A Suggestion for the Relevance of Systematic Theology in a Changing Context: Response to Commentators

In this rejoinder, I engage with the criticism my book Systematic Theology as a Rationally Justified Public Discourse about God receives from Lois Malcolm and Dirk Evers. First, I answer two objections from Malcolm focusing on the comprehensiveness of my vision for theology and my understanding of “public.” As to the comprehensiveness, I defend my stricter understanding of realism based on the notion of theoretical frameworks; I defend my stricter notion of truth as coherence as the most fruitful understanding for academic theology. As to the public character, I reject Malcolm’s critique that my understanding of “public” is too narrow, since I deliberately limit the investigated context to research universities; thus, I have no problem accepting that there are other publics of theological interest at another point. Second, I answer five objections from Evers that are stated as clusters of critical questions: (1) I accept that I see the change in metaphysics as the context that calls for renewed theological answers, but (2), I reject that this is a problem. The institutional problems for theology are related to a changed metaphysical context in the Western world. (3), I defend the place of logic in metaphysics even though it is in a weakened form compared with classical logic. (4), I defend the need for a third-level academic theology that sustains everyday belief. (5), I accept that God is semper maior but reject that this makes theological theories of God superfluous.