The Grammar of Faith
Tavard, George H.
celebration has been domesticated and corrupted to reflect the very society it is supposed to judge, the very society from which we are supposed to be momentarily liberated by ritual--is any...
...Box 2649, Chicago, 60690...
...My space is up, but the questions keep rolling on, and they are all relevant to liturgy...
...Likewise, much of what Bernard Lonergan wrote in Method in Theology can be read as outlining the grammar of theology...
...What does it mean for every single act of common prayer that we live in a new kind of world, Teilhard's world, When piety leads to 11E DAIllUli OF FAFrB Paul L. Holmer Harper & Row, $I0, 212 pp...
...Using a variety of (mostly successful) musical conceits, Brown has completely succeeded in conveying the central content, orientation and methodology of the Latin American theologies of liberation...
...It is "free of offensive metaphysics" (p...
...Brown unpacks and de-jargonizes all that and much more in what will stand as the best North American introduction to the liberation theologies...
...knowing God...
...They become the tools of refining and intensifying one's daily life, and they become increasingly meaningful as one lives with and by them" (p...
...Although Paul Holmer does not wish to advocate "a Christianity without theology or doctrines," which ends up by identifying faith with ethics or with "religious feelings" (p...
...it has become a quality of all Christian life...
...Cardinal Newman already entitled one of his books, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent...
...COMMONWEAL, 232 Madison Ave., NYC 10016...
...Grammar acts here rather as an undetermined negative principle...
...When I was a child...
...is a staffpsychiatrist of the Yale Student Health Services...
...MICHAEL F. McCAULEY REVIEWERS FATHER RICHARD J. DILLON is on the faculty of St...
...Wild West Company, 1400 North Rouse, Bozeman, MT 59715...
...For theology implies speaking about God...
...it is not mere trust or confidence in being saved by Christ, as in popular but misleading accounts of Protestantism...
...True, we empathize, are moved...
...Good theology is not interested in "understanding" or "meanings" (p...
...THOMAS E. QUIGLEY THE REEL REVOLUTION: A FILM PRIMER ON LIBERATION...
...What Holmer tries to do in the present volume is, however, far from Newman's analysis of assent as the noetic aspect of faith and from my own investigation of theological method...
...Theology . . . "is the declaration of the essence of Christianity" (p...
...thing to do but listen to the clear tones of McAfee Brown's orchestration of the liberation theology symphony...
...The theology which he sponsors follows in fact a deceptively simple recipe: "The knack is to learn how to handle oneself and the whole world...
...Theology answers the question--what is Christianity...
...First of all, let's get our definitions straight...
...And so theology Should give up its intellectual traditions...
...We face once more the recurrent pietist temptation, that nothing is worthwhile in Christianity unless its effect is to warm the heart...
...Among English speakers all over the world, grammar acts as a bond of fraternity and sorority which allows them to recognize one another as soon as they speak...
...FATHER ROBERT W. HOVDA is currently coordinator of the liturgical dimension, ministerial program at the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago...
...What is wrong with this approach is easy to see: when everything Christian is theology, then theology has ceased being a specific discipline of the believing mind...
...More often than not, we seek out films that support our worldview rather than those which confront our personal or social values...
...In a study of theological method--unfortunately published in French and presumably unknown to Paul Holmer--I have called theology a language and I have systematically analyzed its ingredients in terms of semantics and syntax, the fundamental dimensions of grammar...
...MICHAEL F. McCAULEY is executive editor of the newsletters published by the Thomas More Association...
...Though it is doubtless true that because movies can so easily reach illiterates as well as literates, rich and poor, old and young alike, they can become, as Father Hurley points out, "a unique tool for 'consciousness-raising,' capable both of universal access and, also, depth of penetration in terms of education...
...But although he believes that they are also "constructive," I regard them as entirely destructive of everything that has been called theology so far...
...Classified payable with order...
...Thus, grammar fulfills several roles in society...
...For the reader is never sure what the author means by grammar...
...Many of us--I am not too sure about the latest graduates of high schools and colleges--have been exposed to the intricacies of grammar...
...When we land in a country whose language we speak, we expect its people to use the same grammatical rules or conventions...
...That films have not yet been "fully perceived as revolution...
...atheism and theism...
...That filmmakers are motivated--subconsciously, perhaps-by an "irrepressible urge to make enduring statements of profound significance on the human condition...
...by becoming "Godly in all things, referring everything, our woes and weal, fears and joys, past and future, completely to God's love and care" (p...
...As a consequence, what about the sexist and racist and classicist language, structures, symbolization that are thereby obscenely sanctified instead of purged and discarded and transcended...
...It is not "theory-laden" (p...
...Paul Holmer admits that "these essays are polemical" (p...
...In its present form, The Reel Revolution is strained and over-long...
...132...
...Even Father Hurley concedes this point: "As is often the case in media, those who go to hear or see an experience do so to reinforce their already existing beliefs...
...GEORGE WOODCOCK is a Canadian author whose books include Faces of India and Peoples of the Coast...
...Paul Holmer began with the analogy of grammar...
...And I don't think we will have an introduction to the study of liturgy until we get a book that grapples with them...
...Meanwhile The Study of Liturgy will be a help...
...Assent, or faith, follows a certain pattern which may be called, by analogy, a grammar...
...language again...
...and these may be called a grammar...
...Still not satisfied...
...212...
...While this sounds very pious, it is disastrous...
...scientific language...
...Thomas Aquinas in favor of the opinion that "God" is not a name, I presume he is not acquainted with the long passages of the Summa about the names of God (which do include the name Deus...
...To understand theology.., is to be spurred, to be humiliated, to be stirred to contrition, to be prepared for joy" (p...
...He is against Karl Rahner, Karl Barth, Heidegger, Teilhard de Chardin and most modem authors...
...Commonweal: 606...
...The noetic and esthetic dimensions of human life are eaten up by its affective dimension...
...Grammar of Faith is a tantalizing title...
...The task of theologians is ".a kind of description of what is already achieved rather than an attempt to provide what is missing" (p...
...But more than this, we believe, is pretentious prattle, the pastime of pedants who virtually squeeze from a film its lifeblood...
...What Paul Holmer means by grammar is still more obscure: it seems to be something that one does not need to know as long as one applies its rules in speaking...
...146), though not the joy of intellectual discovery...
...it is, in John Macquarrie's expression, "God-talk...
...The style, like the composer, is lucid and engaging, moving from consideration of the "established harmonies" of the social gosl~l/social teaching streams of the Protestant/Catholic traditions to the challenge presented these harmonies by the view from below, from the underside of history...
...For reasons that are alluded to rather than explained, Paul Holmer is against theology that claims to be scientific, against metaphysics, against both theism and atheism...
...Theology is that interpretation and that game which we all must play if we are to refer our lives to God" (p...
...We have some idea of what syntax is supposed to be and to do for your understandability when you speak, of the necessity of having mastered some semantics or vocabulary in order to formulate and communicate your ideas...
...George H. Tavard p ROFESSOR of theolbgy at Yale Divinity School, advertised on the book jacket as "a noted expert on the thought of S~ren Kierkegaard and of Ludwig Wittgenstein," Paul Holmer raises high expectation among his prospective readers...
...In which case it is of course absur~ to offer theology courses for credit and to mak e theology the topic of doctoral dissertations...
...Mm.rlod Priests CORPUS-National Association Resigned/ Married Priests...
...disaster Spanish-speaking, or Chinese speaking...
...While Father Hurley may see film as revolutionary, his point will go largely undetected by those queuing up to pay $4, $5 or $6 to see Superman...
...If not fully satisfied after reading it, you will at least understand more than all the worthies cited above...
...monthly in advance for more than three times...
...63c, six times...
...It enables us to communicate within certain geographic limits...
...But these also constitute grammatical freemasonries, the members of which know one another as soon as they speak...
...ROSEMARY H. BALSAM, M.D...
...Though never clearly defined or described, it seems to be a personal, lived attitude related to "belief and morals," such belief being centered on God, Christ and the Scripture...
...More, it is "a corrupt and self-serving mockery of Christianity, a propaganda machine for pragmatic Marxism and Christian Marxism's greatest weapon" (M...
...He is for knowing God, providedthat one agrees with him that "God" is not a name, but a concept (as though a name did not necessarily express a concept...
...Had he directed his thesis to filmmakers, perhaps in a trade journal, or condensed his remarks to magazine length, he might have had more effect...
...It is not Newman's assent, which would seem to be too intellectual (somehow the author does not like intellectualism...
...How can we talk about im'tiation or eucharist or ordination in our time without clear and serious discussion of women's rights and responsibilities in the church...
...Liberation theology is that "mixture of Christianity and Marxism that has prompted some priests to doff their cassocks to join guerrilla bands" (Times of the Americas), which "cites the Bible as justification for social activism" (N.Y...
...And one cannot love God at the expense of one's humanity...
...44), ~ though metaphysicians were particularly obnoxious persons...
...and since a language is not born all of a sudden but has evolved over thousands of years, it places us within a long historical stream of literary, philosophical and esthetic tradition...
...What he means by faith is not even very clear...
...The theologian who wilt follow the program advocated in this book will soon become a moron...
...And the starting point for this theological task is people, specifically the majority--the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed...
...131...
...Theology also, as St Anselm's faith seeking understanding, must follow certain methods in order to be coherent...
...Commonweal: 604metaphysics...
...The form of this book is that of a rambling discourse about sundry topics connected with theology: what theology is and does...
...66c, three times...
...137), his own position is not far from identifying faith with religious feelings...
...26 October 1979:605In brief THEOLOGY IN A NEW KEY, by Robert McAfee Brown, Westminster $6.95, 212 PP...
...T.~h-t JOIN THE KENNEDY BANDWAGON order your "I'm Ready for Teddy" T-shirt, 50/50 heather blue, sizes (S-M-L-XL), $5, includes mailing, cashiers check or cash only...
...And there it is...
...When the author wants to criticize a theology (which is often), he declares that it does not follow the grammar of faith...
...Greeley...
...Catholic Conference...
...For better or for worse it segregates them from all those other people who are French-speaking, where the dim hopes of the biblical message of human liberation and solidarity in GOd have suddenly become demands everywhere, where powerless and suffering people can suddenly be heard by and be present to us all...
...it identifies us with a certain type of contemporary civilization...
...Esthetics and rhetoric are abandoned to their secular pursuits...
...by Neil P. Hurley, Orbis, $7.95, paper, 175 pp...
...Or else we just enjoy a movie, allowing it to entertain us, diverting our attention--momentarily-from routine anxieties...
...In this view, theology, the act of critical reflection in the light of Scripture, is a "second moment," following on the engagement with concrete reality...
...This action (praxis) in turn flows from an analysis that, with the available (thus obligatory) tools of the social sciences, asserts and embraces the reality ot social conflict rather than the illusion of social harmony...
...But it tells us the answer by giving us order and priorities, the structure and morphology, of the Christian faith" (p...
...THOMAS E. QUIGLEY is on the staff of the Division of Latin America, U.S...
...FATHER GEORGE H. TAVARD is a member of the faculty at Methodist Theological School in Ohio...
...Is this a conspiracy against the two grammars of faith and of English...
...concepts...
...What can you say about a book which demonstrates that "movies are liberating...
...Grammar would seem to provide a good analogy to understand what theology is supposed to do...
...xi), as though "grammar," in the book's tifie, were not itself an analogy...
...Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers, N.Y...
...And where people who used to be the victims of destiny and fate are now able, technologically if not yet psychologically, to take all those once-unalterable military-economicpolitical institutions in hand...
...Times), has "provided ecclesiastic writ for such secular activities as organizing trade unions and peasant movements" (Economist), and 9 is the "divisive effort within the Latin church to make common cause with the region's disinherited" (Washington Post...
...Martin...
...The "true theologian.., actually knows God" (p...
...However, the fact of the matter is that liltle liberation actually resuits from a trip to the movies...
...Theology begins "where the pain is...
...When that is being learned, certain words, Biblical words, come into their own...
...celebration has been domesticated and corrupted to reflect the very society it is supposed to judge, the very society from which we are supposed to be momentarily liberated by ritual--is any question more important in the 20th centurY and where is it here...
...Since he claims St...
...It is "not misled by analogies again" (p...
...a media event," a "rehash of German political theology" which "almost no one in Latin America takes seriously" but which is also "politically and ecclesiastically dangerous to the well-being of the people in the poor countries" (A...
...Certainly no attempt is made to articulate its elements, rules, or structure...
...This was promising...
...But it has been badly exploited in favor of a plea for anti-intellectual theologizing along pietistic lines...
...How does one become a theologian...
...That beneath profitable escape films there is "a subtle but very real judgment on the larger society...
...Then there's noClassified RATES: 70c a word, one time...
...I wonder if it is by accident that, in the course of the demonstration, standard English grammar has been badly mauled, with plural subjects going with singular verbs, as though followed by the indicative, and many such constmctions...
...Theology tells us what Christianity is and what and who God and we are" (p...
...belief...
...Jesuit Neil P. Hurley says all this, and little more in his slim volume...
...Theology tells us what faith is" (p...
Vol. 106 • October 1979 • No. 19
