The Trial of the Witnesses: The Rise and Decline of Postliberal Theology ? By Paul J. DeHart

Jason A Fout

I seek a way forward in the long-standing impasse between Evangelicals and the Postliberal school of theology, inaugurated by George Lindbeck. I bring Lindbeck into conversion with Kevin Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine for a richer account of theological prolegomena.

With its focus on " narrative " and theology as an ethnographic enterprise, the " postliberalism " of Hans W. Frei and George A. Lindbeck sought to incorporate insights from the linguistic turn in modern thought; however, it has faced criticisms ranging from sectarianism to concern with its overly static and homogeneous conceptions of " narrative " and " Christian community " that fail to recognize the church's participation in many overlapping communities of discourse. In this essay, I explore such criticisms and their recognition of the varied narratives and discursive practices by which Christian communities are formed, in ways both recognized and unrecognized. I then examine the work of Ugandan Catholic theologian Emmanuel Katongole which gives due attention to " narrative " and ideology, and in doing so, demonstrates " postliberal " theology's insights while also compensating for its weaknesses.

Rooted in the postsecular turn of the study of religion and society, postsecular theology is conceptualized in this article as an umbrella term for theologies offering hybrid interpretations of religiosity and spirituality within a framework that adopts numerous ostensibly secular values and perceptions. In this article, I apply postsecular theological reading to two pairs of thinkers: post-Christian feminist theologians Mary Daly and Daphne Hampson and non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers A. D. Gordon and Martin Buber. Assessing the similarities between them, I sketch the details of their common ''postsecular'' ground, aiming at enrichment of our understanding of postsecular theology. I then discuss differences between the theologians from a feminist perspective, suggesting that Daly's and Hampson's feminist sensitivity exposes Buber's and Gordon's gender blindness, while Buber and Gordon introduce Jewish-oriented ideas that may enrich the Christian-dominated field of postsecular feminist theology.

T H E O L O G Y, E T H I C S A N D PHILOSOPHY Liberalism, Postliberalism, and What (Maybe) Comes after Jason Fout The Trial of the Witnesses: The Rise and Decline of Postliberal Theology, Paul J. DeHart, Blackwells, 2006 (ISBN 1-4051-3296-5), xvi + 296 pp., pb $39.95/£25.99 The author Mark Twain once famously quipped, when confronted with a premature obituary, that reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. Proponents of postliberal theology – and the theologies which have grown out of it – may well have the same response when ﬁrst picking up this volume, authored by Paul J. DeHart, who teaches theology at Vanderbilt University. DeHart has provided readers with the weightiest and most extensive treatment and critique of postliberal theology to date. After providing an historical overview of the development of the ‘Yale school’ in the ﬁrst chapter, DeHart offers close readings of the work of George Lindbeck and Hans Frei, the two progenitors of this theology. Observing that the work of Frei has typically been seen through the lenses of Lindbeck’s work, DeHart sets out to reexamine and reclaim Frei’s insights on their own terms, and to assess and reevaluate Lindbeck’s work apart from the rhetoric of postliberalism. Finally, DeHart offers a constructive suggestion of his own, suggesting a new synthesis for theology. DeHart expresses his intentions bluntly: ‘This book is designed to dismantle the terms of the postliberal controversy and clear the ground of its cluttered remnants in order to enable a new appropriation of [Frei’s and Lindbeck’s] work’ (p. xv). In the event, he means to recommend the former more than the latter, as Lindbeck’s work is more Reviews in Religion and Theology, 14:4 (2007) © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 557 incisively critiqued than Frei’s. DeHart intends to ‘bury’ postliberalism (rather than praise it), (p. 54) for in fact, according to DeHart, due to the vagueness and ambiguity in its deﬁnition (beyond a broad characterization of a ‘mood’), ‘there is no such position’ (p. 55). In this way DeHart begins his account with some of the same bracing rhetoric that characterized the earlier liberal-postliberal/Chicago-Yale exchanges in the wake of Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age in 1984 (Westminster Press) – a rhetoric whose wisdom DeHart questions in other places. Happily, he does not remain content with rhetoric and goes on to support his claims through close readings and cogent argumentation. Having done graduate-level work in theology at both Yale and Chicago are among DeHart’s qualiﬁcations for writing such a work: he has known these debates ﬁrst-hand. Although not a personal remembrance, the book nevertheless shows a familiarity with the institutions and the two ‘schools’ of thought which goes beyond knowing the relevant literature (although his command of the literature is itself impressive). Although he is critical of the vagueness and problematic distinctions introduced by postliberalism, he concedes that it continues to hold some fascination for him despite his frustration with it. His ultimate intention, on the other side of his ‘ground clearing’ activities, is to engage the central question ‘of how theology can creatively rethink the Christian tradition and yet contribute to the maintenance of its identity’ (p. xiii). DeHart occupies himself in the largest part of the book with close readings and critiques of Frei and Lindbeck, noting along the way the primary dogmatic concerns of these two and the ways that such concerns gave rise to their methodological stances. The focus for DeHart in both analysis and criticism is postliberal theological method; through this focus he hopes to ‘destabilize the postliberal/liberal opposition’ as constructed through the work of Lindbeck and Frei (p. 149). Speciﬁcally, he points out the difﬁculties postliberal theological method has in distinguishing itself from the methods of liberal theology. In order to show these difﬁculties, DeHart interrogates two pairs of conceptual dichotomies introduced by Frei and Lindbeck. Turning ﬁrst to Lindbeck, DeHart notices that he constructs two oppositions which are intended to show the difference between liberal and postliberal theology. Namely, these are experiential-expressivism versus a cultural-linguistic model of theology, and extratextualism versus intratextualism, the former term in each pairing thought to exemplify liberal theology, the latter postliberal. DeHart pointedly contests these distinctions, attempting to show that they cannot consistently maintain the supposed sharp divide between the two ‘schools’. Speciﬁcally, DeHart ﬁnds experiential-expressivism to be an incoherent (and not terribly useful) category for understanding ‘liberal’ theology: it © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 558 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy relies on an outdated conception of language which contemporary liberal theologians do not endorse and it is frustratingly imprecise. In support of this latter point, he notes how Lindbeck himself concedes that a supposed model of liberal theology such as Schleiermacher is not as easily situated in the category of experiential-expressivism as he would seem to be at ﬁrst glance. More than this, DeHart ﬁnds that this distinction obscures rather than addresses the basic issue at the heart of the liberal-postliberal dispute: ‘competing deﬁnitions of communal faithfulness’ (p. 168). DeHart goes on to sharply criticize Lindbeck’s notion of intratextuality as being too ﬁxed, with an unrealistically unidirectional ﬂow in which the text is meant to absorb the world. In this, DeHart draws on and ampliﬁes the concerns of scholars such as Rowan Williams, Miroslav Volf, and Terrence Tilley (all signiﬁcant interlocutors for Lindbeck since they are otherwise broadly sympathetic with the culturallinguistic model he recommends) (p. 182). DeHart then goes beyond this to point out the difﬁculty of actually telling the difference between interpreting the world into the text and vice versa. Given the underdetermined nature of that ‘slender collection of documents called the New Testament’, and the vast number of cultural sites of the actual church, it seems quite implausible to discern a single cultural framework present in them – or discern a genuine departure and reversal of the ‘ﬂow’ (p. 183). As before, this distinction tends to obscure the issue of faithfulness and the way in which faithfulness itself is under constant negotiation (construction and contestation) in various cultural settings, rather than being the product of a more or less self-identical and exclusive conceptual framework which ‘absorbs all others’ (p. 187). DeHart then turns to Frei to interrogate the two conceptual distinctions which Frei introduced in his work, viz: dogmatic versus apologetic orientation, and ad hoc versus systematic modes of correlation. DeHart ﬁnds these distinctions somewhat more useful than Lindbeck’s, so long as they are not thought to underwrite a distinction between liberals and postliberals; in this way, DeHart helps the reader to see some of the danger of reading Frei exclusively through the lens of Lindbeck. In order to explain Frei’s distinctions, DeHart ﬁrst turns to exploring Frei’s Christological orientation, and then his ﬁvefold theological typology. Frei situated his Christology ﬁrmly within the Chalcedonian tradition; this stance was informed and supported by a commitment to Wittgensteinian philosophical categories, a dedication to the hermeneutics of narrative, and a profound sense of the importance of the mystery – considered as the endless penetrability by human reason – of Christ. Frei’s typology describes a (rough and ready) spectrum of ﬁve possible perspectives on theology, mapped according to relative emphases given to internal or external discourses (somewhat confusingly, it is simultaneously but distinctly meant to map whether © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 559 theology is undertaken according to an ecclesial or an academic perspective). This spectrum of positions is not meant to function merely descriptively, however, as Frei goes on to suggest that two particular types – three and four, typiﬁed by Schleiermacher and Barth respectively – are to be preferred by the theologian as ‘marking the bounds of a responsible Christian theology’ (p. 132). It is in service to this typology that Frei introduces his two conceptual distinctions. Frei wishes to recommend an ad hoc engagement with the cultural milieu in which the church ﬁnds itself, rather than a ‘systematic’ one, ﬁnding the latter to be reductionist, subsuming the internal perspective of the church under externally legitimated categories thought to provide general explanatory force. An ad hoc approach would instead consider external perspectives on a pragmatic, case-by-case basis for their illuminative or challenging potential for the church’s internal perspective. Frei ﬁnds this to be an absolutely crucial distinction, and it forms the border between theological types two and three – thus for him, it provides the line between ‘irresponsible’ and ‘responsible’ theology. On the other hand, Frei also distinguishes between dogmatic and apologetic concerns in theology, noting that these are not a ‘principled opposition’ but a ‘tactical choice’, (p. 217) a ‘matter of theological judgment’ (p. 224). Apologetic and correlation are not, for Frei, the mark of bad theology per se; the problem is in allowing the apologetic undertaken on an ad hoc basis to become systematic, grounding the internal perspective. So Frei’s ﬁrst distinction describes a divide between ‘good’ theology and ‘bad’ theology, while his second distinction describes two separate legitimate projects for theology. DeHart points out that neither distinction underwrites the liberalpostliberal disjunction. Theology that could be described as falling within (‘good’) type three undertakes apologetic or correlational projects, but does so on an ad hoc rather than systematic basis. Signiﬁcantly, Frei locates both Schleiermacher and Paul Tillich within this type, showing that neither distinction actually rules out of bounds theologians who are widely considered to be ‘liberal’. Moreover, DeHart suggests that Frei and David Tracy were talking past each other in their disputes and that Tracy may have more in common with Schleiermacher than Frei seems to concede – hence Tracy himself might be described as falling within type three (p. 234). A conceptual distinction which embraces within one category theologians as diverse as Schleiermacher, Barth, Tillich, Frei himself, and – if DeHart is correct – David Tracy, cannot be considered useful for describing a supposed liberal-postliberal divide. Thus does DeHart dispense with the crucial distinctions found in Frei and Lindbeck and deployed to support the methodological division between liberalism and postliberalism, a division which turns out © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 560 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy to be more rhetorical than substantive. DeHart contends that Lindbeck’s dichotomies are unhelpful and unrealistic, and Frei’s, while not without merit, nevertheless do not address this supposed division. From this point, Dehart undertakes to reclaim some of what he considers the genuinely helpful insights of Lindbeck and Frei in a ﬁnal, constructive chapter, suggesting a ‘generous, liberal orthodoxy’ as a means of (in terms of DeHart’s own goal) rethinking the Christian tradition and also maintaining its identity. There are three particular strengths to this work. The ﬁrst is found in the historical overview of the development and growth of American postliberal theology, and its observation of that school’s decline. This decline is characterized in terms of disappearance (the term is little used in current discussion), dispersal (the interests of those who would call themselves ‘postliberal’ have become widely varied and are no longer limited to a single methodological framework), and displacement (the concerns and distinctions made by Lindbeck and Frei no longer occupy the concerns of those who might be considered sympathetic to postliberalism). Another strength of the work lies in DeHart’s efforts to reclaim Frei beyond Lindbeck, understanding Frei on his own terms. Although the enduring contribution of Frei’s work beyond his own life is not yet fully determined, DeHart – along with Mike Higton in his own recent volume (Christ, Providence and History: Hans W. Frei’s Public Theology, T&T Clark, 2004) – has done theology a service in helping to show that Frei was more than just an earlier, denser form of George Lindbeck and the general stance of postliberalism. A ﬁnal strength of the book for which readers will be grateful is DeHart’s constructive suggestions in the closing pages. It is all too easy – and all too common – to neglect anything like a constructive moment in a work such as this, the author remaining either in purely descriptive historical mode, or only engaging the subject matter critically. Speciﬁcally, he recommends reversing the usual order and reading Lindbeck through Frei. Approving Lindbeck’s notion of the church as witnessing people, DeHart then turns to Frei’s sense of the ‘centrality of the “rendered” Christ of the New Testament as the criterion or norm of the church’s witness’, a witness which is always rooted in particular cultural locations, and undertaken in ad hoc engagement with the surrounding culture (p. 244). DeHart then elaborates on what he styles the ‘trial of the witnesses of the resurrection’ as a model of churchly and theological activity. (ibid.) The ideal of a theology so inspired can be characterized as a ‘generous, liberal orthodoxy’ (p. 179). This volume is surely not for the theologically uninitiated, but this is in no way a criticism. It is a clearly written, focused engagement with recent developments in contemporary Protestant theology, and will easily ﬁnd its way onto reading lists for graduate level courses and © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 561 quickly establish itself as a must-read for anyone interested in postliberalism. Indeed, that postliberalism remains a focus of scholarly interest is reﬂected in the publication not only of this book, but also in a growing range of dissertations and books written by authors such as C.C. Pecknold (Transforming Postliberal Theology: George Lindbeck, Pragmatism and Scripture, T&T Clark, 2005) and Adonis Vidu (Postliberal Theological Method: A Critical Study, Paternoster, 2007). There is much to appreciate here, but readers will have questions as well; space constrains me to voice just two. First, although DeHart’s constructive proposal is fairly attractive, I wonder if it could not be better nuanced at points. He parses out the ‘trial’ of ‘the trial of the witnesses’ in three separate ways. The church undergoes a trial of endurance, tenaciously holding onto the mysterious Christ who cannot be possessed, mastered, or reduced; the church is remade and normed from without by this Christ and the traditions concerning him. Second, the church engages trials in the sense of ‘experimenting with the rhetoric of its uncommitted environment’, quoting DeHart quoting Rowan Williams (p. 245). Finally, the church, in witnessing to Christ in speciﬁc concrete situations, is tried by submitting to judgment; the people of witness speak an understandable word so as to be heard by the world. It is particularly this third sense in which the Christian witness is a ‘trial’ that could do with some elaborating. DeHart writes, [The witnesses] turn to the world not in order to master or absorb it but to speak to it an understandable word; moreover, only this encounter with the church’s ‘other’ determines if the word of the witnesses is heard . . . there is a submission to judgment on the part of the church; the judgment of the world is the echoing back to the witnesses of the word they have spoken and often (the divine irony at work!) it is only through this echo in the world that they can understand what they have really said. It should be axiomatic that the word of Christian witness is and can only be the proclamation of the divine life offered in Jesus Christ; but it is no less true that the word must be spoken in such a way that it can be heard, here and now. (p. 262, italics original) There is something deeply right here which reﬂects not only the actual commerce between world and church, but which recognizes how they are also bound together in the present economy of things. Yet it also seems to neglect the possibility that the word can be spoken and unheard, and in that ‘unhearing’ can be found the church’s faithfulness. One possible example of failing to be heard as a mark of faithfulness would be the prophet Isaiah. In the sixth chapter of the book, after receiving his commissioning, the Lord says to the prophet ‘Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 562 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed’ (verse 10, NRSV). Within the story, this is a very speciﬁc call in a speciﬁc time and place; there is anticipation of a very different call and result later in the book. My point is not to lift Isaiah’s call from the book and universalize it, but simply to point out that there may be times in the life of the witnessing community when the path of faithfulness will mean that the world – for a time at least – will not hear, understand, or respond. Naturally, discerning such a situation – particularly absent the direct speech of God, an absence which seems to be the usual way of things – will be very risky. Not least would be the risk of self-deception, of the church simply curving in on itself, being satisﬁed to exist only for insiders, perhaps even taking a smug satisfaction that ‘the world just doesn’t get us’. Examples of this are readily available. Yet, the abuse does not itself rule out the possibility. To admit that this is a possibly faithful stance does not in any way mitigate the notion that the church’s ‘other’ is a crucial partner in this task, and they occupy that role even in these situations in which they do not hear because there is no way to speak so as to be heard. If it is the case that it is often only in the world’s ‘echoing back’ to the church what they have heard that the church may fully grasp what was spoken in the ﬁrst place, then these situations must be considered one of poverty not merely for the world (in not hearing) but for the church as well (in not hearing). This exceptional situation must be considered one of pain and grief for both church and world, but not necessarily a time of faithlessness for the church in not being heard. Speaking audibly yet, agonizingly, without the response of comprehension, or possibly even eliciting rejection or worse seems like a very real option, and is not in itself a mark of failure, or the absence of the Spirit. The martyrs of the church, both historically and in the present day, show us that witness is lived out in and for the world, yet the world’s ‘trial’ by which the church’s speech is ‘judged’ may not at all be a fair hearing. Accounting for martyrs and the rejection of the church and the presence of faithfulness amidst what seems like failure ends up being a major lacuna of DeHart’s proposal. Second, amidst all of the clarity of theory and typology, there lurks a certain unclarity about postliberalism. Even if one concedes that Lindbeck’s distinctions are problematic – not to mention the ‘us and them’ rhetoric they spawned – is it not still instructive to distinguish varieties of theology, and family resemblances among the positions of certain practitioners? To put it another way, must postliberalism be so wedded to the distinctions that Lindbeck and Frei introduced that leaving them behind to pursue more adequate formulations (as DeHart seems to indicate is the case with Bruce Marshall at least, p. 53) means that that © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 563 ‘school’ (or ‘mood’) of theology is no longer operative? One might parry that thrust by noting that moving to terminology such as ‘mood’ or ‘family resemblance’ already indicates dispersal and diffusion, rather than adherence to the more rigid either-or typology introduced by Lindbeck, and the methodology beholden to it. But this seems rather like saying ‘Lindbeck and Frei are not only early representatives of a movement, but deﬁne its subsequent formulations as well’. That this is not the case can be illustrated by reference to British ‘postliberal’ theologians who are not indebted to the problematic moves which DeHart questions. DeHart notes but does not explore or explain their arising contemporarily with yet independently of Frei and Lindbeck (p. 45). This also underestimates the degree to which postliberalism was not entirely new, but appropriated insights from earlier theologians such as Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Or to approach the point from a third vantage, if straying from the speciﬁc terms set by (or read into) Frei and Lindbeck means that postliberalism is therefore not a coherent movement, the same might be said for liberalism as well, which never had as clearly deﬁned of a fountainhead or methodology. Liberalism, over more than two centuries, might reasonably claim thinkers as varied as Friedrich Schleiermacher, Adolf von Harnack, F.D. Maurice, William Temple, Don Cupitt, Walter Rauschenbusch, H. Richard Neibuhr, Gordon Kaufman, some (but not all) liberation theologians, and perhaps even – if DeHart is suggesting that by dismantling postliberalism’s methodological stance, he is placing its adherents within the ambit of liberal theology – George Lindbeck, Hans Frei, William Placher, and Stanley Hauerwas. Any school of thought so broadly represented must surely answer the charge of being diffuse, of being only a ‘mood’ more than a strictly deﬁned methodological stance. Maybe this is an opportunity to reassess the usage of not one but two labels which are helpful at making general, rough-and-ready distinctions, but which are neither exhaustive in description, nor technically precise enough to do much actual theoretical work. Perhaps in clearing the ground of postliberalism’s ‘cluttered remnants’ (p. xv), we will ﬁnd that liberalism will also be ushered off of the pitch, more a rhetorical ‘other’ than an actual conversation partner. In that, perhaps we will be presented then with the possibility of doing theology on the other side of both liberalism and postliberalism. I suspect that this is not a suggestion with which DeHart would cavil much – particularly to the degree that ‘liberalism’ has been constructed as a rhetorical foil to ‘postliberalism’ in the ﬁrst place. Indeed, it might be easy for some readers to ﬁnd in this book a brief in defense of liberalism; there are even a few places where the bold rhetoric might permit such a careless reading. But the best of what DeHart does is call his readers to move beyond facile distinctions and into a new approach © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 564 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy to doing theology; his constructive section provides some traction for such an approach. Perhaps in the end we will ﬁnd that the delta into which postliberalism has allegedly emptied is actually fed by several such ‘rivers’, liberalism included, providing a particularly rich soil for creative, constructive theology in the early twenty-ﬁrst century. In this way, the obituary for postliberalism, considered as a movement directly ﬂowing from and inspired by Frei and Lindbeck, may be timely, but it may also be the occasion of a birth announcement of a broader theological movement, not completely dissimilar from postliberalism in mood but wider in conception, a movement – dare one hope? – of the Spirit which might encompass ‘postliberals’, ‘liberals’, and many other Christians besides. © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 565 On Religion. The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion, Karl Barth, Garrett Green (trans.), T&T Clark, 2006 (ISBN hb 0 567 03108X, pb 0 567 031098), xii + 140 pp., hb $110, pb $18.95 Karl Barth has been unjustly neglected in religious studies as a theorist of religion, and the mistranslation of a crucial term in G.T. Thompson and Harold Knight’s English translation of Paragraph 17 of the Church Dogmatics volume I Part Two (T&T Clark, 1956) is largely to blame. So claims Garrett Green, who has retranslated the paragraph to clear away the stale and misconceived stereotypes the old translation encouraged. He invites fellow students and scholars in the study of religion to ‘ﬁnd out what Karl Barth really said about religion’ (p. 29). The term in question is Aufhebung. Thompson and Knight translated it as ‘abolition’, so rendering the title of the paragraph as ‘The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religion’. The root meaning of the verb aufheben is to ‘lift something up’, and hence ﬁguratively it can mean both to save or preserve and to annul or cancel something. When Barth uses it here, Green tells us (p. 6), both meanings are in play and only in their interrelationship do they express the logic of the dialectic at work in Barth’s exposition of the nature of religion. By obscuring the positive side of the dialectic, Green claims, the translation of Aufhebung as ‘abolition’ has helped reinforce caricatures of Barth as opposing religion tout court and denying that Christianity is a religion. Green offers ‘sublimation’ instead, which preserves the sense of raising something up to a higher level, though it fails to capture the negative moment of Barth’s dialectic, a loss that is perhaps justiﬁable given Green’s corrective purpose. Barth’s is a theological account of religion, and therein for Green lies a large part of his distinctive contribution to religious studies: the perspective of an insider who draws, innovatively, on the rich resources of rational reﬂection of his religious tradition. His interest in religion arises speciﬁcally from core Christian belief about the mode of God’s self-disclosure. Theologians cannot ignore religion, for though God is the proper and inexhaustible object of theology, ‘God’s revelation is in fact God’s presence and thus God’s hiddenness in the world of human religion’ (p. 35), so that the divine content is not directly recognizable, hence the temptation to judge revelation from the standpoint of a theory of religion. The reverse procedure alone, however, does justice to the reality of revelation, and the logic of the union of natures in Christ governs its course. For the theologian’s viewpoint on religion must be a Christological one, since there is an analogy – and more than an analogy, Barth adds – between the unity of God and man in Jesus Christ and the unity of divine revelation and human religion. Reviews in Religion and Theology, 14:4 (2007) © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 566 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy Therefore, we have to begin from the particular story of God’s dealings with human religion, above all in Jesus Christ. Understood on this logic, revelation is related to religion as the event in which God judges, justiﬁes and sanctiﬁes religion and in which man is accepted and received by God in the assumption of religion by God. In this sense ‘revelation is the sublimation of religion’. On the one hand, the history of Israel and the story of Jesus show God judging human religion as an expression of human faithlessness, in which man attempts to anticipate God and erect an invented, arbitrary image of God in God’s place: something man takes to be Ultimate for and beyond his own existence. This judgment is God’s No to religion. Here Barth’s account of mysticism and atheism – that they expose but do not escape the internal contradiction of religion as the unnecessary externalization of a need for the transcendent that is already satisﬁed in the search for it – shows him to be, unusually for a theologian, in qualiﬁed sympathy with critics of religion like Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud, as Green points out. On the other hand, there is also a divine Yes to religion. ‘The sublimation of religion by revelation does not only have to mean its negation’ (p. 85: consider what confusion the rendering of Aufhebung by ‘abolition’ introduced here!). Rather, ‘religion can be justiﬁed by revelation and . . . sanctiﬁed’. In the sense that there are justiﬁed sinners, there may also be a true religion. As a matter of faith, Christians may believe that despite Christianity’s own faithlessness as a religion, manifest throughout its history, it is the true religion by God’s freely electing grace, insofar as Christians, by the Holy Spirit’s grace, accept the forgiveness won by Jesus Christ, whose faithful obedience to God justiﬁes his religion and that of those in fellowship with him. Christianity, as a creature of divine grace, is a sacramental space in which God speaks and is heard. Barth’s account remains provocative and controversial in his insistence on starting from the particulars of Christian Scripture and its attestation of Jesus Christ and his chastened afﬁrmation of Christianity’s superiority over other religions, albeit only as a creature of grace. The student of religion may also worry with some justice that Barth’s method – to identify the essence of religion from the standpoint of revelation through biblical exegesis – leads him away from careful attention and analysis of the diverse phenomena of human religious practice and belief (with the notable exception of Barth’s sympathetic treatment of the role of grace in Pure Land Buddhism). Theologically, Barth’s account of the immanence of divine grace in the objects of its election seems not to go far enough in conceptualizing God’s solicitation of the active participation of religious people in grace so that their behaviour and practices are transformed by grace working in and through their activity. Nevertheless, Green is surely right that Barth deserves a place in scholarship on religion and on the curricula of religious studies © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 567 programs. Barth is important and pedagogically useful because he asks us to take seriously the reasoned reﬂection and perspective of religious practitioners on religion. As Green argues, scholars of religion ought to attend carefully to such examples of religious self-understanding if they take their object of study seriously. Indeed, Barth’s explicitly faith-based perspective highlights the more tacit commitments of secular theorists of religion. Green relates how pedagogically useful Barth’s text can be in helping students recognize not only their own pretheoretical commitments, but the presupposition-laden nature of all descriptions, analyses, and evaluations of religions. Above all, however, Barth demonstrates the possibility of combining commitment to one religion above all others with vigorous and humble critique of that same religion. As Barth says, divine revelation gives us no ammunition for elevating Christianity in its human reality above other religions, but rather shows its faithlessness, a faithlessness sublimated only by God’s grace, which sets Christianity apart. Green’s lucid, ﬂowing translation, together with his excellent introduction, which sets the text in the context of Barth’s earlier discussions of religion and carefully explicates the logic of his account, make all these virtues of Barth’s subtle position on religion highly accessible in a format suitable for religious studies undergraduates as much as for more advanced students and scholars. Ben Fulford Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 夹夹夹 The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (eds.), InterVarsity Academic, 2006 (ISBN 0-8308-2570-3), 208 pp., pb $20.00 Let no one doubt: the nature of the atonement is very much a live issue. Here in the United Kingdom, recent questions about penal substitutionary atonement raised by thinkers as varied as Steve Chalke and Jeffrey Johns have rocked the boat and raised a chorus of voices for, against, and in-between. Those outside the church may be slightly nonplussed over all the fuss, but for those within, there is a very real sense on all sides that a great deal hangs on the nature of atonement and how it is articulated. This volume could hardly be timelier, exploring four evangelical perspectives on the atonement in order to introduce the issue to students, pastors, and laypeople. But ﬁrst, a word about what sort of book this is. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 568 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy ‘Four views’ is more a genre than a series. Several publishers have issued numerous similar volumes in a wide variety of areas over the last two decades, and particularly in the last ten years, sometimes with three, ﬁve, or six views instead of four. The presses which produce these books, such as InterVarsity and Zondervan, tend to pitch their work to a more evangelical readership, and often the topics treated from these various ‘views’ would be of more interest to this audience than another (for example, among the topics considered are women in ministry, eternal security, and the rapture). The contributors are established and active scholars with a background in the position they expound in the text; they tend to represent the evangelical academy, occupying positions in American colleges, universities, and seminaries. Although the volumes are generally intended for an evangelical readership – the present work envisions the task as ‘an evangelical dialogue’ (p. 20) – they might have some use beyond this pale as well, either to better understand the theological positions discussed or to better understand evangelical Christians. As a genre of writing, then, it has its own form and expectations. Each author is expected to set forth a strong, yet standard case for the perspective he is assigned, and then the other authors respond in turn, pointing out weaknesses or blind spots, ideally making some reference to how his case more adequately addresses the issue at hand. The effect is somewhat of a dialogue, describing tried-and-true doctrinal positions, their bases, and their strengths and liabilities. By its very nature, the genre is not going to advance the positions represented or forge into new territory. The true value of these works is to introduce students to a topic by putting standard accounts through their paces. The (ideal) result is to create a discursive space in which a student is enabled to think more deeply about the topic, having acquired a passing familiarity with major positions. The present volume ﬁnds Gregory A. Boyd, Joel B. Green, Bruce R. Reichenbach, and Thomas R. Schreiner taking up the task of exploring the nature of the atonement. Boyd is senior pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota; Green teaches New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary; Reichenbach teaches philosophy at Augsburg College; and Schreiner teaches New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The two editors teach theology at Bethel University in St. Paul. After a very helpful brief historical overview by the editors, the four main authors settle into their task of presenting their view and arguing for its centrality. Each of the contributors is clear that the other models of the atonement are also present in scripture. The authors do not intend to argue that their perspective is right and the others misguided, but that their perspective is primary and therefore contextualizes the others. These positions are not seen as being mutually contradictory. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 569 That is to say, the argument in the book is not so much over which is the correct model for the atonement, but rather how the various images of the atonement relate to each other. A couple of general remarks about the book before looking at the speciﬁc contributions: it is commendable that each author considers the shape of the Christian life in the world implied by each view of the atonement; none of them consider this a merely abstract theory. Another strength of the work lies in the extensive footnotes throughout; more than mere references, they actually comprise a four-part annotated bibliography, a great help for those wanting to go deeper in the matter. Boyd begins the book, presenting an account of Christus Victor which builds on the notion that the present world is the site of a war between God and the powers and principalities. He presents Christ’s life and work as being a triumph over Satan, arguing that this does better justice to the entire scope of Christ’s life, and also to the cosmological scope of God’s act of redemption. Schreiner takes up substitutionary atonement in his chapter, arguing from scripture that Christ is a sacriﬁce by God on behalf of humanity, taking humanity’s penalty for sin upon himself, and propitiating God’s wrath. He claims that holding this model as central to the nature of atonement allows us to see the severity of sin, and the holiness, justice, and love of God. Reichenbach sets forth a less familiar view, of God through Christ being the healer of humans; this perspective displays some similarities with the ‘subjective’ view associated with Peter Abelard, but is not just a re-presentation of Jesus as a moral example. In this chapter, Reichenbach explores Isaiah 53 (in particular) and the images of Jesus as physician and suffering servant to present the atonement as being centrally about the restoration of holistic shalom, healing in body and spirit, to humans through Christ. Finally, Green presents what he calls a kaleidoscopic view, arguing that scripture presents a number of interrelated but distinct images of the atonement and in light of this we ought not to reduce it to one central model to explain all the others. After presenting two extended and complementary ways of understanding the atonement in the historical context of cruciﬁxion under the Romans, Green suggests that the depth of mystery of God’s purpose in salvation history and our multiple cultural locations endorse using a variety of images to express the one truth of the cross. The limited space allowed for the essays means that only modest, summary tasks may be effectively undertaken, in service to the standard account. To introduce much nuance, to interact in depth with critics, or to attempt a genuinely new construction is simply prohibited by the constraints. These limitations themselves do not hamstring the work, but help to make it accessible to the uninitiated. But occasionally © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 570 it allows an author who wants to interact with other thinkers to be content with only shallow interaction, bordering on straw ﬁgures or ad hominem attacks, rather than a responsible rehearsal and critique of these other positions. Schreiner in particular slips into this several times – his critiques of C.H. Dodd and Paul Fiddes being representative examples – marring an otherwise ﬁne contribution. A collection such as this requires four strong contributions, and this volume very nearly got them. If there is a weakest link, it would be Reichenbach’s essay, which presents his perspective in some detail, but does not argue that it ought to serve as the central motif by which to understand the atonement (one of the major tasks of the volume). Also, his response to Boyd’s essay showed great familiarity with Boyd’s other writing, but seemed to respond to points Boyd had not made in the present volume (such as open theism). Reading between the lines somewhat, it may be that Reichenbach was a later addition to the contributors, owing to the untimely passing of Philip Quinn who was originally part of the team. On the whole, though, there is much to recommend this book. It effectively presents a number of perspectives on an issue important to many in the church today. As seminarians, pastors, and church leaders continue contemplating the nature of the atonement and how best to communicate it, this volume would naturally serve as an effective introduction to a range of biblically licensed options, particularly for those in the evangelical wing of the church, and perhaps others as well. Jason A. Fout Selwyn College, University of Cambridge 夹夹夹 Philosophic Mysticism: Studies in Rational Religion, David R. Blumenthal, Bar-Ilan University Press, 2006 (ISBN 965-226-305-2), 257 pp The subject of philosophical mysticism within a Jewish context has been a controversial issue for decades. The consensus of thought has been that there is in fact little by way of philosophic mysticism in the history of Jewish thought, especially in the medieval period in which philosophy and mysticism are generally treated as separate phenomena. David Blumenthal, best known for his controversial work on the idea of the ‘abusing God’ in Holocaust theology, has turned his attention to this area of scholarly dispute in his new publication. In truth, he has long been engaged in this discussion, but until recent years the © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 571 main focus of his work has been in other theological areas. His new book collects and updates a number of articles written over the last thirty years bringing them together in one useful volume. Going against the consensus, Blumenthal makes the case for philosophic mysticism, arguing that this particular form of mysticism does have a very real presence in Jewish thought, especially in the case of the central ﬁgure of Jewish medieval thought, Moses Maimonides. The book is divided into thirteen chapters of varying length and depth. The ﬁrst chapter offers a useful overview of Blumenthal’s understanding of the ﬁeld of mysticism in general as well as mysticism within a Jewish context. Chapters 2 to 6 deal with the thought of Moses Maimonides. Chapters 7 to 10 examine the thought of the Fifteenth Century Jewish Yemenite Hoter Ben Shelomo. Chapters 11 and 12 offer some general comments on the phenomenon of philosophic mysticism, with Chapter 12 in particular arguing the case for the presence of philosophic mysticism in the thought of Reconstructionism’s founder, Mordacai Kaplan. The ﬁnal part of the book, Chapter 13, is written exclusively in Hebrew and provides a recapitulation of Blumenthal’s views on philosophic mysticism for the reader competent in Hebrew. Blumenthal has developed his argument from the work of his late teacher and mentor Professor Georges Vajda who was one of the ﬁrst to recognize and argue for the existence of intellectual/philosophic mysticism in the Jewish tradition. This claim has proved controversial and has often been denied. Blumenthal carefully sets out the arguments against such a claim and then proceeds to argue the case for philosophical mysticism through a close examination of the work of Maimonides and Hoter Ben Shelomo. Blumenthal’s close philological reading of Maimonides famed philosophical tract ‘The Guide for the Perplexed’ produces some strong evidence for the idea that Maimonides postulated a post-philosophical state of worship to which philosophy was a path rather than an end in itself. He quotes Maimonides as stating crucially, ‘There are those who set their thought to work after having attained perfection in the divine science, turn wholly toward God, may He be cherished and held sublime, renounce what is other than He, and direct all the acts of their intellect toward an examination of the beings with a view to drawing from them proof with regard to Him’ [sic] (p. 59). The key word here being ‘after’, indicating a post-philosophic state of worship that has emerged through the attaining of ‘perfection in the divine science’. Blumenthal’s attempt to uncover this dimension of Maimonides thought is hindered by the difﬁculty of revealing something that Maimonides may well have been reluctant to state openly and in full detail, as Blumenthal himself notes, ‘Maimonides clearly states that he will not reveal everything and that, insofar as he does expose true doctrine, he will do so with great indirection’ (p. 106). Despite this obstacle Blumenthal does more than enough to uncover adequate © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 572 textual evidence that points to a post-philosophic dimension of Maimonides thought. The same can be said for his treatment of Hoter Ben Shelomo, but when it comes to Blumenthal’s analysis of Kaplan, the evidence is less dramatic. To be fair to Blumenthal he is not seeking to undertake a comprehensive analysis of Kaplan, rather he seems to want to establish that there are at least some grounds for seeing Kaplan as a kind of philosophic mystic. On the evidence presented by Blumenthal it is too early to judge whether this is the case, but his analysis does point to the need for a further and more comprehensive study into whether Kaplan can be recognized as a twentieth century philosopher with mystic tendencies. Blumenthal has aimed the book at both the interested layperson and the academic professional. This is a laudable goal, but is immensely hard to achieve especially in the often incredibly arcane disciplines of medieval Jewish philosophy and mysticism. The layperson approaching this text will sometimes ﬁnd themselves lost in philological arguments and interpretations of medieval Arabic. With a whole chapter in Hebrew and signiﬁcant but untranslated quotes in French it is hard to recommend this book to the casual reader. Chapters 11 and 12, however, provide a useful overview which summarizes Blumenthal’s position for the general reader, so it is possible to grasp the central points of his arguments even though some of the detail will be lost. Overall, this book will ﬁnd its primary audience among the scholars working in this specialized ﬁeld. It is a well-written, accomplished and thought-provoking book that makes a strong case for the reality of philosophic mysticism, especially in the thought of Maimonides. As such, it will be interesting to see how scholars respond to an argument that is sure to provoke much debate. Blumenthal may have set the stage for a deeper understanding of the connection between philosophy and mysticism in the Jewish tradition. Daniel Garner University of Manchester 夹夹夹 Historical Dictionary of Medieval Philosophy and Theology, Stephen F. Brown and Juan Carlos Flores, Scarecrow Press, 2007 (ISBN-13: 9978-0-8108-5326-3, ISBN-10: 0-8108-5326-4), lxxii + 389 pp., hb $99.00 The editors of this handy reference manual running a little less than 400 pages share a love not only for the medieval period, but for the harmony of faith and reason the period represents. Yet, they do not abandon © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 573 themselves to static nostalgia. They are convinced that if we understand the medieval period within its original context, it becomes abundantly clear that its most outstanding thinkers were keenly interested in the same questions which have fascinated philosophers from the beginning of time. Brown and Flores do not wish to perpetuate an ossiﬁed view of medieval thought, but neither do they wish to view it solely through the lens of modernism. Rather, as is evident in their introduction, they wish to provide the reader with a panoramic view of the vast range of medieval opinions regarding the relationship between philosophy and theology and to highlight the staggeringly contemporary multicultural character of the period. Therefore, in addition to the inclusion of Christian heroes and heretics, the dictionary contains a full cadre of Muslim, Jewish, and pagan philosophers indispensable for a full understanding of the medieval landscape. In addition to the alphabetically arranged entries spanning from Abelard to Wyclif, the book also includes a synthetic and comprehensive introduction, a chronological listing of major events, a directory of Latin terms concerning university honoriﬁc titles, the famous list of Parisian condemnations of 1277, and a very extensive bibliography. In the introduction, the editors set the Aristotelian and Platonic background of the period, laying out the metaphysical and epistemological tensions inﬂuencing the direction of medieval speculation. Clear explanations are given for the positive and negative attitudes toward philosophy which often bitterly divided the Christian doctors of the Middle Ages. Brown and Flores give an excellent summary of the earliest uses of the terms ‘philosophy’ and ‘theology’. They also compare and contrast parallel approaches to faith and reason in Jewish and Islamic thinkers such as Maimonides, Alfarabi, Averroes, and Avicenna. A ﬁne explanation of the scholastic method of lectio, quaestio, and disputatio is also provided without glossing over the ambiguities between these terms as debated among scholastic authors themselves. A considerable amount of space is devoted to discussing Aquinas’s reasons for designating theology as a subalternated science in order to avoid modern misunderstandings of the term. Finally, in line with the goals of the dictionary, the editors summarize leading modern criticisms of medieval philosophy to give the reader an idea of the importance of this period for the overall history of philosophy. Individual entries for speciﬁc terms and persons make for interesting reading in themselves. Entries for technical terms such as ‘accident’, ‘nature’, and ‘metaphysics’ tend to be rather short and pointed, whereas those for signiﬁcant ﬁgures such as Avicenna, Bonaventure, and Aquinas tend to be longer and more comprehensive. In entries of the latter type, personal biographical information is sometimes excessively intertwined with doctrinal and theoretical points. Cross references to © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 574 other entries given in boldface, however, help the reader to narrow his search if he is looking for something in particular. As in all dictionaries, there is considerable variation in the quality of entries. In an effort to keep things simple for the beginning student, oversimpliﬁcations occasionally risk confusing the intermediate student. Examples can be found in the deﬁnition of substance as ‘that which stands on its own’ and the description of accidents as ‘relative’ characteristics. Strictly speaking, though metaphysically dependent on the substances in which they are found, accidents also ‘stand on their own’ as they have an ‘essence’, and not all accidents are necessarily ‘relative’. Conversely, entries on ‘cabala’, ‘kalam’, and ‘exegesis’ are particularly enlightening and accurate. The editors self-style this dictionary as an attempt to have students confront medieval thought on its own turf. ‘Medieval thought needs to be studied, understood, and appreciated in terms of its own richness, and not according to how it agrees with our present-day ways of thinking’ (p. xxix). In that regard, Brown and Flores largely succeed. However, the book would best be used as a reference source for those who have already had a basic introduction to medieval thought but are looking for something to spark their memories and reignite the essential connections among basic concepts and representative ﬁgures. The introduction, which is arguably the strongest section of this book, would nevertheless make for excellent required reading in an introductory undergraduate class. It would also be a ﬁne reference point to which students could return later when they study the modern period. Daniel B. Gallagher Sacred Heart Major Seminary 夹夹夹 Panentheism – The Other God of the Philosophers: From Plato to the Present, John W. Cooper, Baker Academic, 2006 (ISBN 0-8010-2724-1), 368 pp., hb $34.99 Whether we follow Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, Gustavo Gutierrez or Catherine Mowry Lacugna, many prominent Christian theologians today are panentheists. Many who would not characterize themselves as panentheists have nonetheless been strongly inﬂuenced by panentheism. With the intellectual rigor that characterizes Dutch Reformed Theology, John W. Cooper has written a representative, exacting survey of the panentheist position. Panentheism is frequently coextensive with the relational ontologies now widely © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 575 espoused by Christian theologians, and is deserving of careful examination for the problems it solves and creates. Explaining theodicy while frequently sacriﬁcing God’s immutability, panentheism is a seemingly tame yet radical alternative to classical theism and undergirds most liberation theologies and recent retrievals of strong Trinitarianism. Panentheism permeates much theology which calls itself Christian, and Cooper writes that while he cannot say that nuanced, Trinitarian panentheisms are un-Christian, he cannot endorse this position as the right understanding of Christian ontology or metaphysics. Distinguishing panentheism from both pantheism and classical theism in which God is understood by his seven attributes, Cooper distills panentheism’s middle ground to its fundamental assertion that God is immanent to the world but irreducible to it. Panentheism – The Other God of the Philosophers then traces the development of panentheism from its classical to its modern formulation. The importance of this book is not that it is an excellent undergraduate textbook, though it is surely that. The importance of Panentheism is that is treats what must be a nuanced position in many of its historical incarnations. Because it is the position which so many of us unwittingly adopt as the fundamental truth which trinitarian Christianity is meant to express, we must examine how and why the position developed. Cooper begins the book with the crucial point that the history of panentheism from Greek philosophy until the nineteenth century is arguably coextensive with the history of Neoplatonism. From PseudoDionysius to Hegel, the Platonic emanation in which the One accounts for the existence of a world through the overﬂowing of its nature surfaces again and again in religion and philosophy. Keeping constant vigil to espouse creation ex nihilo and avoid the necessity of emanation, Christian thinkers who adopt the NeoPlatonic ontology of cascade and hypostases continue in the tradition of God’s real immanence, emphasizing the presence of the divine in the world. The ﬁgure to whom Christian panentheism owes its greatest debt is PsuedoDionysius. Cooper introduces us to Pseudo-Dionysius in his clear style by immediately describing Dionysius’ sources. Taking Plotinus and Proclus as his bases, Pseudo-Dionysisus espouses dialectical method, in which the one God is known through the unity and transcendence of worldly oppositions. Best known for his thoroughly Platonic via negativa in which it is argued that anything we say cannot be said literally of God and perhaps that we can say nothing at all, Dionysius is less well known for what he says positively. Cooper’s synopsis immediately calls our attention to the fact that Dionysius’ God is all things as their unity. Nothing lacks its share of the One, for in the one they all have their being. Thoroughly Trinitarian, Dionysius brings together the God of Christian Scripture with the God of Plato. Unfortunately, the persons © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 576 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy of the Trinity frequently become mere emanations in his work, instead of being treated as the essence of God. Nonetheless, Pseudo-Dionysius begins the Christian tradition of explaining God’s interaction with the world through immanence as emanation. One of the greatest contributions of Cooper’s book is its pithy assessment of the development of NeoPlatonic dialectic from Duns Scotus Eriugena through Nicholas of Cusa and Jakob Bohme. Though most theologians know a good bit about Duns Scotus and Nicholas of Cusa, the observation that they carry dialectic closer and closer to the heart of God, waiting simply for Bohme to deposit it there, is new. One of Cooper’s greatest strengths is his ability to locate a story in the history of philosophy. Cooper tells us that Scotus sets up all the world in terms of polarities: that which creates but is not created (God), that which is created and creates (ideas), that which is created and does not create (creatures) and that which neither creates nor is created (God again). As the source of all, God creates but is uncreated. As the consummation of all, he neither creates nor is created. Understanding all reality in terms of dialectics which are then uniﬁed in the one, supraessential God, Scotus distinguishes God from world while locating the world in God. It is thus fair to say that he is a panentheist rather than the pantheist he was accused of being. He locates all dialectic outside of God’s nature yet locates all reality within his unity. Nicholas of Cusa squarely locates the problem of how God’s unity can encompass difference, and Cooper is right to point out that he offers no resolution. All opposition must reside within the inﬁnite, or the inﬁnite is limited by opposition – a point resuscitated by Hegel and the German Romantics and made the raison d’etre of their projects. Cusa is an historically crucial ﬁgure for putting this problem in stark relief. As such, he sets the stage for Jakob Bohme, who ingeniously resolves the issue by making dialectic the essence of God himself. Cooper introduces Bohme as the central dialectician in the history of Christian panentheism. Bohme holds that in God the primordial principle is nonbeing, or ungrund, but that nonbeing is not the absolute negation of being. Rather, nonbeing contains inﬁnite potential, freedom and the desire to be. The very nature of nonbeing is to come to be. In God there exist these negative and positive potencies. Without a third potency, however, God would not exist. This third potency is Spirit. Spirit is the uniﬁcation of nonbeing and being, chaos and order, freedom and necessity and any other dichotomies which we might care to juxtapose as expressing the life of the divine. It is this uniﬁcation which causes God to come to be, to exist as his nature, to be something rather than lack. The self-generating nature of God is his triunity, his © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 577 dynamism. God is eternal dialectic. Thus, while Duns Scotus located dialectic outside of God and Cusa located it inexplicably within God, Bohme makes the very problem its own resolution. It is precisely in differentiation that God comes to be. Cooper writes that Bohme is the turning point for classical panentheism becoming modern panentheism, in which God is not only immanent to the world but effected by it. One must similarly point out that generating the Trinity is not the end of the line for Bohme, and it is this insight which perhaps best grounds modern relational ontology. If God’s nature is really to come to be, then coming to be in God’s self will not sufﬁce. God wishes to know himself in the world, in greater differentiation, for he is by nature expressive. Thus, the very nature of God entails creation of the ﬁnite order. It is fair to say that God must create to exist and know himself. Cooper’s point that Bohme grounds modern panentheism is well-taken. We should also say that he lays the critical foundation for contemporary trinitarianisms which take relational ontology as their base. From Jakob Bohme, Cooper turns to the development of panentheism in two post-Renaissance non-Christians, Giordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza’s work is especially important because it strongly inﬂuences Schleiermacher, who then sets the stage for much Christian inclusivism – the belief that non-Christians can attain salvation. It is Schleiermacher’s strong panentheistic belief in God’s immanence which makes possible the contention that persons do not have to be Christian to be saved. Cooper’s treatment of Spinoza is one of the greatest accomplishments of his book. Boiling a sometimes impenetrable text down to its core assertions which undergraduates need to understand later thinkers, Cooper presents Spinoza’s Ethics in several packed pages. Cooper rightly calls attention to the fact that Spinoza is commonly labeled a pantheist, but that his work is untenable as it stands. When worked out systematically and coherently, Spinoza’s monism becomes panentheism. Spinoza takes Descartes as his starting point, but instead of upholding dualism, Spinoza hold everything to be modiﬁcations of one substance. Individual things are temporal modiﬁcations of God, actual yet not distinct. Human minds and souls exist only as long as their bodily correlates. Spinoza certainly intends to distinguish God and world, and thus be a panentheist. To the degree he does not sufﬁciently separate them, he has been labeled a pantheist. Leibniz reacted against Spinoza, citing him as an atheist for identifying God and nature. Gotthold Lessing, Gottfried Herder and Wolfgang Goethe, on the other hand, embraced his work. Whether accepted or rejected, Cooper is right to hold that Spinoza’s understanding of the one substance-world relation becomes the springboard for German © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 578 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy romanticism. In those who accepted Spinoza’s vision, the divine-world relation becomes transformed from one of substance-world to dynamic force-world. God progressively manifests and evolves in the world. The NeoPlatonic emanation turns evolutionary, and the ontological cascade is turned on its side in history. Cooper rightly spends more time on the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher than on that of the other German Romantics. One of the few shortcomings of the book is, however, Cooper’s failure to make explicit historical connections between philosophical and theological ﬁgures. Designed as an upper class undergraduate or seminary text, panentheism is, indeed straightforward. It does present difﬁcult systems in an accessible manner. If, however, readers need material summarized, one ought to suppose they also need historical connections made for them. Cooper sometimes does an excellent job narrating historical developments: the development of dialectic into the heart of God through the Eriugena/Cusa/Bohme triad is a case in point. While presenting Schleiermacher’s strong assessment of human freedom and Godconsciousness, Cooper should present a similar story of how Schleiermacher’s thought – not only Martin Heidegger’s – is deposited in the work of twentieth century great Karl Rahner. Both Schleiermacher and Rahner present freedom as constitutive of the human condition and the mechanism whereby we relate to God. Rahner uses Schleiermacher’s understanding of the feeling of absolute dependence and Jesus’ perfect God-consciousness in his Christology from below. Nonetheless, Cooper’s book continues to give a near comprehensive historical survey and assessment of thinkers whose work either was panentheistic or leaned in that direction. Cooper locates Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as one of the pivotal thinkers with whom panentheism shifts from its classical form to its modern form in which God can no longer be said to be immutable. Hegel argues from the concept of inﬁnity that everything must be in God. If what is ﬁnite is outside God, then God is limited by that which is not God existing over and against or outside God’s being. He instead holds that the Absolute posits itself as that which is other than itself just to create a self-conscious unity. All antitheses are resolved in the Absolute, which reconciles all dialectics within itself. In fact, as in Bohme, Hegel locates the essence of the Absolute itself as dialectic. The problem to be solved becomes the solution in the heart of God. Cooper treats a dozen lesser known ﬁgures between Hegel and Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, and gives examples of non-Christian panentheisms to show that the position is not coextensive with or reducible to its NeoPlatonic Christian forms. The next pivotal ﬁgures in his story are, however, Moltmann and Pannenberg, and it is worth noting what Cooper does with their thought. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 579 Moltmann explicitly adopts panentheism because he believes it to be the most faithful explanation of the God of the Bible. Cooper rightly holds that his theology reﬂects the dialectical trinitarian tradition of Bohme and Hegel. Moltmann’s term for how God and world relate so intimately is perichoresis, the traditional term expressing the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity. Because Moltmann’s primary commitment is to explaining God’s intimate involvement in history, all of which is salvation history, perichoresis does the work needed by locating all in God and God in all. With the cruciﬁxion as the pinnacle of his thought, Moltmann adopts Schelling’s dialectical ontology to explain God’s presence even in suffering and death. Everything is revealed only in its opposite, culminating in the cruciﬁxion which is an event not between the immutable God and Jesus’ human nature, but between God and God’s self. At the same time God became not God, contradicting and forsaking himself, God reuniﬁed the polarity in presence. God’s very nature is trinitarian, the three persons constituted by their relation to one another. God’s very essence is dialectical in this story of panentheism. Converted to Christianity during the ﬁrebombing of Hamburg in World War II, Moltmann’s project is to relate all theology to eschatology. More simply put, all history must relate to the coming of God’s kingdom. God’s very nature is such that God becomes, creates, and even abandons God’s self just so that God can know and reconcile all things to himself. To support this radically relational doctrine of God, Moltmann reverses classical theism’s methodology. Instead of beginning with God’s unity, he begins with God as Trinity. As Catherine Mowry Lacugna points out in God For Us, Christian theology would all have looked very different if Aquinas had put de deo trino before de deo uno. Lacugna’s point is that he should have, and this methodological prioritization is why Lacugna was one of the foremost Roman Catholic panentheists until her death in When? Moltmann performs the ontological reversal of priorities between unity and Trinity long before contemporary ‘relational ontologies’ and sets the stage for contemporary panentheisms which do not even claim the name. Pannenberg, unlike Moltmann, does not adopt the term ‘panentheism’ to describe his work. Because he places the world in the life of the triune God, however, Cooper rightly holds that Pannenberg is deserving of the label. Cooper’s care and attention to the difference between what key historical ﬁgures took themselves to be doing versus what they should now be said to have been doing is one of the strengths of the book. This distinction is also, perhaps, why a survey of panentheisms has not been written until now. Most Christian authors who espouse panentheism have not used the term. Instead, they take themselves to be returning to the heart of Christian trinitarian doctrine © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 580 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy which expresses God’s essential relationality – within God’s self and with the world. Pannenberg is one of the more inﬂuential ﬁgures for promoting panentheism today, though he did not take himself to be a panentheist. Like Hegel, Pannenberg believes that absolute truth will only be attained at the end of history. Absolute truth will be the ﬁnal synthesis of all particular truths, and particular truths only have their meaning within the unrealized whole. Unlike the problems in Hegel, however – a closed future and the impossibility of present knowledge – Pannenberg’s Christian panentheism opens the future and makes present knowledge possible. In Christian panentheism God has revealed proleptically, which is to say partially and in an anticipatory way, in Jesus’ resurrection. Whereas Moltmann’s theology is centered on the cruciﬁxion as the height of divine dialectical knowledge, revelation, and synthesis, Pannenberg makes the resurrection the center of his theology. In the resurrection, God gives us true knowledge that the source and end of all things is God. In both cases, however, the world exists in God. Whether perichoretically or proleptically, alles ist Got und Got ist alles. One of the two sections of Cooper’s book which need expansion is that on contemporary panentheists. Treating authors as diverse as Gustavo Gutierrez and Sallie McFague, Cooper touches on the fact that many contemporary theologians are blatant panentheists. Many if not all of these writers take themselves to be in the genealogy of Hegel, Moltmann, and Pannenberg. Many also return to the earlier NeoPlatonists in their work, if not for their panentheism then for their negative theology or via negativa, a tenet which naturally generates if not necessitates inclusive language for God. For the Latin American liberation theologians, dialectic continues to take the most prominent place, as they view God as working throughout history on the side of the poor. Cooper’s excellent introduction to contemporary panentheistic theologies points out that much liberation theology focuses on practical, ethical theology rather than ontology. As such, this movement makes fewer metaphysical, dialectical claims than one would expect of panentheists. It is, however, precisely because of panentheism that liberation theology can exist. The notion of a dialectical God working God’s self out in history is such a foundational assumption for the movement that liberation theologians can afford to describe God’s activity in history, all the while taking for granted a panentheistic ontology. The commonality among all liberation and feminist theologians as presented by Cooper is that they all take God to be on the side of the oppressed, starting with but not limited to the author’s own group. James Cone’s black theology takes God to be black, taking on the © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 581 condition of racially oppressed people as his own condition. Cone adopts Paul Tillich’s understanding of human participation in God and new being and turns Tillich’s existentialism into black liberationism. Both are panentheistic, one is practically committed. Similarly, Gustavo Gutierrez adopts key ideas from Teilhard de Jardin’s cosmic Christology. The history of the world is God’s self-incarnation, and Jesus is its high point and culmination. Since God is in everything, especially human beings, Gutierrez can rightly hold that what is done to persons is done to God. Thus, strong panentheism justiﬁes his theology of social justice. Cooper’s last chapter, ‘Why I Am Not a Panentheist’, is surely the most interesting part of the book. It is, however, superﬁcial. One hopes it signals a forthcoming project which will treat the issues raised – and address the issues not raised – deeply. In ‘Why I Am Not a Panentheist’, Cooper raises multiple theological and philosophical issues which he believes to be better addressed by panentheism than classical theism. God’s freedom, divine simplicity, divine immutability, and eternity are among the topics. Each is given no more than a page and a half’s treatment when each would warrant a book delineating the strengths and weaknesses of various classical theists’ and panentheists’ approaches to the topic. Regarding theodicy, for instance, Cooper calls our attention to the fact that if God is inﬂuenced by the world he has no power over eschatology. In process theology he no more than lures us toward the good. What Cooper raises but fails to address is that in classical theism God clearly allows evil. Cooper gives a nod to the biblical narrative which tells us all will be made well at the eschaton, but leaves the real problem that God allows massive suffering in the meantime. Cooper’s last chapter would be improved by an approach that clearly admits every theologian has a fundamental theological commitment which comes with gains and losses. Classical theism protects God’s traditional attributes: omniscience, omnipotence, simplicity, freedom and so forth. It also, however, does little with the problem of evil except reiterate that all will be reconciled to God at the end times. Panentheism is strong on God’s involvement with the world: God is immanent and bringing about salvation history, on the side of the poor and so forth. Panentheism is threatening, however, to the classical attributes of God. It challenges or even eliminates the possibility of God’s immutability, aseity, omniscience and so forth. Especially in its modern form in which God is clearly affected by creatures, panentheism admits of a God who admits of change. If our primary commitment is to social justice and/or the doctrine of an all-loving God, panentheism will suit us. If we are tied to God’s classical attributes, on the other hand, panentheism seriously undermines our commitment. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 582 Cooper’s historical survey of panentheisms, panentheism’s development and modiﬁcations is excellent. For undergraduates, seminarians and experts alike, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers should be required reading. Cooper makes it startling clear that what many take to be a return to the heart of strong trinitarian doctrine is actually but one approach to Christianity. That panentheism’s alternative, classical theism, seems to be appealing and defensible to Cooper who himself understands panentheism better than most scholars should give us pause. Ultimately, whatever side we take in the panentheism/classical theism debate, we must reckon with the issues Cooper raises at the end of his book. Informed by his exacting historical survey, we may further reckon with the choice one must seemingly make between a God involved in history and a God of perfection. Perhaps Cooper will assist us with a second book grappling with the issues he has raised and left open in Panentheism. Aimee Light Brooklyn, New York 夹夹夹 The Old Creed and the New, Don Cupitt, SCM, 2006 (ISBN 0334040531), 151 pp., pb £18.99 In The Old Creed and the New, Don Cupitt declares that ‘all forms of traditional mediated religion are today at an end’ (pp. 138–9). Cupitt suggests that the rituals and teachings of classic Christianity are obviously false: ‘nowadays we just know that they are only myths’ (p. 63). Nevertheless, Cupitt does not reject religion altogether – not quite, anyway. He writes that ‘if we want to learn the extraordinary terrors and joys of real religious thought, we must reject all the many forms of organized, mediated or “positive” religion’ (p. 63); the rejection of the old is thus a necessary prolegomenon to real religion. Yet, although it is hard not to admire Cupitt’s attempt to communicate a clear and honest response to questions of contemporary concern, his efforts are crippled by the simplistic antagonisms upon which he relies. The book’s twenty-three brief chapters comment upon a new creed – Cupitt calls it ‘the New Creed’, apparently without irony – which he produced in a ‘ﬁt of inspiration’ (p. 4) in 2003. This formula represents, he claims, ‘the consensus about religious life’ (p. 73) in ﬁve articles: © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 583 N1 True religion is your own voice, if you can but ﬁnd it. N2 True religion is . . . to own one’s own life. N3 True religion is pure solar afﬁrmation of life . . . N4 True religion is productive value-realizing action in the public world. N5 Faith is not a matter of holding on to anything: faith is simply letting-go. (p. 3) Cupitt identiﬁes some points of contact between his creed and the Apostles’ Creed (the Old Creed, or ‘O’) – both are concerned with personal salvation, for instance – but he sees them as profoundly opposed. For where O asserts a system of dogma without explaining how it may be lived, N describes ‘a form of religion in which nothing at all is believed and everything has to be lived out’ (p. 8), and it is the latter approach (he says) which allows for the joyful afﬁrmation of life. Cupitt takes O to express the doctrinal system which was the consensus until very recently. He writes, ‘In Christianity it is usually regarded as compulsory to believe that the death and the resurrection of Jesus . . . did actually happen . . . and through them we have a supernaturally and objectively given and guaranteed way to everlasting life after death’ (p. 7). But where this ‘was in its day one of the grandest of all such cosmic stories’ (p. 106), Cupitt informs us that ‘we Western people’ are ‘very conscious of having recently given up the very last traces of belief in a great Whole Story of Everything’ (p. 76). In line with this modern disenchantment, Cupitt explains the power of old-style religion in psychological terms: people look to the supernatural world as consolation for present problems, but it is certainly not really true. Since Cupitt claims that the eighteenth century shift toward viewing knowledge from the human perspective was decisive, he opts for a nonmetaphysical, nonnarrative nonrealism. Whereas O presents objective truths independent from the thinking subject, Cupitt notes that everything we encounter already comes in the form of interpretive language. Instead of seeking to access the world beyond, he suggests that every language is a self-contained world in itself. Since, he says, ‘all the traditional supernaturalist ideas about the religious life are dead, and must be got rid of’ (p. 51), we ought instead to attend to the internal dynamics of language. Cupitt suggests that ‘ordinary language’ conveys ‘its consensus world-pictures’ with ‘very striking clarity and unanimity’ (p. 113), and it is this consensus which N expresses. Cupitt admits that Christianity is realist and doctrinally dogmatic, but he responds that ‘what is above all required today is a direct and autological thinking of the basic facts of life’ (p. 87). In contrast to traditional religion, which is mediated by authority and community, autological thought originates from oneself. Thus, rather than representing a complete civilization, today religion is more like a personal © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 584 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy style of life. He writes, ‘In the old type of religion everything is ready-made for us; in the new, everything is sought out or improvised by us’ (p. 111). Whereas O is committed to community and a vision of the world, N enables a ‘solar living’ which afﬁrms life by addressing death and ﬁnitude without mediation. Cupitt’s frequently autobiographical tone reveals his exuberance for life, and his energetic call to confront difﬁcult issues head-on is timely and important. Nevertheless, some might object that his interpretation of dying as ‘blissout’ actually neutralizes the unthinkable transitus of death. What is more, Cupitt’s claim that salvation consists in ‘[being] able to say of [all life] that it’s all right’ (p. 56) seems to dangerously neglect the reality of evil. But, beyond the difﬁculties with the details of Cupitt’s position, there are two fundamental problems that beset this book throughout. First, Cupitt’s assertion that N represents unmediated and nondogmatic thought is patently false. His own argument for the preeminence of language indicates that all thought is mediated somehow, and it is clear that N itself has been shaped by Kantian philosophy and the scientiﬁc revolution. Cupitt derides the communal character of Christianity as historically limited, but his own position is at least equally restricted. After all, despite his claim that ‘the new religious consciousness is . . . subjectively belieﬂess’ (p. 79), N is still a creed. Although he denigrates ‘those who attach great importance to the use of the correct passwords and who loudly profess their own orthodoxy’ (p. 25), he repeats their dogmatism in this very gesture, for he uses N itself as a doctrinal standard to denigrate those who disagree. Second, Cupitt’s own dogmatism is remarkably rigid, for it is buttressed by unsubstantiated prejudice. He asserts from the outset that ‘ “fundamentalism” . . . entirely lacks intellectual content, and no notice need be taken of it here’ (pp. 1–2), but this precludes real engagement with his chosen opponents. In similar fashion, he collapses 1700 years of Christian tradition into a supposedly uniform ‘received ecclesiastical Christianity’ (p. 139), which he quickly dismisses as irrelevant – yet the reality is obviously more complex. Because he claims to represent a univocal consensus – with phrases such as ‘all of us’ (p. 64), ‘we Western people’ (p. 76), and ‘any rational view’ (p. 100) – Cupitt seems to think that argumentation is unnecessary, but this naivety can only be sustained by ignoring those who differ. Cupitt writes that ‘N tries to describe a religious outlook that entirely avoids in any way dividing the world between us and Them’ (p. 26), but it is clear that he has failed completely. In fact, for all his claims to be radical, Cupitt appears pedestrian in comparison with the disruptive ambivalence of Christian tradition. Not only is he less imaginative than Franciscans and desert fathers, he is more conventional than Cappadocian bishops and Dominican © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 585 preachers as well. As it stands, although this book is written in a direct style which might appeal to a wide audience, I suspect that few critical readers will ﬁnd it convincing: its interpretive method is simplistic, its argumentation hasty, and its assertions grossly unfair. Unfortunately, this book falls far short of that which is admirable in Cupitt’s enthusiastic spirit. David Newheiser University of Oxford 夹夹夹 Brieﬂy: Aquinas’ Summa Theologica: God, Part 1, David Mills Daniel, SCM Press, 2006 (ISBN-13: 978-0-334-04035-4, ISBN-10: 0-334-04035-3), x + 92 pp., pb $12.99 Brieﬂy: Aquinas’ Summa Theologica: God, Part 2, David Mills Daniel, SCM Press, 2006 (ISBN-13: 978-0-334-04090-3, ISBN-10: 0-334-04090-6), x + 92 pp., pb $12.99 This two-part introduction to Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica is featured in the handy Brieﬂy series which also includes volumes on works by Plato, Anselm, Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Mill. The intent of the series is to offer both beginning students and the general reader a short, ‘Cliffs-Notes’ like summary of the major points covered in a particular philosophical work. God, Part I covers the opening questions of the Summa on the nature of theology, God’s existence, basic divine attributes, knowledge of God, and ‘God-talk’. God, Part II continues with the early questions of the Prima Pars of the Summa on God’s unity, knowledge, will, love, justice, mercy, and providence. Each volume runs less than ninety short pages and is well-designed for someone needing a ‘crash course’ on the Summa. A lacuna needs to be mentioned up front. Although the author gives a summary of Aquinas life, work, and historical setting, no general overview of the structure of the Summa is given. This yields two unfortunate consequences. First of all, though the reader may come away with a snapshot of the Summa’s contents, she will not understand how those contents are interrelated, especially in later sections of the Summa. Second, as these two Brieﬂy volumes are designated ‘Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’, she may easily confuse this numeration with the three parts (the second of which has two sub-parts) of Aquinas’s original work. This confusion is further compounded by the fact that Daniel’s basic reference text is © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 586 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy Anton Pegis’s Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the volumes of which do not exactly correspond to Aquinas’s original division of the Summa into three parts. All of this confusion could easily have been avoided by providing even a passing reference to the Summa’s original tripartite structure. This aside, these handbooks are otherwise well designed to give the reader a glance at Aquinas’s classic compendium on several levels. Each volume is split into four basic sections: introduction, context, detailed summary, and overview. At the end of the context section is a handy list of ‘some issues to consider’ that would easily stimulate class discussion. This section also contains a short list of secondary texts for further reading. The actual presentation of the Summa in the detailed summary section follows Aquinas’s organizing plan based on questions, objections, answers, and replies. This will give the reader a good taste of the Scholastic method. In this section, Daniel highlights key terms in boldface print to facilitate a quick review the material. At the end of each volume is a handy glossary, but the reader should beware: it is not evident which terms were originally used by Aquinas and which are general philosophical terms used today in reference to Aquinas’s work. ‘Agent’ and ‘cause’ are examples of the former, and a posteriori and a priori of the latter. This critique could also be made of the two volumes in general since the author shows a tendency to view the more famous sections of Aquinas work immediately through a modern lens, as when the ﬁfth argument for God’s existence is referred to as ‘teleological’. Particularly praiseworthy is Daniel’s balanced and accurate discussion of the relation between faith and reason in Aquinas and in medieval theology. He explains how the harmonious and overlapping coexistence of the two in the thirteenth century is foreign to the modern mind, but should never be forgotten when reading Aquinas. Daniel also strives to connect Aquinas with other thinkers in the history of philosophy. The danger is that there is little space for more subtle comparisons, and it may not be clear to the reader whether Daniel is making an inference or whether the original philosopher is actually confronting Aquinas’s work directly. This is readily apparent in Daniel’s allusion to David Hume’s rejection of the a posteriori argument for God’s existence. To Daniel’s credit, he renders the questions dealing with God’s attributes compelling by formulating them in a way that immediately sparks the interest of today’s reader: ‘If God is inﬁnitely good, why is there evil the world?’; ‘are there no limits to God’s power?’; ‘how is it possible to talk about God?’ (vol. 1, pp. 7–10). The ‘overview’ sections of each volume summarize Aquinas’s main points even more succinctly that the ‘detailed summary’ sections. Though these sections give the bare bones of the Summa, perhaps they © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 587 were too hastily compiled as they contain several overgeneralizations and misrepresentations. For instance, in the summary of the selfevidence of God’s existence, it is asserted that ‘ “God exists” is not self-evident because, as God is his own existence, subject and predicate are the same’ (vol. 1, p. 51). However, as explained on page 16 of the same volume, it is precisely on account of the identity of subject and predicate that God’s existence is self-evident – though in itself and not to us. As far as introductory sketches go, these two volumes admirably serve their purpose. However, they would best be used with the assistance of an able instructor who could forewarn beginning students of their potential pitfalls. Daniel B. Gallagher Sacred Heart Major Seminary 夹夹夹 The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea: A Synthesis in Greek Thought and Biblical Truth, Stephen M. Hildebrand, The Catholic University of America Press, 2007 (ISBN 0-8132-1473-4), xiv + 254 pp., hb £39.95/$59.95 Stephen Hildebrand’s dissertation, ‘heavily revised and augmented for publication’ (p. ix), is a ﬁne study and, as such, a nice compliment to his dissertation director Professor Joseph Lienhard. It ‘focuses on only one aspect of Basil’s legacy: his Trinitarian thought as the fruit both of his study of the bible and of his Greek education’ (p. ix). The Introduction explains that already Basil’s treatise To Young Men contends that ‘Athens has much to do with Jerusalem’ (p. 2). To begin with, Hildebrand brieﬂy visits three modern theories about Christian appropriation of Greek thought: ‘corruption’ theory, ‘displacement’ theory, and ‘hybrid’ theory. He then introduces De Mendieta’s (1976) helpful distinction between Basil’s ‘ofﬁcial’ (and conventional) attitude and his actual attitude toward Greek culture. Although Basil the rhetorician proclaims that ‘pagan’ philosophy and training should be left behind, Basil the theologian/exegete is more than happy to employ precisely these very beneﬁts. Next, Hildebrand turns to Basil’s theology of the Trinity, because it ‘exempliﬁes the particular way in which he appropriated Greek paideia’ (p. 12). The Introduction ends with A Note on Labels, which explains the author’s use of names for various fourth century theologians of ‘family resemblance’. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 588 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy Chapter 1 offers a concise vita of Basil, highlighting the moments relevant for the shaping of his Trinitarian theology. Hildebrand argues for a fundamental coherence of Basil’s theology, which is not destroyed by the development of his thought and change of vocabulary. Despite the clear difference between the ‘early’ and ‘late’ Basil, the theological vision proposed in Contra Eunomium remains ‘the basis of his Trinitarian thought’ (p. 22). A much longer and more technical Chapter 2 helpfully presents Basil’s Trinitarian theology in four stages, which are called after the terms that Basil preferred: (1) the homoiousian years, ca 360–365; (2) the movement from homoiousios to homoousios, ca 365–372; (3) the use of prosōpa for what is three in God, ca 372; (4) the emergence of hypostasis and its use for what is three in God, ca 375–379 (p. 31). Hildebrand does a superb job in getting to the bottom of several things which were relevant for the ﬁrst stage: the correspondence between Basil and Apollinarius, the comradeship between Basil and Acacius of Caesarea, Eunomius’s theology and Basil’s counter-theology in Contra Eunomium, Basil’s understanding of the term ousia, the issue of many concepts (epinoiai) and God’s simplicity, the term hypostasis (as a synonym of ousia) and the issue of God’s plurality, and the notion of the divine communion (koinōnia). Readers of English language only should be especially grateful to Hildebrand, for he expounds the argument of a very important Trinitarian treatise, Contra Eunomium, which has not yet been translated into English. Chapter 3 describes stages two, three, and four. Stage two concerns Basil’s becoming a pro-Nicene theologian and a proponent of the term homoousios in 360s. It also concerns his revelation of this fact in Ep. 9. Stages three and four cover the maturing of Basil’s anti-Modalist and anti-Heteroousian Trinitarian theology – his settling on the term prosōpon to designate what is three in God and suggesting that this term should be understood as a synonym of hypostasis. Hildebrand also adds a couple of pages on the terms monarchia and homotimos under the subtitle Minor Linguistic Developments. Chapter 4 is about Basil and the scriptures. ‘Basil read and interpreted the Scriptures as a classically trained, fourth-century Greek speaker’ (p. 101). He had found a usus iustus for his ‘pagan’ education and Hildebrand is certainly justiﬁed in writing about Basil’s synthesis of Greek thought and biblical truth. Hildebrand also envisions Basil’s theology of the scriptures and this is, perhaps, the more tricky part of the book. I was a bit disappointed that the author conducts his analysis with the help of the largely discredited categories of Alexandrian and Antiochean exegesis. At least Hildebrand demonstrates that Basil does not ﬁt well into these ready-made categories. In fact, Hildebrand provides a much needed © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 589 corrective to the traditional but one-sided perception of Basil’s exegesis. He does not to limit the assessment of Basil’s exegesis merely to his Hexaemeron, but also to consider his homilies, especially the 13 homilies on the Psalms (pp. 129–39). This inclusion makes a huge difference, because in his homilies, Basil employs ﬁgurative interpretation much more boldly, as the Cappadocian is concerned with the spiritual usefulness of texts, with ōpheleia (2 Tim 3:16). I was a bit more disappointed that in constructing Basil’s theology of the scriptures, surprisingly, Hildebrand does not balance Basil’s view of inspiration with Basil’s understanding of the ﬁniteness of language. The author’s wonderful analysis of epinoiai and the ‘grammar’ of theological discourse (pp. 51–6) would have added something very important indeed to the reconstruction of Basil’s doctrine of the scriptures. Put differently, the examples suggesting Basil’s approval of verbal inspiration (e.g. Hex. 6.11; cf. p. 110) – a conclusion so tempting to draw from several reverential statements about the scriptures – should be bracketed together with his understanding of what language can and cannot do. It should be adjusted by Basil’s apophaticism, by his conviction that human ﬁnite language comes short of the reality it tries to describe. (Such an ‘incommeasurement’, however, does not invalidate theological discourse as hopelessly inadequate and empty of meaning.) Nevertheless, Hildebrand also makes several valuable observations/distinctions, which prevent readers from considering Basil’s theology of the scriptures as identical with certain later theories of the scriptures. For instance, for Basil, the scriptures were not perspicuous (pp. 13, 112, 143), but for Turretin, they certainly were (Institutio 2.17). In connection with this, it would have been helpful if Hildebrand had stated clearly the diametrical difference between Basil’s and Eunomius’s understanding of language, while presenting Basil’s view on inspiration. Conventional understanding of language operates with arbitrary word-signs (epinoiai) and therefore never captures the reality with absolute adequacy. (This is also true about the inspired language of the scriptures.) Natural understanding of language, however, operates with words which are believed to provide an exact description of the reality (e.g. Eunomius’s assertion that the word ‘unbegottenness’ provides a ‘real’ knowledge of the essence of God). Chapters 5 and 6 tie the previous discussion to the thesis of the book. The title for both chapters is Greek ‘Paideia’ and Scriptural Exegesis in Basil’s Trinitarian Theology. Here Hildebrand’s ‘two-source theory’ of Basil’s Trinitarian theology ﬁnds its conﬁrmation. The author explains the reading strategies and argumentation techniques coming from the Second Sophistic and provides the corresponding examples from Basil’s exegesis of the passages, which concern the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 590 The six chapters are framed by a Chronology of Basil’s Life and Works in the beginning, and by two Appendixes (Studies of Basil’s Works, and The Dating of Ep. 9 and Contra Eunomium) in the end. Hildebrand’s book is heartily recommended for those are fascinated with what the scriptures say about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and how the implications of what the scriptures say about them led to the doctrine of the Trinity. Tarmo Toom The John Leland Center for Theological Studies 夹夹夹 Responsive Labor: A Theology of Work, David H. Jensen, Westminster John Knox Press, 2006 (ISBN 13-978-0-664-23021-0), xiii + 141 pp., pb $19.95 Despite the complimentary reviews on the back cover, I did not ﬁnd this book compelling. Indeed, on page 96, the author admits that his knowledge of economics is inadequate for the task in hand. The book only deals with the American situation and would beneﬁt from some acknowledgement of the wider world, which would add further emphasis to some of the theses of the book. In reality the title should be ‘Responsive Labor in North America’. The theology referred to is undiscriminating in both time and place in being worldwide, but does this not call for the text to give something of the context for work as well as theology? It was in fact a disappointment given that attention is drawn to the lack and inadequacy of texts on this subject, and how neglecting work where the majority of Christian life is spent is a serious theological omission. I am afraid that this text does little to overcome the situation. There is mention that there has been a signiﬁcant interview schedule to determine the real world of work in connection with the book, but no evidence is provided and one wonders if this was simply a loose collection of perchance conversations. Not a very satisfactory qualitative methodology. Let me remind this author that it was via a religious text many years ago that I ﬁrst came across statistical methodology, yet thirty-ﬁve years later it is possible to try to write a book with no such reference. Work in North America is described as a pain, but it is not the same for everybody – some actually enjoy working, and the reluctance to retire is one manifestation of this. On the other hand, there is quite a lot of stress throughout the economy, yet this does not receive particular emphasis. It is mentioned on page 10 using © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 591 ﬁgures that are a decade old, and it is insufﬁciently important to be indexed. Not everybody is a loser in the world of work, but the author is correct in pointing out the pathologies that may accompany working in North America, such as the plight of the unemployed and the working poor who often gain little from their efforts. It is also correct to refer to the distortions of ofﬁcial statistics to place as favorable a gloss as possible on the world of work or lack of it. The section on ‘Owning work and being owned by others’ (p. 99) seems to have little idea of the stress and strain of starting your own business. The millionaires/billionaires I know did not have it all their own way and they had to work long hours to make their money. Some have made a fortune which is then lost, and if they are lucky they end up in a ‘win’ situation. They have provided work for others that would not otherwise have been readily available. This is why most developed nations have institutes for encouraging smaller businesses, and it is from smaller businesses that larger ones grow. Sometimes matters are just too clear-cut for this theologian. One example is the bifurcation of management and labor (p. 103) which is not universally present and has the author missed the ascendancy of the term stake holding in both the literature and practice? From being a term more associated with left-wing politics, it has now passed into common parlance. Another (p. 110) is that God does not produce scarcity and there is enough to go around, but this facile theological comment seems to ignore exploration of the scientiﬁc and ecological literature. Then there is the inﬂuence of the workplace on churches such as church shopping, in the sense of selecting a church in a similar fashion that one selects a retail object. An extension of this is aping the workplace in churches and attending rounds of meetings and the like in a way that reﬂects the workplace. Jesus may even be regarded as the model executive (pp. 132–3). This is a naïve comment since a church is an example of a small organization where one expects a mimicking of an organization. It is equally naïve (not on the part of the author) to regard Jesus as a model of a corporate executive. First of all there was no such item as a corporate executive in the time of Jesus, and second who can tell what would have happened had he lived at the present time? One hopes he would avoid being in charge of large corporations such as we now have representing churches. Given that this book has been several years in gestation, one wonders how the author has spent his time. It appears more in collecting loads of biblical texts and theological writings, and not so much connecting with the world of work. Obviously the book meets with the requirements of some theologians in North America, but I am not sure about other potential readers. It has to be a question as to where theology and © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 592 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy the workplace do not connect, which of the two should be changed, rather than assuming workplace practice is always to blame. One case (p. 37) where the theological has impacted the workplace, and often with reduced knowledge of the origins of the term, is the language of vocation. The author states that global capitalism has become a straw man in theological circles and then gives an example of cut-throat capitalism as the TV show ‘The Apprentice’ which may have some connection with some kinds of workplace, but is more of an artiﬁcial entertainment. Overall the book is more theological than workplace based and rooted in one set of literature (namely theological) rather than the other. Its audience is more likely to be found in this bias too. Surely there must be one ambidextrous person out there who can deal with both sides of the coin. Perhaps there should be a relaxation of requirement that to join a theological department or seminary one should be of a particular academic mould. Let the students work out the theology from someone who knows the world of work rather than using theological voyeurs. One might suggest scope here too for academic collaboration between a business school and a seminary or theology department. Gerald Vinten British Accreditation Council © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Clarity and Arguing About Gods Owen Anderson Arguing About Gods, Graham Oppy, Cambridge University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-521-86386-4), xix + 449 pp., hb $90.00 Oppy’s newest book, Arguing About Gods, is essential for those interested in the Philosophy of Religion, Natural Theology, and the existence of God. It represents signiﬁcant research and a robust acquaintance with contemporary and classical work about the existence of God. In an important way, this book is a modern day application of David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which Oppy refers to as one of his favorites. While many defenses have been given in reply to Hume, what Oppy shows in his work is that these have failed to successfully modify the classical theistic arguments. Oppy applies Hume’s method to post-Humean modiﬁcations of theistic arguments, and exhibits the same rigorous skepticism as the interlocutor Philo from Dialogues. Through an analysis of Oppy’s criticism and application of Hume, it can be understood that there are two reasons why post-Humean theists have not successfully responded to Hume (and why pre-Humean theists were unable to give a ‘Hume proof’ argument). These will become evident as Oppy’s criticisms are considered, as will a possible avenue for a successful proof, and the necessity of a proof for Christianity. The centrality of a proof, especially for Christianity, is based on the ought/can principle, making the need to show the clarity of God’s existence foundational to any other aspect of the Christian gospel. The central thesis of the book is that there are no successful proofs for or against the existence of God. Oppy believes that there are rational persons who believe in God, and rational persons who do not believe in God. What is not rational, according to Oppy, is the claim that there are no successful arguments among those that have been proposed, and to believe that there are is irrational. For Oppy, a successful argument is one that would convince a rational person. This deﬁnes success in terms of changing the other person’s mind. There can be two types of rational persons who do not believe in God and at whom theistic arguments are Reviews in Religion and Theology, 14:4 (2007) © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 594 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy aimed to convince: the person who does not believe that God exists, and the person who does not hold a belief either way. The difﬁculty in convincing a rational person who believes that God does not exist is that he or she believes that the evidence supports the atheist’s position. Therefore, what is necessary is new evidence, not an argument. There is the reality that people are not always rational in forming their beliefs, and Oppy reserves a discussion of the ethics of belief for the last chapter. Chapters 2–4 consider the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments. The detail and reﬁnement of these chapters cannot be duplicated here, and they can serve as a valuable resource for those interested in research about contemporary arguments for God’s existence. Oppy is fair and even handed in his presentation of these arguments, but he concludes that no successful form of these arguments has been given to date. In some cases he revises his older criticisms, noting places where they were incorrect or could be made stronger. Problems that keep the ontological argument from being successful include that it imports the idea of God into the premises (thus becoming circular), and that where it does not do so its conclusion is not equivalent to the God of monotheism. The cosmological argument faces not only this same problem (its conclusion is not equivalent to God), but also problems about the need for a ﬁrst cause. Oppy critically analyzes the claim that there cannot have been an inﬁnite past, and also rejects several forms of the principle of sufﬁcient reason. PSR is either stated too strongly so as to be self-refuting, or it is so weak as to not be adequate in proving the existence of God. Oppy then suggests that perhaps the universe had no cause, having a beginning without a cause (in contrast to God, who is said to be uncaused in the sense of having had no beginning). The teleological argument is unsuccessful in that it has not progressed past the critique of Hume. Oppy considers the claim that irreducible complexity proves intelligent design, and argues that this is not really different than the traditional design argument, an intelligent designer is not the same as ‘God’, and the argument is invalid (what appears to be irreducible complexity can be arrived at apart from intelligent design). Chapters 5–7 consider arguments from evil, Pascal’s wager, and miscellaneous other arguments that do not ﬁt neatly into previous categorization. Much of the analysis of the problem of evil involves questions about free will and God’s purpose in creating. What becomes obvious in the discussion is the lack of a clear deﬁnition of the good. This especially becomes evident as Oppy considers appeals to heaven as justiﬁcation for present evils. Many (most) current theistic solutions to the problem of evil rely on libertarian free will (I am free if I could have done otherwise). Similarly, many (most) current theistic solutions © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 595 appeal to heaven where everything will be explained and the greatest good will be achieved. Oppy points out the following: if the explanation of moral evil is that it is due to freedom of the will, and God had to permit freedom to achieve the good of fellowship, then if the good of heaven is fellowship with God heaven must contain freedom, and therefore there can/will be moral evil in heaven. On the other hand, if freedom is not necessary in heaven, and the lack of freedom does not diminish the good of fellowship with God, then freedom was not necessary from the beginning, and lack of freedom would have not have diminished fellowship with God. His analysis brings out a number of issues that can be useful in understanding why theists (particularly Christians) have failed to give a clear proof for God’s existence. By deﬁning the good as fellowship with God that will be achieved in heaven, the focus becomes ‘how do I get to heaven’. Furthermore, this fellowship is understood as an immediate/intuitive relationship with God, or perhaps even a relationship where one can visibly see God. The result is that ‘proofs’ for God’s existence become useless for achieving the greatest good. One does not need to prove that God exists in order to get into heaven, and once in heaven, the immediate/intuitive perception of God removes once and for all any need for a proof. The only use for a proof is to help some philosophically inclined persons in this life, but even then these proofs are not seen to be much help since they are not necessary for achieving the good life but instead are a kind of distraction or hobby. In contrast, if the greatest good is knowing God, and God is known mediately through his works (Psalm 19, Romans 1, et al.) not immediately in a beatiﬁc vision, then proof becomes essential to the good life. There are philosophical reasons to think this is a better understanding of the greatest good. In order to know God, one must ﬁrst know if there is a God. This does not mean that fellowship is not the greatest good, but fellowship is based on knowing, and is a development of continued knowing. If the essence of God (in theism) is that he is a spirit, and spirit is nonvisible consciousness, then God cannot be visibly/directly seen, now or in heaven. Rather, God is ‘seen’ by understanding the works of God. There are also scriptural reasons to think this is a better understanding of the greatest good: Jesus said ‘now this is eternal life: that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent’ (John 17:3 NIV); Paul said ‘for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse’ (Romans 1:20 NIV). The implication is that both Jesus and Paul believed that humans ought to know God, and that they can know God in this life, and that this knowledge is ‘eternal life’, the greatest good. © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 596 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy But this leads to a signiﬁcant problem for Christianity. If humans ought to know God then they must be able to know God. But if Oppy’s analysis is correct, and there are no successful proofs to date for God’s existence, then humans cannot know the ﬁrst thing about God (if he exists). The implication is that humans cannot be held responsible for knowing God, and yet Christianity maintains that the failure to know God is a sin (according to Paul, the sin that leads to all other kinds of sins – Romans 1), and the failure to know God results in (or is equivalent to) the failure to have the greatest good. The onus seems to be on Christianity to either provide a clear proof for God’s existence or abandon its claims about unbelief as sin and the good life as knowing God. Related to these considerations, in his chapter on miscellaneous arguments (Chapter 7), Oppy considers the argument from unbelief. Essentially, this argument states that if God exists then God would make his existence known, but since there are unbelievers God has not made his existence known, and therefore God does not exist. One can deny the ﬁrst point but only if one also denies that knowing God is the greatest good, and humans are sinful if they do not know God. Consequently, it seems Christianity must afﬁrm that if God exists then his existence is clear to everyone. One way this is done is by asserting that everyone already believes in God, but they are denying it. This is based on a reading of Romans 1:18–21, mentioned earlier. Here it says: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them . . . For although they knew God, they neither gloriﬁed him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. The assertion is that here Paul says people both knew God (because God made his existence clear) and they ignored this knowledge and worshiped idols. However, notice that the suppression occurs due to wickedness, and the wickedness Paul indicates is exchanging God for something that is not God. The truth is suppressed by believing something false, namely, this idol is God. Paul is afﬁrming that there are people who do not believe in God (although they did at one time), even though God has made his existence clear. The attempt to deny that there is unbelief (by asserting that everyone believes in God ‘deep down’) empties the distinction of all meaning: supposedly everyone believes in God, although they deny that they do, and although they attribute the qualities of God to something else. If someone who does © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 597 these things can still be said to ‘believe’ the proposition ‘God exists’, then when does not someone believe a proposition? This same claim can be applied to any proposition, making the distinction between belief and unbelief meaningless. The problem of unbelief cannot be solved by denying that God would make his existence clear (for Christians at least), and it cannot be solved by denying the reality of unbelief. If it is to be solved it must be solved by showing that it is clear that God exists, and explaining why people do not know God as they should. In other words, within Christianity, a theistic proof is necessary for the greatest good, and necessary to understand sin and redemption. But is there any hope that a proof can be given, especially after Hume and Oppy? Perhaps there is, and it might be that the avenue that can provide a proof will also help settle some other foundational questions, such as what is the good, and why is there evil. As has been noted, Christians have not been very motivated to give a clear proof because they have not focused on knowing God as the greatest good. While this is true in general, it is also true that within Historic Christianity there has been a focus on knowing God as the greatest good (chief end of man). The Westminster Confession of Faith begins by asserting that the light of nature, and the words of creation and providence, provide clear proof for God’s existence (1.1). The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins by asking ‘what is the chief end of man’, and answers ‘the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever’. This would be impossible if God cannot be known. In question forty-six it asks ‘what is required in the ﬁrst commandment?’ and answers ‘The ﬁrst commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly’. The parallel answer from the Larger Catechism says ‘the duties required in the ﬁrst commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God, and our God’. Clearly, knowing God is essential to Christianity, whether it is Jesus and Paul, or Historic Christianity as afﬁrmed in the Westminster Confession. Hume, raised in the context of the Church of Scotland, would have been personally aware of the claims made in the Westminster Confession. He would have been aware that if he is correct, and proof for God cannot be given, then Christianity is either false or must be modiﬁed in a way that would render it unrecognizable. To avoid this, it is necessary for Christians to show that it is clear that God exists, and perhaps the failure to do so is rooted in the very problem itself. If Christianity is asserting that unbelief as a sin is the basic sin that leads to all other kinds of sin (the ﬁrst commandment, Romans 1), then it should not be surprising to ﬁnd that humans fail to give proof for God’s existence, and when they do this proof is insufﬁcient because it is not aimed at properly knowing God. Speciﬁcally, God is deﬁned as a © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 598 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy Spirit, inﬁnite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth (Shorter Catechism Q. 4). To prove that there is a highest being, ﬁrst cause, or designer, is not to prove that God exists. To rest with such proofs shows that one does not know God as one should, that one has exchanged the eternal power of God for something else. What must be proven is that there is an eternal being, and that this being is as deﬁned above, in contrast to all the other views of the eternal that have been held by humans. Because this is not the common focus in theistic proofs, it is not surprising that it does not get much attention in Oppy’s book. However, the fact that it does arise is evidence of Oppy’s diligence and careful research. One important thinker does seem to make this the focus of his proof, and that is John Locke. Oppy considers Locke’s proof in his chapter on miscellaneous proofs. Locke begins his proof by arguing that there must be something eternal (without beginning). He then proceeds to argue that this eternal being is God. Here I want to focus on his ﬁrst claim (that there must be something eternal), while recognizing problems in how he proceeds after that, and in his empiricism which undermines much of what he wants to do. Locke argues that there must have existed something from eternity because the alternative is that something came from nothing. Locke believes that the claim ‘something came from nothing’ is so ridiculous that no one can actually believe it. However, in a number of places through his book, Oppy contends that it is possible for there to be uncaused events, and that the universe came into existence from nothing without a cause (not creation ex nihilo where God is the cause). Can this basic point be agreed upon, and if not can anything else be agreed upon? I believe it can, and that it marks the ﬁrst step in showing that it is clear that God exists. Oppy correctly points out that from the fact that something has existed from eternity it does not follow that the same thing has existed from eternity. There may have been an eternity of impermanent beings, each giving rise to the next and then going out of existence, or there may be one underlying being that is eternal, or only some being that is eternal and other being that is temporal, or nothing that is eternal. But these are a limited number of options, and it seems that they can be narrowed down further. By eliminating the impossible (what is selfcontradictory), we can arrive at what is clear about the eternal. For instance, is it meaningful to assert that nothing is eternal (all being came from non-being)? If the universe is all that is (there is no other being), and it had a beginning, then it came into being from non-being. When we say that ‘a’ came from ‘non-a’, we assume that these are both kinds of beings (such as a chicken and an egg). But ‘non-being’ does not refer to ‘a’ or ‘non-a’; to assert that being came from non-being is like asserting that ‘a’ came from neither ‘a’ nor © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 599 ‘non-a’. This claim is meaningless, and empties the idea of ‘beginning’, or ‘starting’, of meaning. Furthermore, it is a fundamental blurring of the distinction between ‘being’ and ‘non-being’; if being can come from either being or nonbeing, then in this respect they are not different, the distinction is not being upheld. In the sense that being can come from either being or non-being, in this respect being is the same as non-being. Because this is a contradiction, the implication is that being cannot come from nonbeing; if there ever was only non-being then there would still be nonbeing. Or, if something now exists, then something has always existed. This does not rely on a form of the principle of sufﬁcient reason, but only that being cannot come from non-being, and if the universe is all that exists and had a beginning, then it is being from non-being. This line of thinking provides a ﬁrst step toward arguing that it is clear that God exists in moving toward showing that only God is eternal (without beginning). The next steps involve asking what can be predicated of ‘eternal’ without contradiction. For instance, if being that changes toward an end contradicts eternality, then it is meaningless to assert that matter is eternal. Or if ﬁnite being that grows/increases contradicts eternality, then it is meaningless to assert that the ﬁnite self is eternal. The promise of this approach is: it correctly identiﬁes what must be argued for in order to prove that God exists (namely, that only a speciﬁc kind of being can be eternal); there are only a limited number of options and each can be clearly identiﬁed; if this foundational question cannot be settled (what is eternal?), then other questions which presuppose an answer to this question cannot be settled (it must be addressed on pain of global skepticism). Oppy says a few times that it might be the case that there are uncaused events, that the universe came into being from non-being uncaused, but if we accept this as a possibility one time, it is unclear how we can deny it as a possibility other times (all the time?), and as pointed out earlier it blurs the distinction between being and non-being so that it is unclear how anything can be known that presupposes that distinction. Furthermore, this approach also provides an answer to the problem of evil, and a solution to the question ‘why don’t rational people believe?’ If the greatest good is knowing God, and this knowledge is available through God’s works of creation and providence, then the existence of moral evil does not threaten the greatest good but instead deepens it. In its chapter about the fall (Chapter 6), the Westminster Confession of Faith says it this way: ‘This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory’. In permitting sin there is a further revelation of the divine nature, speciﬁcally in his justice and mercy in responding to sin, which deepens the knowledge of God. This same sin which deepens the knowledge of God also obscures it for those who are not © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 600 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy seeking. A person who has the potential for rationality may not use it in the case of thinking about what is eternal and the implications of such beliefs. Nor does this undermine the need for philosophical dialogue on the topic because a person’s response (either coming to greater understanding of what they had previously ignored, or rejecting what is clear about the eternal) is a revelation in itself about the consequences of thinking or not thinking. In this sense it can be afﬁrmed that nothing can keep the good from those who seek it. To put this into Oppy’s deﬁnition for a successful argument, one must be able to show that only God is eternal in a way that would change a rational person’s mind. Oppy correctly points out that if all that is done is to give an argument without new evidence, the other person will most likely not be persuaded. Besides the requirement of providing new evidence (which Oppy correctly believes is not forthcoming), I add the requirement of thinking presuppositionally about the meaningfulness of basic claims. The most basic claims that can be made are about being and eternality. Being is assumed in all other claims, and the eternal is ontologically and logically prior to all else. To successfully change a rational person’s mind about the existence of God, one must raise questions about this person’s own beliefs about the eternal. For instance, if this person believes nothing is eternal, and this is the same as claiming that being came from neither ‘a’ nor ‘non-a’, then their belief is meaningless. Presuppositional thinking brings what is often not seen to the forefront, and also addresses what is foundational ﬁrst. This is necessary if agreement is to be had on nonfoundational issues. It should be noted, however, that the fact that a ‘rational’ person has not been thinking presuppositionally about their own beliefs concerning the eternal raises questions about their rationality. Perhaps there are degrees or levels of rationality. While a person might be perfectly rational in their daily choices, or in interacting with others, they might be presuppositionally irrational. Because of the role that foundational questions play for the rest of one’s worldview, to be presuppositionally irrational may very well be the worst kind of irrationality. Oppy ends his book with a discussion about the ethics of belief, and that seems appropriate here as well. Oppy modiﬁes Clifford’s famous principle in the following way: it is irrational, always, everywhere, for anyone to believe anything that is not appropriately proportioned to the reasons and evidence that are possessed by that one (p. 420). Applying the requirement of presuppositional thinking to this principle we can add at the end ‘at the most basic level’. This addition makes the principle universal (the same for everyone) because the most basic level of thinking about being involves the distinction between being and non-being, and what being is eternal and what being is temporal. Therefore, it is irrational for anyone to believe anything that denies the distinction © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 601 between being and non-being, or predicates of the eternal something which contradicts eternality, or makes assertions about reality without critically analyzing their presuppositions. A number of issues have been explored in this essay that will hopefully provoke further thought and research. Oppy’s book is the catalyst for such activity as it candidly but provocatively explores the failings of theistic arguments. While Oppy is correct in his assessment of the traditional arguments, it has been argued here that there is hope for a successful argument. This comes in recognizing why the traditional arguments fall so far short, and in more clearly focusing on the characteristics of God that require proof. This also requires giving a deeper deﬁnition of ‘good’ that avoids the superﬁcial nature of heaven as the source of the greatest good and a solution to the problem of evil. This involves thinking presuppositionally about the most basic questions that can be asked. If Christianity can show that it is clear that God exists, then its claims about the universal need for redemption from unbelief can be justiﬁed; if Christianity cannot show that there is clarity about God’s existence, then its other claims are in serious trouble. Either way, these are momentous problems that require attention. Owen Anderson Arizona State University West 夹夹夹 Theology for Liberal Presbyterians and Other Endangered Species, Douglas Ottati, Geneva Press, 2006 (ISBN 978-0-664-50289-8), pb $19.95 In an open recognition of just how divided the Presbyterian Church has become, this book is intended speciﬁcally for one kind of Presbyterian: the liberal kind. It is an engaging and informed book intended to encourage and to theologically guide liberal Presbyterians and other liberal Christians. This being the intended audience, the reader will want to know just what is meant by ‘liberal’. Anticipating this question, Ottati deﬁnes liberal Presbyterians as: people who ‘try to retrieve, restate, rethink, and revise traditional theologies and beliefs in the face of contemporary knowledge and realities’. In other words, liberals retrieve, restate and rethink, but they do not reject the tradition. Indeed I am struck by just how Orthodox this liberal Presbyterian is. Ottati’s references for example are practically all from the Reformed tradition with Calvin leading the way, and he reﬂects at length on the Heidleberg Confession and also on the Confession of 1967. His may be just one reading of the © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 602 tradition – expressed as the liberal spirit of the tradition – but it is certainly the tradition that it is centered on. In fact, this book is so much a product of the tradition that many outside the circle deﬁned as liberal may ﬁnd themselves within its circle. While the question of the ordination of gays and lesbians has been and continues to be the great divide in the Presbyterian Church separating liberals and conservatives, and while this is a critically important theological and ethical issue, there are of course many other issues that call for theological reﬂection and action. While he addresses this split, making a plea for the inclusivity of the church, Ottati helpfully names a number of these other issues and sketches some initial theological approaches to several of them, inviting more thorough reﬂection and conversation. The one place Ottati speciﬁcally critiques the tradition concerns the doctrines of double predestination and limited atonement for which he offers the alternative ‘We belong to the God of grace’. This afﬁrmation is central for his theology, and from it he draws several conclusions: Once we are clear about this, a number of things follow. First, we live in assurance, refuse to set limits on the extent of God’s faithfulness, and refuse to exclude anyone from the scope of grace and redemption. We then work for an inclusive church, support a ministry of reconciliation, and invite everyone everywhere to lay hold of the assurance and conﬁdence that come with the knowledge of a gracious God. Second, we acknowledge the human fault and without losing hope, maintain a realistic attitude toward the present age and its daunting challenges. Finally, we afﬁrm that all people have worth and we commit ourselves to public practices, policies, and leadership that respect persons, pursue equitable opportunities for the poor, and care for those in need. (p. 20) Heidi Hadsell Hartford Seminary 夹夹夹 Nonconformist Theology in the Twentieth Century, Alan P.F. Sell, Paternoster Press, 2006 (ISBN 978-1-84227-471-2), xii + 239 pp., pb $35.99 Goethe once remarked, ‘The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conﬂict of skepticism with faith’. Alan Sell, in his 2006 Didsbury Lectures on Nonconformist theology of the twentieth century, © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 603 wrangles with this abiding discord by tracing historically the theological adaptations of British Nonconformists. He concludes that the most serious issue confronting them is the loss of theological discourse within their churches. In the end, he urges future Nonconformist theologians to ‘hold high the Cross, declare the gospel of the triune God of all grace, and combat those sectarianisms which deny the unity which in Christ by the Spirit the Father has already given his Church’ (p. 192). Sell deﬁnes Nonconformity within the boundaries of Protestantism as Free Church people who have freedom under the gospel to order their worship and polity free from state control. Keenly aware of the difﬁculty in selecting materials, he restricts his pool of literature to the published theological works of the Congregational, Baptist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Methodist, and United Reformed traditions of Britain, fully acknowledging that all theologizing is not subsumed in written materials. Sell’s theological trace begins in Lecture 1, ‘Surveying the Landscape’, noting that ‘theology never arises from a vacuum. There is always a historical, intellectual and ecclesial context’ (p. 13). The particular theological milieu at the end of the nineteenth century is a pervading optimism in humanity. Many become disillusioned, though, at the onset of World War I. Nonconformist theologians, then, begin to construct new models of God and Christologies, questioning previous notions of God’s providence and personhood. As the century progresses, they have to reckon with the likes of Karl Barth and his theological method, the process thought of Charles Hartshorne, the death of God theologians, and pluralism. Sell attempts to detail various theological adaptations within the doctrines of the person and work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity in Lecture 2, ‘Doctrinal Peaks’, amidst the circumstances sketched above. He observes that most Nonconformists, through the middle of the century, move away from penal substitution theories of the atonement, emphasizing divine retribution, toward a Christus Victor model, which focuses on judging and destroying cosmic sin through God’s forgiving love. At the end of the century, slightly different views of the atonement are proffered that champion the fellow suffering of God with humanity. Sell continues with Nonconformist contributions to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit noting that few have actually contributed to the discussion. Regarding the Trinity, Nonconformists attempt to hold together three motifs: the divinity of Christ, the unity of God, and the Holy Spirit with and in us. Nonconformists ﬁnd themselves in apologetic discussions with Unitarians throughout this time while attempting to articulate a more personal and relational understanding of the Trinity. In Lecture 3, ‘Ecclesiological Thickets’, Sell examines contemporary discussions regarding Nonconformist identity, the inﬂuence of the © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 604 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy modern ecumenical movement, and the viability of the phrase ‘Free Church people’ to describe Nonconformists. In light of the challenges of the twentieth century, Nonconformists feel compelled to articulate their various distinctive ecclesiologies to which all consider themselves to be ‘high churchman’ who place signiﬁcant importance on the church as the body of Christ. Yet, how does such diversity bode for ecumenical dialogue and church unity? There have been several attempts to bring Nonconformist denominations together, some on the basis of a compromising ecclesiology (e.g. Congregationalists and the Presbyterian Church in England) regarding baptism and elders while others remaining separate on doctrinal bases (e.g. Baptists and Methodists). All Nonconformist denominations though have been active in ecumenical endeavors to spread the gospel. Sell, in Lecture 4, ‘Rivers, Rivulets – and Encroaching Desert’, looks to the future by examining works on eschatology. He concludes with an assessment and charge to future Nonconformist theologians. The theological works on eschatology begin by discussing the fate of the impenitent at the beginning of the twentieth century and the eschatological nature of all theology by the end. Sell notes as part of his assessment the strange disappearance of theological discourse among Nonconformist churches, suggesting that some may compromise the particularity of theological distinctiveness in the name of ecumenical politeness, political correctness, or postmodern relativism. His ultimate fear is that Nonconformists may loose touch with the reality that produced this theological discourse, namely, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In an effort to stymie these trends, Sell exhorts theologians to begin with what God has made known in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection by theologizing from within the church to proclaim the Good News to the world and serve one another, no matter the cost. Sell has written a seminal account of British Nonconformist theology for the twentieth century that includes an extensive bibliography of thirty pages. Considering the contemporary debates regarding the Atonement and the Trinity, his careful articulation locates British Nonconformists in the discussion thereby demonstrating their relevance. His foremost contribution is twofold: his discovery of the absence of theological discourse among British Nonconformist churches and his respective identiﬁcation of several reasons why this has occurred. Implicit within his argument is the necessity of a realist conception of language and the viability of Christian truth claims as demonstrated in his provocative remedy – the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and its clarion call for catholicity. He is also to be commended for his advice to future theologians to theologize from within the church by having ‘a solid grounding in the Bible, a thorough acquaintance with the history of Christian © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 605 thought . . . , and sufﬁcient philosophical-analytical skills to probe presuppositions, analyse arguments, and avoid the writing of incoherent gobbledegook’ (p. 191). It would be helpful though for Sell to explicate the criteria detailing how and why he selected his materials. Such insight would allow readers to engage Sell at the level of methodology so that they can better understand his assessments. Moreover, terms like ‘evangelical’ and ‘ecumenical’ remain undeﬁned and open to the reader’s discretion which only obscures clarity. In his assessment, Sell also acquiesces to the false dichotomy between doctrine and praxis. Understanding doctrine as direction for our lives – wisdom – can rectify this matter. By far, the most signiﬁcant drawback is the lack of a cohesive narrative that links the lectures together; as a result, readers are left wondering why and how certain conclusions were made. For example, when Sell discusses the gravitation of Nonconformists away from penal substitution theory of the atonement, he does not offer any reasons why, not to mention the implications for doing so. To communicate the content of Sell’s work better, I suggest the book be titled, British Nonconformist Theology in the Twentieth Century. To communicate the thrust of the book better, I suggest the book be subtitled as An Assessment and Requisite Proposal. Nonconformist pastors and theologians in the UK are best suited for Sell’s book because of his primary sources. Sell’s assessment and requisite proposal, however, to British Nonconformists may be instructive to North American Nonconformists as they too face similar challenges of biblical illiteracy and theological ineptness among their churches. Stephen M. Garrett Trinity Evangelical Divinity School 夹夹夹 Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion: From God to the Gods, Ben Vedder, Duquesne University Press, 2007 (ISBN 0-8207-0388-5), viii + 327 pp., pb $21.50 Touted inside its cover as groundbreaking for treating Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of religion rather than his theology, Ben Vedder’s new book is frustrating for all the things it takes for granted. For those in the discipline of philosophy of religion, the debate rages on what ‘philosophy of religion’ really means. Nicholas Wolterstorff refuses to use the phrase, privileging ‘philosophical theology’. Louis Dupre holds that © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 606 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy philosophy of religion is simply philosophy about religious topics or the development of religions as a whole. Is the ﬁeld reducible to the Anglo-American approach? Must is instead be continental or history of philosophy oriented? Is philosophy of religion Hegelian ontotheology by deﬁnition? The questions about what philosophy of religion actually is are all taken for granted in this work on Heidegger and his ‘philosophy of religion’. Inaccessible in style and content, Professor Vedder’s book is geared toward trained Heideggerians who are looking for a new inroad to Heidegger’s work. Vedder’s contention that Heidegger has been approached from the vantage point of theology and philosophy is noncontroversial. His contention that orienting Heidegger’s work toward philosophy of religion tells us something new is not so unproblematic. The most fundamental idea in Heidegger’s work is that the human being is Dasein, German for being-there. Dasein is thrown into its life world for its own regrounding, immersed in its own pretheoretical or preontological understanding of being which then makes possible our showing up as something. Vedder’s book spends several chapters elaborating the structures of Dasein but without using language which would be familiar to any American Heideggerian scholar. Vedder discusses the importance of the historical in Heidegger’s thought, which is the determining moment of consciousness. He discusses experience itself, which Heidegger privileges over theory. Regarding the religious experience, Vedder perceives rightly that Heidegger holds that experience and observation of inﬁnite being are always historically grounded. So much could be inferred by a rudimentary familiarity with the historicality or thrownness of Dasein. Vedder calls one’s attention to Martin Heidegger’s parallel with Martin Luther, but the observation has just as much place in a theological book – which this book is supposedly important for not being. Like Luther’s contention that philosophy does not bring one knowledge of God, Heidegger believes that theoretical philosophy will not give insight into factual life – including religious experience. Such is Heidegger’s approach to religion. Like the rest of his philosophy, Heidegger’s philosophy of the religious experience privileges experience over theory, the prior or structures over traditional concepts. Vedder makes clear that Heidegger’s approach to religious experience is to approach it phenomenologically, not metaphysically or ontologically. The situational actualization of Dasein must be the original phenomenon of study. Vedder’s reading of Heidegger adds nothing new. Chapter 10 of Vedder’s book is the strongest. In it, Vedder makes clear that because theology belongs to metaphysics, Heidegger gives it no place. Theory is to be overcome in favor of an examination of being. © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 607 Vedder clearly details Dasein as a hopeful creature, full of desire. This desire will ground Heidegger’s disciple, Karl Rahner, fueling his deﬁnition human beings’ supernatural existential, our fundamental option, continually exercised for or against God. Vedder does a good job in the last third of the book chronicling Dasein’s situation, ﬁnally giving the reader a good exegesis of Sein und Zeit and The Phenomenology of the Religious Life, the latter being particularly important since it is only recently available in English. Particularly compelling is Vedder’s analysis of the world as both preceding Dasein and hence compelling its self-transcendent activity. Because the world is given as pre-project, as the whole of the essentially possible, Dasein sees this entirety as possible and continually strives beyond itself. Poets, in particular, transcend the world as whole or entirety, and make room for God or the gods not by their own will but by their mood which can be effected by historicity. Finally, in his conclusion, Vedder gives us the crux of his project, which turns out to be only tangentially relevant to what he accomplishes in the body of the book – an unclear and spotty exegesis of Heidegger’s thinking throughout far too many of his texts. Here Vedder ﬁnally tells us that his project is to show that Heidegger’s thought on religion lies somewhere between philosophy and poetry. This approach allows Heidegger to escape the closed religious world in which he was raised and privilege historicality or experience over theory. In fact, the religious becomes none other than the historical since this is the basis for all positions taken. So much has been written on Heidegger that one would be hard pressed to uncover a novel approach to his thought. Vedder attempts just this, approaching Heidegger’s work from the perspective of philosophy of religion. Vedder’s project would beneﬁt greatly by situating itself in a particular tradition of philosophy of religion and deﬁning exactly what the project ‘philosophy of religion’ means. Only then would the importance of Vedder’s approach to Heidegger’s work perhaps become apparent. As Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion: From God to the Gods stands, it is an unclear exegesis which bounces around from topic to topic. Full of sweeping claims about ontotheology in Heidegger’s work and the status of historicity, the book falls short of being the radical re-reading of Heidegger which it claims to be. Instead, it is a confusing sketch of themes better treated in a book on Theology: a ﬁeld which at least has clear self-deﬁnition. Aimee U. Light Brooklyn, New York 夹夹夹 © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 608 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy God’s Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics, Samuel Wells, Blackwell Publishing, 2006 (ISBN 1-4051-2014-2), viii + 232 pp., pb $27.95/£20.99, hb $59.95/£60.00 God’s Companions may be proﬁtably read by two fairly distinct audiences: church leaders and academics working in theological ethics. That the author is competent to address both is reﬂected in his background: Samuel Wells has served as vicar of several Church of England parishes in diverse contexts over the span of fourteen years; alongside this he earned a doctorate in Christian ethics and authored a variety of books, primarily in ethics. He now serves as Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. I shall return to the difference this book might make to these two groups below. God’s Companions is a book-length exposition of the thesis that ‘God gives his people everything they need to worship him, to be his friends, and to eat with him’ (p. 1). He unpacks each of these terms in the introduction, in order to place his account among various other understandings of theology and ethics. Considering ‘God’, Wells explains that ethics, in his view, is closely tied with theology, and the two ﬂow out of what God has done in Christ. The term ‘gives’ focuses on God’s action, and speciﬁcally the gift to humans of the pattern of practices embodied by the church, which ‘draw people closer to [God, and] foster their ﬂourishing’ (p. 2). These practices are given to God’s people, that is, the church, and so Wells indicates that this is an account of ecclesial ethics, intended for and ﬂowing from the practices of the local church. Indeed, the work is peppered throughout with stories taken from local congregations illustrating his points. Turning to the phrase ‘everything they need’, Wells explains that ‘the action of God embodied in the practices of the Church . . . constitute everything his people need to follow him’ (p. 5). Within this claim are two notions: that contrary to an ethic of scarcity, God gives enough; and contrary to humans’ limited imaginations, God gives endlessly and abundantly. This provides a rather different context for ethics, and allows Wells to recast traditional questions: perhaps rather than starvation being a mark of too little food, it is a function of humans’ inability to share the abundant food it already has. God’s actions in the practices of the church enable humans to follow him, a following comprised by worshiping God, being God’s friends, and eating with God. These three dimensions of following God are correlated with three senses of the body of Christ: Jesus, the church, and the Eucharist; further, they constitute the three major divisions of the remainder of the book. To explore the worship of God and its focus on Jesus, in the ﬁrst part of the book Wells examines the life and ministry of Jesus in Scripture (past), the coming Kingdom of God and Christian hope (future), © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 609 and the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing Scripture to life and bringing near the promise of the kingdom (present). The second part of the book focuses on the church as the body of Christ, ﬁrst looking at invitation and baptism, then examines the life of the church under the rubric of dependencies, and closes by considering sin, forgiveness and reconciliation. In the ﬁnal section, Wells gives over the structure of his writing to the form of the Eucharistic rite, showing the action of God to form his people as companions through sharing food in communion. This last part of the book features a deep and creative exploration of the shape of worship and the shared practices of the church, while at the same time being broad enough to be applicable to a wide variety of churches; the speciﬁc texts which he focuses on such as the Nicene Creed or Lord’s Prayer are generally ecumenically agreed formulations. A word should be said about the form of this book. In Wells’s own terminology, it is intended as description, rather than comparison or persuasion. To transpose it into a slightly different idiom, Rowan Williams distinguishes three different types of theology: celebratory, communicative, and critical. The critical mode points to the limitations of theological formulations; the communicative attempts to mediate the insights of theology in the language of the world; and the celebratory mode seeks to display in the greatest possible detail the depth and richness present in a theological vision (from the prologue to On Christian Theology, Blackwells, 2000). Wells’s work is unapologetically performed in the celebratory mode, aiming to capture the reader’s imagination and awaken the reader’s wonder. His ability to do just that, with creative Scriptural interpretation, deep theological meditation, and illuminating real-life stories of the church, constitute the greatest strength of the work. But there may well be some who ﬁnd the book’s form to be its most frustrating feature as well. Certain Reformed Christians, and perhaps others, will be quite uncomfortable with the degree to which Wells makes human practices, and the community, tradition, and formation which they imply, constitutive of God’s giving. The nature of the account will not assuage such concerns as the intention and form of the book is not analytical argument, nor elaborate defense of these theological claims, but rich, celebratory exposition of them. The creativity and imaginativeness of Wells’s theological exegesis might give others pause, too, particularly those who are concerned to construct a more tightly exegetical theology. There are works which address these concerns in a more typical, analytical fashion – not least the Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, edited by Wells and Stanley Hauerwas (2004) – but this volume would not be a productive place for such people to start. Indeed, Wells encourages the present work to be read in conjunction with the Blackwell Companion as well as his other recent © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 610 work, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (SPCK/Brazos, 2004). I mentioned above that two groups in particular would ﬁnd this a helpful book. On the one hand leaders in the church, ordained or otherwise, might make good use of it. An entire genre of literature on ‘congregational development’ and ‘church growth’ has grown up over the last generation, the worst examples of which contain little or no theology. More often than not, the strong suit of such works lies in their deployment of concepts from sociology, marketing, or management theory. Although it is not Wells’s stated intention, his interweaving of theological analysis and stories from congregational life offers a striking alternative to these other works by recasting the discussion. If the question is ‘how can we share the abundant gifts that God has given us?’ then concerns about adding ‘giving units’ to the rolls or properly ‘branding’ a congregation pale by comparison. It is not that this other literature is without value, of course, but that Wells’s deeply theological account of the church and Christian life is able to place and contextualize it. The book is not overly technical in its presentation, without extensive notes; there should be little obstacle to it gaining a wide audience among those within the church with only a modicum of theological background. Second, this book will be appreciated by those who teach and study Christian ethics. Some may be particularly enamored with the version of ecclesial-centered ethics presented here, and the contemporary theological appropriation of virtue ethics that it implies. Others may not be convinced but will ﬁnd a valuable elaboration on and expansion of theoretical statements found elsewhere. But perhaps the most natural audience will be those who inhabit both groups simultaneously: seminarians and others training to lead and serve the church who are just beginning to form their theologicalethical imaginations in focused ways. For the true value of the book lies in the wonder and imagination it stirs in the reader, particularly in its stories full of humanity and grace, redolent of shared lives and shared discernment, rich in creative possibilities. Here is the church where many of us might want to serve or to worship, if only we could ﬁnd it. Perhaps Wells’s greatest contribution is to help us see that, with only a bit of graced imagination, the church we wish we had is in fact the church we have been given. Jason A. Fout Selwyn College, University of Cambridge 夹夹夹 © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 611 The Shadow of the Antichrist: Nietzsche’s Critique of Christianity, Stephen N. Williams, Baker Academic, 2006 (ISBN 0-8010-2702-4), 311 pp., pb $24.99 Stephen N. Williams begins his treatment of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity by quoting one of Nietzsche’s clearest and most unambiguous denunciations from The Anti-Christ. He sets as his goal to provide ‘an occasional, rather than systematic, response’ to the question of why Nietzsche found Christianity so detestable (p. 13), positioning this work as neither a contribution to Nietzsche scholarship nor an introduction to his thought, though he deﬁnitely wrote it for an academic audience (p. 14). Although he does not explicitly state this, it is also very clear from the outset that he has in mind a largely evangelical Christian audience. Before treating his topic directly, however, Williams spends a signiﬁcant amount of time providing the personal and intellectual backdrop of Nietzsche’s rejection of Christianity, with special emphasis on what Nietzsche saw as the positive alternative to it. The ﬁrst chapter ﬂirts with a biographical and psychological approach, focusing particularly on the death of Nietzsche’s father, but is mostly focused on Nietzsche’s most important predecessors, such as the Left Hegelians, Hölderlin, and Schopenhauer. He then deals with the importance of music to Nietzsche and in particular on his relationship to Wagner during the period of Nietzsche’s professorship and the writing of The Birth of Tragedy, which is summarized at some length. In this context, Williams complains of Nietzsche’s neglect of the Christian doctrine of creation and proposes Karl Barth’s reﬂections on Mozart as a counterpoint to Nietzsche’s thoughts on music, after which he draws on C.S. Lewis’s treatment of the Dionysian in The Chronicles of Narnia. He concludes the chapter with an assessment of Roger Scruton’s theory of high art as an alternative to traditional religious moral groundings. Williams continues by connecting Nietzsche’s break with Wagner and with Christianity. He argues that Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity is at base rationalistic, founded in the conviction that Christianity is ‘an intellectual error’ (p. 91), and places him in the tradition of the aphoristic approach of the French moralistes (p. 94). Williams ﬁnds Nietzsche’s hostility, however, to be founded less in reason than in taste. Nietzsche’s positive alternative is found in the ‘free spirit’, who is characterized by the qualities of curiosity, nomadism, and ‘dancing over morality’ in the spirit of Tristam Shandy (p. 114). Williams then takes up the famous declaration of the death of God in The Gay Science. He traces Nietzsche’s objections to the idea of God back to his objection to the notions of sin and redemption, which Nietzsche regarded as anti-life. Here again, Williams criticizes Nietzsche’s neglect of the doctrine of creation. He argues that Nietzsche’s portrayal of Paul is not © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 612 Theology, Ethics and Philosophy worth taking seriously and (at greater length) that his approach to Pascal is extremely one-sided at best. After dealing brieﬂy with Nietzsche’s relationship with Lou Salomé, Williams devotes almost an entire chapter to a summary of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, emphasizing those aspects of Nietzsche’s argument where he contrasts Zarathustra with Christ. Notwithstanding the importance of Zarathustra, this summary seemed to me to be disproportionate; I imagine that most readers will end up skipping it altogether. Williams then discusses Karl Barth’s treatment of Nietzsche in Church Dogmatics III/2, castigating Barth for taking Nietzsche too seriously. Nietzsche’s claim that Jesus was an ‘idiot’ then provides an opportunity to discuss Dostoyevsky’s novel of the same name and his other works, which for Williams provide a much more plausible and appealing portrayal of Christ. Williams then turns from Zarathustra to consider the broad inﬂuence Nietzsche has among moral philosophers. For Nietzsche, the death of God also meant the death of morality. Williams is clearly appalled by Nietzsche’s valorization of the classical ideal and of cruelty and by many other perceived consequences of the death of morality. He concedes that ‘injustice is done to Nietzsche if he is regarded as an anti-Semitic precursor of Hitler’ (p. 226), but repeated references to Hitler – including Williams’s reference to the distribution of copies of Zarathustra to Nazi soldiers in the same paragarph in which he recounts Nietzsche’s death (p. 267) – substantially undermine this statement’s force. Williams introduces Bonhoeffer, particularly his Ethics, as a counterpoint to Nietzsche’s teaching and claims, ‘We can hardly take seriously Nietzsche’s portrayal of Christ, Christianity, and Christian morality when we think about Bonhoeffer’ (p. 248), apparently ignoring the fact that Bonhoeffer was very much the exception among Christians of his time. He complains that Nietzsche misunderstands Christian love by reducing it to compassion, which is limited in scope only to the fallen world and has no place in Eden or the kingdom of heaven. The volume concludes with a brief chapter on the question of truth. Setting aside the task of laying out Nietzsche’s full doctrine of truth, Williams focuses his attention on Nietzsche’s claim that the Christian faith produced the will-to-truth that caused its downfall. He analyzes Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientiﬁc Postscript as the most plausible attempt to disconnect faith and (empirical) truth and ﬁnds that on this point he agrees with Nietzsche over Kierkegaard. Williams concludes by stating that Christianity must not shy away from asserting the historical truth of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Williams’s approach throughout is highly unsympathetic toward his subject. When he is not claiming that Nietzsche’s critique badly misses its target (based on what some will ﬁnd to be a highly idealized vision © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Theology, Ethics and Philosophy 613 of Christianity), Williams simply dismisses Nietzsche’s critique and reasserts what he takes to be the Christian view. His preliminary treatment of Nietzsche’s early intellectual inﬂuences is much more sympathetic and, to my mind, more useful than the remainder of the work, though the latter chapters contain creative and even illuminating uses of literature – most notably the lengthy comparison between Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky. But overall, one gets the impression that Williams simply does not think Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity is worth taking seriously. Though the book is subtitled ‘Nietzsche’s Critique of Christianity’, its ultimate purpose seems to be to present ‘Christianity’s Critique of Nietzsche’, and thus it will likely be of very little use to those who do not already share Williams’s views. Adam Kotsko Chicago Theological Seminary © 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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