Vad Hauerwas skulle sagt till Högskoleverket ...

Högskoleverkets ifrågasatte nyligen examensrätten för flera av landets teologiska utbildningar. Bland annat kritiserades att "utbildningarna har få perspektiv från andra religioner än kristendomen" och man "såg kritiskt på att det inte föreligger någon tydlig separation mellan de praktiskt kyrkligt orienterade kurserna och de rena högskolekurserna ".

Jag misstänker att nedanstående utdrag är vad Hauerwas skulle ha svarat på Högskoleverkets kritik:

Part of our problem is that the idea of objectivity, which is mistakenly assumed to be exemplified in the sciences and an elusive goal for the humanities, is a deeply flawed notion. In the name of objectivity the assumption has been underwritten that knowledge is only good insofar as that which is known is freed from any tradition of inquiry. Yet the sciences work well exactly because they exemplify a traditioned mode of inquiry which, moreover, requires the student to be capable of participating in such a tradition. If the students are to become good scientists they must be willing to have their lives transformed through that activity; they must be transformed, moreover, not simply because of the current social power of science but because of the elegance and beauty of what is discovered.

Stanley Hauerwas. “Character, Narrative, and Growth in the Christian Life,” i The Hauerwas Reader .

Med Hans Urs von Balthasars ord: Knowledge of the general must be interpreted in the light of the particular.