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Theological Table-Talk
By Norman Pittenger

YEAR which has included two lecture trips to the United States, establishing a home in Rome, and teaching in Cambridge for the "full terms" has given me an opportunity to observe, but not too much time to reflect upon, the current theological scene on both sides of the Atlantic. I welcome, therefore, the opportunity afforded me by Theology Today to do a little thinking about that scene today and to set down on paper such reflections as occur to me. My only regret is that I must do this before a visit to the Scandinavian countries during the spring of 1971 and some closer contacts with Germany which will be possible later on. Perhaps some compensation for the latter is provided, however, by our having had visiting in Cambridge a number of continental (especially German) scholars who have given lectures or have been ready to talk informally about movements in their own lands.

I

The first thing that strikes one these days is the return to an interest in the metaphysical. After a period when many exponents of so-called "biblical theology" affirmed that philosophical theology, in all its forms, was indeed a "whore," in Luther's striking term, we find on all sides a desire to show that religious faith demands, as well as includes, assertions about the nature of things, or how things go, which are properly metaphysical in quality. Perhaps it is too much to say that the anti-philosophical type of theology is dead; certainly it seems to be moribund. The question now being asked is what kind of metaphysics may rightly be accepted in theological formulation.

But if a return to metaphysics is widely accepted, the idealistic variety (so popular in theological circles in Germany, Britain, and the

Norman Pittenger, for over thirty years on the faculty of General Theological Seminary in New York, is now a member of the Divinity Faculty at King's College, Cambridge, England. In recent years, he has been commuting back and forth between Cambridge and Rome, with extensive visits to the United States. A prolific writer, his most recent books include Process Thought and Christian Faith (1968), The Christian Situation Today (1969), and Goodness Distorted (1970).

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United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) seems to be inadmissible. Whatever valuable insight that variety may have offered, as a systematic description it is rejected. And in its place perhaps the most popular approach is through the kind of existentialist analysis, with its implicit metaphysical consequences, which is associated with names like Heidegger. The only "idealistic" philosopher whose name I have heard mentioned favorably is Schelling, and this, one takes it, because of the vitalistic, even existentialist, strain which Tillich found in him, coupled with his "processive" view in his later years.

But it is also fascinating to observe that in Britain, at any rate, if not elsewhere, theologians are beginning to work out a broad metaphysical position, surprisingly enough, on the basis of the linguistic philosophy which for so long was prevalent in Cambridge and is still dominant in Oxford. Here, of course, Ian Ramsey is the most interesting writer, but Daniel Evans in the United States and a number of younger men in Britain have also been writing along these lines. Finally, it is gratifying to note that process thought, which for a quarter-century has been significant in the United States, has at last reached the British Isles and is arousing very considerable interest. In the recent volume put out by Congregationalists in England, treating of their 1967 "Declaration of Faith," some of the writers (notably John Gregory and Roger Tomes) speak favorably, if in certain respects critically, of this way of thinking (Christian Confidence, SPCK, 1970; a most interesting and stimulating volume, by the way); and H. Cunliffe-Jones accords it a place in his excellent Christian Theology Since 1600 (Duckworth, 1970). 1 have also been pleased (since it is well-known that I myself am an adherent of process theology) to see that on the continent, in Italy now and before that in France and Germany, Whitehead is being read and his contribution valued as it was not ten or fifteen years ago. An Italian publisher approached me for a translation of my own Process Thought and Christian Faith, styling it (to my amusement) "a significant movement in Catholic thought in the United States."The publication in London of Schubert Ogden's Reality of God, John Cobb's A Christian Natural Theology, and, last summer,Charles Hartshorne's Creative Synthesis, demonstrates this trend inBritain. These books, I find, are now being read on the continent, not least among Roman Catholic theologians but also by

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those who have moved away from, or beyond, "neo-orthodox" positions in the Protestant world.

So far as I can see, the "death of God" school has had little real influence outside the United States, and even there its contribution has now been made and its exponents have moved to a position which, whatever some of them may say, is post-"cultural"-death-of-God. Dorothee Solle's work is deeply appreciated, precisely because she does thus move beyond the "eclipse" of God, as she prefers to put it. Her presentation of Christ as the "representative" but not the "replacement" of God speaks meaningfully to many, not least to John Robinson, who in his Hulsean lectures on Christology, given in Cambridge in October and November of last year, made extensive use of her writing.

The importance of the "death of God" business was that it showed up very clearly that conceptions of God as sheerly transcendent or morally "ruthless" (to use Whitehead's word), or interfering continually in creation as a deus ex machina, or "available" to direct acquaintance apart from his creation, have died for most of our contemporaries. Talk about God's "death" (and it was this set of conceptions which was in mind) has cleared the ground for future work on the doctrine of God and, oddly enough, sent theologians back to some of the older "liberal" emphases which are now reappearing in surprising places.

The "theology of hope" or "of the future" is popular these days, both on the continent and in Britain. Sometimes it is associated with a Teilhardian metaphysic, if it is permissible to put it that way. Certainly Teilhard is a man to be reckoned with, wherever one goes, in Protestant as well as Catholic circles. Some have even claimed that his position is the soundly Christian one for our day, a view suggested for example in R. C. Zaehner's recently published Gifford Lectures. My own feeling is that in many respects Teilhard is to be described as one who set process thinking (he had read bits of Whitehead but was not consciously influenced by him, and his own scheme was very clearly worked out independently) to the music of the plainsong Roman Catholic mass. He lacks the rigor of a Whitehead or a Hartshorne; and perhaps it is the poetic and mystic strain, as Ian Barbour has remarked, which explains his appeal to a generation fed up with technology in its narrow sense, drabness of world-

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view, logic-chopping, and continual chatter about words and how they are appropriately used in different "games."

The "hope" theology builds largely, as we all know, on the eschatological motif in Scripture and (in its German manifestation) on Ernest Bloch and some other Marxist or quasi-Marxist thinkers. As I myself have read this theology, in its German presentation, it has seemed a useful corrective of much in earlier Teutonic thinking; but it has also seemed very much a case of "always jam tomorrow and never jam today." Furthermore, one may be permitted to doubt whether a soundly biblical interpretation can neglect the scriptural stress on "what God has done" and "what God is doing," by emphasizing so much what "God will do." The way in which certain camp-followers have talked about "the future" has the appearance of restoring an almost Calvinistic (in the scholastic sense) determinism, with the difference that now this determinism is from ahead, rather than from behind.

Anyone familiar with my own views will know that I believe most of the significant insights of this, as of other varieties of contemporary theology, can be given a place in a theology which builds on process thought, especially in making much of creation but without forgetting redemption. John Macquarrie, himself a distinguished representative of the school which seeks to use Heidegger as a base for Christian theological construction, has said some admirable things about creation in his book, Three Issues in Ethics (1970). What he says about the wider moral base for Christian ethics may be applied to the whole theological enterprise. What this comes to, I think, is that what used to be called natural theology is the absolutely necessary condition for a specifically Christian theology, whatever novelty and uniqueness the latter may possess.

II

I should like now to turn to the situation of the institutional Christian church in predominantly Catholic countries in Europe. Here I shall base my remarks on conversations, observations, and reading done in Italy. I do this not only because I am most familiar with the Italian scene but also because that land is almost by definition a culturally Catholic one, where the influence of Catholic Christianity is pervasive of the entire national life, not least among

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those who in no sense could be called praticanti or "practicing" churchmen.

Last summer a remarkable volume was published in Italy under the title L'altra Chiesa ("The Other Church"). It is an account of new church movements in that land. The contributors are parish priests, seminary teachers, "religious" (monks and nuns), and laymen. All of them witness to the way in which ordinary people, especially in the great urban centers and in universities and schools, respond to the gospel of God's identifying himself in Christ with the human condition when this gospel is proclaimed, not so much in word as in act, not so much in preaching as in simple eucharistic participation, not so much in talk as in concern for the "outsider," the under-privileged, the man or woman who feels rejected by the society in which he lives.

The ominous thing about this book is its title, the other church. The writers make a sharp distinction between the official hierarchical church and what they regard as the real, the true church. The former has had its day; the latter is "the coming great church," to use Canon Wedel's phrase of many years ago. In talking this way, these writers are expressing a very widespread feeling not only in Italy but elsewhere in Catholic Europe. An awareness of this dichotomy is the real explanation of the zeal of the "progressives" in Catholic theological circles, for they recognize that unless the church is seen and known to be alive to the practical and theological issues which this book raises, it can have no significant future in Europe. Only about five per cent of Italy's population are praticanti. The same is true elsewhere, even in more traditional Spain and Portugal. Can the official church be awakened so that it will become, in itself, that "other" church? That is the big question. And it has its theological aspect, since (as these writers understand) there must be a theological basis or grounding for the sort of work they are doing.

Whenever an Italian speaks of Pope John XXIII, whom he is likely to call Il Santo ("the Saint"), his eyes light up and his enthusiasm is obvious. A series of interviews with leading personalities of stage, screen, literature, art, was lately published in one of the three most widely circulated Italian weeklies. Without exception, they said that Papa Roncalli, as he is known in Italy, was the man who by his word and witness made Christianity meaningful and attractive. And why? Because, as many of these people said plainly,

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he was a living embodiment of the love about which, now and again, he also talked. In other words, in him they saw the meaning of God here and now in their own world. But at the same time they said that the church itself appeared all too often to contradict what John in his life disclosed. The writers in L'Altra Chiesa demonstrate that to such a manifestation of Christian faith as that seen in Pope John, there still is a striking, even a startling, response throughout Italy.

Aggiornamento or renewal is to be along these lines, or it will be futile. It is my own belief that Pope Paul, that troubled Hamlet-style character, sees this. But unfortunately he has been so much the prisoner of his own training, so much the victim of a more rigid theology, that he can express it only in his social, political, and economic radicalism. The problem is whether the younger men who are now replacing the old triumphalists will be able, in the very near future, to move rapidly toward just such an aggiornamento. If they can, there is a bright prospect for the Catholic Church on the continent in Latin countries. If they cannot, the Catholic Church will survive as an interesting archeological curiosity, attractive to a few but existing as a warning to those who think that things can remain as they were. Cardinal Newman's words still hold true: "In another world it may be otherwise, but in this world to live is to change."

Is the situation different for those of us who are not of "the Roman obedience"? I think not. For, to give but one example, the Church of England and the Free Churches in Britain, as well as the Kirk of Scotland, are in exactly the same condition. And my recent returns to the United States have made it plain enough that exactly this can also be said of institutional religion there.

III

Not unrelated to all this is the question of the training of young men (and one would hope, before long and in all Christian groups, young women) for the ordained ministry. For one whose whole working-life has been spent in theological education, on both sides of the Atlantic, this is inevitably a matter of the greatest interest.

Nearly forty years ago, when I began to teach ordinands, they tended to be fairly conventional representatives of middle-class cul-

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ture. They were prepared to accept "authority," whether of the Bible, the church, or whatever. If they were liberal-minded, they had a high confidence in human reason and the congruity of Christian faith, rightly understood, with that reason. In dress and manners they were impeccable. Today, however, both in Britain and the United States, and in both Protestant and Catholic seminaries, they are a very different breed. So far as dress goes, they are the jeaned, rather shabby-looking equals of their contemporaries elsewhere. Their hair is likely to be worn long; perhaps they sport a beard or a moustache, and almost certainly wear sideburns. Their manners are usually good enough, but (shall we say?) "relaxed." As to their ideas and beliefs, this is anyone's guess. Some years ago, I wrote an article in The Christian Century in which I said that the one thing common to them all was a profound dislike of the (institutional) church. That is still true. They are impatient with the institution, they are in doubt about most aspects of traditional theology, they regard worship as in need of drastic revision if not complete abolition (and it is only fair to say that not many go that far), and they think that the conventional so-called Christian ethic is indeed (as one said in my hearing) "strictly for the birds."

On the other hand, they are loyal to Jesus Christ, they are convinced that his gospel of the love of God in action is the truth, and they are prepared to go to almost any lengths to promote understanding among men and nations, racial integration, social justice, the ending of war, the relief of the needy, and every other sort of " good work." They are eminently attractive, often engagingly naive. But they are no light-weights, even if they are not prepared to listen to what we like to style "the wisdom of their elders" and show impatience with the hesitations and reservations of less eager and enthusiastic Christians.

Personally I find them altogether better to work with than the ordinands of my earlier years of teaching. They are curious, if opinionated; they are open to new ideas, even if they are critical of any and all ideas. Above all, they are possessed by an enormous capacity to care. Their concern for others, their desire to sympathize with and help others, and their sacrifice of time and such money as they have for others, is remarkable. To be a little sentimental about it, they make me think of those eager, impetuous,

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opinionated, zealous, and loving men whom Jesus called to be his close followers, as the gospel narratives help us to see them.

But how to prepare them for the ministry which they may finally enter (for a considerable number drop by the wayside and go out to do something else) is a difficult problem. One thing has become clear to me, however. They cannot be prepared for a ministry of status (I do not mean social status, for that is long since gone, but rather position and fixed place in an ecclesiastical machine). They reject altogether the notion of status, and they do not want to serve their Lord from a fixed position. They want freedom of action in the ministry, just as they demand freedom of thought in the theological school. In any event, a ministry of status is vanishing before our eyes. In its place is coming what I style a ministry of function, and to that kind of ministry these young people seem to respond.

Men I was young, there was much talk about beginning one's sermons from "the human situation" rather than from a biblical text. However this may be in respect to preaching, it is certainly the case that theological education must begin, these days, from "the human situation." This is the only way in, so to say. If we hope to acquaint the ordinand with what the great thinkers of the past have said, we must begin here-and-now and show how our contemporary world was prepared for, our contemporary theological concern made possible, by what went on in the years before our time. So also biblical study must have an existential orientation. Students nowadays are impatient of scholarship which (in their own jargon) is "not relevant to felt needs." And one could go down the list of subjects in the theological curiculum, making exactly the same point for each of them. But to my mind something more radical is required, and I am at a loss as to how to phrase it.

What I am trying to get at is the need to integrate theory and practice, much more than most theological schools do today. In the Roman Catholic Church on the continent, in France, Holland, and even in Italy, this is being done in many seminaries. Secular work in big cities, assisting in parishes, teaching in schools, hospital assistance, and the like, these are alternated with a term in school, so that practice illuminates theory and theory gives a rationale to practice. Furthermore, the confined and confining atmosphere of

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the seminary is being changed, so that there is a fairly easy going and coming between the world and the seminary. It is strange that in many Protestant divinity schools there is still that "apartness" which our more advanced Roman brethren regard with such disfavor.

Yet granted this alternation of action and study, it is still necessary to make sure that the future minister has a solid preparation in Bible, history (but is church history any longer possible as a separable discipline?), theology, ethics, and the like. Far too often, in the newer setting, the popular seminars which take up great traditional (and contemporary) problems resemble a pooling of common ignorance rather than a concerted effort after the acquisition of Christian wisdom. I am glad that at my age I can leave this problem for others to solve, but I am convinced that unless theological education is very radically altered in approach and in method, as well as in what must be taken as the content "to be learned," it will not be of much use for the Christian community of tomorrow.

Whether the present parish and congregational pattern continues, whatever may be the form of Christian community life, and however the ministry may function in detail, three things about ministry stand firm if Christianity is true at all. There must be a proclamation or gospel to announce; there must be a way of encountering God in Christ in worship and supremely in eucharistic worship; and there must be a practical care of people. And along with these goes the witness in dedicated life. These are the abiding functions of Christian ministry, however they may express themselves in a changing society. It is to exercise these functions that ordinands are to be prepared, however this may be done. As to the how-well, "New occasions teach new duties/ Time makes ancient good uncouth." I have learned that much in nearly forty years of teaching ordinands.

IV

A few final reflections, more or less related to what has gone before, will close this discursive paper.

First, we are in a period of constructive theology, or so I believe. The older "grand" theologies do not appeal to us today; but neither

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do the negations of "secular" theology, nor the restrictions required by "biblical theology," "neo-orthodoxy," and the like. Construction is bound to include much from those older systems, just as it will profit from the warnings of their negative or restrictive successors. But it will be a new type of theological construction, in which the biblical data will be set in the context of our contemporary world in all its secularity. It will also be a construction which is not afraid to make bold assertions about how things go in the cosmos, more especially how God is in things and works through things as well as through history and personal experience. This is one of the reasons that process thought appeals to me and to others.

Secondly, the re-discovery that God's "nature and name is love," as Wesley's hymn puts it, is the great new fact of our time, much more so than the movement toward world-embracing ecumenicity which William Temple described in that phrase for his own day. In theology proper, in ethics, in concern for social action, and in worship, this emphasis is continually heard. Here we have a remarkable recognition of the Johannine stress which has always been present in Christian thought but often muted by the Pauline soteriological concerns which tended to put the emphasis elsewhere. What we need today is to discover to what extent and in what way the statement "God is love" is reversible. How, why, when, where is love, seen and known and shared in action, nothing other than God himself? In other words, we need more work along the lines of Daniel Day Williams' The Spirit and the Forms of Love(1968). We must see how cosmic love works in nature, as well as in secular history and ordinary human experience. And in my judgment we can no longer accept the sharp dichotomy between eros and agape, popularized by Nygren and accepted by so many theologians of the past half-century.

Thirdly, the institutional church is in a bad way, but vital concern for and interest in "the religious dimension," that is, man in his relationship with God, however conceived, is very much alive. The fact that in universities in Britain (and in the United States too) increasing numbers of students wish to take courses in and familiarize themselves with the religious heritage of the human race, both East and West, is of enormous importance. And it is to be observed that this is taking place at the very moment when the churches are

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apparently losing their appeal. There is a lesson here for those of us who still believe that without organization and structure no obligation can really have much cutting-edge. Briefly stated, this lesson seems to be that until and unless the institutional churches can concern themselves with and also show that they are concerned with something more than domestic housekeeping and defensive reaction to "secular culture," they will attract nobody and will gradually die. If they can become vehicles of the life in love, declared and imparted in the Man of Nazareth and his total impact on the world, they can and will revive.

Fourthly, whatever happens to institutions, the activity of God in his world goes on. That activity is the creation, out of the existing stuff with which we all have to deal, of a society where love is lord, where love is expressed in justice and understanding and sharing, and where men and women find significance for living and hope in dying, through their conviction that human existence (and the world where that existence is had) is an opportunity to learn how to love, what to love, and where to love. Man is being made, in his total becoming, so that he may serve as the personalized instrument for the cosmic Lover. And in thus serving, he can find redemption from his futility and falsely self-centered existence, dignity in his humanity, and genuine satisfaction and fulfillment.