Explication and practicality
About a month ago, I presented my book on theurgic participation in God to a group of theology students at NLA University College in Bergen, some of whom are pursuing ordained ministry. One of the students asked me how my research can be used practically in church, for example in liturgy, and I explained a few ways in which it can, some of which are presented in the last chapter of the book, where I apply my views on the liturgical reform of the Church of Norway (in comparison to those of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England).1
One thing that I did not focus on in my answer, though, but which I probably should have, is that sometimes in theology, as in life in general, the main aim is not to find a way to use something practically but to explicate a world view, which then might inform how you apply this practically. As I point out in the preface, my book “does not principally show how we worship—for that, you need to go to a concrete place of worship and participate—but why we can worship in the first place.”2 The aim of my book, then, has practicality – actual concrete worship – as an ultimate goal but it does so through an explication of how this is even possible in the first place. My immediate aim, then, is to provide a rationale for worship, a metaphysics of worship, if you will.
Why does it matter that we sing hymns, pray, or receive the sacraments? Why is participating in such rituals important? My point was not, again, to provide a practical guide but to attemt to answer some very important principal questions: “Who is active in the liturgy, and what does it mean to engage in it? How should we understand the relationship between divine and human agency in Christian practices, and particularly in the liturgical action? If God is the supreme agent of the liturgical act, how do we understand human participation in the same? How is it even possible to speak of human agency in this context, and why is it even necessary?”3 I think that answering such principal questions is very important, especially in a missionary sense. What do we say to people when they ask us why we participate in the Mass, why we pray, or why we receive the sacraments? In other words, how do we justify it?
My contribution, I think, is that I can explain how our participation in these things matter, how we should understand this metaphysically, particularly how this is rooted first and foremost in a divine work, most particularly the works of the incarnate Logos. These explanations or explications are, of course, not more important than actually participating – liturgy is always more fundamental than theoretical theology, even dogma – but it is important because it can open our eyes, and particular the eyes of those who seek to understand Christianity, to what actually happens in liturgy and in the Christian life in general, and how this is rooted not in our own works and speculations but the eternal work of God. It helps grow understanding of what we do but it’s not an example of what we do. For that, again, you “you need to go to a concrete place of worship and participate.”
I hope my book crystallises into practicality but the main aim is to articulate a liturgical and theological world view and a liturgical and participatory metaphysics, emphasising how we should understand our relation to One God in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 NRSV).
Kjetil Kringlebotten, Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation: On Theurgic Participation in God (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023), 164-193.
Kringlebotten, Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation, xvi-xvii.
Kringlebotten, Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation, 1-2.