Brian Hamilton

Specialization and Passion

I have not known what to say, so far, when asked to explain my ‘interests,’ my area of specialization or academic focus. I have said that I don’t have yet, because “my itnerests are still to broad” or “it’s too early in my training to tell.” But Mary Doak asked a different question: “You’re in Moral? So why do you care about systematics?” I’m in Mary’s Fundamentals of Systematic Theology this semester.

Asking the question “Why do you care?” struck me as something more nearly answerable. Social ethics are my most persistent concern, I stammered, but I care about systematics because of my conviction that our systematic reflection (on the nature of God, on sacramental practice, on the mysteries of salvation) is included in and inseparable from moral formation. More than that, I think that working through our confession of faith reframes the entire moral question, redirects it towards that Kingdom of God which is not of this world, requires things of us we wouldn’t otherwise expect. I want our activists to engage in consciously christoform protest, our systematicians to aim their speculation at the concrete (moral) upbuilding of the church, our moral theologians to acknowledge the unity of eschatological and political questions (for example).

Recognizing this passion doesn’t get me much further in choosing an academic specialization, but it helps me to set priorities and grant some order to my training. And maybe it helps more than I think with this former task as well, because it changes the question. No longer What will be your academic priority? but From what perspective can you best perform your passion, or best exercise your gifts? Can you speak most coherently on this theme as a systematic or moral theologian, and will that placement allow you to adequately challenge the discipline you want most to challenge? Do you want most to demonstrate the way that moral theology can be done by reference to formally systematic topics, or that systematic theology can be done with an ethically-informed shape and telos?

Surprisingly, it’s the latter that is most appealing. That doesn’t necessarily mean I concentrate on systematics rather than moral theology, but it does require a definite intentionality with regard to the shape I give my program here at Notre Dame.

13 September 2006 |
tags: Personal