Oliver D. Crisp certainly qualifies as a leader in the analytic theology movement. He seems to be one who attempts to hold the movement together as a movement, which is not always easy given the diversity of theologians and theological positions found within it. Some pull the movement in the direction of the historic orthodox position on key issues like the doctrine of God, while others advocate the complete rejection of classical theism and thus most of the substance of the historic orthodoxy. Crisp seeks to find and hold the middle ground in a bid to keep the movement from splintering. He wants both the conservatives and revisionists to be able to feel at home. Time will tell if this balancing act succeeds. Perhaps this will determine whether analytic theology turns out to be just a passing fad or becomes a movement of significant influence. It certainly is gaining momentum quickly.
Crisp dates the rise of analytic theology from a 2009 essay by William Abraham: “Systematic Theology as Analytic Theology,” which was published in the book, Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology (Oxford, 2009). Since that point a rapidly growing body of literature, which now includes a monograph series with Oxford University Press, several academic journals, a T. & T. Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology and many essays, reviews etc., as well as the Logos Institute for Analytical and Exegetical Theology at the University of St. Andrews. (I note in passing, for what it is worth, that the movement seems heavily weighted toward a Wesleyan-Arminian, rather than a reformed, orientation.) For a young theological school or movement, it certainly has moved quickly. It needs to be engaged and evaluated. I hope to do so in a series of posts, some of which may grow into an article at some point in the future.
In chapter 1 of his recent book, Analyzing Doctrine: Toward a Systematic Theology (Baylor, 2019), Crisp reflects on the question: “Is analytic theology really systematic theology?” I’d like to offer a few thoughts on what he writes in this chapter.
Crisp acknowledges that some critics have questioned whether analytic theology is really theology or if it is not just analytic philosophy discussing theological topics. He quotes Abraham’s definition, which could be said to lend credence to such a suggestion:
. . . analytic theology can be usefully defined as follows: . . . systematic theology attuned to the deployment of the skills, resources, and virtues of analytic philosophy.” (16)
Even practitioners of analytic theology feel it necessary to urge their fellow analytic theologians to be sure to do theology and not just philosophy:
Analytic theology - as theology - should be (to borrow John Webster’s phrase) “theological theology.” It should be grounded in Holy Scripture, informed by the Christian tradition and attentive to the potential and pressing challenges faced by God’s people in the world. But there is more — analytic theology should be oriented toward its proper end, and analytic theologians should be attentive to the proper approach and posture of theology. (16)
Crisp, typically, affirms support for both statements and tries in this chapter to argue that when analytic theologians “use” analytic philosophy in theology they are not doing anything different in principle from what Christian theologians have done throughout history. Do Thomists not make use of Aristotle? Crisp seeks to defend the possibility that analytic theology can be done as “a species of systematic theology.” (17) Even though he apparently leaves open the possibility that it can also be done in a non-theological manner, he does not further describe what that might look like or give any examples. He is trying to be inclusive and has little interest in expelling heretics.
Crisp offers a description of what he considers systematic theology to be under the heading of “The Shared Task of Systematic Theology:”
Commitment to an intellectual undertaking that involves (though it may not comprise) explicating the conceptual content of the Christian tradition (with the expectation that this is normally done from a position within that tradition, as an adherent of that tradition), using particular religious texts that are part of the Christian tradition, including sacred Scripture, as well as human reason, reflection and praxis (particularly religious practices), as sources for theological judgments. (22)
He gives three examples of systematic theologians today. First, John Webster says that theology’s object is primarily God and secondarily the works of God in creation and it speaks of God by interpreting Scripture using historical inquiry and conceptual abstraction in the process. The end goal of theology is worship. Second, Brian Gerrish says that Christian dogmatics has as it subject matter the faith of the Christian community in God the Father of Jesus Christ. It tests the adequacy of the beliefs and dogmas in which Christian faith is expressed. Whereas the focus for Webster is the being of God, here the focus is on human religious experience in the tradition of Schleiermacher. Third, Gordon Kaufman claims that God is a symbol or value to which we aspire in our thinking about our own lives. Systematic theology for him is constructive in the sense that “our thoughts and conceptions of God are our own, not the product of some immediate revelation.” (20) Kaufman downplays revelation and tradition and stresses imagination.
We could summarize the three approaches to systematic theology as differing insofar as they base the discipline on revelation, experience and imagination. My question would be whether, and if so in what sense, we should even regard these three activities as legitimate expressions of one academic discipline called systematic theology. But Crisp believes that despite “limited agreement among these practitioners regarding the nature of their task” they nonetheless all fit within the “Shared Task” described above.
So, Crisp has opted for an extremely big tent as his definition of systematic theology. In view of the massive size of this tent his conclusion that analytic theology fits in here somewhere seems rather underwhelming. Crisp likely senses that this might be the reader’s reaction, so much of the rest of the chapter attempts to convince us that not only can analytic theology fit into this tent, it also can resemble the more conservative or traditional strain described above, namely, that represented by John Webster. He describes Webster’s approach as the theology as confessional dogmatics approach and acknowledges that it is oriented to the church and specifically to the church’s rational worship of God. The purpose of theology is to articulate the gospel in such a way as to clarify what the church believes about God so as to enable the rational worship of the Triune God.
Crisp anticipates my own reaction to all this quite well when he worries that some may object to analytic theology precisely because they think that any other approach but the confessional dogmatics is inadequate. But he hastens to assure the reader, analytic theology can be practiced this way and he quotes Tom McCall as one who advocates doing just that. The message seems to be that there is room in the big tent for those who want to do confessional dogmatics, so long as they don’t try to push everyone else out of the tent. Crisp gives a nod to the real, underlying concern when he worries that at bottom analytic theology boils down to rationalism. His response is to say that “analytic theology is not necessarily rationalistic.” (26) I know I’m supposed to be comforted, but for some reason the comfort I’m supposed to feel eludes me.
Crisp then considers Robert Jensen’s contention that secular philosophy is just a rival form of theology derived from the Olympian-Parmenidian religion of the ancient Greco-Roman world. For Jensen, there is “no such thing as philosophy.” (27) Of course, there is something we call philosophy, but it is not really distinct from theology. Crisp rejects Jensen’s claim here, which is unsurprising given that his advocacy of the use of the twentieth-century, Anglo-Saxon tradition of analytic philosophy in theology is based on his contention that philosophy is a neutral tool that theology can pick up and utilize without being contaminated by metaphysical ideas incompatible with Christian dogma. Crisp affirms correctly that Christian theology has always made use of pagan philosophy in doing its work, but he does not seem to appreciate that this has always been fraught with danger and has required being very critical of that pagan philosophy in the very process of appropriating it. Neither the pro-Nicene fathers of the fourth century or Thomas Aquinas simply took over Neo-platonic or Aristotelian concepts without breaking them down and re-forging them to make them fit for purpose. This is what one misses in reading analytic philosophy so far; the use of philosophy and the critical use philosophy are not the same thing at all.
Crisp considers the possibility that analytic theology is, in the words of William Wood, moving “away from its origins in philosophy of religion” and “evolving into a distinctive ‘school’ of Christian theology.” (30) But Crisp rejects this and argues that analytic theology as it has been practiced so far can rightly be regarded as a form of systematic theology. However, it is one thing to argue that analytic theology deserves to be considered as systematic theology and it is quite another to argue that it is a good kind of systematic theology or one worth pursuing or even the best kind of systematic theology. Crisp describes analytic theology as an “intellectual culture” in which theologians bearing some sort of “family resemblance” group who share some, but not all, of a range of overlapping and related goals and aspirations.” (31) In the end he opts for a formal rather than an essentialist definition of analytic theology.
Will analytic theology endure as a movement? The jury is out. I think that the way Crisp has sketched out the shape and definition of the movement here is much too vague and lacks substantial content that could provide the basis for long-term unity. It seems more likely that the movement will provide a vehicle for evangelicals to move leftward in their theology while secure in the feeling of being part of a movement that is not overtly hostile to the faith. Liberal Protestantism is already committed to the Schleiermacher-Gerrish approach and significant tracts of it have moved to Kaufman’s approach, beyond which lies atheism and nihilism. A growing movement is coalescing behind the later John Webster’s Ressourcement approach and seeking to recover the Protestant confessions as the basis of good theology. Will analytic theology be able to carve out a third way between a renewed confessionalism and the ongoing revisionism of liberal theology? That remains to be seen, but if I were a betting man, I would not put a lot of money on it.