Concluding reflections

If this chapter has offered an account of theology which is ‘impossible’, it has done so in a way which demonstrates that such an impossibility is proper. By indicating the ‘double negativity’ of theology - in relation both to the mystery of Trinity and in relation to the practicalities of living in the Spirit - it has also suggested a way of bringing systematic and practical theologies together in a circular rather than linear or correlative relationship. There is, rather, a call to a single whole-theology, based on a practical fundamental theological understanding of the proper variety of and coherence between the different loci of divine revelation. As such, it is also a call to a particular way of being - better, practising - church: as a community of discerning conversation, open to the necessarily incomplete and flawed contributions of all who seek what is most true. Our faith tells us that this Truth is found and experienced in the Trinity, but there can be no short cuts in the theological task of articulating this faith, this hope. Rather, the ecclesial conversation itself in and for the world, becomes the expression of the Trinitarian faith and the theology which is its (always provisional) understanding.

Notes

1 This is an especially strong theme in the important World Council of Churches document: The Church: Towards a Common Vision. Faith & Order Paper 214 (World Council of Churches Publications, 2013).
2 Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Blackwell, 2000). See especially 131-180.
3 Paul Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (Darton Longman & Todd, 2000).

Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘on the Trinity’ (CUP, 2013).

Pete Ward, Liquid Ecclesiology (Brill, 2017): 21.

One of the best accounts of this late modern context for Christian theology, and a constructive response to it is given by Lieven Boeve, Interrupting Tradition: An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context (Peeters, 2003); and God Interrupts History (Continuum, 2007).

Lieven Boeve, God Interrupts History (Continuum, 2007): 41-48.

Ibid. This language of ‘interruption’ in Boeve is explicitly linked to the work of Johann Metz: Boeve, op. cit. 203-204. I am aware, too, of the significance of this language for Sarah Coakley, although with a rather different provenance and suggesting a subtly different reference. For example, see Coakley, op. cit. 56-57; 87, on the interruption of the Spirit.

Op. cit. Chapter 9, “Trinity and Revelation.” 131-147.

Ibid. 146. We are reminded here of Saak’s warning about the ‘idolatry’ of tradition within systematics see p. 217 above.

Coakley seems to be suggesting something similar when she describes her work as aiming “to bind questions of theological method, contemplative practice, and desire into a new tether. For they do belong together; and one can see all the more pressingly that they do once one grasps the implications for them of a specifically trinitarian understanding of God”. Op. cit. 35.

Aquinas ST 1.1.2. “In this second manner [derived] is Christian theology a science, for it flows from founts recognised in the light of a higher science, namely God’s very own which he shares with the blessed”. And later: “Sacra doctrina does not pronounce on God and creatures as though they were counterbalancing, but on God as principal and on creatures in relation to him, who is their origin and end. Hence its unity as a science (scientia) is not hampered.” 1.1.3.

Herbert McCabe argues this lucidly in God and Evil in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Continuum, 2010): 15-33.

Aquinas, ST la. 1.9 responsio.

See note 12 above.

See note 14 above.

Summa Theologiae 1.1.4.

Ibid, my emphases.

Chapter 4, p. 50 above.

This is worked out in some detail through chapters 1 and 2 of Coakley’s God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘on the Trinity’ (CUP, 2013). Summary of the “hallmarks’ of théologie totale are given 88-92.

See Coakley’s connecting of théologie totale with the l’historié totale of the French Annales School, op. cit. 35, n. 2.

Here there is another resonance with Coakley, relating to her presentation of the practice of contemplation as fundamental to theology. Op. cit. 88, for example. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology (New York, NY: Seabury, 1980).

Metz begins his book with a reference to I Pet.3: 15. Op. cit. 3.

Ibid. 3.

Op. cit. 13, n.15.

Ibid.

This is a characteristic theme of Metz: Leiden an Gott (suffering unto, or toward, God), reminding the comfortable “middle-class” tendencies of theology of the primary orientation of Christian faith toward solidarity with and hope for the suffering world.

29 Ibid. 73.
30 See Preface p. ix above.
31 That is in relation to both the mystery of the Trinity, and in relation to Christian practices in the world and in the Spirit.
32 There is some interesting recent work being done on the place of conversation in theology. In particular I would mention: Jennifer Jackson, Conversation, Friendship and Transformation: Contemporary and Medieval Voices in a Theology of Discourse (Routledge, 2016).
33 Chapter 3.
34 Chapter 4.
35 Coakley, op. cit. 88.
36 As significantly recognised by Vatican IPs Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium chap. 7.
37 See I Cor. 13:12.