Making Theology, Forming Theologians: Categories and Habits in the Tradition of the Divine Names

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Hall Teaching Fellow, Ryan Hurd. The sheer and utter delight of the theologian is knowing and speaking of God. As we consider the development of theology as a science or formalized discipline, we find that two things are especially important: the making of categories in theology, and of habits in the theologian. Analogous to Aristotle’s "Ten Categories", or even the Transcendentals, the development of categories was the production of adequate or reduced summaries which sweep in everything within both the natural and supernatural orders in a condensed fashion. After centuries of sweat and no small genius, the “divine names” and “trinitarian notions,” in the natural and supernatural order respectively, resulted. For example, we find the divine names “simplicity, infinity", and others of that sort; “wisdom, goodness, and others of that sort”; “incorporeality, impassibility", and others of that sort; “reasoning, laughing", and others of that sort: these adequately reduce everything to be said of God absolutely speaking. Similarly, we find the trinitarian notions, paternity, filiation, active and passive spiration, and even innascibility: these sufficiently catalog, in inchoate form, whatever God has made known of the holy Trinity. After such categories were developed, even further categories came to be e.g., the theological moves “eminently,” “formally,” and “analogically,” i.e., the mode in which reasoning, wisdom, and being respectively are said of God. All this was in attempt to fulfill the thrilling task of theology: saying “everything of being and goodness” with us and among creatures of God, as Thomas says. This includes, of course, not only every aspect of act and perfection, which are to be retained of God, but even every aspect of potency and imperfection, which are to be removed from God; and of course, it further includes every aspect in holy Scripture, which are to be retained and removed as appropriate. As such categories were made in theology, opportunity arose for these categories to inform the intellect of the theologian and exercise and mature him so that they became second-nature: such is the making of theological habits. And indeed, we find habits are made not only for the names (and notions) of God, but even for the correspondent theological moves. These habits made theologians to be, and at various points in history made great theologians to be. In this lecture, Mr. Ryan Hurd considers these things, with special focus on what categories and habits are as found in the development of theology especially among the medievals and neoscholastics, and why they are important for contemporary theology today.