Abstract
Brian Davies and Paul Kucharski (eds),
The McCabe Reader
(London: Bloomsbury, 2016); 369 pp.: 978056768882, £21.99/$29.95 (pbk); 9780567668899, £85.00/$114.00 (hbk)
The Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe died in 2001 but his work is still treasured, for good reason, by many British and Irish Catholic theologians such as Fergus Kerr, Denys Turner and James Mackey, as well as by intellectuals such as Terry Eagleton, Anthony Kenny and Alasdair MacIntyre – a formidable list. He was an expert on Aquinas and Wittgenstein but could write more accessibly than either of them and with some of the biting wit that characterizes MacIntyre and especially Eagleton. The McCabe Reader is a pleasure to read. He wrote only four books in his lifetime but many papers (some published but many not). The two editors have done an excellent job of selecting and introducing some of the finest. Here McCabe ranges over metaphysics (he championed the cosmological argument, which even the agnostic Kenny deemed to be ‘rational’ but not finally persuasive), meta-ethics and especially (like MacIntyre) virtue ethics, and, in addition, pastoral theology (the collection contains several of his sermons and deep reflections upon prayer and death). At a personal level he could be extremely difficult, not helped, as the editors hint, by alcoholism. But he wrote like an angel, albeit finally a very traditionalist pre-Vatican II angel.
Patricia C. Bellm and Robert A. Krieg (eds),
Cardinal Walter Kasper: Spiritual Writings
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2016); 173 pp.: 9781626981911, $22.00 (pbk)
Cardinal Walter Kasper was until his retirement in 2010 a highly significant figure in ecumenical dialogues between Christian denominations as well as between Jews and Christians. Now in his eighties, this book helpfully sketches his life and then selects short passages from his various writings. His childhood in Germany under Nazi rule and its aftermath clearly shaped his ecumenism, moving him from a world of traditional and largely unchallenged Catholicism to a growing post-war awareness of other Christian denominations and of the horrifying reality of the Holocaust. This comes out well in this collection, but the examples of his writings given in it have little of the depth or brilliance of Herbert McCabe. Taught by Karl Rahner and inspired by Vatican II and seeing himself as a ‘radical’, he nonetheless holds a very traditional view of the pope as God’s gift to ecumenism and a strongly pro-life perspective – ‘the protection of human life from conception to natural death’ (p. 153) – that he believes is shared by both Jews and Christians.
Leslie Williams,
Emblem of Faith Untouched: A Short Life of Thomas Cranmer
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016); 200 pp.: 9780802874184, $18.00/£12.99 (pbk)
This short life of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer does not pretend to be a work of independent scholarship and admits at the outset that it is highly dependent upon Diarmaid MacCulloch’s acclaimed 1996 Thomas Cranmer. Written by an Episcopalian English teacher and novelist, it is, though, easy and enjoyable to read.
Eric Austin Lee and Samuel Kibriel (eds),
The Resounding Soul: Reflections on the Metaphysics and Vivacity of the Human Person
(Cambridge: James Clarke, 2016); 405 pp.: 9780227175989, £27.50/$55.00 (pbk)
Eighteen wide-ranging papers reflecting upon, and largely defending, some notion of the ‘soul’. These papers were first given at a conference sponsored by Nottingham University’s Centre of Theology and Philosophy and most are by younger scholars. They generally share a dislike of both Descartes’ body–soul dualism and Francis Crick’s materialist reductionism (‘we are just a bunch of neurons’) as do most other theologians today, but they do not reach a common understanding of what exactly the ‘soul’ is or why it is still important. The veteran Mary Midgley gives a characteristically robust dismissal of trends within philosophy, concluding with a brief defence of the notion of Gaia. John Milbank, again characteristically, argues that only a concept of the soul can make sense of the mind. Others are less strident. The book as a whole might have benefited from more internal debate and sharper editorial control, but it is not without merit.
Thomas M. Crisp, Steven L. Porter and Gregg A. Ten Elshof (eds),
Neuroscience and the Soul: The Human Person in Philosophy, Science and Theology
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 286 pp.: 9780802874504, $38.00/£19.99 (pbk)
Another interesting collection also concerned in part with the soul, although this one is variously interested in body–mind and body–soul issues in philosophy and theology (despite the title there is no contribution from a neuroscientist). Philosophers predominate, most from evangelical colleges such as Biola, Fuller, Calvin and Messiah, together with three theologians. All are based in the United States apart from the Oxford veteran Richard Swinburne. A pleasing feature of this collection is that a leading paper often has a critical respondent and then a rejoinder from the leader. This gives it considerable coherence, especially in the complex and polarized area of philosophical theories of mind. Swinburne writes characteristically on ‘the impossibility of proving that human behavior is determined’ and the theologian John Cooper outlines well the hermeneutical difficulties facing theologians (trying valiantly to give a unified account of biblical eschatology) and philosophers alike.
Susan J. Wendel and David M. Miller (eds),
Torah Ethics and Early Christian Identity
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016); 271 pp.: 9780802873194, £23.99/$35.00 (pbk)
This collection, like the previous one, also has a sharp editorial control, focusing very specifically upon early Christian appropriations of Mosaic law – the Torah – and asking: ‘(1) How did the Mosaic law continue to influence early Christian believers’ understanding of the will of God? (2) To what extent did Torah provide the basis for guiding the ethical responsibilities of Christ-believing communities, and how were such values integrated with the teachings and work of Jesus? (3) How might presentations of the Mosaic law in early Christian literature inform contemporary Christian ethical practices?’ (p. 2). An initial chapter by Anders Runesson sets these themes into context by showing just how diverse local synagogues were at the time of Jesus. Chapters that follow look variously at: Philo and Josephus, Matthew, Mark, Acts, John, James, Paul, Justin Martyr and Clement. Altogether well focused.
Daniel M. Gurtner, Grant Macaskill amd Jonathan T. Pennington (eds),
In the Fullness of Time: Essays on Christology, Creation and Eschatology in Honor of Richard Bauckham
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016); 274 pp.: 9780802873378, $60.00/£42.99 (hbk)
A very distinguished line-up of theologians and biblical scholars who generally do try to relate their essays to the work of Richard Bauckham, now Emeritus Professor of New Testament Studies at St Andrews. Bauckham has written much about Moltmann’s theology and Moltmann returns the compliment by writing an affectionate first essay (arguing for ‘the Resurrection of Life’ rather than ‘the Resurrection of the Body/Dead’). I particularly enjoyed Jeremy Begbie on theology, time and Bach, David Brown on theology and ecology, and, most strikingly, James Dunn on ‘Christianity without Paul’. But there are also distinguished contributions from others, including Tom Wright, Philip Esler, Philip Alexander and Larry Hurtado. A book for the library.
John Stubbs,
Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel
(London: Penguin, 2016); 739 pp.: 9780670922055, £25.00 (hbk)
This large book offers a very sympathetic account of Dean Jonathan Swift as he struggled with being at once an Anglican priest and a political satirist and author of the fabulous Gulliver’s Travels. Swift is painted here as a person of many contradictions – about his sexuality, about his politics, about his Irish-ness and about his relationship with monarchy. Stubbs thinks he was somewhere on the autistic scale and that this caused him at times to be deeply insensitive to those around him. Yet, so Stubbs argues, he was an assiduous Dean of Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral and much loved by many working people in Ireland. I started to read this book with great interest, but soon found Stubbs’s constant digressions tiresome. It took some effort actually to start enjoying reading it (by skimming the digressions). Yet it was worth the effort. Finally, I did thoroughly enjoy this holiday read (I doubt if this is a book for Swiftian scholars) while still longing that Stubbs too had had a firmer editor. Surely Jonathan Swift is one of the quirkiest and most fascinating clerics that the Anglican Church has ever produced.