I can't study theology anymore

I can't do it bros. I'm in my Master's program for theological studies and education and I can't do it anymore. It feels so fake. I can't stomach dogmatic certainty, after years of study if I "believe" at all it's in the existentially theological sense of Tillich, or Marcel, or Ricoeur. I'm certainly not in a position to teach high schoolers or college students from that perspective. I've found that those who study theology, my classmates, are primarily only looking for

1. Community/belonging/acceptance
2. A desperate sense of security, certainty

That's it Especially seeing these very feminine women especially who are attracted to Catholicism in my program isn’t surprising in that sense - there’s a “homeness” in a complete belief system, even if, in an existential sense, there’s a lot less theological certainty. The “journaling Bible” demographic corresponds little to the Kierkegaardian reality of the Christian question. There’s fundamentally a lack of intellectual honesty here, albeit an innocent or unexamined one. But willful ignorance, willful reductionism is not something I can subscribe to, it’s not something I’m able to condone and certainly doesn’t make me a good candidate to be a teacher of “dogmatic” systems, especially since dogmatic theology involves mental gymnastics at best and extinguishment of critique at worst (by definition).

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Not literature.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I'm an Atheist.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      whoa, very cool. upvoted!

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Thanks fren. I knew there were some based folks on this sub.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I know that feel. Went through similar here. All the people in theology and divinity school programs now are just women and "queers" with mildly conservative Catholic/evangelical grandparents but liberal parents, who want to show how HIP and FRESH Catholicism/Lutheranism can be with NEW PERSPECTIVES. None of them are serious, none of them feel any real calling.

    Have you read Schleiermacher's address on the dilemma of religious and academic freedom in the Berlin university system?

    Have you considered simply becoming heterodox and esoteric? Maybe reading Origen and Clement and Justin Martyr, or even Philo, as a gateway to an esoteric platonist Christianity. At least there is real truth in that, and the mysteries that (in my view) Barth feebly attempts to prop back up on the merely discursive/revealed level can actually come back to life in a meaningful way on the esoteric level. This is an odd recommendation but try reading the introductory framing device to Robert Hugh Benson's Mirror of Shallott, where the priests debate the reality and permissibility of a supernatural realm within a Catholic worldview.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I went to (am going to still, at least on paper) a very reputable "conservative" Catholic university for theological studies, draws a lot of international students and seminarians.
      >Schleiermacher's address
      I recall covering On Religion in passing in an undergrad. course, why do you recommend him here specifically?
      >Have you considered simply becoming heterodox and esoteric?
      In practice I already am. Probably the two greatest influences on my faith have been Kierkegaard, Valentin Tomberg, and Julian of Norwich. The problem is that you can't really "teach" that type of faith and that was the career path I was committed to. Even if Catholicism "allows" heterodoxy the vast majority of people in theology programs are either James Cone hyper-activist "womanist/black theologists" (that's the majority of non-conservative programs in the US today), or women who want to be middle school teachers, like flowery dresses and enjoy praise and worship bands. Both of these seem extremely dishonest to me and trivialize the real challenge of Christianity that Nietzsche rightly identifies. Even "rigorous" program that I'm in stops at Neo-Thomism, theologically. No actual engagement with the fundamental theological challenges, even speaking in an orthodox sense.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >I went to (am going to still, at least on paper) a very reputable "conservative" Catholic university for theological studies, draws a lot of international students and seminarians.
        oh cool, I'm also at Notre Dame

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Both of these seem extremely dishonest to me and trivialize the real challenge of Christianity that Nietzsche rightly identifies.
        you should read the Russian religious thinkers that took Nietzsche extremely serious. People like Shestov, Berdyaev and to some extent Bulgakov. But mostly the first two. Also from a different angle Merezhkovsky and the whole Russian symbolist movement that tried to synthesize Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Solovyov into a new religious consciousness.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          thanks for the good recommendations. I actually have always been interested in the religious implications of the early Soviet/late tsar-era thinkers like Vertov, Platonov, Merezhkovsky (read a lot of his poetry in undergrad). I know Solovyov was highly important as a progenitor of the scene. I wanted to read The Meaning of Love for a long time but it's hard to find a cheap copy and there's no libraries I know with it available in my city

          >I still am "religious" in a sense, just not in the way that I can teach to others authentically.
          If you can't teach people authentically, that may simply be because the people you study do not have an authentic knowledge or faith. I mean what do you see in someone like Tonberg; he was an ex theosophist who tried to transplant his own cobbled understanding of Catholic mysticism onto new age novelties like the tarot. What did he actually have to say that someone like Teresa of Avila did not? Have you considered that you might just be attached to heterodox theology for the wrong reasons?

          this is a very neo-calvinist answer, yet it's common in modern catholic discourse: "if it doesn't make sense, you're not in a good moral state". going to confession has not made me less uneasy about the lack of things like aphophetic theology in the curriculum. You can't seriously tell me that people like Escriva and Therese of Liseux provide a legitimate theology when all that's present is a scrupulosity at best and genuine disorder at worst. That's a lot of my classmates too, a hyper legalism which misses the point altogether, especially regarding hadith-like sexual obsession that complete disregards existential foundations of revelation or the crucifixion or incarnation. There's a really high prevalence of people around me in the program, especially men, with OCD - Marcuse would be proud. It's unfortunate but kind of reflects how theology today is either superficial or is studied to meet some internal psychological need, in an aberrant sense

          >why do you recommend him here specifically?
          I was mainly reminded of his situation because he and his whole generation of Kantian and Jena romantic philosophers worshipped science at its highest possible level self-consciousness, i.e. as explicitly opposed to any form of dogma, self-delusion, or view of knowledge as mere "usefulness." And yet he had to teach Christian theology, including dogmatic theology, at the absolute nexus of such science-worship, the newly founded University of Berlin, where non-Christians or lapsed Christians like Goethe and Hegel naturally tended toward Spinozist pantheism and effectively made "natural theology" that the new theology of the age.

          The issue of whether specifically Christian religiosity has a place "within" such a scientific worldview is obviously going to trouble any Christian deeply. But specifically Schleiermacher's generation was acutely, almost painfully aware of the epistemological status of the very categories of "revelation" and "advent." They saw a generation in advance that theology was inevitably going to lapse into deconstructive Tubingen historicism and the liberal theology of Ritschl and Harnack.

          So the fact that Schleiermacher found a way to carry out genuine theological teaching in that context is interesting. I recommend this article
          https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/522276
          I also strongly strongly recommend looking into Ernst Troeltsch if you haven't already, a friend of Max Weber. He had similar doubts and problems and developed a conception of "wandering" or inherently historical and developmental Christianity, because like Schleiermacher he understood that certain paths were simply barred, and (in my view) that an approach like neo-orthodoxy was insufficient. What we are currently going through is an almost carbon copy of the frustration of Troeltsch's whole generation at the "noncommittal" and merely "social" character of Ritschl's and Harnack's liberal theology. Try to find a single reference in any of it to Christ actually existing, of revelation or advent actually meaning something, like you said, in the Kierkegaardian sense that goes beyond "how can we adapt Christian charity to black womanism."

          You may not be able to teach it but maybe you can find ways to keep your sanity. There are niches out there for heterodox but earnest people. Think of how difficult it must have been to be pastor to some newly converted Goths or Slavs or Lithuanians. We moderns are just re-barbarized in matters of the soul, but in a way that also makes us fertile ground for a much higher development, once we re-integrate this challenge and figure out why it has been given to us.

          thank you for your thoughtful reply and recommendations.
          >You may not be able to teach it but maybe you can find ways to keep your sanity
          kek, yep. I know teaching is inherently reductionist in a sense but being paid 30k a year to teach the catechism with no elaboration is not what I signed up for really, doesn't even feel like a work of mercy to hand-wave away complexity

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I think that you misunderstand the nature of scrupulosity; it is almost always a manifestation of an underlying anxiety disorder and it can affect anyone approaches the devout life with that kind of personality. St Therese of Liseaux lost her mother at a young age and, by her own admission, had social phobias long before she entered the monastic life or formulated the Little Way. The feelings of scrupulosity can unfortunately persist even if the person knows them to be invalid and ignores them. People just cannot control how they feel, generally speaking, and I don't know of any "legitimate theology" that has succeeded in changing that fact. Certainly not Tonberg's. Neuroticism is a human flaw, and it isn't grounds to accuse large swathes of you your colleagues as "disregarding existential foundations." What, to you, is "legitimate theology," and what spiritual practices do you consider to be substantial and non-abberant?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >why do you recommend him here specifically?
        I was mainly reminded of his situation because he and his whole generation of Kantian and Jena romantic philosophers worshipped science at its highest possible level self-consciousness, i.e. as explicitly opposed to any form of dogma, self-delusion, or view of knowledge as mere "usefulness." And yet he had to teach Christian theology, including dogmatic theology, at the absolute nexus of such science-worship, the newly founded University of Berlin, where non-Christians or lapsed Christians like Goethe and Hegel naturally tended toward Spinozist pantheism and effectively made "natural theology" that the new theology of the age.

        The issue of whether specifically Christian religiosity has a place "within" such a scientific worldview is obviously going to trouble any Christian deeply. But specifically Schleiermacher's generation was acutely, almost painfully aware of the epistemological status of the very categories of "revelation" and "advent." They saw a generation in advance that theology was inevitably going to lapse into deconstructive Tubingen historicism and the liberal theology of Ritschl and Harnack.

        So the fact that Schleiermacher found a way to carry out genuine theological teaching in that context is interesting. I recommend this article
        https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/522276
        I also strongly strongly recommend looking into Ernst Troeltsch if you haven't already, a friend of Max Weber. He had similar doubts and problems and developed a conception of "wandering" or inherently historical and developmental Christianity, because like Schleiermacher he understood that certain paths were simply barred, and (in my view) that an approach like neo-orthodoxy was insufficient. What we are currently going through is an almost carbon copy of the frustration of Troeltsch's whole generation at the "noncommittal" and merely "social" character of Ritschl's and Harnack's liberal theology. Try to find a single reference in any of it to Christ actually existing, of revelation or advent actually meaning something, like you said, in the Kierkegaardian sense that goes beyond "how can we adapt Christian charity to black womanism."

        You may not be able to teach it but maybe you can find ways to keep your sanity. There are niches out there for heterodox but earnest people. Think of how difficult it must have been to be pastor to some newly converted Goths or Slavs or Lithuanians. We moderns are just re-barbarized in matters of the soul, but in a way that also makes us fertile ground for a much higher development, once we re-integrate this challenge and figure out why it has been given to us.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Then don't study it anymore.

    Simple as.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why the frick does theology still exist after Kant? This is entirely your fault for studying theology in the 21st century, everyone laugh at OP for being a moron.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >theological studies
      >I can't stomach dogmatic certainty
      Isn't the point to analyze and look at that dogma and theology critically? Isn't that what separates a scholar from a dogmatic?

      I recommend you read Levinas and Kearney. There's a lot of post-dogmatic theology that I thought would be engaged with critically but is really just ignored because of the fundamental challenges it poses.

      your post addresses the absolute anguish that comes from the "death of god". there is something about mystical and religious experience that can't be "put to work" and in an increasingly work-obsessed world, authentic ecstatic experience is circumscribed. christianity is made to work for society, is made to work for liberals that want to redeem christianity or is made to work for conservatives who want to redeem society. both camps are clowns obviously and are not authentically religious.

      well put

      Why did invest so heavily into studying theology if you didn't have any religious convictions? I understand that the field of natural theology existed long before judaism and christianity, but what substantial purpose does the study serve divorced itself from the devout life?

      because it has been meaningful to me, and I wanted to teach people how to "live well". I thought a high school theology teacher would be a good role for that. I still am "religious" in a sense, just not in the way that I can teach to others authentically.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >I still am "religious" in a sense, just not in the way that I can teach to others authentically.
        If you can't teach people authentically, that may simply be because the people you study do not have an authentic knowledge or faith. I mean what do you see in someone like Tonberg; he was an ex theosophist who tried to transplant his own cobbled understanding of Catholic mysticism onto new age novelties like the tarot. What did he actually have to say that someone like Teresa of Avila did not? Have you considered that you might just be attached to heterodox theology for the wrong reasons?

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >theological studies
    >I can't stomach dogmatic certainty
    Isn't the point to analyze and look at that dogma and theology critically? Isn't that what separates a scholar from a dogmatic?

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    your post addresses the absolute anguish that comes from the "death of god". there is something about mystical and religious experience that can't be "put to work" and in an increasingly work-obsessed world, authentic ecstatic experience is circumscribed. christianity is made to work for society, is made to work for liberals that want to redeem christianity or is made to work for conservatives who want to redeem society. both camps are clowns obviously and are not authentically religious.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The pain created by death of god is a psychological illusion, just identify the instincts of your subconscious as the will of God and you have no problem because your actions will justify themselves as subjective acts of freedom.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I see what you’re saying and I know what you mean, but I meant “death of god” more in the sense of how the public at large interacts with god/religion in general. There is a fundamentally different attitude to religion following the enlightenment in the sense that many enlightenment philosophers tried to answer for everything (a project which is completed imo by hegel). And now, so many years later and in a time which is still absolutely linked with the enlightenment because we are still following the destiny of the enlightenment, the idea of god and what god is or should be and what Christianity in general should be used for, I guess I think that this question has already been resolved for us, even if we don’t want it to have been. the world which we live in and which we are answered already. the scientific attitude we have taken up, that we have inherited and act on even when we don’t want to, relegates religion to the private sphere - belief is a trinket which we may hold onto, but we must realize that it is merely a trinket from a time past.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Thus another engineer was born! Welcome to stem OP

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Why STEM?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Why STEM?
        Certainty after all the bullshit. It's hard to doubt a computer exists if you're using to make a post

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why did invest so heavily into studying theology if you didn't have any religious convictions? I understand that the field of natural theology existed long before judaism and christianity, but what substantial purpose does the study serve divorced itself from the devout life?

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You seem to believe that how theology is done in your program is how theology is done everywhere. Might just be the place you're studying theology at. Try to go see how they do it somewhere else. I know most of the theology programs in the west just try to focus on the social aspect of religion, but you can still find places where they take it seriously. Theology is infinitely richer and more profound than what you can get in a master's program.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I had the same feeling when I studied psychology, ended up dropping out of university to become an Internet scammer.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >ended up dropping out of university to become an Internet scammer.
      quick rundown?

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Catholicism
    See thats the problem. Should have gone Orthodox

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous
      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous
  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >theological studies and education
    It's because you're doing the education bit. There is a very good reason women can't be priests.

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Theology will only become more relevant but it won't be Christian

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Meaningless empty nothingness detached objective suffering evolved plankton that became aware of itself and in utter desperation created elaborate coping mechanisms nothing but chemicals it's fricking over existence might as well be hell ts over

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Religion is all bullshit.

  17. 2 years ago
    Dirk

    In my theology program all my classmates were quite enthusiastic and if anything I felt intimidated by how much passion they had for theology for its own sake. I found it hard to keep up in that way.

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