A sermon on unnecessary theology - and much else besides - by Theodore Gill

Meditation on Psalm 14 and Jeremiah 4:22-28
Ecumenical Chapel, Geneva, Monday 13 September 2010
Rev. Theodore A. Gill, Jr.


“Theology is unnecessary, says physicist Stephen Hawking”. Or so reported the bottom-of-the-screen crawl on CNN International.

Saturday was a tough day on Theology, so far as CNN was concerned. My wife and I were visiting Zermatt for the weekend, discovering for ourselves whether the Matterhorn actually resembles a piece of Toblerone. In the event, we found it to be even more beautiful than we imagined.

But we are descended from northern Europeans, so we had to retreat from the bright mountain sunlight at regular intervals. Several of those times, we clicked on CNN.

In the morning, Central European Time, there was Professor Hawking’s interview with Larry King in which he dismissed the discipline of Theology as irrelevant to a contemporary understanding of cosmology. How did the universe(s) come into being? – no need for any theologian’s opinion!

Then there was the “theology” of the Reverend Terry Jones, the fundamentalist pastor in Jacksonville, Florida who was threatening to burn Korans that September 11th. And CNN covered many of the ceremonies in memory of “9/11” in 2001, when followers of another theology wrought their violence on New York, Washington and, as it turned out, a field in Pennsylvania. (One has to concede that there are brands of theology that are beyond “unnecessary”, theologies that we’d all be better off without.)

Throughout the day on Saturday there were CNN stories on the pope’s visit to the UK during this coming week, stories filled with harshly critical interviews. And finally, in the evening when it seemed safe to tune into CNN again, we encountered was a whole episode of “The World’s Untold Stories” focusing on Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; the title of that report was “The Last Patriarch?”

A tough day for Theology. Much better P.R. for Science, which apparently has now solved the riddle of Creation without an assist from a Creator.

But I can’t help wondering whether the headline “Theology is unnecessary, says Hawking” will go down in the annals of journalism with “The end of history, says Fukuyama”. You remember “the end of history”, just after the Berlin Wall came down? But then, there was September 11, 2001…

And I also wondered: Whatever became of humility? And whatever became of Thomas Kuhn?

Twenty or thirty years ago, the academy found it hard to talk at all without speaking in terms of “paradigm shifts”. Thomas Kuhn, the author of that concept and of the book in which it appeared, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, was reluctant to apply his idea to the social sciences. Kuhn was a physicist and a historian of science, and he was attempting to describe the development of scientific theories and worldviews – exactly the sort of thing that Hawking is now advancing.

David Bosch, the late South African missiologist, described Kuhn’s central thesis in his (Bosch’s) book “Transforming Mission” (p.184):

“In a nutshell, Kuhn’s suggestion is that science does not really grow cumulatively (as if more and more knowledge and research bring us ever closer to final solutions of problems), but rather by way of ‘revolutions’. A few individuals begin to perceive reality in ways qualitatively different from their predecessors and contemporaries, who are practicing ‘normal science’. The small group of pioneers sense that the existing scientific model is riddled with anomalies and is unable to solve emerging problems. They then begin to search for a new model or theoretical structure, or (Kuhn’s favorite term) a new ‘paradigm’, one that is, as it were, waiting in the wings, ready to replace the old… This seldom happens without a struggle, however, since scientific communities are by nature conservative and do not like their peace to be disturbed; the old paradigm’s protagonists continue for a long time to fight a rearguard action.”

And this has happened again and again. Each time, the “rearguard” has held a conviction that their worldview is the final truth, whether it be Copernican, Newtonian, Einsteinian… …or “M-theory”? The history of science has not succeeded in reaching its “end”, any more than history itself ended with the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

Whatever became of humility? It’s the sort of question the biblical prophets raised. In Jeremiah’s prophecy, he recognized the potential for disaster in the arrogant foolishness of his people and their leaders. He described a vision of horrific ugliness – an ugliness that was “waiting in the wings” unless his people changed their ways.

This vision in Jeremiah 4 was one of the inspirations that led Paul Tillich to write “The Shaking of the Foundations”. Along with passages from Isaiah, the Jeremiah text inspired Tillich at the beginning of the nuclear age. Here a theologian looked askance at the harvest of modern science and engineering, and particularly at the work of physicists – theoretical and practical.

Reason – so fundamental, so necessary in many ways to the human project – had led, among other things, to the Reign of Terror. Paul Tillich asked: Where may Science lead, in the absence of humility?

Tillich was a pioneer in the use of aesthetics as a dimension of Theology. I sense that what appalled him most in Jeremiah’s vision was the sheer ugliness of it all. Humanity is given the gift of the Matterhorn, of alpine meadows and long sunshiny weekends – but at best stays indoors watching CNN, and at worst trends toward shaking the foundations of earth and its beauty.

One of the questions that arises repeatedly in discussion of Stephen Hawking’s position is this: Why is there something, rather than nothing? Turning from television and looking out the window at the Matterhorn, I wondered: Why is there beauty instead of ugliness?

And the words of a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th-century transcendentalist, came back to me. It is called “The Rhodora” and describes a wildflower growing far from human habitation. The subtitle of the poem is “On being asked, whence is the flower?”

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.


In former days, Jesus came out of the wilderness, and he said: “Behold, the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent, and believe the good news.”

Is “Theology” necessary? I don’t know. I really don’t. I suppose it depends on your goal.

But I do know that repentance is necessary. Humility is necessary. Careful – “care-full” – thought is necessary.

And… Beauty is to be desired, and affirmed, wherever we find it.

Copyright (c) Theodore A. Gill, Jr./WCC

Statement by EATWOT in favour of the freedom of theological expression following threats to remove Father José Maria Vigil from his congregation

Declaration In Favor of Freedom of Expression in Theology
From the fragmentized and mono-religious world in which our ancestors lived for millennia, we
have moved to a multicultural and multi-religious world society, in which some traditional affirmations by religions are no longer acceptable, or even understandable, regarding their exclusivity, superiority, sole divine election, privilege, manifest destiny to absorb all others. It is something common to all religions, including Christianity.

The Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, EATWOT, took on this theological challenge in its 2001 General Assembly in Quito, Ecuador, setting in motion a collective project, among others, regarding the “theology of religious pluralism,” in a collection entitled, “Down God’s Many Paths.” It renewed this option in its 2006 General Assembly in Johannesburg, South Africa, and chose José María Vigil to advance and coordinate the collective work of its International Theological Commission. Fr. Vigil had been working on the project from its outset and has now received from the Vatican the threat of expulsion from his congregation and from his church, due to his personal involvement in this theological area, and more specifically, because of his book, Teología del Pluralismo Religioso (Theology of Religious Pluralism).

Affected by the threat made against this theologian, member of EATWOT, and Coordinator
of its International Theological Commission, is all the theological work produced on this topic by our Association and by so many other men and women theologians, which is being suppressed.
Therefore, we wish to express our desires that:

• the freedom to do theology be respected, as well as the ability to do it on the edges of the old
orthodoxy in need of updating, as the Church itself “semper reformanda;”

• the theological realm not be confused with that of the churches’ internal disciplines, nor
scholarly professional reflection with a theologian’s personal faith;

• the conscience and ecclesial affiliation of theologians, the demands of their conscience, their
sincerity and honesty be respected;

• the service provided by theology be valued as it helps to express in an intelligible and credible
way for today’s world, the religious experience that we have received as a living tradition;

• the provisional nature of the search and willingness to dialogue, continue to reflect and
eventually reformulate, be recognized, without obstructing discernment through unilateral
condemnations, much less ex-communications;

• it be recognized that, assuring our greatest respect and esteem for the popular sectors of the
churches, we feel duty-bound to help them grow in knowledge and critical awareness also in
their popular theology, their reading of the Bible, and their ecclesiastic experience; the “faith of
the lowly” is precisely the one which deserves more recognition and a more mature stance,
using a pastoral touch and rigorous pedagogy, without attempting to keep them infantilized or
outside the great debates on faith, which concern “every human being who enters this world.”

We will not engage at this time in endorsing or subscribing to the theses of our colleague nor
of those of any others among us; we simply uphold the right to do theology freely, and we bear
witness to the sincerity of our search and the genuine love that guides our theological service.

The last EATWOT Executive Council meeting, held in New York this past May, expressed and
confirmed its gratitude to José María Vigil for this service, and we ask the hierarchy of his church to respect his work and his conscience, refraining from imposing any canonical measures against him, which we would also feel to be directed against our theological service towards a renewed faith in today’s pluralist world.

We invite all theologians, all our brothers and sisters and their communities, and all theological
institutions, to join in this declaration of good intent.

2nd June 2008

Please, sign at:
http://latinoamericana.org/TheologicalCommission/Statements/ToSign.php

Visit: www.eatwot.org/TheologicalCommission

http://latinoamericana.org/TheologicalCommission/Statements