Matthew Levering: Christian Theologians to Read and FollowDecember 7, 2020Nijay Gupta
MATTHEW LEVERING, Professor in the Department of Dogmatic Theology, University of Saint Mary of the Lake
Why do you love teaching and researching about theology?
The questions of theology are very personal for me. I don’t take faith for granted—I am grateful to God for reaching out to me in mercy, calling me into his life in Jesus Christ. Absent God, the world would strike me as a profoundly dark place. I recall interviews in which Woody Allen bemoans the cruelty of life; for the (infamous) movie director, who is an atheist, life is like the ultimate cruel joke. We are conscious, knowing and loving with amazing desire for communion with other persons—and then, from an atheist perspective, we are everlastingly annihilated. Christian theologians, therefore, contemplate incredibly good news! It is this good news that enables us to have hope and to be free for self-surrendering love. And it is this good news that makes deep inner joy possible or at least makes it intelligible. Note that Judaism is intimately related to Christianity here, since Judaism too proclaims the loving Creator and since Judaism anticipates the Messianic Redeemer who will consummate the eschatological marriage of God and his people.
I love to contemplate the wondrous mysteries revealed in Christianity, and I also take great joy in learning how to hear Scripture from within the Tradition. So many saints and wise people have reflected upon the mysteries of our faith and have sought to live out our faith. Encountering these great teachers (from across the centuries) through study is a privilege. I also delight in reading the work of contemporary theologians, philosophers, and biblical scholars, as well as contemporary Jewish scholars. Meeting these passionate people of faith both in person and through their writings is an exciting part of my day. They inspire me. The same is true of the students whom I teach: I am interested to learn what they deem to be important and why. They help me to see what I have missed or overlooked.
What is one “big idea” in your scholarship?
My guiding idea is the value of learning to think with the entirety of the Catholic doctrinal, spiritual, and theological tradition. This means thinking with the Scriptures, and it also means thinking with the Greek and Latin Fathers and the great scholastics and mystics and with a wide array of theologians and biblical scholars up to the present day. It is easy to perceive the differences that separate (e.g.) Aquinas from Irenaeus, or N. T. Wright from Thomas Aquinas, but for me it is the task of the theologian to learn to perceive what unifies these thinkers—and what unifies them, ultimately, is Christ. Catholics must regularly read not only Catholic thinkers but also Orthodox and Evangelicals. This allows the theologian to perceive issues and insights that would otherwise be closed to the Catholic. The goal is to receive the Christian faith in its wholeness, to be united to the saints and teachers who have come before, and to articulate the Christological unity of the whole—a unity that is unreal if it does not open up to love of God and neighbor, to mercy, to treating others in accord with Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.
For Catholics and in my view, to a degree, for Protestants as well, Aquinas is an important bridge figure—and this is a central part of my “guiding idea.” Aquinas receives Scripture, the Church Fathers, and the earlier medievals, along with the best of ancient philosophy as some of the most important Jewish and Muslim thinkers. His theological works are vast compilations of quotations and insights that he brilliantly sifts and evaluates, from a theocentric and Christocentric perspective. Since his death in 1274, later Catholic theologians have stayed in touch with his thought. It is comparable to Shakespeare in the sense that, to know English literature after Shakespeare, it is important to know Shakespeare. Catholic theologians need to know Aquinas in a serious way. Of course it is also necessary to know Aquinas’s sources, above all Scripture, but also the Church Fathers. Otherwise one will not understand Aquinas’s questions and articles; they will seem dry and abstract, whereas in fact they are filled with biblical and patristic intensity. Lacking knowledge of Aquinas, the Catholic theologian tends to become trapped in the present moment, e.g. in the discussions of the twenty-first or twentieth century. These discussions are important but radically insufficient. If a Catholic theologianonlyknows Aquinas, however, then problems arise: his reasoning is stripped of a real connection to his deepest sources, and the role taken on by his thought and by his commentators becomes outsized.
Who is one of your academic heroes and why do you admire them?
C.S. Lewis certainly counts as one. He had an extraordinary knowledge of the best of patristic and Augustinian theology, but he wore it lightly. He was bold, wonderfully constructive and imaginative, while also being deeply attuned to the Christian tradition. His thought is not crimped in any way, and I find that reading him can be not only easy and enjoyable, but also has many layers of insight that repay serious study. Without ceasing to have strong and clear opinions, Lewis tried to model charity as a scholar and as a human being.
What books were formative for you when you were a student? Why were they so important and shaping?
In addition to Scripture, I would name G. K. Chesterton’sOrthodoxy; Karol Wojtyla (the future John Paul II)’sThe Jeweler’s ShopandLove and Responsibility; and Hans Urs von Balthasar’sIn the Fullness of Faith. These books had a significant impact on me early on in my theological studies. Chesterton exhibits the joy and wonder and balance of Christianity. Wojtyla reveals the full dignity of the human person in Christ, as this dignity (despite our fallenness) takes shape in our family life. Balthasar makes clear the crossroads facing Catholicism in the 1970s and he shows why the “fullness” of faith is needed and in what it consists. In my doctoral program, no doubt the most formative books for me were Augustine’sCity of Godand Aquinas’sSumma theologiae.
Read Levering’s Work
My two most recent books areEngaging the Doctrine of Marriage(in all its dimensions) andAquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance. I am excited about these books, since they have given me an opportunity to turn toward moral theology.
If you ran into me at SBL, and you didn’t want to talk about theology, what would you want to talk about?
I love great novels and sports. Right now I am reading Elena Ferrante’s Naples quartet, an amazing achievement; and I’m also reading Raymond Chandler’s novels for the first time — I am struck by how good they are! In terms of sports, I love to watch unusual talent, such as Patrick Mahomes, LeBron James, or (in the past) Tiger Woods.
What is a research/writing project you are working on right now that you are excited about?
I just completedEngaging the Doctrine of Israel: A Christian Israelology in Dialogue with Contemporary Judaism. That book was a great joy for me because it contained a number of themes dear to my heart. But at present I am working on a book project on John Henry Newman and Doctrinal Corruption. This past week I’ve been reading Edward Gibbon, and I’m discovering how contemporary his criticisms of Christianity still are!
