Has there been a paradigm shift in Unitarian theology?
I'm currently doing some thinking about Unitarian tradition, and bringing in some ideas from the history and philosophy of science, particularly the idea of the "paradigm shift."
The concept of a paradigm shift is one first postulated by Thomas Kuhn in explaining times when science has radically changed the theoretical underpinning of its work. The shift from Newtonian physic to the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics is a classical example of this.
This suggest the question - has a similar shift happened in Unitarian theology - from a basically Christian framework of God, Jesus, Bible to - something else? In addressing the question I am attempting to keep quite closely to Kuhn's understanding of "paradigm shift" and not using it in the imprecise way the phrase has dropped into language of common usage.
It may be tempting to make this argument. It is a helpful explanation for why the theology of a contemporary Unitarian might be different from the theology of a Unitarian from previous centuries. But I would suggest that our inability to define a new theoretical framework for Unitarian theology means that paradigm shift is not an accurate term for what has happened. It is not that the continuing work of Unitarian theology has shifted to a radical new set of metaphors and symbols. It is, I would argue, that the continuing work of Unitarian theology has stopped. We have not attempted a systematic description of our theology since 1945. The task became too difficult and we stopped trying.
This is understandable as the task did become very difficult, but the result has been deeply problematic. Unitarian theology, I would suggest, has not come into a new paradigm when new vistas of work have opened up. Rather it is as if we found Newtonian physics to be inadequate, therefore we stopped publishing our physics journals, disbanded the universities, let the old books gather dust on the shelves and everyone went back to throwing apples around their own back gardens. It is as if Einsteinian physics did not happen and everyone also forgot about Newtonian physics as well, starting from scratch making up their own theories.
The concept of a paradigm shift is one first postulated by Thomas Kuhn in explaining times when science has radically changed the theoretical underpinning of its work. The shift from Newtonian physic to the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics is a classical example of this.
This suggest the question - has a similar shift happened in Unitarian theology - from a basically Christian framework of God, Jesus, Bible to - something else? In addressing the question I am attempting to keep quite closely to Kuhn's understanding of "paradigm shift" and not using it in the imprecise way the phrase has dropped into language of common usage.
It may be tempting to make this argument. It is a helpful explanation for why the theology of a contemporary Unitarian might be different from the theology of a Unitarian from previous centuries. But I would suggest that our inability to define a new theoretical framework for Unitarian theology means that paradigm shift is not an accurate term for what has happened. It is not that the continuing work of Unitarian theology has shifted to a radical new set of metaphors and symbols. It is, I would argue, that the continuing work of Unitarian theology has stopped. We have not attempted a systematic description of our theology since 1945. The task became too difficult and we stopped trying.
This is understandable as the task did become very difficult, but the result has been deeply problematic. Unitarian theology, I would suggest, has not come into a new paradigm when new vistas of work have opened up. Rather it is as if we found Newtonian physics to be inadequate, therefore we stopped publishing our physics journals, disbanded the universities, let the old books gather dust on the shelves and everyone went back to throwing apples around their own back gardens. It is as if Einsteinian physics did not happen and everyone also forgot about Newtonian physics as well, starting from scratch making up their own theories.
posted by Stephen Lingwood at 11:26 pm
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