Rector’s Reflections
Friday 28th March 2025
A Theologian for the Modern World: Edward Schillebeeckx
Over the last few days, we have been looking at the question of the role of theologians in the modern world. Do theologians have a significant role to play in the contemporary Church, or are they basically irrelevant? We have explored this question through a consideration of Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009), a prolific and controversial Roman Catholic theologian who sought to make the Christian faith relevant and understandable to the men and women of his day.
In yesterday’s reflections, I referred to a question which lies at the heart of many of the contemporary debates within the Christian church: the question of Authority. Where does Authority lie within the Christian Church? Is it basically located in Scripture? Or is in human experience? Or is it in the Church? Or might Authority come in all three forms, and if so, what happens when different sources of Authority conflict with each other? For example, what should a Christian do if the authority of Scripture seems to be at variance with the authority of the Church?
I mentioned that the question of Authority was also at the heart of Edward’s own theological writings. So what did he think on this topic?
To start with, he argued that Christians really were faced with these three different sources of Authority. This might seem an obvious conclusion, but some have argued that there is only one true source of Authority, and that this source of Authority outranks any other claim to Authority. The difficulty with this position is that no one agrees which is the “true” source of Authority: is it the Bible? Is it human experience? Is it the Church? Opinions differ. Edward would say that all three sources of Authority need to be considered. And if pushed, he would probably argue that human experience is the most authoritative of the three, because human beings have been created by God, and God Himself became human in Jesus Christ.
Edward would then go on to say that while the Bible and the official statements issued by the Church are very important for guiding Christian belief and practice, they have to be rightly interpreted. The teaching in the Bible and in the official statements of the Church are both expressed within the context of particular time and culture. Our modern world is very different from the various times and contexts in which the books of the Bible were produced. The same also applies to the classic expressions of Christian belief found in the Creeds of the Early Church, or in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. The statements found in the Bible and in the historical teachings of the Church cannot be applied in a modern context without a careful and scholarly process of interpretation. The technical term for this process of interpretation is “hermeneutics” , and problems of hermeneutics dominate much of contemporary theology, at least in an academic context.
Finally, while Edward accepts the idea that the Church has Authority in terms of Christian teaching and practice, he would insist that we need to look very carefully at any attempt by the Church to tell us what we should think or how we should live our lives. Sometimes the exercise of Authority in the Church is little more than an exercise in power politics. The Authority of the Church is not the preserve of the man or woman at the top – in Roman Catholic terms, this means that the Church shouldn’t be left in the hands of an all-powerful Pope. Authority in the Church should be seen as shared among the Christian community as a whole. At the local level, this means the local church community, for example the parish. At the higher level, leaders such as bishops should share their leadership with their peers, i.e. their fellow bishops. In short, it’s a collegiate approach to leadership.
Let me add an interesting further element in Edward’s thinking about Authority in the Church. Where does the Authority of a parish priest come from? The traditional answer to this is based on a hierarchical understanding of the Church: the Authority of the priest comes direct from Jesus Christ who appointed the Apostles who appointed Bishops who in turn appointed further Bishops, and so on down the centuries, and Bishops appoint and authorise priests. This is called the Apostolic Succession. Edward would question this, arguing that the Apostolic Succession as understood in this way has insufficient Biblical or historical foundation. For Edward, priests do indeed have Authority, but it is dependent on the local church community. (See his book The Church with a Human Face )
And this provides us with a good point to finish the current series of reflections. In common with many other modern theologians, Edward was concerned with showing that Christian teaching and practice really does have a “human face”. Sadly, Church teaching can sometimes seem to be contrary to what human beings need to flourish.
So I think theologians do have a role in the modern Church. They are there to make sure that Christian teaching and practice continues to enable men and women to flourish, and to experience the saving grace of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Language and culture change with the times, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ remains a constant. It is good news for all, in every time and every culture. Our common task is to make this good news a reality in our own day and our own context. And this might mean that we will need to change some of our language and our practice.
I should also add, that if this means that there will arguments over what it might mean in practice for Christians to be good news in the world of today, so be it. Theological arguments among Christians are a sign that the Church is alive.