The Responsibility of Theology for Spiritual Growth and Pastoral Care

‘It seems that theology has no significant responsibility for spiritual development and pastoral care: at best, theology is a harmless distraction which entertains some Christians endowed with certain kinds of temperament; at worst, theology is a positive impediment to proper Christian formation and growth’. So a Thomist videtur quod non might begin, and the documentation would be easy to find. We might, for example, quote the famous adage, ‘by love he may be caught and held, but by thinking never”.We could reflect on how pastoral supervisors often try to get trainee ministers to respond to ‘what is really going on’, and not to think too quickly in terms of articulated theology. Again, many of us will know good priests who will tell us that seminary training in theology was something they survived. They began real learning on the job, on the basis of simple goodness and common sense. Theology is something of which they are i n awe, or nervous, or suspicious; it remains remote from their awareness. Sed contra: we should always be able to provide ‘an accounting for the hope that is in us; the bishop, the prime pastor,’ must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching’ (1 Peter 3:15b; Titus 1.9). We need therefore a responsio that engages with the objections, admitting their force, but somehow suggesting a more positive account of what theology might contribute to good pastoral practice.