Catholic theologian and noted Rene Girard interpreter James Alison on the purpose of theology:
One of the most difficult things I find in teaching theology is people’s addiction to goodness. Theology is principally for people who are not very good. That’s the whole point of it. It presupposes that God is talking to people who are inclined to be screw-ups and liars, murders, and thieves, et cetera, et cetera, manipulators, and so on and so forth.
And yet just think how much investment in our culture and society there is in being the good guy, and how much talk there is about morality, as though people can put a boundary around themselves as “good.” This then has real value in any form of public engagement.
This is terrible, because it’s much more a case of the broken-hearted who are able to sit with weakness and flawed-ness, who are actually able to share without provoking each other. Anyone can provoke people into a state of mutually antagonistic rival goodness, which leads to nothing at all.
See the originating interview here.
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