I’m not sure if I would even go so far as love/hate with systematics. I love them the way I might say I love a certain television program: it engages me and I like setting myself down in front of it, but it is not the same as loving something with its own life in it. To the extent that I might love some great TV show (or theology) it is not because of the thing itself, but to the degree that it evokes some resonance in me of some living thing/Presence/idea/experience.

I think that we humans like (perhaps need) attempts at naming the ground of being. My call is not to search for ways to get to the end of that (like Rorty would like), but to acknowledge that our favorite explanations and words for that ground are important but not final. This opens up the chance that others’ “finalities” are possibly as valid as our own. This is somewhat like Caputo’s undecidability as I understand it, but the reality is that functionally I have not encountered ANY community that actually has a praxis of value-neutral “undecided” theology or doctrine. Even we Quakers who “have no doctrine” have doctrine. It is just less clear, which paves the way for more problems.

One of the questions I have is where you see systematic theology, as a large project, fitting into all this. As you might imagine, I have a love/hate relationship with systematics as it tends to be wedded to a very modern, scientific mindset. I do, however, see some potential in what persons are now calling “constructive theology.” When I read statements in your paper like this one, “A Heraldic perspective on theology would necessitate the rejection of any systematic or doctrinal claims that suggest a wholly accurate, complete, and closed interpretation of revelation and the Divine,” I get the sense that you share my concern with large, totalizing theological systems. Yet, still believe there is some benefit in that line of inquiry even if it resist settling into static codification. Do you have any thoughts about that?

@Tom. Thanks for the clarification. I really enjoyed your interview over at the Homebrewed Christianity podcast and, as a fellow Wesleyan with process sympathies, I found the book you co-edited with Bryan Stone very helpful (I am one of Bryan’s M.Div. students at Boston University, by the way).

I certainly think that is a valid reading of Derrida. And I’ll admit that I am a little lost myself when I take him alone. At the moment, I find the direction that Jack takes him — especially with his notion of “undecidability” — to be a better approach. While I understand the pull to locate and name an ultimate ground or metaphysical foundation, I am very suspicious of doing so. I don’t make that move to dismiss your “why” question, but to underscore the possibility of there being more than one answer to that question and to accentuate that our attempts to do so are deeply polymorphic. In some ways — and here I think Jack is maybe more Derridean than Derrida himself! — it would seem that finally coming to rest upon some ontological center or ultimate ground limits one’s ability to be open to the other others that are always already present and lay claim to us. At any rate, I think that is the (responsible) question that deconstruction is always posing before us, as you point out in your post. Given the propensity of some detractors to throw out the “r-word” as a sort of rhetorical trump card rather than accepting the challenge of deconstruction, I always try to make the case that it is a bit more nuanced and complex

Thanks for alerting me to your site. It’s great! Thanks too for the shout-out for my site.

Blake,

Thanks for reading my post on pomo. You’re right that Derrida doesn’t argue for moral relativism. In fact, he argues pretty passionately for an ethic of hospitality in his later works. I appreciate that. And my friend, Jack Caputo, takes many of these ideas and argues for the supremacy of love — something I’m really happy about. (See his What Would Jesus Do? book)

But especially in Derrida’s case, I see no grounding for the kinds of moral moves he (rightly) wants to make. In the end, I ask, “Why should I be loving and hospitable?” I find no constructive Derridean answer to my question.

At least that’s how I read Derrida. I could be wrong, of course. But given that so many others also read him this way, my reading is likely not too far off.

Thanks again for engaging my blogpost!

Tom