Ruth Page

Theology and the Ecological Crisis

three-year degree. It is an intensely exciting and interesting subject. Theology is in many ways a general education. A theologian will need to develop the skills of a literary critic, a historian and a philosopher. Some theologians will need to be expert in languages, others in anthropology, sociology and psychology. A theologian needs to have a sense of history as well as an awareness of what is going on in our contemporary world, and an understanding of the implications of the natural sciences as they affect our overall understanding. From a Christian perspective a theologian should ideally be sensitive to the things of the spirit and a participant in the life of the Church. But theology in the university must not be confined to the committed Christian only. It is also a challenging discipline in its own right and can and is pursued successfully by people without any personal background in, or commitment to, Christianity. What the seekers search for is to understand the phenomenon of Christianity, and to consider what it might or might not offer to their own personal quest.

The Consistent Christology of Paul Tillich

Tillich claimed often and vehemently that the risk of faith in Jesus as the Christ ‘lies in quite a different dimension from the risk of accepting uncertain historical facts’. 1 The ultimate concern expressed in and through Christology is free from the contingencies of history and the consequent possibility of falsification. Yet many critics have accused Tillich of making covert historical assumptions in an inconsistent manner, thus failing in practice to make good his claims. I wish to defend Tillich on his own systematic grounds from such criticism, but also finally to raise the question whether his grounds are tenable.

Book Reviews : To Honour James Torrance:

knower, the known and the knowing. The knower, for example, is no longer a looker but a doer; what is known is not a picture but an activity with real causality; and knowing consists not in establishing laws but in building models which are always provisional. The ’tacit understanding’ of the knower provides a key to the nature of faith, what is known illuminates questions about a transcendent cause which science cannot answer, and the knowing is a quest which cannot exclude questions about God’s meaning. But God is not a separate reality and, granted the ’seamless unity of the world,’ transcendence is difficult to express. Is God related to the universe, Thompson asks, as a game to the pieces, a body to its parts, music to the notes? Is he experienced in and through Samuel Beckett’s delight in the dance of words and thoughts or Edwin Muir’s memory of Giotto’s dream? GRAHAM SLATER

Book Reviews : Moltman Explained

The handbook edited by A. G. Martimort, The Church at Prayer, was originally published in 1961. The liturgical breakthrough at Vatican II and the thoroughgoing revision of rites that has followed it has made a completely fresh edition necessary; Vol III: The Sacraments (trans. Matthew J. Connell, Geoffrey Chapman [1988], £15.00, pp. 331, ISBN 0-225-664275) is the last of its four volumes to appear in English translation. Those previously unfamiliar with the work should note that a previous volume has already been devoted to the Eucharist; this one is therefore concerned with Christian Initiation, Penance and Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Ordination, Marriage, and, outside its own strict definition of sacraments, ’Christian Death’ (a valuable chapter embracing both ministry to the dying and funeral rites), ’Processions, Pilgrimages and Popular Religion’, Blessings, and Monastic and Religious Profession. (It will surprise some that the latter is essentially concerned with rnale religious, the rites for women now extended to include celibate women not

Book Reviews : History of Theology

despite the originality and depth of his philosophical thought. The reason doubtless is that those who would find his work of interest do not, as a rule, read Italian with ease. The present book, The Five Wounds of the Church (Fowler Wright Books [1987], £8.95, pp. xii + 257, ISBN 0-85244-113-4) is a translation by Denis Cleary of Delle cinque piaghe della Santa Chiesa, published (though written many years earlier) in 1850, and is the first in a proposed series of translations of Rosmini’s writings. The author’s message is a plea for reform. The ’wounds’ in question are the merely passive role of the laity in public worship, the poor educational standard of the clergy, the isolation of the bishops, both from their parish priests and from one another they rarely met in synod -, the nomination of bishops by the state, and the enslavement of the church by its own wealth. The book’s interest is now largely historical, but it is remarkable in view of the circumstances of its time Italy in the 1830s. Publication of Rosmini’s notable philosophical treatise, ’The Origin of Thought’ the next title due out will be welcome.

Book Reviews : Enlarged Theology

’definitive’ or ‘central’ only raises more problems; how can anyone say with such finality in such a diverse and changeable world what is’central’? Complexity seems to undermine the possibility of discussing complexity. It is the great merit of Ruth Page’s Ambiguity and the Presence of God (SCM Press [ 1985], £10.95, pp. viii + 230, ISBN 0-334-00022-X) that it gives complexity or ’the perception of ambiguity’ as she calls it its own importance, and squarely faces the endless issues associated with it, both as a feature of experience and knowledge and in its religious implications for theology. She claims that ordinary experience and religious beliefs ’have to make sense together if Christianity is to be a lived faith’. Correspondingly, she gives her own ’likely story’ of experience of the world and the reasons for its ambiguity, and faces the difficulties this presents for knowledge and truth, and only then reconstructs a viable position for Christian faith involving belief in God as absolute and relative, a companion in ambiguity. Within her particular genre of theological writing, which takes theology (and indeed all knowledge) to be concerned with experience, interpretation and judgment, she makes a significant contribution.