Dean of Theology: Avery Dulles at Eighty

Father Avery Dulles, S.J., often called the dean of American Catholic theologians, has guided a generation of scholars toward a faithful interpretation of Vatican II. Many have used his theological models as a way of approaching the mysteries of revelation and the Church. Some have described him as a “bridge-builder” for the Catholic theological community—a “prince of concord”—because he has always affirmed the strengths of opposing positions and avoided the partisanship that foments discord. Always seeking mediating stances that are capable of holding polarities in tension, he pursues the craft of theology (the title of one of his nineteen books) as though it were a ministry of reconciliation.

Why, then, has Avery Dulles—who turned eighty on August 24—lately become among the severest critics of America’s leading association of Catholic theologians? His assessment of the 1997 meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), spelled out in the March 27 issue of Commonweal, censures the association’s leadership for “theological self-assertion against hierarchical authority” (see also Matthew Lamb’s “Theologians Unbound,” Crisis, December 1997). On the basis of CTSA Proceedings of the 1997 convention, Dulles appears to take seriously Bernard Cardinal Law’s depiction of the society as a “theological wasteland.” The keynote speakers of last year’s meeting, who addressed various topics on the Eucharist, are said to “have mounted a series of attacks on Catholic doctrine more radical, it would seem, than the challenges issued by Luther and Calvin.” The import of this denunciation for the theological community is magnified by the fact that Dulles once served as president of the CTSA. Observers are left to ponder the reasons for his emerging disaffection from the guild he has mentored for nearly four decades.

Some critics may suppose that Dulles’s recent criticisms of the progressive wing, along with his expressed reservations about the Common Ground project initiated by the late Cardinal Bernardin, indicates a shift to the right that other eminent postconciliar theologians have made as they advanced in age—or in the corridors of power. Yves Congar and Joseph Ratzinger, for example, shared with Dulles the reputation of being daring innovators in the period of Vatican II and its aftermath, sometimes defending the legitimate autonomy of scholars against repressive forces at work in the hierarchy. Both scholars were eventually made cardinals by Pope John Paul II, after they had earned reputations for being vigorous defenders of tradition and episcopal authority against dissident movements. Father Dulles, who served on the pope’s International Theological Commission from 1991 to 1997, is occasionally thought of as a potential “cardinal theologian” at some future consistory.

The problem with trying to fit Avery Dulles into the “twice-born” pattern of open minded scholar converted to court theologian lies with the pattern itself. As with Ratzinger and Congar—not to mention Henri Cardinal de Lubac—Dulles’s writings display far more continuity than fundamental change. Often it is the theologian’s environment itself that undergoes change, while the basic convictions of the theologian remain substantially the same. In a period when scholars could reasonably assume among their colleagues a shared commitment to the normative sources of authority, Dulles may have been justified in expressing the need to balance the episcopal function of regulating preaching and public order in the Church with a properly “magisterial role” for theologians. While scholars may, in one sense, be “unauthoritative” in their teaching function, they nonetheless play an essential role in the development of doctrine, as shown particularly at the medieval councils in which the doctores were given a deliberative vote. Noting St. Thomas’s distinction between the “pastoral magisterium” of bishops and the “magisterial magisterium” of theologians, Dulles was eager to recommend closer collaboration, without confusion, between the pastoral and scholarly functions in the Church.

Yet as the postconciliar period unfolded, and newer members of the guild opted for methods and partisan causes at variance with defined Catholic teaching, proposals like the “two magisteria” would need to be modified, or give way to better formulations. Like others who are deserving of the title “pastoral theologian,” Dulles has made a habit of always approaching theological problems in light of pressing ecclesial needs. As conditions in the Church evolve, certain conceptual definitions fall by the wayside while newer ones emerge.

Reflecting on his career in the anniversary edition of A Testimonial to Grace, Fr. Dulles admits that while “seeking to make a strong case for the new directions set by Vatican II,” he may have tended, in the period leading up to the early ’70s, “to exaggerate the novelty of the Council’s doctrine and the shortcomings of the preconciliar period.” Such exaggeration, where it appears in his work, arises from a concern to move beyond the older forms of Scholasticism. Like many of his generation, Dulles welcomed the new historical investigations into scripture and the dogmatic sources, as well as the recovery of theology’s patristic canon. Despite its systematic rigor, the scholastic method of his earlier training was incapable of presenting adequately these many different angles from which scholars examine faith.

From his mentor, Gustave Weigel, S.J., Dulles learned that the Church as a mystery could not be contained under any single conceptual definition, such as “perfect society” or “mystical body of Christ.” “Rather, it should be designated by a variety of images and metaphors, each of which captured certain limited aspects of the complex reality.” Such an ecclesiological approach would soon be validated by the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church.

The inspiration for Dulles’s most widely acclaimed book, Models of the Church, has its basis in Vatican II’s implicit recognition of pluralism in theology. From the Council’s own handling of doctrinal issues, he learned that “[no] one segment of history or cultural perspective can be taken as embodying the totality of Catholic truth, as if it were a norm by which all other ages and cultures could be judged.” A variety of perspectives or “models” is needed for grasping the truth. Today’s theologian should therefore seek to identify the inner logic and “root metaphors” that underlie the characteristic positions of major figures, past and present. To understand the merits and limitations of Protestant ecclesiology, for example, one would do well to begin by reflecting on how the metaphor of “herald of the Word” functions in the writings of the sixteenth century reformers. Yet neither this ecclesial metaphor nor the other four delineated by Dulles in Models of the Church (institution, living body, sacrament, and servant) can stand alone. An adequate ecclesiology, from a Catholic standpoint, depends on the insights drawn from a variety of images found in Scripture, tradition, and human experience.

It was never the Jesuit author’s aim to encourage “ecclesiological relativism,” as if his readers were free to choose some models and reject others. Nor was it his intention to assign equal value to each of them. Dulles’s point was rather to draw maximum benefit from each of the proposed models and then harmonize them critically, sometimes by means of a “bridge-model” like community of disciples, which he develops in A Church to Believe In and the later edition of Models of the Church. As with his two later books that utilize this typological method, Models of Revelation and The Assurance of Things Hoped For, the purpose was not to deepen existing divisions within the Church or theological world, but to facilitate dialogue and reconciliation.

Strategies that are often considered reciprocally exclusive are remarkably harmonized in Dulles’s many articles and talks: the perspectives of Catholics in relation to American culture—radical, liberal, conservative, and traditionalist; the formal and informal styles of liturgical celebration; the cultic, prophetic, and pastoral ways of conceiving the priesthood— to name just a few typologies developed in recent literature. Each “type” may be more appropriate at a given time and place, but the proponents of all the types should be on guard against the mutual hostility and recrimination with which today’s Church in America is all too rife. “Each group,” Dulles insists, “should respect the intentions of the others and humbly recognize its own limitations.” The ideal is “unity in diversity,” while the sin to be avoided is factionalism.

Herein lies an important angle on America’s most influential Catholic theologian—what various colleagues and admirers have said of him: Avery Dulles is a theologian without a party in the Church. Throughout his career he has steadfastly opposed the kind of theological partisanship—found among scholars on both the left and right—that subordinates “an evenhanded concern for truth to the demands of a party spirit in which every action and statement is evaluated according to whether it supports one cause or the other.” Dulles appears to believe that such partisanship, which renders the Church as a universal communion “seriously wounded,” has lately been characteristic of the CTSA, especially its 1997 resolution questioning the irrevocable status of the male priesthood. Evenhandedly, he also denounces the divisive tactics of traditionalists who “impugn the conduct of bishops and popes, and silently or overtly reject the teaching of Vatican II on issues such as religious freedom, ecumenism, and dialogue.”

As far back as 1975, Father Dulles warned his colleagues in the CTSA of the partisan “vices” to which theologians may succumb. In the homily at the convention liturgy, he noted that theology, like other charisms, exists “not for the personal fulfillment of the minister but rather for the service of the Church—for building up the body in the truth of Christ.” One year later, in his presidential address, Dulles asserted that it was the mistake of post-Kantian thinkers to believe that reason ever stands on its own. The most rationalistic thinkers depend on traditions of meaning and the communities that perpetuate them. Theologians must therefore be aware of the fact that reason and authority “are dialectically intertwined throughout the process of religious inquiry and the life of faith.” In contrast to colleagues who were, at this time, adapting a “hermeneutics of suspicion” in the interpretation of authoritative texts and persons, Dulles was opting for a “hermeneutics of trust” to demonstrate the fruitfulness of a theology that submits to the judgment of the Church as embodied in those who have a charism for truth.

Within two decades, Dulles became ever more convinced that professional theologians needed to be reminded of the proper criteria of Catholic theology. In a 1995 talk at the CTSA pre-convention seminar, he urged his colleagues to “promote allegiance to the universal Church with its structure, traditions, Sacraments, and dogmas.” Citing St. Paul’s plea “that there be no divisions among you,” Dulles reiterated a theme that pervaded his writings in the previous decade. “Catholicism is opposed to sectarianism, factionalism, and a party spirit.”

There is doubtlessly a certain sadness for this priest and author as he reflects on the evolution of his country’s largest association of Catholic theologians. He questions whether anything can be done to restore the CTSA’s Catholic character as long as its leadership remains enamored of dissent against the hierarchy. He disappoints some of his more moderate colleagues for being reserved toward the Common Ground initiative, fearing that the concept of “dialogue” at work among some of its advocates may be one that would sacrifice the full doctrine of the Church for the sake of a pragmatic modus vivendi among Catholics. “Far from achieving consensus,” he warns, “such dialogue would serve to build up mutually opposed constituencies and thus further polarize the Church.”

There are today two mutually opposed constituencies in the Church, in fact, two Magisteria at work within the ecclesial body. Yet it is not what Dulles had envisioned as the CTSA president two decades ago, when he urged greater cooperation, without confusion, between the scholarly and pastoral functions in the Church. The theological community today lacks the kind of “symphonic pluralism” in which participants respect diversity of method, personal creativity, and freedom of inquiry, while also valuing direction from the center. Regrettably, the guild is presently divided between those who follow the direction set by the current leadership of the CTSA and those who follow the spirit and letter of Vatican II.

Theology must renew itself as an ecclesial vocation. Its practitioners must see themselves as accountable to the common faith of believers, those living and those “who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.” Like all others who are baptized, theologians belong to the communion of the one Church of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, which, as Dulles asserts, exists “not to give peace of mind, psychological balance, or a laudable concern for the ‘oppressed’ but to lead people of every time, place, and background to salvation in Christ.”

It is as a loyal servant of this one Church, which he once defined as a “communion in tradition and authority, open to dialogue and progress,” that Avery Dulles, S.J., continues to be sought after for his insights into the problems that face believers today. In an essay on St. Robert Bellarmine, another Jesuit theologian who lived through times as discordant as our own, Dulles once described the theologian as one who has realized the ecclesial character of his vocation. One may confidently apply the same tribute to its source:

He does what is asked of him; he speaks frankly when consulted, but he never urges his own opinions to the detriment of the Church itself. He is loyal to his religious order, loyal to the Holy See, loyal to the Church, and loyal especially to God, in whom he places all his trust and confidence.

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