What is Systematic Theology?

What is Systematic Theology?

A.N. WILLIAMS*

Abstract: This article examines the nature of systematic theology, arguing thatsystematicity is an intrinsic quality of all Christian theology, one stemming fromthe relationality of its subject matter, the Trinity and other things as they arerelated to the Trinity. The relationality of the divinely-created order reflects theratio that is, on the Christian account, God ipse. Systematic theology is simplytheology that reflects this ratio and the relations obtaining among creatures, andbetween creatures and their divine source, as well as the relationality of thatsource, the Persons of the Trinity.

The innocent student of ideas who sought an answer to the question ‘What issystematic theology?’ might turn for assistance to the obvious sources: referenceworks, such as dictionaries or encyclopaedias, or indeed, to systematic theologiesthemselves, which one might expect to define the scope and nature of their subjectmatter before embarking on an exposition of it. The one seeking answers in suchplaces will be soon be disabused of innocence: the expected entries in referenceworks are thinner on the ground than one might expect,1 with many standard sources

* Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge CB21RH, UK.

1 For example, among those with no entry for ‘systematic theology’ are: Van A. Harvey,A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Collier/Macmillan, 1964); Alan Bullockand Oliver Stallybrass, eds., The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (London:Fontana/Collins, 1977); Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner, eds., Lexikon für Theologieund Kirche, second edn (Freiburg: Herder, 1957–67); the New Catholic Encyclopedia(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1967); Adrian Hastings, AlistairMason and Hugh Pyper, eds., The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2000); Karl Rahner, ed., Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopediaof Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968); both the second and third editions ofthe Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974,ed. F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone; 1997, ed. E.A. Livingstone) which list in theirarticles on theology several subdivisions, none of which is systematics. Others seemto equate systematic theology with something else, either dogmatics (Bullock andStallybrass, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought; Gerhard Krause and GerhardMüller, eds., Theologische Realenzyklopädie, fourth edn (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,1977–2006); Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, eds., Dictionary of Theology, second

International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 11 Number 1 January 2009doi:10.1111/j.1468-2400.2008.00422.x

© The author 2009. Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX42DQ, UK and 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA.

strangely silent on the matter, and the prolegomena to the systematic theologies tendto focus on issues of method rather than defining what their subject is, exactly.2

As John Webster notes, the terms ‘systematic theology’, ‘Christian doctrine’ and‘dogmatics’ have no uniformly established usage and a preference for one or theother is often arbitrary.3

Among those sources that do attempt to define the subject area there are,however, some recurrent themes and we may as well begin with these. Several pointto coherence as a mark of systematic theology. For example, Christoph Schwöbelwriting in the fourth edition of Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwartemphasizes the relation of parts of a theology to its whole, which implies animportant role for coherence. Coherence is, however, a mixed blessing in his view,for he claims that when internal coherence is stressed, there is a danger of fideism.This contention would seem to imply that when systematic theology is most itself itrisks this, apparently one of the greatest sins of the Christian intellectual: theologycan either by unsystematic (and, one assumes, incoherent) or fideistic (and thereforeverging on the irrationally dogmatic). If Schwöbel is correct, then this characteristicof systematic theology is not so much its note as its problem, a problem which callsinto question the very need and goodness of the discipline.

S.W. Sykes takes a different view of the orderly nature of systematics, linking itto the rational nature of the enterprise. This characterization avoids portrayingcoherence as a potential problem, but since it is not clear what theology worthy of thename would be or claim to be irrational, it explains little of how systematic theology

edn (New York: Crossroad, 1988)), or to particular loci (the New Catholic Encyclopedia)and in so doing, apparently deny the existence of systematic theology as a distinct entityin its own right. In other cases, there is a discussion of systematics, but it is so sheerlyformal as to be largely unhelpful (for example, E. Schott in Hans von Campenhausenet al., eds., Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, third edn (Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 1957–62)).

2 Tillich has an extended discussion of systematic theology, but displays more interest inmethod than in defining the subject. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 28–68. Jenson’s treatment is very brief,highlighting systematics’ concern with questions of ‘current urgency’ and its interest in‘perceived inherent connections of the faith’. Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology,vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 22. Van Beeck emphasizes thesubject’s ‘unity of pursuit’ and its quest for coherence. Franz Jozef van Beeck, GodEncountered: A Contemporary Catholic Systematic Theology, vol. 1, second rev. edn(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1989), p. 35. He adds, pp. 35, 39, that its task is tostudy the ‘complexes of religious practice and beliefs, of cultural practice andconvictions’ and the interplay between the two. Pannenberg stresses ‘the systematicunity of Christian teaching and its relation to the principles of rational knowledge’and coherence. Wolfart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, trans. Geoffrey W.Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 19–21.

3 John Webster, ‘Introduction: Systematic Theology’, in John Webster, Kathryn Tanner andIain Torrance, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2007), p. 1.

What is Systematic Theology? 41

© The author 2009Journal compilation © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2009

differs from theology of any other variety.4 Sykes’ account is, however, notable indistinguishing three senses in which the term ‘system’ could be used in theology.5 Itis the third of these senses that may be the most telling for our purposes. Sykesidentifies this sense as the most ambitious: the explicit attempt to relate the contentof the Christian faith to a theory of human rationality:

The fundamental premise of such an endeavour is the conviction that there is onedivine source of truth, and that there is an inner consistency between the diversetruths which persons may know. In this sense a systematic theology would beobliged to include a theory of how human beings perceive (cognitional theory)and the criteria for human knowledge (epistemology).6

If Sykes is correct, then for theology to be systematic (at least in this one possiblesense) would mean necessarily including consideration of subjects lying outside thedomain in which theology has traditionally operated.

Other characterizations of the subject point to its relation to other disciplines,whether subfields in the arena of theology taken in its broadest sense, or disciplinesall acknowledge as quite distinct. This is a feature of systematic theology that JohnWebster addresses. The term, he maintains, is especially concerned to coordinate itssubject matter with what is held to be true outside the Christian faith.7 Although hedoes not say so explicitly, the reason systematics might do so is its concern with‘God and everything else in relation to God’,8 his version of the Thomistic dictum(ST I.1, 7 resp.).

Two questions arise from Webster’s claim. The first concerns what it is aboutsystematics that especially tends towards connectedness. The second is why thisconnectedness should especially obtain ad extra, towards what lies beyond thetheological realm. One reason systematic theology might possess a particular facilityfor linking to non-Christian thought might be sheer convenience: an organized bodyof thought will correlate more readily with other bodies of thought, a factor whichapplies equally to the relation of systematics to other disciplines one could broadlycall theological (such as ethics) as to completely secular subjects. The questionremains whether there are reasons deeper than convenience for systematic theology’sinclination towards connectedness.

One reason for that tendency could be that all elements of the system revert toa principle or set of principles that generates or controls the system as a whole.This phenomenon is in fact one of the supposed features of systematic theology

4 S.W. Sykes, ‘Systematic Theology’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden, eds., A NewDictionary of Christian Theology / Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology(London: SCM Press / Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 561.

5 We could question whether ‘systematic’ as an adjective modifying ‘theology’ is quiteequivalent to the notion that theology has the characteristics of a ‘system’, but I cannotdeal with this issue here.

6 Sykes, ‘Systematic Theology’, p. 561.7 Webster, ‘Introduction: Systematic Theology’, p. 1.8 Webster, ‘Introduction: Systematic Theology’, p. 2.


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cited by its detractors: it imposes a human framework on discourse about God,or is generated by a methodology derived from a non-theological (especiallyphilosophical) source.

It is not clear what systems Barth is thinking of, at least among those systematictheologies of demonstrated staying power. The system most apparently indebted tophilosophy would presumably be that of Aquinas, but he explicitly states in the largerSumma that he will use philosophy as a heuristic device, for the convenience ofexplanation, and that philosophy could be dispensed with entirely. Aquinas clearlydoes not intend for philosophy to function as a control on the theology developed in thelarger Summa and it would be hard to demonstrate that it functions in such a waydespite his declared intentions. (The latter point is of course debatable, but the burdenof proof rests on those who assert it.) Although not overtly philosophically-derived,one could perhaps also argue that Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith operatesunder the umbrella of overarching principles that govern the theological programmeand that these principles have the human provenance to which Barth objects, althoughthese principles are certainly not derived from any philosophical system. If theproblem is that a human notion of what constitutes ‘big principles’ now controlstheological reflection and exposition, one could counter that this could happen in anycase – and frequently has happened. No one would call Luther’s oeuvre ‘systematictheology’,9 yet arguably the theological programme as a whole is governed by a smallbut powerful set of principles (justification by faith, the bondage of the will, forexample). All of these can be biblically justified, in the sense that a biblical warrantcould be provided for each. However the Bible itself does not provide a warrant forthese specifically as controlling principles. Luther selected out what he thoughtwere key underlying themes of the Christian faith, just as Schleiermacher did. Thecharitable interpretation of both is that these principles seemed to them to emerge fromthe Christian faith as they understood it, that understanding presumably reverting totheological formation that is biblical, ecclesial and, necessarily, also personal.

Here we see the problem of distinguishing between the ‘merely human’ andwhat is not so (the apparently divine?). Given a strong doctrine of biblicalinspiration, one can claim divine provenance for biblical dicta. Remove thesefrom the context of the surrounding text, however, or claim one dictum has amethodological significance greater than another, and we are now not dealing sheerlywith the Bible, but with a human construal of the sacred page. Once a human lensfigures in the picture – as it must in any interpretation of the text – it is both arroganceand folly to claim sheerly divine provenance, simply because a proposition couldultimately be traced to the biblical text.

The practical impossibility of filtering out the human element of theologyconstitutes a preliminary response to another characterization of, and objection, tosystematic theologies: namely, that they ignore the radical distinction of God from all

9 Barth lists Luther among those who write ‘irregular dogmatics’, which roughly correlatesto non-systematic theology. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/1, trans. G.W. Bromiley(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), pp. 277–8.



else. The response to this objection can only be that however utterly other God maybe, there must be some point of similarity between God and humanity or we wouldnot be able to relate to God at all, and as creatures, relate to God we do, simply invirtue of being creatures. Moreover, the kind of creatures God has made us to be –with the intellectual and linguistic capacities to understand the Bible, for example– as well as the necessary relation of creature to creator, grounds the creature’sability both to understand the divine address and to interpret it in the human speechthat is theology. There is no reason to assume that the structure of a systemnecessarily derives from something alien to theology, simply because it is human.There is no reason to assume that a system is such only because of a controllingprinciple adopted by its author, much less that this principle (if there is one) mustnecessarily be derived from a non-theological source.

The standard characterizations of systematic theology fall short of actuallydefining it and furthermore tend to take back with the left hand what they gave with theright, identifying the very marks of systematic theology with its problems, and therebyeffectively deeming it inherently problematic. The question of what systematictheology is cannot therefore be separated from the question of why it arises, indeed,why it is necessary. These two questions certainly press in tandem if we attempt aninductive account of systematics, departing from instantiations of the phenomenonand moving from them to a descriptive criterion. Here we would run into a curiousstate of affairs: the dire paucity of works conventionally accountable as systematictheologies. The plural noun here is significant: one issue the standard referencesources do not address is the distinction between ‘systematic theology’ as modifiednon-countable and countable nouns, that is, between ‘systematic theology’ and ‘asystematic theology’. The difference between the two is potentially important.‘Systematic theology’would presumably designate any theology which in some senseexhibits systematicity, and as such the term merely postpones definition of the subfieldto definition of the key term ‘systematic’. ‘A systematic theology’ is much morestraightforwardly defined: it clearly designates a certain sort of text: a work aspiring toa degree of comprehensiveness, organized in a particular way (locus by locus).

One might expect many such works would surface in a trawl through theChristian tradition, but there are in fact surprisingly few works of enduring value thatfit the description.10 Possible candidates from the patristic period might includeOrigen’s On First Principles or Damascene’s On the Orthodox Faith (thoughscholars of both have explicitly denied that the work in question is a systematictheology).11 The Middle Ages saw an outpouring of summae, works that would

10 This is the case perhaps because of the indefinition of the form. Writing about the fluiddefinitions of art, Bayles and Orland comment: ‘After all, if there were some ongoingredefinition of “what chess is”, you’d probably feel a little uneasy trying to play chess.’David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards)of Artmaking (Santa Cruz, CA: The Image Continuum, 1995), p. 25.

11 On Origen, see Henri Crouzel, Origen, trans. A.S. Worral (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,1989), pp. 46 and 168. On Damascene see Andrew Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition


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obviously qualify in view of their scope and organization. However only those ofAquinas (the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles) continue to be readand contribute to the great dialogue that is the living Christian tradition. Anselm’sMonologion, Proslogion and Cur Deus homo? might be included if taken together,but that still leaves us with at most three medieval systematic theologies. In thesucceeding centuries, Calvin’s Institutes obviously counts, but no other work fromthe Reformation through to the end of the eighteenth century both fills the genrecriteria and continues to be read by any but a narrow circle of specialists. Only withthe nineteenth century and Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith do we again find awork that fills the usual criteria of ‘a systematic theology’ and which has an enduringeffect on the development of Christian theology. The twentieth century has seen asmall explosion of works in the genre, but of those the only one which seems certainto endure is Barth’s Church Dogmatics, and like the leading candidates from thepatristic period, its status as a systematic theology is denied by some of its mostardent proponents (not to mention its author).12

The genre definition that allows its user to count large, obviously-qualifyingworks (Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, Calvin’s Institutes, Barth’s Church Dogmatics)as systematic theologies leaves out others. The others comprise most Christiantheology, as it happens. The genre definition suggests that systematic theology is alittle-practised discipline and much of what this practice produced in the past is nowlargely ignored, the exclusive province of specialists (whether in also-ran medievalsummae or the works of the Protestant Scholastics). If we add to the genre definitionthe stipulation that we are interested in work of enduring significance, we would haveto conclude that systematic theologies, although perhaps as large as the proverbial600-pound gorilla who sits wherever he likes, are also as thin on the ground as a rareBornean orchid.

The problem with the genre definition is not only that it yields such a smallterrain, the very size of which could suggest the genre is of negligible importance,but also that it seems to reveal so little about systematicity, and therefore sheds littlelight on the nature of ‘systematic theology’. The genre definition purports to tell ussolely about the surface structure of texts called ‘systematic theologies’, not aboutwhat makes texts to be structured in this way. Now the absence of an underlyingratio of the form might not matter. A poem does not have to have fourteen lines,falling into two sections of six and eight. When it conforms to these conventions, itis called a sonnet, but nothing about sonnet form is necessary to poetry and there isno necessary relation between sonnet form and a sonnet’s contents: one could writeabout anything using this form. The question is whether the genre definition ofsystematic theology is similarly sheerly formal, or whether there is in this case an

and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 85.We might consider Gregory Nyssen’s Great Catechetical Oration as a miniature of thegenre, though its very status as a miniature calls it into question.

12 I do not mean to suggest that no system other than Barth’s will in fact endure, merely thatno other possible entry in the genre seems certain to do so.



intrinsic relation between form and content. The suggestion here is that there is suchan intrinsic relation and that the genre definition of systematic theology thereforediffers fundamentally from sheerly conventional definitions of forms (such as that ofthe sonnet); in that departure from the sheerly conventional and analytically true,something of the character of theology is revealed, along with the reason that thegenre definition of systematic theology does not suffice.

To see why this is so, let’s return to the genre definition and probe its two chiefcriteria, comprehensiveness and ordering. To classify as a systematic theology, abody of theological prose must attempt to address a range of topics wide enough tomake some brave claim of counting as everything. Theology, as we have noted,is concerned with God and other things as they relate to God, potentially everything,in other words. (I take this claim to be broadly acceptable to a range of theologicaltempers and as such, not to require justification.13) This reach is not simplydisciplinary hubris, the inclination of its practitioners to absorb the world intothemselves and claim its entire terrain as their own; it reflects the nature of theology’sprime subject. God is necessarily the subject of theology inasmuch as theologyis logos, discourse, about Theos, God. It is logos about Logos and logos aboutthe Logos. To envisage God, reflect upon divine nature, talk and write about Godhowever presupposes a not-God who will do this reflecting. Enter the creature, andwith the creature, creation. God and creation, or God-and-the-world: theology cannothelp but range over this vast landscape, with no hope of setting boundaries to it.Nothing created can be off limits, inasmuch as its creaturely status entails relationto its creator, and nothing uncreated can be off limits, inasmuch as the uncreated isthat with which theology is most fundamentally concerned. The comprehensiveaspirations of the subject have to do with the nature of that subject. It cannot bedemarcated or contained inasmuch as its matter is by definition both the finite and theinfinite.

Its comprehensiveness is, moreover, not haphazard. It is not a matter of a large,almost endless, succession of topics swarming one after the other like ants pouringout of an anthill, but an orderly procession, a camel train in which one topic is tiedto another. The relation of loci in a systematic theology is therefore not simply anarbitrary second criterion in the definition, but a direct consequence of the first.Embark on a doctrine of creation (or any component of it, such as theologicalanthropology, for example) and you have necessarily begun a train of thought aboutthe creator: to label anything a creature is already to gesture towards a creator. Beginsketching a doctrine of God in which you call God a creator and you have necessarilybegun to reflect upon creation. Examine sanctification and you must address bothhamartiology and consummation. If you treat a single theological locus you canavoid treating some, but you cannot avoid making connections to others; treat severaland you will almost certainly end up having to treat most. The comprehensiveness of

13 Webster, ‘Introduction: Systematic Theology’, for example, who is certainly no Thomist,appeals to the principle repeatedly, although without alluding to Thomas.


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systematic theology comes from the naturally obtaining relations amongst itsconstituents, relations that are intrinsic and logical. That relationality entails bothan embarkation in the direction of comprehensiveness and an at least implicitrecognition of orderliness. The refusal of theology’s constituent loci to be separatedfrom one another moreover signals something of their provenance, their pointingtowards the Uncreated that is the source of all that is created.

The genre definition is thus both inadequate with respect to the amount oftheology for which it can account (a very small proportion of the whole), andinadequate in that it points beyond itself to a definition of systematic theology that istruer and more far-reaching. Its inadequacy is fecundive, the grain that falls into theground and dies, bearing fruit. So the standard genre definition of systematictheology, while not very useful in the long term, provides a useful point of departure.If comprehensiveness and order have something to do with the reason that theologycan be said to be systematic, then it is worth not staying with the definition whichdoes no more than declare it to be so, but to ask why it would be so. In pressing forthis reason, we will find the essence of not only systematic theology, but Christiantheology tout court, which is of its nature systematic, and we will consequentlydiscover why Christian theology cannot but be systematic.

The genre definition addresses the structure and scope of texts and, as I havesaid, as such can be taken as concerned sheerly with surfaces. Because it does pointto something beyond surfaces, however, it suggests some kind of relation betweensurfaces and what those surfaces envelop. The question is: what might account forthe fact that the surface structure of theological texts, however misleading in somerespects, does in fact truly reflect something of the nature of theology?

If we return to the notion that theology is concerned with God and other thingsas they are related to God, then we see that theology is not simply concerned with allthings, created and uncreated, but specifically with the relation between these things.The orderliness and comprehensiveness of systematic theologies are not discretequalities, but are intrinsically connected. Theologians do not deal with the createdorder per se, but only in its status as creaturely. Examining bees as they relate to theenvironment or as they relate to each other in bee societies is not the theologian’stask; bees only become a theological concern when we begin to probe their status ascreatures. Although the theologian may legitimately take interest in the bee as thisparticular kind of creature, it is not the bee that is theologically significant, per se, butthis particular creature understood in its relation to God. Just so human beings,human societies and human activities: all of these can be studied in ways that are notthe theologian’s brief; they only enter the theologian’s terrain under the aspect ofrelationality.

We can therefore provisionally posit that Christian theology is essentiallyconcerned with this relationality, indeed that this relationality is its proper (thoughnot exclusive) subject matter. If so, we can also conclude that what I shall callsystematicity – the fact of being systematic, of expressing connections betweendoctrines – is of the essence of theology. If systematic theology is concerned with theweb that is the entire fabric of Christian profession and belief, then it subsists in its



connections, its relations. Equally, however, if theology is necessarily concernedwith these connections and relations, it is also necessarily systematic. The term‘systematic theology’ could therefore be considered a tautology.

That the exposition of any one doctrine will always entail either discussion ofanother or supposition about some other is a point I take to need no justifyingargument. The hard question is why this should be the case. Does it just happen so?Or is this connectedness a function of this kind of discourse? Or the subject matterof that discourse? In the remainder of this essay I will explore the notion that thesystematicity of theology is a direct consequence of its subject matter. Inevitably, thatclaim entails an apparently ontological assumption: theology mirrors, or perhaps wemight say, partakes of, the character of its divine subject. Theology, however, alsomirrors its other subjects, creatures. Under this aspect, too, it is concerned withrelationality: the relation of creatures to God and of creatures to each other.The relationality among these creatures also forms part of systematic theology’ssubject matter, hence the intrinsic relation between theology and adjacentdisciplines, such as ethics.

The relationality of systematics therefore describes the relation of these entitieswith which it is concerned, created and uncreated alike, but also the entity it is andits relation to other such entities. If the subject matter of theology is God and otherthings as they are related to God, those who write theology and those who read itbelong to the category of ‘other things’. What they write is itself as inevitablycreaturely as are its created authors and readers. Theology is, in other words, not justabout creatures and their relation to their creator, but itself a creature.14

The question then arises whether any creature can properly be consideredthe creation of a creature alone. The answer must clearly be ‘no’, if only because thecreature not only owes its coming into existence, but its being sustained in existence,to the divine creator. In this sense alone God is the secondary cause of all humancreations, whether other human beings, or works of art, machines, tools, institutionsor anything else. If we say that all the creations of creatures – treatises, houses, loavesof bread – have their origin in the creative power and the creative act of God then wewould have also to acknowledge that the less inspiring works of human hands andminds are also the works of God, not just the ugly, but the bad: weapons, instrumentsof torture, for example. Do those created things count against the notion thattheology is in some sense a divine creation?

The first answer must be that no conclusion becomes wrong simply because itsconsequences dismay. Aside from this in-principle point, however, there are otherconsiderations. First, inasmuch as the paraphernalia of destruction are the product ofhuman ingenuity – that capacity for invention that can relish harm as much as itrelishes the inspiration of delight – they are also the product of the human mind, andthe mind is the divine gift to humanity that most deeply expresses our relation to the

14 Although theologians have tended to use the term ‘creature’ for animate beings, there isprecedence for a broader application. Augustine, for example, points to the creaturelinessof time (Confessions XI.14 and XIII.37).


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Giver of all good gifts. It is in the nature of a gift that once given, it can be used asits recipient wishes. Along with intellect, the divine Giver gave the human creaturefreedom. This point is, of course, theologically more contentious. No one denies theendowment of mind – though some might insist on its fundamental incurvature – butnot all agree that human beings are free. However, those at the end of the theologicalspectrum who deny human freedom after the Fall do not do so in order to rule out thepossibility of misdemeanour, but rather to insist on its inevitability. Whichever ofthe various possible Christian positions one takes on freedom, therefore, there is anexplanation for the distortion of the gift of creativity. We can posit an ultimatelydivine origin for all human creativity and the products of human creativity,acknowledging the capacity to create as a good, while attributing both the goodnessof creative power to God as its source and humanity as its real recipient, andsimultaneously acknowledging the capacity for that creativity to go astray, run amokand be used in ways that have nothing to do with the goodness of the gift or of theGiver.

Theology, therefore, is in some sense both a human creation and a divine one. Ifwe affirm as much, then we are obliged to press the question of in what sensetheology is divine. The source of the ability to reflect, to reason, the source of logicand rationality, is the divine principle of the cosmos, who on the Christian account isLogos and that source, supremely rational, informs theology, at least to some degree.Although the proximate makers of theology are the human authors of its texts, andthese creatures can go wrong, can misrepresent God and other things as they relateto God, it must be equally admitted, however, that there is no reason to assume thedivine gift of understanding and the desire to seek the face of God necessarily oralways goes astray. If that were true, it would mean the divine intent in giving thegift could be utterly subverted by the creature’s worst impulses and that these aretherefore stronger than divine goodness and creativity. To insist on God’s ultimatesovereignty over all creation entails acknowledgement of some level of fidelity ontheology’s part to the subject of its discourse. Theology on this side of the courts ofheaven remains a composite creation, one which reflects both its divine and humansources, both human frailty and that truth that must be divine, if it is truth at all.

As such, the discourse itself reflects and expresses both its proximate and itsultimate creators, both its human authors and its divine subject. Its rationality is botha function of and an expression of the rationality which is the divine gift to humanityand the rationality which is divine nature simpliciter. To describe divine nature is toinscribe the divine rationality, to write rationally, and to write rationally is to allowthe reader to see connections between the various elements of an argument ortrain of thought. On the Christian account, any logic must be of the Logos and oneform of logicality is to give explicit expression to the relations between ideas thatsubsist, not as the result of logic’s forging, but in the nature of things. To writelogically is not to conjure logic out of the illogical, but to give voice to that logic thatis already there, in the nature and in the relations of things.

Theology that expresses, either explicitly or even only implicitly, theconnections between doctrines is therefore not merely reflecting some human



impetus towards orderly thinking, much less some forced shoehorning of thoughtsabout God into the human categories, but can be taken as giving voice to divinenature, ipse, through the medium of that which is human, human thought andlanguage. If human discourse truly expresses that nature, that expression reflects nota human attempt at usurpation of the divine, but a human cleaving to the source ofall truth. Given the relationality of the divine and the human from which theologysprings and to which theology gives voice, and given the rational nature of boththe divine and human persons, we may posit a further connection significant fortheology: that of relationality and rationality.

The relationality and rationality of theology are intrinsically connected becausein the first instance they converge at theology’s source, the source from which theyspring. To grasp the rational relations of systematic theology, we must also turntowards this source, reflecting on its profound relationality. Just as the deepest reasonthat theology would not fail to exhibit the characteristic of rationality is the ratio ofits divine subject rather than of its human authors, just so the relationality theologyexpresses may be attributed in the first instance to the fact that the divine nature itcelebrates and attempts to fathom is relational. God’s free and extravagant relation tocreation is the condition of the possibility of there being any theology at all, and inthat sense the very existence of the discourse testifies to the nature of its subject.Theology also affirms the creator’s aseity, however, and paradoxically, given that thecreature’s very existence is attributable to a gracious divine declension from a life ase. Divine nature remains a se, but the divine Persons freely seek relation ad extra;this state of affairs is what Aquinas designates as our being really related to God,though God is not really related to us (ST I.28, 1 ad 3). To the extent that creaturescan even envisage this aseity – in virtue of their own necessary relation to theone who is a se – theology’s giving voice to such envisaging is necessarily andprofoundly speculative. No amount of polemic against speculative theology canchange the fact that some claims theology must make (for example, that God doesnot need creation) entail a human pointing to modes of existence utterly beyond ourown experience.

One form of envisaging a God who is simultaneously a se and relational is therecently much-maligned doctrine of the immanent Trinity. That doctrine positsthe Trinity as an eternal communion of persons and stipulates that Christiandiscourse can coherently claim God to be independent of creation and yet intellectualand volitional: the object of the divine Persons’ knowledge and love is each other,so they can be said to know and love even without creatures as the object of suchacts. That doctrine of God which stipulates the Trinity as relational and a se alsounderwrites discourse which is speculative: human relatedness to God enables us toapprehend divine nature as rational and relational, even though these immanentrelations lie outside our experience. It is not so much that the allowance ofspeculation leaves room for the articulation of the doctrine of the immanent Trinityas that the assertion of the immanent Trinity follows inexorably from other claimstheology must make; the necessity of the doctrine in turn indicates something of thenature of Christian theology.


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Theology can, therefore, give voice to a divine relationality which is its veryground. In doing so, it must reflect the rationality of divine nature as well, if it is tospeak with any truth at all. One could, of course, argue that the perfect rationalityof God is not something human beings could in fact express, given not only thedarkening of the mind as a result of the Fall, but also sheer finitude, which wouldobtain in any case, Fall or no Fall, and which will obtain even in the next life. Theseconsiderations by no means undermine the assertions just made, however, but merelyqualify them. Although theology does not express the divine ratio perfectly or withanything like adequacy, its falling short does not amount to utter betrayal of itssubject. If the human person were wholly incapable of understanding something ofthe divine truth, there would be no need of that divine speech that is Scripture; if thehuman person were incapable of making the response to that speech, there would beno point in preaching, teaching, creeds or prayer. To acknowledge the imperfectionof human discourse cannot, as a matter of theological principle, count against itsarticulation. We speak, imperfectly, because we have been given both the means andthe impetus to do so by the divine trio of voices. To deny the veracity of humanspeech about God, to declare it nothing more than deflected, is not to make soberacknowledgement of human failure, but to announce the miscarriage of divinepurpose.

So there is a divine ratio which attains to some measure of adequate expressionin the one side of the divine–human dialogue that is theology. That there is ratio onboth sides of the theological equation attests to the divine intention that humanityrespond to the divine speech in kind, in a response which renders rationallydiscernible patterns. To decline to recognize these when they suggest themselves isvirtually to deny the notion of ratio itself, which, in the Christian, is to deny God.

What has been hovering in the background of this discussion is the claim ofcontiguity, not only between God and humanity, but between divine nature and thenature of human discourse. Any suggestion of such contiguity will of course causediscomfort, if not protestation, in some theological circles. Is this not a hint, if notmore than a hint, of the infamous analogia entis? As if the suggestion of ontologicalcontinuity between God and the human creature were not bad enough, now it seemssuch continuity is claimed between God and human theology. It is not clear, though,that the notion that theological discourse mirrors or echoes its divine subjectpresupposes ontological continuity, or indeed any sort of contiguity that deniesthe fundamental distinction between creature and creator, or between perfect andtarnished goodness. In the first place, any capacity the creature has to envisage Godor speak of God, and therefore, to write theology, comes from the same divine sourcetowards which theology inclines. Its source and its goal are the same, and if it reflectsthese, then it can be said to do so not in virtue of a human capacity which existssomehow independently of God, but one which is entirely dependent on God in itscoming and in its going, indeed in its very being. Its dependence on God presupposessome sort of contiguity, but not the contiguity that confers on the creature a quasi-divine autonomy; rather, it is a contiguity of the utmost dependence. As such, theproblems that attend the assertion of analogia entis cannot be applicable: there can



be no question of a solipsistic creature capable of existence a se, with a similarmeasure of autonomy, as a demi-god. The distinction between creature and creatorsubsists in the first instance in virtue of the very status of creatures, both as derivedand as incomplete without the communion that comes from being re-turned towardstheir ground and source. The creatures’ capacity to mirror the creator does not likenthem to the creator in every respect, but underlines the distinction that ever remainsbetween them because they can do no more than mirror and echo. If theology reflectsthe divine nature it attempts to fathom and honour, the very fact of its mirroringindicates a discontinuity with its original: nothing can be the image of itself, so thevery act of mirroring implies a distinction. Acknowledging theology’s mimesis of itssubject does not therefore constitute denial of the fundamental distinction betweenUncreated and created and one cannot invoke the spectre of the analogia entis toward off the acknowledgement of theological mimesis.

The question must now arise whether the necessary ratio of theology implies acommon character to all human discourse. If so, the relation of every orderly andrational field or system of human inquiry to the central principle of logos would seemalso to imply their relation to each other. Here might be an underlying reason for therelation of systematic theology to other disciplines, which, as noted earlier, has oftenbeen taken as one of its marks.

If we take the view that the logical structure of theology stems from its mimesisof the rational character of its chief subject and source, then we must equally assumethat source ‘supplies’ the logic of all disciplines, to the extent they in fact conform tologic. One version of this idea was the medieval rejection of a ‘double truth’ theory.In denying that propositions held to be true in one realm could be regarded as falsein another (so that something could be theologically true but philosophically false),the Christian tradition affirmed a single principle of truth, a truth underlying alldisciplines, whether concerned overtly with the Christian faith or not. This is notprecisely equatable with the notion there is a single source of rationality, but the twoideas are closely related.

Once we acknowledge that there cannot be more than one source or form of truthor more than one form of rationality, then we obviously array systematic theologyalongside other forms of reasoning and other disciplines. If so, the worry that onemight loosely label ‘Barthian’ would apply: does not the insistence on theology’srationality lead inexorably to its ranging alongside secular thought forms as justanother academic subject? And does not this ranging-alongside not then compromisetheology’s unique status as speech which testifies to none less than the living God?

In the first instance, the answer to this concern must be to point out that if theliving God is Logos, there can be no betrayal in testimony which reflects thischaracter of the divine and which insists on a single source of truth and rationality inthe cosmos. Second, if theology is in this respect like other disciplines, then from atheological perspective, it is not theology that has been modified to resemble them,but they which resemble theology. Their order, coherence and ratio derive fromthe same source – the only possible source – but it is theology’s unique task toacknowledge this source even as its structures reflect it. For this reason, when


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theology addresses the secular world in terms recognizable to that world, it does notcravenly adapt itself to something alien, but could be taken as speaking as if to ayounger sibling. In this sense, systematic theology bears an immediate relation toapologetics, not because it translates theology into a discourse foreign to it so asto ingratiate itself to the secular world, but because when theology is truest to itselfand to its source, it displays the internal coherence that helps the outsider to seehow it could be true. The contiguity with other bodies of thought moreover makesclear it is not fideistic.

If one kind of objection to theology’s connection to non-theological disciplinesis that theology will be distorted in the attempt to commend itself to secular thoughtforms, the opposite protestation might come from the secular side: theology is notcomparable to them or compatible with them, if for no other reason, then for itsdependence on revelation. Here the question arises not just of theology’s internalcoherence, but how it goes about reasoning from one point to another. Doestheology’s dependence on Scripture and its derivative, tradition, count against itsbeing accounted a rational discipline?

On theology’s own principles, we must acknowledge that at the very least theprocess of reasoning from the sacred page could go awry and erroneous claims couldtherefore emerge from an argument based on Scripture. Any process of reasoning inany discipline whatsoever is vulnerable in this way, however: theology is, if anything,fortunate in having the awareness of human frailty built into its very fibre, in itsanthropology. The rational, coherent and comprehensive system it constructscontains within itself the explicit acknowledgement that the rational agent writingthe system is fallible and prone to error and that the links among elements of thestructure may also therefore be the product of faulty reasoning.

In addition to faulty reasoning, a body of human thought may reflect humansinfulness, for example, cultural, racial or sexual prejudices, which function as adistorting lens in the interpretation of theological data. Moreover the data fromwhich theology reasons themselves may reflect such distortions of understanding,though this point is more theologically contentious, especially when applied toScripture. At the very least, though, the data of revelation are clothed in humanspeech and that language itself, being human, cannot be simply equatable with whatis divine. Whether or not we acknowledge it (as Aquinas does in the first question ofthe larger Summa, for example), the language of Scripture is riddled with tropes;these render the realities they denote only obliquely. In addition, the biblical textencompasses a whole span of literary genres, from the poetry of the Psalms, the Songof Songs and hymnic interludes in books like Isaiah and Revelation, to the dramaticdialogues of Job, to the parables of the Gospels. The fact that theology’s primesource, the root of all its reasoning and its conclusions, is of its very naturesusceptible of multiple interpretations means that theological reasoning could neverclaim the strict necessity of certain forms of logical or mathematical deduction, forexample. This proviso applies equally if one regards the Bible as infallible: even if itis, the process of reasoning theologically from it could not be so, given both thecomplexities of the text and the propensity of all human reasoning to go awry, or to



be wilfully deceived by sin, not the least of which is pride, the invincible belief in theincorrigibility of one’s own opinions.

Given these considerations, one might ask why it matters whether or notChristian theology is systematic. If the structure generated derives from sourcessusceptible of misinterpretation, cui bono coherence and comprehensiveness? Cuibono rationality? These questions are best answered via comparison with otherdisciplines. In the past thirty or forty years the question of the structure of rationalthought and argumentation has been much debated amongst philosophers. Theoptimistic Enlightenment notion was that secure systems could be generatedfrom secure foundations, the overall health of the system being guaranteed bothby the reasoning that connects inferred propositions to the foundational ones butalso by the very stability of the latter. This epistemological model, known asfoundationalism, became the subject of vigorous debate among philosophicalepistemologists in the last decades of the previous century. Those debates initiallyattracted the attention of theologians, one senses, because in disputing that to qualifyas knowledge, a body of thought or set of assertions must be based on reports of thesenses or analytically true propositions, the anti-foundationalists called into questiona line of thinking that came to prominence in the Enlightenment, continued throughthe cultured despisers and sceptics of the nineteenth century, into the logicalpositivism of the twentieth. The latter challenged not only the existence of the deitywho is theology’s chief subject, but the very meaningfulness of any talk of God. Notsurprisingly, there was glee in theological circles at the prospect of such schools ofthought being unseated on philosophical grounds.

The foundationalist and evidentialist challenges to the cogency of religious beliefand discourse do not simply concern those interested in apologetics or public squaretheology; they have an immediate bearing on the issue before us, the nature ofsystematic theology. If systematic theology can commend Christian belief to bothunbelievers and believers by showing the coherence of its overall pattern of assertion,then faults in the structure stemming from its foundation would invalidate one kind ofargument in favour of the enterprise. If the cogency of systematic theology dependedon the indubitability or incorrigibility of its starting premises and those were deemedfalse by some standard, then we might well ask what point there is to the exercise inthe first place. One kind of answer might be that theology transcends the logic of thisworld, being based in the word of God in Scripture. That answer runs afoul of thewords of Scripture themselves, for Scripture insists not only upon the eternal Logoswho is one with God, but a divine wisdom, imparted to the human person in speechthis creature can grasp. If the divine ratio stands so far above us or is of such adifferent kind that we cannot grasp it using our divinely-given rational capacities, thenit is hard to see how we could grasp it in any respect. The intelligibility of the gospelis just that; acknowledging it can speak to all kinds of people entails itsacknowledgement as understandable to the ordinary, questioning, and yes, logical,human minds possessed by all sorts and conditions of persons.

So Christian theology, especially if it is called systematic, has a great dealinvested in measuring up to recognizable standards of rationality and truth: these


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cannot be dismissed as ‘merely’ human on the Christian account, because on theChristian account there is nothing that genuinely is rational or true that is ‘merely’human. Christian theologians could dispute with foundationalist and evidentialistphilosophers on the grounds that their conceptions of human reasoning were flawed– and arguably should have done so, instead of squabbling acrimoniously overtheologoumena or refusing to engage with secular philosophy on the grounds ofits worldliness – but philosophy did the job itself. Although the heyday of anti-foundationalism has passed, the climate of philosophical epistemology is much morechastened than it was, with a widespread recognition that the structures of humanknowledge are more tentative, speculative or generally precarious than we had oncewanted to believe. Even on the secular account, the frankly self-acknowledgedfrailties of theological systems, far from counting against their cogency, represent anepistemological modesty that secular philosophy has also had to adopt, a virtuebecome a necessity.

As both rational and self-avowedly fragile in its reasoning, systematic theologyembodies what it claims of human nature. In its rationality and frailty, it resemblesother human discourses, even as it points beyond human discourse by locating thesource of all rationality in divine nature. Its double mimesis of the divine andthe human expresses not only rationality, as human endowment, divine giftand hallmark of divine nature, but also relationality: it expresses humanity’s relationto the entire created order and the discourses that analyse and celebrate createdthings. It also expresses humanity’s relation to the divine nature that brought creationinto being and sustains it. The traits of comprehensiveness, coherence, orderlinessand relation to other disciplines which commentators identify as its marks are allfunctions of the more fundamental traits of rationality and relationality. In expressingtheology’s relation to other discourses, in delineating the relations amongst its ownconstituent loci, in tracing the relations of human creatures to each other and to othercreatures, and above all, in expressing, however imperfectly, the relation of human todivine Persons, systematic theology testifies to the rationality and relationality whichcradle the cosmos, the communion of knowledge and love that is the blessed Trinity.Systematic theology is simply theology which makes explicit that rationality and thatrelationality.



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What is Systematic Theology?