Must theologians be faithful? A question for Volf and Croasmun

In their new book, For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference (Brazos Press, 2019), Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun make the argument that the lives of theologians matter for the writing and evaluation of theological proposals. Reading through chapter 5, though, where they make the argument, I was left unsure about what exactly they were claiming. Let me offer a sample of quotations and then offer a range of interpretations of the claim or claims they are wanting to make.

(Full disclosure: Miroslav and Matthew are at Yale, and were there when I earned my doctorate; the former was a teacher, the latter a fellow student and friend. Take that for what it's worth. Here on out I'll call them V&C.)

Consider the following quotes (bolded emphases all mine):

• "execution of the central theological task requires a certain kind of affinity between the life the theologian seeks to articulate and the life the theologian seeks to lead." (118)
• "an affinity between theologians' lives and the basic vision of the true life that they seek to articulate is a condition of the adequacy of their thought." (119)
• "It would be incongruous for theologians to articulate and commend as true a life that they themselves had no aspiration of embracing. They would then be a bit like a nutritionist who won't eat her fruits and vegetables while urging her patients to do so." (120)
• "Misalignment between lives and visions ... is prone to undermine the veracity of [theologians'] work because it hinders their ability to adequately perceive and articulate these vision." (120)
• "living a certain kind of life doesn't determine the perception and articulation of visions, but only exerts significant pressure on them." (120)
• "Just as reasons, though important, don't suffice to embrace a vision of the good life, so reasons, though even more important, don't suffice to discern how to live it out. Our contention is that an abiding aspirational alignment of the self with the vision and its values is essential as well." (122)
• "[it is a requirement] that there be affinity between the kind of life theologians aspire to live and the primary vision they seek to articulate." (122)
• "Only those who are and continue to be 'spiritual' can ... perceive 'spiritual things.'" (125)
• "[An ideal but impossible claim would be] that only the saints can potentially be true theologians." (129)
• "Consequently, we argue for an affinity, rather than a strict homomorphy, of theologians' lives with the primary Christian vision of flourishing (always, of course, an affinity with the primary vision as they understand it)." (129)
• "Imperfect lives, imperfect articulations of the true life—yet lives that strive to align themselves with Christ's—and articulation that, rooted in this transformative striving, seek to serve Christ's mission to make the world God's home: this sort of affinity of life with the true life is what's needed for theologians to do their work well." (134)
• "Truth seeking is a constitutive dimension of living the true life; and living the true life—always proleptically and therefore aspirationally—is a condition of the search for its truthful articulation." (137)

It seems to me that there are a number of claims, actual or potential, interlaced and overlaid in these quotes. Consider the following, all of which are technically compatible but only some of which, I'm convinced, V&C want to affirm:

1. The best theologian will be a saint, i.e., a baptized believer whose life is maximally faithful to Christ.
2. All theologians ought to strive to be saints.
3. All theologians ought to strive to align their lives with their articulated vision of faithfulness to Christ.
4. Saints are likelier to be better theologians than those who are not.
5. A necessary but not sufficient condition of faithful theology is sainthood, that is, faithfulness to Christ.
6. A necessary but not sufficient condition of faithful theology is imperfect but real alignment between the life of a theologian and his or her articulation of faithfulness to Christ.
7. One of the criteria for evaluating a theologian's proposals and arguments is the lived faithfulness to Christ on the part of the theologian in question.
8. One of the criteria for evaluating a theologian's proposals and arguments is the alignment between that theologian's life with his or her articulation of faithfulness to Christ.

 It seems to me that the mainstream or majority Christian theological tradition would affirm claims 1 through 4. Some today would quibble with one or more of them, especially claim 4 (e.g., Paul Griffiths would say that, in via at least, those who are not yet sanctified may either have intellectual gifts greater than the saint—which is true—or have a perspective on the faith, say, as an outsider or a sinner, that the saint lacks—which, prima facie, seems more questionable). But the questions really come with claims 5 through 8.

Is it truly a condition of theology done well that the person making the theological proposals be herself (even somewhat) faithful either to Christ or to her understanding of Christ's will? Is such faithfulness, moreover, a legitimate criterion for evaluating said proposals—so that, if we knew of the theologian's utter unfaithfulness (even attempted), such knowledge would thereby falsify or disqualify her proposals outright?

I remain unpersuaded either that V&C really mean to make either of these claims or that either of them is a good idea.

It seems to me that V&C are making a materially prescriptive argument—"this is how theology ought to be done and how theologians ought to understand their work"—underwritten by a generically descriptive argument—"the sort of practice theology is and the sort of subject it is about means necessarily that it is self-involving in a manner different from algebra or astronomy"—but not anything more. We should not, I repeat not, include our judgments of the character of theologians' lives in our evaluation of their ideas, proposals, and arguments. If a serial adulterer were to write an essay against adultery, and meant it (i.e., it was not an exercise in deception), the thesis, the reasons offered in support, and the argument as a whole would not be correctly evaluated in connection with the author's sins. They would stand or fall on the merits. Such an author is precisely analogous to the comparison V&C make to the nutritionist: she is not wrong to recommend fruits and vegetables; she is merely a hypocrite.

And here's the kicker: All theologians are hypocrites. That's what makes them uniformly unsaintly, even those canonized after the fact. For saints are recognized postmortem, not in their lifetime. And that for good reason.

(I should add: It's even odder, in my view, to say that theologians' work should be judged in accordance with the affinity between their lives and their ideas, rather than their lives and the gospel as such. Barth and Tillich and Yoder, for example, all offered ample justification in their work for their misdeeds. Properly understood, however, their actions were wrong and unjustifiable regardless of the reasons they offered, precisely because they are and ought to be measured against that which is objective—the moral law, the will of God—not their own subjective understanding of it or their rationalization in the face of its challenge.)

So it is true that there should be an affinity between theologian's lives and ideas. Theologians of Christ should imitate Christ in their lives. And it is plausible to believe that their theology might improve as a result: that their vision into the things of God might prove clearer as a consequence.

But the unfaithful write good and true theology, too, and have done so since time immemorial. We ought to consider such theology in exactly the way we do all theology. For it is up to us to judge the theology only. God will judge the theologian.