Systematics are Not Enough: Toward a narrative theology

I came out of a seminary education, like most mainline pastors these days, that had a strong emphasis on systematic theology. This theory of pastoral training is predicated on the idea that pastors need to have a good grasp of what is heretical (and why) in order to better preach and teach their faith, but more than that, it teaches us to counter those kinds of theology that claim a line of reasoning that does not agree with our own. Lutheran Systematics attempts to explain Calvinism, Arminianism, Arianism, or any other -ism theologians have ever concocted, so that when we run across varying forms of these beliefs we have the tools to label them. If somebody is espousing Arminianism we can call it what it is and point out the standard arguments against it.

I want to suggest that this is a good starting point. It's important to know how our particular faith believes and why it believes it, but as I've seen far too often--on Facebook in the ELCA clergy group, on blogs and in conversation with pastors and seminarians sans internet--this has become something very near to the full expression of our faith. The assumption, it seems, is that correct doctrine allows us to come to a closer understanding of the true nature of God.

For example, we twist ourselves in knots when it comes to issues of theodicy (why God would allow/participate in/condone evil in the world), because theological words common to our culture's understanding of God end up looking mutually exclusive. God cannot be both omnipotent and omni-benevolent given the Holocaust. So, we rightfully have done away with some of this Greek terminology; it is after all non-scriptural. However, instead of replacing the stoic Greek terms with more nuanced words we have replaced them with categories. We might say that God is capable of curing cancer (omnipotent) but that God does not heal every cancer sufferer due to our free will (benevolent but self-limiting); and the cancer itself is a repercussion of the fall (thus, we are the cause of God's self-limiting benevolence in spite of God's omnipotence). This answer could be correct--if there is such a thing as "correct theology"--but it struggles to justify the hardline reasoning that brought us to this point.

I recently read an article that talked about the debate between Alvin Plantinga (a theist with Calvinist roots) and Daniel Dennett (an atheist) regarding the existence of God. It struck me in reading their arguments that my seminary education prepared me better to argue against Plantinga (a Christian, I might remind you) than it did to counter Dennett. I could point out the Calvinist reasoning of Plantinga, especially the subjected free will and the idea of the seed of belief. I could say why I disagreed with that. When it came to the arguments Dennett put forth I was armed, not because of my seminary education, but because I have a mild interest in apologetics. If it weren't for my own studies I would have very little vocabulary to speak Christ to a non-Christian. Strange.

Where Systematic theology leaves us is with a set of boxes. This is helpful in that we can define where we are, where others are and what makes us distinct. However, the reality of our shared life together on this planet should necessitate that eventually we move ourselves out of that 2-D landscape and add a third dimension. I want to suggest the best way to do this is with a narrative approach. On the one hand this is nothing new, Stanley Hauervas has argued for something very similar. But this is also somewhat radical in that it requires us to break down the rigidity of our theological systems, treating our doctrines not as rigid law but as "depth grammar" (the function of words in the life situation of their hearer/reader). This is how we treat the art of preaching, after all; we say that God's word is alive and it is the Spirit that gives us the gift of faith in the hearing of the Gospel. The word itself is depth grammar dependent on the Spirit. I learned this in seminary, but it never extended further than the ears of the hearer. So why are we so hesitant to ascribe to the Spirit (whose ability to work through the preached word is unquestioned) a faculty to work through our systems of theology?

Perhaps we're afraid that should we enter a third dimension we will lose control over the beliefs of our people. Well... good. Controlling what people believe should never be the goal of clergy. The spiritual convictions of our members are far more expansive than we would readily admit, but this is not a failure. Even the most crotchety believer is likely to have an understanding of God that would make us cringe in its apparent inaccuracy, and this is well and good. Their life experience brought them to this realization, whether it is true or not. Our job is not to create the bounds of the faith but to nurture the word of God so that the Holy Spirit continues to move in our midst. It's not our control over good belief and bad belief that matters; it's the Spirit that engenders all manner of belief in the first place.

When we present the basics of the faith and assume that the words we speak are sufficient for understanding and coming to love the God who created us we do a disservice to what Christ demonstrated throughout the Gospels. He so often spoke a word that was counter-intuitive, counter-cultural and even counter-theological. He spoke words that sometimes disagreed with other words he had already spoken. His mission was to speak, to teach, to share the Word of God, quite literally, in his very person. My meager argument is that we are called to do the same, which requires us to enter a three-dimensional world that builds upon our systematic education. It's a narrative world that takes seriously the depth grammar of the Gospel, the work of the Spirit and our lives together. Lord knows we need it.