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Criticism or Construction? The Task of the Theologian
Author(s) -
Lash Nicholas
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
new blackfriars
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1741-2005
pISSN - 0028-4289
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-2005.1982.tb02532.x
Subject(s) - criticism , task (project management) , psychology , aesthetics , epistemology , sociology , philosophy , social psychology , law , political science , management , economics
When 1 settled down to prepare this lecture,’ I looked at the title I had offered to the Regent of Studies and began to have doubts: was it really appropriate, on so prestigious an occasion, to discuss what seemed, the more I looked at it, a rather naive or childish question? Not that I have anything against childish questions. Small children are neither experts nor are they wise. They are not experts, because they lack the opportunity to amass specialist stocks of information and skill. And they have neither experienced enough nor suffered enough to be wise. Nevertheless, small children do often ask fundamental questions as a matter of personal concern. Theologians are usually elderly, or at least middle-aged. The theologian’s audience therefore have a right to expect of him a measure of scholarly expertise: they are entitled to assume that he knows a number of things that other people either do not know or have forgotten. Moreover, the theologian’s audience also have a right to expect of him a measure of that wisdom which is the fruit of experience and suffering. (The fact that, on both counts, the audience will often be disappointed does not render their expectations the less legitimate.) It is, I believe, part of the theologian’s responsibility, a function of his expertise and his measure of wisdom, to try to ask, and to help other people to ask, fundamental questions as a matter of personal concern. There is a sense in which the theologian who is not in his second childhood is not doing his job properly. (And I consoled myself with the thought that many of the questions to which Thomas Aquinas, whose memory we are celebrating, most profoundly addressed himself were, quite properly, childish questions.) As I continued to rationalise my original decision, I was further reassured by the thought that the question I had chosen to discuss does at least seem to be one which is raised by many intelligent and responsible people when they complain that too many academic theologians, instead of budding up the faith and strength-