- Complex data require to be organised and simplified to test their truth and significance.
- Theology deals in complex data.
- Analytic Theology provides what is required to organise, simplify, and test this data.
THIS is an example of “true analytic style” formulated as a sequential argument, and so serves as an appropriate prelude to a review of this masterly introduction to a movement of relatively recent origin, but surely destined to play an important part in explaining, defending, and communicating Christianity to contemporary cohorts of sceptics, enquirers, and inquisitive believers alike.
It is an evolving discipline, which is, for now, explicitly Christian; so Phil Weston (Tutor at Emmanuel Theological College, serving dioceses in north-west England) concentrates on the actual and potential contribution of analytic theology (AT) to distinctively Christian doctrines. The featured authors are theists committed to the belief that theological statements can be true or false, and can provide genuine knowledge about God. They share St Anselm’s dedication to “faith seeking understanding”. Such Christian AT typically operates “within foundational doctrinal parameters set by scripture and the Church’s historic creeds”.
This last point has been disputed by those who accuse analytic theologians of being concerned with philosophical respectability at the expense of revelation and tradition. On the other hand, it might be argued that AT fails to exploit its potential to resource a revisionist agenda addressing what is perceived to be the fragility of Christianity’s credentials.
Key chapters are devoted to accounts of AT’s contribution to doctrines of Trinity, incarnation, and atonement, being those most frequently and thoroughly addressed by AT. The ground is comprehensively covered, but with a light touch: the frequent use of analogies by analytic theologians to clarify the most conceptually challenging articles of faith is to the fore here.
With regard to the doctrine of the atonement, the principal contribution of AT is to expose in forensic detail the limitations of the many disparate theories and models prevalent in both scripture and tradition. This apparently negative verdict actually has a positive outcome in acknowledging the pertinence of the Pauline affirmation of Christ’s life and death being “for us” tout court.
As “no topic in Christian theology should be off limits to philosophical investigation”, a chapter is devoted to how analytic theologians have addressed ecclesiology, liturgy, and the sacraments. Here, denominational differences are more in evidence than elsewhere: the objectivity of the theological analysis is tempered by the respective ecclesiastical allegiances of the featured practitioners. That said, the rich insights relating to church membership, communal worship, and sacramental grace demonstrate well the positive contribution that AT can make beyond the confines of systematic theology and confessional dogmatics.
A chapter on spirituality and prayer pays particular attention to petitionary prayer as having received most attention from analytic theologians for whom “relational communion with God” is adjudged to be “the most important benefit of prayer”.
Weston concludes by affirming the apologetic value of AT, and he has certainly done enough to demonstrate its positive potential to challenge today’s equivalent of Schleiermacher’s “cultured despisers”, besides whetting this reader’s appetite for more from the AT stable.
The Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee is a former Bishop of Lincoln.
Introducing Analytic Theology
Phil Weston
SCM Press £22.99
(978-0-334-06366-7)
Church Times Bookshop £18.39
