Abstract
Norway-based systematic theologian Jan-Olav Henriksen has contributed a substantial volume from a hermeneutical and systematic theological perspective in response to the ongoing modern tension between science and faith. Henriksen holds that spiritual experience and the language of revelation and grace are a part of the evolutionary epic of life on earth. Reality is thus not easily divided into separate realms of the natural and supernatural. God is a “symbol” of the presence in all of those aspects of reality that promote life, love, and hope in the world. Perichoresis extends outward from being a movement within the trinitarian persons to encompass human experience in the world. Thus, Henriksen can affirm concepts such as “deep incarnation,” and he agrees with Pannenberg’s deference to the cultural history of religion in deciphering God’s revelation and with Tillich’s ontological reading of God’s love.
Henriksen has written a deceptively sophisticated treatise that successfully threads together insights from a wide variety of contemporary theological and philosophical sources, with somewhat less attention given to the sciences. Those seeking a doctrinal or apologetically oriented work will have reservations regarding this book. However, those seeking a careful survey of contemporary theological anthropology and hermeneutical philosophy will be rewarded with careful interactions with leading thinkers in several fields. For those attuned to debates over the status of religious experience, theories of symbol, revelation, and the challenge of postmodernism to straightforward theologies of creation, this volume will count as a welcome addition to the literature.
Henriksen covers an enormous amount of theological ground, including a fair amount of biblical material, most of which pertains to anthropology. Among the perennial themes dealt with are: God and freedom, sacrifice, the imago Dei, revelation, the presence of evil, sexuality, morality, religious experience, Spirit, and the Trinity. Among the more incisive discussions are Henriksen’s engagement with Caputo’s “Weak God,” Coakley’s interfacing rationality with sacrifice in an evolutionary perspective, and Ricoeur’s claim that explanations take place within the process of understanding.
There are some drawbacks. This book could have been shorter by as much as a quarter, owing to unnecessary extended descriptions and redescriptions. Paradoxically, it could have grown longer in an exciting way had Henriksen spent more time with the mystics and the philosophers of religious experience such as Phillips, Dupré, or some of the classic writers such as Teresa or Francis (of Assisi). He conflates religious experience with forms of general experience despite his specification of a distinct “spiritual realm.” Plausibly, he bases his view of experience on Schleiermacher’s vague notion of “absolute dependence,” but he goes beyond it. However, given what we know about the rather cognitively specific history of mysticism, more could have been expected, and the limits of Henriksen’s treatment of various topics being restricted (more or less) to contemporary scholarship shows up here most of all.
The idea of “God as symbol” is also fraught. As symbolic of life, hope, and love, one wonders whether this is not a circular argument. Symbols refer, but God is the ultimate referent. Ultimately, God will have to be conceived as one or the other. I think many readers will also wonder about the cursory treatment devoted to sin. The briefest allusion to atonement theory needs expanding as would a proper engagement with the Augustinian tradition, which is left to one side, despite the fact that the status of desire and human nature are front and center in Augustine’s disputes with Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum. Perhaps the most troublesome aspect of this otherwise excellent book is the lack of dialectic. Critiques are mild at best, such as the critique regarding the lack of distinction between nature and creation in Tillich (327). One might expect a bit more firmness in the taking of positions held. Also, the typescript is excellent with only one error discovered in the bibliography.
One would be hard pressed to find a more nuanced and creative interpretation of various contemporary, Western theological approaches toward science. Many popular treatments give theology short shrift, but thankfully, despite my reservations, Henriksen has mapped out another route.