Pulse
20 January 2025
Earlier this month, I published an article which discusses some of the deficiencies of a theological method that gives primacy to the analytical mode, using the tools supplied by analytical philosophy. I pointed out that such an approach risks a perspectival astigmatism, which blurs and distorts the theologian’s vision of theology’s object, even as it boasts of clarity and precision.
The claims that analytical theologians make concerning the superiority of their method must be interrogated. As the erudite Methodist theologian, D. Stephen Long has perceptively put it:
Given the claims some analytic philosophers and theologians make for the analytic method, readers should expect its use of precision and rigour would lead to results that provide consensus for a doctrine of God.
However, this is not the case at all.
Analytic philosophers often disagree on how certain propositions about God should be understood. In fact, such disagreements extend to almost every area of theology that has received attention from them, such as the problem of God and evil.
This is especially true for the doctrine of divine simplicity, which has in recent decades generated much discussion and controversy. Analytic theologians often disagree how this doctrine is to be understood and explained. In fact, the only consensus they have arrived at is arguably the view that Thomas Aquinas has gotten it quite wrong, and that his way of understanding the concept must either be radically revised or abandoned altogether.
Others in the field have gone even further. They have decided to abandon this ancient doctrine itself (not just Aquinas’ explication of it) because they are unable to make much sense of it or successfully join all the dots to form a coherent picture.
Thus, eminent philosophers and theologians such as William Alston, Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig have rejected divine simplicity. Craig expresses his own disdain for the doctrine quite clearly when he writes in Time and Eternity:
This medieval doctrine is not popular among theologians today, and even when Christians do lip service to it, they usually do not appreciate how truly radical the doctrine is. It implies not merely that God does not have parts, but that he does not even possess distinct attributes. In some mysterious way his omnipotence is his goodness, for example, he stands in no relations whatsoever. Thus, he does not literally love, know or cause his creatures. He is not really composed of three distinct persons, a claim notoriously difficult to reconcile with the doctrine of the Trinity.
This quote from Craig is revealing in so many ways. In the first place, divine simplicity is not a medieval doctrine, although it arguably received its most systematic treatment by theologians such as Aquinas and Scotus. It is a doctrine that can be traced to the early Fathers of the Church such as Athanasius and Augustine, and taught by all theologians of all the three traditions: Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant.
The second – more striking – revelation is found in the statement that Christians who hold the doctrine do not appreciate its true radicalness. Craig then goes on to assert that if divine simplicity is upheld, it is impossible to say of God that he loves and relates to his creatures, and even that he is triune.
This, to me, brings to light the fundamental flaw of analytic theology – its inability to appreciate the paradoxicality of the revelation of God. In attempting to join the dots and to force the revelation into a false and imposed coherence, some analytic theologians fail to recognise, much less submit, to the divine mystery.
Theology, for them, presents a series of puzzles to solve, logical messes to tidy up. Theology is not for them a humble and receptive contemplation of God in his majesty and glory.
One of the problems with analytic theology is its privileging of propositions and propositional truth.
There is a sense in which what analytic theologians do with the biblical material is analogous to what Plato did with the Greek tragedies by moving away from the mythic and poetic to a more rational and philosophical framework. It can also be compared to Bultmann’s demythologisation strategy which sought to distinguish between the ‘husk’ (the mythological elements of biblical narratives) and the ‘kernel’ (the existential truths those narratives convey).
However, by focusing primarily on propositional truths, analytic theology has either ignored or missed the ‘many and various ways’ (Hebrews 1:1) in which God has revealed himself through the pages of Scripture.
In other words, by reducing the content to a single form (the proposition), analytic theology has not only neglected the fact that Scripture presents its content in diverse forms but also overlooked how these varied forms illuminate the content itself.
As Herman Bavinck explains in volume 1 of Reformed Dogmatics:
… there is room in Scripture for every literary genre, for prose and poetry, ode and hymn, epic and drama, lyric and didactic poems, psalms and letters, history and prophecy, vision and apocalyptic, parable and fable … and every genre retains its own character and must be judged in terms of its own inherent logic (emphasis mine).
We do not have to look too far to find the rich diversity of genres in the Bible. Consider the teachings of Jesus. While they do consist of straightforward commands (‘love your enemies’, Matthew 5:44), we also find figures of speech, enigmatic sayings, and parables.
Analytic theologians put little weight on these different forms through which theological and spiritual truth is communicated. This is because, as Michael Rea makes clear, analytic theology ‘prioritises precision, clarity and logical coherence’. Hence, analytic theologians scrupulously avoid ‘substantive (non-decorative) use of metaphor and other tropes whose semantic content outstrips their propositions.’
Only statements which – as far as possible – bear a univocal meaning of what they express (i.e., an analytic proposition) has merit in the eyes of analytic theologians. As Richard Swinburne explains in Coherence of Theism:
… a proposition is analytic if and only if any sentence which expresses it expresses a true proposition and does so solely because the words in the sentences mean what they do, that is, is by itself sufficient to guarantee that the statement which the sentence expresses is true.
Analytic theology’s rigid propositionalism has created a tunnel vision which causes it to ignore the ‘many and various ways’ that God has revealed himself. Consequently, this has placed limits to its apprehension of God’s self-disclosure.
As the Jewish philosopher Martha Nussbaum has perceptively pointed out in her excellent book Love’s Knowledge, ‘there might be other ways of being precise, other conceptions of lucidity and completeness’, and these may even be more appropriate for theology and ethics.
Metaphors, parables and poetry can also be conveyors of the truth – perhaps in ways that a proposition cannot.
Take metaphors, for example. Theologian Sallie McFague has a most delightful way of describing a metaphor in her book Metaphorical Theology:
Most simply, a metaphor is seeing one thing as something else, pretending ‘This’ is ‘that’ because we do not know how to think or talk about ‘this’, so we use ‘that’ as a way of saying something about it.
By using metaphors to describe God (‘God is our rock’ [Psalm 18:2] and ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ [Psalm 23:1]), the Bible expresses truth about God while preserving his mystery and transcendence. Metaphors can describe God in ways that surpass propositions by engaging in the imagination and opening up deeper dimensions of meaning.
Metaphors, analogies, narrative and poetry can speak of the divine in a way that does not make God captive to formulations. In this sense, it can do much more than concepts and propositions.
In their privileging of the proposition, their zeal for clarity and their obsession with systematic closure, analytic theologians may fail to appreciate the richness of the biblical revelation.
However, there is an even greater danger in all of this.
By prioritising abstract, propositional truth over the embodied, relational and transformative dimensions of God’s revelation, analytic theology risks, metaphorically speaking, reversing the Incarnation – transforming the Word made flesh into disembodied ideas, or ‘flesh made word’.
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.