David Tracy, a pioneering Roman Catholic theologian and longtime University of Chicago Divinity School professor, died April 29. He was 86.
Widely regarded as one of the most important theological voices of the late 20th century, Tracy’s work helped reshape contemporary theology by insisting on dialogue across traditions, disciplines and publics.
Tracy joined the UChicago faculty in 1969 after teaching at the Catholic University of America. At the Divinity School, he held appointments as Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor of Roman Catholic Studies and Professor in the Committee on Social Thought.
His major works—Blessed Rage for Order, The Analogical Imagination, and Plurality and Ambiguity—offered a powerful vision of theology as a public discourse, accountable both to the academy and to the broader world. Deeply engaged with both the Christian tradition and contemporary thought, Tracy’s writings bridged systematic theology, hermeneutics, and postmodern philosophy, while always returning to the urgent questions of human meaning and the divine.
“Tracy reaches beyond theology into the cognate sciences and returns to theology with new questions as well as new answers. He is very creative because, more than any other theologian, he really does understand modern philosophy, literature and language, and he can see connections nobody has seen before,” the late Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a theologian and professor at Notre Dame University told The New York Times Magazine for a 1986 feature titled “A Dissenting Voice: Catholic Theologian David Tracy.”
According to former student Assoc. Prof. Ryan Coyne, “for generations of students and colleagues, David was at the very core of their intellectual endeavors,” wrote Coyne, associate professor of philosophy of religions and theology at the UChicago Divinity School. “He read so widely and so deeply that virtually everyone on campus found in him a serious conversation partner and a friend.”
A theologian of openness
Throughout his career, Tracy was known as a theologian of openness—open to other voices, to other faiths and to the ambiguities of experience. He was a key participant in the post–Vatican II renewal of Catholic theology and one of the first Catholic thinkers in the U.S. to engage deeply with Protestant, Jewish and secular thought. A gifted teacher and sought-after lecturer, he cultivated a classroom environment marked by intellectual rigor and hospitality.
“Beyond his own bibliography, for instance, there are untold publications whose appearance is due to his first conceiving them,” the late Frankin “Chris” Gamwell, Shailer Mathews Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Religious Ethics, Philosophy of Religions, and Theology and former dean of the Divinity School said of Tracy during his retirement ceremony. “I cannot count the times when, having watched David elicit the thought of a student or colleague, I then heard him say: ‘You should write a book on [that topic].’”
Tracy received numerous honors and awards, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1982. He retired from the Divinity School in 2007 but remained an active presence in the community for many years. Tracy’s influence extended far beyond Hyde Park, with former students holding faculty positions and leadership roles in universities, seminaries and religious communities across the globe.
“David was undoubtedly one of the most important theologians of his generation, a towering figure in religious studies. But saying even this fails to do him justice,” Coyne said.
“He pivoted with ease from poetry, philosophy, and art to the history of science, political theory and modern fiction. He took seriously the charge to engage religious and intellectual traditions other than his own, to meet them on their own terms. And he did it all with legendary equanimity and humor, always displaying a boundless generosity of spirit.”
—Adapted from a story originally published by the University of Chicago Divinity School.