{"id":108,"date":"2019-11-19T09:45:37","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T09:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/?page_id=108"},"modified":"2019-11-20T14:41:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T14:41:25","slug":"andrew-davison","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/andrew-davison\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Davison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nThe Revd Dr Andrew Davison\nis Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Sciences, and a Fellow\nof Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he is also Dean of\nChapel. He previously taught theology at Westcott House, Cambridge\nand St Stephen\u2019s House, Oxford. When he gave this paper, he was\njust back from a year\u2019s fellowship in Princeton, New Jersey, at the\nCenter of Theological Inquiry, on a NASA-sponsored\nprogramme, where he was looking at the implications for human society\nand self\u2011understanding of life elsewhere in the universe. A\nnatural scientist before moving into theology, he has a background\ndistinctively different from almost all \u2013 perhaps all \u2013\nthe contributors to the 1947 Report Catholicity. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE REVD DR ANDREW DAVISON<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe 1947 Report<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI have been asked to talk\nabout the theology of the Report. The first thing to say is that it\nis really quite impressive, which is also rather sobering when we\ncompare it to much that we are given today. There is a firm\ngrounding in theology rather than pragmatic considerations, and a\nsense of inhabiting a distinct theological and religious tradition. \nThat sense, of an Anglican tradition, can often be lacking. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We might also note the rather remarkable unanimity of this 1947 group of Anglo\u2011Catholics, compared to our unhappy divisions of late, and yet, on the subject of our historical divisions, we can hope that this Symposium itself marks something of a shift in the tide of Anglo\u2011Catholic relationships. While these, of course, have never been completely set in enmity, something seems to be changing and stirring today, and I am grateful for that. Philip North was the main speaker at the Anglican\u2011Catholic Future Festival this year.1<\/sup><\/a> I note that ACF and Forward in Faith will hold a joint residential meeting for priests in 2018. These are all very hopeful developments. Whatever might be dispiriting about the Church of England as we find it today, if Anglo\u2011Catholics can come together in response, good will have come of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe Doctrine of the 1947\nReport today<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been asked to talk about the doctrine of the Report, and to comment on how it stands up today and what we might want to retain of it. I will start by noting a favourite theme of mine: the intrinsic interrelation of doctrines. There, I want to praise the Report heartily. After that, for the sake of grit, I will suggest a few criticisms, adding a relatively brief note of criticism and caution. Overall, however, I want to say that, with the perspective of hindsight, this Report seems to have been remarkably prescient. We do, however, need to note some of what has happened since the Report came out, including mention of the extended criticisms in the report The Catholicity of Protestantism<\/em>2<\/sup><\/a>, alongside a sense of how developments in doctrinal and Christian philosophical thinking confirm the instincts of the authors of Catholicity<\/em>. I will conclude by suggesting that it continues to offer some of our best prospects of hope in our current situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI do not think that a\ndoctrinal theologian of a Catholic outlook would be anything but\ndelighted and impressed by the emphasis in this Report on Christian\ndoctrine as expansive and interrelated. It belongs to Catholicism to\nattend to the whole glorious panoply of Christian doctrinal themes:\nto creation as well as redemption; to the Church as well as\ntheological anthropology; to eschatology and pneumatology; to\nChrist\u2019s work and to Christ\u2019s person. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe various deviations in\ndoctrine which the authors diagnose \u2013 departures from Catholicism\n \u2013  are all, in one way or another, curtailments of this\nprinciple of interrelation. Whether they are distortions of\nindividual doctrines or wholesale omissions, in each case there is a\nwholeness missing. Sometimes they point to doctrines which are more\nor less completely ignored or which are squashed by others, whereby\ndownplaying a doctrinal topic within the whole. Inasmuch as they are\ntalking about a more Protestant and a more liberal approach, on the\nProtestant end they talk about playing down creation and the Church,\nand from the liberal perspective, of playing down the necessity of\nredemption, or eschatology. Alongside diagnosis of these omissions,\nthey talk about distortions. A doctrine may be discussed, they\nthink \u2013 indeed, discussed at great length \u2013 but parts\nof the witness of the tradition may still be ignored. That may often\ninvolve downplaying the relations to other doctrines, which, had that\nbeen retained, might have shaped, developed and chastened what is\nbeing said. For instance, one might stress the effect of the Fall\nwithout stressing what is retained; one might stress the dignity of\nthe human being without stressing waywardness and the need for grace.\n In the vision we are given in this Report, the attenuation of\ndoctrine more or less inevitably rests on some sort of disconnection.\n \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe coherent unity of\nCatholicism<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn contrast to this, they hold\nthat Catholicism retains the whole, and indeed emerges from the\nwhole, and that Christian doctrine as Catholic has a coherent unity. \nChristian doctrine must neglect no part of the whole; it must attend\nto those mutually reinforcing and correcting aspects of each aspect;\nit must not neglect the sense in which each topic bears upon every\nother topic, and receives its shape from its relation to the other\nthemes. I will give you some examples of this from the Report\nitself. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThere is stress, for instance,\non the need to attend both to creation and redemption, to acknowledge\nboth affirmation and judgment as Christian principles, to be\nconcerned both for this life and for life to come. From that\nperspective, we immediately see that what is today called\n\u2018public theology\u2019 cannot be properly Christian without the\nwholeness of these particular poles held together. I will quote from\nthe Report: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand the Church preaches repentance and judgment to a world [entrapped] in original sin\u2026. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we miss that, our public theology is not Christian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand the Church appeals to the light that lighteth every man, and affirms the natural Law \u2026 and the positive significance of human civilisation and culture, embracing the hope that the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our God.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn my own recent writing on\nwhat it might mean theologically to bless things, people, places, or\nendeavours, I saw exactly these two poles: the sense of something\nrecognised as wrong or out of kilter, and of something to be\naffirmed; to blessing there is something of celebration, but also of\nasking for protection. The engagement of the Church with the world\nmust rest on both of these poles, which are very perceptively\ndiscussed in the Report. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nConnections within the\n1947 Report<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe Report highlights many\ninterconnections, many places, where a dual emphasis is needed, as\nwell as the witness of the whole, but it particularly stresses the\npairing of creation and redemption. There is a valuable discussion,\nfor instance, of the relationship between creation and human beings\nin the image of God, on the one hand, and sin and the Fall on the\nother. The claim is \u2013 and here I quote again \u2013 that the\nProtestant emphasis on grace was \u2018purchased at a heavy price\u2019\nwhen it comes to the doctrine of the human image. \u2018What was\nsacrificed for it was the Biblical doctrine that man was made \u201cin\nthe image of God\u201d, and that this \u201cimage\u201d, though defaced by\nsin, substantially remains in fallen man, and is effectually restored\nby Baptism into Christ.\u2019 We are instead left with what the Report\ncalls a \u2018distorted Augustinianism\u2019, a \u2018catastrophic pessimism\nconcerning the results of the fall\u2019. I pick out that passage\nbecause it is one of the points where the Free Church\nrespondents in The\nCatholicity of Protestantism <\/em>most\nof all cry foul, so it\nis worth asking if our Report does not sometimes go in for\ncaricatures. Sometimes, certainly, but things can be said in its\ndefence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFirst<\/strong>,\nProtestantism, as represented in the best of its intellectual\ntradition, is not necessarily the same as Protestantism as it is\nencountered on the ground. The further we get into the twentieth\ncentury, the more profound and depressingly true that is (although a\nreturn to the attention of the Reformers is obvious among some,\nespecially younger, Protestants). As I say, the Report is prescient.\n If there was in the 1950s more of an intellectual tradition and\nconnection to the tradition among Protestants, through the words of\nthe Reformers, that was to become even further eclipsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe second<\/strong>\nthing to say is that picking out the occasional counter-comment from\na Reformer in offering criticism of our Report does not necessarily\nabsolve him or his tradition of the problems being diagnosed. \nProtestantism, because of its historical background, has often been\noccasional, piecemeal and polemical in form, especially in the\noriginal writing, which does not necessarily make for consistency. \n(On that front, I would personally single out Luther, far more than\nCalvin.) We also see this in the authors of the follow-on report. I\nfind their discussion of this very point \u2013 the image of God\nand sin \u2013 unclear, and in fact self-contradictory. Its response to\nthe heart of this matter confirms the criticisms of the Report we are\nconsidering today, and the fudges they then offer really do seem to\nme unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe third<\/strong>\nresponse to the criticisms in The\nCatholicity of Protestantism <\/em>is\nthat analysis may be helped by sketching extreme poles, as perhaps\nhappens in Catholicity<\/em>.\n Whilst the authors of that Report cannot be entirely absolved from\nthe charge of caricature, part of what they are offering is a kind of\nstructural analysis of the wholeness of Christian doctrine and of the\nkinds of parts into which it can degenerate. I think of Hegel, and\nhis idea of what we might call \u2018ideal types\u2019, or in this case\n\u2018non-ideal types\u2019, which can be useful for thinking, even if they\ndo not correspond exactly to empirical examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPerhaps, then, the method of\nour Report is so consistent, so watertight, as to risk being facile. \nCatholicism is defined as the whole, and partialness as a deviation\nfrom it. Any deviation, inasmuch as it is partial, can be said to\nretain some of Catholicism. If someone points to Calvin and says,\n\u2018Oh, look, in Calvin we find all these Renaissance elements or\nopen\u2011minded liberal elements,\u2019 this does not undermine the\nanalysis in Catholicism\n<\/em>at all, because the\nauthors can simply say, \u2018Well, nothing ever completely departs from\nCatholicism, and inasmuch as Calvin also shows, as well as his\nProtestantism, the opposite element, that just shows that he remains\nto some extent still within the Catholic fold\u2019 \u2013 as clearly he\ndoes. That risks almost a hermetic successfulness to the method that\nthe Report deploys, for which it could perhaps be criticised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Report gives many other examples of completeness and interconnection. The theme of incorporation into Christ, and the role of the Church in salvation and in the Gospel, are clearly incredibly important.3<\/sup><\/a> Again and again, the Report turns to this sense of a lack of interconnection between doctrines. Luther\u2019s theology is approached precisely in terms of both too great a separation between justification and creation, and too great a separation between justification and sanctification. The theme of the omission of the Church from the faith and from the Gospel also much concerns the authors, as surely it should, for amongst the most pressing problems in contemporary thought in the Church of England is exactly this idea of marginalising the Church as integral to a Christian vision of the doctrinal whole, as not particularly important in the proclamation of the Gospel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTable of Dualisms in the\nReport<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the head of Chapter IV, on fragmentation and synthesis, there is a table of dualisms. The idea, as we might expect, is that Catholicism is whole, and that one tends to encounter fragments which veer either towards a Protestant approach or what they call a Renaissance or liberal approach. The Report gives this table of opposed fragments into which the whole can degenerate. This is a crystallisation of what the Report claims about Catholic doctrine and its disintegration; yet here I think we have to admit a certain heavy-handedness, and lack of consistency. Certainly, in some cases the contrasts are reasonable, and the elements need to be held together. One is \u2018Christ for us\u2019 and the other is \u2018Christ in us\u2019. Both are clearly true: we just would not want to lose one for the other. The Report talks of justification and sanctification, again both excellent and important; we just would not want to take one over the other. But this list is rather inconsistent, since in other places the Report gives us a binary where one side seems more theologically correct than the other. For instance, they give us \u2018creator and creature incommensurable\u2019 and \u2018creature and creator mutually necessary\u2019. I would not want to be left with only \u2018creature and creator incommensurable\u2019, but if I had to choose one over the other, then that is definitely what I would choose. The idea that the \u2018creature and creator [are] mutually necessary\u2019 deserves no place in Christian theology, not even as part of a balanced pairing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOn other occasions, the poles\nidentified in the Report are clearly illustrative extremes, held by\nrelatively few, but useful for diagnosing tendencies. For instance,\nthe Report talks about revealed theology versus<\/em>\nnatural theology. Natural theology has certainly had a hard time of\nit amongst Protestants since Karl Barth (although that may be\nchanging), but it really is not characteristic of the Protestant\ntrajectory as a whole to reject all of natural theology per se<\/em>.\n Similarly, while some liberals have given particular prominence to\nnatural theology, few have gone so far as to reject any usefulness\nfor revealed sources and become out-and-out deists. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThis list, then, is on the one\nhand the crowning feature of the Report. In other ways, however, it\nis rather heavy-handed, and not particularly consistent. The basic\nidea, however, about the wholeness of doctrine for Catholics, and not\nignoring any part, is vital, as is the emphasis on always having an\neye on the interrelations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTeaching Theology today<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAs has already been said\ntoday, we get woefully little time in theological colleges to teach\ndoctrine, because we get little time to teach anything. It has\nalways been my hope in teaching doctrine to ordinands\u2013 which I did\nfor eight years \u2013 that they might learn enough, might live\nsufficiently with one theologian, so as to learn to see links, to be\nable to extrapolate, interpolate and think analogically. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn this theme of the\nrelatedness of doctrine, which I really want to stress is a great\npoint in the Report, we find \u2013 perhaps surprisingly \u2013 a\ngreat deal of the applicability of doctrine. The ordinand or priest\nwill be asked questions at the church door, over coffee, in the pub,\nby the bedside: questions about which he or she has probably never\nread anything directly. Indeed, the priest may never have thought\nabout this particular matter directly; but if one has a sense of the\nwhole of doctrine and of its interrelatedness, that allows for a sort\nof creative, spur-of-the-moment extrapolation, interpretation,\nthinking by analogy. As I say, I think that knowing the\nthoughts of one thinker well is the most important thing. To be\nhonest, I would not mind particularly if that were Aquinas or\nBonaventure, Augustine or Barth. Being familiar with how the faith\nhangs together in one person\u2019s mind provides enormous resources for\nbeing able to think about the interstices, which are exactly the kind\nof thing you might be asked when you least expect it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI have already registered some\nnotes of caution about the Report: that list, for instance, which is\nso illuminating and useful in one way, but in others, rather\nincautious and inconsistent in its method. Let me note just a few\nmore criticisms or points of caution. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOversimplifications in\nthe Report?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI think the Report tends to\nattribute rather too much unanimity to the traditions it discusses. \nProtestantism is clearly more than just one thing \u2013 perhaps never\nmore so than today. Indeed, the distinctions, even sometimes\nenmities, between Protestant\u2011minded Anglicans today are as\nsignificant and worthy of note as those between Anglo-Catholics. \nSimilarly, in terms of elisions, what the Report calls the \u2018Liberal\nor Renaissance tradition\u2019 is also widely varied. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWe encounter a strong sense of\nthe importance of the Eastern tradition and the robustness of the\nEastern and Orthodox tradition throughout the Report. That is then\ntaken further in a very specific claim that behind many of our\nWestern theological and ecclesiological problems lies the division of\nthe East from the West, and the sense that if only the Great Schism\nhad not occurred, the West would not have evolved in the way that it\ndid. At the end of the fifteenth century, we would not have stood on\nthe edge of the Reformation. It\u2019s a nice idea, but I wonder\nwhether it stands up. Is it really the case that for every Western\nproblem there is a nice countermanding strength in the Eastern and\nOriental Orthodox faith and practice? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhile there is an enthusiasm\nfor the East, there is also a rather excoriating passage where the\nReport is critical of Eastern weaknesses: it is \u2018too dependent on\ncivil power\u2019; it missed the Reformation and the Renaissance, which\nhere is seen as positive things; it is weak on science and Biblical\ncriticism. The East, then, does not entirely avoid criticism. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nScholasticism<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhat else could be said in\nterms of caution about this Report? It is rather dismissive of\nProtestant scholasticism. Of that, I would be rather inclined today\nto say: \u2018Come back, all is forgiven\u2019. It is also actually rather\ncritical of Catholic scholasticism, accusing it of an attachment to\ndry syllogistic thinking. This is rather flat footed, for three\nreasons. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFirstly<\/strong>,\nthat this particular syllogistic method is much more characteristic\nof Duns Scotus than it is of, say, Aquinas. It is not the whole of\nscholasticism. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSecond<\/strong>,\nwhile I would have some criticisms of a perhaps narrow and overly\nneat approach in some Roman Catholic theology today \u2013 what is\nsometimes called neo-neo-Thomism, it has its strengths, and it is a\ngood deal better than much of what is otherwise on offer. I am happy\nto criticise Su\u00e1rez, Cajetan and the rest \u2013 but if I had to choose\nbetween them and what is being held out as a Protestant position in\nthis Report, I would choose even the Baroque version of scholasticism\nin a heartbeat. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThird<\/strong>,\nand finally, something needs to be said about the allegation of\nsterile logic-chopping, and cold analytic thought. All in all, I am\nnot particularly an enthusiast for analytic philosophy and its role\nin theology. I think it prides itself on its clarity of thought, but\noften makes mistakes about the subject matter. It will talk about\nthe soul with enormous precision, but use word \u2018soul\u2019 in a way no\ntheologian has ever used it. The authors of the Report might find\nsomething of an ally in me, when it comes to seeing the problems of\ncold logic and an analytical approach. Nonetheless, with every\nChurch report I read, the more I realise that there is a need, a\nhallowed place, for logic and analytical thinking!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe Liberal Tradition<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe 1947 Report is also\nperhaps rather light on its analysis of the liberal tradition. \nIt is simply too pleased with itself over its association of\nLiberalism with Renaissance roots. Today, we would be keener to see\nthe effects of the Renaissance also in Calvin, for instance, and to\nstress the origins of the Renaissance as a Catholic movement \u2013\nindeed, to say that the Renaissance was but the latest of several\nhistorical Catholic renaissances. As I have already said, there is\ndanger in defining things so that one thing just becomes the negation\nof another. Such an analysis is bound to work just because of the\nway in which it is set up. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSo the sense that we get in\nthe Report of a simple opposition between Protestant impulses and\nwhat it calls Renaissance\/Liberal impulses seems somewhat wrong to me\n\u2013 not simply because of the Renaissance background to\nProtestantism, but all the more so because of the Protestant\nbackground to Liberalism. Of course, there have been more or less\nliberal Catholic tendencies, but I think what is under discussion\nhere is a Protestant liberalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn sum, it might be said that\nthe Report is not at its strongest in dealing with this\nliberal trajectory or tendency, witnessed not least in the way\nit jumps from its treatment of the Renaissance more or less directly\ninto the nineteenth century. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAll that said, the Report\u2019s\nbasic proposition that the wholeness of Catholicism can typically\ndeviate in two directions \u2013 as a pair-wide disintegration of a more\nunified, more complex whole, as undue optimism or undue pessimism, as\ncreation over redemption, or as redemption over creation \u2013 is\nrather an intriguing one, and has considerable value. We might\nwonder how our analysis, and our language and our stance, as\nCatholic-minded people today would move if we stopped talking about\nCatholic and Protestant distinctions all the time, and talked instead\nof Catholic breadth and integration over and against more than\none fragmentation or attenuation. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe Report still\nrelevant to the present day<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIf that is to say a few things\nby way of criticism, or at least of caution, let me say that there is\na remarkable relevance and contemporaneous note to much of what the\nReport says, reading it 70 years on. One could say, \u2018Well, that\njust shows there is nothing new under the sun\u2019, but I think the\nauthors put their finger on things that were problematic then and\nhave only become more problematic since. Consider the following, for\ninstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n