Charles Davis

The reconvergence of theology and religious studies

In his Autobiography Bertrand Russell describes how Wittgenstein used to come to his room at Cambridge and pace up and down for hours in agitated silence. Russell tells us: ’Once I said to him: &dquo;Are you thinking about logic or about your sins?&dquo; &dquo;Both,&dquo; he replied, and continued his pacing.’1 Theology’s concern with sin and the preoccupation of the science of religion with method, rationality, and logic are not so different as some suppose. More seriously, I want to argue here that insistence upon the distinction between theology and religious studies has served its purpose. It is now outdated. The chief reason for the insistence was institutional, namely the need to make clear to academia on the one hand and the church on the other that the study of religion in the universities was independent of external ecclesiastical control and governed by internal intellectual criteria. Apart from anachronistic survivals and pockets of prejudice, the point has now been

Death and the sense of ending

Charles Davis is Professor in the Department of Religion and Principal of Lonergan University College at Concordia University in Montreal. This essay is exploratory. I do not begin with a set of clear conclusions to be expounded and defended. As the title will suggest to many, my starting-point is the justly famous book of Frank Kermode, The Sense of an E?M~MgB~ The book for me brought together two interests. For some years I have been teaching a course on death and dying and, more irregularly,

The immanence of knowledge and the ecstasy of faith

Charles Davis is Professor in the Department of Religion of Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec. The problems raised by the cognitive handling of religious faith and the data it generates, and by the ascertainment of the truth or falsity of propositions with religious content, are complex. Moreover, the problems and the solutions offered have varied in the course of time. Human knowledge is subject to historical change both in its methods and in its achievements. Religious faith has been embodied in a variety of historical forms. To offer

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: L'Institution de la théologie: Essai sur la situation du théologien Fernand Dumont Heritage et projet, 38 Montréal: Fides, 1987. 266 p

technological mastery but in the mystery of the other, both human and divine. Laporte’s splendid study deserves to be widely read. It is a major contribution to contemporary theological reflection, one that is firmly yet creatively rooted in the tradition while at the same time able to enter into constructive dialogue with contemporary social and psychological thought. The book is not always easy reading, but it is continually rewarding. It is highly recommended for the graduate level. Laporte’s work reveals an imaginative and synthetic mind that is persuaded of the continuing relevance of the theological tradition for the analysis of contemporary life-and for its transformation.

Against the Protestant Gnostics Philip J. Lee New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. xviii + 347 p

ever, as a discrepancy between the title of the final chapter in the table of contents and the final chapter itself unintentionally reveals (&dquo;Popularizing Evangelical Orthodoxy,&dquo; p. vi, and &dquo;Popularizing Conservative Evangelicalism,&dquo; p. 137), Orr’s call for continuity was marginalized as a partisan &dquo;conservative evangelicalism.&dquo; This is an important study for understanding the development of Scottish evangelical orthodoxy, a development which is not without significance for Canadian Protestant theology in this century.

The Desires of the Human Heart: An Introduction to the Theology of Bernard Lonergan Vernon Gregson, editor Mahwah, rrJ: Paulist Press, 1988. xiv + 309 p

Pospielovsky, who teaches history at the University of Western Ontario, completes, with this book, a three-volume History o, f Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice, and the Believer. This work is a useful introduction to the way religion has been studied in the Soviet Union. It also gives an interesting account of the various directions religion is moving in that country at the moment. Pospielovsky provides a short survey of Soviet scholarship on, among other things, the history of Christianity, the disputes over the question of the historicity of Christ and the history of the Russian Church. By making use of both official and samizdat material he presents an interesting survey of religion and spirituality in Russian philosophy and literature. He examines the links between Russian Orthodoxy and the rise of Russian nationalism and surveys both state sponsored and believers’ accounts of the extent of religious practice in the country. Readers of this journal may find the neologisms and archaisms Pospielovsky uses to describe religious phenomena disconcerting, and one wonders how it is that a reputable publisher would allow so many typographical errors to remain in the book.

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: "Flesh" as Transformation Symbol in the Theology of Anselm of Canterbury: Historical and Transpersonal Perspectives James Gollnick Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986. 238 p

generalement ces thi!mes: une approche trop limitee aux dimensions specifiques du probleme, trop timide dans le maniement de categories et de concepts empruntes a la sociologie des religions, a I’anthropologie et aux autres sciences humaines. 11 semblerait que, dans 1’6tude historique du miracle, une plus grande familiarite avec t’analyse psychosociale de phenomenes actuels comparables («healingfaith», groupes charismatiques, thaumaturgies syncrétiques dans les pays en voie de developpement) pourrait donner a l’historien des outils interpr6tatifs fort precieux. Mais j’exprime par IA le souhait d’une approche interdisciplinaire qui sera peut-etre le lot des prochaines generations d’historiens. Cela n’enlève rien a la valeur de la synthese remarquable qui nous est offerte dans ce livre.

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Religion and Society in Transition: The Church and Social Change in England, 1560-1850 Ernest E. Best Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983. Pp. xiv + 338

new clarity’ as Luther ’explicitly rejects’ the nominalist views that attributed any positive role to human natural powers (22). According to Janz it is by 1517 that Luther became convinced that all scholastics, including Thomas, share the error of the nominalists. Luther’s misreading of Thomas’ position was due to his reliance on the erroneous interpretation provided by Gabriel Biel, the nominalist (57). At the same time Luther was also off the mark

Lonergan Workshop. Vol. 3 Fred Lawrence, editor Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982. Pp. viii + 199

By a quirk of publishing, the papers collected here from the summer workshops at Boston College are prior to those collected in volume one. The result is that two of the eight papers, those by David Tracy and Robert Doran, have been clearly rendered obsolete by books published by their authors, and the other papers do not represent their authors’ latest work. Nevertheless, although I would not use the editor’s adjective, ’seminal,’ of the contributions, I was still glad to have the volume, particularly for Quentin Quesnell’s ’The Foundations of Heresy,’ for Fred Lawrence’s ’The Modern Philosophic Differentiation of Consciousness, or, What is the Enlightenment?,’ and for Matthew Lamb’s ’Methodology, Metascience and Political Theology.’ Judging by the quality of the present volume, I regret that the publication of papers from the Boston workshops has been so irregular and incomplete.

Solidarity with Victims: Toward a Theology of Social Transformation Matthew L. Lamb New York: Crossroad, 1982. Pp. xvi + 158

A collection of five essays, two of which have already appeared in print, form together an attempt ’to discern the outlines of a practice of reason and of religion in a self-critical solidarity with the victims of history’ (1). Political and liberation theologies are in fact the mediation to reason of the commitments of agapic love. This does not imply any lack of theoretical rigour. The world of our experience is a world bearing the deep imprint of many systems and theories, and hence social action to be effective demands the noetic practice of theorizing. This book ascends to a very high level of theory, rendered more rarified than need be by a profusion of Germanic concepts and idioms. The view attained, however, is well worth the climb.