LEST III - Main speakers

Defensor Vinculi et Conversationis: Connectedness and Conversation as a Challenge to Theology
Prof. Dr. Jacques Haers SJ (Faculteit Godgeleerdheid, KU Leuven)

The massive response to the theme of the LEST III conference, which aims at unfolding a research programme for theology focussing on metaphors as encounter, relation and conversation, probably reflects theologians’ uneasiness with theology’s loss of a sense of reality and its estrangement from spiritual life. The thought developped by Origen of Alexandria at the onset of Christianity and by Karl Rahner during the twentieth century, offers another perspective.

To develop the new theological research programme, I will first clarify the terminology and unfold a holistic and in-between ontology. Here the modern and postmodern stress on the “I” has to clear the field for a more foundational emphasis on encounter and connectedness which becomes the main object of the ongoing conversations. I will show that many thinkers who emphasize conversation and relation do so, unfortunately, from the perspective of interacting “I”s. Their approaches intuit the importance of relations and conversation, but remain trapped in ego-oriented ontological schemes and may very well mislead us.

A radical re-consideration of theological thought from the perspective of encounter, connectedness and conversation, opens up new methodological perspectives and clears the field for a more narrative approach to theology. Revelation as a process of communication, trinity as the reality of a God who can never be reduced to an all consuming I, creation as open interconnectedness, christology that takes its lead from the incarnation and the desire for communion articulated in the message of God’s Reign, ecclesiology as a network of discernment and eschatology as the open ended conversation, are but some of the fields that profit from the new approach, which also allows for a new alliance between theology and spirituality which I will illustrate by offering an analysis of the significance of the three religious vows.

The proposed research programme likewise redefines the relationship between theological thought and contemporary reality as its context. Using the urgent examples of globalisation and conflict management, I will illustrate the pro-active fruitfulness of the conversational approach.

By way of a conclusion I will attempt to offer some of the most urgent features to be explored in the research programme called “encounter”.

The Dreams of Theology and the Realities of Christianity
Prof. Dr. Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

In this lecture I will argue that there is a gap between the way Christianity has been - and still tends to be - perceived from theological perspectives, on the one hand, and the reality of Christianity as a historical phenomenon, on the other; and I will further argue that this point is of crucial importance for understanding the nature of the challenge that Christian theologians face in the 21th century. If it is true that the nature of Christianity as a lived religion is incorrectly perceived by theologians, clearly this makes it impossible for them to gain an adequate perspective on Christianity's (not: theology's!) relation to (post)modernity and secularism, on the one hand, and to new types of "alternative spirituality", on the other - phenomena which are much more intimately related than commonly recognized.

On this basis, theology in the 21th century cannot but make itself increasingly irrelevant to the community of believers which it claims to represent. To deal with the challenges of the 21th-century, theologians should therefore take seriously the difference between Christianity as a lived religion and theology as systematic reflection on the beliefs of that religion, and redefine their own task accordingly. The implications of a such a redefinition should not be underestimated: it would amount to a Copernican revolution in theology. Yet if such a revolution does not take place, Christian theology will increasingly become an insulated and elitarian pursuit interesting only to specialists: a conversation of theologians among themselves, with little relevance to religious realities.

Trinity and the Paschal Mystery: Divine Communion and Human Conversation
Anne Hunt (Melbourne Divinity School, Australia)

Even a brief reflection on the phenomenon of conversation leads one to realise how rare and precious an event it really is. We live in a world that is saturated with information and communication, yet conversation is as rare a phenomenon as ever, perhaps even more so. So what is conversation? Some biblical texts will also provide food for thought on the phenomenon of conversation.

Trinitarian theology surely has something to bring to our understanding of conversation and indeed of the essentially conversational nature of the theological enterprise itself. The psychological analogy, the linchpin of traditional trinitarian theology, has been much criticised in recent times for its attention on the individual subject and its acts of intellect and will and especially for its apparent lack of attention to the interpersonal and social dimensions of authentic subjectivity. The shift to more a overtly social key in the explication of trinitarian theology, as exemplified by liberation trinitarian theologies, effectively marks what we can understand, from a methodological perspective, as a shift in the function of trinitarian meaning, to use Lonergan’s terms, from the cognitive to the communicative.

Another relatively recent development in trinitarian theology, whereby the mystery of the Trinity is approached by way of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery, as exemplified in the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, takes the connection between Trinity and Conversation in a very different direction, effectively moving to a deeper level of exploration, by shifting the focus of attention to the sheer drama of the encounter of God’s entry into human history, God’s communication, and the engagement of divine freedom with human freedom.

In this paper, I will focus on the perspectives on the divine communion, which the Paschal Mystery offers. I will then explore the ramifications for systematic theology and for Christian spirituality. We shall turn to conversation more generally and its intrinsically paschal character and finally return to the connection between Trinity and Conversation.

The Church in the World: A Dialogue on Ecclesiology
Prof. Dr. Teresa Okure (Catholic Institute of Western Africa, Port Harcourt, Nigeria)

The problematic of the relationship between the church and the world is perennial. The Second Vatican Council and subsequent papal and curia documents and works of theologians have elaborated in depth on this (Lumen gentium, Gaudium et spes, Redemptoris missio, Ecclesia in Africa, A Listening Church, etc.).

With this relationship as the background, the current study invites a focused attention on the church itself as a reality located in the world and influenced by the world (understood geo-politically and ideologically). A dialogue on ecclesiology, that is, within the church itself, emerges as a unique means for growing in this renewed self-awareness. Briefly, whatever its form, a dialogue on ecclesiology should first aim at helping the church to understand better and accept its own nature and vocation in the world in light of the gospel.

The double awareness that the church is in the world even as the world is in the church, forms the sound basis for its effective, self-critiquing, humble and renewed self-understanding in and for the world. This renewed self-understanding frees the church to undergo a conversion in its attitude and manner of being present in and to the world, enhances its growth in maturity as a truly universal church and enables it to better fulfil its mission in and to the world. Since dialogue is indispensable in the on-going process of the church's growth to universal maturity, the study identifies the agents responsible for effecting this dialogue, the model of church which best serves this dialogical approach in its internal relationship, and underscores inculturation at all levels as indispensable in the dialogical process. Acceptance of and commitment to its universality through dialogue is a prerequisite for the church's authentic and fruitful dialogue with the world. Ultimately, the church in this discussion consists of Christians who individually and collectively assume and continue to assume the responsibility for living out the implications of the issues discovered in the study, that is, of being Christ in and to the world.

Mediating the Global and the Local with Conversation
Robert Schreiter (Catholic Theological Union, U.S.A. - K.U.Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

In thinking about how the global and the local might be mediated in the Church today, it is important to recognize that discussions of both the global and local are moving into a second generation. This is the framework in which Church conversations have to be understood.

For the global, the first generation was marked by an optimism about the "global village" which did not take adequate cognizance of difference and the dynamics of power. In current discussions of the global, difference and power figure more prominently. At the same time there is a quest for what will constitute shared values (such as the possibility of a global ethic), and how global flows around issues such as human rights, migration, and the environment will be understood.

In discourse about the local, the first generation focused upon attending to context and giving primacy to local experience. In a second generation, the pressures created by globalization, on the one hand, and the dangers of solipsism and a destructive identity politics are more in view.

Can an adequate conversation between the global and the local take place in the Church? The developments in understanding both the global and the local within the Church will be explored in light of the larger context, and an attempt will be made to articulate some of the rules for such a conversation.

Atheism, Apophaticism and Différance
Denys Turner (Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, U.K.)

“Tout autre est tout autre” says Jacques Derrida – but he must be wrong simply on a matter of the logic of difference. High medieval negative theologies have more sophisticated accounts of ‘difference’ than Derrida’s, and their accounts of apophatic deferral are correspondingly more complex: in particular, they are not vulnerable to Derrida’s criticism that they avoid atheism at the price of having to affirm a ‘superessential residue’. On the other hand, Derrida’s criticism does force an issue for the contemporary theologian, who, it might appear, must either accept the late antique and medieval reliance on a hierarchy of ‘difference’, which in turn logically depends on a hierarchical ontology – and few are willing to accept this; or else they will be left with a completely free-standing apophaticism, with all the consequences this must have for a derridean deferral, which will be indistinguishable from atheism.

The way out of this dilemma will be through a recognition of the centrality of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. But, as (in my view) Thomas Aquinas maintains, this presupposes the possibility of valid rational arguments for the existence of God – a possibility which, it seems, hardly any theologians these days are willing to allow. On the other hand, a coherent apophatic theology – and spirituality – appears to depend upon this possibility.

La séparation entre théologie et spiritualité: Origine, conséquences et dépassement de ce divorce
Paul Verdeyen S.J. (Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, UFSIA, Antwerpen, Belgium)

The Holy Scriptures never mention a possible separation between theology and spirituality. They only speak about the separation between faith and incredulity. Also the patristic writings ignore a separation between knowledge and praxis of faith. During the first millennium A.D. writers did not know our current distinction between dogmatic theology and sacramental life, between morals and canon law, between asceticism and mysticism. However, nowadays we can notice a real gap between theological reflection and spiritual life in the Latin Church.

First we must reflect on the origins of the gap that is both regrettable and inevitable in cultures such as ours, steeped in rationalism. I dare to propose to you the hypothesis that theology and spirituality were reunited in harmony for the last time in the works of the monastic authors of the twelfth century (especially in the works of Bernard of Clairveaux and William of St. Thierry and in the writings of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor). Moreover, the real origins of the gap can be found in the conflict in which the Cistercians Bernard and William were opposed to the premier dialectician, Peter Abelard.

One of the consequences of the gap was that, for several centuries, scholasticism has occupied the entire field of theology. Spirituality was almost excluded from school curricula, to the detriment of both theology and spirituality. The latter has found refuge in the writings of monks and beguines throughout the thirteenth century and in the work of several mystical authors of the fourteenth century. Since the fifteenth century there have been calls against the dichotomy between theological reflection and the practical life of the faithful. These calls could be heard in two distinct though often related movements: humanism and modern devotion.

How is the gap to be bridged? We recall Malraux's words: "The 21st century will be spiritual or it will not be at all." It is so that the faculties of theology are hardly prepared for their new task, so adapted structures have to be found. The academic faculties create a department of spirituality that multiplies the courses on history of Christian spirituality and that organises workshops on specific themes of spiritual life. This means a remarkable progress compared to the situation in the past century. Only, the multiplication of institutes and courses does not at all guarantee that global theological research will follow more spiritual paths. The new structures have to go hand in hand with a new reflection on the specific character of theological knowledge. I propose to follow the guidance of William of St. Thierry, who in his main work 'Exposition on the Song of Songs' describes the knowledge that is revealed as an understanding of love (intellectus amoris). By way of conclusion, we will try to give some characteristics of the knowledge of love. 

Trinity and the Character of Human Living
Miroslav Volf (Yale Divinity School, U.S.A.)

Part I

1. Affinity
2. Analogies and their Limits

Part II

1. Creativity
2. Generosity
3. Embrace
4. Identity
5. Love