“Radical” Theology and No-Nonsense Spirituality

Last updated on: March 6, 2010 at 10:25 pm by James F. McGrath

“Radical” Theology and No-Nonsense Spirituality 2010-03-06T22:25:00-05:00 James F. McGrath

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Some colleagues and I gathered at a local theological discussion venue to discuss Richard Grigg’s book Beyond the God Delusion: How Radical Theology Harmonizes Science and Religion this past Friday. One of the things that quickly came up was the notion of “radical theology.” Grigg advocates a form of pantheism which embraces science wholeheartedly and eschews the New Age mumbo jumbo that is often popular among modern-day pantheists. As appealing as his vision may be in certain respects, I find it ironic that this could be classified as “radical.” Pantheism is a very old idea with a long and illustrious pedigree. There is no sense in which it is “radical” except in the context of Christian theology. In the context of Buddhist theology, it could be considered conservative, and advocating viewing ultimate reality as personal might be radical in that context.

I’ve often thought that the most we seem to be able to manage in our religious thinking is a shuffling around of metaphors, occasionally injecting new life into a theological tradition by borrowing ideas from others. I think part of the “problem” (if it is indeed a problem) is that, if we want a symbol of transcendence/emergence, human persons are the most transcendent reality we have direct experience of. And so the language of personhood represents a natural plateau for language about that aspect of reality. Moving down to the fundamental level, we reach our limit at energy, and language about “power” or “Force” and other such impersonal concepts and ideas represent a natural plateau in our thinking about underlying unity. There may be little alternative than to keep revisiting the same ideas and metaphors over and over again.

And after a break, sometimes we find intriguing things that had been neglected in our own tradition and its Scriptures – both good and bad. DocArtz has an exploration of the dark side of God as depicted in the Bible, relating such material to LOST, of course.

It is the seeming novelty of an unfamiliar tradition’s language and concepts that makes them seem “new” and “radical.” But while some of us find this or that set of symbols more helpful, it isn’t clear that any of them inherently do better justice in helping people to relate to what we might call the “ultimate mystery.” Since theology at its best is poetry, we should expect that not everyone will find themselves moved, inspired, or otherwise react positively to a particular theology or its symbols and imagery. And as with all such aspects of life, we should fully expect each individual’s views and experience to change over the course of their life when it comes to such matters.

In conclusion, whether you find this or that theology “radical,” I’d like to advocate another banner, one under which I think a certain category of panentheists, pantheists and even some theists can gather. “No nonsense spirituality” seems like it could be a helpful rubric under which to unite all those of us who wish to (or feel the need to) leave room for spirituality/religion, but are also absolutely determined to apply critical thinking and to whole-heartedly embrace the current state of our knowledge in the natural sciences and in other fields.

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