Conway, Michael A.
(2015)
Theology Going Somewhere and Nowhere.
The Furrow, 67.
pp. 375-386.
ISSN 0016-3120
Abstract
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, chapter six, there is a very interesting
exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat:
‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where⎯’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘⎯so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’
This particular dialogue is most often paraphrased as: ‘If you don’t know where
you’re going, any road will take you there.’ And this, which is a line from a song, is
sometimes given, incorrectly, as a quotation from the book itself. If you take the
question of Theology and its future as your Leitmotif, then, I would suggest that this
paraphrase is far too simplistic, and I would like to unravel the complexity of the
original dialogue. Where have we come from? Which way ought we go from here?
Where is somewhere? And what about the possibility of going nowhere? As I reflect
on this activity that we call ‘theology,’ questions, such as these, spring to mind.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Theology; Somewhere; Nowhere; |
| Academic Unit: |
St Patrick's College, Maynooth > Faculty of Theology |
| Item ID: |
7797 |
| Depositing User: |
Michael A. Conway
|
| Date Deposited: |
23 Jan 2017 10:55 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
The Furrow |
| Publisher: |
St. Patrick's College, Maynooth |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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