Editor’s Note: This past weekend, The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Doctrine Committee met with various theological societies at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC to discuss the catechetical challenges facing Catholic colleges and universities, and the proper relationship at such institutions between the academic discipline of theology and effective catechesis. Here, Professor Gabriel Reynolds offers a brief reflection on the topic.
The English word “theology” comes from the Greek words theos (“God”) and logos (“word” or “study”), but what theology means is another matter. At Notre Dame you might hear theology defined with the famous words of St. Anselm of Canterbury (who died in 1109): “Faith seeking understanding.” St. Anselm saw theology as a rational science, but one which emerges from the wonder and awe which overcomes Christian believers who contemplate the truths of our faith: the Trinity, the Incarnation, redemption, the Eucharist, etc. We know these truths (as opposed to say, how we know that a hamburger tastes good) only because God has told us about them—they blow our minds and invite us to an unending (and beautiful) journey of intellectual reflection.
From this perspective theology is a conversation of believers. A theology class might be compared to a class on “Theories of Conjugating the Verb in French,” though hopefully it would be more exciting. The French verb conjugation class would be the sort of thing that interests those who know some French and spend their time thinking about the unsolved questions of verb conjugation (do these people exist?). Theology would be about those who believe in the Incarnation but still wonder why God would become man.
And there’s the problem for theology today. What happens when students in theology classes don’t believe in the Incarnation, don’t trust anything the Church says, don’t go to Mass and don’t like any of this religion stuff? We know that this is more and more the case. Recent statistics show us that about 10 percent of 18-25 year old Catholics attend Mass weekly. The trend of young people falling away from the Church is even evident at Notre Dame. In a survey the Theology Department administered in January 2013 to 1694 Notre Dame students, 80 percent report being raised Catholic while only 71.5 percent identify themselves as Catholics today. Only 60 percent of students agree with the statement, “I am committed to living my life as a faithful member of the Catholic Church.”
So what should we do with our students in theology courses? One solution is to give up on the faith aspect—and to see theology as a sort of hypothetical exercise. That sort of course might start as follows: “Let us all pretend for the sake of this class that the Bible is an inspired text and Church documents are somehow authoritative—what sort of things would we say about them?” The problem with this solution is mostly that it is disappointing—why waste our time with a hypothetical exercise? The better solution is the New Evangelization: to discover along with students the beauty in the Bible and Catholic teachings, so that they are themselves inspired. Our intellectual reflections on the faith will then be about something that touches our hearts and our minds.
Gabriel Said Reynolds is the Director of Undergraduate Studies and professor of theology. Follow him on twitter! @theologyDUS.
Declare the theo major! email him at reynolds@nd.edu.