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Keynotes and brief summaries

Keynotes and brief summaries


Keynote: Henri-Jérôme Gagey (Institut Catholique, Paris, France)

De l’histoire à l’historicité le cas de la Résurrection 

Response : Tina Beattie (Roehampton University, London, UK)

La question de la normativité de l’histoire en théologie posée par ce colloque sollicite évidemment le systématicien, à revenir sur la fameuse question du rapport entre le Jésus de l’histoire et le Christ de la foi qui fut centrale pour la théologie au XXe siècle. Je n’ai pas su résister à la tentation, parce que cette question n’a jamais cessé de me préoccuper depuis la soutenance de ma thèse sur R. Bultmann il ya près de vingt ans. Je vais la reprendre ici à propos de la confession de la Résurrection de Jésus, en me demandant si, et alors en quel sens, elle peut être considérée comme une affirmation historique après que la quête du Jésus de l’histoire eût semblé  aboutir à la destruction de la christologie désormais assimilée à un mythe. Mais avant d’entrer dans le sujet quelques mots sur ce qu’est devenue cette fameuse quête qui aujourd’hui ne semble plus constituer une question aussi centrale que jadis pour la théologie.

 

 

Keynote: Saskia Wendel (University of Cologne, Germany)

Freedom of Mind – Abyss of the Soul – Unification with God

Response: Rob Faesen (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium)

On the one hand, in its basic motives, the mysticism of Middle Ages, particularly the Beginen mysticism (Hadewijch of Antwerp, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Margeruite Porete) and its adoption by the speculative mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Eckhart’s school, can be considered a countermovement to a certain tradition of orthodox Catholic theology in which the fixation to church and ministry was dominant. It reacted against the idea of an institution providing salvation and serving as a custodian of the revealed faith, as mysticism, confessing the immediacy to God and the freedom of mind, challenged this function of conservation and communication of faith. Therefore, it was the Beginen mysticism and adherence to it that were condemned as heterodox. Cases in point are the condemnation and burning of Margeruite Porete as well as Meister Eckhart’s accusation as a heretic. On the other hand, mysticism itself formed a theological tradition that shaped a mystical theology centering upon the motif of the mystic unification with God. To what extent is this kind of theology important to current theology? And in what way does it continue to be subversive, changing theology as well as the church today that is subject to the conditions of a postmodern society? Can the theological return to mystical theologies help overcome the “God crisis” (with the current situation of Western societies) as well as the “church crisis” (with the current situation of the Catholic Church in mind)? And how may embracing mysticism matter to people who, even though religious, are neither willing nor able to live their religiousness within the church any more for a variety of reasons?

 

Keynote: Shawn Copeland (Boston College, USA)

The Dangerous Memory of Slavery: Some Contributions of Black Historical Experience to Theology

Response: Hans-Joachim Sander (University of Salzburg, Austria)

In what ways are ‘dangerous memories’ (memories of social suffering, oppression, and injustice, but also of God's promise of solidarity with the oppressed) of significance in doing theology today? Taking as it provocation the sesquicentenary (April 1861) of the start of the U.S. Civil War, this address interrogates the 'dangerous memory' of slavery in a society founded on equality and liberty.  What is the ‘normativity’ of the ‘history’ of black struggles for liberation for theology? How might other ‘dangerous memories', such as the Shoah in a European context, reawaken a vibrant theological vision for the future?

 

Keynote: Terrence Tilley (Fordham University, USA)

Has Salvation a History?

Response: Eamonn Conway (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland)

The notion of "salvation history" leaves us in a dilemma. If God is in control, then God willed, actively permitted, or was the primary cause of the destruction of the Jews in the Shoah and all the atrocities humans have perpetrated on each other. If God is the "omnipotent author" of a story that includes the both heroism and cowardice, inexplicable miracles and unspeakable atrocities, then God is quite literally either good and evil, or indifferent, and thus not all-good or the source of whatever is good, but not of evil. If God is not the omnipotent Lord of history, then must we simply drop the concept of salvation history? My argument here is that taking the latter horn of the dilemma, that is, abandoning "salvation history" is the path to take – and that it involves no loss, but real gain to do so. First, I will contextualize the concept of "salvation history" in its modern origins. The concept seems to have originated with a student of Leopold von Ranke's, J. C. K. von Hoffman (1810-1877). It has cast long shadows on the past. For nearly two centuries, the concept of "salvation history" has been presumed as a clear account of the meaning of history rooted in biblical theology (whether one supported the concept, opposed it, or simply tood it for granted).  Second, I will show that the concept is intrinsically unstable at best, incoherent at worst. 'History" if understood as the arena of human events, actions, patterns, communities, institutions, etc., reduces to the problematical question of how God acts in the world and how we can warrant claims that an act is an act of God. If "history" is understood as our construction of the past, then warranting the claim that some events are divinely caused and others are not is at least difficult, and perhaps impossible. Third, I will argue that the concept itself is the product of a modern category mistake. I will argue that salvation belongs not to the realms of history, understood either as "the past" or "the story we tell about the past," but to the realm of hope lived out in the present and future of the salvation symbolized as living in and living out the reign of God. As such, it is a religious concept that has little or nothing to do with historical work and should be explored theologically and practically, independent of the practice of history.

 

Keynote: Mathijs Lamberigts (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium)

Discontinuity in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church: The case of Nostra Aetate

Response: Sigrid Müller (University of Vienna)

How is the significance of Vatican II to be understood within the history of the Church's conciliar tradition? And, even more concretely: Is the Council best understood as a response to the crisis of the moment (modernity, for example, as has often been said), or does it represent a truly significant (re-) appropriation of revelation – where (re-) appropriation can also be understood as a reorientation or even a rupture?

 

Keynote: Eric Saak (Liverpool Hope University, UK)

Questioning Normativity: Systematic Theology as an Instrument of Evil

Response: Ben Vedder (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

The central argument of this paper is that systematic theology must accept the radical critiques of Christianity and the Christian religion (e.g. Marx, Durkheim, et al., as well as critiques of popular culture) into its very core lest it becomes a source of idolatry and therefore an instrument of evil. This is not to claim that systematic theology abandon its divine imperative. Rather, systematic theology must use the theological imperative of history and the historical imperative of theology to accept the validity of its critiques to the extent that they can and/or must be accepted to guard against and combat idolatry, which is an inherent component of human nature, including the human nature of systematic theologians, thereby contributing to, in the words of Lieven Boeve, “a more profound methodological reflection on ‘recontextualization’ as a theological method for today.” (Boeve, God Interrupts History, 37). The necessity of such an approach will then be illustrated with the example of St. Augustine and his reception in the western theological tradition. Augustine not only exerted an unparalleled influence on the theological tradition of the west, but he also did so while remaining contentious and controversial, even to the present day. Yet what has so often been asserted in the name of Augustine was far from positions found in Augustine’s writings. By applying a method of recontextualization based on the theological imperative of history and the historical imperative of theology, Augustine can once again be freed for systematic theological reflection, as well as historical understanding, both of which have been stagnated by various normativities. When norms, theological or otherwise, refuse to be open to reflection and questioning, they easily become themselves idolatrous and thus instruments of evil. The only recourse is to recognize the dual imperatives that entail the harmonization, if not fusion, of Church history and systematic theology in the questioning of normativity to combat the tendency of systematic theology and Church history to become themselves instruments of evil as products of idolatry.