Doing Theology Creatively in a Scientific Age: Tradition, Reflexivity, and Second-Order Cybernetics

Abstract

Can theology be considered a creative science? How can we define creativity in the work of the theologian? This article offers a meta-theological inquiry on the roles of creativity and tradition in innovating theological knowledge. After distinguishing between problem- and solution-driven creativity, I show that both theology and science require a living tradition to test, correct, and stabilize proposals over time. I introduce second-order cybernetics as a heuristic vocabulary through which to view observer-inclusive inquiry in theology. I analyze the main sources of theological novelty: inspiration, prophetic impulse, and charisms, whose discernment and reception shape the incorporation of novelty into Tradition. I argue that, likewise, in second-order cybernetics a system can maintain its identity by adapting to new issues, contexts, and forms of experience through negative and positive feedback mechanisms. These mechanisms preserve coherence in the system and allow for the diffusion and institutionalization of genuine novelty.

“When new or unrestrained questions arise, the principles of Catholic doctrine must always shine brightly in the mind; what sounds entirely new in theological matters must be examined with vigilant caution. What is certain and firm must be distinguished from what is merely conjecture or from what, being unstable and not always commendable, can introduce and bring into theology and philosophy questionable habits”.

(Pius XII 1946)

“May theology help to rethink how to think. Our way of thinking, as we know, also shapes our feelings, our will and our decisions. A wide heart is accompanied by a wide-ranging imagination and thinking, whereas a shriveled, closed and mediocre way of thinking is hardly capable of generating creativity and courage. I think of the manuals of theology we studied, all closed, all “museum pieces”, all “bookish”, without making you think”.

(Francis 2024)

1. Introduction

In a scientific age marked by rapid innovation—artificial intelligence, biotechnology, ecology, and the study of complex systems—Christian theology is challenged not only by new topics but also by new expectations regarding its method.1 We may ask ourselves if theology is truly a creative science, and how new theological knowledge is generated and incorporated into the deposit of faith—that is, the Church’s normative Tradition—so it can be transmitted.2 Theological research must confront new developments and respond to them without compromising its relationship with its sources, which requires stability, or betraying its mission of advancing knowledge, which requires expansion. This dual tension has guided theological thought throughout history, as demonstrated by the contrast between Pius XII’s call for vigilance when “unrestrained questions arise” (Pius XII 1946) and Francis’s encouragement to theologians to develop a theology that “helps us rethink how to think” (Francis 2024), stimulating imagination and courage beyond scholastic and retrospective expositions of the faith.

Historically, Catholic theology has repeatedly faced the difficult task of balancing continuity with change. The ressourcement movement that led to the Second Vatican Council is a clear example of how significant theological innovation can be achieved by “looking back” and rediscovering the sources that free theology from identifying itself with a science that advances by perfecting its propositions and schemes. Yet, the history of theology reveals an enduring tension. Thus, the question remains: Can theology express its creative potential while remaining faithful to its normative sources? The risk of polarization is ever-present. Bold proposals are often met with suspicion until they are expressed with sufficient theological rigor and receive a positive judgment from ecclesial authority, which require prior intellectual and spiritual discernment.3 Conversely, ill-traditionalism can interpret continuity so rigidly that meaningful development becomes nearly impossible. Therefore, theology must strike a balance between the demanding requirements of fidelity without immobility and creativity without rupture. John Henry Newman and Yves-Marie Congar wrote extensively about the development of doctrine and Tradition in this sense, and their work continues to influence theologians today (Congar [1950] 2011, 1966; Newman [1845] 1994).

This article aims to contribute to the reflection on the following theme: Under what conditions is it possible to do theology creatively? My approach will be meta-theological. The topic of how theology can innovate and progress creatively is of great methodological importance and concerns the development of theological science itself. Yet, it is surprising how little has been written on this topic over the last century, which we can define as the creative scientific age. To our knowledge, only a few contributions exist (Bromiley 1979; Capelle-Dumont 2014; Cordovani 1946; Dulles 1992). This contribution does not aim to settle the matter once and for all, but rather to reopen the discussion.

I will explore the connection between theological methodology and cybernetic systems theory. Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of control and communication in complex systems. More specifically, I will discuss how feedback mechanisms in such systems help integrate and stabilize new information, thereby self-modifying the system itself. An example of a “feedback loop” is where a system’s output influences its future input, allowing for self-correction (e.g., a thermostat adjusting heat).

Specifically, I will use second-order cybernetics—the study of observer-included systems in which descriptions and decisions feed back into the system being described—as a heuristic vocabulary through to clarify how theology manages “incoming” novelty, i.e., the emergence of creativity, and the resulting innovation. First-order cybernetics assumes an observer external to the system being studied. In second-order cybernetics, on the other hand, the observer is part of the known system. Recommendation algorithms on social media platforms are an example of second-order cybernetics. These platforms do not simply observe users’ preferences; they also influence the very preferences they measure. The system becomes second-order when it also updates its optimization criteria (e.g., not only engagement, but also well-being or information quality) and the mechanisms by which it observes users. This may also entail self-modifications of the app.

This second perspective is particularly relevant to theology because the theologian is more like a participant-observer within a living and normative reality than an external analyst of tradition. This approach is also useful for expressing the reflexive responsibility of theological inquiry and the role of communal processes of testing, reception, and discernment in stabilizing emerging novelties.

My argument begins with some clarifications that accompany the entire discussion. “Creative” and “innovative” are often used interchangeably. In this article, however, I distinguish between them: creativity refers to the ability to produce something new, while innovation refers to the successful implementation and stabilization of a creative idea (Reiter-Palmon 2020, p. 648). This distinction is particularly important in theology, where the work of theologians is creative but occurs within the constraints of Tradition and the responsibility of ecclesial discernment. We therefore cannot speak of “creative theology” as if theology could create its own object. Rather, we speak of “theological creativity”, or the work of the theologian in introducing theological novelties that fit within the Church’s normative horizon. Theologians are responsible for “doing theology creatively”, and if their work is positively and stably accepted within the ecclesial tradition, it becomes “theological innovation”.

I will structure my argument in four stages. In Section 2, I will briefly discuss theoretical accounts of creativity to distinguish between creativity that generates new solutions and creativity that generates new problems. This distinction will be useful later to identify what is truly “new” in theology. Section 3 introduces the perspective of second-order cybernetics as an epistemological lens for “observer-included” theological inquiry. This section clarifies the reflective responsibility of a theologian working within a normative Tradition by comparing it to the feedback-shaped dynamic through which novelty is tested and stabilized within complex systems. Section 4 examines the prophetic impulse as a distinctive source of theological novelty that opens new avenues of expression. Section 5 will address charisms and their reception in Tradition. I will show how ecclesial discernment and communal validation facilitate the integration of authentic novelty within the living process of tradition in the Church. Section 6 will contain my concluding observations.

2. Creativity Between New Solutions and New Problems

Creativity is the ability to bring something into existence that is both novel and valuable (Fogarty et al. 2015; Brioschi 2022; Godart et al. 2020; Harvey and Berry 2023; Runco and Jaeger 2012). It is extremely rare for something to be radically novel; usually, “novelty” presents itself in the guise of “new in this context”, “unprecedented in this realm of possibility”, or “unexpected for a certain audience”. Valuable, on the other hand, is not simply something that is pleasant, useful, meaningful, or purposeful in relation to a certain evaluative horizon. Creativity, therefore, can include objects, ideas, actions, and forms of life.

Novelty always refers to a specific field. What is “new” is new with respect to a tradition of questions, answers, forms of reasoning, and evaluation criteria. In theology, a “new” thesis may be a retrieval, a new synthesis, or a rearticulation—yet it can still be innovative if it reveals new meaning or resolves an issue in a fitting way. Also, the relationship between theology and creativity is unique. As mentioned earlier, one “does theology creatively” and speaks of “theological innovation” because it is the person involved in the theological process of knowing that is creative.

In many accounts of creativity, the dominant image is that of problem solving: Creativity allows us to find new solutions to perceived problems.4 This analogy is surely valid in scientific and technological development, where creativity is implicitly associated with the (theological) concept of progress, which is characteristic of Modern Western societies (Tur Palau 2018, p. 5). Each new solution refines and extends previous solutions to similar problems, generating incremental improvements that expand the spectrum and quality of previous solutions. However, creativity is not limited to finding solutions to problems, as there are areas of creativity where there are no apparent problems to solve. An even more interesting phenomenon occurs when a new solution is analyzed as generative of a “new problem” because it opens up a new horizon of issues, aspirations, and opportunities that were not previously visible (and I call this horizon “problem-space”).5 Often, a new solution not only resolves an old issue but also reconfigures the space of meaning, making new issues possible, desirable, urgent, and inevitable.

This phenomenon, or rather, this way of seeing the creative phenomenon, which I note depends on the subject’s reflective capacity, leads us to distinguish between problem-driven and solution-driven creativity.

Problem-driven creativity is the classic case: a problem is identified, and creativity consists of generating a new solution to solve it. In solution-driven creativity, on the other hand, a solution, discovery, or form emerges, and creativity consists of recognizing and articulating the new problems or opportunities that the solution opens up. In reality, the two types of creativity are interrelated, because a solution can answer one problem and then generate new problems, which in turn may require new solutions. However, being able to distinguish between these two types of creativity allows us to clarify the type of novelty we are dealing with in this article, and to understand what really makes certain innovations “radical”: they not only provide answers, but also change the questions themselves. For this reason, they are of greater interest to us from a theological point of view, and in this article, I will focus on this type of creativity.

I distinguish at least two common solution-driven creative processes: repurposing and purpose-expansion. Repurposing, as the name suggests, consists of using an existing solution for a new purpose. The solution is not new. What is reconfigured is the space of the problems to which it is a response. Thus, it is a form of creativity oriented toward new problems and consists of recognizing that old tools can be reimagined in a new context. Examples in the theological sphere are medieval monasteries. Initially designed as places for spiritual and ascetic community life for monks who withdrew from the world to live a life dedicated to God, these structures were later adapted to address the urgent need to preserve and transmit knowledge during periods of crisis in medieval civil institutions. Medieval monastic communities evolved into centers of education and cultural preservation (libraries, schools, and cultural hubs) where ancient religious and secular manuscripts were copied and studied. This new role made monasteries cultural institutions that enabled the preservation and formation of the intellectual and theological landscape of medieval Europe and the transmission of cultural heritage to future generations. This innovation was achieved while respecting the public purpose of the monastic institution.

A second solution-driven creative process is purpose-expansion: a solution initially designed to solve a problem reveals additional possibilities, expanding the scope of goals that it allows us to pursue. In this process, creativity begins as problem-driven, but then becomes solution-driven because the novelty generates new questions, possibilities for use, and allows other aspirations to be fulfilled. The missions of the Society of Jesus around the world since the sixteenth century are an example of purpose-expansion. Another well-known example of Jesuit missionary-scientific engagement is the work of Matteo Ricci: his intellectual mediation exemplifies purpose-expansion, as he used local scientific and philosophical categories to introduce Christian theology in China.

Repurposing and purpose-expansion are of great importance to theology, since many theological categories are not invented from scratch, but rather come about through recovery, reapplication, and conceptual expansion. Theological advancement occurs through the repurposing of existing resources (such as Scripture, doctrinal formulations, liturgical experiences, insights of the saints) within a problem-space that is reconfigured by new historically situated goals and questions. This process leads to new syntheses and opens up new questions for future investigation.

However, there are reconfigurations of the problem space determined by a third creative solution-driven process, the emergence of a “new style”. The history of theological thought shows that there are solutions that not only reconfigure a problem space, but also establish a new space. These are radical innovations, not because they are ex nihilo, but because they establish a new way of looking, speaking, and evaluating with new coordinates, a new grammar, and a new syntax. It is easy to recognize this dynamic in art, when paradigm shifts occur in the sciences, and also in theology when new conceptual syntheses, spiritual experiences, or new ecclesial realities force a rearticulation of how questions are posed. The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth can undoubtedly be interpreted as a “novelty” that generated numerous theological “problems”. Indeed, the New Testament established a distinct “style” of theology and spirituality marked by paradigm shifts that redefined the understanding of salvation history and spiritual practice for over two thousand years for billions of people (including non-Christians and the non-religious).

As we will see in the following sections, prophetic impulses and charisms work precisely in this way: they do not add new content to Revelation, but they open up a new horizon of questions and ways of life that theology must then interpret, test, and articulate within Tradition.

In my opinion, this third type of process challenges the classical problem–solution narrative. In this narrative, necessity is often assumed to drive the process (hence the famous saying “Mater artium necessitas”, or “necessity is the mother of invention”) and creativity is seen as a response to constraints, needs, and limitations. The Spanish theologian Vicente Tur Palau, however, rightly insists that creativity is more linked to gratuitousness and contingency than to necessity, particularly in theology (Tur Palau 2018, p. 22). The greatest novelties that theology deals with—the event of Revelation, the unpredictability of inspiration, and the emergence of charisms—are not the result of human planning. Rather, they come in the form of gifts that mark a break with routine categories. These gifts often generate new theological problems precisely because they cannot be derived from previous problem-spaces. Think, for example, of the case of Trinitarian, Christological, and Marian heresies in the early centuries.

When new problem spaces open up following the introduction of something novel, such as an insight, a word, or a new idea, it is the theologian who must ask, “What is this?”, “What does it mean?”, “What new questions does it raise?” This shows how the reflexivity of the theologian as an involved subject is fundamental for the development of the problem space, which gives rise to the subsequent theological expression, on which the Church will eventually exercise its discernment.

In theology, therefore, there is no “creation”—creatio ex nihilo—because this pertains only to God. Tur Palau explains this issue from the perspective of the theology of Revelation, adopting a personalist emphasis: God is distinct from creation, of which He is the Creator and Revealer. He communicates himself through creation, words, and events (Tur Palau 2018, p. 383). Human beings can receive this Revelation but cannot control it. Therefore, Revelation circumscribes the world in a “system”—Creation—which includes the subject who receives and studies it. Under certain conditions, this investigation of Revelation becomes part of the living Tradition of the Church. It should be noted that this way of seeing things does not diminish theological creativity; rather, it describes the ways in which it is exercised.

The Thomist theologian Bernard Lonergan believed that theology was not simply an explanation or advancement of notions (Lonergan 1972, p. 383), but, instead, an iterative and cumulative process of the knowing subject. This process can be pursued through a method structured in eight stages, which he called “functional specializations” (research, interpretation, history, dialectic, foundations, doctrines, systematics, and communication), grounded in turn on the four core operations of human understanding (experience, understanding, judgment, and decision). Functional specializations and operations form an iterative and cumulative research process, whose driving force is the reflexive dynamism of the knowing subject. The discipline, therefore, adapts to new questions and contexts. If we elaborate on Lonergan’s framework we could argue that theological creativity emerges when the theologian engages in authentic religious experiences that transcend intellectual and moral dimensions. Religious experience, in fact, allows that kind of knowledge that the subject attains because it is given (which Lonergan calls “love”, Grace in theological terms) and transforms the subject in “being-in-love” (Lonergan 1972). This transformative encounter allows the theologian to discover his/her authentic self, which inevitably impacts her/his theological work. This authenticity is tied to what Lonergan calls “self-appropriation”, or an understanding of one’s cognitive and moral processes. It is also tied to conversion—intellectual, moral, and religious—which aligns the theologian with truth and faith. In other words, creativity in theology must be compatible with the subject’s internal demands of truth-seeking.

It is also possible to have “false” creativity. According to Anglican theologian Geoffrey Bromiley, this happens when theology is treated as just one of many arts, and loses its anchorage to its own object. This occurs when the experiential aspect is elevated above God’s self-revelation. In this case, the risk that the object of study will be altered is very high. Bromiley’s point is not to oppose theological imagination but to emphasize that the connection the theologian has with the object of study is epistemologically foundational to theology. Within the discipline, there is ample room for creativity in various areas, such as biblical, historical, doctrinal, and pastoral studies. It is within these areas that the theologian carries out her/his work (Bromiley 1979). Like Lonergan, Bromiley seems to believe that one of the fundamental requirements for “authentic” theological creativity is freedom of inquiry within the epistemological requirements of the method. Thus, it is a matter of creative inquiry within a normative horizon.

We can now say that the distinction between “new solutions” and “new problems” is not only descriptive but also methodologically important for theological creativity. Creativity is not only something that can be seen against a background of continuity, built of inherited problems, ready-made solutions, or shared criteria of relevance. Creativity is also what keeps Revelation alive within the living reality of Tradition. Therefore, creative theologians are not those who “invent” new answers, but rather, they are those who work within an ecclesial field that tests, corrects, and ultimately receives or rejects novelty. In doing so, they evolve the knowledge and awareness of the Church itself.

How should theology describe its own method of inquiry when the subject (the theologian) is part of tradition and not an external observer? The next section introduces second-order cybernetics as a framework for describing an “observer-included” inquiry. This framework clarifies the reflexive responsibility of the theologian and the relevance of feedback that allows novelty to be tested and incorporated into the living tradition of the Church.

3. Tradition, Reflexivity, and Second-Order Cybernetics

Following Lonergan, I have described theology as an iterative and cumulative cognitive process, exercised by a reflective and responsible subject (the theologian), and whose object is the Revealing God, Who continues to introduce novelty into creation. The Church can respond positively by discerning and granting a stable ecclesial form to what proves to be authentic. Alternatively, it may respond negatively by disowning them, declaring them not yet mature or completely incompatible, for example (in fact, not all emerging novelties come from God). Therefore, the tradition of the Church is an important system for stabilizing new developments. This is quite familiar to scholars of second-order cybernetic systems theory, who deal with systems in which: (1) the researcher recognizes s/he is a “participant-observer” of her/his inquiry—especially when the systems studied are living, social, interpretive, and historically extended; (2) processes in these systems are shaped by feedback on new information, that can be tested and later stabilized, and which modify the system itself (Umpleby 2016; Scott 2004). The issue we are addressing is epistemological in nature, and only a few scholars have addressed this philosophical question in these terms in recent times (Callaos 2021; Marlowe and Laracy 2021). The purpose here is not to import cybernetics as a method into theology, but rather to use second-order cybernetics as a vocabulary to clarify three salient features of theological inquiry in a scientific culture. First, theology is an observer-included practice carried out from within a living tradition. Second, the theologian bears reflexive responsibility for the categories and mediations that shape inquiry. Third, theological proposals are stabilized—or rejected—through historically extended processes of communal testing, discernment, and reception.

“Cybernetics” is a term coined by American mathematician Wiener (1948) and refers to the study of communication, control, and self-regulation in complex systems. Cybernetics the interdisciplinary study of circular causal processes where the effects of a system’s actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It deals with control, influence, and feedback mechanisms in particular. Examples of cybernetic systems range from heating/cooling systems to the global economic system. The disciplinary field of application is extremely broad. It can include physics, engineering, management science, economics, sociology, philosophy, and mathematics (Marlowe and Laracy 2021). In his historical overview, Scott (2004) recalls a canonical distinction between first-order cybernetics, which studies “observed systems”, and second-order cybernetics, which studies “observing systems” (von Foerster 1974; Umpleby 2016). Second-order cybernetics calls observers to “enter the domain of [their] own descriptions”, and to accept responsibility for their participation in the world they describe (Scott 2004).

Catholic theology (and the living tradition of the Church more broadly) can be considered a paradigmatic case of “investigation from within”, in which the observer (the theologian) is part of the system being studied. The object of study is not a manipulable system as an engineer would understand it, but rather, the event of Revelation, as transmitted in Scripture and Tradition—the sources of theology that are received, interpreted, and taught within a community (the Church). Therefore, the theologian does not approach tradition as an impartial external observer, and her/his investigation is always inseparable from her/his position “inside” the Church.

In Catholic terms, theology is not only an academic craft but an ecclesial vocation carried out within and for the Church (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1990), an essentially “ecclesial” enterprise of a believing subject. For this epistemological reason, some authors have recognized Bernard Lonergan as the “first second-order cyberneticist” (Laracy et al. 2019, p. 69), as his method emphasizes the centrality of the position of the subject, and of his reflexivity. This reflexive constraint is not unique to theology: second-order cybernetics articulates a transformation internal to modern scientific self-understanding, where the observer’s standards and descriptions are recognized as operative within the system studied. Umpleby’s assertion that second-order cybernetics “extends the traditional scientific approach by bringing scientists within the domain of what is described and analyzed” (Umpleby 2016) suggests that reflexivity is a methodological advance rather than a theological concession. This is one reason why exploring the links between second-order cybernetics and theological creativity is worthwhile.

Introducing second-order cybernetics vocabulary into theology allows us to evaluate creativity not as arbitrary novelty or as encouragement for a relativistic theology, but as the theologian’s ability to make judgments based on evidence gathered from reality and interpreted in light of Divine Revelation. As Lonergan (1972) points out, every judgment is the result of a process. According to second-order cybernetics, this process takes place within a system that includes the theologian as an active, reflective participant. Thus, reflexivity is a condition of the theologian’s responsibility: in fact, following Scott (2004), the observer recognizes the constructed nature of her/his descriptions and becomes responsible for their consequences and limitations. Taken to the theological level, to the extent that the theologian is more or less committed to her/his own authenticity, her/his reflexivity also has a moral dimension: it is not self-absorption, but rather an awareness that one’s own categories and interests can clarify or distort the reception and expression of truth.6

On this basis, the creativity of the theologian can be characterized by reflexive clarity in at least three respects. First, the “epistemic location” of her/his inquiry is specific to a particular ecclesial, cultural, and historical situation. This contextuality does not render the content of Revelation contingent; rather, it situates the task of expressing it historically. Reflexivity also helps theologians work avoid two errors: pretending to speak from nowhere (false neutrality) and closing oneself off in self-expression (false subjectivism).

The second aspect of reflexive clarity is what we might call “methodological mediation”. Theology has always relied on interpretive and conceptual tools from various sciences, such as philosophy and history, as well as from the natural and social sciences. Second-order cybernetics explicitly recognizes the mediations at work: what counts as evidence, the standards of argumentation used, and how conceptual frameworks influence the definition of what is important.

A third aspect of reflexive clarity concerns “communal testing”. In a “system” such as a community carrying on a tradition, creativity becomes theologically meaningful only through reception, criticism, and discernment processes. Second-order cybernetics provides a framework for describing how communal processes stabilize or reject new proposals through circularity and feedback mechanisms rather than considering them the result of power or sociological dynamics. In fact, the evaluation and reception of theological proposals occur through communal, iterative, and historically extended processes.

One of the most significant contributions of the vocabulary of cybernetics is perhaps implicit in this third aspect: the ability of a tradition to be both stable and innovative. A living tradition can maintain its identity by performing stabilizing functions to adapt to new issues, contexts, and forms of experience that emerge as “novelties”. Cybernetics refers to these two functions as “feedback”: “negative” feedback preserves the system’s coherence (stabilization), while “positive” feedback allows novelty to spread and become institutionalized (amplification). Nagib Callaos convincingly demonstrates how, in Insight (Lonergan [1957] 1992, p. 141), Lonergan describes the natural evolution of complex systems using only the notion of “schemes of recurrence” and not the notions of negative or positive feedback “in a way that is now used as a heuristic for constructing artificial electronic networks for the generation of hierarchies of networks, which go from less to more complex instances” (Callaos 2021, pp. 217–18).

When applied to theology with appropriate caution, this yields a helpful picture. The emergence of theological novelty—new questions, conceptual articulations, and syntheses—does not automatically become “Tradition”. It must be tested. Some proposals are rejected, while others are corrected and clarified, and then received. Eventually, those received expand the theological knowledge and horizon in an iterative and cumulative way. As a cyberneticist would probably put it: the theological system does not accept every perturbation; rather, it regulates, selects, and stabilizes emerging novelty. However, the regulatory process is not only conservative (or solution-driven as introduced in Section 3), but also generative (or problem-driven). In fact, the reception of new developments can produce new questions and, eventually, new theological work.

In summary, the second-order cybernetics lens helps make several recognizable theological practices intelligible without reducing them. First, it clarifies doctrinal development as a process in which proposals undergo iterative testing, correction, and stabilization over time rather than being merely asserted. Second, the lens frames ecclesial discernment as a communal process of reception, recognizing that not every “perturbation” equates to progress. Novelty is assessed, refined, and sometimes resisted. Only in certain instances is it granted a stable ecclesial form. Third, it provides a vocabulary for theological disagreement that is neither purely psychological nor purely political. Disagreement can serve as a step in a feedback-driven process that distinguishes genuine progress from distortions or dead ends. The payoff in these three cases is methodological: second-order cybernetics highlights why theology’s fidelity to Tradition is compatible with responsible openness to novelty because reception is structured, communal, and historically extended.

The analogy with second-order cybernetics has clear limitations. We showed here how it can be used as a heuristic vocabulary for reflexive inquiry and reception processes. It does not “explain away” theology by translating it into systems theory. Theology is not a closed system whose criteria are generated internally because its normativity ultimately derives from Revelation as given and received in the Church. Cybernetics also fails to capture the specifically theological claims that tradition is animated by the Spirit, that ecclesial authority involves an asymmetry of responsibility, and that the goal of inquiry is truth about God rather than mere systemic equilibrium. For these reasons, second-order cybernetics is useful in clarifying how inquiry proceeds from within a living tradition and how novelty is tested and stabilized while the distinctly theological sources and criteria remain irreducible.

4. Tradition, Inspiration, and Prophetic Impulse in Theological Innovation

Having described—through the second-order cybernetics lens—how a tradition maintains identity through feedback-shaped reception and correction, I now turn to theologically specific loci where novelty enters ecclesial life under the impulse of the Spirit: inspiration, prophetic impulse, and charisms. I argued that novelty leading to innovation does not arise in a vacuum: it emerges within a tradition and is tested within it. This point is not peculiar to theology. It is especially evident in the sciences, where some of the most influential voices have insisted that creative breakthroughs, characterized by a non-logical path of emergence,7 presuppose a tradition of concepts, practices, and standards.

As Thomas Kuhn observed, “new theories and, to an increasing extent, novel discoveries in the mature sciences are not born de novo. On the contrary, they emerge from old theories and within a matrix of old beliefs about the phenomena that the world does and does not contain” (Kuhn 1977, p. 234). For this reason, the familiar stereotype of the scientist as “at least potentially, an innovator” is only half true: Kuhn adds that the scientist must also be “a firm traditionalist” (Kuhn 1977, p. 237). Werner Heisenberg makes the same point from a different angle. Reflecting on the conditions of scientific work, he remarks that “even within a fruitful period a scientist does not have much choice in selecting his problems…. one may say that a fruitful period is characterized by the fact that the problems are given, that we need not invent them” (Heisenberg 1973, pp. 4–5).

This insight has a further implication: tradition is not merely a constraint but a precondition of discovery. Heisenberg notes that the very concepts and methods through which we interrogate nature are inherited (Heisenberg 1973, p. 6). They function as indispensable tools for exploring phenomena, yet they can also harden into prejudices that restrict what we are able to see. Creativity, in this setting, consists of learning how to work from within an inherited framework while remaining capable of transforming it when phenomena resist its categories. He notes (citing C.F. von Weizsäcker) that the major scientific revolutions (associated with figures such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler) did not arise ex nihilo; they were nourished by earlier theological and philosophical inheritances (Heisenberg 1973, p. 7). Innovation, in other words, often grows from engagement with intellectual heritage, not from its repudiation. Kuhn makes this idea explicit with the following words: “The scientist requires a thoroughgoing commitment to the tradition with which, if he is fully successful, he will break” (Kuhn 1977, p. 235). Paradigms, as he famously argued, are simultaneously the enabling context of research and the horizon that limits what counts as a legitimate question or solution (Kuhn 1970). Revolutions occur not as arbitrary departures, but as reconfigurations of what a community has inherited and learned to treat as intelligible.

Hans-Georg Gadamer insists that tradition is not the inert repetition of the past but an ongoing, critical engagement with what is handed down (Gadamer 1975, p. 249). Precisely because tradition sustains continuity, it also makes reinterpretation, contestation, and renewed understanding possible. This is precisely why ‘novelty’ is not equivalent to arbitrariness: the very possibility of meaningful innovation presupposes an inherited horizon of intelligibility that can be critically reworked. In this sense, tradition is the medium in which novelty can become meaningful rather than arbitrary—a point Joseph Mali presses when he speaks of “the science of tradition” as the work of understanding how inherited frameworks enable and shape inquiry (Mali 1989, p. 166). Heisenberg himself summarizes the matter with characteristic clarity: when “fundamental concepts are to be changed”, tradition is “both the condition for progress and a hindrance”, and it often takes time for new concepts to be received; yet the health of science is precisely that “we need not invent our problems”, because “the scientific tradition… does give us many problems and encourages our efforts” (Heisenberg 1973, p. 10; emphasis added).

Everything written above also applies to theology. Theology cannot be innovative by stepping outside Tradition, because Tradition is not an optional background but the normative and living medium in which theological intelligibility is possible at all. The Greek word for “tradition” is paradosis, the action of handing-on, and for “deposit” is parathēkē, the action of entrusting. They both indicate a living act: what is transmitted and entrusted, in other words, is not merely information but a reality that continues to live by being received and re-expressed. Tradition functions as an intergenerational device of transmission, identity, and praxis, and the “patrimony” of faith is not only preserved but continuously re-appropriated (Tanzella-Nitti 2022, pp. 379–82), expressing what Benedict XVI framed as a “hermeneutic of reform, of renewal in continuity” (Benedict XVI 2005). The German theologian Johann Adam Möhler captured this when he described Tradition as the “living influence” of the Spirit animating the whole body of the faithful across time (Möhler [1825] 1996). In fact, the action of the Spirit is what gives the distinctive character to tradition in the Church with respect to other traditions (scientific, etc.). Benedict XVI later expressed the same conviction with memorable simplicity: Tradition is not a “collection of dead things”, but “the living river that links us to the origins”, in which the origins remain present because the Crucified and Risen Lord continues to accompany his people in the Spirit (Benedict XVI 2006). The Second Vatican Council also stressed that Tradition is the means by which the Church “perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes”, and that this transmission is sustained by the Spirit as the Church moves toward the fullness of divine truth (DV 8; LG 31), and allows surpassing the historical forms of the Church’s dogmatic teaching without confusing fidelity with conformity (Congar [1950] 2011).8 In this light, the question of theological innovation can be usefully framed by an analogy from second-order cybernetics. A living system preserves its identity through recursive transmission and feedback across time. Following this analogy, Tradition remains “the same” not by freezing its expressions, but by sustaining continuity through reception, discernment, and expression under the guidance of the Spirit.

The question, then, becomes how, in Christian terms, genuine novelty arises in the Church under the impulse of the Spirit, without being reducible to mere intellectual ingenuity or conceptual recombination. A first entry-point is the theological notion of inspiration—a phenomenon widely recognized in artistic and intellectual domains, and studied by psychology as a state of being “moved” by an other-than-self impetus. Then there is also a second entry point, the prophetic impulse. Inspiration and prophetic impulse can be understood as “uncommanded” sources of novelty that allow for the expansion of the problem-space of theology, requiring new expression, testing, and reception within Tradition. Tradition has understood both as “gifts of the Spirit”, including them in the broader category of charisms (a Greek word meaning, precisely, “gifts”).9

Recent accounts describe inspiration as a motivational state that fuels creativity through three interrelated elements: evocation, transcendence, and approach motivation—an elicited impulse, a sudden opening to higher possibilities, and an energy to actualize them (Cui et al. 2020). In Christian theology the term “inspiration” literally refers to the infusion of spirit (from the Latin verb spirare, meaning “to breathe”), which points to a divine initiative that elevates human faculties and propels them toward a communicative act.10 The Spirit excites and assists, rather than substitutes, the human will and faculties. The consequence is important for a theology of novelty: the very words are inspired—not dictated, but freely chosen under charismatic divine action.11

With this framework, we can approach the prophetic impulse as a continuing source of novelty in Tradition and, indirectly, in theology. Danish theologian Hvidt (2007, p. 242) argues that theologians support the Magisterium in interpreting and actualizing Revelation, while applying ever-evolving scholarly methods. Theology itself therefore needs a prophetic impulse if it wants to remain “living theology”. To illustrate this, Hvidt cites an excerpt from an interview with Joseph Ratzinger, whose claim can serve here as a programmatic thesis:

It seems to me that […] behind every great theologian, there has always been a prophet first. Augustine is unthinkable without the encounter with monacheism, especially with Anthony Abbot. The same holds for Athanasius. Thomas Aquinas would not be conceivable without Dominic, without the charism of the evangelization proper to him. […] I believe that it can be proven that for all the great theologians any new theological elaboration is only possible if the prophetic element has first paved the way. While one proceeds with the mind only, nothing new will ever happen. Increasingly more definite systems may well be construed, increasingly subtle questions raised but the true and proper way from which great theology may again flow is not generated by the rational side of theological work but by a charismatic and prophetic thrust. […] Theology, as theological science in the strict sense, is not prophetic but may only truly become living theology under the thrust and illumination of a prophetic impulse.

(Ratzinger 1999, emphasis is mine)

As Karl Popper earlier did for the emergence of new ideas in science (Popper [1959] 1968, p. 32), Ratzinger suggests that theological innovation does not arise merely from the rational side of theological work—however necessary intellectual rigor may be—but from a non-logical source: an encounter with a charismatic–prophetic thrust that “awakens” the theologian and opens new possibilities of theological expression in response to historical need, rather than expressions of isolated and abstract reasoning alone. The theologian’s task, therefore, is innovative precisely as it is ecclesial: theology becomes “living” here by translating prophetic novelty into communicable forms that can enter the Church’s feedback-shaped processes of reception and judgment.

5. Charisms as a Source of Theological Innovation

If inspiration and prophetic impulse are specific gifts that highlight the Spirit’s continuing ability to generate newness, charisms in general show how the Spirit operates through a variety of forms expressing ecclesial vitality (LG 4).12 Charisms are “gifts of God, of the Holy Spirit, of Christ, given to contribute, in diverse ways, to the edification of the Church” (IE 8). They embody in Karl Rahner’s words, the dynamic element in the Church (Rahner 1964).

Therefore, the inspiration of charisms is linked to the vitality of the Church as a communion. The Church receives them as gifts that promote her unity and mission from within. They are not the product of the Church’s planning or strategies to meet pastoral needs. Charisms cannot be invented or programmed. They do not arise from administrative offices or pastoral frameworks. Their emergence is unpredictable and resists human categories and projections. They are pure “situated” novelty in that they are introduced by God for the common good and growth of the Church, which exists in history. Therefore, it is reasonable to think they are linked to the cultural, spiritual, and ecclesial needs of different historical periods.

Rahner (1964) points out that charisms can be distinguished as either institutional or non-institutional. As the name suggests, institutional charisms are linked to an institutionalized ecclesiastical office, as the Spirit safeguards hierarchical structures in their mission. Non-institutional charisms, on the other hand, are extraordinary gifts that have not yet been institutionalized. These latter can be distinguished into personal charisms, when they are conferred on specific individuals (e.g., Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, and Ignatius of Loyola), and collective charisms, when the former extend to a congregation of people (e.g., the foundation of several monastic orders throughout the last fifteen centuries). This charismatic vitality continued with the rise of new institutes, associations, and ecclesial movements after the First and Second Vatican Councils.

The comparison between theological creativity and second-order cybernetics in charisms requires careful examination of non-institutional charisms. In fact, they present themselves both as new solutions to problems and as new problems that open up new theological horizons.13

These non-institutional gifts do not always align neatly with established structures, yet they are essential to the vitality and growth of the Church. In the history of the Church, the reception of new charisms has rarely been frictionless (Rahner 1964, pp. 69–83). The resulting tensions are not accidental, but are, from the point of view of second-order cybernetics, an adaptation of the system of Church Tradition to emerging novelty. The Church must in fact validate their authenticity (IE 17). This validation occurs through an authoritative and communal process of discernment, which puts the feedback mechanism into operation for the rejection (negative, stabilization feedback) or reception (positive, expansion feedback) of novelties. The reception of such novelties entails their recognition as genuine charisms, and incorporation into Tradition (IE 18).

Therefore, non-institutional charisms are not mere novelties “added” to a repository, Tradition, from the outside, but—to some extent—they involve the adaptation of the entire life of the Church expressed by Tradition. Describing them in terms of second-order cybernetics helps us understand two structural consequences for theological creativity. First, not all novelties are automatically incorporated; rather, assisted by the action of the Spirit, they follow a process of communal (i.e., sensus fidei, the ‘sense of faith’, a supernatural instinct given by the Spirit to all baptized believers, enabling them to instinctively recognize and adhere to divine truth in matters of faith and morals) and authoritative (i.e., Magisterium) reception that integrates them into the life of the Church as a living system: the two outcomes of the feedback system described above are “rejection and stabilization” (negative feedback) or “institutionalization, and expansion” (positive feedback). Second, in dealing with theological creativity, no order of importance should be established between charism and institution within the Church.14 In short, there is no institution without charism and no charism without institution. In fact, the Church cannot be separated from its spiritual origin, and vice versa: spiritual gifts are conferred for the good of the Church.15 Within the Church, one cannot exist without the other, and second-order cybernetics provides additional arguments in support of this thesis.

What shall the theologian do with charisms? While institutional and non-institutional charismatic gifts are genuine novelties, they are not theology in themselves. However, experiencing and living these gifts can inspire theological insights and lead to authentic innovation.

6. Conclusions

At the beginning of this article, I posed the following question: Under what conditions is it possible to do theology creatively in the scientific age? The path I have attempted to follow sought to demonstrate that creativity is not an incidental issue, but an epistemic characteristic of theology. A theory of theological creativity defines the mechanisms that allow the theologian to identify and integrate emerging elements of novelty, and how these novelties are capable of modifying the very self-understanding of the investigating subject (the theologian) of the theological field itself. I first distinguished between problem-driven and solution-driven creativity, demonstrated the importance of tradition in the sciences and of reflexivity, and explored the connections between theological methodology and the theory of second-order cybernetics. I then focused on three sources of the emergence of theological novelty within the Tradition: inspiration, prophetic impulse, and charisms. I then demonstrated how such novelties are not automatically accepted, but must follow a process that requires Tradition to preserve the identity of the Church while adapting through feedback.

This framework invites to a renewed way to do theological research on the most pressing topics of the scientific age: artificial intelligence, genetic editing, and the ecological crisis. Methodologically, this approach has three implications for future theological work. First, theological research should explicitly address its observer-included condition—its epistemic location, mediations, and responsibility—to ensure that creativity is disciplined rather than arbitrary. Second, novelty should be studied not only as an episodic judgment, but also as a process of reception shaped by feedback, involving critique, correction, and stabilization within the ecclesial community over time. Third, theology can communicate its rationality more effectively in interdisciplinary dialogue by showing that openness to novelty is not a concession to fashion but rather a property of any living tradition that tests and integrates new problem-spaces while preserving identity.

Future research should focus especially on how an innovative theology can help discerning novelty, develop reflective habits in members of the theological community, and communicate the faith. In this light, the figure of the theologian may be compared to the rhapsode in Plato’s Ion: “divine, and not an artist” (Plato 2008, Ion, 542b). I dare to stretch this definition with an analogy with theologians: “cooperators of the Spirit, and not owners”. Indeed, the theologian serves the Spirit-guided reception of Revelation, rather than claiming novelty as his own or the result of his craft. This is possible only because theology is an ecclesial act by nature: it is carried out within and for the Church. The Spirit animates and sustains the Church and supports theologians in discerning which novelties genuinely advance understanding of the Christ-event and which instead risk becoming distortions or dead ends. As John Paul II remarked, it is the Spirit that possesses an “infinite creativity”, and is able to “loosen the knots of human affairs”, even the most complex and opaque (Paul 1991).