Comparativeanalytictheology.org

Whitepaper
Comparative Analytic Theology

31 March, 2023

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Contents:

1. Comparative Analytic Theology: Progress                                        

2. Problems                                                                                

1. Problem 1: The Impossibility of Mind-Independent Substantive Jewish Analytic Theology                                                                
2. Problem 2: Difficulties Associated with Constructive Islamic Analytic Theology                                                                        
3. General Methodological Worries                                                

3. Prospects                                                                                

4. Conclusion                                                                                

5. Appendix 1: David Efird’s Approach to Teaching the Philosophy of Islam        

6. Appendix 2: David Efird’s Approach to Teaching Analytic Theology                

7. Bibliography                                                                                

Comparative Analytic Theology: Progress

Although the disciplines of comparative theology[1] and comparative philosophy of religion[2] are fairly well established, comparative analytic theology is, at best, embryonic.[3] As far as we can make out, the first reference to its very possibility can be found in Crisp, Arcadi, and Wessling’s The Nature and Promise of Analytic Theology (published in 2020).[4] The first substantial comment on how this possibility might be realised can be found in the final chapter of William Wood’s Analytic Theology and the Academic Study of Religion (published in 2021), although Wood’s proposal amounts to an extension of his methodology for Christian analytic theology.[5]

Of course, the fact the term has only recently been coined does not mean one cannot find pre-existing work that could, in theory, travel under its banner. In addition to what one might describe as its medieval predecessors,[6] there are several contemporary examples of what one might anachronistically call comparative analytic theology (at least, amongst the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam),[7] as well as recent projects that have brought Jewish, Christian, and Islamic analytic theologians together.[8] Even so, it is fair to say the vast majority of work that travels under the banner of analytic theology is not comparative (and is, indeed, Christian[9]). Further, there are no existing detailed methodological explorations nor any substantive conversations about the conditions for its possibility. This white paper attempts a beginning to these conversations. In what follows, we explore whether (and if so, how) comparative analytic theology might develop into something less piecemeal and more fully fledged. We will do this through reflection on the distinctive methodologies for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic analytic theology that we have elsewhere outlined, as well as the problems these distinctive methodologies might pose to any comparative project.[10]

Throughout, we will assume that analytic theology can be described in the following way: as applying analytic philosophy to granular theological propositions in rigorous appreciation.[11] With this in hand, comparative analytic theology, which we treat as a species of philosophy,[12] can be distinguished from comparative theology, which we treat as a species of theology (a species of theology which explicitly discourages theological neutrality).[13] We also follow Stump in disambiguating philosophy from theology in the following way:

the difference between theology and philosophy lies most centrally in this difference in what they seek. It makes a great difference to one’s method of seeking and one’s view of the nature of depth-in-understanding whether what one is seeking is an abstract universal such as wisdom or something with a mind and a will. . . [W]e can think of philosophy as the pursuit of an abstract universal, namely, wisdom, and theology as the study of a concrete particular who is a person, namely, God.[14]

Just as we think the study of analytic theology is well suited for inclusion in a secular academy, so, too, do we think comparative analytic theology will be, but only if its interlocutors are able and equipped to engage with a certain type of substantive analytic theology in each of the compared theological traditions. We will unpack what we mean by ‘substantive’ shortly. As it happens, there is reason to think this enterprise will be a lot more challenging to see through than may have been initially anticipated.

Before disambiguating between different modes of analytic theology, it will be useful to set the subdiscipline of analytic theology within a broader conceptual framework. Consider, then, the following taxonomy (Figure 1):

Fig. 1. A Taxonomy for Analytic Theology

As indicated in Fig. 1, we take analytic theology to be a species of the genus philosophical theology, which is in turn under the family philosophy. To distinguish analytic theology from other species of philosophical theology, for example, phenomenological theology,[15] we take analytic theologians to rigorously analyze propositional claims that are peculiar to particular theological traditions. This focus on propositions serves to separate analytic theology from the study of non-propositional subject matter that might occupy a philosophical theologian (although, of course, nothing prevents an analytic theologian from analyzing the existence, scope, and value of such non-propositional subject matter[16]). This focus on propositional claims that are peculiar to particular theological traditions serves to separate analytic theology from (analytic) philosophy of religion, which we take to address general theological claims that are available, so to speak, from one’s armchair.

At this level of generality, insofar as each theological tradition endorses any particular propositional claims, it is possible for any analytic philosopher, regardless of faith commitment, to engage in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian analytic theology.[17] One merely needs access to a list of propositional claims that are taken to represent the tradition, and perhaps a list of fidelity criteria by which to assess, for example, the success of one’s attempts to model these propositional claims.[18]

With this in view, consider, for example the following, taken from Eleonore Stump’s introduction to her recent Image of God (in what follows we understand ‘philosophical theology’ to capture ‘analytic theology’[19]):

Philosophical theology is the attempt to use philosophical tools to investigate theological claims made by a particular religion, especially those claims put forward by that religion as revealed by the deity. Those claims are the starting points for philosophical theology. Philosophical theology tests the coherence of such doctrinal claims, attempts explanations of them, uncovers their logical connections with other doctrinal propositions, tries to describe possible worlds in which they could be true, and so on.

In this respect, philosophical theology is like philosophy of physics or philosophy of biology. The aim of philosophy of biology, for example, is not to do biology, but to philosophize about the claims that biology takes to be true. For philosophy of biology, it does not matter if the biological claims taken as starting points for philosophy of biology are in fact true, provided they are taken to be true in biology. Analogously, it does not matter for philosophical theology if the claims taken as starting points drawn from theology are true. (In the same sense, as the current pandemic shows, it matters to me as a person and to everybody whether claims taken to be true in the community of biologists are really true). But, for purposes of philosophical theology, what matters is whether the theological claims being examined are orthodox, that is, whether they are accepted as true and mandatory for belief within a particular religious community.

Nothing about [claims made in philosophical theology] requires that the theological claims accepted as orthodox, that is, as the starting points to be used as data… are true (or in the case of stories purporting to describe history) historically accurate. On the other hand, of course, nothing about [these claims] rules out supposing that they are true and historically accurate either. A project in philosophy of biology does not require that the biological claims at issue be true, but it does not rule out their truth either.[20]

In personal correspondence, Samuel Lebens, speaking of the possibility of Jewish Analytic Theology, puts this point across in the following way:

There are a set of propositions that are central to the Jewish intellectual tradition, and there are a set of propositions that are central to the Jewish faith; many of these propositions are common to the Abrahamic traditions in general. To the extent that these propositions can be expressed in a language that is common to analytic philosophers, analytic philosophy has a lot to contribute, in terms of sketching the logical relationship between these propositions, thinking about their downstream entailment, etc., and there seems to me to be no reason to think that one has to be Jewish (in any sense of the word) to do it! Moreover, I think that this process can feedback into the Jewish community and end up making a real impact in the lives of practitioners, eventually shaping the sort of religious/confessional philosophy of Judaism that might require immersion in the community and faith. In fact, I would call the two sorts of philosophy, (i) confessional philosophy of Judaism and (ii) analytic philosophy of Judaism.[21]

Similarly, William Wood writes concerning the possibility of comparative analytic theology:

One virtue of analytic philosophy as a method is that it is quite conducive to identifying exactly where religious traditions agree and disagree about deep axiological, ontological, and epistemological matters. Analytic evaluation can, therefore, sharpen our grasp of both the similarities and the differences that obtain among different religious traditions. Both are equally important. It is easy to exaggerate doctrinal differences across religious traditions, especially in a scholarly climate that (rightly) celebrates difference, diversity, and distinctiveness. In such a climate, it can be a useful corrective to discover that sharply different religious traditions sometimes make similar claims. At the same time, however, evaluating truth claims is a way to sharpen our grasp of the real differences that do obtain across traditions. We can do this in a divisive way; but we can also do it respectfully, as a way of letting the religious other remain other.[22]

Given this focus on propositional theological claims,[23] as well as the existence of a shared language, analytic philosophy, by which to conceptualise and unpack these claims, comparative analytic theology appears, at first glance, straightforwardly possible. And not only possible, but to be encouraged. William Wood notes that ‘the wholesale refusal to evaluate religious truth claims [present in religions other than one’s own] often expresses its own kind of cultural dominance and disrespect.’[24] Indeed, in Appendix 1 we provide a handout, used by David Efird at York, to introduce undergraduate students to this kind of methodological approach. Nevertheless, we think matters are not quite as straightforward as Stump, Lebens, and Wood have suggested. In what follows, we address several difficulties would-be comparative analytic theologians must address if this subdiscipline is to take root. After working through these problems, we will outline what we take to be the prospects for this subdiscipline (that is to say, what we think comparative theology could be).

2. Problems Facing Comparative (Abrahamic) Analytic Theology

Although we think analytic theology is best understood as situated under the family of philosophy, we also think the work of an analytic theologian can carry theological significance. Furthermore, we think comparative analytic theology will only be a worthwhile enterprise if it retains this theological significance.

In just these two claims we note controversy. The very claim that analytic theology can be theologically significant is contentious (and, indeed, we will offer at least one argument against this view later in this paper).[25] So, too, is the claim that any theological significance that might be present in Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology can transfer to a comparative project that addresses such work.

Even so, at the very least, we agree that analytic theology will not have theological significance if the analytic theologian, and so, also, the would-be comparative analytic theologian, fails to represent (with due sophistication) the theological tradition with which they are purporting to engage.[26] Following Wood, we will call analytic theology that fails to represent a particular tradition with requisite nuance ‘formal analytic theology’. Similarly, we will call analytic theology that does represent a particular tradition with requisite nuance ‘substantive analytic theology’.[27]

Even if there is something philosophically valuable about comparative analytic theology done in the formal mode,[28] if it is not built upon substantive (e.g.,) Jewish, Christian, and Islamic analytic theology, merely formal comparative analytic theology will have little to no theological significance. We take this to be the case regardless of whether such ‘formality’ enters one’s analysis as a result of engaging with Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology carried out in a merely formal mode, or because a would-be comparative analytic theologian is not equipped to appreciate the theological nuance in the substantive Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology they are engaging with (even if they are equipped to appreciate the theological nuance in one of these traditions).

So, in our view, if comparative analytic theology is to have any value at all, it must involve (i) engaging with analytic theology carried out in the substantive mode in each of the theological traditions under comparison, (ii) by someone, our putative comparative analytic theologian (or putative community of analytic theologians), capable of (and so, not merely aspirationally) appreciating and appropriating to an appropriate degree the theological nuance present in such substantive work.[29]

We will address a question that follows from (ii), of the kind of work a comparative analytic theologian (or community of comparative analytic theologians) might produce, and what resources might be required to facilitate their production, a little later on in this paper.[30] Before then, this second requirement invites an immediate question: is it even possible for one person (or, indeed, a group of people) to do (or, at least, to appropriately engage with) substantive Christian, Islamic, and Jewish analytic theology?[31]

There is a temptation to say, without too much reflection, that although the barriers for entry may be high (and high even if we concede that anything approximating native familiarity remains a telos): yes, of course. Although challenging, one can surely develop a competence in analytic philosophy as well as multiple theological traditions. And indeed, we can point to those who have. But analytic theology in its substantive mode is not merely historical-exegetical. It is not merely discursive. Although it may draw from the work of earlier philosophical theologians, at least in the Christian tradition, it aims at (most often) constructive (and so, speculative) theological explanations. More than this, it is not merely explanatory, it is also a form of normative inquiry. Inasmuch as explanation might systematise prior theological reflection, substantive analytic theology’s norming capacity promises novel theological explanations to established theological puzzles in addition to novel theological puzzles drawn from these novel explanations, with both kinds of engagement capable of affecting the wider theological story within which it resides.[32] Even if scope for substantive exploration of theological explanations remains open to theological outsiders (and even here we note contention, to be discussed below), it is far from clear that a theological outsider can speak into and on behalf of a theological tradition (and even if possible, almost certain that they cannot do so without very close familiarity with the languages and cultural contexts associated with that tradition). But before reflecting on this norming capacity latent in any constructive theology (analytic or not), it will prove helpful to disambiguate the different modes within which any analytic theologian might work.

Fig. 2 Disambiguating Analytic Theology

Although we will embellish upon each of these distinctions in what follows, to orient this discussion, we offer here, in shorthand, a brief account of how we shall understand each of the above modes. We understand substantive analytic theology as, roughly, analytic theology that is ‘true to the wider theological story’ within which the propositional claims it analyses can be found, whatever this story might be. Similarly, we understand formal analytic theology as, roughly, analytic theology that is not ‘true to the wider theological story’ within which the propositional claims it analyses are purported to be found, whatever this story might be.

Procedural and constructive analytic theology are possible in either formal or substantive modes of engagement, but as we think any comparison between work carried out in the merely formal mode is essentially (theologically) worthless, we will leave this to one side. We understand by procedural analytic theology, any analytic attempt to make sense of a particular set of propositional claims (for example, the claim that a person will see God in the hereafter[33]), without either attempting to systematise these claims into a broader theological meta-narrative or to draw out theological entailments that go beyond the propositions one began with that might follow from these explanations. In other words, procedural analytic theology intentionally avoids the normative shaping of any kind of theological meta-narrative. We understand by constructive analytic theology, any analytic attempt to unpack, explain, and then situate a particular set of propositional claims within a broader theological meta-narrative, with any theological entailments that follow from such an explanation or such situation brought to the fore and then explored (and, possibly, given the supposed norming capacity for constructive analytic theology, amendments proposed to the theological meta-narrative it is situated within).

Analytic theology in the procedural mode is more likely to be substantive if the theological tradition in question does not offer a unified meta-narrative and / or eschews theological speculation and novelty (of the kind assumed when one explores theological entailments). Assuming such a theological tradition, any attempt at constructive analytic theology looks doomed to fall under the formal mode. Analytic theology in the constructive mode is more likely to be substantive if the theological tradition in question does not eschew theological speculation whilst also purporting to offer something amounting to a unified meta-narrative, accessible to the analytic theologian, around which theological claims can be systematised. Assuming this theological backdrop, attempts at procedural analytic theology that do not account for the broader theological story look doomed to fall into a merely formal mode.

As we see matters, this way of thinking about the different ways substantive analytic theology might be possible within different theological traditions raises several major obstacles for any would-be project in comparative analytic theology, at least, one that focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Problem 1: The Impossibility of Mind-Independent Substantive Jewish Analytic Theology

As mentioned, in our view, the desiderata for theologically valuable Islamic, Jewish, and Christian analytic theology ought to exclude from the outset work carried out in a merely formal mode. By the same token, if the work of a comparative analytic theologian is to have any chance at theological significance, we think they must limit their comparison to works of analytic theology carried out in the substantive mode. By ‘substantive’ we mean here more than merely historically informed. Consider, for example, Sameer Yadav’s concern about some apparently historically informed analytic theology (here, AT):

…the objection to AT from history is not that it fails to appeal to history or engage with historical sources, but that it fails to offer any deep understanding of the interests and values being served by the theological claims of the texts and traditions to which it appeals. Because AT’s interests in theological truth-claims and arguments are so narrowly focused on knowledge and warrant, its practitioners are mostly motivated to strip-mine theological texts and traditions for the relevant chains of inferential reasoning rather than critically engaging with any wider theological understanding that ultimately makes the relevant knowledge-claims and patterns of reasoning valuable.[34]

We take Yadav to be encouraging a form of analytic theology that is situated within, and true to the spirit of, a wider theological story (if there is such a story), a story that, if it exists, transcends lists of theological propositions (no matter how accurately these propositions capture the reality they are supposed to represent).

In additional to the need for a would-be comparative analytic theologian to have access to analytic theology carried out in the substantive mode in each of the theological traditions in question, any would-be comparative analytic theologian must be willing and able to appreciate the theological nuance that distinguishes analytic theology in formal and substantive modes in each of the compared theological traditions. Together, these requirements set up the following problem: what if, in one theological tradition, substantive engagement is impossible for theological outsiders? That is to say, is substantive comparative analytic theology even possible if one of the compared theological traditions has no mind-independently-true wider theological story, accessible to all, but rather mind-dependent individual theological stories, accessible only to individual religious believers? No doubt, in such circumstances, the propositional claims found within such a theological tradition might be systematised and explored, but without an ability to accurately situate these claims within a larger, substantive theological story, any such systemisation will be, at best, formal. Lucas Oro Hershtein suggests something like this situation is plausibly the case in Judaism.

The problem of whether the primary Jewish traditional sources argue that Judaism involves certain propositional knowledge (in other words, that Jews believe in something specific insofar as they are Jews) has been extensively researched through a historical lens.[35] A comprehensive theological exploration of the topic exceeds these introductory lines, since it would necessarily involve, on the one hand, an agreement on the definition of certain philosophical categories, such as “language” and “experience”, and a larger exploration of how they are explicitly or implicitly understood in the Jewish sources, on the other.

Setting this larger project aside, Lucas Oro Hershtein assumes that Judaism exclusively implies, as a necessary condition, participation[36] in the covenant expressed by the People of Israel. The possibility of this participation was the revelation at Mount Sinai in which the covenant was accepted. The event at Mount Sinai exhibits multiple faces. It is both a past historical episode, the reality of which has been transmitted generation after generation and a present spiritual relationship, the facticity of which is recognised by those who live in it. Judaism is, in the end, nothing but this relationship. The covenant involves two addresses that are overlapped: to the People of Israel and to each Jew. In the context of this covenant, there is a national story, shared by the people of Israel, into which a personal story, that of each Jewish person, is situated. The lived story of the People of Israel is inaccessible to non-Jewish people, whilst the personal story is inaccessible to anyone else besides the particular Jewish individual whose story it is. Any theological statement uttered from outside the covenantal boundaries created by this revelation and actualised through a Torah-observant life can at best only pretend at being the storyteller of someone else’s experience. If substantive analytic theology is only possible if the analytic theologian has a sophisticated appreciation for the story (and so, the interests and values) in which the propositional claims in question can be found, the inability of a theological outsider to either appreciate or shape this story will render any attempt they might make to make sense of theological propositional claims that may be attendant to Jewish theology merely formal, and so, inappropriate for use in substantive comparative analysis.

To understand why this matters, note that a Jewish person’s relationship with God, as in any marriage (and, as it is said in Mishnah Taʿanit 4:8, Mount Saint was the wedding ceremony between God and Israel), constantly evolves. The multiple theologies that Jews have built up through history to sing the praises of their beloved do not, in the end, talk but about the lover and the ties between him and his beloved. Even the most intricate, detailed and technical discussion in the field of Jewish law expresses this love that the covenant is. This is why “conversion” to Judaism is such a complex process: it cannot, it should not, involve knowledge, beliefs or ulterior motives underlying the act of love, but only the acceptance of the yoke of the covenant itself.

In this context, theology has two dimensions and three purposes. The first dimension is the conceptual unfolding of the act of the relationship itself, and here theology should adopt phenomenology as its methodology. The second dimension is the theoretical clarification of how that relationship has been represented, and here theology needs analytic philosophy to be at its core. The first purpose, metaphorically speaking, would be to warm the house by taking pictures of the different moments of this loving relationship and describing what is in these images (which are static representations of the impossible-to-grasp dynamics of life). Second, it keeps the place organised. In the same way that a family accumulates souvenirs of the time spent together, theology takes care of managing how the People of Israel have conceptualised what it means to exist because of the covenant, collectively, and how individual Jews have conceived what it means to live in this covenant. Third, it makes it possible for these mementoes to be shared with others whose hearts throb with the same love and whose lives are surrounded by the same difficulties but have been given other covenants. In the end, nothing is outside the covenant, whether for the People of Israel or every Jew.

This is why comparative theology should be seen as, at the same time, the most beautiful possible endeavour and an impossible attempt. Since there is no outside-of-this-love, nothing can be as significant as to occupy ourselves, in words and deeds, with it, and as any person ardently yearning for his beloved knows, it is impossible not to talk uninterruptedly about Him. However, no words can capture what it means to be in love, the relationship or even less his object of affection.

Theology is not meaningless. On the contrary, it is a fundamental enterprise that allows the practitioner to return to the experience to comprehend it. This process reinforces the willingness and passion to continue intending to live submissive to the source of life and not to the banalities of intellectual snobism. However, as Maimonides suggested by ending his Guide, in chapter 3:51, with a radical reappraisal of his general proposal, the first stage in spiritual life is intellectual apprehension of God, the second intellectual contemplation or intellectual worship of God, and the last is the continuous contemplation of God. And as has been said, “the telos of humanity, according to Maimonides, is not philosophy itself. Philosophy is a stage, an instrument, a means to the end. The end is continuous contemplation of God, continuous being-in-the-presence of God”.[37] Theology is the most dazzling, interesting and relatively true game that can be played, and even more when analytic philosophy defines its rules so its potentialities are realised to the maximum extent possible, but in the end the abyss between every possible relative truth that can be uttered and the infinite truth can only be bridged but by clinging to God through an act that surpasses thought and speech.

Problem 2: Difficulties Associated with Constructive Islamic Analytic Theology

As well as difficulties with identifying anything that might resemble a suitable universal, mind-independently-true ‘wider theological story’ in Jewish analytic theology (and so, concluding that only formal analytic theology is possible for theological outsiders), there are difficulties with identifying any ‘wider theological story’ in Islamic analytic theology, whether such a wider story might be mind-independently true, and so common a group, or mind-dependently true, and so particular to a person. Consider, for example, the following from Amir Dastmalchian:

The style of the Qur’an in some ways resembles poetry and in some ways resembles prose and is commonly described as being neither poetry nor prose. One similarity with poetry that is important for a reading approaching the Qur’an for the first time to note is how the Qur’an is not a book with a continuous narrative from beginning to end. Rather, as with the poems in a poetry book, the chapters of the Qur’an do not lead directly from each other and are not overtly connected with each other. Indeed, even within a single chapter of the Qur’an the theme may change a number of times… The nature of the Qur’an is such that to have a comprehensive understanding of its teaching on [a particular topic] different verses must be pieced together from different parts of the text… [T]o attempt to represent the teaching of the Qur’an in a narrative may be seen as an act of vandalism, akin to reducing a Shakespearean play to a script for a five minute children’s cartoon...[38]

Dastmalchian’s comments render challenging anything that might come close in scope to the work of, for example, Biblical or systematic Christian theologians. Rather than aiming to find or shape a universal story (around which one can attempt to systematise theological claims), Ramon Harvey suggests one instead reconstruct particular narratives that relate only to specific domains, e.g., the moral domain. Harvey writes:

In God’s wisdom all things begin and so shall they end. This is the idea that animates this reflection upon the story that the Qur’an tells from the primordial beginning of human existence to its infinite future. Unlike the Bible, in which the historical unfolding of God’s covenant with humanity is traced through the linear order of the text, the Qur’an’s moral narrative must be reconstructed from passages dispersed throughout its pages. In one sense this reflects more general principles of Qur’anic structure; in another, it accords with the attention it pays to the metaphysical patterns of the wider human condition, rather than the history of particular peoples. God’s wisdom is the constant that informs His creation of the world, just as it underlies both His justice and mercy in the Hereafter.[39]

Although we might trace, for example, as Ramon Harvey does, a moral narrative, it is less clear how (and, indeed, whether) this moral narrative relates to other topics in Islamic theology.[40] As mentioned earlier, we call reflection on a particular topic without any attempt to systematise or develop such reflection beyond that which is directly revealed (e.g., by tracing entailments), procedural analytic theology.

Insofar as comparative analytic theology calls for some degree of speculative theological imagination, at minimum, thinking about how the world might have been (and the entailments that follow from these ways), any desiderata for comparative analytic theology will preclude operating within a merely procedural mode[41] (even if the research a comparative analytic theology draws from is only worked through in the procedural mode in each of the compared theological traditions[42]). That is to say, a comparative analytic theologian ought to approach their task not merely substantively, but also constructively.[43]

In order to engage in constructive analytic theology, one must be willing to engage in speculative theological imagination, thinking rigorously about different ways the world could be, as well as entailments that might follow from these ways the world could be. This approach is, within the family of theology, broadly speaking what systematic theologians aim to do (we think it is in part for this reason that Christian analytic theology is so often conflated with the long-established field of Christian systematic theology[44]). Although analytic theology carried out in the procedural mode need not inhibit mutual understanding (on our taxonomy, procedural can still be substantive[45]), we think that anything that prevents procedural analytic theology from developing into constructive analytic theology will likely prevent its practitioners from the kind of imaginative engagement needed for comparative analytic theology that can be mutually theologically enriching (rather than just helping, e.g., a Christian to understand, if only slightly better, particular beliefs a Muslim may have).[46]

As developing these broader theological stories often falls under the purview of systematic theology, it is at this juncture worth noting that whilst Christian systematic theology is well established, Islamic systematic theology is almost as embryonic as comparative analytic theology. By way of example, Mohammed Abdelnour, an Islamic analytic theologian working on this project, situates himself as one of a few Islamic systematic theologians over the past one thousand years.[47]

What might have inhibited the development Islamic systematic theology? We can identify several reasons:

1. Wahhabi Salafism, the modern dominant mode of thinking, is opposed to speculative theology, believing it to be spiritually harmful and seeing it as a form of deviation from the creed of early Muslims (the Salaf).[48]
2. Novelty is viewed suspiciously, particularly when novelty has its origination in an explicitly Christian methodology. The incorporation of anything that might resemble a ‘foreign element’ (even if not truly foreign)  carries with it more than a whiff of academic colonialism.[49]
3. Although Islamic law (Fiqh) is regarded as the science of furūʿ al-dīn (matters complementary to the Islamic faith), as opposed to theology, which is regarded as the science of uṣūl al-dīn (matters primary to the Islamic faith), the Islamic tradition has largely been focused on Islamic law so much so that it can be considered the “queen of Islamic disciplines.” Many auxiliary disciplines emerged to contribute to the maturity of the field Islamic law, most notably Uṣūl al-Fiqh (principles of Islamic legal theory) and al-Qawāʿid al-Fiqhiyya (legal maxims). On the other hand, far too little attention has been paid to parallel developments in Islamic theology. As a natural concomitant to this, the theological project in the Islamic tradition has largely become limited to definitions and deliberations about the nature and qualities of the transcendent God but has barely developed a systematic theory of objectives, let alone developing auxiliary disciplines similar to those of Islamic law. This has as a consequence a dearth of theological experts.
4. The Kalam tradition has largely moved away from problem-based theology to person- or text-based theology, in essence, preserving the status quo and inhibiting constructive theological speculation.

Despite this, Mohammed Abdelnour has argued that work in both substantive and constructive modes is of great benefit to Muslim theologians at two levels: intellectual humility and intellectual audacity. Two virtues that should lead to what Oliver Crisp called a “generative research program,” whereby Muslim theologians will get to produce original ways of thinking about their theological traditions, or better ways of reflecting upon a body of doctrines that have been developed themselves through our resort to certain methods, and then we may well be able to provide more satisfactory accounts of those doctrines, or that we may discover new aspects to the traditional approaches.[50] As for the risk that the substantive mode cannot occupy a neutral position in its theological usage and that it may well give precedence to reason over revelation, Mohammed argues that this view conflates religion as divinely revealed and the interpretation of religion per se/religious knowledge, which is based on socio-historical factors, and not merely scriptures. Mohammed contends that scriptures themselves are silent and when we aim to understand scriptural texts, we invariably draw on our own expectations, questions and assumptions. Therefore, no interpretation whatsoever can be possible without appealing to some assumptions, questions, and expectations. Therefore, one may safely say that all theologians use tools that are not value-neutral.

Furthermore, Mohammed adds that the substantive/constructive mode can be dangerous only to dogmatic theology; a theology that seeks to “defend” certain presupposed truths, not a theology that “seeks to pursue” it. He invokes the Kantian distinction between the “phenomenon” (the way we see things) and the “noumenon” (the-thing-in-itself ) particularly helpful for Muslim theologians.[51] Even though this distinction has often been used as a key axiom supporting the relativist narrative of truth due to the deep epistemological divide that it creates between the knowable and unknowable, the thinkable and unthinkable; Mohammed takes a “methodological,” not a “theological,” inspiration from it. He sees the vitality of this Kantian distinction in challenging the sense of “theological absolutism” prevalent in dogmatic theology and cultivates a sense of “intellectual humility” when one delves into metaphysics. This Kantian distinction calls for a sense of “methodological agnosticism” when one delves into metaphysical discussions, wherein the process and results of thought engender an empirical conclusion rather than an a priori assumption about the questions under review, without taking truth-claims for granted but instead suspend belief in them long enough to investigate alternative explanations. Although Mohammed is trying to effect change here, attempting as he is to kickstart the field of Islamic systematic theology, it may well take a generational paradigm shift before this move is embraced, if at all.

General Methodological Worries

Although comparative analytic theology may have other political and social benefits (broadly, the same benefits that come from many other forms of interreligious dialogue), we contend that comparative analytic theology will only be mutually theologically enriching if all parties are willing and able to engage in substantive, constructive work. Without clear mutual enrichment, given the preponderance of Christian analytic theologians, there is a real worry that comparative analytic theology will become a Christian enterprise.[52] This possibility brings with it further worries: if the conversation does become one-sided, without sufficient expertise, engagement with non-Christian traditions may tend toward formality. Instead of dispelling cultural arrogance through rigorous religious truth claim evaluation (as earlier proposed by Wood), one will end up engaging in a different kind of cultural arrogance and disrespect.[53]

What counts as an appropriate approach to doing substantive analytic theology is, plausibly, different in each theological tradition. Methodological reflection on what comparative analytic theology could be ought to be sensitive to any such differences. One should be cautious about thinking that because an approach produces substantive work in one tradition it will have the same results in another. It may be that similar, or, indeed, the same, methodological considerations apply, but this must be demonstrated, rather than assumed. We emphasize "demonstration" as opposed to "assumption," as we are aware that mere "assumption" may well involve blind dismissal of approaches that could be used interchangeably across various traditions. Our rule of thumb is that Comparative Analytic Theology should take an approach that is "cautiously open." With its "cautiousness," it avoids subjecting a tradition to the tools of another, and with its "openness," it opens itself to the potentiality of benefiting from the tools of another tradition after careful examination and it does not dismiss the possibility of theological cross-pollination.

So, theological expertise must be present in each of the compared traditions. This does not mean one person must have expertise in each, as mentioned earlier, this is a tall order, but if not, it does mean there should be communities of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic analytic theologians each working in the substantive mode and each willing and open to communicating with each other, with this set of circumstances most likely arising if the comparative project is seen by all as mutually theologically enriching.

Aside from these worries, comparative analytic theology directly inherits some of the concerns that face all analytic theologians. As these have been discussed at length in our three white papers, we will not go over them at length here, other than to flag that moral hazards (idolatry, objectification, gamification, and general instrumentalising of the divine), epistemic hazards (concerning univocity and divine ineffability and related ontotheological worries), and spiritual hazards (associated with hubristic flippancy and a loss of transcendence) each loom large.[54]

3. Prospects

If these obstacles can be overcome (and it is far from obvious they can be, either at all, or at least in the near future), it remains to be asked: what would we want comparative analytic theology to be? Answering this question will help us think through a roadmap for realisation (and so, moving away from substantive prerequisites, as discussed above, to a more detailed methodology for comparative work).

Consider, then, the following ways one might conceptualise the putative work of a comparative analytic theologian:

                    Fig. 3. Three Models for Comparative Analytic Theology

Model 1 treats comparative analytic theology as a distinct entity, as if the comparison between different theological traditions (whatever they might be) were its own theological tradition, a kind of lowest-common-denominator theistic tradition irreducible to any of the theological traditions under comparison. Insofar is it unrelated to the theological traditions it seeks to compare, anything in this mode will be at best formal, and so not of any obvious theological value to an established theological tradition, at least, insofar as there is any difference between the two, not any more value than work in analytic philosophy of religion.

Model 2 also treats comparative analytic theology as a distinct entity, albeit one that emerges from reflection on some particular set of religious traditions, for example, substantive Jewish, Christian, and Islamic analytic theology. One might call this particular distinct entity ‘Abrahamic analytic theology’. However, whilst the study of ‘Abrahamic analytic theology’ might be formally interesting, for example, as a project that outlines the lineaments of a monotheistic philosophy of religion, or as a project that aims to identify similarities between Abrahamic faiths, we are not convinced Abrahamic analytic theology is of any substantive theological value to any of the theological traditions it purports to compare.[55]

Model 3 does not propose a distinctive Abrahamic analytic theology, but unlike Model 1 and Model 2, it requires (as comparative theology encourages) practitioners to situate themselves within a particular tradition (whether confessionally or not), and to think about how shared or similar philosophical puzzles (and their responses) in other theological traditions come to bear the tradition they have situated themselves within. Unlike comparative theology, such situatedness need not be confessional (it merely requires one to do something like imagine what it would be like if one had a certain set of beliefs, and to think about what might follow from this), but whether it is or is not, if it is to be carried out in the substantive mode, it will require of the comparative practitioner theological sophistication in the situated tradition as well as (ideally) access to theologically sophisticated work in the compared traditions (e.g., access to carefully constructed theological puzzles as well as community-accepted fidelity criteria by which to evaluate responses).

Here are two different ways of thinking about this third model that we think are helpful:

Approach 1: ‘Analytic Togetherness’: Friendship, Listening, and Theological Appropriation

In this first approach, comparative analytic theology is simply another way in which an analytic theologian might carry out substantive Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology. On this model, one can do substantive comparative analytic theology by (i) listening to what analytic theologians engaging in (ideally, but not necessarily) substantive work in another theological tradition have to say about some topic (for example, the relationship between God and the word of God[56]), (ii) doing what one can, in collaborative conversation, to model ideas found in one religious tradition, and then (iii) bringing these ideas back into conversation with (for example) one’s own theological tradition.[57] This last step can be done by making connections between the topics raised by one’s interlocutors and what one knows about the theological tradition within which one is situated (even if, strictly speaking, one’s understanding of these topics remains in some sense incommensurable with one’s interlocutor’s understanding[58]).

Such ‘appropriation’ need not be feared. If a theological puzzle facing another theological tradition appears to you to be sufficiently similar to a puzzle your tradition also faces, if another tradition’s response to this puzzle is good and helpful, it will be so on its own merits. If this response is broadly compatible with one’s own fidelity criteria, so much the better. Social or political benefits aside, any comparison here, though, is limited to constructive work in tradition in which one has situated oneself (and indeed, it is not obvious that the work one engages with in other traditions need be substantive at all, just relevantly thought provoking).[59]

Of course, if one only has theological liberty to engage in procedural analytic theology, one may not have license to engage in the kind of imaginative theological speculation required to integrate insights from one faith into another. In such circumstances, comparative interaction may end up going in one direction (that is, being of primary benefit to those prepared to do constructive work), reinforcing the colonial worry mentioned earlier in this paper.

Approach 2: Teaching and Collaborative Analytic Theology

Although this focus on extending Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology sidesteps the need to engage in substantive work in other traditions, one need not see comparative analytic theology in such a parochial fashion. If one were to think of ‘rigorous appreciation’ as having one general methodology (one common amongst Christian analytic theologians) that can be applied to any theological tradition, if Christian, Jewish, or Islamic analytic theology can be taught in a secular institution, as it has at York, to students without particular faith commitments, where said students are able (by being given appropriate fidelity criteria and theologically sensitive puzzles to work on) to engage in substantive work, where substantive just means true to the methodological principles employed, there is no reason to think that comparative analytic theology cannot be done by others outside one’s own faith community, so long as those others are in collaborative conversation with someone who has the relevant theological expertise to guide them to philosophically appropriate theological questions and similarly appropriate fidelity criteria.[60] Again, though, if this is to have theological value, the problems addressed earlier in this paper require a response. Furthermore, as already discussed, it is far from clear that a one-size-fits-all methodology is appropriate, either at all, or in present circumstances.[61]

Common Denominator: The Need for Substantive Analytic Theology

If only seen as an extension of Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology (Approach 1), it is tempting to think one can get away with formal inquiry in the compared theological traditions. After all, good work in one area can be sparked by misunderstandings in another. However, if comparative analytic theology is to be a form of rigorous appreciation (rather than merely providing, for example, new ways to think about one’s own theological tradition), theological expertise in each of the traditions compared must be manifest somewhere in the argumentative food chain. Settling for a merely formal understanding runs a real risk of repeating another version of the cultural arrogance and disrespect Wood suggests is shown through a refusal to evaluate truth claims in other religious traditions.[62]

Excepting those individuals able to expertly converse across multiple religious traditions, we suggest comparative analytic theology is best done in the context of a community of like minded scholars, scholars who have between them the relevant theological and philosophical sensibilities needed to do analytic theology in the substantive mode in their respective theological traditions. If analytic theology is to be understood as a form of appreciation, rather than instrumentalisation, we think this requirement should be foregrounded, too, even if comparative analytic theology is best understood as another way of doing Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology.

Because analytic theology can provide a modern way to appreciate and present the complexities of (aspects of) particular theological traditions, and because it can do so in a secular environment, without the need for faith commitments, if indeed possible, comparative analytic theology would be both similarly modern (even if it can hark back to purported medieval forebears) and also particularly well suited for a certain kind of interfaith dialogue that, in many ways, dovetails with Sir John Templeton’s vision for comparative work. In his Possibilities, Sir John Templeton wrote:

If each denomination of every faith sent missionaries to every other community lovingly to explain and share its vision with others, then would we all learn more? If our concepts truly convey the divine, then they will not suffer in competition with other concepts. What a happy competition it would be if each of us were lovingly trying to give to the other our holy treasures.[63]

The question is: Can comparative analytic theology overcome the obstacles mentioned earlier in this paper? If it cannot, it will remain stuck in a formal mode, ill-suited, we believe, for theologically significant interfaith dialogue (even if it proves helpful to, for example, Christian analytic theologians).

A Note About Comparative Science Engaged Analytic Theology

One way of avoiding some of the concerns raised above is to shift one’s focus away from systematic theology, and so, from a focus on unshared theological topics and data that require a high degree of theological sophistication to engage with competently, to ‘neutral’ data that is common to each theological tradition, namely, data from the natural sciences. Such an approach to comparative analytic theology would see focus shift onto a comparison between different ways exactly the same scientific data is interpreted and incorporated into a particular theological tradition, rather than ways apparently similar theological data might be analysed and incorporated.[64]

We think if this is to avoid the problems raised above, this approach is probably best understood as a species of procedural analytic theology, from which constructive work can (but need not) follow. As a result, we think this is one way comparative analytic theology could proceed in present circumstances. In practice, though, it will require of its practitioners not only expertise in analytic theology and at least one theological tradition, but also competency in some scientific discipline (competency matched by those in other theological traditions that have similar kinds of expertise), further limiting the pool of people that could create the critical mass of scholarship needed for this approach to take root. Furthermore, we worry that any attempt to compare genuinely substantive theological implications such science-engaged work might pose to each tradition would likely invite worries similar to those expressed earlier in this paper.

4. Conclusion

In our view, analytic theology in the substantive mode is a form of rigorous appreciation that would be, in theory, particularly well suited for interfaith dialogue. In practice, however, substantive comparison faces serious obstacles that, very conceivably, cannot be addressed. Without overcoming these challenges, there is every chance comparative analytic theology will remain, at best, embryonic, and, at worst, another form of academic colonialism.

Perhaps the most helpful way to think about the comparative project is by looking at what it should not try to do: it should not try to attempt to raise the theological expertise of everyone in the room, so that all become capable of substantive analytic theology in multiple theological traditions (as we have argued above, this may not be possible). Rather, what we take to be the best models for comparative analytic theology require of those in the room that they expertly represent the tradition in which they are situated, and from this position, listen, question, and try to create conceptual frameworks that make sense of the fidelity criteria and carefully framed theological questions shared by those with relevant expertise in other theological traditions, and that they do this in such a way that they can then bring these ideas and models into conversation with the tradition in which they are situated.[65] In other words, comparative analytic theology is perhaps best understood not as a distinct subdiscipline, but as another way of doing substantive analytic theology in a particular theological tradition, in a way compatible with the methodological norms that may be unique to whatever constitutes substantive analytic theology in that tradition.

An alternative way to think about what comparative analytic theology could be comes from thinking about how analytic theology might be taught in the classroom at a secular institution. In Appendix 2, we list some reflections on the way this has been done at York, where analytic theology has been taught from a broadly Christian methodological perspective. However, if comparative analytic theology is best understood as another way of doing substantive Jewish, Christian, or Islamic analytic theology, comparative analytic theology should not be modelled on a methodology for substantive Christian analytic theology unless it is approaching the comparative project from a self-consciously Christian perspective. We think it would be inappropriate to assume that any attempt at comparative analytic theology will follow, by default, a general methodology for substantive Christian analytic theology, without first considering what counts as substantive analytic theology in each theological tradition. If the obstacles we addressed earlier in this paper are not overcome, this may mean there is not much future for comparative analytic theology (outside, perhaps, substantive Christian analytic theology), but better, in our view, to identify this now, than continue trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Appendix 1

The following was to have been given in an introductory lecture to a new module in Islamic Analytic Theology David Efird had been due to teach before his untimely death.

David Efird’s Introduction to Islamic Analytic Theology

To begin our investigation into the philosophy of Islam, we should first orient ourselves in its intellectual landscape. Approaching the subject from the widest possible perspective, Islam is a religion, so we should have some understanding of what a religion is. Charles Taliaferro defines ‘religion’ in the following way:

A religion involves a communal, transmittable body of teachings and prescribed practices about an ultimate, sacred reality or state of being that calls for reverence or awe, a body which guides its practitioners into what it describes as a saving, illuminating or emancipatory relationship to this reality through a personally transformative life of prayer, ritualized meditation, and/or moral practices like repentance and personal regeneration. [This is a slightly modified definition of the one for ‘Religion’ in Taliaferro and Marty 2010: 196–197; 2018, 240.] (2019)

Thus, philosophy of Islam is a kind of philosophy of religion, in the same way that philosophy of physics is a kind of philosophy of science. Consequently, we should have some understanding of what philosophy of religion is. Talieferro defines it thus:

Philosophy of religion is the philosophical examination of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions as well as the broader philosophical task of reflecting on matters of religious significance including the nature of religion itself, alternative concepts of God or ultimate reality, and the religious significance of general features of the cosmos (e.g., the laws of nature, the emergence of consciousness) and of historical events (e.g., the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, the Holocaust). Philosophy of religion also includes the investigation and assessment of worldviews (such as secular naturalism) that are alternatives to religious worldviews. Philosophy of religion involves all the main areas of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, value theory (including moral theory and applied ethics), philosophy of language, science, history, politics, art, and so on. (2019)

Next, not only is Islam a religion, but also it’s a theological tradition, because it is a religion containing a commitment to the existence of a god. Thus, philosophy of Islam is not only a philosophy of a particular religion but also it’s a philosophy of a particular theological tradition. So, to understand philosophy of Islam, as a philosophy of a particular theological tradition, we have to have some understanding of what a theological tradition is, and, as I see it, that’s best done in contrast to philosophy. ‘In my view,’ Eleonore Stump writes,

the difference between theology and philosophy lies most centrally in this difference in what they seek. It makes a great difference to one’s method of seeking and one’s view of the nature of depth-in-understanding whether what one is seeking is an abstract universal such as wisdom or something with a mind and a will. . . [W]e can think of philosophy as the pursuit of an abstract universal, namely, wisdom, and theology as the study of a concrete particular who is a person, namely, God. (2013, 50)

Thus, the object of theology is to know God, not merely to know things about God, but to know God personally. Consequently, knowing God personally, through a particular faith tradition, will enable the theologian to do better theology than one who lacks such personal knowledge.

But philosophical theology isn’t like that. Philosophical theology consists in the application of the concepts, arguments, and theories of philosophy to

(i)                clarify theological claims or practices,

(ii)               identify philosophical problems these claims or practices give rise to,

(iii)              develop solutions to those problems, and

(iv)              assess the solutions relative to the following sources of authority

a.          Scripture, for example, the Qur’an,

b.          Tradition, for example, Hadith,

c.           Reason, for example, philosophy and science.

Now, different solutions will satisfy the three sources of authority differently. For instance, one solution may satisfy Scripture well, Tradition not so well, and Reason not very well at all, while a competing solution may satisfy Reason well, Scripture not so well, and Tradition not very well at all, and so on. Because of this, and that there are different faithful/reasonable ways of balancing the importance of the three sources of authority, there will be different faithful/reasonable solutions. This is really important to remember as we do philosophy of Islam together, for the very nature of our enterprise requires respect for each other’s points of view.

Doing philosophical theology well thus requires:

●           open mindedness and charity towards others,

●           an ability to form clear and rigorous arguments, rather than expressing dogmatic or emotive opinions, and

●           an ability to think in hypotheticals, for example, what if I had different beliefs or values.

A good philosophical theologian is then like a ‘philosophical councillor’ who is able to help adherents of a theological tradition think through conceptual problems that particular claims or practices in that tradition give rise to, for example, helping

●           Jessica the Jewish person to think about how to reconcile Abraham’s dilemma with the goodness of God, or

●           Charlie the Christian to think about how Jesus could be fully human and fully divine, or

●           Matthew the Muslim to think about how the Qur’an could be eternal.

This then leads to the next important point: doing philosophical theology, in general, or philosophy of Islam, in particular, well doesn’t require having a particular (kind of) faith, in general, or being a Muslim, in particular. The reason is that philosophical theology is thus done independently of any personal knowledge of God a person might have. Consequently, while theology is typically confessional, philosophical theology is not. So when we do philosophy of Islam, our faith commitments aren’t relevant to our intellectual enquiry.

Now, the kind of philosophy of Islam, or Islamic philosophical theology, we’ll be doing will be analytic philosophy of Islam, or Islamic analytic theology. Analytic theology is a kind of philosophical theology that makes use of the concepts, arguments, and theories of analytic philosophy, where analytic philosophy is a kind of philosophy that emphasizes argumentation, clarity, and rigour. There can then be many kinds of analytic theology, in particular, ones focussed on particular theological traditions, such as:

●       Jewish analytic theology: analytic theology of Judaism

●       Christian analytic theology: analytic theology of Christianity

●       Islamic analytic theology: analytic theology of Islam

Appendix 2

A blogpost David Worsley wrote describing the York/Efird methodology for teaching comparative analytic theology (available: https://blogos.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2019/03/08/teaching-analytic-theology-by-david-worsley/ , published in Summer 2019).

Teaching Analytic Theology

 Alongside David Efird (https://www.york.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/david-efird/#profile), I teach Analytic Theology (hereafter, AT) to undergraduates and postgraduates in the Department of Philosophy at the University of York, UK. The following is taken from one of our AT introductory lectures, last given to just over fifty final-year philosophy undergraduates.

* * * * *

 AT draws from four sources of authority:

1. Scripture
2. Tradition
3. Reason
4. Experience

 Sometimes, it seems these sources of authority conflict. In such situations, we might (and different traditions indeed do) prioritize one source over another. As our AT courses are taught in a philosophy department, we tell our students we will be prioritizing a certain kind of reason over the other three (with it being left an open question what priority we might then afford to scripture, tradition, and experience). Nevertheless, despite prioritizing reason, we make it clear that AT is distinct from natural theology. AT is not done through reason alone. The topics we address are, for the most part, derived from special revelation. So, even if reason is prioritized, we must take scripture, tradition, and experience to carry some authority.

 Talk of ‘authority’ must, of course, be qualified. Saying that ‘Scripture is authoritative’ or that ‘Tradition is authoritative’ is not the same as saying ‘Scripture is true’ or that ‘Tradition is true’. So, what does it mean when we say that ‘Scripture is authoritative’? To help unpack this, our students are asked to analyse Michael Rea’s helpful discussion of textual authority:

We treat a wide variety of texts as authoritative, and we do so in different ways. In Scrabble, the latest edition of the Official Scrabble Dictionary is authoritative with respect to questions about which sequence of letters form admissible words and which do not. In a physics class, the assigned text is generally authoritative with respect to questions about physics. Homer’s Iliad is authoritative with respect to questions about certain matters of Greek mythology. An uncontested will is authoritative with respect to questions about how a person’s assets are to be distributed after her death. The United States Constitution is authoritative with respect to questions about the permissibility of a wide variety of executive, legislative, and judicial acts, election practices, and the like. Reflection on examples like these helps to shed light on what it might mean to say that a text is authoritative.

(Rea, ‘Authority and Truth’, 3-4)

 Rea goes on to say the claim ‘X is authoritative’ does not mean anything unless one specifies:

1. The domain within which the text is authoritative (for instance, Jack’s last will and testament is authoritative only in the domain of questions about how precisely Jack’s possessions are to be distributed after his death)
2. The kind of authority the text has (for instance, whether practically authoritative, like the last will and testament, or theoretically authoritative, like the physics textbook)

 Thus, Rea concludes:

To call a text (genuinely, de jure) authoritative is to say that, within some domain and for some individual or individuals, the text supplies reasons for belief or action (or both) that are, absent defeaters, decisive.

(Rea, ‘Authority and Truth’, 17)

 We ask our students to think about the domains scripture and tradition might be authoritative in (e.g., theology, morality, science, politics, Scrabble, and so forth), as well as what defeaters might look like in that particular domain, and what it might take to demonstrate that scripture and tradition are not authoritative in that given domain. After this discussion, we inform students that whatever else they might think, we will be taking scripture and tradition as authoritative in the domain of this specific AT module, but, because we are philosophers, we will be prioritizing reason over scripture and tradition. That is to say, we will take it that reason can supply decisive defeaters for both scripture and tradition.

We suggest that even if students do not take scripture or tradition to be authoritative in any other domain, they may think about what we are doing in these terms:

Can we imagine a possible world in which the claims of scripture and tradition are true?

                    If we can, how might we explain these claims?

                    If we cannot, why not?

At this point, we tell students that their readings are almost entirely self-described hypothetical solutions to intractable theological problems, and that they should be read as attempts to discover whether there is logical space for an idea, and if there is, how that space might be populated.

 With this in hand, our students are introduced to Rea’s much discussed five-point broad analytic style,[66] and are given a general methodology for doing AT themselves, namely:

1.    Take a theological problem e.g., how can God be three persons and one substance?

2.    Apply work done in other areas of analytic philosophy to ask: ‘could this problem be solved using this work?’ e.g., applying the metaphysics of time travel to the Trinity.

3.    Perform a cost/benefit analysis i.e., if we can solve this problem, how does our solution fit with our sources of authority?

4.    Decide whether this is a viable solution.

 This sort of methodology is, of course, not without precedent in philosophy. We take (1) to follow Robert Nozick’s way of conceiving philosophy as giving philosophical explanations to philosophical problems[67], and we take (3) to be rooted in David Lewis’s way of doing philosophy.[68]

 We conclude our introductory lecture by discussing the virtues of ‘good’ analytic theologians, which we take to include:

◦          An open mindedness and charity towards others.

◦          An ability to form clear philosophical arguments, rather than expressing dogmatic or emotive opinions.

◦          An ability to act as a ‘philosophical councillor’ (i.e., how could this position fit together given that you are already committed to these positions?)

 At York, we’ve found that such an approach allows AT to be done communally; we can work together to come up with solutions to philosophical problems and assess them (bearing in mind that one person's cost will be another's benefit, and vice versa), before making our own decision as to which solution (if any) we can live with. And with this encouragement to collegiality, our introductory lecture is complete.

* * * * *

 Setting up our AT modules in this way allows us to measure both learning gain and confidence gain, as well as allowing us to establish (and assess against) clear learning outcomes. All to the pedagogical good (especially with the TEF just around the corner)! But there is, of course, a concern that this way of looking at AT reduces it to something of a game, showing itself to be nothing more than a series of interesting thought experiments that tease out how the world could (or could not) have been; precious different to the ethicists talk of trolleys and tracks and various people in imminent danger of death. And I take this to be a legitimate concern. If arguments in AT only aim at validity, rather than soundness, AT remains just another branch of applied philosophy - no doubt interesting in its own way, but perhaps of little use outside the classroom. What we take to transform AT from a philosophical game into something more serious is the level of attention paid to the premises for the theological problem(s) identified in the first step of the above AT methodology. These premises inevitably derive from scripture and tradition, with errant, ahistorical, or roughshod interpretations of either likely leading the student to the discovery of a theological ‘problem’ (or ‘solution’) found only in a simplistic misreading or mischaracterisation. And if their theological premises are from the outset flawed, no matter how innovative the application of philosophy, it is unlikely their conclusion (regardless of its validity) will remain helpful outside the philosophy classroom.

 If AT is to live up to the potential its advocates think it has - clarifying key doctrines, opening up interreligious dialogue, and so forth - the arguments offered by its practitioners ought to be as sound as they can be. They must be based upon good interpretations of scripture, and on an accurate, historically grounded understanding of tradition. If students are to engage effectively with AT, this grounding must – as best as is possible in the circumstances – be provided before they are let loose to problem solve. When we teach AT, we try to accommodate for this in hour-long topic-introductory lectures that are primarily devoted to establishing (1), with subsequent two-hour seminars set aside for (2), (3), and (4). And in preparing for these introductory lectures we find the work done by those in theology, church history, and biblical studies (in the case of Christian AT) absolutely invaluable (and in recognition of this, we applaud the tripartite focus of the Logos Institute). Certainly, AT is not best done in isolation, no matter how easy or splendid doing so may initially seem.

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Stump, Eleonore (2013). ‘Athens and Jerusalem: The Relationship of Philosophy and Theology’, Journal of Analytic Theology 1, pp. 45-59.

Stump, Eleonore (2022). Image of God (Oxford University Press).

Taliaferro, Charles and Marty, Elsa J. (2019) A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion (Bloomsbury).

Templeton, Sir John (2000). Possibilities for Over One Hundredfold More Spiritual Information: The Humble Approach in Theology and Science (Templeton Foundation Press).

Taylor, Richard C. (2019). ‘Maimonides and Aquinas on Divine Attributes the Importance of Avicenna’ in Josef Stern, James T. Robinson & Yonatan Shemesh (eds.), Maimonides’ "Guide of the Perplexed" in Translation (University of Chicago Press) pp. 333-363.

Wood, William (2016). ‘Trajectories, Traditions, and Tools in Analytic Theology’ in Journal of Analytic Theology 4, pp. 254-266.

Wood, William (2021). Analytic Theology and the Academic Study of Religion (Oxford University Press).

Yadav, Sameer (2020). “Toward an Analytic Theology of Liberation” in Voices from the Edge: Centering Marginalized Perspectives in Analytic Theology, edited by Michael Rea and Michelle Panchuk (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 47–74.

Yadav, Sameer (2023). “The Characteristic Damage of Analytic Theology: A Response to William Wood”, in Religious Studies (Forthcoming), pp 1-8.

[1] See, e.g., Clooney, 2010 and Hedges, 2017.

[2] See, e.g., Hick, 1985 and Burley, 2020. See also https://www.global-philosophy.org/ .

[3] If indeed qualitatively distinct from comparative theology.

[4] See Crisp, Arcadi, Wessling, 2020: 66. Note it is here mentioned in passing, as one area analytic theology could develop into.

[5] See Wood, 2021: 281-285. Although Wood here introduces the term ‘rigorous appreciation’ to capture what, for example, a Christian analytic theologian might do when attempting Islamic analytic theology, it’s not clear a Christian can simply take their methodological aspirations, as applied to Christian theology, and apply these to Islamic theology, and expect to produce substantive Islamic analytic theology. In our view, there are problems with this one-size-fits-all approach, particularly when it comes to thinking about how to do substantive work in each theological tradition. (Although, to be fair, Wood is not offering anything more than a suggestion for future methodological reflection).

[6] Indeed, insofar as analytic theology might trace its intellectual genealogy back to mediaeval scholasticism, so, too, can comparative analytic theology (e.g., in the way Aquinas drew from Maimonides, Averroes, or Avicenna. For more on this, see, for example, Burrell, 1993 or Taylor, 2019, more generally, work from the ‘Aquinas and ‘The Arabs’ working group: http://richardctaylor.info/aaiwg/ ). As we shall suggest, the fact that many of these examples of Christian’s reading Jewish and Muslim thinkers is symptomatic.

[7] See, for instance, Stump, 1997, Scrutton, 2011, Clark & Koperski, eds., 2021, and Davison, Weiss, & Rizvi, 2022.

[8] See, for instance, the Jewish Philosophical Theology Project run through the Herzl Institute (https://bibleandphilosophy.org/), the Worship: A Jewish Philosophical Investigation run out of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (https://www.templeton.org/grant/worship-a-jewish-philosophical-investigation), the Wrestling with Life: Analytic Theology and Biblical Narratives project funded by the Issachar Fund (https://sites.google.com/view/biblical-narratives/home), The Christian West and the Islamic East: Theology, Science, and Knowledge Project (https://www.templeton.org/grant/the-christian-west-and-islamic-east-theology-science-and-knowledge), the Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion (https://www.ppprinceton.org/about), and the New Horizons in Muslim Analytic Theology Project at Cambridge Muslim College (https://www.cambridgemuslimcollege.ac.uk/research/beyond-foundationalism/).

[9] So, for example, the twenty page bibliography at the end of the T&T Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology, 2021 lists only six items in the section titled ‘Jewish and Islamic Analytic Theology’.

[10] See our white papers for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish analytic theology (all 2023). Of course, comparative analytic theology need not be limited to just Judaism, Christian, and Islam, but our project has focused on these three.

[11] For more on this definition, see Worsley, 2023.

[12] We note this is a controversial claim. Wood, for example, argues that analytic theology is theology (2021). We will explain why we think analytic theology is best understood as philosophy a little further into this paper.

[13] Whilst we treat analytic theology as philosophy, it need not be merely philosophy. We take it that confessional analytic theology, as a form of faith seeking understanding, would likely bridge the gap between philosophy and theology. Unlike comparative analytic theology, which we think can be done by atheists or agnostics, comparative theologians are typically encouraged to situate themselves within a particular theological tradition. See, for example, https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/mcas/departments/theology/areas-of-study/comparative-theology/what-is-comparative-theology.html . Here, '[t]he comparative theologian is familiar with, relatively at peace with, rooted in one of the traditions compared. The neutral observer is not an ideal here.'

[14] Stump, 2013: 50. Lucas Oro Hershetin notes that from his perspective, this definition of "theology" does not, strictly speaking, apply to Judaism. Jewish theology is not about God but about our relationship with God and, therefore, more about ourselves than about God, about whom nothing can be said. We do not even dare mention His name or attributes directly. I believe this definition can be applied also to positive Jewish theology (e.g. Maimonides), which is first about the theologian and only then about the theos. Even with this qualification, though, we might say theology has to do with a person’s relationship with God, whilst philosopher engaging with theological topics might study what a relationship with God could be (e.g., what David Efird has described as analytic spirituality, see Efird, 2021).

[15] See, e.g., Caputo, 2018.

[16] For an excellent demonstration of this, see Stump, 2010. Here, Stump disambiguates between what she calls ‘Dominican Knowledge’ (basically, propositional knowledge), and ‘Franciscan Knowledge’ (here, personal knowledge, not quite phenomenal knowledge, but nevertheless the study of which we are putting under the heading of ‘phenomenological theology’).

[17] On the possibility of assessing religious statements that appear to be incompatible across different theological traditions, Robin Le Poidevin (defending religious fictionalism) writes:

Religious statements are propositional, and so evaluable as true or false. But they are only true within a fiction—the Christian fiction, or Buddhist fiction, and so on. Insofar as they are fact-stating, they are only fictional fact-stating, and so not answerable to a reality which is independent of our beliefs, attitudes, or conventions. (Le Poidevin, 2019: 25)

[18] Following this general methodology has allowed atheists like David Lewis, for example, to engage in Christian analytic theology (e.g., Lewis, 1997).

[19] As we see it, philosophical theology can also include the investigation of religious life in a particular theological tradition, including, for example, phenomenological study.

[20] Stump, 2022: 1-2.

[21] Email correspondence with Sam Lebens, 2023.

[22] Wood, 2021: 285.

[23] Wood notes that one valuable feature about analytic theology is its capacity for ‘making and assessing explicit propositional truth-claims in a way that goes beyond what we usually find in other humanistic disciplines’ Wood, 2021: 36.

[24] Wood, 2021: 284.

[25] See, for example, the work of John Milbank.

[26] For more on what such sophistication might amount to, see, for example, Yadav, 2023.

[27] For more on this distinction between formal and substantive analytic theology, see Wood, 2016: 254-55.

[28] Regardless of other putative merits, something of philosophical value can be gained through reflection on any philosophically interesting thought experiment.

[29] Of course, although they need not, our would-be comparative analytic theologian (ii) might also be working on substantive analytic theology in one of these theological traditions (i).

[30] For example, promoting the development of systematic theologies with which systematic engagement might be possible.

[31] Assuming our would-be comparative analytic theologian does not belong to each religious tradition, whatever that might mean.

[32] For one view on the normative possibilities for analytic theology, see Yadav, 2020.

[33] For an excellent example of analytic theology in the procedural model, see Qureshy, 2021.

[34] Yadav, 2023: 5.

[35] See, for example Bloch, Moïse. 1880. Les 613 Lois. Revue des études juives 1: 197-211; Cohen, Boaz 1934-1935. Classification of Law in the Mishneh Torah. Jewish Quarterly Review 25: 519-540; Appel, Gersion. 1975. A Philosophy of Mitzvot. The Religious and Ethical Principles of Judaism, Their root in Biblical Law and the Judaic Oral Tradition. New York: Ktav Publishing House; Bland, Kalman1982. Moses and the Law According to Maimonides. In Mystics, Philosophers and Politicians. Edited by Jehuda Reinharz and Daniel Swetschinski, Mystics, Philosophers and Politicians, Duke University Press, Durham, pp. 49-66; Halbertal, Moshe. 1990. Maimonides’ Book of Commandments: The Architecture of the Halakhah and its Theory of Interpretation. Tarbiz 59 (3-4), pp. 457-480 [Hebrew]; Halbertal, Moshe. 1997. Canon and Meaning. In: People of the Book Canon, Meaning, and Authority. Harvard: Harvard University Press; Elon, Menachem.1994. Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, translated by Bernard Auerbach and Melvin J. Sykes. 4 vols. Jewish Publication Society: Philadelphia; Davidson, Herbert A. 2005. The First Two Commandments in Maimonides’ List of the 613 Believed to Have Been Given to Moses at Sinai”. In: In Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Edited by: R. Elior and P. Shafer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 113-145; Friedberg, Albert D. 2010. Cross-Cultural Influences and the Possible Role of Competition in the Selection of Some Commandments. In: In Vixens Disturbing Vineyards: The Embarrassment and Embracement of Scriptures. A Festschrift Honoring Harry Fox. Edited by Tzemah Yoreh, Aubrey Glazer, Justian J. Lewis, and Miryam Segal, Boston: Academic Studies Press, pp. 410-414; Friedberg, Albert D. 2013. Maimonides on the Enumeration, Classification, and Formulation of the Scriptural Commandments. Boston: Academic Studies Press; Brown, Jeremy P. and Herman, Marc (eds.). 2021. Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism, and Kabbalah. Leiden: Brill.

[36] See Boulding, 2021.

[37] Blumenthal, 2009: 15.

[38] Dastmalchian, 2017: 154-5.

[39] Harvey, 2017: 9.

[40] Harvey does offer something closer to this in his excellent 2021 book, Transcendent God, Rational World.

[41] What we are here calling ‘procedural analytic theology’, a mode of enquiry that whilst true to the theological tradition, does not attempt to investigate the entailments of philosophical explanations that demonstrate the possibility of some (e.g.,) scriptural claim and hence, does not attempt to systematise or set one’s work within a wider theological context or story.

[42] Given the availability of a wider theological narrative, we suspect any Christian analytic theology carried out in a merely procedural mode will tend to what we are calling formal analytic theology.

[43] By constructive, we mean to say not merely carried out in the service of some historical-exegetical mode of analysis.

[44] See, e.g., Abraham, 2009 and Crisp, 2017 for more on this conflation.

[45] This is all the more the case if work in the constructive mode is ruled out for theological reasons. In such a case, working in the procedural mode will be truer to the story (so to speak) than any attempt at constructive work.

[46] And, emphatically, we do not want comparative analytic theology to turn into a form of academic colonialism.

[47] For more on this claim, see Abdelnour, 2022. According to Abdelnour, the fact that the Quran seems neither logical nor chronological in its sequence does not only leave much scope for such speculative and constructive endeavours leading to a meta-narrative, but also makes it an epistemic imperative.

[48] See, e.g., Abdelnour, 2022: xvii-xviii.

[49] See, e.g., Abdelnour, 2022: 31-36.

[50] Crisp, Arcadi, & Wessling, 2019: 56-7.

[51] Kant, 1999.

[52] For more on something close to this worry, see Mizrahi, 2020.

[53] This, of course, raises another question: How can you know whether someone in another theological tradition is working in the substantial mode? One way to determine this might consist in the production of reasonably accessible community established and endorsed fidelity criteria.

[54] With some variation of these worries present in the project of comparative analytic theology as well as in the projects of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic analytic theology.

[55] We think this whether or not it may have political or social value.

[56] See, for example, Abdelnour, 2021.

[57] These conversations also allow the development of academic friendships that can go some way to bridging possible theological incommensurability (insofar as through academic friendships, one comes to know the minds of one’s interlocutors).

[58] Strictly speaking, it will not matter if you have accurately capture what the other is saying if it turns out what they say prompts in you new theological reflection that helps illuminate one’s own tradition. Given this concession, though, possibly, one could get just as much benefit from engagement with formal analytic theology in another tradition as substantive. Engagement with formal analytic theology merely has as its downside the fact one doesn’t come to a greater appreciation of an established theological tradition.

[59] If atheists or agnostics can do substantive work within a particular theological tradition, this can be a further source of information.

[60] In Appendix 2 we have included a blog post that discusses the York approach to teaching analytic theology.

[61] This is all the more the case as this methodology has emerged in a Christianity-dominated academic context.

[62] Wood, 2021: 284.

[63] Templeton, 2000: 121.

[64] For one excellent example of this, see Malik, 2020. See also Clark & Koperski, eds., 2021.

[65] This is a very limited proposal, but it is not clear to us, at this stage, that a stronger proposal is possible, at least between the major Abrahamic theological traditions.

[66] P1. Writing as if philosophical positions and conclusions can be adequately formulated in sentences that can be formalized and logically manipulated.

P2. Prioritizing precision, clarity, and logical coherence.

P3. Avoiding substantive (non-decorative) use of metaphor and other tropes whose semantic content outstrips their propositional content.

P4. Working as much as possible with well-understood primitive concepts, and concepts that can be analyzed in terms of those.

P5. Treating conceptual analysis (insofar as it is possible) as a source of evidence.

(Rea, 2009: 7).

[67] ‘Many philosophical problems are ones of understanding how something is or can be possible . . . The form of these questions is: how is one thing possible, given (or supposing) certain other things? Some statements r1, . . ., rn are assumed or accepted or taken for granted, and there is a tension between these statements and another statement p, they appear to exclude p’s holding true . . . To produce [a] possible explanation of p is, by seeing one way p is given rise to, to see how p can be true. “How is it possible that p? This way: such and such facts are possible and they constitute an explanatory route to p.”’’

(Nozick, 1981: 8, 9, 11)

[68] ‘The reader in search of knock‐down arguments in favor of my theories will go away disappointed. Whether or not it would be nice to knock disagreeing philosophers down by sheer force of argument, it cannot be done. Philosophical theories are never refuted conclusively. (Or hardly ever. Gödel and Gettier may have done it.) The theory survives its refutation—at a price. Argle has said what we accomplish in philosophical argument: we measure the price. Perhaps that is something we can settle more or less conclusively. But when all is said and done, and all the tricky arguments and distinctions and counterexamples have been discovered, presumably we will still face the question which prices are worth paying, which theories are on balance credible, which are the unacceptably counterintuitive consequences and which are the acceptably counterintuitive ones. On this question we may still differ. And if all is indeed said and done, there will be no hope of discovering still further arguments to settle our differences.

It might be otherwise if, as some philosophers seem to think, we had a sharp line between “linguistic intuition,” which must be taken as unchallengeable evidence, and philosophical theory, which must at all costs fit this evidence. If that were so, conclusive refutations would be dismayingly abundant. But, whatever may be said for foundationalism in other subjects, this foundationalist theory of philosophical knowledge seems ill‐founded in the extreme. Our “intuitions” are simply opinions; our philosophical theories are the same. Some are commonsensical, some are sophisticated; some are particular, some general; some are more firmly held, some less. But they are all opinions, and a reasonable goal for a philosopher is to bring them into equilibrium. Our common task is to find out what equilibria there are that can withstand examination, but it remains for each of us to come to rest at one or another of them. If we lose our moorings in everyday common sense, our fault is not that we ignore part of our evidence. Rather, the trouble is that we settle for a very inadequate equilibrium. If our official theories disagree with what we cannot help thinking outside the philosophy room, then no real equilibrium has been reached. Unless we are doubleplusgood doublethinkers, it will not last. And it should not last, for it is safe to say that in such a case we will believe a great deal that is false.

Once the menu of well‐worked‐out theories is before us, philosophy is a matter of opinion. Is that to say that there is no truth to be had? Or that the truth is of our own making, and different ones of us can make it differently? Not at all! If you say flatly that there is no god, and I say that there are countless gods but none of them are our worldmates, then it may be that neither of us is making any mistake of method. We may each be bringing our opinions to equilibrium in the most careful possible way, taking account of all the arguments, distinctions, and counterexamples. But one of us, at least, is making a mistake of fact. Which one is wrong depends on what there is.’

(Lewis, 1983: x-xi)