Of Subjunctives and Apologetics: A Response to Judith Wolfe

I would like to thank my colleague Judith for her profound and expansive lecture, that I have benefitted greatly from engaging with. She starts from a definition of theology, to give an account of the place of theology within the university, emphasizing both the role of theology in establishing the possibility of academic engagement with the world through its metaphysical claims, and the unitive function of theology, using the example of interdisciplinary engagement with psychology. She moves on to narrate the difference that makes to the central functions of the university, discovery and dwelling, and finally, using eschatology as an example, to explore how this is all relevant to wider society. Judith’s references to philosophy doing at least some of the same work as theology indicate an awareness that some – within the modern Western university, perhaps most – hearers will instinctively engage her claims as if they were made in the subjunctive mood. If – but only if – the core claims of theology happen to be true, then it does bring the benefits and implications she identifies. If instead the Christian doctrine of creation is not true, for example, then the claimed metaphysical grounding of the possibility of academic engagement becomes at best of no worth, and perhaps even genuinely harmful to the mission of the university, in providing misleading hope. There is perhaps a stronger argument that is implied, but undeveloped, in Judith’s lecture – that the possibility of the university as commonly conceived depends on conditions that theology alone can guarantee. Even if developed, this would still unfortunately fail: the historical entanglement of the Western university with Christendom means that all such an argument would prove, if it were prosecuted, is that our loss of shared faith should lead to the abandonment, or at least transformation, of our idea of a university – a conclusion that many recent jeremiads lamenting the state of the contemporary university might be seen to support.