Thank you for sharing your response. You make some great points for me to think about.
The only thing I’d add is that, writing to a Catholic theological audience, you have to really work quite hard to justify saying anything new, especially if you want to gain traction in more conservative circles. I guess ultimately it’s a rhetorical thing: Newman’s idea of the development of dogma is a generally accepted framework for legitimising novel ideas, and I believe is applicable in this case in a softer use, as an example of how, in light of new knowledge outside of theology, maintaining dogmatic principles can lead to some surprising implications.
Yes, that makes sense. I am actually a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic with a strong Augustinian bent, so in my corner of the Church of England things are a little different and I think there’s more acceptance of novelty. Nevertheless, I wonder if even in more conservative Catholic circles it would be easier to gain acceptance of more novel takes if the primary framing was exegetical rather than top-down doctrinal, if that make sense? After all, the Fathers always do theology through exegesis rather than vice versa, and I still feel the possibility space of things we can say about Scripture remains vastly under-explored.
Thank you for sharing your response. You make some great points for me to think about.
The only thing I’d add is that, writing to a Catholic theological audience, you have to really work quite hard to justify saying anything new, especially if you want to gain traction in more conservative circles. I guess ultimately it’s a rhetorical thing: Newman’s idea of the development of dogma is a generally accepted framework for legitimising novel ideas, and I believe is applicable in this case in a softer use, as an example of how, in light of new knowledge outside of theology, maintaining dogmatic principles can lead to some surprising implications.
Dear Fr,
Yes, that makes sense. I am actually a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic with a strong Augustinian bent, so in my corner of the Church of England things are a little different and I think there’s more acceptance of novelty. Nevertheless, I wonder if even in more conservative Catholic circles it would be easier to gain acceptance of more novel takes if the primary framing was exegetical rather than top-down doctrinal, if that make sense? After all, the Fathers always do theology through exegesis rather than vice versa, and I still feel the possibility space of things we can say about Scripture remains vastly under-explored.