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Pulse
06 January 2025

 

The renowned Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig, is working on a multi-volume Systematic Philosophical Theology, a project which he embarked on during the pandemic. The first two volumes on Prolegomena and the Doctrine of God respectively, published by Wiley-Blackwell, are already in the market.

I have intermittently followed Craig’s work for many years. And although I find myself differing with his views on a great number of topics – such as the relationship between time and eternity – I have always admired his industry, rigour and honesty.

However, I must also say that my disagreement with Craig is not confined to individual topics and issues. It has to do with something far more basic, namely, with his whole approach to the Christian mystery and with his privileging of the philosophical/analytical method to that of traditional dogmatics.

Consider this paragraph he penned in an article entitled ‘Apologetics Training: Advice to Christian Apologists’, which clearly articulates both his valorising of the philosophical approach (of the Anglo-American variety) and his disdain for Continental philosophy and its seemingly undesirable effects on theology.

Analytical philosophy is the kind of philosophy that predominates in the Anglophone. This style of philosophising contrasts sharply with that of Continental philosophy. Whereas Continental philosophy tends to be obscure, imprecise, and emotive, analytic philosophy lays great worth and emphasis on clarity of definitions, careful delineation of premises, and logical rigour of argumentation. Unfortunately, theology has for a long time learned to follow the lead of Continental philosophy, which tends to result in darkness being piled upon darkness.

 

To characterise the theologies of Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Wolfhart Pannenberg and many others as ‘darkness being piled upon darkness’ is either an act of hubris or ignorance. Perhaps in the case of Craig, the problem is not hubris but a certain kind of perspectival astigmatism – an ideational blind-spot which in a sense can be described as a type of ignorance. (More of this later)

Recent decades have witnessed a gradual but significant rise of analytic or philosophical theology which is evidenced in the burgeoning literature, the increase in the number of peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the field, and prominent scholars such as Craig.

However, the renaissance of analytic theology is accompanied by a growing sense of discontent, voiced especially by – and here there is no surprise! – dogmatic theologians. But before I briefly examine the nature of the unease of these theologians, I must – also very briefly – explain what is meant by analytic theology.

A brief explanation of analytic theology comes from the pen of the late William Abraham who describes the enterprise thus: analytic theology is ‘theology attuned to the deployment of the skills, resources, and virtues of analytic philosophy.’

If this description is too terse to be helpful, the elaboration by Michael Rea may shed more light:

As I see it, analytic theology is just the activity of approaching theological topics with the ambitions of an analytic philosopher and in a style which conforms to the prescriptions that are distinctive of analytic philosophical discourse. It will involve, more or less, pursuing those topics in a way that engages the literature that is constitutive of the analytic tradition, employing some of the technical jargon from that tradition, and so on. But, in the end, it is the style and the ambitions that are most central.

 

Thus, analytic theology is a way of doing theology which is governed by the habits and rules prescribed by philosophy, and an attempt to interpret the divine revelation according to the latter’s demands.

This definition of analytic theology already hints at why theologians like me have been more than a little uneasy – if not outright sceptical – about the entire enterprise.

Harriet Harris and Christopher Insole have ably articulated these concerns in their book Faith and Philosophical Analysis: The Impact of Analytical Philosophy on the Philosophy of Religion (2005) thus:

… theologians are very resistant to engaging in the kind of reflection that analytical philosophers of religion employ … We should not assume that this is due to a sense of threat from philosophy. On the contrary, it is often because philosophers seem to theologians to take an inappropriate approach to the Bible, to religious phenomena, or to the articles of faith.

 

It must be immediately clarified that it is not the case that theologians do not find the tools provided by analytical philosophy useful. Neither are they adopting the view that ‘Athens have nothing to do with Jerusalem’, for even the theologian who uttered these words (Tertullian) employed philosophical concepts and categories.

The problem here has to do with allowing the dictates of analytic philosophy to govern theological reflection. This concern is eloquently expressed by Eleonore Stump – herself a renowned Christian philosopher – when she writes:

… left to itself, because it values intricate, technically expert argument, the analytical approach has a tendency to focus more and more on less and less; and so, at its worst, it can become plodding, pedestrian, sterile, and inadequate to its task.

 

Some theologians are concerned that in the hands of the analytic theologians, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is at risk of being morphed into the God of the philosophers.

Alan Torrance has made this point with a brilliant touch of dry (Scottish) humour when he writes that a philosopher who seeks to address the Christian Faith:

… is obliged to engage with a book that is full of metaphor, rhetorical plays, and the semantic shifting of everyday concepts, not to mention the kind of counter-intuitive claims and hermeneutical dilemmas that would cause most analytic philosophers to turn to drink. This makes it tempting for theologians to allow the theism of natural theology to condition the distinctively historical character of knowledge of God as we find it presented in the philosophically counter-intuitive testimony of the Old and New Testaments.

 

We turn now to my earlier remark that Craig’s assessment of dogmatic theology betrays what I’ve called a certain ignorance. This stems from a deficient a somewhat distorted grasp of the nature of theology, which has consequently led him to embrace a reductionist approach.

This is brought out by Kevin Vanhoozer’s brilliant critique of analytic theology in his essay entitled ‘Love’s Wisdom’. According to Vanhoozer, theology’s broader task is to discern the wisdom contained in God’s revelation in Scripture. As Vanhoozer baldly puts it: ‘Wisdom is the end of theology’. In limiting theology’s task only to achieving clarity, analytic theology failed to appreciate the sapiential nature of theology.

‘Good theological judgement’, Vanhoozer explains, ‘is largely a matter of being apprenticed to what Scripture says (and how it says it) – of having one’s capacity for judging formed and transformed by the Spirit via the ensemble of canonical discourse that constitute the Old and New Testament.’

Thus, theology that is done solely or primarily in the analytical mode is at best incomplete and at worse simplistic. This is because although the tools supplied by analytical philosophy are well-suited for ‘conceptual clarification’, ‘explanation’ and ‘propositional knowledge’, they are grossly inadequate in engendering sapiential understanding.

‘Theologians’, Vanhoozer rightly points out, ‘must do more (but not less!) than distil clear propositions from texts in order to assess their cogency. Conceptual clarity is only the penultimate stage on the road to wisdom.’

I’ve ordered the first two volumes of Craig’s systematic philosophical theology. While I’m not entirely comfortable with his approach (and doubt I ever will be), and I expect to encounter perspectives I disagree with, I still believe there’s much that I can learn from this dedicated Christian and thoughtful scholar.

 


Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.