FOUNDATIONAL THEOLOGY

The terms "foundational theology" or "fundamental theology" as commonly understood within Roman Catholic theology refer to the introductory tract that treats the nature, possibility, and existence of revelation. In some versions, it also includes an analysis of the nature of Christian faith and a treatment of the nature, method, and sources of theology. Since the divine revelation in Jesus is the basis of the Church, Roman Catholic theology labels the discipline that deals with the existence and content of that revelation foundational or fundamental theology. The term "fundamental theology" is a very literal translation of the Latin theologia fundamentalis and was for a long time the title given to the discipline. The term "foundational theology," however, has been used by many (especially Bernard lonergan) to signify a conception of the discipline that interprets the foundations of theology in a way different from that of traditional neo-scholasticism. Whereas the neo-scholastic treatment emphasized the nontheological and the apologetical task of the discipline, Lonergan develops foundational theology as a specific functional specialty within theology. Many have adopted Lonergan's term "foundational" in order to distance themselves from a view of the discipline that in their opinion is too naturalistic in that it uses philosophical and historical arguments without consideration of any Christian or religious preunderstanding. Nevertheless, the terms "foundational" and "fundamental" theology are often used today indiscriminately and often represent merely the choice of a different English term.

From Apologetics to Foundational Theology. The history of Christian apologetics up to the enlightenment is one of individual apologies being argued against specific heresies. The Enlightenment's critique of prophecies, miracles, and supernatural revelation struck at the foundations of Christian belief. Johann Sebastian von drey, one of the initiators of the German tÜbingen school, argued that a new type of apologetics was necessary. Such an apologetics should go beyond the medieval preambles of faith, namely, those philosophical truths that could be proven independently and prior to faith. It should provide a foundation for Christian faith and theology through a defense of revelation. Drey explicated the program for this discipline within his writing on the organization of theological disciplines in the modern university, with their increased specialization. Theology came to be divided into exegetical, historical, systematic, and practical studies. Catholic theology identified a division of foundational and systematic theology. The goal of foundational theology was to defend the presuppositions of theology, whereas the goal systematic theology was to give an exposition of Christian doctrine.

Modern Preamble of Faith. Henri Bouillard, one of the initiators of a theological movement known as "la nouvelle théologie" (the new theology), sought to retrieve a more integrated vision of the relation between the natural and the supernatural. The movement in reality recovered elements of patristic and scholastic theology that modern neo-scholasticism had neglected. It criticized the extrinsicism of neo-scholasticism and argued for a more intrinsic relation between human nature and divine grace and between the love of God and the knowledge of God.

Bouillard's conception of foundational theology retrieves Thomas Aquinas's notion of the preambles of faith, but give it a new role under the conditions of modernity. Bouillard notes that modern fundamental theology developed precisely when modernity stood under the impact of the Enlightenment and deism. Deism criticized the existence of supernatural divine revelation, but not the existence of God. The Enlightenment criticized concrete historical religions that invoked prophecies and miracles as a justification of their belief in a special supernatural revelation. Therefore, neo-scholastic fundamental theology sought to demonstrate the possibility and existence of supernatural revelation, the truth of Christian revelation, and the truth of the Catholic church.

Bouillard recognized that the modern situation deals only with the denial of revelation or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also with the denial of the God of philosophers. Not deism, but atheism is the challenge today. The classical approach to the preambles of faith presupposed the rational and philosophical demonstration of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the principles of morality. Its successor retrieved and also went beyond these demonstrations, taking up their task in the face of modern atheism and the loss of the divine in modern culture. Influenced by Maurice blondel, this approach sought to integrate the natural and philosophical with the religious by appealing to an experience of transcendence that avoided the sharp separation between the philosophical and the religious. The task of foundational theology is then to explicate the interrelation between the philosophical and the religious experience of transcendence in elaborating an approach to the knowledge of God.

Formal and Existential Phenomenology. Karl rahner's Foundations of the Christian Faith transforms fundamental theology in a decisive way in terms of its addressee, method, and content. Rahner sees foundational theology not simply an apologetic. Rather, it should deal with the possibility of the "unbelief of the believer." It should itself explicate the philosophical mediation of faith. It should convincingly illumine the meaning of the Christian faith not just to the non-Christian or non-Catholic, but to the believers themselves.

Rahner's conception is labeled a "formal-fundamental" theology. This name calls attention to two aspects of his theology. On the one hand, it highlights the phenomenological and existential analysis of the human person as open for God. It explicates the possibility within human knowing and will for human persons to be hearers of God's word and receivers of God's revelation. On the other hand, it emphasizes that foundational theology is more than a formal analysis of human nature and human subjectivity. It uncovers the fact that human beings are immersed in history in their openness to God and oriented toward history in their search for an answer to their quest for the meaning of the mystery of God. This theology explicates that meaning is found in history in the encounter with a history of salvation that culminates in God's definitive revelation in Jesus Christ.

Rahner's treatment of the traditional demonstration of the existence of God illustrates his understanding of foundational theology. He acknowledges the validity of the proofs, but he maintains that they presuppose a preunderstanding or experiential anticipation of the meaning of what they should demonstrate. Rahner stands within the tradition of the "new theology" but nuances it by maintaining that the desire for God is not a desire based upon an abstract human nature. It is a desire embedded in a historical human nature that has received a historical call from God. His term "supernatural existential" expresses this historical characteristic of human nature. (Rahner appropriates the term "existential" from Martin heidegger, his teacher, who used it to refer to those categories specific to human nature, such as historicity and self-understanding.) Bernhard Welte has developed an analogous approach. Appropriating Heidegger's phenomenological analysis of the historicity of human nature and of the changing nature of language, thought, and metaphysics, Welte elaborates the pre-understanding of Christian salvation within the finite openness in human nature to the infinite.

Theological Aesthetics. Hans Urs von balthasar has argued for the fundamental theological significance of a theological aesthetics that focuses on a dramatic action of God and Christ and the logic of that action for foundational theology. Balthasar contends that much of modern theology has insufficiently attended to the aesthetic dimension. This neglect had dominated certain strands of modern Protestant theology, but also influenced some modern Roman Catholic theological approaches that unfortunately neglect the classic Catholic emphasis on the aesthetic and sacramental. Against a fundamental theological method that focuses upon the human pre-understanding or the a priori condition of revelation within human rationality, Balthasar emphasizes the aesthetic contemplation of the Christian drama of revelation in his development of the fundamental theological implications of aesthetics. He points to an aesthetic model whereby the encounter with the aesthetic object influences, changes, and challenges the subject. Through contemplating the form of Christ manifest in the dramatic action of His suffering, death, and Resurrection, one opens oneself to this form and becomes conformed with Christ.

In developing theological aesthetics that display a Christian Trinitarian logic and drama, Balthasar cautions against the appeal to an anthropological, existential, or transcendental starting point within foundational theology. The danger is that the starting point does not remain simply a starting point or beginning, but can become a standard or measure that limits what is to be grasped. Just as an aesthetic experience transforms the subject, so too should God's action in Jesus transform our subjectivity. In his critique of an anthropocentric starting point as the foundation of theology, Balthasar has sought to pick up and develop Karl Barth's criticism of liberal Protestant theology, but in a way that remains sensitive to a Catholic sacramental understanding of the analogy of being and analogy of faith.

Practical Political Theology. Johann Baptist Metz, a student of Rahner, has developed a foundational theology that seeks to overcome what he perceives as the limitations of Rahner's approach. Metz argues that Rahner has overemphasized personal subjectivity, has failed to take sufficiently into account social and political praxis, and has not confronted the moral and religious implications of the Holocaust. The horrors of Auschwitz speak against a fundamental theological conception that underscores on human autonomy and human transcendence over nature. Such an anthropocentricism interprets human history in terms of a continuous evolutionary progress. It views this history as culminating in the modern European West with its established freedoms. Such a view overlooks the suffering victims of this history. It expresses instead the viewpoint of the victors. It is Eurocentric rather than polycentric.

In contrast, Metz proposes a foundational theology that is a political theology or, more precisely, a practical hermeneutic of Christianity. Such a foundational theology is indeed defined by the challenge of modernity and the Enlightenment. Metz, however, does not interpret this challenge as a purely theoretical or as a merely philosophical critique of Christianity. It is also, and primarily, a practical challenge and a political critique. The fundamental theological response to this challenge entails a practical hermeneutic and an emphasis on practice as its central point. Christian theology has a practical logos. The belief in God entails the affirmation of specific practice implied within Christian belief. Such a belief entails a conversion and a discipleship. It requires a discipleship of solidarity of hope in the God of Jesus and in Jesus' practice of solidarity with society's outcasts and victims. The God of Jesus is a God of the living and the dead. This God promises resurrection and thereby affirms all to be subjects by affirming their identities and hopes even in the face of suffering, death, and injustice. The Christian community advocates a discipleship and a "dangerous memory" that is in solidarity with those who have unjustly suffered in the past and it proclaims a hope in resurrection that gives justice and meaning to life. The logos of Christian practice is a logos involving memory, solidarity, and hope. Such a logos differs from a more theoretical logos, for it criticizes the progressive understanding of history through its conviction that Christian apocalypticism entails an "interruption" of a human history of domination.

In Germany, Helmut Peukert, a student of Metz, has sought to develop foundational theology by bringing Metz's emphasis upon memory and a discipleship of solidarity with those who have suffered unjustly in confrontation with 20th-century philosophy, especially epistemology and the philosophy of science. Peukert criticizes the more empirical and positivist conceptions of rationality as insufficient because they are unable to deal adequately with suffering, especially the suffering and death of past victims of injustice. Foundational theology develops an understanding of meaning and rationality based upon a hope in the resurrection and in the ultimate vindications of those who have suffered and died.

Diverse Publics and Criteria. David Tracy has proposed that the various branches of theology should be distinguished with reference to their specific social location, public or reference group, characteristic mode of argumentation, and distinctive religious and ethical stance. Each branch of theology seeks to provide both an interpretation of a religious tradition and an explication of the religious dimension of the contemporary situation. Fundamental theology relates primarily but not exclusively to the public represented by the academy, whereas systematic theology relates primarily, though not exhaustively, to the Church. Fundamental theology consequently employs a mode of argument that suitable to the approach and methods of an established academic discipline in interpreting the truth claims of the religious tradition. Moreover, it offers arguments that all reasonable persons should acknowledge as reasonable even if these persons are neither religious believers nor members of a Christian church. In addition, fundamental theology has a distinctive ethical and religious stance. Though the fundamental theologian might be personally a believer, in arguments his personal faith or beliefs may not serve as warrants or backings of truth. His claims of the truth for the Christian faith must be argued on public grounds.

Such a conception of foundational theology relies on the link established within the sociology of knowledge between social location and types of argumentation and modes of commitment. Some critics question whether the awareness of the social conditioning of knowledge throws the notion of public rationality into question. Tracy's more recent work has taken up the significance of the ambiguity of interpretation, the importance of conversation, and the fragmentary character of knowledge for theology and foundational theology.

Critique of Foundationalism. Classical pragmatic philosophers such as Charles Pierce and Wilfrid Sellars as well as neo-pragmatists such as Richard Rorty, Richard Bernstein, and Robert Brandom have criticized various forms of foundationalism. They criticize a subjective foundationalism. based upon introspection of the human consciousness (e.g., R. descartes's method, starting point, and search for clear and distinct ideas). In addition, they criticize the foundationalism of positivism and empiricism (e.g., John locke's evidentialism, which equates true belief and evidential belief). Alongside this pragmatic critique, recent hermeneutical theory has underscored the role of one's pre-understanding as well as the horizon of one's embeddedness within a cultural historical tradition. Moreover, recent theories of deconstructive as well as postmodern analysis have underscored the ambiguity of meaning. All of these tendencies have influenced contemporary formulations of foundational theology.

For some contemporary Protestant theologians this critique of foundationalism has reinforced the traditional Lutheran critique of metaphysics and of natural theology. Hans Frei and George Lindbeck have strongly argued against an apologetic anthropological approach. Lindbeck appeals to Ludwig wittgenstein's understanding of language and its interrelation with life praxis to advance a cultural-linguistic understanding of theology that stresses a community's narratives and life practices. If Tracy argued that one can defend the notion of Christian claims via "publicly acceptable criteria," Lindbeck underscores the linguistic and communitarian context of adjudication. Ronald Thiemann and William Placher explicitly take up the critique of foundationalism. Thiemann develops a narrative theology and bases Christian theology on revelation in a way that takes into account the pragmatic critique of foundationalism. Placher advocates an unapologetic theology.

Roman Catholic theologians, on the other hand, have incorporated the critique of foundationalism within foundational theology itself. Fiorenza argues that the critique of foundationalism does not entail the absence of any foundations. Instead, it requires a multiplicity of foundations and the awareness that every foundation is located within a web of interpretation and within a community of discourse. This procedure involves a broad reflective equilibrium (a term widely used within current political and moral philosophy influenced by John Rawls) whereby foundational theology brings together diverse grounds and reasons. Just as diverse cords are interwoven to form a strong rope, so too are diverse sources brought together to form the warrants for Christian belief. Thus foundational theology brings into reflective balance diverse tasks: the hermeneutical task of interpreting what is paradigmatic and normative within the tradition, the critical task of analyzing the warrants stemming from practice, and the philosophical task of explicating the appropriate background theories (philosophical, ethical, and anthropological). All of these tasks are interrelated and dependent on each other. The result shows the importance of diverse foundations, each influencing each other in the interpretation and warrant for Christian faith. Such a method takes up traditional topics within foundational theology, such as the foundation of the Church and the Resurrection of Jesus. These involve not only historical and existential arguments, but also a hermeneutical. interpretation that attends to the Church's reception of Jesus, evident in the diverse literary forms of its interpretation and in the living out of this reception in practice. The testimony and practice of the Christian community should be explicated in a way that acknowledges diverse foundations and varied warrants for the Christian faith.

Diverse Currents and Directions. These diverse currents within foundational theology show the vitality and the richness of the field. Not only are there basic agreements about the nature of fundamental theology, but there are also important disagreements. There is basic agreement on the importance and necessity of foundational theology within Roman Catholic theology, the need to deal with the challenges of the modernity and the Enlightenment, and the integration of foundational theology within theology in general. The disagreements include the degree to which a metaphysical defense and a transcendental philosophical approach is essential to the fundamental theological approach and whether foundational theology should be much more hermeneutical and praxis oriented. Whereas all take seriously the challenge of the modem Enlightenment, not everyone interprets this challenge in the same way and not everyone shares the same assessment of modernity. Some appeal to public reasons or public rationality as the avenue through which an apologetic should approach. Others view such a public rationality as a fiction of the modem Enlightenment. Consequently, the latter argue that foundational theology should take much more seriously the radical pluralism of philosophical worldviews and the increasing reality of religious diversity at a time when even local communities are becoming more multicultural and multireligious.

The emergence of the critique of modernity as Euro-centric and as dominated by a one-dimensional technological rationality has gained force with postmodern and postcolonial philosophical currents. This critique suggests that foundational theology needs to examine the extent to which its own methods and arguments have the limitations and presuppositions of the very positions it is contesting. In addition, the postmodern critique of traditional metaphysics as it emerges in Emmanuel Levinas's emphasis upon our vulnerability before the other highlights an ethic of responsibility for the other that is intrinsically linked with an ethic of belief. Christian foundational theology has always underscored the role of testimony for a knowledge of history and the importance of personal testimony and love for knowledge. The current task of foundational theology is to show further how the Christian community's testimony to Jesus and its solidarity with the other is central to the theoretical tasks of foundational theology.

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[f. s. fiorenza]