Conversation, Friendship and Transformation

Contemporary and Medieval Voices in a Theology of Discourse

Jennifer Constantine Jackson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781472485250
• eBook ISBN: 9781317159841
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Conversation is the central spiritual exercise in philosophical and theological reflection on language and love. Groundbreaking in its interdisciplinary approach, Conversation, Friendship and Transformation invites readers to an exploration of theological reflection on conversation and friendship as transformative ways of knowing self, others and God. Contemporary contributions in the areas of rhetorical theory, friendship studies, and gender collaboration provide a fruitful lens through which conversation as discourse may be understood as a pathway for theological inquiry. Augustine's De doctrina christiana and Confessions manifest a foundational example of reflection on the nature of language and love in the context of basic questions of Christianity and culture. Two texts from the medieval tradition are brought forth to confirm and develop Augustine's contributions. The Letters of Heloise and Abelard have received substantial scholarly attention from the work of medievalists, historians and literary critics, but require more intentional theological reflection about the relation between the truths of the Christian faith and the collaborative participation of men and women. Thomas Aquinas' discussion of oratio in the Summa Theologiae is presented for the first time as a pivotal treatise in this profoundly influential text in the history of Western thought.

1 Theology of discourse

Revisioning and retrieval

Rigorous scholarly attention has been devoted to the interrelated components of language and relationality that comprise the dynamics of theological reflection on discourse. This scholarship expands across religious and theological specialization and ministry, much of which is informed, in part, by social scientific, literary and philosophical research.¹ Prominent contributions include those of Paul Ricoeur in the areas of structuralism, hermeneutics and a “poetics of the will,” which have elicited such publications as Oneself as Another (1992) and Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (1995). Such studies are notably rooted in his concern with the discursive phenomenon at the heart of human experience and identified in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation (1981):

To say that discourse is an event is to say, first, that discourse is realised temporally and in the present, whereas the system of language is virtual and outside of time… . Moreover, whereas language has no subject insofar as the question ‘who speaks?’ does not apply at this level, discourse refers back to its speaker by means of a complex set of indicators… . Discourse is an event in yet a third way: the signs of language refer only to other signs in the interior of the same system so that language no more has a world than it has a time and a subject, whereas discourse is always about something… . The event, in this third sense, is the advent of a world in language [langage] by means of dis course. Finally, while language is only a prior condition of communication for which it provides the codes, it is in discourse that all messages are exchanged. So discourse not only has a world, but it has an other, another person, an interlocutor to whom it is addressed.²

The dual concerns of relationality (including the postmodern focus on “other ness”) and language are interactively constitutive of the nature of discourse. Ricoeur’s work in this context serves to distinguish discourse from one of its central components—language—in order to emphasize that the other equally crucial component of relationality must receive its critical due.

Both of these components of language and relationality may be found to be prominently highlighted in Christian scholarship and teaching ranging from reflection on revelation to that of social justice. Two publications emerging from Benedict XVI’s papacy—the encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (2009), and the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Verbum Domini (2010)—exemplify the contributions of such reflections.³ In the fifth section of Caritas in Veritate entitled, “Cooperation of the Human Family,” Benedict XVI’s call for “a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation” arises from his reflection on the reality that “as a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authen tically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures.”⁴ Furthermore, such work must be urgently and critically engaged for its implications for the entire human family⁵ as reflected in and through the mystery of God:

The theme of development can be identified with the inclusion-in-relation of all individuals and peoples within the one community of the human family, built in solidarity on the basis of the fundamental values of justice and peace. This perspective is illuminated in a striking way by the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity within the one divine Substance. The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality. The reciprocal transparency among the divine Persons is total and the bond between each of them complete, since they constitute a unique and absolute unity. God desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: “that they may be one even as we are one” (Jn 17:22). The Church is a sign and instrument of this unity.⁶

By identifying the connections intrinsic to discussions on love among human beings and their Creator, the encyclical constitutes an exhortation to be heeded by theologians: ethical, metaphysical and mystical reflections on relationality, while deserving the requisite distinctions, cannot be en gaged or executed in isolation from each other. Moreover, as emphasized in Verbum Domini, the implications of such reflections in terms of language also begin with God, and in particular with God’s love for humanity manifested through the reality of the Incarnation: “In this vision, every man and woman appears as someone to whom the word speaks, challenges and calls to enter this dialogue of love through a free response.”⁷

Emphasizing these same principles as primary tasks for theological reflection today are such collaborative contributions as those offered in Theology and Conversation: Towards a Relational Theology (2003). Taken together, the work of these theologians supports the frame of reference identified herein as a theology of discourse. As Anne Hunt emphasizes in “Trinity and Paschal Mystery: Divine Communion and Human Conver sation”: “human conversation, as human interpersonal event, is analogically related to and takes place within the divine communion … it is a case of our conversation within their ‘conversation’; our conversation takes place within the primordial inner-trinitarian ‘conversation’ between God and God.”⁸ Stated otherwise, a theology of language (i.e. of words as reflective of, and pointing to, the Word made flesh) can become statically devoid of the life of the Spirit if it fails to integrate dynamically an account of the rootedness of language in the multi-dimensional, ever deepening vocations of love which God’s people are called to share with one another in Christ. As Jacques Haers points out in his introduction to this collection, such an entry into theological reflection about creation and Creator requires a rethinking about what is constitutive of the salvific signposts along the journey of faith, hope and love:

it is therefore impossible to disconnect God and our words about God, from the encounters and conversations that constitute reality and in which we are involved… . These relations are not merely instruments to communicate knowledge to us, they are operative in unveiling our existence and in empowering our commitments in the world.⁹

Selected contemporary expositors

Among contemporary expositors of such reflections, the selected contributions of David Tracy and David Burrell in the areas of contemporary systematic and philosophical theology are worthy sources for a theology of discourse for two reasons. First, their work and research constitute an integration of studies in the areas of language and relationality, with respective emphases that are complementary. That is, Tracy’s rigorous engagement with questions of theological method and discourse analysis reflects a point of entry that begins with language. His work reflects a dedication to examining the “public character” of theological language¹⁰ that is at once “inter national, polycentric, [and] dialogic.”¹¹ Burrell’s empha sis on the communal and formative dimensions of “spiritual exercises” of religious traditions, medieval and modern, serves as a point of entry focused on relationality.¹² His work provides an effective elucidation of the dynamics of friendship through which authentic discourse may thrive.¹³ Secondly, both Tracy and Burrell appeal to the work of Augustine as a central voice from the tradition to whom we may—and will in this study—turn for an introduction to Christian theological reflection on discourse.

While friendship may be said to provide the context for all authentic discourse, friendship between men and women constitutes one universal instantiation of discursive practice worthy of exploration for the myriad ways in which it exemplifies both a radical attentiveness to the “otherness” of the other, and a call to mutual engagement with the other. In the service of this reflection, Sarah Coakley argues convincingly in “Is There a Future for Gender and Theology? On Gender, Contemplation, and the Systematic Task,” (2009) that current theological reflection focused on relationality in terms of creation, redemption and eschatology may be best served by attending to the relation between the genders.¹⁴ Furthermore, her work opens the way for what I hold to be a necessary retrieval of the ministry of the cura mulierum in the medieval period and the mutual spiritual discourse arising through this ministry.

The task of retrieval

Yet another critical component of a theology of discourse concerns the reception of texts from the tradition. To be true to the nature of theological orientation and teaching as discursive is to acknowledge how such classic texts still have much to tell us.¹⁵ Furthermore, it is also to acknowledge how other authors and texts from the tradition remain to be heard and adequately appropriated for theological reflection. In order to argue more fully for the work of retrieval, I will: present the relevance of historical models of theological discourse; identify the art of rhetoric as of central importance to theology as discourse; offer a general justification for employing texts from the tradition based on their contributions to rhetorical theology; and offer a more specific justification for employing the selected texts of Augustine, Heloise and Abelard, and Aquinas in light of the general justification.

In “The Renewal of Theology,” Jean Leclercq’s examination of twelfth-century theological reflection in the West provides a useful model for articulating how the very complexity of the nature of theological discourse from the tradition lends itself to the demand for retrieval. Several of Leclercq’s major insights will be noted here. First, “progress in [twelfth-century] theology came especially through diversification”¹⁶ from within, and between, three “spheres”: those of the monasteries, the schools, and certain intellectual circles.¹⁷ Secondly, Leclercq notes, “there were fruitful exchanges among these three representative groups of religious thought, without any of them renouncing its own identity, message, or method.”¹⁸ It is precisely the fruitfulness of these “exchanges” that indicates how the different groups lent themselves to being informed—with all of the spiritual connotations that the word emits—by...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction by David Burrell, C.S.C.
• 1 Theology of discourse: Revisioning and retrieval
• 2 Contemporary invitations to a theology of discourse
• 3 Augustine’s semiotics of creation and revelation as primary spiritual exercises
• 4 Exercises in memory and conversion in the epistolary discourse of Heloise and Abelard
• 5 Towards a theology of discourse in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index