Theology and the End of Doctrine

by Christine Helmer

This book is about the crisis brought about by doctrine's estrangement from reality--that is from actual lives, experiences, histories, and from God. By invoking "the end of doctrine," Christine Helmer opens a new discussion of doctrinal production that is engaged with the challenges and possibilities of modernity. The end of doctrine refers on the one hand to unquestioning doctrinal reception, which Helmer critiques, and on the other, represents an invitation to a new way of understanding the aim of doctrine in deeper connection to the reality that it seeks. The book's first section offers an analysis of the current situation in theology by reconstructing a trajectory of Protestant theology from the turn of the twentieth century to today. This history focuses primarily on the status of the word in theology and explains how changes in theology in the context of the political and social crisis in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s led to a distancing of the word from reality. Helmer then turns to the constructive section of the book to propose a repositioning of theology to the world and to God. Helmer's powerful work will inspire revitalized interest in both doctrine and theological inquiry itself.

Genres: Theology

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2014

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was an excellent book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in theology, particularly recent debates regarding method and sources of authority. I must admit that I'm predisposed toward any theologian trying to put Barth and Schleiermacher in conversation with one another rather than play them off antagonistically, but I believe Helmer is able to demonstrate how, when at their best, Schleiermacher and Barth complement one another.

I think she brilliantly, and charitably, shows the postliberal turn to language has serious pitfalls and does wall off theology from the wider world. However, and I think this demonstrates Helmer's generosity, she highlights the manner in which language is an essential aspect of theological inquiry. The postliberal concern for language and grammar is grounded in a legitimate impulse to communicate and represent reality. Her critique identifies the manner in which language becomes static rather than dynamic in postliberal theology. This fails to speak to the plethora of human experience regarding Christ. This borrows quite a bit from Schleiermacher, which might make the postliberal cringe, but it is something that I think is truly there in Schleiermacher's theology.

Finally, her closing proposal regarding the need for religious studies and theology to engage in conversation again is a bold one. I'm sure that scholars in both camps would prefer to reject this proposal, but there is much to commend in it. I think she demonstrates theology's need for religious studies quite well. Theology needs to become more interdisciplinary in its approach. If not, theology will always remain a self-justifying and walled off academic inquiry in the modern world. I think she also demonstrates how religious studies has become reductionist in its handling of the concept of religion; either reducing it to social, or political causes or confronting a crisis in what the concept of religion even means. It would appear that a return to the subject matter of religion and the manifold experiences that drive religion forward would be a helpful antidote to the current problems confronting religious studies.

[Lauren Larkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christine Helmer does exceptionally well with her text, Theology and the End of Doctrine. As a new "convert" to interest in Schleiermacher and (especially) the intersection between Schleiermacher and Barth, I was excited to see that these powerhouse theologians are the primary interlocutors for Helmer throughout the text. Her grasp of the theological history/theology and history motivating both thinkers is worth the read all by itself. She deftly dismantled the negative mythology I was taught in my early conservative theological education, and helped to understand why, in fact, Barth read Schleiermacher throughout his life (see Christiana Tietz's brilliant biography "Karl Barth"). Principally though, her aim is not my intellectual reconcilliation; her aim is to give proper place and advocacy *for* doctrine as a living, breathing mechanism by which human beings (theologians trained and untrained) speak of both the living God and the living and real encounter with God in their time and place. I believe she argues her position well and defends it well through using grammar and language, recourse to articulated nuanced conceptions for both Barth and Schleiermacher, bringing into the discussion relatively uncelebrated theologians to provide more detail to how we ended up with doctrine in a static and formal measuring rod of one's faith, a consistent (and most happy!) weaving and wending throughout with Luther, and her own ever-present humility; I was gripped the entire time.

Yet at this juncture I must respond in two ways to finish this review (don't worry, still very positive!). I am both a trained academic *and* a parish priest (rector). The concept of doctrine, therefore, hits me from two different points: I study it and I must navigate it. From both the perspectives of Academic and Priest, I have found doctrine to be stifling. Academically, we are using it to determine who is and who is not a theologian or doing theology thereby keeping the pool of scholars safeguarded/gate-kept and (not unironically) very white, very male, very het-normative; in this way the depth and breadth of encounter with God is truncated because there are few voices speaking to the encounter with God in the event of faith from real, living perspectives *and* experiences. Ecclesiastically, we are using it do determine who is in and who is out, who we should listen to and who we should not, rendering "clay vessels"--breakable, fragile, every-day terracotta vessels (to quote Paul in 2 Cor. 4)--the end of and determination of not only who and what God is, but who and what God loves and lives (and dies!) for; in this way God is boxed in, or, rather, maybe I should say: sealed in God's tomb, never having burst out on Easter morning.

As an academic (a trained "Systematic Theologian" I never want to not have doctrine because to cut ourselves off from doctrine, to not understand it is to cut off the nose to spite the face, divorces us from history and tradition, and guarantees that we will create very anthropocentric dogmas that will harm and hurt many people. (Any "institution" that prides themselves on jettisoning doctrine and just "loving Jesus" has done neither.) But, we have to have to hold on loosely to it, understand where it came from and where it needs to go, to use it as a guide and then maybe as a demand to change; I like the image of using doctrine (and we can say the same thing for "tradition") as way to feel the tremors of what has come from behind to help us determine where we need to go now, but not as a plumb-line for believers being in or out, acceptable or unacceptable, etc. As a clergy person (a trained, institutionally acceptable clergy person, whether you like it or not), I think doctrine is important to learn to see where these things we do and say every Sunday come from, to give us (possible) answers to why, and to learn that this is human language, material speaking about divine activity and immaterial being in the world; we will never get it 100% right, and anyone who says we have or we do is 100% wrong and the Holy Spirit in that instance may have already left the building. In no way, shape or form, does the Holy Spirit calcify or harden hearts but, rather, brings them to life to see the truth of God *now* not the truth that was or will be even (for that is for a different generation so liberated by God's love and life), but see the truth *now* and to proceed, humble step by humble step *now* as those called to participate in God's great and eternal and divine revolution of love, life, and liberation.

Read this book and fall in love (again or anew) with doctrine <3

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Theology and the End of Doctrine is a title with more than one possible meaning. It could suggest that theology needs to be untangled from the sometimes divisive nature of doctrine. Of course, it could also mean the “end of doctrine” as the “goal” or “purpose” of doctrine in the sense of “telos.” In this case, the end of doctrine is [spoiler alert] the latter. In essence, Christine Helmer makes a very eloquent plea for the necessity of doctrine in both theology and religious studies. If you don’t know about the schism between religious studies and theology in the academic world, Theology and the End of Doctrine won’t mean much to you.

Doctrine, as defined in this volume, would be defined as, “…the rules that are decisive for the identity, welfare, and cohesion of a certain group and distinguish that group from others.” (quoting Reinhard Hüttel, p. 16) So, it is no wonder that doctrine can be perceived as divisive as opposed to incisive. But, If one assumes that doctrines are significant for “…establishing church identity, for determining the truth criteria by which Scripture is to be read, and for demonstrating the common allegiances of one church…” (p. 25) one can easily see how certain approaches could sever doctrine from the more general ideas of religious studies. Yet, without some understanding of history of human experience (and divine interaction) and both the psychology of group behavior and epistemological parameters for truth, one really cannot seriously consider doctrine. “The medieval summa, the early modern loci communes (commonplaces), and modern systematics—all are theological genres that exhibit the aim of imparting a coherent and comprehensive unity among individual doctrines.” (p. 24)

So, one already anticipates, very early in the volume, that Helmer is going to advocate some approach to doctrine that will allow theology and religious studies to operate within a tension. In fact, we see the foundation for this when Helmer builds from the principle that “In other words, doctrine is always seen in its dynamic and dialectical relationship with the lived experience of Christians over time.” (p. 13) There must always be a dialectic between the knower and the known—even when the “known” is the One who initiates that “knowledge” through revelation.

Using Martin Luther, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and Karl Barth as representative examples of doctrinal relevance and methodology for the “crisis” of each theologian’s age, Helmer actually accomplishes what I personally thought to be impossible and that is the redemption of Schleiermacher from the castigation his work has unfairly received from the Neo-Orthodox Protestants. To be sure, Schleiermacher was wrong on many of his New Testament ideas, but the main argument between Emil Brunner and Schleiermacher doesn’t treat the latter’s position quite fairly. Helmer’s defense and reinterpretation of this debate is worth the price of the book.
Helmer briefly notes how Luther’s crisis of faith began with his fear of God and desire to find a gracious God. Then, he points out how most have interpreted Schleiermacher’s ideas as coming from “pre-reflective experiential depths of the self” (p. 18). This, of course, would imply reducing theological investigation to the subjective use of a purely rationalist approach, a purely natural epistemology with no room for revelation or a transcendent other. Later, Helmer will disabuse readers of this notion, but early on, she allows Emil Brunner to create a decisive dichotomy between the idea of experience and revelation. “Spirit comes to be associated with the word of God; nature is the descriptor of human reality.” (p. 47) Taken too far, this disassociates theological inquiry from human reality.

The discussion of Barth’s theology seems most helpful in trying to deal with this divide. In this theology of the Word, “None of the human formulations of the word of God—Bible, proclamation, or dogmatic theology—can be identified with any certainty or predicted as the word of God. As human words and human judgments, they remain open to the reality of God’s word, and in their openness, they are characterized as inquiry, not answer.” (p. 80) In fact, because this doctrinal investigation into the reality of God is dynamic and subject to the incursion/intrusion of God’s word in revelation, Barth says that, “Rightly understood, it is the material principle of dogmatics itself which destroys at its root the very notion of a dogmatic system.” (quoted on p. 87)

Even in Barth, however, there is something of this disassociation of human methodology from the experience of God. This is where Helmer begins her redemption of Schleiermacher. She contends that Schleiermacher never sundered nature and spirit. She points to his use of the term, “total impression” to denote the experience of Jesus’ personal presence. “Jesus is the cause of a particular perception that is apprehended in its totality by immediate self-consciousness (p. 123). In other words, the late 19th/early 20th century theologian was not trying to sell off the idea of an external reality to God, but using self-consciousness as part of his epistemology for discovering that external reality.

As a result, Helmer develops her agenda for rediscovering doctrine and building a methodology that would work for both theologians and religious studies specialists in Schleiermacher’s concept of predication. Jesus, as Subject, is described by the church (ancient and modern) in terms of predicates describing the discovery of Jesus’ identity and, in almost exclamatory (“Eureka!”) fashion, attributing these descriptions to Him. Schleiermacher noted in his NT work that particular NT authors were Greek speakers who used a lot of Hebrew elements in their Greek compositions. These Hebrew elements brought cultural concepts and references with them into the writing. As a result, “Predicates—such as Christ, prophet, and living water—are all available to the cultural-linguistic milieu of first century Palestine. Yet, when attributed to Jesus, they express a judgment that exhibits the novelty of Jesus’ distinctive person.” (pp. 128-9)

Now, we start to get at Helmer’s thesis. As she contends is the case with Schleiermacher, constructing doctrine is not an either/or of choosing external reality versus natural rationalism. Rather, it is “…a relation that involves a complicated combination of psychological, causal-referential, religious, and linguistic elements.” (p. 130) In addition, “Novelty of experience and word is the catalyst of a living Christianity, while the continuity of this mechanism is referred to ‘Jesus Christ,’ who ‘is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (cf. Heb. 13:8).” (p. 130) The agenda, then, becomes “…pushing on to contemporary efforst to recover reality generally, religious reality in particular, in its intellectual, bodily, intersubjective, and experiential dimensions. This is the move from epistemology to content.” (p. 147)

Theology and the End of Doctrine is not the volume I was expecting, but it did serve as a reminder that I must not simply dwell in religious language, but must connect the intellect, culture, and experience with biblical revelation and personal encounter. Perhaps, Helmer says it best. “God cannot be domesticated by doctrine, even when doctrine insists on divine faithfulness to specific ways of relating to the world and on specific forms of divine being, as in the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ. Doctrine can only present its content according to the spiritual and intellectual capacities of human theologians operating under the cultural conditions of their intersubjectivities.” (p. 165) Every theologian needs this message.