Historical Consciousness 1

Theology should eventually come to terms with historical consciousness. There is some practical urgency for the Church to do so, since she educates. Vatican II (in Optatam totius, and perhaps in Dei verbum) appears confused about what an historical approach to sacred doctrine can yield.

My article on Optatam totius and historical consciousness is almost done. Maybe I'll post it here, after the book of essays comes out.

We'll need a clear vocabulary (history-as-past-events, as remembered-past, as field-of-study, as methodical-discipline, as Romantic-fiction). We'll need to distinguish between bits of postmodernism. We'll need to think about pedagogy. We'll need to think about what kind of knowledge faith gives us about the past. We'll even need to proscribe some goofy claims. Oh, and it would be nice if we got the historians to stop being positivists.