H.E. Baber - The Trinity: A Philosophical Investigation (SCM Research)

Philosophical theology studies the machinery of religious doctrines and the logical problems they involve, including those posed by the doctrine of the Trinity. These puzzles are of interest whether the doctrines under examination are true or false. Philosophical engagement with them does not presuppose any commitment to their truth, any more than does engagement with the work of contemporary philosophers on other topics or works that constitute the philosophical canon.

The current study is a philosophical investigation of the Trinity doctrine. It does not address the question of whether the doctrine of the Trinity, however it may be understood, is true or the more fundamental question of whether God exists. And it is not concerned with the epistemology of religious belief. It is an investigation of the Christian doctrine that God is a Trinity of Persons, an inquiry which is of philosophical interest regardless of whether the doctrine, on any interpretation, is true, but which is for those of us who are Christians an exercise in faith seeking understanding.

Between philosophers who do philosophical theology and their counterparts in religious studies and related disciplines a great gulf is fixed. William Wainwright, in his contribution to a discussion between scholars in the American Philosophical Association, philosophers primary professional society, and the American Academy of Religion, which caters for scholars in religious studies and related disciplines, observes that members of the APA and AAR rarely engage professionally with the same literature, or with one another and, to a great extent, begin with radically different assumptions. Most APA philosophers of religion, he notes, are theists or (if they are not) take only theism seriously. It seems fair to say that the proportion of philosophers of religion who are theists is much smaller in the AAR than in the APA.

Academia is, by and large, dismissive of religion and hostile to it. Among faculty in every discipline, religious belief is an anomaly and something of an embarrassment. Wainwright notes, however, that this doesnt explain why departments of religion should be more hostile to open espousals of theism than to open espousals of, say, Buddhism. Nor does it explain why departments of philosophy should be less hostile to evangelicals and other traditional theists than departments of religious studies are.

Wainwright suggests that the chief bone of contention is, perhaps, religious studies scholars assumption of what he calls interpretation universalism, according to which everything is interpretation. Things exist and are as they are only relative to one or another of our conceptual schemes. William Wood, reflecting on the New Analytic Theology practiced in philosophy departments concurs:

The difference between metaphysical realism, favored by analytic philosophers of religion, and Kantian interpretation universalism, favored by theologians and continental philosophers, is absolutely crucial. It marks the single most important division between the two camps. Indeed, in my experience, across the rest of the humanitiesand definitely including practitioners of religious studiesassertions that Kant was mostly wrong, that interpretation universalism is mostly false, and that metaphysical realism is mostly true

In departments of religious studies relativism is the working hypothesis; in philosophy departments, most of which are dominated by analytic philosophers, the assumption is that one can distinguish true from false propositions in a principled and objective way. Religious studies scholars suspect analytic philosophers of naivet, for failing to recognize Kants critical insights and for what they take to be our uncritical, conservative dogmatism. Reflecting on the New Analytic Theology William Wood remarks: Most scholars working in the religious studies academy have little use for analytic philosophy... [and many] believe that analytic philosophy is merely a stalking horse for oppressive and antiquated forms of traditional Christianity.

In addition, while philosophers of religion deal with metaphysical issues concerning the objects of religious belief, religious studies scholars focus on the human subject and the human phenomenon of religion, understood as a complex set of practices, texts, myths, social relations and psychological attitudes. Imbued with the deep anti-metaphysical bias of post-Kantian continental philosophy, they prefer to regard their academic discipline as a social science or a humanities discipline concerned with the interpretation of Text, that has import for ethical reflection, social critique, and political engagement. Some, indeed, regard theology, insofar as it has traditionally been understood to be a sub-species of metaphysics, as suspect. Woods remarks on the endless pearl-clutching debates in departments of religion about whether allowing theology into the academy will somehow eviscerate the study of religion as a legitimate human science.

This worry is unfounded. Taking the content of work in an academic discipline seriously does not preclude investigation into the history or culture of the discipline. Doing science or, as a philosopher of science, reflecting on the foundations, methods, and implications of science and the reliability of scientific theories, does not preclude investigations in the history of science or the study of working scientists culture. And taking theology seriously, investigating the content of religious believers commitments and the cogency of arguments for theological claims, does not undermine the project of religious studies scholars who understand their discipline as a social science. Historically, however, many social scientists have been dismissive of religious belief and have taken Webers secularization thesis to be the fundamental theorem of sociology. And religious studies scholars, as Wainwright suggests, are often remarkably hostile to religion and to philosophical theology.

A member of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at my university explained the odium of theology to me. She informed me that the theological component of the departmental designation was a holdover from the dark days when the University of San Diego was a diddly-shit Catholic college dominated by conservative clergy and their fellow-travelers. And that it was only after the university was upgraded and her department was able to hire some academically respectable faculty that they managed to slip in the religious studies tag.