Abstract
A word of clarification is perhaps in order: Ottati is not the kind of liberal Protestant who values the adjective more than the noun. He is, rather, a theologian thoroughly steeped in the classic texts of the Protestant Reformation and who seeks to insure that the legacies of Martin Luther and especially John Calvin are taken seriously today. Behind them stood Augustine, of course, and so Ottati is deeply immersed in the Augustinian corpus as well. Additionally, the American theologians Jonathan Edwards and H. Richard Niebuhr play an important role in shaping the theology to which Ottati gives expression. Indeed, Ottati characterizes his own theology as Augustinian, Protestant, and liberal. This ancestry imparts to his book historical depth and theological richness. Anyone with knowledge of this particular trajectory in Christian theology will surely recognize familiar themes, motifs, and concerns that Ottati has adopted, adapted, updated, and reworked into a new configuration. Briefly stated, these are a theocentric perspective on human life in the world, a keen sense of human limitations, and the recognition of our inveterate propensity to sin. Coupled with these emphases is an insistence upon the affective bases of human knowing and action, as well as a downright optimistic conviction that genuine conversion of hearts and minds is always possible. When our desires, loves, affections, and values are thus properly re-ordered, we are enabled to serve God’s glory in and through all the other relationships, human and natural, in which we stand. Like his mentor, James M. Gustafson, Ottati is highly critical of a pervasive anthropocentrism in religion and culture alike. His book thus offers a thoughtful alternative rooted in Augustinian and Calvinist heritage.
Roughly one third of this volume is devoted to the formal issues of theology or “method.” As Ottati makes clear, his basic conception of the theological task is primarily indebted to Friedrich Schleiermacher, albeit with minor modifications here and there. For both Schleiermacher and Ottati, theology stands in the service of piety. “Piety” designates the religious and moral affections constitutive of Christian being and doing, of which doctrines are the intellectual expression. Theology not only aims to articulate the church’s piety in an intellectually compelling way but also to bring its own self-understanding into critical conversation with other ways of construing the place and purpose of human life in the world, whether religious or secular. Responding to certain influential criticisms of this liberal understanding of piety, doctrine, and theology (e.g., George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine), Ottati clarifies that piety, while signifying the experiential basis of religious and moral life, never stands alone since it is always shaped by the language of the church’s scripture and tradition. In his view, there is always a reciprocal relation between experience and language, so that it is wrong to say that one unilaterally determines the other. In an obvious departure from Schleiermacher, Ottati speaks of theology as a “practical wisdom,” thereby indicating that its principal purpose is to provide orientation for persons who aspire to conduct their lives appropriately and responsibly. This way of putting it makes it sound as though Ottati comes near to Immanuel Kant’s understanding of theology, even though he completely rejects Kant’s stringent rationalism in ethics as well as what he perceives as the unduly anthropocentric focus of Kant’s understanding of religion’s relation to the moral life. Like Schleiermacher, and unlike Kant, Ottati emphatically does not wish to place religion in the service of morality. Nonetheless, Schleiermacher would never have called theology a “practical wisdom,” precisely on account of its Kantian overtones. Yet in agreement with both Schleiermacher and Kant, theology for Ottati is not a “speculative” enterprise in the manner of Georg W.F. Hegel, either. Ottati even appears to have something of an aversion to any form of metaphysical reflection in theology, no doubt on account of his historicist and pragmatist philosophical commitments. So, for example, while he is appreciative of process theology in many respects, Ottati finds some of its claims to a metaphysical knowledge of God dubious.
Obviously, Ottati’s understanding of theology also departs from that of the most influential Reformed theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth. Hence, to understand Ottati is to appreciate that we are dealing with a theologian who is offering us a revised version of Schleiermacher’s conception of theology and its method. But it would be overly neat and tidy to say that Ottati is a student of Schleiermacher solely with respect to the formal issues of theology, whereas he is indebted to Calvin and the others in his material or substantive commitments. After all, Schleiermacher himself was keenly aware of his Reformed roots, and his experiential approach to religion and theology was at least partly indebted to Calvin. Indeed, when it comes to material issues of theological interpretation, Ottati finds Schleiermacher’s theology to be far more theocentric and far less anthropocentric than Barth’s, thereby reversing a widely-held perception of Schleiermacher as anthropocentric, a perception that Barth did a lot to create and to perpetrate.
The arrangement of this two-volume system similarly reflects Ottati’s debts to both Calvin and Schleiermacher. His first volume, God the Creator, is to be followed by the second volume, God the Redeemer. The decision to arrange the presentation of doctrines according to this pattern intentionally calls to mind Calvin’s twofold knowledge of God as creator and redeemer in the final edition of his Institutes (1559), as well as Schleiermacher’s division of The Christian Faith into the antithesis of sin and grace and the presuppositions contained in this antithesis (creation and providence). One of the rewards awaiting readers of this book is the constant engagement with many other Reformed theologians who sought to explain how God can be both good and all-powerful. Ottati departs from some of the well-worn answers given by his predecessors and proposes innovative alternatives of his own. This respectful yet critical posture toward his theological ancestors exemplifies the spirit of continual reformation that has been at the heart of Reformed theology’s self-understanding from the outset, at least in its best moments.
Another remarkable feature of Ottati’s book is its amazing breadth. He engages theologians from other Christian traditions as well as representatives of other schools of modern and contemporary theology. One wonders if there is any book in theology Ottati has not read and thoroughly digested. He always appears capable of learning something of value from these other theologians, even if in some respects he feels compelled to dissent from them at crucial junctures; happily, he strives to be fair in his depictions of viewpoints that he does not endorse, and his criticisms are always couched in an irenic manner. His book reads like a vigorous conversation in the dialogical sense advocated by David Tracy, focused on the questions and the subject-matter for the sake of better mutual understanding of the issues at stake.
Ottati has helpfully outlined his book with propositions easily identified by bold type. This feature lends itself to classroom use by introductory students of theology. Undoubtedly, this book would be an ideal text for a college or seminary course in theology, especially if supplemental readings were assigned by the many theologians with whom Ottati is engaged in discussion and debate. The eminently readable style of his prose shows his determination to write a book that can actually be used with profit by academics and non-academics alike.
Finally, this outstanding book issues a challenge not only to those aligned with other ways of thinking theologically but also to liberal Protestants who have neglected the serious business of hard theological thinking in recent decades.