115 - Heretic's Riposte

Heretic's Riposte
By Walter Kaufmann

PROFESSOR John Hick has very graciously suggested that I might comment on his review of my book, The Faith of a Heretic, and the Editor has generously provided space to do so in the same issue. Few authors are ever treated so kindly, and I am happy to make my debut in THEOLOGY TODAY with an expression of warm appreciation.

The first function of a book review should be, I believe, to give some idea of the contents and character of the book. My reviewer admits at the outset that he deals with "only one chapter out of fourteen"; so I shall begin by placing this chapter in context.

After a more personal "Prologue," which suggests among other things why I wrote the book, I discuss "The Quest for Honesty" (Chapter II) and then deal with the crisis in contemporary philosophy and the widespread abandonment of substantive questions and of the Socratic conception of the philosopher as a gadfly (III). After taking issue with uncommitted professionalism, I go on to criticize some influential confusions about "Commitment" (IV). As an extended example of what I consider the wrong sort of commitment, Chapter V is directed "Against Theology."

Chapter VI deals with an ancient theological problem in a historical and philosophical manner ("Suffering and the Bible"), and the following two chapters deal similarly first with "The Old Testament," then with "Jesus vis-a-vis Paul, Luther, and Schweitzer." Among the major topics taken up in the remaining chapters are "Organized Religion" (IX), "Morality" (X), and "Death" (XII).

Although much of the book is critical, much of it represents an attempt to be constructive; and all of it is offered in the spirit suggested at the outset: "The ideal reader would engage in a common quest with me; he would be willing to reconsider his views and some of his basic decisions in the course of this quest" (19f).

The review deals only with the chapter "Against Theology," but it fails to give a good idea even of that. The central points of this chapter are ignored, and the reader is not told that-"This critique is directed, as was made plain at the beginning of this chapter, against what the Oxford English Dictionary calls 'dogmatic theology,' not

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against everybody who happens to be teaching at a theological seminary or against so-called theologians who are really philologists or historians" (p. 146).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines theology as "the study or science which treats of God, His nature & attributes, & His relations with man & the universe," and goes on to distinguish "Dogmatic theology, theology as authoritatively held & taught by the church," from "Natural theology, theology based upon reasoning from natural facts apart from revelation." After some discussion of other conceptions of theology, I accept these definitions and argue that-"At the crucial point, natural theology falls back on dogmatic theology" (p. 106).

The sentence with which, according to my reviewer, "Professor Kaufmann begins," actually comes after all of this, and his objections to it depend entirely on his understanding the word "denominational" in a narrow sense which it does not have in its original context. Of course, "theology, as the term is generally understood," need not be specifically Methodist, Baptist, or-say-Episcopalian; but my claim is that dogmatic theology "offers a sympathetic exegesis and, in fact if not expressly, a defense" of what the O.E.D. calls the beliefs "held & taught by the church." Because there are many Churches as well as Jewish and Muslim theologians, I spoke of denominations, meaning the particular religious traditions to which theologians are committed. After all, they are either Protestant or Catholic or say-Jewish theologians.

That I really attack nineteenth century theology rather than twentieth century theology is surely false. I try to show how some basic flaws of method are a function of the task which theologians set themselves, and I illustrate these flaws from the works of outstanding contemporary theologians, both Protestant and Catholic.

I never said that a modern theologian must defend everything said by theologians of the past; but Professor Hick's suggestion that we should no more expect a Calvinist theologian to agree With Calvin, or a Catholic theologian with Aquinas, or a Christian theologian with the ideas of the New Testament than we should expect a modern critic of theology to "'defend everything said by the skeptics, rationalists, and free-thinkers of former ages" is surely misguided. Professor Hick ignores the interesting differences between the commitments of theologians and philosophers. Among philosophers the man com-

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mitted to, say, the writing of Hume or Kant is an exception; among theologians the man who is not committed to a body of scriptures and a specific tradition is even more of an exception. But the problems this creates for theologians and the closely related, really crucial, questions about theological method which are discussed at length in my book are skirted in the review.

I am certainly no fundamentalist- not even in Dr. Hick's Pickwickian sense: I do not criticize men like Bultmann, Tillich, or Father Walsh for not being fundamentalists. But to find out for what I do criticize them, readers will have to go beyond Dr. Hick's review. It would be convenient, of course, if I could summarize forty-five pages of arguments and illustrations in a few sentences; but that would surely be asking too much of any author. And what was wanted in this space was, above all, some comment on Professor Hick's specific points. While I regret that he did not come to grips with any of my criticisms, I am deeply grateful for his unfailing courtesy and kindness.