Degrees of Faith? Interpreting Doctrine for Today

In this contribution, I discuss a project on the enduring significance of liberal Protestantism that was initiated and completed by Wim Drees. In this project, Drees rejected the all-or-nothing approaches to Christian theology that are often endorsed by ‘orthodox’ Christians and atheists alike, and argues in favor of a liberal approach that is open to scientific developments and changing moral intuitions. Drees also argues against the prejudice that liberal Christians believe less, and argues that they rather have a different style of believing. Drees himself, however, squarely rejects belief in the Ascension of Christ. In my response, I use speech act theory as a method to analyze doctrine, and argue that the fundamental nature of the act one performs when one confesses a creed is commissive and could best be compared to taking a marriage vow. Speech act theory can not only be used to clarify the general nature of what it is to confess a creed, but also to analyze the complex illocutionary load of individual doctrines. I illustrate this by a brief analysis of the Ascension of Christ and argue that by a speech-act-analysis one can also in the case of individual doctrines avoid all-or nothing approaches and yes-or-no discussions.