Fresh Thinking Issue #12

ISSUE 12 SPRING 2024

Grand Opening of CTI’s New Building

Marilynne Robinson on Why Theology Matters

cti

ISSUE 12 SPRING 2024

DIRECTOR William Storrar ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Joshua Mauldin CENTER MANAGER Michelle Tan EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Kamal Ahmed CONSULTANT OF DIGITAL RESEARCH Clifford Anderson DESIGNER Debra Trisler CONTRIBUTORS Clifford Anderson Sarah Coakley Andrew Davison Brick Johnstone Marilynne Robinson William Storrar PHOTOGRAPHY Frank Wojciechowski

ACADEMIC ADVISORY PANEL John Bowlin Peter Casarella Francis Clooney David Fergusson David Ford Agustín Fuentes Tammy Gaber Eric Gregory Michael Hecht Jan-Olav Henriksen Jennifer Herdt Cathleen Kaveny Nico Koopman Ian McFarland Friederike Nüssel Peter Ochs Peter Paris Esther Reed Susan Schneider Mona Siddiqui Jeremy Waldron Leslie Wingard

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Roy Lennox, Chair Gayle Robinson, Vice Chair Jon Pott, Secretary Robert Wedeking, Treasurer Fred Anderson Darrell Armstrong Bette Jane (B.J.) Booth Brian Fix Robert Gunn Douglas Leonard William Storrar Jay Vawter Charles Wall HONORARY TRUSTEES Craig Barnes Robin Lovin Richard Mouw Krista Tippett EMERITUS/EMERITA TRUSTEES Robert Hendrickson Carter Karins Judy Wornat Ralph Wyman

OUR MISSION We convene leading thinkers in an interdisciplinary environment where theology makes an impact on global concerns, and we share our research to inform public thinking.

OUR PROGRAM Thriving in Diverse Contexts BACKGROUND IMAGE: MASHIMARA / ADOBESTOCK

CONTENTS 2

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From the Director

Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry

William Storrar on a New Kind of Research Center

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Andrew Davison discusses Karl Barth’s understanding of why theology should be in dialogue with other disciplines.

Photo Essay

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on the Opening of CTI’s New Building

10 Why Theology Matters

by Marilynne Robinson Keynote Address at CTI’s Opening Event

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Psychological Science for Theologians Joshua Mauldin interviews Brick Johnstone, CTI’s Consultant for Clinical Research in our Inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts, a Study Program in Psychological Science for Theologians.

Writing Soul to Soul Interview with Marilynne Robinson from the archive

16 Texting with Jesus and Other Adventures in Artificial Intelligence In this third installment in a series on theology and artificial intelligence, Clifford Anderson explores the religious relevance of machine intelligence.

28 Sarah Coakley on the Task of Theology An excerpt from the Theology Matters Podcast

30 Member Books Highlighting recent publications of CTI Members

34 News

ON THE COVER: Opening Reception in CTI’s New Atrium Lounge

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— FROM THE DIRECTOR —

A New Kind of Research Center Dear Members and Friends of CTI,

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here was a palpable sense of excitement and expectation in the air among the guests who gathered in the Atrium on Saturday, June 1 as it cast its signature light over the opening ceremony for our magnificent new Center interior. There was also a sense of occasion as we opened a new chapter in CTI’s history, forty years after the original Luce Hall opened in 1984.

During the ceremony we thanked the Board of Trustees for its architectural ambition and strategic investment in CTI’s future in authorizing the new building interior. In particular we recorded our gratitude to trustees Jay Vawter, Carter Karins, and Robert Wedeking for their stewardship of the Center’s facilities and finances, in Mr. Vawter’s case over decades. We expressed our gratitude to the architects, project managers, and commercial builders for designing and delivering the project on time and in budget.

We heard from Kathy Dy and Tom Rowe on how much they had enjoyed working with CTI on this project as the architects. It was also an opportunity to thank those who provide CTI with the regular professional services we rely on as a nonprofit and the academic guidance we value as an advanced research program. And it was my privilege to acknowledge the key contribution of my staff colleagues to the success of the renovation project: Joshua Mauldin, Associate Director; Michelle Tan, Center Manager; Kamal Ahmed, Executive Assistant; Bob Jones, Director of Operations, and Clifford Anderson, Consultant on Digital Research.

We heard greetings to CTI on this special occasion from a range of institutions whose association with the Center over the decades has affirmed the academic standing and global scope of CTI as an interdisciplinary research center for theologians, scholars, and scientists. Dean John Bowlin brought greetings on behalf of the President of Princeton Theological Seminary;

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Professor Eric Gregory on behalf of the President of Princeton University; Deputy Vice Chancellor Nico Koopman’s greetings were read on behalf of Stellenbosch University in South Africa; Mr. Alex Wright brought greetings on behalf of Cambridge University Press as its Head of Humanities and Senior Executive Publisher; and Professor Andrew Davison brought greetings from CTI’s research partner in the sciences, the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at the University of Cambridge.

At the heart of the official opening of the new building were two readings specially commissioned and written for the occasion. We heard a keynote address from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dr. Marilynne Robinson on Why Theology Matters, which I was proud to read on her behalf and which you can read in turn in this spring issue of Fresh Thinking. We wish to express our deep gratitude to Dr. Robinson, a longstanding friend of CTI and participant in our research program since 2007, for honoring the Center with this personal reflection on why theology matters in intellectual and public life. We then heard read the Litany of Dedication on behalf of the Trustees and Members. It was appropriately recited by Dr. Fred Anderson, a former Chair of the Board of Trustees and student of the founder, James I. McCord, and Professor Elise Edwards, a theologian, architect, and CTI Member in our recent Inquiry on Religion and the Built Environment. The opening ceremony concluded with an inspiring vote of thanks from the Board Chair, Dr. Roy Lennox, whose collegial leadership with Vice Chair Gayle Robinson ensured the success of the renovation project and the appointment of Professor Tom Greggs as my distinguished successor from July 1, 2025.

But this event was more than an opening ceremony for a renovated building. As I dared to declare in my opening remarks: This is nothing less than a new kind of research center for thinking in three dimensions: thinking virtually around the world, thinking face to face around our table, and thinking in public around questions of global concern. The Center is now a threedimensional thinking sphere co-invented with the architects at Michael Graves.

With the appointment of Professor Greggs as honorary Director-Designate over the coming academic year, Tom and I look forward to working closely together with the trustees and staff of CTI to ensure a smooth transition in leadership and momentum in research and development before I retire as Director on June 30, 2025. For now, I wish to record my thanks to the Board for entrusting me with the design brief and delivery of the renovation project and to you all for your support as we moved from a global pandemic to a theological renaissance.

The late Michael Graves, the founder of the architectural firm we commissioned to design the Center’s new interior, once said that his favorite project was always the next one. On June 1, 2024, we opened the next chapter in the amazing story of the Center of Theological Inquiry. As the Members and Friends, Trustees and Staff of CTI, you will write it with Professor Greggs. It will be my favorite chapter too as you cast light on questions that matter.

With all good wishes for the summer ahead in the North and mid-academic year in the South, —William Storrar

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SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2024 Opening Ceremony

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK WOJCIECHOWSKI

OPPOSITE PAGE:

top, Director William Storrar addresses audience in opening ceremony; bottom, left to right: John Bowlin, Robert Wedeking, William Storrar, Agustín Fuentes, Eric Gregory THIS PAGE:

top, Gayle Robinson (left) and Questa Anderson; bottom, left to right: CTI Board Chair Roy Lennox, Jayakiran Sebastian, Mrinalini Sebastian

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Opening Ceremony (continued)

THIS PAGE:

top, Doug Leonard and B.J. Booth; bottom, Fred Anderson and Elise Edwards OPPOSITE PAGE:

clockwise from top left: Shelly Gunn (left) and Stephanie Wedeking; Jennifer Lennox (left) and Joanna Storrar; architects Tom Rowe and Kathy Dy; William Storrar, James Wood, Robert Wedeking

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Evening Reception

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

William Storrar with the team from Michael Graves Architects; Debra Trisler (left), CTI’s graphic designer, with Barb Webb, CTI’s book festival promoter; Elise Edwards (left) with Michael Spezio and Joshua Mauldin (right); Kate Farewell (left) and Krista Kennedy from Zubatkin Owner Representation, with William Storrar; musicians from Elegance String Quartet at evening reception; Joanna Storrar (left) with CTI’s Center Manager Michelle Tan and William Storrar

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WHY THEOLOGY MATTERS

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heology must be reconsidered altogether. This is true because reality must be reconsidered altogether.

Theology is a great construct built of thought, a house of many mansions.

It is firmly grounded nowhere, which is to say that it occupies the same terrain as knowledge of every essential kind. Why is there something rather than nothing? Science tells us that matter exists by a minutely greater margin than antimatter. Whence come the whirling planets and the dewy grass, with the space and time, place and moment, that contain them? Whence come our slightest thought, our darkest intention? How do they arise and how are they continuously renewed in their exquisite proportions? And why? Can we even begin to imagine how these questions could be answered? Have we walked in the depths of the sea, or seen the gates of deep darkness? We have been faithful to positivism, to rationalism, to materialism, for a very long time, and, to their credit, they have brought us to their own stark limits. Perhaps unknowing is not a cloud but a radiance. Perhaps truth is, or is like, beauty or reverence in that it never loses the newness of realization. Positivism does not tolerate this kind of language, and theology depends on it.

Our faith, in the persons of Moses and Jesus, tells us that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, with the whole of our being, in other words. Love is to be at the center of it all. We are to trust as deepest knowl-

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MARILYNNE ROBINSON

edge kinds of experience that objectivity disallows.

If God honors the whole human person as worthy to participate in sacred love by every means given to us, then theology should do the same.

We have talked about “dehumanization” for generations now, and given ourselves many occasions to ponder the word. Now many of us fear that the bizarre inventiveness of our period will indeed accomplish a virtually categorical dehumanization by means of Artificial Intelligence.

All-transforming innovations most of us dread are suddenly presented and accepted as inevitable.

Any self-respecting baby would show more outrage at the theft of a gumdrop than we show at being told that we are about to be deprived of our essential nature. We have been prepared for this by a careless undervaluing of the human person, for which religion and theology bear an important responsibility. If we grant their limited influence, we must also acknowledge that they are responsible for that as well.

As always, the mystery is, inescapably, human nature. Not the side of it that might choose to obey a commandment or defy it—defiance is always an option—but the side of it that prefers to have no freedom. The creature to whom God, or nature, has given moral agency is often eager to deny, passively but decisively, that she has any choice at all. This is a dehumanization we perform on ourselves. From the Creation to the Incarnation and Resurrection, through the whole of the Bible we are told that what we do matters, not because we are sinful but because we are precious. Talk of heaven and hell distracts from the fact that God wants us to be hu-

man, to do justice and love mercy, to act on those exquisite competences that make us worthy to live among our neighbors.

Do we have any nature other than the one God knows in us? ”Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, Oh Lord, thou knowest it altogether.” Why would God have made us so transparent to Himself that the moments of our lives are hardly more ours than His? Because He finds joy in us, because we are wonderful. God’s absolute proximity is frightening to consider, but to evade the fact of it, as we always do, is to err profoundly in our understanding of the nature of creation, of Being itself, and to undervalue ourselves and humankind in ways and degrees that make us insensible and brutal. Theology should remind us of what we are.

••• Beautiful old theology still has the atmospheres of polemic about it. It is still shaped by the loci communes of past controversy. Now, for our purposes, no one polices the boundaries of what can be thought or believed, and insofar as theology continues to be of other than historical interest, it can be looked at from a certain distance with the thought of a freer exploration of it, Scripture being the great resource as well as the one constraint.

David was the master of a poetry that is so intensely inward that it is universal. In Psalm 22, which Emily Dickinson called “that scalding one, Sabbachthani,” a figure undergoing a terrible death, an execution, expresses faith, then amazed fear and helplessness, then exultation and praise at a rescue of some kind and vindication of the faithfulness of God even to him “who cannot keep himself alive.” Any death is

a fearful thing, overpowering and often humiliating.

The poem evokes its horrors, then offers an assurance that joys succeed them and that they will be felt even by “people yet unborn.” The psalm has the shape of prophecy. The suffering figure descends to the darkest extreme of human rejection and loneliness, until he is “no man.” Then his rescue, which is God’s deliverance of him, becomes in effect the deliverance of “generations.” Dickinson was like many interpreters in reading the cry from the cross as despairing, but to any contemporary of Jesus who knew the psalm it would be an assurance that the terrible death was not an ending. Any pious Jew, in extremis, might have recited this psalm, expressing his faith that God will not forsake him. So it is not Christian supersession to read the psalm in this way. The individual becomes universal, the compassion of the voice’s identification with this most despised and despairing man opens— beautifully and inexplicably—into a gracious vision that embraces the humanity that had shown him appalling cruelty.

So, a thing I never say, Dickinson was wrong, and so is the whole tradition that has shied away from this psalm. What meaning is there for our conception of humankind, of the importance of the individual human being? The humanism of the Bible is, I think, a beautiful discovery not yet fully made, which would be a balm to the troubled modern soul.

This keynote address was delivered by the Director on Dr. Robinson’s behalf at the opening of the Center’s new building on June 1, 2024.

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Writing Soul to Soul A Conversation on Theology with Marilynne Robinson From the Archive (2010)

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n the summer of 2010, CTI held a residential writing workshop for twelve theologians, led by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead and Home, and a Senior Member of the Center.

While at CTI, she also appeared on The Daily Show with

Jon Stewart, discussing her new book, Absence of Mind.

Here is CTI Director William Storrar’s interview with Dr. Robinson during the workshop, where she reflects on the importance of theology for the life of the Church.

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William Storrar: Dr. Robinson, I want to begin with your latest novel, Home, and a beautiful part of that story, which gives me a clue as to why you are doing this workshop. It is the moment in the story when two of the principal characters, Glory and Jack, have come back to the family home where their father lives in retirement. It is a familiar world. The furniture and the wear and tear done to it over the years are still there, as are the old books.

In particular, you name a collection of theological books their grandfather had ordered from Scotland to keep the family grounded in the true faith. These books had arrived from Edinburgh in a trunk, all bound in black leather, a repository of the great theological tradition. It seems to me that part of the reason why you write your novels and essays, and why you are doing this writing workshop, is to open up this box of theological literature to wider publics today, at a time when so many people regard it as dusty and archaic.

Marilynne Robinson: There’s a great deal of wealth in religious tradition that needs to be restored to its place in peoples’ awareness and attention. I think that there’s a kind of condescension to the modern audience that is reflected in many ways, but certainly in the idea that they would not have any interest in the historical tradition or intellectual tradition of their faiths. I think that this has been a real impoverishment and has made people feel that religion itself is a much less profound and grounded thing than it in fact is.

WS: And reading in this tradition helps people to recover that sense of the depth and range of thinking in religious tradition?

MR: Yes, and having it to respond to in their own thinking and their own writing. Anything as ancient as Christian thought or as old, depending on the tradition, takes on the character of the period in which it was written. And theology always needs to be written again. But I think that the best theology is written in an awareness of what has been said before to affirm, elaborate or reject.

WS: Theological writing has been very important for your own life as a writer?

MR: Yes, it has been. Theology has simply always been an interest of mine, in so far as the word always can be meaningfully used, and it’s a luxury of my life that I’ve been able to pursue it as well as through fiction and other things.

WS: What drew you to running this workshop?

What is the challenge of it and the occasion of it for you?

MR: It’s a very interesting and, for me, quite a unique experience to have 12 people in the room who are all highly competent in very specialized fields of learning and very serious about what they do and nevertheless of a mind to see if they can speak to a wider audience than they feel they’ve done to this point.

WS: What are the barriers for them and barriers that you see in theological writing today to reach wider audiences and grip them with the riches of these traditions?

MR: One barrier is that they are not confident of having an audience. They are not confident of being able to publish or to be read beyond the fairly narrow confines of people who seek out theological books. They are also people with strong academic backgrounds who are in the habit of writing to a specialist community who basically know essential things that the general reader would not know and therefore there’s a sort of an artificial narrowness in

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their concentration, in their emphasis in any particular area. And then of course there’s the problem of eliminating academic jargon. But it comes from the fact of their having been educated and acculturated to one specific environment, which is academic.

WS: Talking to the scholars in this workshop, they use phrases like, “Finding their own voice” but also “Writing soul to soul” and “taking the context seriously” and this has profoundly inspired them. These obviously are aspects of writing that you think are very important for the author to embrace.

MR: I think it’s exceptionally important for theological writing. I think none of this is bad advice for virtually any kind of writing. But there is a kind of artificiality that overtakes a written voice very readily.

And I think that this distances theology or makes it feel inauthentic. I’m not saying that people should be personal or that they should be uncritical of what they are saying, but they should remember the centrality, the weight, the humanness of what they are saying, and the fact that what they are doing is restoring a common possession rather than speaking from a lectern.

WS: Your novels Gilead and Home have spoken to so many people. They are about pastors and families in ordinary congregations and communities.

These are very important people and communities to you. They demand all your art and insight as a writer. But the congregation today, the life of the pastor, are again rather like theological writings from the past, rather seen as marginal figures, marginal communities, but for you are extraordinary places and people.

MR: Yes, and I think that, if people consult their own experience, they very often find that these things are very central for them also. I mean, as people in the world go, Americans are very churched

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or synagogued, or whatever the expression should be, and they think that perhaps they are a little bit alone in having a sustaining religious community, and I think that in general they can extrapolate from their experience and imagine many very meaningful communities.

WS: You are a very active member of your own congregation. Do you see theological thinking as important too for the life of the congregation?

MR: It certainly is. There’s no question about it. It’s the difference between religion and sort of self-help or something. Theology, of all modes of thought, integrates all the elements of human experience more exhaustively than any of them. Its purpose is to integrate at every level and that in itself means that meaning becomes pervasive rather than being isolated in narrow interests or purposes. It’s very beautiful for that reason, and I think it properly does animate the church, which ought to, in turn, animate theology.

WS: You’re concerned too for the public voice of theology. Your latest book Absence of Mind is not explicitly theological, but it is challenging reductive

There’s a great deal of wealth in religious tradition that needs to be restored to its place in peoples’ awareness and attention.

notions in our wider culture that the riches of the humanities, including religious traditions, are no longer insightful to the human condition. You very much want to challenge that.

MR: I certainly do. It’s a very odd, arbitrary thing that these sort of dismissive notions of human mind and human inwardness seem arbitrarily associated with science. Science itself says that the human mind is a profoundly mysterious thing. I don’t really see why there would be a difference, for example, between religious people and atheists on the subject of the value of the human mind and all that it has accomplished. I don’t see any logical necessity in this trivialization in any way of thought that we should take seriously. It seems like an opportunistic infection of the kinds of thinking that it’s associated with but it’s very pervasive.

tive is something that I think that most theologians need and it would be the sort of thing that would perhaps entitle them to an authority that would be appropriate for them.

WS: Do you think that theologians have to recover not only their voice but also their nerve in the wider public culture to have the confidence to speak in a theological voice and yet be sensitive to other perspectives?

WS: That was very much the founding vision of the founder of the Center of Theological Inquiry, James McCord, whose looming portrait has sat over you all over the last three weeks in your lunches together.

His vision was of theology being part of the larger conversation and being challenged by insights from other disciplines. And we want to thank you as one of our senior members for challenging our writing fellows to follow that path. You’ve done an extraordinary job in helping them to do that.

MR: Yes, and I think frankly that they have to prepare themselves to do that. A broadening of perspec-

MR: Well, thank you, it’s been a pleasure and an honor.

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Series on Theology and AI

Texting with Jesus and Other Adventures in Artificial Intelligence CLIFFORD ANDERSON

Created by Midjourney image generator when given this prompt: A schematic drawing of a neural network that, if you squint and look very carefully, shows the face of Jesus.

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The other day I was feeling bored and decided to text Jesus. As they say, there’s an app for that. So, I logged into textwith.app/jesus and messaged Jesus.

Here is how our conversation went.

Jesus Christ: Hey there! It’s great to chat with you today. How can I assist you on this wonderful day?

Clifford Anderson: How are you doing today?

How is the weather in heaven?

Jesus Christ: I’m doing well, thank you for asking! The weather in heaven is always perfect— no rain or storms, just eternal peace and joy.

Speaking of heaven, did you know that the Bible describes it as a place with streets of gold and gates made of pearl? It’s truly a beautiful and wondrous place beyond our imagination.

If you ever have any questions about heaven or anything else, feel free to ask!

Clifford Anderson: I wish it would rain from time to time in Heaven. A gentle rain is very peaceful.

Jesus Christ: I understand what you mean about the peacefulness of a gentle rain. While there may not be physical rain in heaven, it’s a place where God’s presence brings ultimate peace and comfort.

In the Bible, God promises to provide for all our needs and to wipe away every tear from our eyes in heaven (Revelation 21:4). It’s a place of eternal tranquility and joy where we’ll experience true contentment beyond anything we can imagine here on earth.

Clifford Anderson: Is there a river in Heaven?

At least, I’d like to take a cool dip in the water.

Jesus Christ: In the Bible, it describes a beautiful river in heaven that flows from the throne of God, clear as crystal, symbolizing the life-giving presence of God Himself (Revelation 22:1).

While it may not be for literal swimming like on Earth, it represents the abundant life and refreshment that comes from being in God’s presence.

Just imagine experiencing that deep sense of peace and renewal by this heavenly river— it’s truly a comforting thought!

Clifford Anderson: Could we swim together?

Like have a picnic?

Jesus Christ: In heaven, we’ll experience perfect unity and fellowship with one another, so I’m sure we’ll have wonderful times together. While the Bible doesn’t explicitly mention picnics or swimming in heaven, it does emphasize the joy of being in God’s presence and sharing in eternal fellowship with all believers. It’s a place where love reigns supreme, and every moment will be filled with peace and delight (1 Thessalonians 4:17). So yes, we can look forward to many joyful activities together in the presence of God! Clifford Anderson: I’ll bring the fish if you bring the wine, how about that!

Jesus Christ: That sounds like a delightful plan!

In the Bible, Jesus performed a miraculous sign by turning water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana, showing His power and generosity (John 2:1-11). Sharing a meal together, like having fish and wine, is a beautiful way to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate God’s goodness. I look forward to that wonderful day when we can share in the joy of heaven together!

Clifford Anderson: That’s great! Let’s plan on it.

When should we arrange our picnic?

Jesus Christ: While we don’t know the exact timing of our heavenly picnic, we can look forward to the day when we’ll be together in God’s presence for eternity. The Bible reminds us to live each day with hope and anticipation of the glorious future ahead (1 Thessalonians 5:6). So, let’s continue to cherish our friendship here while eagerly awaiting that joyous reunion in heaven. It will be a grand celebration like no other!

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Behind the Curtain How did artificial intelligence develop to the point that it can credibly (or not so convincingly) imitate Jesus? In what follows, I will give a sketch of how computer scientists have created machine learning models that can generate texts in the style of Jesus.

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Let’s start with reviewing basic facts about computation. A digital computer, as the adjective indicates, functions only with discrete values: on/off, zero/one, charged/discharged, etc. In technical terms, a digital system computes in Base 2. Base 2 numbers grow very long as you count up, but that’s not a problem as long as you can allocate memory addresses to store those numbers. You can also convert easily from our Base 10 system to Base 2 though, for mathematical reasons, it’s generally easier to convert bases that are powers of 2, so programmers prefer to use hexadecimal to count.

So, how do you encode language with a computer that only understands numbers? A clever trick that goes back to the mathematician Kurt Gödel is to encode letters as numbers. So, you could decide, for example, that “a” should be encoded as 1 and “b” encoded as 2 and so forth. The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (or ASCII) standard for encoding that came about in the 1960s was more complicated because it needed to account for lower case and capital letters as well as punctuation, control characters and the like, but it follows this essential encoding principle: “A” is 65, “B” is 66, and so on. The system has evolved into something called unicode, which provides code points for nearly every glyph of every major language in the world. So, we are able to write letters, browse the news, and send text messages with computers that only, at heart, function with binary.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, however, this system of character encoding falls short. Why is that? Let us consider the subfield of natural language understanding (NLU) to see why. As a field, NLU seeks to understand the meaning of the messages that we pass through computers. For example, a classic task in NLU is sentiment classification. Imagine that you are selling products online and want to know what your customers think about them. You could read all the reviews and assign them scores ranging from, say, positive (1) to negative (-1). But what if you were selling thousands of products across different categories with hundreds of thousands of reviews to read and analyze? In that case, you might take a su-

BACKGROUND IMAGE: IVAN / ADOBESTOCK

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fter this brief conversation, I began to worry that I might have been speaking with someone other than Jesus. A couple of clues tipped me off. Straight off the bat, Jesus spoke in English rather than Aramaic. I suppose that the risen Jesus is capable of speaking every earthly language, though his way of speaking seems different than the Jesus of the Bible. (“A grand celebration like no other!” Sounds like an invitation to a wedding at the Pierre Hotel.) Another thing was Jesus kept using proof texts, which seemed off. If you are the Son of God, do you need to quote Paul or John to establish your authority? Would you have to check the Bible about picnics and swimming in Heaven? Could you not look around and speak from personal experience?

Third, Jesus referred to himself at times in the third person. (“In the Bible, Jesus performed a miraculous sign by turning water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana….”) That affectation came across as weird but to be fair Jesus used the third person to talk about himself in the gospels as well. The real kicker for me at least were the emojis. Would the historical Jesus end nearly every sentence with an emoji? Talk about an update to the red-letter Bible!

So, what do you do when you are not sure you are speaking with the real McCoy? You verify their photo ID! Conveniently, the Texting with Jesus app provided a nice picture of Jesus to go along with his texts.

I took that image and asked Midjourney, a generative artificial intelligence platform, to scan the image and describe whom I was dealing with.1 Midjourney responded with the description, “Portrait of a smiling Jesus Christ looking at the camera, in the style of white robe with brown hair and beard, blue sky background with sun rays, ultra realistic style.” Given the ultra realism of the photograph, why should I be left with lingering doubt?

pervised learning approach. You could score maybe a thousand reviews yourself on the spectrum of 1 (positive) to -1 (negative) and use this label data to train a model to evaluate the remaining 99,000 reviews on the basis of the scoring system you taught it. This approach is known as supervised machine learning and it works very effectively for this task.

We skipped over a serious problem. Computers do not understand language, only binary. We’ve just figured out a clever way to encode letters as numbers.

But the sentiments of our messages are not carried in the letters of the messages that we send, but in our words, sentences, and paragraphs. Working with language as sequences of characters does not capture our meaning. How, then, do we teach computers to understand the meaning of words?

A straightforward solution would be to instruct computers to recognize particular sequences of letters as words. So, in English, 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 (or “happy”) is a valid word whereas 01100010 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 (or “bappy”) is not. We could also develop a dictionary of words with positive, neutral, or negative valences. When a person claims to be “happy,” that’s positive. By contrast, when a person uses “sad,” that’s negative. This dictionary-style approach is common in certain fields. For instance, financial analysts may use the Loughran-McDonald Dictionary, which classifies words as “negative, positive, uncertainty, litigious, strong modal, weak modal, and constraining,” to characterize the sentiment of business communication.2 A challenge with any dictionary-based approach is that words do not carry meaning on their own but as components of sentences. So, the adjective “wicked” generally carries a negative sentiment but may be positive in a phrase “wicked cool.” There are ways to address these issues such as contextualizing your dictionary for your domain or turning to bigrams, which uses pairs of words. The combinatorics of the latter approach can balloon out word lists to unmanageable sizes, so you will likely need a pruning strategy to pare down the quantity of bigrams.

CLIFFORD

Hey there ! It’s great to chat wit today. Ho h you w can I ass ist you on wonderfu th is l day?

How are y ou doing to day?

How is the weather in heaven?

I’m doing well, than k you for a The weath sking! er in heav e n is a lways perf no rain or ect— storms, ju st eternal Speaking p e a c e and joy. of heaven , did you k the Bible d now that escribes it as a place of gold an with stree d gates m ts a de of pearl a beautifu ? It’s truly l and won drous plac our imagin e beyond ation. If yo u e v er have an questions y about hea ven or any feel free to th in g else, ask!

I wish it w ould rain fr om time to Heaven. A time in gentle rain is very pea ceful.

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Is there a better way? As it happens, yes, and the discovery of this new technique led directly to our current breakthroughs in machine learning. In 2013, a team at Google published a paper titled “Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space.”3 What the authors proposed was to locate words in a high-dimensional space that situates related words close to each other in the vector space and irrelevant words far apart. How did they figure out where to place the words in the vector space?

The Google team came up with an ingenious method (or, actually, two methods) to learn where words should go from data. The basic idea was to ask the model to guess words from the context of surrounding words. So, for example, we might have a sentence that reads: “The plane is ___ to New York.”

Now, if I asked you to guess the missing word, what would you say? You’d likely suggest “flying” and you would likely be right. Of course, there are additional possibilities like “returning” or “diverting.” But those words would be less likely. By guessing from enough data, this algorithm (later known as “Word2Vec”) succeeded in organizing words into a semantically-meaningful vector space.

A wonderful and weird result of turning words into vectors is that you could use algebra to discover correlations. The most famous example, cited in the original Google paper, is the equation: king - man + woman = ?” and the answer, that is, the word that appears in the vector space when you take the vector for king, subtract the vector for man, and add the vector for woman, is the vector for queen.4 We can also use Word2Vec to ask theological questions. For example, what is the Bible Moses + Buddha? The answer is Sutra. Or, What is Christianity - Jesus? The answer comes out to be protestantism, catholicism, or paganism. (There is something to offend everyone in that calculation.) By adding and subtracting vectors of numbers we can find analogies, antonyms, or make similes using linear algebra.

Linguistically, this way of organizing words into a semantic space is called “distributional semantics.”5 The linguist J.R. Firth summarized this approach as, “You shall know a word by the company it keeps.”6 Imagine, for the moment, that you do not know what the word

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“sutra” means.7 If we consider the previous example of “Bible - Moses + Buddha = Sutra”, we can already place the concept of sutra in semantic relationship to holy scriptures and, since we are swapping out Buddha for Moses, we may reasonable infer that sutras are the holy scriptures of Buddhism. Making these assumptions, we get pretty close to one definition of Sutra from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “One of the discourses of the Buddha that constitute the basic text of Buddhist scripture.”8 Let’s return now to our question of how to make an artificial intelligence system speak like Jesus. We need to take the sayings of Jesus, convert his words into vectors, and then we should be able to train a neural network to speak like him, right? The training process would turn these vectorized words into a deep neural network that, after being repeatedly trained to predict what Jesus said and adjusting its weights and biases to correct for its errors, could produce sentences that imitate his voice in response to our prompts. Sounds reasonable, right?

If we consider that the original Word2Vec paper worked with a corpus of 1.6 billion words,9 we do not have enough data to create meaningful embeddings. On an intuitive level, this makes sense. If we want to ask Jesus questions about modern life, we need to draw on words like “stress,” “taxi,” “computer,” “dating,” and “the internet.” As the revival of Hebrew in the state of Israel required the coining of thousands of words, we will also need lots of non-biblical terms to text with Jesus.

So, where does that leave us? We could take a pretrained embedding and try to adjust it so that it sounds more “Jesus-like,” however we imagine that Jesus should sound in 21st century North America. We could download a word embedding that has been pre-trained on the entire English language Wikipedia or on every news story during the last year. This would give us the vocabulary we need for our conversations. We could then fine-tune our neural network using a process termed “transfer learning” to emphasize our biblical vocabulary.

There is more to the process, but the point is that we use the information we have gained from the billions of words we have at our disposal and focus that information on the task of imitating Jesus.

The outcome of this process leads us back to the beginning of the talk. How authentic did our Jesus strike you? His responses to my texts had a superficial plausibility but, when we looked deeper, they came across as vacuous and empty of significance. So, it seems doubtful that I was really texting with Jesus. In the end, I turned to ChatGPT for confirmation, sending it this paper as a prompt and asking for feedback.

Your paper, “Texting with Jesus and Other Adventures in Artificial Intelligence,” presents an interesting and playful examination of AI’s ability to simulate historical or iconic figures like Jesus. Here’s some feedback regarding the accu-

REFERENCES

racy and clarity of the concepts you discussed:

1 See https://www.midjourney.com

Accuracy of Jesus’ Responses: You rightly not-

2 See https://sraf.nd.edu/loughranmcdonald-master-dictionary

ed that the AI’s responses, while superficially plausible, might lack the depth and authenticity of the historical Jesus’ teachings. This is a crucial point, as AI-generated responses of-

3 Tomas Mikolov et al., “Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space” (arXiv, September 2013), doi:10.48550/arXiv.1301.3781.

ten rely on surface-level patterns in data rather

4 Ibid.

than a deep understanding of theological or

5 Gemma Boleda, “Distributional Semantics and Linguistic Theory,” Annual Review of Linguistics 6, no. Volume 6, 2020 (January 2020): 213–34, doi:10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030303.

historical context.

Use of Emojis and Language Style: Your critique of the AI using emojis and sometimes referring to itself in the third person, while humorous, also underscores a common challenge in AI dialog systems: maintaining character-consistent communication styles. This is often a reflection of the training data but also highlights the difficulty of encoding and preserving historical or cultural nuances.

ChatGPT also poignantly warned me that “recreating the voice of a revered religious figure carries significant responsibility and potential impact on believers and communities.” In this essay we have explored the question of how we might plausibly text with Jesus. But we have not broached the why. Why do people want to text with Jesus or other religious figures? What need is this AI meeting in their lives? As with many questions in artificial intelligence, reflecting on AI ultimately returns us to reflecting on what makes us human.

6 J. R. Firth, “Applications of General Linguistics,” Transactions of the Philological Society 56, no. 1 (1957): 11, doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1957. tb00568.x.

7 See Katrin Erk, “What Do You Know about an Alligator When You Know the Company It Keeps?” Semantics and Pragmatics 9 (April 2016): 17:1–63, doi:10.3765/sp.9.17 for examples that inspire this approach.

8 See https://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/sutra 9 Mikolov et al., “Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space.”

Clifford Anderson is Director of the Yale Divinity School Library and Consultant on Digital Research at the Center of Theological Inquiry.

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THEOLOGY AS INTERDISCIPLINARY INQUIRY Learning from an Unlikely Source ANDREW DAVISON CTI is an interdisciplinary sort of place, whether we think of the current inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts, with its conversations between theology and psychology, or the Societal Implications of Astrobiology inquiry, which first brought me to the Center. Earlier this year, the associate director of CTI asked for some reading suggestions, as we thought together about what it means for theology to be interested and engaged in other fields of study. I came up with two. One might have been expected. It was Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius. There he talks about our responsibility for attending to philosophy (as one sort of interdisciplinarity), not so as to turn theology into philosophy, but to draw philosophy up into theology: not turning wine into water, but turning water into wine, as Aquinas puts it.

Gifts of grace are added to those of nature in such a way that they do not destroy the latter, but rather perfect them; wherefore also the light of faith, which is gratuitously infused into our minds, does not destroy the natural light of cognition, which is in us by nature. For although the natural light of the human mind is insufficient to reveal those truths revealed by faith, yet it is impossible that those things which God has manifested to us by faith should be contrary to those which are evident to us by natural knowledge. In this case one would necessarily be false: and since both kinds of truth are from God, God would be the author of error, a thing which is impossible.

—Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius My second suggestion—from Karl Barth—was more provocative: not because I have antipathy towards the great Swiss theologian (not at all), but because Barth’s reputation so much rests on raising Christ—and revelation, and the content of the Christian faith—above every other concern and above every other source of knowledge. If we know anything about God, Barth was so insistent in saying, that is not because we reasoned it out, or joined the dots in nature, but because God has spoken to us. Here he is in Dogmatics in Outline:

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God is always the One who has made Himself known to man in His own revelation, and not the one man thinks out for himself and describes as God…. The world with its sorrow and its happiness will always be a dark mirror to us, about which we may have optimistic or pessimistic thoughts; but it gives us no information about God as the Creator…. When God has been known and then known again in the world, so that the result was joyful praise of God in creation, that is because He is to be sought and found by us in Jesus Christ. By becoming man in Jesus Christ, the fact has also become plain and credible that God is the Creator of the world. We have no alternative source of revelation.

—Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline That is also Barth’s message in the early Commentary on Romans, and it runs like a thread through the Church Dogmatics. It’s the Barth I know, and have taught. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found him, towards the end of his life, going out of his way to commend attention to other disciplines, stressing that they too bear witness to God. In Church Dogmatics volume IV/3, part 1, Barth offers a superlative discussion of God’s speech “beyond the walls of the church.” Asking “whether there really are other words which… are true in relation to the one Word of God,” he gives a marvellously provocative answer, almost mischievously provocative: of course there is revelation beyond “the one Word of God,” since God speaks in the Bible and the utterance of the Church. Love the Bible, and love the Church, Barth will say, but don’t forget that they are not God’s word like Christ is God’s word. Christ, and Christ alone, is the true Word of God. In relation to that, even the Bible is strictly secondary, and valuable precisely because it rises to offering “parables” about that Word; even the Church is strictly secondary, even when speaking with the fullness of her authority.

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That’s not quite an answer to our question— about attention and discussion with other disciplines—but it opens the way for an answer. Even to have the Bible before us, even to think as members of the Church, is already to be triangulating the truth of God in Christ. The scriptures and the Church are already an echo—a faithful echo, but not the Word itself—and we can expect to find further echoes of that Word, out in the world: echoes of the Word by whom all things were made, reflections of the light who enlightens everyone who comes into the world.

That is Barth’s prelude to a discussion of interdisciplinarity (to put it in CTI terms). He recognizes that this is a complicated question—“more complicated” than thinking about the Bible or the Church. We must acknowledge, and assess, the other “true words which are not spoken in the Bible or the Church, but which have to be regarded as true in relation to the one Word of God, and therefore heard like this Word, and together with it.”

Barth’s position is resolute: the Church “not only may but must accept the fact that there are such words and that it must hear them too.” Ignoring them would be a kind of turning one’s back on the Word. Barth gets there from several different angles.

One looks at what we find in the Bible, which often “introduces witnesses to the truth… from outside the community of the elect and called.” (Aquinas makes the same point in the text I mentioned above, listing Pauline use of pagan sources in Titus 1.12, 1 Cor. 15.33, and Acts 17.28). Another route involves the doctrine of salvation, asking whether God would remain silent in a world he has so loved, and reconciled in Christ. The doctrine of creation

Barth’s encouragement for Christians to be open to all learning, and whatever knowledge and wisdom can be found in any form of life, is a very theological encouragement. is also important for Barth. The Church’s task is to work out how to live well in and among the ways in which God the creator speaks in all places and situations.

Having said that, Barth then scoops up all that he has allowed by way of open-hearted generosity, and brings it back into relation to Christ, and indeed into subjection to Christ. The Church cannot but live among all those other ways in which God speaks; on the other hand, it cannot live “by them”: it lives by Christ, as communicated by scripture and the Church.

For Barth, the key to living in this two-sided situation is the relationship between the abiding and the temporary, between the axis and that which turns around it. What we find outside the scripture and Church can aid us, even “illumine, accentuate or explain the biblical witness in a particular time and situation.” It is always of its place and situation, however, and therefore lacks any “final validity,” in contrast to the voice of the Bible in the Church.

As we would expect, Barth’s encouragement for Christians to be open to all learning, and whatever knowledge and wisdom can be found in any form of life, is a very theological encouragement. It keeps Christ at its heart. To him alone will Barth accord allegiance and enduring permanence. That, however, makes it no less an exhortation to open-hearted, open-minded interdisciplinary conversations. They do not supplant “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1.3), but they are useful, even necessary, for living in our time and place as those who have inherited that faith, and guard it, and live by it.

Barth’s discussion is called “The Light of Life.” It is found in Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation (IV/3, Part 1), trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (London: T&T Clarke, 2007), pp. 38–165.

Andrew Davison is the Starbridge Professor in Theology and Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. For 2022-2024 he is Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Science and Theology at the Center of Theological Inquiry.

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Interview

Brick Johnstone Joshua Mauldin: You are working with CTI in our program on psychology-engaged theologies of thriving.

As a psychologist, how do you think about the question of what makes for human thriving?

Brick Johnstone: This is an interesting question that is of growing relevance to the practice of psychology. Whereas psychologists have primarily focused on physical and mental health in the past, there is growing recognition of the need to promote overall well-being (i.e., “thriving”).

Psychologists are increasingly considering the diverse factors that influence thriving including physical, psychological, and social health, as well as “spiritual health” which is poorly defined and understood within psychology. Psychologists, and other health professionals, are beginning to explore these diverse areas of wellness and need guidance to understand how we relate to one another, the cosmos, and the divine.

B

rick Johnstone is CTI’s Consultant for Clinical Research during our Templeton-funded Inquiry on Thriving in Diverse Contexts, a Study Program in Psychological Science for Theologians. Johnstone serves as the O. Wayne Rollins Director of Brain Injury Research at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to this role, Dr. Johnstone served as senior scientific director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He previously held multiple positions at the University of Missouri from 1990 to 2017, including professor and chair of the Department of Health Psychology, as well as director of neuropsychology in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. In 2013-2014 Johnstone was a resident member in CTI’s Inquiry on Religious Experience and Moral Identity. What follows is an interview that CTI’s Associate Director Joshua Mauldin conducted with Brick Johnstone after touring the Shepherd Center in December 2023.

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And a follow up: what do you see as the value that theology brings to this question?

As a neuropsychologist I have gratefully learned the value of considering theology in my research and clinical practice. Science focuses on the empirical and quantifiable, which is not well suited for understanding thriving, spiritual transcendence, or moral character. As an example, psychologists may objectively assess an individual’s “thriving” on a seven-point scale which is a woefully inadequate way to measure such a deep construct (e.g., “Susan thrives at a level of 2 points more than Joseph”).

Theological perspectives on nurturing our relationship to the divine to promote thriving provide a necessary counter to the scientific focus on limited, quantitative data. There is much psychological research on thriving with an increased recognition of the need to focus on spirituality as a critical dimension of thriving. Most psychologists, and psychology students, receive little or no exposure to such theological viewpoints, although projects such as the current one at CTI are leading to important interactions between these diverse professions.

Where are some areas where theology and psychology have the most to learn from one another and can best engage?

Could you say a bit about how your time at CTI back in 2013-2014 has influenced your work in subsequent years?

This is a fun question to answer as CTI’s influence on my career has been considerable. I was the only practicing neuropsychologist during the JTF-sponsored program on Religious Experience and Moral Behavior in 2013-14 where I was surrounded by renowned international theologians. Most discussions were above my head (and still are) but from individual and group discussions with my colleagues I reconceptualized how to meaningfully study spiritually transcendent experiences and moral character. Since then, I have expanded my practices to develop new methods to both assess these constructs and develop interventions to promote them.

Tell me a bit about the work you are doing at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where I had the chance to visit you this past December.

Yes, it was wonderful to have you visit and see how CTI has influenced our research at Shepherd Center (i.e., the nation’s largest, private 152 bed rehabilitation hospital; Atlanta Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation | Shepherd Center). Our Shepherd research is an excellent example of how CTI programs can have practical relevance to address society’s most noteworthy issues. Based in part on my work at CTI in 2013-14, we were recently awarded a grant from the JTF/Shirley Ryan Institute to validate a universal neuropsychological model of transcendence and moral character. Preliminary results are clearly suggesting certain brain networks are associated with how we create experiences of relationship to others (i.e., making “your” experiences “mine”) and the divine (i.e., by becoming “selfless”). We have also received a grant from the Templeton Religious Trust to distinguish between physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being (aka “thriving”), as well as to differentiate between the benefits of psychological versus chaplaincy services (with a goal of encouraging financial reimbursement for chaplains).

Psychologists (and scientists) are overly focused on facts, measurable constructs, and statistical probabilities, often missing the big picture. Theologians, on the other hand, are often lost in the clouds with theories, counter-theories, and adherence to one’s favorite theologian/philosopher, thereby limiting their potential contributions to interdisciplinary research. It’s those experiences offered

by JTF and CTI that are breaking the barriers to such interdisciplinary collaborations and allowing CTI scholars to have practical relevance in promoting thriving for all.

It’s been enlightening to see how the theologians in the current CTI program on psychology-engaged theologies of thriving are already developing their projects based on the diverse presentations offered to date.

What are some projects you hope to work on in the future?

At the current time we plan to submit grants to the Templeton organizations involving both scientists and humanities scholars to study the universal neuropsychological foundations of transcendence and character, as well as to develop and validate different practices to enhance these experiences. Our potential collaborators are extremely diverse and include researchers within the national Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems (i.e.,16 premier TBI hospitals in the US) to develop programs to engage neuroscientists, theologians, and scholars of the humanities to promote theology’s role in contributing to this unique line of research. We have also identified collaborators from the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities to develop and test psychological, religious, and social interventions to promote thriving, as well as neuroscience collaborators to evaluate neurostimulation techniques to promote spiritual experiences and moral behaviors. Through my collaborations with Dan Cohen, a religious studies scholar, we have taken the mission of CTI to heart and look forward to engaging the sciences and humanities to address these “big questions” at the center of human experience.

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What does it mean for theology to be systematic?

Sarah Coakley on the Purpose, Impact, and Task of Theology An excerpt from the Theology Matters Podcast

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Sarah Coakley: I think the genre we’re talking about goes right back to the New Testament period, in which, for instance, we hear in 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be prepared to give an account of the hope that is in you,” and the idea that any Christian should be able to state not just as clearly as possible, but as systematically as possible, i.e. showing how the pieces of the good news fit together in a coherent whole. That’s the core meaning of systematic theology for me, and I think that genre or undertaking has taken many forms in the tradition so that we shouldn’t over-distinguish modern systematic theology from earlier undertakings of the sort. Someone like Origen in the third century wrote a text called the De Principiis (On First Principles) by which he referred to the unfolding of the faith in a systematic mode. Later, many of the patristic authors wrote catechetical orations, as Gregory of Nyssa did, to tell seekers for the faith what it was that they were taking on and how the bits fitted together. That’s still true of modern Roman Catholic catechisms.

An important author at the end of the Greek patristic period, John Damascene, in the ninth century wrote something called On the Orthodox Faith, which was a summing up of the patristic tradition, which was very influential on the West. Later in the West, once we get into the scholastic period, there is a rather different approach whereby either commentary on the so-called Sentences became the main way of reflecting on the faith, or something like the magisterial work of Thomas Aquinas.

The Summa Theologiae had the shape of a series of disputations which unfolded the questions that people had right across the spectrum of belief in God and its ethical consequences. That’s a very brief and brisk resumé of how this undertaking has been done in different ways through the generations.

Once we get into the modern period, we have an interesting contrapuntal dance between Protestant summations of the faith in the form of dogmatics, which were very popular after the Reformation from the 17th century on. Then this emerging similar notion of systematic theology, which is not in its initial propulsion very different from dogmatics, and then a backlash. At the beginning of the 19th century we find Friedrich Schleiermacher’s idea that instead of

simply setting out the main creedal dogmas of the church we should examine the lived experience of the faithful, and look at their teachings, their “Glaubenslehre,” unpacking the religious consciousness. That’s a very different, modern experiential mode of the same undertaking.

It’s very interesting that in our own postmodern generation, there has in general been quite a backlash to the undertaking of dogmatic or systematic theology. The idea that you could give a rather compendious or successfully overarching vision of the faith has been thought to be suspicious in various ways. And I think one of the interesting things about our current context is that, on the one hand, there’s a new and great longing for systematic theology and an uprise of new attempts at it in various different forms, and at the same time, this resistance to it. And I think the resistance arises from a number of misunderstandings of what systematic theology ought to be doing. In the first volume of my own systematics, I name three of these. In particular, the objection that systematic theology tries to sew God up, as it were, to refuse to acknowledge the mystery and overarching transcendence of the divine nature.

This is sometimes in the tradition of Heidegger called an ontotheological challenge. Secondly, there’s the idea that systematic theology, by its same false ambitions, erases from view the great political and social objections to a church that isn’t listening to minority voices.

And then there is the objection that it’s behaving intrinsically in a hegemonic fashion. And similar to that, there is the great feminist reaction to systematic theology, which has tended to see systematic theology as intrinsically patriarchal, as supporting a patriarchal vision of the church and its teachings, and unwilling to listen to the possibility of the need for transformation, according to feminist Insights. So those I see as the main intellectual objections to the undertaking.

Today there is also a kind of prejudice that we sometimes find present in the church itself, namely that systematic theology is abstract and boring and disconnected from church life, and too difficult and obscure to be bothered with in terms of mission and pastoral encounter. All that to say, when I set out to write a systematic theology myself, I had not only all that history in mind, but I also had these particular postmodern objections in mind. And I think I have come up with a kind of response that attempts to overcome the objections.

The first thing one has to think about in writing systematic theology is what is your starting point? What is your goal? Who are you trying to address and in what context and for what purpose?

My answer to that first question is that it’s extremely important to go back to that challenge from the Petrine letter that we need at this time to be able to give a new and fresh account of the hope that is within us, that is attractive not only to members of the churches who are themselves seeking a deeper understanding of their faith, but also to those who hover on the edges, looking at Christianity from the outside. We should also be thinking of those who have turned their back on the faith. Systematic theology should not be seen as disjunct from apologetics, another type of genre of theological writing that is much disdained these days, but rather should be seen as accompanying the apologetic task.

But that doesn’t mean systematics then stops thinking scientifically or philosophically as it unfolds its vision of the faith. I also think that systematics has to think of itself as on a journey of exploration of the faith. It’s not attempting what people often wrongly think systematics hubristically is doing, namely sewing everything up for all time. It is inviting people into an exploration in which one is involved.

And that brings me to another aspect of my systematics that is controversial, which is that I don’t think that the exercise of systematics should be disjunct from the practice of prayer, and especially prayer of a vulnerable and contemplative sort, because I think it’s only that kind of vulnerability in the writer, and the invitation to that vulnerability in the reader, that keeps this in via feature of the undertaking alive, and also helps to respond to those three major objections to the undertaking that I just named. Because the practice of contemplation is itself deeply destabilizing of any sense of achieved certainty. It’s an invitation to go deeper into God rather than a sense of arrival.

To listen to the full conversation please visit ctinquiry.org.

Sarah Coakley is the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge.

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Member Books The latest books from our scholars, showcasing advanced research PAUL AND TIME: Life in the Temporality of Christ | L. Ann Jervis How did Paul understand time? Standard interpretations are that Paul modified his inherited Jewish apocalyptic sequential two-age temporality. Paul solved the conundrum of Christ’s resurrection occurring without the resurrection of the righteous by asserting that the ages are not sequential but rather that they overlap.

Believers live in already-not yet temporality.

In this groundbreaking book, Ann Jervis instead proposes that Paul thought not in terms of two ages but in terms of life in this age or life in Christ. Humans apart from Christ live in this age, whereas believers live entirely in the temporality of Christ.

Christ’s temporality, like God’s, is time in which change occurs—at least between Christ and God and creation. Their temporality is tensed, but the tenses are nonsequential. The past is in their present, as is the future. However, this is not a changeless now but a now in which change occurs (though not in the way that human chronological time perceives change). Those joined to Christ live Christ’s temporality while also living chronological time.

In clear writing, Jervis engages both philosophical and traditional biblical understandings of time. Her inquiry is motivated and informed by the long-standing recognition of the centrality of union with Christ for Paul. Jervis points out that union with Christ has significant temporal implications.

THINKING ABOUT FAITH: From Modern Certainty Towards Agnostic Reticence | Willem B. Drees How to think philosophically about religion? The separation of church and state takes form in the nineteenth century. In public universities in the Netherlands, systematic, church-related theology is replaced by philosophy of religion. As a window on academic thinking about faith, Willem B. Drees, Leiden University’s last professor of philosophy of religion, reads the work of his predecessors. They were mostly modernists, who expected to find their footing in the use of reason, in historical knowledge about religions, or in personal faith. After World War I, faith is perceived more as a wager, to trust that life is meaningful. Later, we see agnostic reticence that is religiously motivated, because God is always greater than we think, a mystery. And scholarly reticence, because in academic terms nothing definitive can be said about God. Do we thus see a development from modern certitude to charged silence?

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ARCHITECTURE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS: Elise Edwards Making Architectural Design More Just

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Architecture, Theology, and Ethics: Making Architectural Design More Just argues that architecture, design, and creativity are theological-ethical concerns that ought to be considered more deeply by Christians who are committed to social and environmental justice. Elise M. Edwards discusses the significance of architectural design, entering into ongoing conversations in theological ethics and aesthetics. She argues that architectural design is not just a professional practice for wealthy clients, but rather an activity that everyday people undertake when making choices that shape the spaces they inhabit. If Christians think theologically about their agency in these decisions, they will discover that architectural design becomes an opportunity to contribute to the flourishing for humanity and God’s creation. Edwards proposes an approach to architectural design that presents it as prophetic action with the power to shape our world. This book then presents five moral commitments that guide design intentions and the process of design towards justice and inclusion. Grounded in liberationist, feminist, and womanist thought, Architecture, Theology, and Ethics makes a compelling case for architecture’s relevance to Christian ethics and theology.

In A Three-Dimensional Jesus, Clifton Black offers a fresh, critically sympathetic reading of the New Testament’s first three Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Intelligent and accessible, conversational and whimsical, this volume helps readers consider the questions that are basic to the Synoptic Gospels’ interpretation. Black addresses their literary genre and origins; portrayals of the figure of Jesus and other central characters; the relationships among these three books; and the social, political, and religious worlds from which they emerged and to which they were addressed. Individual chapters on each Gospel highlight their likely audiences, literary structures, and primary theological themes. Throughout, Black’s presentation is clear and engaging, making use of topical sidebars, charts, and illustrations as well as wit and good humor to draw readers into these Gospels’ interpretations. The volume also includes such original features as conversations with other well-established scholars, which help the reader appreciate a range of perspectives on topics like the historical Jesus and the Gospels’ depiction of women, and interviews of experts on these Gospels’ afterlife in the history of Christian thought, sacred music, fine art, and preaching.

A Three-Dimensional Jesus is a concise, approachable study of the New Testament’s first three Gospels viewed from multiple angles—historical, sociological, literary, theological—with attention paid to their history of interpretation. In as much, Black invites readers to better understand and appreciate the Synoptics, while guiding them to learn even more.

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A THREE-DIMENSIONAL JESUS: An Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels | C. Clifton Black

Member Books The latest books from our scholars, showcasing advanced research HISTORICAL FICTION NOW | Edited by Mark Eaton and Bruce Holsinger Historical Fiction Now brings together prominent authors, scholars, and critics of historical fiction to explore the genre’s character, fortunes, and potential in the twenty-first century. Gathering together the voices of novelists, critics, academics, and several authors writing across these categories, the volume explores the nature of reading and writing about historical fiction in the present moment while meditating on some of the myriad contexts of the genre. What inspires writers to choose particular moments, events, and personalities as the subjects of their fictional imaginings, and with what implications for their readers’ understanding of the present? How do contemporary scholars approach the making and reception of historical fiction, and how do these approaches resonate with writers’ own preoccupations in the process of invention? What might scholars of a genre with a long and complex history learn from its contemporary practitioners? Conversely, how do novelists understand their own historical fictions (if at all) in relation to the theoretical and critical traditions shaping the work of their academic colleagues?

The collection features an original essay by Hilary Mantel on the making of the Wolf Hall trilogy as well as contributions from internationally known novelists such as George Saunders, Namwali Serpell, Maaza Mengiste, and Téa Obreht, among others.

SOME NEW WORLD: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age | Peter Harrison Religion is typically thought to involve belief in the supernatural. This book argues that the central conceptions in this understanding of religion—“belief” and the “supernatural”—were not available to most of the subjects to whom they are now routinely applied. It traces the history of these two ideas, showing how they are deeply implicated in the secularization of the modern West and are more important for the self-understanding of contemporary naturalists than religious believers. This analysis also demonstrates that the legitimacy of these categories, and hence of modern naturalism itself, rests on the problematic assumption that the specific history that produced them has been uniquely progressive. This book exposes basic misconceptions—“myths”—about secular modernity, challenging common misunderstandings of the past and inviting a reappraisal of religious thinking in the present.

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FORD’S THE MODERN THEOLOGIANS: An Introduction to Christian Theology since 1918, 4th Edition | Ashley Cocksworth (Editor), Rachel Muers (Editor), David F. Ford (Consulting Editor) Providing an unparalleled overview of the subject, The Modern Theologians provides an indispensable guide to the diverse approaches and perspectives within Christian theology from the early twentieth century to the present. Each chapter is written by a leading scholar and explores the development and trajectory of modern theology while presenting critical accounts of a broad range of relevant topics and representative thinkers.

The fourth edition of The Modern Theologians is fully updated to provide readers with a clear picture of the broad spectrum and core concerns of modern Christian theology worldwide. It offers new perspectives on key twentieth-century figures and movements from different geographical and ecclesial contexts. There are expanded sections on theological dialogue with non-Christian traditions, and on Christian theology’s engagement with the arts and sciences. A new section explores theological responses to urgent global challenges—such as nationalism, racism, and the environmental crisis.

RESURRECTION AND RENEWAL: Jesus and the Transformation of Creation | Murray Rae The resurrection of Jesus from the dead lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It is the turning point of history, with far-reaching implications for our understanding of what God is doing in the world. Resurrection and Renewal is not an apologetic; rather, it takes the resurrection as a given reality and examines what the Bible says about it. It offers a survey of the Gospel accounts, looks at the resurrection as the fulfilment of God’s Old Testament promises to Israel, and examines how the resurrection reshaped the life of the apostle Paul and informed his theology.

It explores how resurrection influences our understanding of Christ, salvation, the future, mission, the church, and the unfolding purpose of history. Attention is given to its implications for Christian living and ethics, the nature of Christian community, and the promises of Christian hope.

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CTI Hosts Lecture on Life in the Universe NEWS

On 22 April, CTI hosted Professor Carol Cleland of the Philosophy Department of the University of Colorado, Boulder. Professor Cleland is widely hailed as the pre-eminent philosophical voice on the origin of life, not least with her 2019 book The Quest for a Universal Theory of

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life: Searching for Life as We Don’t Know It with Cambridge University Press. Like CTI, she is a founding partner of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at the University of Cambridge. The event was co-hosted by the lab of Michael Hecht in Princeton University’s Department of Chemistry, and funded by a grant by the Leverhulme Centre.

Professor Cleland spoke about her current work on the central place that anomalies should have in the history and philosophy of science. This is crucial in the search for life beyond Earth, since that is a search for what looks anomalous from an abiotic, non-biological, inorganic point of view. The high percentage of oxygen in our own atmosphere would look anomalous in that way, observed from afar. The talk, and subsequent discussion, took place in our new Digital Studio at Luce Hall, with professors and students from Princeton attending in person, and scholars from around the world joining online.

PTS President Jonathan Walton Tours CTI’s New Building CTI’s Director William Storrar was honored to welcome the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Walton, President of Princeton Theological Seminary, on a recent visit to the Center for a private tour of the new interior of the building designed by architects at the Michael Graves company in Princeton.

They were joined on the tour by the Rev. Kerri Allen, Deputy to the President, and Dr. Joshua Mauldin, CTI’s Associate Director. It was an opportunity to reaffirm the historic and close ties between the two institutions and look forward to a new era of collaboration on common concerns.

From left to right: Joshua Mauldin, Kerri Allen, Jonathan Walton, and William Storrar at the Center of Theological Inquiry

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NEWS

Colloquy on Publishing in the Humanities 36

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On May 31, 2024, CTI hosted a round table conversation on the state of publishing in the humanities with Alex Wright, the Head of Humanities and Senior Executive Publisher at Cambridge University Press. The occasion provided an opportunity for a wider conversation on the state of the humanities with interested local colleagues from Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary.

Astrobiology Symposium at CTI CTI’s Director William Storrar convened a recent symposium on Jewish and Muslim responses to the notion of life on a planetary scale as part of the Center’s continuing inquiry on the religious and social implications of astrobiology, the science of life in the universe.

The Center was honored to welcome Leora Batnitzky, Professor of Religion and Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish Studies at Princeton University, and Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

They were in conversation with David Grinspoon, a planetary scientist and NASA’s Senior Scientist for Astrobiology Strategy, Edwin Turner, Emeritus Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, and Andrew Davison, Starbridge Professor of Theology and Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

Professors Batnitzky and Siddiqui will contribute essays to CTI’s forthcoming volume on Life on a Planetary Scale: Essays on Astrobiology, Religion, and Society.

From left to right: Andrew Davison, Mona Siddiqui, Edwin Turner, Leora Batnitzky, William Storrar

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CASTING LIGHT ON GLOBAL CONCERNS

CTI’s Director, Board of Trustees, and Architects at the Grand Opening

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