Fides quarens fidem

A Premature Reflection on Teaching Theology Today

[T]he relationship between theology and philosophy is best construed as a circle.

- John Paul II, Fides et Ratio 73 -

Why anyone today should do (much less teach) theology is for me a drearily pragmatic question. I am, by professional canons, a prematurely terminated academic.¹ I have been a visiting professor, an adjunct, a guest lecturer in graduate seminars, and a high school teacher. Several dozens of applications submitted, several interviews conducted, a handful of campus visits experienced, no post obtained. Unaffiliated with any institution, I can’t even search databases. I don’t recall the last time I attended a conference or scoured job listings. As of writing this essay, I’ve been primary caregiver of four delightful daughters for over two years. So, when asked to reflect theologically on teaching theology today, the pusillanimous ego within wishes to plead the fifth on two counts: I lack both the “professional” experience and serene spirit requisite for offering anything remotely like a profound meditation on these matters. I’d rather stew, grumble a lot, mumble a little, and simply leave off abruptly, with pomp and circumstance.

I tried that. With Nietzschean ressentiment I pretended I could extinguish my desire to think and discuss and teach theology. In vain I sought within my soul a switch I could flip, so that, if life circumstances would not afford me the formal privileges of academic life, I could yet turn away of my own accord. That endeavor failed since it was no less a delusion than the very notion of “the formal privileges of academic life” mostly is today. It failed because thinking about God is not really an option for the human spirit. Theology in this fundamental sense can be delayed and denigrated; it cannot finally be denied. I want here to reflect from this personal context of double failure: the failure to begin a career in theology and the failure to cease doing it anyhow.