Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2007, Blaðsíða 58

conduct, and a bracing degree of difference about the philosophical founda-
tions of morality were believed to give coherence to the academic enterprise.
The position of theology which takes practice seriously in the academy has
been much challenged in recent times. Maclntyre is surely right in suggesting
that moral and theological truths became increasingly regarded as belonging
in the realm of privatised and arbitrary belief: ‘Questions of truth in morality
and theology - as distinct from the psychological or social scientific study of
morals and religion - have become matter for private allegiances, not to be
accorded ... formal badges of academic recognition’.17 Ethics has accordingly
been moved to the periphery of academic life, and has increasingly nervously
stressed its autonomy, from theology in particular. This has left an ominous
vacuum at the heart of the academy. As a consequence academics and pro-
fessionals interested in issues of public policy or social responsibility have
sometimes begun to look with expectation towards theology and in particular
theological ethics for help and a sense of direction. We are therefore at a time
of particular opportunity for a Theology which is not afiraid to interpenetrate
and inform other disciplines. If Maclntyre and others are right in suggesting
that the post-encyclopaedic university in a post-modern world is in a crisis
in which it is confronted on all sides with questions it lacks the resources to
answer, perhaps an ethically informed Theology may be able to suggest some
possible ways forward towards a greater relevance and a better sense of being
a community of shared purpose.18
I believe that, at least in relation to his encyclopaedia project, Schleier-
macher’s position is irretrievable. We do not today have agreed maps of the
academy, and I do not believe that Theologians should spend their time and
energy asserting a claim to a place in a non-existent atlas. After all, if the
university throws us out, we can operate quite happily in the Church - only,
as I shall argue, the university would be the poorer for it. And an even more
pressing problem today is perhaps the increasing anti-intellectualism of many
branches of the Church, and their unwillingness to take theology seriously. In
the fragmented post-modern university much energy is wasted on boundary
17 Maclntyre, op.cit., p.217.
18 Maclntyre, op.cit., p.271.