John Macquarrie's Natural Theology

The Grace of Being

Georgina Morley

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138709133
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351773102
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Title first published in 2003. John Macquarrie has been a major contributor in the theological world for more than forty years, but as yet very little secondary material on his work has appeared. This book offers an insightful introduction to Macquarrie's theology, arguing that at its heart is a systematic theology of gift. Tracing the development of his thought from its early existentialism to the social and world-affirming perspectives of later writings, this book shows how these developments emerge in dialogue with contemporary thinkers. Morley demonstrates how Macquarrie's theology mediates between two traditionally opposing theologies of gift and being, centring on the doctrines of God and of human being, and reaching its fullest expression in Christology, with Christ as the focal point of two personal movements of self-giving - divine and human. Macquarrie himself contributes a Foreword.

Chapter 1

Heidegger on Being Human

INTRODUCTION: HEIDEGGER’S BEING AND TIME AND THE EARLY MACQUARRIE

In his article ‘Pilgrimage in Theology’, John Macquarrie characterises his work in the period from 1953 to the mid-1960s as ‘my “existentialist” phase’.¹ In the works of the period, specifically An Existentialist Theology (1955), The Scope of Demythologizing (1960) and Studies in Christian Existentialism (first published in 1965 but consisting largely of earlier articles), Macquarrie explores the use of existentialist philosophy for Christian theology. He has a twofold concern. First, he is concerned that theology should be seen to be intelligibly grounded; therefore he explores the value of existentialism for clarifying the underlying ontological assumptions of theology. Second, he is concerned that the Christian faith should be appropriately articulated in the modern situation, and so he explores the use of existentialist terms to ‘revivify’ theological language.

In particular, Macquarrie draws on the thought of Martin Heidegger. Arguably, at least in his aim, Heidegger might more accurately be deemed an ontologist than an existentialist, since even his early work, which is undoubtedly existentialist in method and content, constitutes an attempt to approach the ontological question of Being through a preliminary study of human being. Heidegger subsequently abandoned this particular quest for Being, and in Chapter 21 shall note Macquarrie’s attention to Heidegger’s later approaches to Being for the way in which it modifies his use of existentialist thought. In this chapter, however, I shall be concerned with Heidegger’s programme in Being and Time (originally published 1927), and its positive expression in Macquarrie’s early work.

In his conclusion to An Existentialist Theology, Macquarrie agrees with Tillich that ‘a theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of the truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth to every new generation.’² Macquarrie’s assessment of the dominant theologies of the first half of the twentieth century in this respect remains pessimistic. Liberal modernism satisfies neither need, sacrificing elements of truth to harmonise theology with contemporary world-views, and failing to address the radical finitude of the human situation because of its prevailing secular optimism. Barthian kerygmatic theology may at least satisfy the former need, but has tended (particularly in Barth’s disciples) to be weak with regard to the latter, and runs the danger of ‘lapsing into a complacent orthodoxy which is curiously irrelevant to the modern mind’.³ Macquarrie suggests that it may be the case that existentialist theology can adequately hold together a balance between the two needs, between kerygma and situation. Although he recognises certain weaknesses and limitations, particularly with regard to kerygma (see below, Chapter 2), it is to this end that he sees benefits in pressing Heidegger’s philosophy into the service of theology.

Throughout his writings, Macquarrie points to the way in which theology invariably draws on philosophical concepts, and emphasises that theology must use an appropriate base, ‘that it needs a sound and contemporary philosophical basis on which to rear its theological superstructure.’⁴ He recognises the need to scrutinise the underlying assumptions of a theological system, since the presuppositions of an enquiry determine the questions asked and the conclusions drawn. Western theology has drawn heavily on substance-oriented philosophy, from Plato through to Descartes, for example in the doctrine of the self as substance which finds full expression in the modern period in Descartes’ dualistic res extensa and res cogitans. But Macquarrie’s contention is that substantialist philosophy has not served theology adequately. By taking ‘thinghood’ as its dominant model, it has tended to a model of knowing appropriate to the study of entities in the empirical sciences which has not been appropriate to the study of human (or divine) being, and which has allowed theology to attempt to explain itself as one empirical science among others. It has also failed to explicate the nature of human (or divine) being in a way consistent with the findings of contemporary Biblical scholarship.

However, attacks by modern critics of the substance model of the self, such as Ryle and Macmurray, together with changes in the scientific community’s own understanding of the scope of empirical, non-participative knowledge and a general collapse in liberal confidence in scientific humanism, have opened the way to new expressions of the nature of human being which theology may more successfully appropriate. In this new climate, Macquarrie makes use of existentialist philosophy in three ways: (a) to indicate the type of knowing appropriate to theology; (b) to indicate the common ground upon which a purely formal expression of theological terms can be made in a theologically non-articulate age, and (c) to revivify specific content, in particular theological terms which have become ‘worn thin’ or have been mis-served by the language of substance.

In this chapter, I shall outline Heidegger’s Being and Time as the fundamental source of existentialist philosophy used by Macquarrie in his early writings. I shall show how Macquarrie uses key themes from Being and Time for his own contribution to the task of stating the Christian message in terms accessible to the contemporary world, and begin to indicate how they shape his subsequent work. I will also indicate how Macquarrie fares in relation to particular criticisms levelled against Heidegger and the use of his philosophy for theology.

HEIDEGGER’S BEING AND TIME

The task and the method

In Being and Time, Heidegger aims ‘to work out the question of the meaning of Being and to do so concretely’ by means of an exploration of time as the horizon for understanding Being.⁵ That is to say, he intends to investigate the meaning of Being by an exploration of what it means to exist in the world of time and space. In his introductions, he defends his task against the tradition of ontology in Western philosophy which deems the question superfluous because Being is universal or indefinable or self-evident.⁶ Heidegger suggests rather that the question is demanded precisely because man already has a familiarity (albeit indistinct) with the meaning of Being – a ‘vague average understanding of Being’ which guides what is sought and is clarified in the seeking.⁷ Heidegger deems his enquiry ontological, that is, concerned with Being, rather than ontical (concerned with beings, entities, and the facts concerning them). Although it takes an ontical starting point, in so far as it is concerned with the concrete life of Dasein, this is not the aim of the study. Rather, it is ontological not only in the sense of an enquiry into the Being of entities, but in the primordial sense of an enquiry into the meaning of Being in general – the ground of all subsequent enquiry into Being and beings:

the question of Being aims therefore at ascertaining the a priori conditions not only for the possibility of the sciences which examine entities as entities of such and such a type, and, in so doing, already operate with an understanding of Being, but also for the possibility of those ontologies themselves which are prior to the ontical sciences and which provide their foundations.⁸

Dasein: possibility, mineness, and my relation to my self

In Being and Time, then, this fundamental ontology is sought by Heidegger ‘in the existential analytic of Dasein’.⁹ Man is denoted by the term Dasein (Being-there) by Heidegger to identify his distinctive way of being: man is not just one entity occurring amongst others, but understands that he exists and is therefore named in a term which is an expression of his way of being.¹⁰ Man knows that he ‘is’, so Being is already an issue for him, and is disclosed to him in his very existence: ‘Understanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein’s Being’, and thus man’s ontical distinctiveness is that he is ontological (or is ontologically).¹¹ Heidegger subsequently characterises Dasein s existence as Existenz to earmark its distinctiveness, and notes that Dasein’s understanding of himself in terms of his existence means also that he understands himself in terms of possibility.¹² By this he means the possibility to be himself or not himself, true to what is disclosed in his existence or not, a possibility which is decided for only in and through existing itself. Thus the question of existence is an ontical matter for Dasein, dealt with by concrete, existentiell living, which provides the ground for the existential analysis. Heidegger’s preliminary task, then, is to exhibit Dasein in his average everydayness,¹³ to reveal the fundamental ontological structure of his being as temporality, corresponding to man’s possibility which must be entered into through time, but always in the concrete present circumstances of his life....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Heidegger on Being Human
• Chapter 2: Beyond Existentialism
• Chapter 3: Into the Public Domain
• Chapter 4: New-Style Natural Theology
• Chapter 5: The Grace of Being
• Chapter 6: A Christology of Self-Giving
• Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography
• Index