that in some ways the historical and cultural situation played a role in formulating the theology of Westminster. However, I’m not sure conceiving of the American revision as recontextualizing is appropriate. In fact, there is a category shift in your comments, from “truth” to “context.” The C17 context of the Westminster Assembly played a role in their belief that certain things about the relation of the church and the civil magistrate were Scriptural. The later American revision disagreed. But on what grounds? Not cultural context, but Scripture. The revision believes that the original misread Scripture. Thus the revision is a correction, not a recontextualization. It is an attempt to make the document more faithful to Scripture, not more relevant to culture.
Also, that’s not what I said about Trueman. He said that often the right side wins for the wrong reasons (political, social, what have you). He certainly never said that all theology is contextualized in history. Yes, there is a contextual element at play in theology (me speaking now, not Trueman), but that’s to say not much more than that general revelation exists.
My real issue is this: what, and where, is “the truth”? Following up on my specific example, what is the relation of WLC 2 to “the truth”? This is what has seemed unclear to me in your presentation of Franke’s conception of theology.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:46 pm
The truth is…my wife passed her Greek exam today, so we’re going out to dinner tonight!
So…my response will be somewhat delayed. I ask your patience.
Sorry I misinterpreted your report to me re: Trueman and history. I’m sure your actual statement to me presented the “truth itself.”
I just want to throw in at this point that I don’t want to be viewed as an ardent defender of all things Franke at this point. Arguing things from what I perceive to be his point of view is my way of working through his thinking. Frankly, the parts of his book that discuss pomo ideas of the non-correspondence between language and objective reality (and any pomo discussions of such) make my head hurt. I’m having a hard time following it, so it’s tough for me to evaluate. What I’m more interested in is whether he has a point about how we much approach the task of theology more humbly because of lack of (human) certainty. I’ll repeat again that I found him to be very clear in the book that he does beleive there is objective truth and that we can know it, often quite substantially. But no one individual or even Christian community can get it all right all the time. He places his hope in the promise of the Spirit given to the Church, that across the ages the Spirit is helping the whole Church to find a clearer and clearer apprehension of the truth. He believes that process continues, contra some WCF adherents who believe that it suddenly stopped with the last stroke of the pen of the Westy Divines.
More on your take on correction vs. contextualization later. Sage out!
February 1st, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Hey Sage,
Please give my congratulations to Karyn on passing her Greek exam!
February 1st, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Congratulations shall be transmitted.