Epistemological issues unresolved since Enlightenment days, along with higher education policies which undervalue subjects not obviously linked to economic goals lead to questions about the place of Christian theology in the ‘secular university’. Paul Macdonald, a Christian theologian who has worked in such universities, makes important points arguing that theology should be there, which may help others put the case. His treatment of what it is to be a university, and secular, could be more nuanced.
He defines his terms. In brief, Christian theology is ‘reason or discourse concerning divinity’ (p. 2). To be secular is to be inclusive of a variety of perspectives (p. 4). A university is for ‘truly liberal learning’ (pp. 98ff.) in which, following Newman, ‘Knowledge and truth are their own ends’ (p. 6). Macdonald produces various arguments for Christian theology having a place in the university. His work is detailed and cannot be covered comprehensively. His main point is that Christian theology contributes to the university's central object, the pursuit of truth. It does so through enabling particular forms of reasoning (pp. 141ff.) and enabling them whether belief in the divine (however widely understood) is present or not. It does so also because ‘Theology is based in and centered upon the truth about the divine, as revealed by the divine’ (p. 20). As such, ‘theology is able to help its practitioners gain and grow in knowledge of divine truth as well as all other truth as related to divine truth’ (p. 20).
Other arguments Macdonald employs include that theology, by bringing its own ‘epistemic resources’ (p. 3), contributes to the epistemic plurality (p. 11) which should be part of a secular university in the inclusive sense he outlines. Theology also helps learners grow in ‘intellectual virtues’ (pp. 150ff.), in the good life more generally (pp. 183ff.) and in various forms of reasoning, including the ‘contemplative’ reasoning ‘needed in order to attain wisdom’ (p. 140). The latter point is particularly significant for Macdonald. Contemplative reasoning has to do with ‘actualizing one's rational capacity to think and reason about the most epistemically significant subject matters’, applying reason to the ‘biggest questions’ (p. 160). Theology has a particular concern with such questions and has developed reasoning appropriate to tackling them. It therefore has a very particular contribution to make which the secular university ‘needs’ (p. 163).
Macdonald employs an impressive range of arguments. Readers will decide which have most value in context. Some, including those about truth, virtue and epistemology, speak the language of the university. Discussion of revealed truth may raise more difficult questions for universities perhaps not as epistemologically plural as Macdonald hopes.
Macdonald's ideas about a pluralist, ‘inclusively secular university’ (p. 41) are an important part of his argument. It is an emphasis to be welcomed. More space on positive arguments for such universities, rather than against non-inclusive institutions, would have been an asset, including from Christian traditions affirming of freedom, diversity and inclusivity. The concept of the post-secular and ideas about complexly religious and secular realms could also have been made more use of.
One might register a significant reservation over Macdonald's reliance on Newman in his treatment of what it means to be a university. Macdonald himself says some will regard this as a ‘fundamental misstep’ (p. 132), for Newman's writing arose from attempts to create not a secular but a Catholic university. Also, whilst Newman's work is important, and conducive to Macdonald's argument, it does not have the authority Macdonald suggests when he calls it ‘timeless’ (p. 98). Few would support Newman's contention that universities are for teaching only, not research. Mike Higton in his A Theology of Higher Education, a book Macdonald engages with, poses a theological challenge to Newman's central contention that education is its own end. A faith which seeks the good which is God's Kingdom might suggest education should be directed towards the good.
Macdonald gives carefully worked out (if sometimes tortuous) arguments about why Christian theology has a place in the secular university. Despite the reservations expressed, there are resources here for work which needs doing; putting the case for Christian theology in the secular university.
