How (not) to have theological discussion

And here's another installment of "Melissa-likes-to-talk-about-dialogue" blogging. You know, the new blogger beta has a post tagging function. I'm almost tempted to go back through all my posts over the last two years and tag them...and in doing so I'd probably come up with a plethora of posts under the tag "dialogue."

Anyways, thanks to Lucas for this gem from the Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank:

In this list, we're suggesting that each of the following words, phrases and font-tiltings are frequently called upon as pinch-hitters in theological discourse. That is, they frequently serve as unhelpful substitutes for a responsible argument. We suggest, therefore, a twofold remedy: (1) we should all beware the illusion that these pinch-hitters accomplish something just by being trotted out of the dugout—or, to change the metaphor, since these items so frequently play the role of incantations designed to cast a spell over the unsuspecting, we should all try to be more suspecting; and (2) those overly fond of such pinch-hitters should be required to read the tenth essay in Harry Frankfurt’s The Importance of What We Care About.

So then, here are our top five pinch-hitters, in no particular order:

1. Name-dropping: You’re reading some seemingly ordinary remarks, when Presto!, the author refers to Deleuze or Lacan or Zizek. You are thereby alerted to the fact that what seemed like just another ordinary argument is actually cutting edge stuff. Other names that do a nice job as incantations: Wittgenstein, Derrida, Levinas, or anybody French or Eastern European (or, better, both). By naming a reasonably obscure, important-sounding thinker, your interlocutors are dazzled . . . and so are you. But does the content of your argument match the sparkle?

2. Dismissing something as “Modern”: This pinch-hitter pops up both in the academy and in the church. The problem with it is that simply referring to something as “Modern” doesn’t count as making an argument about it any more than booing or cheering does. We hear people say things like “So-and-so believes in objective truth, but that’s so Modern.” This sounds like an accusation, but just what is the charge? That “objective truth” is unfashionable? That “X is a belief held by those we commonly identify as ‘Modern’” entails “we have good reason to reject X”? Neither of these accusations, if stated explicitly, would deserve to be taken seriously. Perhaps there is a serious accusation somewhere in the neighborhood, and perhaps “that’s Modern” is shorthand for that serious accusation. It seems to us, however, that this particular bit of shorthand has been used so often that we quite often do not know what it is shorthand for—if there is anything there at all.

3. Hasty resort to the fact that God can do anything: Here’s a way of tissuing over a gap in your argument: dress it up as an instance of pious reliance on God’s sovereignty. For instance, not sure how to make sense of your claim that the goodness of an action depends upon its correspondence with some “real Good”? No problem: God can do anything. God can, accordingly, take our actions up into participation in the real Good that God is, which means that the goodness of our actions is in fact their correspondence to a real Good. One problem with such “hasty resort” is that it tempts us to plug God’s sovereignty into the holes in our thinking rather than acknowledging and trying to make sense of the holes.

4. “Metaphysics”/“Ontotheology”: This one gets a lot of action these days. Let’s say so-and-so theologian presents a paper on, say, “God the abyss who is beyond both being and being-not,” thereby trying to avoid ontotheology. Hands immediately go up: “Doesn’t the very idea of transcending being/being-not itself depend upon their dialectic, thereby remaining in the grip of ontotheology?” So-and-so theologian is expected to admit this and express regret over his or her inability to escape ontotheology. One wonders what would happen if so-and-so theologian responded instead by asking: “So what?” [Bonus tip: if you are looking to present a paper that makes you sound cool and is sure to get published, try defending a claim along the following lines: “So-and-so’s theology is frequently seen as an example of ontotheology; if we pay sufficient attention to so-and-so’s apophaticism, however, we will see that this is not the case.” You can try the same trick with “metaphysics of presence”].
   

5. Italicizing a reiterated phrase: Not sure exactly what you mean? Try this trick: state whatever position it is you’re trying to defend, state the obvious objection to this position, and then reiterate your position in italics. Among theologians at least, italics are commonly trotted out when the theologian doesn’t really know what he or she is talking about—especially when we italicize the word “is.” If theologians played poker, you’d know they were bluffing whenever they emphasized the fact that they were raising the bet.