Doing Christian Systematic Theology: Faith, Problems, and Mysteries

WHAT IS THE FOUNDATION for Christian systematic theology? Moreover, what do Christian systematic theologians hope to achieve when they explicate the Christian Gospel? These are not new questions and others have attempted to provide answers that are more comprehensive and scholarly than the ones I will offer in this article. Here I want only to offer and elucidate a twofold principle that I have found helpful in doing Christian systematic theology. While I have attempted, over some years, to implement both aspects of this principle in the course of doing Christian theology, I have found them best expressed by John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et Ratio. There he states:

Theology is structured as an understanding of faith in the light of a twofold methodological principle: the auditus fidei and the intellectus fidei. With the first, theology makes its own the content of Revelation as this has been gradually expounded in Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Church's living Magisterium. With the second, theology seeks to respond through speculative enquiry to the specific demands of disciplined thought.¹

In order to demonstrate the importance of this twofold principle for the proper doing of Christian systematic theology, I would now like to examine separately each aspect of this twofold principle so as to establish the importance of their interrelatedness. In so doing I will also argue that some, maybe many, contemporary Christian systematic theologians do not follow this twofold principle, and so are not performing their task properly. Lastly, in the light of this twofold principle, I will propose what I consider to be the proper vocation of the Christian systematic theologian.

The Auditus Fidei and the Actus Fidei

The act of faith made by the Christian systematic theologian is no different from the act of faith made by any other Christian. Together they have heard one and the same Gospel (auditus fidei), and so together they make one and the same actus fidei in that Gospel. The foundation, then, of the Christian theological enterprise, the intellectus fidei, is the actus fidei in the auditus fidei. This act of faith is the sine qua non for properly undertaking the task of Christian systematic theology.

However, the question immediately arises as to what "the one and the same Gospel," that is, the auditus fidei, is to which all, including systematic theologians, are called to believe. Pope John Paul II answers this question in terms of "the content of Revelation as this has been gradually expounded in Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Church's living Magisterium." By speaking of "the Church's living Magisterium," John Paul has obviously placed the theological enterprise within a Roman Catholic context. As a Catholic I believe that the "living Magisterium" has been and continues to be the ultimate helmsman for doing systematic theology. Nonetheless, in this essay I wish to express a view of the Gospel and of the doing of systematic theology that encompasses a broader spectrum of Christian systematic theologians. Such a view will certainly not be accepted by all Christian theologians, nor will it address some crucial questions concerning ecclesial magisterial authority, yet my hope is that it could be applied, at least in its foundational understanding, by Christian theologians of all denominations.

For the purpose of this essay then, I consider the Gospel in a rather broad sense, that is, I am thinking primarily of the scriptural proclamation as it has been traditionally interpreted and as it has been doctrinally defined by the first four Ecumenical Councils. Obviously, there are doctrinal differences between the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and various Protestant denominations. Nonetheless, most Christian denominations have, at least officially, professed and upheld the creeds of this conciliar doctrinal tradition and have traditionally interpreted scripture in the light of this doctrinal tradition. Thus, I am espousing here what J. Webster...