A Worthwhile Goal

On the flight back from PMR 2011, I started sketching out an outline for an hypothetical systematic theology, were I ever to pen my own:

I. Sacrament
   II. Eschatology
      III. Theology Proper
         IV. Christology
      V. Anthropology
   VI. Pneumatology
VII. Ecclesiology

I like this outline because:

• The margins and the center (I, IV, and V) fill out the three moments of the corpus mysticum.
• Eschatology (II) parallels Pneumatology (VI), which pulls together the mystery of redemptive history.
• Christology (which is centered as the telos of it all) inscribes both aspects of the imago dei, Theology Proper (III) and Anthropology (V).

Who knows if anything will come of it, but it seems a far better rubric for doing theology "systematically" than the usual order. (Theology Proper, Anthropology, Christology, Soteriology as something other than Christology and Ecclesiology, and Ecclesiology and Sacraments tacked on before Eschatology.)