In this next installment of “What is Narrative Theology?” (pt. 1 here, part 2 here) I want to try to lay out some differences between narrative theology and systematic theology.
As I do this, I realize that I have a bit of a problem. Many of my concerns about systematic theology, and many of the ways I differentiate in my mind between narrative and systematic theology, are not inherent to a systematic theological enterprise itself, but represent one common set of practices in ST. I have been chided on this before by my gentle readers, and told that where my problem lies is with analytic approaches to ST rather than ST itself. So be it.
To my mind, systematic theology happens when you begin to order the Bible’s statements about topics and/or persons, giving what you see to be a representative and/or comprehensive account of each.
Often, this is topical: God, creation, humanity, fall, redemption accomplished in Christ, redemption applied in Christ, Spirit, church, eschatology.
jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In ordering things logically, there is often even a general, narrative flow to the whole thing. Start with God and creation, end with the eschaton.
Perhaps the place where narrative and systematic theology differ is in the latter’s need to stand at the end of the story throughout, and articulate what is true on its basis. What is true about God, now that this story has happened (and is happening)? What do we know to be true about people?
Narrative theology is more content to leave stories as stories. Perhaps more, narrative theology is content to talk about God as God interacts with Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Jesus, and Paul, and the Lamb. To what degree can we speak of God truly when we have not located God as the actor in a story that unfolds in and among the people?
Is abstracting that character going to be able to produce a true portrait? Is the fear of an abstracted God, abstracted humanity, or abstracted church legitimate?
Narrative approaches also tend to have more patience with leaving contrasting voices on the table to continue their conversation. The Bible is a narrative, not a philosophical system, so univocal theological points are not expected.
For systematic theology, we must finally say either, “justification by faith apart from works” (Paul), or, “justification by works and not by faith alone” (James). As a discipline, narrative theology can allow those to have a longer conversation, at very least, before resolving the issue–and may not feel the need for such a resolution.
And there, perhaps, is the rub.
Systematic theology is driven by the complementing notions, natural to me and to most of us I suspect, that there is one right answer and that it is ours for the finding.
Narrative theology, because it functions in the realm of story rather than system, has more breadth for multiple right answers, or multiple interpretations (stories are slippery like that) of the right answer(s).
I may not yet have the right language to put my finger on what I’m going for here in laying out these distinctions. But the point I’m after is something like this: in my experience, systematic theology regularly brings me to the Bible looking for answers for questions that the Bible seems ill-equipped to answer. (Though in my Barth reading I regularly find him doing much better than some of the earlier stuff I cut my ST teeth on, and I suspect I’d say the same about Robert Jensen’s work.) If systematic theology were the point of the Bible, I would expect the Bible to provide me with different types of information, with data that held up to principles of non-contradiction, with a god closer to the god of the philosophers–an unmoved mover, unchangeable, impassible.
I’ve said this before here, and it bears repeating, because it is easy for us to forget in the western church: systematic theology is not an inherent, necessary outcome of people reflecting on the Bible we have. Jewish people have taken their reflections in a much different direction, continuing to come to the text to interpret and debate with each other (i.e., enshrining conflict rather than coming to one right answer) and to tell and retell the stories.
Systematic theology can be highly useful. It can help sharpen our thinking on any number of matters. And it can help us remember that the church has continued to give thought and shape to biblical ideas in the 2,000 years since the NT was written.
Why am I so hesitant about its place? (1) Because the dissonance between how it often uses the Bible and what the Bible itself is creates some concern for me about how people then return to read their Bibles; (2) because theological systems become sources of power for controlling the church; and (3) because systematic theology has regularly had a difficult time cultivating a viable Christian ethics. In fact, I worry that the these three are inseparable shortcomings, mutually present in the church’s story.
Perhaps more on this next time.
Narrative theology takes place in a valley, systematic theology takes place on a mountain?
Meaning, the former looks at the story from the position of the story – it’s still continuing. The latter assumes we have a vantage point able to calculate the whole?
I’ve been reading an excellent book by Christian Smith (“The Bible Made Impossible”) that echoes your thoughts here, without using the term “systematic theology.” Smith uses the term “Biblicism” to describe the idea that we should approach the Bible as a “handbook.” But as you say, in doing so we are “looking for answers for questions that the Bible seems ill-equipped to answer.” It seems to me that Systematic Theology is the natural outcome of the doctrine of inerrancy.
I think there might be a cart and horse problem there, though perhaps there is a common root. And, the systematic theology that I most fret about is fostered most conspicuously in that environment. But systematic theology has a much longer, and more noble, history than inerrancy.
I recently read a book called The Geography of Thought which analysed the differences of thinking in Eastern and Western cultures. One of the main differences was that Westerners generally see things in terms of categories, whereas Asians see things in terms of relationships. I think that systematic theology is fairly representative of Western thought in this matter. The interesting thing is that narrative theology is becoming more prominent now at exactly the same time as the centre of the church is moving away from the Western world. I believe that systematic theology sill has a lot to offer, and much can be gleaned from such an approach. Systematic theology however, has always been weaker at bringing out the depth of Scripture that is not presented in a propositional manner (hence the huge focus on the teachings of Paul in evangelical churches in the recent past). Narrative theology is, I believe, a useful tool in helping us understand not only the narrative parts of Scripture (which is most of the Bible), but also how each part of the Scriptures relates to each other part, and I believe in this aspect it has considerable advantages over systematic theology. And where should we be looking to find the best teaching for understanding the Bible as a complex set of relationships? Go East, young man!
This is really helpful. I tend to be more “narratively oriented”, but as a pastor in my current church I’m having to teach some more “systematic” categories from our doctrinal statement. There is an art to this. However, if we’re honest with ourselves we will see the narrative nature of the whole thing…thank God! Narrative theology beckons us to look at Scripture like a mirror, it “interprets” us as much as we seek to interpret it.
Thanks, again, for articulating these ideas. It helps as I approach my own teaching.
Thanks for this series of posts, I wish more people were talking about narrative approaches to theology. In my mind, it’s an absolute travesty that more schools don’t instruct students from this perspective – or even offer courses on it! Having encountered it in a round-about way during my graduate studies at Fuller, the fit of narrative approaches to theology toward missional approaches to ecclesiology became the focus of my masters thesis. I focused on the work of James McClendon, a theologian that far too few people know about and read.
Perhaps my biggest struggle with narrative theology is that my commitment to genre. The entire Bible is not story. In fact, most of the New Testament is what I would describe as “occasional theology.” Paul and the other letter writers did not sit down to write orderly accounts of theology from first to last, but they were also not writing story. They were addressing current needs in the church. They were writing for specific occasions.
Yes, that does mean that there is a story behind the occasion, but that story is often clouded from our vision. Th other question raised is whether the story behind the occasion is more important than the writing the occasion ushered Paul to write. Systematic Theology has obvious problems, but narrative theology seems to flatten genre into a singular variety.
This is an important issue you bring up. Narrative theology poses the same danger as other claims to approach the text from one given vantage point.
The claim of narrative theology as I live in it is twofold: (1) the big picture of the Bible is the story of God at work in the redeeming of the world God created, bringing all things to their intended consummation in Christ; and (2) the life, death, and resurrection of Christ are, themselves, the story within the story that enables the larger narrative to come to fruition.
There is an overarching narrative dynamic that provides the interpretive grid for the non-narratival portions. Part of what I argue in my book on Paul and Jesus is that Paul’s missionary theology is a narrative theology: with the story of Jesus at its center, with its God and the people of the churches given their identities by connection with both the larger story of Israel and the particular story of Jesus. Those narrative dynamics transform the identities and ethics of all the people involved.
I agree. I tend toward a narrative theology, but a narrative theology that is grounded in concrete occasions.
I have found that systematic theology is a product of the enlightenment mind. It is always looking for timeless truths (or absoute truths). Of course timeless truths by definition need to be non-contradictory.
Understanding the Jewish wisdom writings especially the book of Job should show that timeless truths is not applicable to God. There is only one truth and that is God.
For this to make any sense, there would have to be an absence of systematic theology prior to the enlightenment. There would have to be no Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, etc, all these premodern timeless truth seekers and their penchant for system making.
You make a good point. I prefer thinking of enlightenment as a modern revision of ancient Greek philosophy. It is interesting reading through history how much the enlightenment philosopher borrowed from the ancient Greek philosophers.
John wrote his gospel in the late 1st century to a largely Gentilized (Greek) church. He combats some of the Greek thinking in his gospel. For example when he is the only one who has the quote from Jesus, “I am the truth.” To the Greeks a statement like that is scandalous. To products of enlightenment, a statement like that is confusing at best. After all how can truth be personified?
Adam is right here. The comment from Karl is perhaps helpful at this point. Although it can be overdrawn, there are different approaches to philosophical thought in eastern and western traditions. Our Christianity is the product of a faith that was given early, thoughtful expression by people steeped in Greek philosophy. That’s not a bad thing, but it is a thing…
And I must point out that while all of the New Testament writers are coming from a society that is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, Hebrew philosophy (ie the Wisdom literature in our Bibles) is much more similar to Chinese philosophy than Greek.
Is it at all worth pointing out that the genre of discussion we currently find ourselves in and the reasoning employed in it all reflect systematic thinking, categorizing and defining? I am grateful, Daniel, for the clarification in the second paragraph, but that aside, this is a discussion clarifying and measuring the appropriateness of certain categories which is exactly what systematic theology seeks to do, even at its worst. Yes it is subject to all the temptations and failures you describe, but I just can’t see how narrative theology is able to escape from its dependence on exactly the kind of thinking currently under attack. Sure, we can just start reading the Bible and feel an exhilaration in our self-enacted deliverance from the modernism boogey-man, but that is just to leave all kinds of analytic thinking and dependence on a very definite set of the church’s earlier doctrinal (read “systematic theology”) decisions totally unacknowledged (ie, doctrine of God, revelation, redemption, canon, and a peculiarly employed notion of sola scriptura). The value of systematic theology is precisely in acknowledging that we bring assumptions on all these topics with us in our interpretation of Scripture and seeking to have those assumptions tested and amended if needed in light of what the Bible actually says. Even setting up narrative theology vs systematic theology seems unnecessarily dichotomous – it all just leads to silly caricatures, unacknowledged indebtedness, and unhelpful either/or thinking. I mean, how often do you hear us systematic theologians saying that the particular methods of today’s Bible scholars are unnecessary (source, form, and redaction criticism, for example)? But is it any less true than systematic theology being unnecessary?
Retyping a reply that my computer just ate. GRRRRR….
First, I apologize if I attacked ST here. I wrestled with the post quite a bit, trying to distinguish without casting aspersions, even as I operate with clear bias. I’m sure I’ve not lived up to the task. Apologies.
Second, you’re right that there is no such thing as theological discussion in the modern western church that does not depend on prior ST. We can try to be post-ST if we want to, but there’s no being non-ST. We depend too much for our language, our starting point, on what ST has contributed to the church, it’s vocabulary, its understanding.
I’m not sure I buy the “unhelfully dichtomous,” label, however! People are reading the Bible and processing it differently. We are trying to work out what that difference is. There’s something going on that’s different from yesterday’s “Biblical Theology” (a la Vos) and there’s something going on that’s different from what many of us learned as “systematic theology.”
Sometimes, it’s important to realize that we are coming up with different answers on particular issues because we’re asking different questions; or, we’re saying things about the same text because we are reading that text differently.
How is this helpfully dichotomous? I would say that in the conservative / evangelical Christian world, views on women’s ordination are often linked to prior commitments that fall into either traditional (conservative) systematic theology approaches to the Bible or something more like a narrative approach to the Bible. In an ST approach in a conservative evangelical context, all the pieces have to fit together into a coherent system. Why does the imperative of 1 Tim 2 overrule the narrative of Luke-Acts? Because the imperative tells us directly how to interpret the issue that the story simply displays.
Do you think there’s a difference between the discipline of Systematic Theology and what N. T. Wright does in books like, Surprised by Hope? How would you articulate it?
“To what degree can we speak of God truly when we have not located God as the actor in a story that unfolds in and among the people?”
Dr. Kirk, pardon me, but this statement is precisely why I’m a propositionalist. Its interesting to me that narrative theology wants to use this axiom of intelligibility, even though it rightfully belongs to propositionalism. In what way can a narrative demonstrate meaning, if not for the truthful and meaningful knowledge that it imparts about its subject matter? Propositions work in narrative and without.
Pardon again, but sometimes I see you waiving the neo-orthodox banner “God reveals himself — not sentences!” And while I can sympathize with that statement, we must acknowledge that God apart from any intelligence, is meaningless to talk about. God would reveal himself to us, and we’d not recognize him as God, precisely because we’ve no knowledge of what it means for him to be God. Or God would reveal himself to us and we wouldn’t understand just how meaningful he is as God, since we’ve no meaning to ascribe to him.
I guess in short, narratives are meaningful precisely because they are able to be intelligibly understood and lend themselves to this meaning because they demonstrate rational intelligible communication.
I’ve asked you this before, and I’ll try it again. What inerrantists and propositionalists do you read? Again, I ask pardon, and while I acknowledge the medium of your communication (blogging), you frequently present a straw man. The issues are all the more spiritually real and enjoyable, when we deal with them realistically, and listen with sincerity to those opposing voices, even if we find them ill sounding.
Michael,
In accordance with your first request, I forgive you.
As you indicate, narrative theology seeks for intelligibility about God. It is not raised up as banner for irrational articulations. Instead, it is an invitation to understand the coherence of the biblical story as a coherent narrative rather than a coherent system of propositions. A narrative will have propositions (“Jesus died for our sins” is a proposition), but the coherence of the proposition is assessed differently.
In accordance with your second request, I again extend the forgiveness you implore.
The comment races on to accusations of straw men (a third time, I forgive you), but it seems to me that this is precisely what you are attempting to defeat when you begin to speak of “God apart from any intelligence.” Who is asking for a God apart from intelligence? I am speaking of how the God who reveals himself is most truly known to those who truly know him. There is a story that provides us with the meaning to ascribe to him: not a story of one God hanging out with a bunch of others thinking about which human woman to shack up with, not a god who consumes the firstborn human child in sacrifice in order to bring a bountiful harvest, not the unmoved mover, but the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
In response to the neo-orthodox banner comment, I need not extend any forgiveness, as I now take it as a compliment! However, I will say that part of the challenge in working through this post is that Barth is doing systematic theology, and I largely like his project. I’m guessing I’d like Robert Jensen’s as well. I’m working, nonetheless, toward a description of how that kind of task is different from a narrative theology task. I’d be interested in any insight you might have on that.
Looks like you’re not the only one having this discussion: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/29/whos-afraid-of-narrative/
Daniel,
My uneasiness about systematic theology is not that it categorizes and organizes what the Bible says about the basics of our faith. I think that needs to be done by theologians on an ongoing basis.
The issue I have always had with ST is what it implies about how we should read the Bible. This may not be a problem for scholars, who are aware of all the nuances involved in a faithful reading of the genres in the Bible. But for regular Christians, the supremacy of systematic theology has led to the unconscious assumption that what they will find in the Bible is a repository of propositional truths rather than a story.
This is where I totally agree with what you wrote in the last paragraph. It is the “dissonance” between how systematic theology uses the Bible and what the Bible actually is that causes problems. People approach the Bible assuming that it is one thing, then what they get is something else.
I’m not saying that this is systematic theology’s “fault,” but it is what it is. One of the things I appreciate about narrative theology is that it provides a much-needed corrective, especially for the regular (read: non-academic) Bible reader.
Daniel – Great points. I tend to agree with you on the problems with analytical / systematic theology. I would put it this way: often systematic or analytic theology flattens all the texts of the bible – rather than seeing them through the overarching story/narrative and actually gives less credence to genre (not universally, but often). As a result it does not see the tensions or contexts.
Narrative theology is really about trying to take the Bible for what it actually is – a grand metanarrative (within which there are sub stories; systematic teaching; etc.). But, all that must be read within the narrative framework. Narrative theology serves as a corrective to what one might label, “systematic theology gone-to-seed.”
Another way of looking at this is through the historical lens of Baconian Common-Sense Realism and its influence on Biblical interpretation. Bacon saw nature as simply a set of facts. One need only go out and collect the data (all equal in nature and relevance); then through a series of inductions and deductions, place them together and draw out the obvious facts. When applied to the Scriptures, these are read as simply a series of all equal data points (so I just look at each immediate text or verse on a given topic – God, faith, etc.). Then, I throw them in a pot together, and use my mind to reason through all of the passages and draw out my “certain” conclusions. This is very much also a “modernist” methodology. Postmodernist theology has found holes in this (both in its outcomes and its misuse of passages). The fundamental flaw is that this system fails to properly contextualize such texts through a) the overarching lens of the narrative; or b) the particular genres, cultures, circumstances in which a text on a given topic appears.
Joel Green describes Narrative Theology in part as, “antipathy toward forms of theology concerned with the systematic organization of propositions and grounded in ahistorical principles” (Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible). Hopefully the above paragraph expands on this in a helpful way of both envisioning and communicating the value and importance of narrative theology.
Deeply appreciate this series.
Jeff, in that same dictionary, it is suggested that narratives can also be seen as a stream of propositions. Look at Hill’s definition of “Proposition.”
Michael – I will check it out. Thanks for the heads up.
Great post! I have been on a journey towards a more narrative-based approach to the Bible for a couple years now. My question is this – this morning I am reading through Luke and when I come across statements made by Jesus such as “hear the word and commit themselves to it with a good and upright heart” (8:15 CEB) and “who listen to God’s word and do it” (8:21 CEB) it appears, at least superficially, that Jesus is describing a different approach to the Scriptures than I would expect he’d say; such as “those who live in rhythm with the Kingdom” or “who respond to the Grace of God” or “who continue the kingdom work of the Christ”. Maybe that is what he is saying, but the language (at least as it is translated) almost seems to encourage a “handbook” view; listen to it and do it. Especially since he is espousing a response, I am guessing, to the OT and his sayings, or maybe just his sayings…I am brainstorming out loud, but would you be able to shed a little light on this?
one additional passage in the same chapter (8:39 CEB) “return home and tell the story of what God has done for you”…that seems more like it. Are the calls above and the call in this verse one and the same?
Dr. Kirk I was hoping you would take me more seriously. You don’t find it revealing that you won’t grant the name of the thinkers you are addressing? Perhaps you just intend for happy trails with your comment. You must see how it does not merit a sincere response. Why the sourness?
I took you with utmost seriousness. Including your requests for pardon. I apologize.
Perhaps this is a better framing of my response:
As you indicate, narrative theology seeks for intelligibility about God. It is not raised up as banner for irrational articulations. Instead, it is an invitation to understand the coherence of the biblical story as a coherent narrative rather than a coherent system of propositions. A narrative will have propositions (“Jesus died for our sins” is a proposition), but the coherence of the proposition is assessed differently.
Who is asking for a God apart from intelligence? I am speaking of how the God who reveals himself is most truly known to those who truly know him. There is a story that provides us with the meaning to ascribe to him: not a story of one God hanging out with a bunch of others thinking about which human woman to shack up with, not a god who consumes the firstborn human child in sacrifice in order to bring a bountiful harvest, not the unmoved mover, but the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
Part of the challenge in working through this post is that Barth is doing systematic theology, and I largely like his project. I’m guessing I’d like Robert Jensen’s as well. I’m working, nonetheless, toward a description of how that kind of task is different from a narrative theology task. I’d be interested in any insight you might have on that.
Michael,
I just went to Amazon can searched “Systematic Theology.” In my estimation, almost the entirety of the first page, and most of the second (I didn’t go beyond page 2) qualify as that to which I am contrasting narrative theology.
Most of those are written at the popular level. Although I would not put Erickson under that category. His volume shows considerable labor to locate and recognize each relevant theological discussion. I assume Tilich is not part of the crew you are trying to identify either!
Who do you read on narrative theology? I began with Frei and an anthology. Haven’t done much beyond that though. But you know from my previous comments here that I am not a hardcore propositionalist, dogmatician. On the contrary, I like TIS. And I think its revealing that the NT interprets the OT in a manner radically different from the criticisms we are taught in seminary.
I’m stuck on a pendulum right now between Barth and Henry. Barth is more enjoyable to read, and seems to deliver on his chief concern, showing God. But the rationalism of Henry is so sweet to the mind, and useful for Christian teaching, that I see no way of arguing against his six volumes, God, Revelation, and Authority. But of course, this is only propositionalism and not Systematic Theology. One problem I have with critics of ST, speaking of the discipline itself, and not any particular thinker, is that much of the criticisms regard ST as almost an a priori discipline. We must realize what we ask of the STheologian. He is in fact an a posteriori. He is THE a posteriori thinker in the absolute since. His work comes very last. He cannot even begin until he’s read everything in all fields of biblical studies. The villainous portrait of ST so routine today, the portrait of theological a priori dogma, is difficult to understand for me. But I didn’t grow up in church with theological brow-beatings for every sermon. Not to psychologize the matter, and not saying this was your experience, but I think this informs a lot of current attitudes.
A good STheologian, I think, is Thomas Schreiner. He begins his NT Theology volume with a good sized narrative introduction.
As a previous literature major before coming to Christ, I can see the importance of narrative. But when its crunch time and theology must begin to prescribe something, the narrative approach looks suspicious. This could be my failure to fully think in narrative like its architects would desire. But God, by revealing himself in the history of redemption, crystallized in the Scriptural narrative, has also revealed some aspect of himself. He is revealing himself, yes, but also knowledge about himself. This knowledge is the stuff I think doctrine is made up of. It is the proposed truth and meaning of the revelatory event expressed in the narrative. In this way I see usefulness for narrative theology.
Dr. Kirk, I’m not being a good listener today. I’ve been reading quite a bit lately and felt like expressing myself. Thank you for allowing me room to do so.
Hill writes, “Occasionally theologians try to contrast a set of propositions and the biblical narrative. This is misguided, for in a sense a narrative just is a set of propositions.”
I think this is hyper technical that misses the point. It misses how narrative theologians are using the concept of propositions. A narrative is a big story – the parts of it are not “stand alone.” “And, Abraham went down …” might technically be a proposition but it makes no sense without the full story. But, the whole story must stand together. Further, one must use different tools to comprehend narratives and propositions. No one really reads a novel the same way they read a legal textbook or a math book. And, as Daniel is noting, and I think correctly so, propositions must be read within the context of the story – as they flow out of the story; further the genre within which a proposition appears is important (a proposition in Deuteronomy should be read differently by a son of Israel than a proposition in Proverbs – which may only be a general, practical truism; as opposed to a law). Often texts are misunderstood because they are taken as propositional laws – when actually intended differently. And, those propositions – as noted – must be read in a broader context of story (as I noted in my above post). – Shalom