Winfried Corduan’s little book, Handmaid to Theology: An Essay in Philosophical Prolegomena (1981), is a rare jewel, seeing how it was from a generation ago, well before any kind of theological retrieval was making its way into the Reformed seminary. Before making a positive case for the place of prolegomena as a distinct discipline, he shows great sensitivity for the kind of objections to placing what I would call “reason and nature at the foundations.” He wrote,

“From one standpoint prolegomena attempts to do the impossible. It tries to abstract the conceptual framework of a discussion without taking the content into consideration.”1

In short, the method, to some degree, depends on the specific kind of content. In one form or another, this particular “circularity” problem begins to explain why Barthians are especially nervous that nothing “back behind Christ” establishes itself here, or why Van Tillians are equally nervous that nothing “back behind Scripture” establishes itself here. But where is this here? Well, here, we are not speaking about apologetics encounters, but about another kind of starting point. It is that starting point at the front of those biggest theology books that we call alternatively “systematics” or “dogmatics,” depending on various nuances.

In my own project, I mean to expose and demolish the very ambiguous way in which reason and nature are held in suspicion in their preliminary method-setting tasks. Corduan states, “prolegomena is definitely a transcendental discipline, but as such it is not totally without normative force.”2 This need not mean “transcendental” in some larger Kantian sense of forbidding to reason the objective essence of things—in this case essential rules and tools for doing theology. It simply means taking a moment (or a season) to ask questions about the doing of theology. Think of the “preconditions” as something more like the more intricate mechanics of it, under a kind of microscope. At this foundational stage, we need not pit discovery of premises against the determinative character of conclusions. If all theologizing requires some set of common ideas, and if such is demonstrable at all, then this is not in some sort of competition with that ultimate authority of God’s own clear speech in the propositional form of Scripture. But such is also a hard sell to many.

Corduan’s Summary and Evaluation of Barth versus Rahner

Karl Barth proposed a “prolegomena from above.” In other words, Barth rejected the notion that apologetics or natural theology could stand in for prolegomena. Dogma was for the church already in Christ. Where it is polemical, it is a correction of heresy (the two chief errors being Modernism and Romanism), not an answering to the demands of unbelief. Whether Modernism’s focus on Nature or Rome’s focus on the Church, Barth saw all such starting points as an “objectification” of God’s truth. As Corduan summarized, “They tie God’s free revelatory activity to the contingencies of man’s created existence.”3 God was no longer the acting Subject of revelation—He was all being and no Act.

Karl Rahner proposed a “prolegomena from below,” or “fundamental theology.” This is what he called the first level of reflection, as opposed to the dogmatic content at the second level. One main task of prolegomena is bringing a unified picture to what is an increasing over-specialization in theological disciplines. The question of how revelation works—i.e., “man’s appropriation of the content of revelation”4—is paramount in this task; and that inquiry is irreducibly philosophical. So both in the formal discipline and in the subject matter (man’s reason), this fundamental theology is one “from below.” Rahner was no classicalist, however, as this “reception” of revelation is the only subject-matter to be called “revelation,” and thus it becomes subjective.

What is Corduan’s direct answer to Barth’s concern? He replies,

“We are not trying to make theology possible through our philosophical efforts. Rather, in keeping with what we have already described as a transcendental method, we are accepting the possibility, truth, and reality of theology as a given, but then we are raising the question of the background which has made human reflection on revelation possible.”5

So then does Corduan agree entirely with Rahner? No. Although he sides with the legitimacy of the term "theology from below," and its philosophical focus, yet he borrows from Rahner's own distinction to distance this from the classical view. For Rahner, there are Cartesian (Type-A) and non-Cartesian (Type-B) theologies. The first assimilates revelation and thus it becomes the only revelation that can be spoken of; whereas the second holds that all revelation is objective in itself. The former is the view that Rahner holds, which is essentially subjectivism, as Corduan rightly sees it.6

Using Corduan’s Analysis as a Springboard to Foundational Natural Theology

What does this all have to do with those who say natural theology should be ruled out at the foundations? Corduan summarizes Barth's rejection of apologetics at the foundation in a way that helps get an answer. In the view Barth was attacking,

“prolegomena consists of a preliminary defense of the possibility and truth of Christianity against the unbelief of this age. Those who advocate this position stress that nowadays Christianity has lost its credibility, and that there is no sense in proceeding with the content of dogmatics proper until the ground has been cleared for its acceptance.”7

But what exactly is the problem with the concern behind this? Surely we do not want the skeptic’s obstinance to hold up our own agenda. Indeed we do not. The problem is in the straw man. It is simply that classical prolegomena did not typically speak about concepts that intersect with apologetics and natural theology (1) in order to persuade skeptics of the Christian faith, or such that (2) one cannot get on with submitting to Christian truth as summarized in the rest of the book until or unless one has been so persuaded.

The straw man exists because of a projection of the post-Kantians’ own anxieties, fleeing from the Enlightenment as ones in various forms of retreat. One of the most remarkable features of academic writing of those who have imbibed volumes of Barth are the occasional references to the “anxious” and “nervous” attempts at “control” and “possession”—these are the buzzwords meant to marginalize classical philosophical demonstration in virtually any area of theology. So when they hear of rational demonstration flowing from extra-biblical antecedents to biblical or dogmatic or ethical conclusions, the only categories Barth (and Kant behind him) left them with are categories of following the pagans around to gain their approval as a condition for speaking in the authoritative terms of Christian revelation.

As applied to rationally demonstrative prolegomena somehow competing with revealed content, the very idea is absurd as a matter of common sense. Dogmatics texts are not apologetics tracts, and vice-versa. It seldom occurs to the post-Kantian critics of classical prolegomena to query what other purposes may exist for natural theology to function in theological method for the already committed Christian.

This is not to say that natural theology’s apologetic function is inappropriate for a dogmatics text. However, it may help to remember that the five ways that Aquinas used are in summary form in the Summa Theologica. This was written for what we would today call the seminary student. It was the Summa Contra Gentiles that was aimed outward toward the persuasion of the non-Christian. The prominence of nature and reason at the foundations of systematic theology are simply not reducible to getting some “green light” from unbelief to advance to Chapter 2, which is now somehow lying prostrate leftward before the courts of skepticism until some sufficient rational permission is granted.

To put things another way, Barth was especially concerned that the preliminary work not only obscures the content, but in some way enables the unbelief of the one who would rather dispassionately approach God only as one approaches a laboratory specimen: a passive object of study. So, Corduan remarks,

“in Barth's view prolegomena must already be a part of revealed dogmatics. It must begin with the realization that Jesus Christ is the essence of the church. Therefore, prolegomena does not prepare the way for theology, but is the first part of theology itself. It does not lay groundwork for content: it already consists of content. Prolegomena, for Barth, describes the initial contact of God with man.”8

It all very pious sounding. My point is not to question the sincerity, but rather the seriousness of the idea as a logical matter. 

Would any seminary students sitting in their first day of class reject the usual content of a syllabus (and even the presentation of it, which I agree should often be streamlined!) on the grounds that the professor is begging them, by means of various arguments, to accept his very existence, or that there will be a great and terrible day of final grading, depending on how they have performed on the exams? I would think not. The syllabus is simply not a syllabus if it is not preliminary and rule-setting. It is in no competition with the content to be learned, but an aid toward that end.

Corduan’s Five Principles to Adjudicate between Barth and Rahner

After summarizing these differences between Barth’s “prolegomena from above” and Rahner’s “prolegomena from below,” Corduan offers five principles, the last of which functions as a conclusion to the other four, which stand as premises. The result brings clarity to so much of the fog in debates about the role of prolegomena. They are as follows:

1. The starting point for dogmatic theology and for prolegomena need not be identical.

2. The starting point for theology is God.

3. Dogmatic theology renders God’s revelation into human terms.

4. Prolegomena provides the human tools for handling divine revelation.

5. Thus the proper starting point for prolegomena is from below, with man.9

I realize that not everyone will be convinced for a variety of reasons. However, to anyone for whom these principles and their conclusion (No. 5) are agreeable, such a one is prepared to hear the case for the role of natural theology at the foundations of all theological activity.

_________________________

1. Winfried Corduan, Handmaid to Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1981), 23.

2. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 28.

3. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 31.

4. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 33.

5. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 37-38.

6. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 38-39.

7. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 29.

8. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 31.

9. Corduan, Handmaid to Theology, 34-36.