Communicative Theology: A Short Introduction
By Bernd Jochen Hilberath
[Professor Hilberath is Emeritus Professor at Tűbingen University. This paper was presented at the first THEOCOM conference, Santa Clara University, California.]
Communicative Theology as Contextual
Communicative theology is not a theory of communication. Admittedly, communicative theology is intimately concerned with communication — especially with the processes of living communication. By the same token, however, Communicative Theology is not a theological reflection about any single sector of reality, comparable to a “theology of marriage” or a “theology of work.” On the contrary, it addresses itself to the whole of reality — a trait it shares with the Theology of Liberation, which likewise deals with reality as a whole, namely in the perspective of God, who liberates his People. This is the constant notion of God, which has prevailed since the Exodus, but the concrete experience of this vision of God has not been equally present in all periods of history. For this reason, the task of the Theology of Liberation was to restore an awareness of this vision in a particular context. Thus, Liberation Theology is a contextual theology that attends to the “signs of the times.”
Analogously, Communicative Theology has its foundation in God’s self-communication, in short, in the revelation of a “communicative God.” This too holds for all times and places, but the contemporary situation in the Catholic Church and in the ecumenical movement calls for special attention in this regard, and this is the context in which Communicative Theology was born. It did not arise as an abstract theory developed on the planning table and subsequently applied in practice. Quite the contrary! It arose precisely out of the practice of theological communication within groups, in particular in groups that had come together for advanced theological training on various levels, among them being training courses and a degree program in Communicative Theology at Innsbruck University, as well as programs for pastoral leaders and religious educators that were a weeklong or conducted over an extended period of time.
The beginnings of Communicative Theology go back to my cooperation with Prof. Matthias Scharer of Innsbruck University. Subsequently, Mary Ann Hinsdale of Boston College and Bradford Hinze of Fordham University also became involved. The research group, which now includes professors, graduate, and post-graduate students, including clergy and lay ecclesial ministers, and theologians who are involved in pastoral practice, meets once a year to exchange ideas. In addition, regular academic seminars are held for doctoral candidates at Innsbruck University and Tübingen University.
Living Communication in Process
Matthias Scharer and I joined with the aim of providing guidance and support — not from without, but rather from within — to “processes of living learning”, in which we ourselves were participating as leaders and experts. Thus, our engagement followed three basic convictions:
in theology, content, and method (understood here as a way of knowing and thinking about the content), cannot be separated from each other
in theology, teaching and learning are only possible as a process
in this process, all the participants must be taken seriously as acting subjects of theological communication
On the first point, theological notions, even when they have taken fixed form in the Bible and in the witnesses of Tradition, are essentially only snapshot views of the path of faith. Thus, theological statements are not mere formulae to be learned by heart and passed on to others according to the motto “how do I tell it to my children?” To be understood in any real sense, the “meaning” of such statements must be theologically “re-flected”, that is to say it must be mirrored, so to speak, in one’s own biography, in the biographical stories of other people, in the experiences of groups (ranging from the small group engaged in a communicative theology seminar to the all-encompassing “WE” of the church as a whole), and ultimately, it must be “reflected” in response to the challenges presented by “the globe” both in terms of the realities of human beings and the environment in local situations around the world.
Our second conviction, the process character of theological teaching and learning, can be made clearer using a German play of words: theology is “Nach-Denken”— in the sense of “thinking in the wake of something which sets the course” — and “Nach-Gehen” — in the sense of “going along the path of something which has set the course.” The course to be taken by this Nach-Denken and Nach-Gehen has been set by the Tradition, and the goal of such Nach-Denken and Nach-Gehen is to discover or correct one’s own way of living the faith and thus to make progress in the life of faith.
Clearly, the theological “content” of this process is not something to be discovered for the first time; what is “discovered”, namely the belief in the triune God, has long been present as something both knowable and known. But it becomes my own object of faith only when I consciously go forward along the path to which it points, namely when I relate it to my own reality and to my perception of reality as a whole. Thus, the project of our first jointly-led course in Communicative Theology was given the title, not simply “The Triune God”, but rather “In the beginning was relationship — our Communication of Faith with the Triune God.”
On the third point, we make no claim to have discovered the wheel of theology anew. On the contrary, we only practice what has always been the task of theology, namely the kind of “thinking in the wake of” and “going along the path of” mentioned above: these have always been constitutive for the reflection and development of the life of faith in all of its diverse paths and ways of expression. Instead, what we have done is to reflect consciously and methodically on the process involved in such theological activity as we have ourselves experienced it. Here too, the principle holds: In the beginning is relationship, namely the communicative relationships within a group.
Precisely in the present situation in the church and in the ecumenical movement, there is need to give closer attention to the “instinct of faith of the whole People of God.” If the church and ecumenism is to have a future, it is not enough for church leaders and theologians to listen to each other; in addition, the whole People of God must become involved in the communication of faith. All churches agree that in every baptized person the Holy Spirit awakens a sensus fidei, i.e. an instinct of faith. In our own time, the concrete development of this instinct of faith has more and more become the responsibility of individual Christians. Thus, more and more, forms of shared community along the path of faith become necessary, in order that, from the individual believers’ instinct of faith, a collective instinct of the faithful can emerge. This sensus fidelium grows out of the sensus fidei of individual believers, but it also supports the individual sensus fidei. Thus, in the communication of the faith, a consensus in fundamental convictions should be sought after, so a true “con-sensus fidelium” emerges.
What is Specific to Communicative Theology?
By no means do we assume, in our work, that communication in faith always succeeds or that it will always arrive at consensus. Analogously to the way Liberation Theology arose because human beings and indigenous peoples were being oppressed, the concept of Communicative Theology arose in a context that, although admittedly far less dramatic, was nonetheless existentially relevant for the survival of the faith, namely in the context of a practice marked by enormous communication deficits, indeed by failures of communication.
On the meta-level of theory, two ideas mutually complemented and cross-fertilized each other here. On the one hand, the notion of theme centered interaction, (TCI), according to Ruth C. Cohn, which Matthias Scharer brought into play, and, on the other hand, the version of Communio Ecclesiology that I and my colleagues in Tübingen had been attempting to elaborate. Communio and communicatio thus outline the understanding of “communication in the everyday life of faith”, which, by working together, we began to develop at first implicitly and then more and more explicitly.
Human communication does not need a theological, i.e. Trinitarian, basis to be practiced in a human way. But precisely the fact that the triune God appears here to be so “un-necessary” and indeed “superfluous” for ordinary communication, makes his importance for theological communicatio and communio conspicuous. According to biblical witnesses, God repeatedly showed himself to be a God who is able and willing to enter into relationship. At the same time, it becomes equally clear, that God does not need human beings to be God. Already within himself, by his very nature and personhood, he is rich in relationship.
In the beginning was relationship! It is in word and deed that God’s revelation takes place. Christians believe that God, in himself, not only has a word, but (also) is this Word, and we believe this Word, the logos of the theos, became human, not simply in the sense of an “as if”, but really, that is, in the flesh. Thus, God’s relationship to humankind is, from the beginning, communicative — by its very nature as logos. The 2nd Vatican Council recalled this to mind once again — this is another example of contextual theology! — when, in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (No. 2), it stated: “Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God, out of the abundance of His love, speaks to men as friends and lives among them, so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.”
Human beings can communicate without believing. There is no need to base theories of communication on theology, but there is a need to ask about the consequences of believing in a God, who in himself is relationship and communication: what does this mean for our understanding of ourselves and of our communication within our communities? Admittedly, Communicative Theology is not alone in needing to attend to the relevance of such an understanding of God for our understanding of the nature of being human and living in human societies (including the Church)! This is an imperative for all forms of theology. In fact, all people of faith are convinced that their belief in a God, who is open to relationship and communication and who gives himself to creatures, gives them orientation for their behaviour both in communicating with each other and in living in community (communio). Thus, in our Communicative Theology, we have expanded the axioms of Theme Centered Interaction (TCI), as initially developed by Ruth Cohn, to include genuine theological options.
Parameters: Dimensions and Levels, Axioms, and Options
Communicative Theology arose against the background of the model proposed by TCI, behind which stand the axioms of humanistic psychology and the rules of human interaction in group-processes. The four dimensions find expression in the scheme I-WE-IT-GLOBE and stand for:
the personal experience of living and believing (I)
the experience of community and of being the Church (WE)
the biblical witnesses as well as those of other religions and world views as they are transmitted in a living way in a process of tradition (IT)
the world—socially, culturally, and environmentally (GLOBE)
Communicative Theology is not about an idyllic world of successful communication: on the contrary, all its dimensions include all that is fragmentary, broken, endangered, or irreconcilably alien.
Communicative Theology operates on three levels, these are:
the level of immediate participation
the level of conscious experience and interpretation
the level of methodical theological reflection
We do not always operate on all these levels, but it is necessary to grow in awareness of these different levels.
Underlying this schema is the conviction that methodical theological thinking is only possible as a “re-flection”—a Nach-Denken: this re-flection can only engage its “object” when it is itself involved in the process of believing and questioning, and that process necessarily affects and involves other persons, who likewise participate as “subjects” in this process. In a typical Communicative Theology working group, all the participants are recognized as “experts”, each in their own way. Among them, of course, are those who are competent and experienced on the scientific-scholarly level, that is, those normally regarded as “experts.” As participating leaders, the theologians are responsible, in a special way, for maintaining the balance between the four dimensions (the I, the We, the Living Tradition, and the Globe), although always in cooperation with all of those who have participated in the planning group.
In particular, the theologians are responsible for the attention paid to the dimension of the living Tradition, which provides orientation and serves as the dynamic norm. However, the repeated re-introduction of this dimension into the communicative process by way of calling it to mind and informing about its contents and implications must likewise maintain the balance. It must not take place in an authoritarian, but rather in a communicative manner, which creates a space for personal witness.
The self-revelation of God in creation and history — in particular in the incarnation of the divine person whom we call the Son of God — is the presupposition of every form of theology in Christianity; without this self-communication, there can be no Communicative Theology. The task of (Communicative) Theology is to open up the I and the WE, as well as the living TRADITION confronting the GLOBE, which is constituted by the state of the world, in such a way that the central truth, “in the beginning is relationship”, becomes visible and experiential “in the middle” where all four dimensions find their focal point.
Ruth Cohn’s TCI is delineated in terms of three axioms which have been incorporated into Communicative Theology and explored in terms of their significance for group work in the promotion of living learning. They are:
a human being is simultaneously autonomous and interdependent
respect is due to all living things and their development free decisions take place within external and internal limits: these limits, however, can be expanded.
Here too, we have gone beyond TCI in our Communicative Theology, and, thus, in our research group, we have formulated four additional defining options:
an option for patience, based on grace, when struggling with one’s unrealistic view of what is possible
an option for the poor
an option for “standing fast, even when nothing seems to work”
an option for contemplation and the mystic-mystagogical
It is not difficult to see that a theology of Grace and a theology of the Cross stand behind these options. Grace means, among other things, that what is most important in our lives, that is, their infinite value, is something received as a gift and is not in any way dependent upon our own achievements. The Cross means that God has made himself to be the redeeming sacrifice, so that we do not need to crucify each other or to seek scapegoats or to sacrifice other human beings.
These are the grounds for our “patience” and our scepticism about fantasies of what we can achieve on our own. From this foundation emerges also the “preferential option for the poor”, which has been postulated, specifically, by Liberation Theology. By following the Crucified One, who in his determination to reconcile victim and perpetrator and thereby experienced failure, we find the courage to exercise the option of “standing fast, even when nothing seems to work.” The fourth option locates the work of Communicative Theology within the holistic process of becoming fully human, for which both meditation (contemplation) on our experiences and initiation by way of mystagogy into the experience of living faith are paramount.
Conclusion
Communicative Theology, as I have described it, must be guided by a spirituality that finds expression, specifically, in the four options mentioned above. Like TCI, Communicative Theology understands itself as linking the experiences which the individual I and the group or communal WE both have with the project of FAITH, taking account, at the same time, of the enveloping GLOBE--social, cultural, and environmental--that constitutes the concrete reality in which we find ourselves. The I, the WE, and the GLOBE must take their orientation from the witnesses that are normative for the community of FAITH. Thus, the ultimate norm is not the self-directed experience of the I or the group-related experience of the WE; neither is it the experience of the GLOBE as such; instead it is the experience of the communicative God within the space defined by all four dimensions.
At a time marked by a growing trend toward individualized, “personal” experience of God, on the one hand, and toward the formation of closed-off groups, on the other hand, it is imperative to direct our attention, time and again, to the Gospel (and to the other witnesses to God’s self-revelation). Scholarly theology has an essential contribution to make to the development of intellectual and spiritual responsibility. Repeatedly, we have been privileged to experience how, in the practice of Communicative Theology, communicatio and communio can come alive.
When this occurs, we speak of a gift we receive as a “given” WE. That this experience be given again and again in the church is the goal of all our efforts.
Literature
Matthias Scharer / Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Kommunikative Theologie. Eine Grundlegung, Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 2002 (²2003); in 2012, it will appear again in a completely revised version.
Matthias Scharer/Bernd Jochen Hilberath, The Practice of Communicative Theology. An introduction to a new theological culture. With a foreword by Bradford E. Hinze, New York: Crossroad, 2008.
Forschungskreis Kommunikative Theologie, Kommunikative Theologie. Selbstvergewisserung unserer Kultur des Theologietreibens / Communicative Theology. Reflections on the Culture of Our Practice of Theology, Wien, Berlin: Lit Verl., 2007.
Matthias Scharer, Bradford E. Hinze, Bernd Jochen Hilberath (Hg.), Kommunikative Theologie: Zugänge – Auseinandersetzungen – Ausdifferenzierungen / Communicative Theology: Approaches – Discussions – Differentiation, Wien, Berlin: Lit Verl., 2010.
Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Jetzt ist die Zeit. Ungeduldige ökumenische Zwischenrufe, Ostfildern: Matthias-Grünewald-Verl., 2010.