Theology as Teaching and Contemplation

When I worked on my doctorate at the University of Virginia around the turn of the century, I was blessed to train under some of the best minds in theology. John Milbank taught me philosophical theology. Eugene Rogers taught me dogmatics.

I read with them some of the works of Henri de Lubac. Lubac’s work pointed to the unity of Christian teaching (the subject matter of dogmatic theology), contemplation of God (the goal of theology), and the interpretation of scripture (the material of theology). Lubac gave me the words to describe what I long desired – the connection between discourse about, and transformative union with God.

This influenced my heart but has taken many years to influence my creativity. Trained in academic discourse, combined with my own character flaws, my tone in academic writing became polemical. I knew this tone to be antithetical to what I loved. When I attempted a more contemplative tone, I was told my writing was “too pious.”

Several years ago when a trusted colleague pointed out that the tone of my academic writing was a bit polemical, I stopped writing. I found that my journey had landed me up against the wall of writer’s block. I no longer wanted to write polemically. But I could not write with piety or devotion. I knew no other way to write. I stopped writing. I concentrated on teaching and administrative duties at the seminary I served.

Like many graduate students drawn to dogmatic theology, I dreamed of writing my own dogmatics. I would show wonderful things about God, make new connections for people, solve many contemporary controversies, and, of course, make myself look brilliant. Smart people would appreciate me, and I would finally contribute something valuable.

Every time I began this project, I would get bogged down in details, overwhelmed with its scope, feel inferior compared to the greats, to my teachers and peers. I would spiral into shame, fall into fear of rejection, and defend my ego.

Despite all the above feelings, I remembered one thing. I teach well. That was sure to solve my writer’s block! I would write on the church’s teaching as a teacher.

This approach did relieve some writer’s block, for a time. Some passages felt insightful, infusing wisdom from teaching theology and liturgy. Other passages felt stuck, artificial, didactic. I found myself getting bored, and the block would return.

Some say we write the books we wish we could read. I found myself tiring of some of the books I read as part of my morning office. I wanted a book of prayers focused on the contemplation of God and the paradoxes of Christian teaching.

I would have to write the book I wanted. Then I realized this is “my” dogmatics. What if my audience were neither scholarly peers nor students? What if my audience were God? The very thing I was most committed to, the unity of contemplation and Christian discourse, implied one clear thing: prayer. With God as my audience, I could write a dogmatics as small manual of devotion.

The purpose of Christian teaching is not to get our opinions straight or to test other’s fitness for faith. The point is to direct us charitably, ascetically, pastorally towards ever greater love of and union with God. I could take as my aim to enact, through prayer, the unity of contemplation and church teaching.

I took it up as a manuscript. This is the first time I have written a book by hand. Every morning office I would take out a small journal and wrote one prayer to God engaging a central Christian teaching. The manuscript became the result of my morning prayers. The writer’s block rolled away.

I followed the ancient shape of doctrinal summaries. Two parts in two sections each. The two parts: Theology, and Economy. Within Theology two sections each: theology proper, or Doctrine of God, and then the theology of the Cosmos as God’s creation. Within the Divine Economy two sections: Incarnation and Salvation, or theosis.

The format would and make a month of reflections, 31 days each section. This bound me to a form in which to pour the content of my prayers. How did I want to divide up the core doctrines of the faith? What would I include? What would I leave out? How much would I assume another reader would already understand? In making a series of 124 prayers, each on a page of a small page, forced me to be concise. The selection, ordering, and assumptions were, themselves, “my” dogmatics.

I am joyful to share that I completed the draft manuscript – success in the face of writer’s block.

The following selection is from the first part, first section, day one. It begins my prayers engaging the doctrine of God, grounded in the way of negation, the attribute of invisibility:

INVISIBLE

O, God, you are invisible.
You are no object of vision.
If I see it, it is not you.
For you are not sensible.
You are not an object of sensation.
If I sense it, it is not you.
O, God, I am sensible, I can be seen and perceived.
I am not God.
O, God, you are our chief desire.
If I can see it, it is not my chief desire.
What I chiefly desire I can neither see nor sense.
O, God, give to me my chief desire.
Give my sensible nature union with your invisible nature.
O, God. You are invisible.

This prayer prepares the reader for the surprising mystery found in the paradox of the incarnation. This next selection is from the second part, first section, the doctrine of Christ. Here, the foundational assumptions of the way of negation are shaken with the paradox of God made visible:

ASCENDS

O, Father, by your Spirit, and on the wings of the Angels, you have lifted up your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ to be seated at your right hand on your own throne in the heavenly places.

The sensible has been enthroned within the intelligible.
The visible clothed in invisible.
Humanity elevated to divinity and glorified.
There he joins your holy Prophets, Enoch and Elijah, who go before him.
May I lift up my heart and its meditations to where your Messiah is, and at the last, come to dwell with him there and he in me.
O, Father, you elevated your Son to your own right hand.

I have given the document to my research assistant who has turned it into a word processor document. It is meaningful to me that I still have the original manuscript prayer journals.

I hope to publish these prayers as a short devotional book. I hope, someday, to add a commentary about my decisions in terms of selection, focus, ordering, and wording of my prayers. Then God would have given me a great gift: the dogmatic theology I had always dreamed of writing, but as free as possible of shame, fear, and the desire for human approval. God is my audience. God does not need my dogmatic ruminations. But he loves me through them and gives me the power to love him in return. I hope that others may find these prayers helpful and add their own, “Amen.”