Systematic Theology: Task and Methods

method or conceptual discipline, but rather represented a way of life and a discovery of one’s self. The philosopher was much more a spiritual adviser than a professor. He exhorted his students to mold themselves through a conversion of attention and through spiritual exercises to follow the paths of wisdom. As Pierre Hadot has noted, the discourse on the transcendent and the spiritual experience of the transcendent, sought in antiquity in philosophy as well as theology to foster a new way of life that required a transformation of the self.249 In the medieval period, the distinction between the monastic and scholastic approaches has been a constant theme of scholarship that underscored the importance of lived experience, devotion, and spirituality.250 Today the emergence of the academic study of religion in the university in the form of religious studies has created a tension that highlights both sides. On the one hand, there has emerged a positivistic understanding of religious studies as an objective discipline that aims for a purely neutral study that precludes any subjective pre-understanding and commitments.251 It seeks a vision of religious studies that in distinction to other humanistic studies in the universities celebrates its neutrality and objectivity.252 On the other hand, the emergence of ethnographic studies, participatory sociology, and engaged anthropology has underscored the importance of taking the participants’ view of their actions into account in interpreting them. In this view, the academic study of religion entails a study of the lived experiences of the diverse members and groups of a religious community. The study of popular religious practices and rituals, as well as the narratives and lives of the saints, becomes central not only for the study of religions, but these practices and rituals also become sources of theology.253 Decentering Individualism: Dialogical Communities of Discourse The individualism is counterbalanced by dialogical and communal understanding of truth that emphasizes the significance of communities of discourse. The modern approach to philosophy and theology is often associated with Descartes’s appeal to consciousness, Kant’s appeal to the subject’s conditions of knowledge, and Schleiermacher’s emphasis on religious experience. This starting with individual consciousness or with religious experience is often interpreted in an individualistic fashion and in a foundational sense, in that an individual’s experience provides certitude. Descartes’s starting point