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Is Practical Theology Possible?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

Some academic subject matters have a quaintly old-fashioned ring-‘moral sciences’ for example, or ‘natural philosophy’. ‘Practical theology’ has a similar odd sound today. To the theological outsider is must sound remarkably like a contradiction in terms, whilst to the professional theologian it may carry undertones of an unscholarly pragmatism or a tendency towards liberal theology. Yet perhaps the juxtaposition of these two terms is an important one. It may, by its oddity, encourage us to ask the question, ‘Is practical theology possible?’ This would be a question similar to the familiar one about the possibility of metaphysics. It is asking for a formal definition of the subject matter which will meet adequate criteria of meaning, consistency and relationship to other disciplines whose status is not in doubt. In this paper I shall attempt some answers to this question of possibility.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1972

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References

page 217 note 1 Berlin, 1850.

page 217 note 2 op. cit., p. 27f.

page 218 note 1 Practical Theology, A Manual for Theological Students, translated by Evans, M. J. (London, 1878).Google Scholar

page 218 note 2 Preface to Pastoral Theology (New York, 1958), p. 48.

page 218 note 3 op. cit., p. 3.

page 219 note 1 Van Oosterzee, ibid., p. 2.

page 219 note 2 This observation is based solely on a study of works published in English.

page 220 note 1 A Theology of Pastoral Care, p. 53.

page 220 note 2 ibid., p. 15.

page 221 note 1 op. cit., p. 20.

page 221 note 2 This is most clearly seen in an extended footnote (Preface, p. 222) in which Hiltner distinguishes his position from that of Tillich's method of correlation. Hiltner argues that Tillich is mistaken in supposing that the answers must always come from the side of theology. In his view a ‘two-way street’ is possible: ‘… it becomes necessary to say that culture may find answers to questions raised by faith as well as to assert that faith has answers to questions raised by culture’.

page 221 note 3 Matt. 25.31ff; Luke 10.25–37; Luke 4.18.

page 222 note 1 It is significant that Hiltner's division of theological subjects has never been seriously discussed since he proposed it in 1958. Indeed even his close associates, contributing to a recently published festschrift (The New Shape of Pastoral Theology, edited by W. B. Oglesby, Jr.), make merely passing reference to it.

page 222 note 2 Oden, Thomas C., Contemporary Theology and Psychotherapy (Westminster Press, 1967), P. 57.Google Scholar

page 223 note 1 Letters and Papers from Prison (Collins [Fontana], 1959), p. 93.

page 224 note 1 We must distinguish this question of practical theology from the questions more appropriate to philosophical theology of the relationship between ‘Christian knowledge’ and ‘worldly knowledge’ (faith and culture). The practical theological question is related specifically to action and interaction.

page 224 note 2 The Church for Others, Final Report of the Western European Working Group, Department on Studies in Evangelism (W.C.C., Geneva, 1967), p. 15.Google Scholar

page 225 note 1 See Hoekendijk, J. C., The Church Inside Out (S.C.M. Press, London, 1964), p. 41.Google Scholar

page 225 note 2 The conceptual models for the type of relationship proposed are to be found in Liam Hudson's converger/diverger categories (vide Contrary Imaginations [Methuen, 1966] and Frames of Mind [Methuen, 1968]), in Johnson, M. L. Abercrombie's description of the influence of schemata on the perception of new situations (The Anatomy of Judgement [Hutchinson, 1960])Google Scholar, in the distinctions between ‘lineal’ and ‘non-lineal’ communication drawn by Marshall McLuhan and others (Carpenter, E. and McLuhan, M., Explorations in Communication [Beacon Press, Boston, 1960])Google Scholar, and in di Bono's, Edward descriptions of lateral thinking (Lateral Thinking: a textbook of Creativity [Ward Lock, 1970]).Google Scholar

page 226 note 1 The appendix of the North American Working Party's Report, The Church for the World (W.C.C., 1967), contains examples of such proposals.