Eric Fesmire-Outside Reading #3-Thomas Oden and Systematic Thought

Many people characterize the human brain by left brain and right brain thinking. Systematic, organized, rational thought is said to be left brain. That is where scientific and mathematic thought is said to come from. The right brain is considered the creative side of the brain, with its abstract creativity and passions.

I haven't done much research on where these ideas came from, but I don't think too many legitimate neuroscientists believe in an actual split between left and right brains. What I want to explore in this blog is whether or not it is true that such a split exists.


The best example that I can think of when it comes to left brain thinking is actually systematic theology. This Christian practice seeks to make a well reasoned and complete understanding of "Life, the universe and everything" and to set it down in a way that builds off of itself systematically.


I am not familiar with all systematic theologies, but what I contend here is that systematic thought can be done in way that it does not neglect the ideals of beauty. This class has described beauty as reaching out to the unknown,  experiencing something beyond that connects us with the real. The crucial element that must exist in systematic thought in order for it to bridge the divide between the brains is a reluctance to argue that systematic thought can ever be complete. Systematic thought must be aware of that which transcends systemization. If this is admitted, then I believe the two brains are connected. Here is an example from Thomas Oden a systematizer with whose work I am familiar. 

"he vitality of the biblical history of God’s acts does not easily boil down to the clear, consistent formulations about God attempted by systematic theology.  Try as we may, the biblical history resists systematization "

Yet since the Bible wishes to address each hearer as a whole person, it invites and to some degree requires that each believer bring its loose ends together, to listen for its unity, and to try to see it integrally.  In that sense the Bible invites systematic, cohesive thinking about its varied events and messages (pp. 40-41).

 

Notice the language of "invitation" following the issue of systematization. This language is not so much left brain, as right brain, a metaphor that helps to explain the text, in this case the bible, in a way that we can relate to, understand, and apply.