Theoretical words

Eric Gregory offers this wise counsel: “Words do not work the same way in normative theorizing as they do in historical inquiry. It is enough that ‘Donatist,’ ‘Pelagian,’ and “Manichean’ exist as live options in moral, political, and religious discourse – even if Augustine or later storytellers invented them in order to coordinate doctrine with their experience of God in Christian faith and practice. These words, and the narrative scripts they signify, provide broad classifications for a range of commitments.”

Historical study has an important role in helping “dislodge settled grooves of thought and make us skeptical of the stories we tell. They can show the normative consequences of how we construct intellectual histories. They can also challenge us with an Augustine we thought we already knew by helping us understand the world behind the texts.” But also those uses don’t rob terms like “Stoic,” “Platonic” or “Augustinian” of their conceptual usefulness, especially in “normative theorizing.”