Beeson Podcast, Episode 349
Matthew Levering 
July 18, 2017


Announcer:	Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now you host, Timothy George.

Timothy George:	Welcome to the Beeson Podcast today. Well, I have the privilege today of having a conversation with a friend of mine, Dr. Matt Levering. He is James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology at University of St. Mary of the Lake. That's a long title. It's an important job. 
	And Matt Levering is one of the brightest scholars I know working in Catholic theology in the United States today. We've worked together in the project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together and in other contexts. And it's a great privilege to welcome you to the Beeson Podcast, Matt.

Matt Levering:	Ah, thank you so much.

Timothy George:	Now I want to begin by asking you to tell just a little bit about how you came to the faith, and how you became a part of the Catholic church. It's an interesting story.

Matt Levering:	Well you know, this was years ago right after college. I guess it was in the middle of college I began to search for God and for ... I began to wonder ... I was reading a lot of Walker Percy. And also, I took a class on Dostoevsky. But it was really Walker Percy. That type of novel. So I thought, "Gosh, you know is there meaning in life? Does God exist?" And Walker Percy indicated to me that the Jewish people and Jesus, these were very important clues. You know, Walker Percy, of course as you know, is a graduate of the university of where I was attending University of North Carolina.

Timothy George:	You're from North Carolina?

Matt Levering:	Yeah. I'm from North Carolina. Yep. So, I didn't have any Creedal background, no background with the Bible. But I did have sense that life ... that there was ... I wasn't raised without any kind of spirituality. There was a sort of ... I was raised in a certain kind of counter-cultural. Within Quaker. Very politically activists. Quaker contexts. Where there was a strong sense that you had a mission, and that it wasn't just to blend in with the culture as it were. So that was part of the background. So when I was in college, kind of this thing was, well does God exist? How do I even think about that? So I set off to become a novelist after college.

Timothy George:	Like Walker Percy.

Matt Levering:	Yeah. Like Walker Percy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what happened was, I can write quickly but not well. So I wrote a couple of drafts and then I realized the question I'm asking won't be solved by fiction because the questions have to do with realities. Not just with my own imagination, but really with does God exist? How do I even ask that question? I can't answer that through fiction. At least I felt I couldn't.
	My wife was getting a Masters at Duke. We both graduated ... we got married in college at University of North Carolina. So she was getting a Masters. So I went over to Duke Divinity School and I just started grabbing books off the shelf. And that was the key thing really.

Timothy George:	And so from there you became a Catholic theologian. How did that happen?

Matt Levering:	Well, I mean I've always been someone who loved to read and write. My father was a Professor of History for many years. He just retired recently from Davidson. And so I knew I loved the work of study. So as soon as I had that inner drive to learn about God, that was an easy thing for me really. I didn't think about it as a career. I just thought about it as a ... I just had to learn about God. And learn about Jesus. You know, as soon as I began to read some books. I read C.S. Lewis. I read Hans Urs von Balthazar. I read bunches of books. And so it was a search really. It wasn't ever a career.

Timothy George:	Well, that search has led you into some significant research and writing. And you've written more than 20 books. That's kind of amazing. You're still kind of a young man. You're not a teenager-

Matt Levering:	I'm 46.

Timothy George:	... for 20 books, that's a pretty young man. So, and they're cutting edge books. I won't read all the titles. But things like: "Scripture and Metaphysics," "Biblical Natural Law," Engaging the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit," "Proofs of God," "The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology," "Aristotle in Aquinas's Theology." On and on and on. This is not light stuff, Matt. This is deep, heavy, important stuff. Where you're grappling with the rudiments of the faith at a deep level. A level that also has, I think, an output in spiritual formation for people. You seem to write with that in mind. You want what you do, not simply to enrich the mind, but also to refurbish the soul. Would that be correct?

Matt Levering:	Yeah, that's exactly right. And so I still think that one of my favorite books that I ever was involved in writing––I was a co-author––was called, "Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction of the Bible." And we just began in Genesis and ended in the book of Revelation. And it was really written for undergraduates. You know, but again, giving people the whole story of creation and God's desire for intimacy with His people and everything else. So it was ... that is really my goal is to be a theologian but one who joins with others on a real quest for God, and for union with God as God has given Himself in Christ Jesus. That's the purpose.

Timothy George:	Now, one of the books that you've written that has really informed my own work a great deal is a volume called "Vatican II: Reception and Tradition." You've also written a book "The Reception of Vatican II." Vatican II was an ecumenical council, as the Catholic Church understands it, that had a profound impact on the direction of Christian faith in the 20th century continuing to today. Our listeners cover a wide variety of traditions, and some of them may know very little about Vatican II, and others will know a lot more. But maybe you can tell us a little bit about the story of "Vatican II." How it came to be? And what was really significant about it.

Matt Levering:	Well, I think the story is ... you got to personalize these things somewhat. So the life Joseph Ratzinger is a very fine exemplar for a kind of understanding of why "Vatican II" came to be and what it intended. 
	So, Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI. He was fairly young at the time. He was born in 1927. So he is pretty young when they call the council. Council begins in 1962 and so he would be 35. He was fully involved. He was one of the leaders …

Timothy George:	He was a peritus? 

Matt Levering:	That's right, because his mind is such a genius. 
	But what happened was the church was essentially attempting to respond to ... in a deeper way ... to issues raised by you might say historical consciousness, or you might say theological liberalism. You know, where the whole issue of doctrine, of Jesus and questions about Jesus. Doubts about his historicity. You know, questions maybe that ... maybe Christianity should be reformulated in terms of an experiential not dogmatic. So that's theological liberalism, that's part of the background of "Vatican II."

Timothy George:	What you're describing, Matt is what I would understand and recognize as an important stream of Protestant theology. Protestant liberalism accommodated Jesus and basically had a very loose understanding of the scriptures. But are you saying that this is also present within the Catholic church?

Matt Levering:	Oh yeah. Very much it began to really strongly manifest itself ... these type of ... so very much so. That'd be my answer. But certainly by the early 1900's, I mean it was really evident that this was a potentially quite powerful stream within the Catholic church. There were different reasons why that was so, but ... so how the church responded was very strongly negative. Very strongly repressive. 
	And so what happened then would be ... so Joseph Ratzinger, his Bible teacher would have come under pressure and then would have communicated to young Joseph Ratzinger the sense that he wasn't really able to do his research. These professors of Joseph Ratzinger, a lot of them experienced a very strong repression as it were. Now the repression was caused, in part by ... the church didn't feel like it knew quite how to answer. So, one thing it did was try to work on its seminaries. Get at seminaries so that the theologian would have a strong formation that would protect them from going down this path of theological liberalism. 
	And so that was where neo Thomism also ... that was part of the purpose. They had a strong philosophical formation that would protect them from Immanuel Kant and sort of basic moves that you make when you enter into theological liberalism. That was the idea.
	By the time, though, that Joseph Ratzinger, he was in seminary. This was the late 40's or whatever. The professors had this memory ... they had this memory of people being themselves ... everyone was kind of ... they felt it was repression. And then they also ... there were a number of young theologians. Younger ones, a number of Jesuit, Dominican, you know very devout priests who were suggesting that there was a way to ... there was a middle ground as it were. There was a way to take up the questions being raised by theological liberalism and to answer them in a deeper and a historically informed way that would retain the dogmatic truths of scripture. And faith in Jesus. But would also have a deeper historical credibility and historical awareness, and biblical awareness. 
	And so there was also at the same time, movements to reform the liturgy. Very strong movement towards ecumenism led by Father Congar, and there was a desire to revisit some of the aspects of Trent that were ... the Council Trent ... that were seen as very strongly negative and causing unnecessary separation between Christians. 
	All that kind of came together. It was a generational thing. You had the leadership of Pope John XXIII, but it was really a generational thing of young theologians as they entered their 40's and 50's. People like Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar. A lot of them had gone through in the 1950's also some silence, they'd been silenced. As happens in institutions. They had been silenced when they were younger theologians. And now that they were the mature theologians, the generation above them was retiring and so forth. So they were the leaders now. And so you can bet they were going to have their day. And that was the root of Vatican II. This renewal movement coming up suggests that ... to respond to the theological liberals ... we can take a more nuance tact.

Timothy George:	Now Vatican II is recognized as an ecumenical council. So, could there be a Vatican III?

Matt Levering:	Oh yeah. Definitely there could. Of course there are so many bishops, I don't know where they would fit them all. 

Timothy George:	I mean St. Peter's was pretty filled back in 1962. Where all the bishops in the world then came together. So, I mentioned that because it raises a question I wish you would comment on in terms of development. Some people say to me, "You know, if the Catholic church could just take back what it said in Trent, or wherever it was, where it said something that we just can't accept. Then maybe we could find a way forward, but it seems to me the Catholic church works on change in a more developmental way. That was a term, of course, that was made very popular by John Henry Newman in the 19th century. The development of Christian doctrine. Could you say a little bit about the concept of development and how that impacted Vatican II? How it's understood in the light of Vatican II?

Matt Levering:	Yeah. That's very important because a number of the theologians, you know like Henri de Lubac and Congar, these were ... they had written so much about development. It was one of their ... essentially it was their answer to theological liberalism. A proper understanding of development. So, of course you have the deposit of faith and the deposit is given in scripture, which is then handed on. And so that deposit reveals to us God's truth that is for our salvation. But then you have the church's effort to ... and it's a very messy effort often ... the church's effort really to understand the word of God. And that ... it can be much more conflictual than we really want it to be. But we do trust the Holy Spirit is ... we know that history is a messy place. But we know that the Spirit is in charge ultimately. 
	So, then you have things like ... as they work ... as they do Trinitarian dogma there in the fourth century. Is Christ ... is the son the consubstantial or equal with the Father? Is the son fully divine? So, this is how ... these types of developmental questions. But of course they become more pressing as time goes on because then you have things like how many sacraments are there? And things that become divisive. Later in the 15th, 16th century of course. But that's kind of ... that's what development is. 
	But essentially the good part of development, I think, is ... one of the good parts of the idea of development is that the church can revisit elements where in the past, for example, there's really seen, I think by Catholics, that presumably just that Protestants simply had no relation to the church. The church of God was simply end of story the Catholic church. So Protestants were simply out. And therefore they were not united to Christ. And just think about that. That's a very grim and sad understanding. So it of course ... it's a mistaken view because we see the shared elements and just like anybody who goes across the street and talks to their neighbor, you see these deep shared elements of scripture and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so on both Catholic and Protestant sides we can have a deep appreciation for each other. As Christians.
	So, that was the important part of development that you see in Vatican II. That was a crucial development there as they began to understand that there were degrees of participating in the fullness of the church. Of course the fullness here meaning, simply the divine gifts that Jesus willed for his church. So when you say the fullness of church, we know that doesn't happen until the eschaton. But the fullness here as I'm using it, is the divine gifts that Jesus willed for his church. The gifts of truth. And of sacrament. And of order and so forth. So, there's degrees of sharing in this in the Catholic view. But this was a view that developed. So it involved theologian going back and saying, "Wait a second. But the Catholic view of the church is this. But this doesn't exclude separated brethren in the way that it was thought to have."

Timothy George:	So Protestant churches are called ecclesial communities now. In a way that would really not have been accepted in an earlier generation perhaps. That term. 

Matt Levering:	That's right. If the Catholic church is speaking formally and saying in some sort of document of the highest order, yeah, then you would use the term ecclesial communities in a way of indicating a strong participation and the reality of the church through the gifts of Jesus has given. And now it doesn't ... in terms if you're talking informally, you just say, "The Presbyterian church down the road." But the formal sense is ... the purpose there is to ... it's really ecumenical. Honestly it's intended to indicate a distinction between the unity that Catholics share with Orthodox. 

Timothy George:	They’re called sister churches?

Matt Levering:	Yeah. That's right. And one of the purposes is not to offend the Orthodox, because you have to keep all these distinctions.

Timothy George:	Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I wanted to ask you about ... you mentioned Benedict who was a peritus at  Vatican II, attached to one of the bishops of Germany as his theological expert and advisor. Also, John Paul II was there. He was not John Paul II then of course. He was bishop of Krakow. Talk a little bit about these two great Vatican Popes. John Paul II and Benedict. Both of whom led and became Pope in their own right. And then Francis, our current Pope. It seems to be me that there are three very distinct charisms in a way. That these three great leaders have had in the Catholic church and beyond. Could you say a little bit about that as you see the three figures, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis?

Matt Levering:	I see these three as very much shaped by the communities from which they come. So, when you think of John Paul II ––Karol Wojtyla–– you think of his experience growing up in Poland. And in a deep Catholic culture. He received a very strong Catholic formation. But he also ... he was just a shining star. He really was. He was one of those people who just attracted other people. And also who had a very quick penetration into kind of the great things that were going on. He was always sort of there with the great things when they were going on as it were. And a leader. And so, he was an intellectual. He was a great mind. 

Timothy George:	Athlete? A drama kid?

Matt Levering:	Yeah. He was really everything. But he really does ... his experience I think of growing up with the church under repression. The church under attack. To me, that was definitive for him. He was no reactionary. He was the church under attack. But the church also had to show young people how to compete, as it were, with the [inaudible 00:20:28] the communists. But it really had to show young people that this was attractive. That this was really good. And so he was a master of doing that. I think that was ... that's his background. So he's constantly aware of the church under attack. He's constantly aware of that in all of his writings, I think. He's constantly holding up Jesus Christ and the radical way of life. "The sign of contradiction", that's one of his favorite phrases. The sign of contradiction, but it's a joyful sign. Right, so his background I think really influenced what he gave to the home church.
	And then of course with Benedict, you also have a fascinating background because he, to my mind, represents the fruitfulness of a lot of German theology that was deeply rooted in real piety. So, for him, you think of people like Romano Gordini. And many others like that, who can be named. But essentially they were preachers. But they were these preachers who also were geniuses and sort of had read everything. And they had written a book on almost everything. But they loved Jesus, so they all write lives of Jesus, and then they would ... but they could write about anything. And it was just ... it was a tremendously fruitful intellectual culture that he was ... that he sort of entered into. 
	And he himself was a genius. And of course I'm speaking of him in the past tense. He's still, of course, he's still a genius. But I think then that he really brought that to the church. And he did it both of the congregation of the doctrine on faith when he was working with John Paul, where he would write a lot of the stuff that John Paul said. As you probably know, he would write a good deal. And then also, through all the books that he wrote during those years when he was a cardinal and also as Pope. 

Timothy George:	His books on Jesus are classics-

Matt Levering:	His books on Jesus. And the reason why his books on Jesus are so important is because again ... but in his mind ... his German background. He's always answering the German theological liberals. You see, but he's doing it from that pious learned. He's always got the German theological liberals on his mind. The Catholic ones. People I'm talking about ... liberal theology or theological liberalism. He's got them on his mind. And he's going to answer them. And a key point, really that's raised by the whole theological liberalism thing is: did Jesus actually reveal anything? And can we know him? Can you have any real contact with Jesus? Or is it all kind of shrouded by layers? Either by layers of tradition or layers of church invention? Or layers of kind of inventions that the evangelists themselves were ... essentially oral traditions. Or layers of evangelists inventing stuff. Can we have any contact with this Lord? And what did he reveal? And so that's always on Benedict's mind.

Timothy George:	The thing that so impressed me about Benedict too ... I think is maybe the greatest theologian to have become pope since since Leo in the early church. I mean he is a remarkable thinker, Pope Emeritus. The thing that really is compelling about him is the way in which he covers so much of the Augustinian tradition. In some ways he's the great Augustinian theologian of our age.

Matt Levering:	Well, you know I love Augustine. I have a book called, "Theology of Augustine", which is written for undergraduates. Right, no. That's true. I think to some degree, you can't be a great theologian unless you recover Augustine.

Timothy George:	I'm glad you said that. I agree with that.

Matt Levering:	Yeah. I think that's true. Now remember, I say that thinking that Augustine shares a lot with the Greek fathers. So I'm not ... so if someone just read the Greek fathers, and they recovered the Greek fathers-

Timothy George:	That'd have a lot of it.

Matt Levering:	That's right. That's what I would think. 

Timothy George:	And we knew none of us would say Augustine is infallible. That's he's without error in his ways. We all are fallible. All creatures. But there's an insight there, into the grace of God that I think is so palpable and important in our time.

Matt Levering:	Augustine, now he's the greatest. Of course, everything that he touched. Just reading his sermons. I've been reading his sermons lately, and just doing that is just incredible. But you can see with Pope Benedict ... because also with Pope Benedict he can just be talking, and it's already publishable. And he ... Augustine was like that.

Timothy George:	Yes. The lucidity. The clarity.

Matt Levering:	The lucidity. And Augustine, remember, always has scripture in mind. Everything is a dialogue with scripture. So you can argue with Augustine, but then you're going to need to be arguing with scripture at the same time. And so that was how Benedict's mind ... Joseph Ratzinger, his mind was formed like that. With scripture at the very core, through Augustine, I think.

Timothy George:	What about Pope Francis?

Matt Levering:	Well he also is really shaped by the community from which he comes. And of course he's Italian in a way, but I forget he's a first generation Argentinian. I know that he's Italian not too far back in his ... growing up in Argentina, you have the terrible class divide. Where ... I mean it's ... I've never been to Argentina, but I have been to other countries and I suspect that there's some similarities where here in America you have everything segregated into neighborhoods where you might not even see a poor person. 
	Well in Argentina, I suspect, these class divides are much more present to you. If you grow up in a middle-class household, you'll have servants, and so forth. So I just think he was certainly shaped by liberation theology. Jesuit theology. I mean there's no question in my mind that a lot of the things that he's bringing to the church come from that background of being a Christian. 
	And yet looking around and realizing that a lot of times, like the letter James says, a lot of times we Christians have been, just haven't cared so much for the poor in our midst. We assume that the poor are always with us and that's ... that we don't really ... that a lot of times you'll find that in terms of the priestly ministry. It's the people who are middle-class are right there, receiving a lot of the priestly ministry. But the poor, the poor neighborhoods have a lot less access to sacrament and to the preaching of the gospel. I mean, they're not being evangelized. So this was his experience growing up. The sense that we have failed in some ... of course I don't know that much about his background. But I just suspect that he's bringing to us a number of fruits, the better fruits of liberation theology. Which, of course spans a wide number of approaches. And his version is an Argentinian version, which is different from some of the other versions. But I think that we can see that there are connections. 

Timothy George:	We're recording this today. This is the day of Pentecost. And when we celebrate the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, but Pope Francis has taken this occasion to share worship together with Pentecostal Christians. So, he's reached out ecumenically and some different directions than the church is known for in recent decades, including groups that have been kind of on the margins in some ways of the ecumenical movement.

Matt Levering:	Well, I think that's right. And of course you have to realize that one of the things that shapes liberation theology ... now I don't mean to be associating with Pope Francis, but I think that all ... every book of liberation theology that every came down the road.

Timothy George:	Some of it is very problematic.

Matt Levering:	Oh. Very much so. Very, very problematic. So, I want to be careful about that. But I do think though, that you got to remember that for liberation theology, things that Joseph Ratzinger cared most about would be doctrine. You know, we have to have access to the living Jesus. Cognitively. Through our minds so that we can know him. Okay, so that would be what I think Joseph Ratzinger brought as Pope Benedict.
	But remember, for liberation theology, that's not the most important thing. And the most important things is to go out and actually meet the people. So, that's what he does. You could give him a book on ecclesiology and he would probably set it aside and go out and share worship with the Pentecostals. You know, why not, right?

Timothy George:	That's right. Well, we're almost out of time, and I wanted to ask you, this is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. A lot of festivities, and commemorations, and lamentations, I guess going on about this great event. That in some ways, has produced a church still not fully united in visible unity. In the west, Catholics and Protestants. You're a Catholic, I'm a Protestant. What would you say is the significance, the ecumenical significance of this 500th anniversary of the reformation?

Matt Levering:	Well, you know, one significance ... you don't mind if I take a lighter approach to this and plug a book that I did with Kevin Vanhouser? And it's coming out in September. And it's called "Was the Reformation a Mistake?" And the subtitle, not Kevin's subtitle, but my subtitle: Why Catholic doctrine is not unbiblical. Really the key question is, was the reformation a mistake? And so it's being done with Zondervan. And you know Kevin, of course, he's a close friend. And we live in the same town there is Illinois. Anyway, he's a wonderful person and so my view is that the reformation ... of course it wasn't a mistake. 
	And not that the main reason for that were that essentially for two centuries of profound corruption. You can't hardly get a more corrupt church. Especially in its leadership. I mean, in terms of the popular piety, I'm sure there were areas that were thriving and there were areas that were doing less well. But even in the areas of popular piety I think there was cause for concern. But everybody recognizes that. That's the corruption ... especially of Rome. But in part because of all the craziness going on in the Renaissance.
	The moral aspect. The church was morally corrupt. It had to be renewed. So therefore, the reformation couldn't have been a mistake. But it's more than that, I think, because it's ... you know the things that Martin Luther brought to the fore. Well, scripture. God's grace. How could this be something that isn't crucial for all Christians? So I think that also was important that he was bringing these things to the center ... reminding us about the center. The center of our faith.
	Also, another factor was, in my view this was part of the church's beginning to deal with what I call renaissance historiography. Or renaissance historical consciousness. Because in the Renaissance, if you read Luther or Calvin, they really saw this. In the Renaissance, the study of history really got going. So they began to see that, "Wait a second. Where did these seven sacraments come from? And where did this and this? And where did these offerings…?"
	And it leads into historical criticism. And it leads into 19th century questions. I'm talking about renaissance historiography here. But it's the beginning of that. And the church had to begin to come to grips with these types of questions. These questions were crucial. And they weren't receiving answers. And they were ... no one was doing anything. So essentially, Yves Congar often talks about, the great theologian, Yves Congar, Catholic theologian. Often to say that the church, in his view, if only there had only been some real renewal and real reform in the 15th century. Then you wouldn't have had the reform that came in the 16th century, cause a split. That was his thought. 
	But anyway, I see many good things about the reformation and I also see mistakes. I hate Christian division. It's not any of our faults. Of course, we all have to work to overcome it. I see you as a real model of someone who has devoted a lifetime to caring for the whole church and for deeper unity. Crucial.

Timothy George:	Thank you Matt. And I've said the same about you. It's been a great privilege to work with you in the context of Evangelicals and Catholics Together and other venues. It's been a great joy to have you today as our guest on the Beeson Podcast. So thank you for this conversation.

Matt Levering:	Oh, thank you.

Announcer:	You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast with host, Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website beesondivinty.com Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this Podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope that you listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson Podcast.