Review of The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis by Mark K. Spencer

Spencer, Mark K. The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. 448 pages. $34.95.

The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis is a rich philosophical exploration of the foundations for a theological anthropology. Mark K. Spencer covers tremendous ground that provides a unique contribution to the literature in the philosophy of theological anthropology—closely aligned with theological anthropology proper. Spencer’s treatment of the human person is less like a well-prepared steak and more like a buffet, but a themed buffet where the master chef has carefully chosen all the dishes, arranged them, and done so in a way that each mutually inform one another providing the palette with a variety of related dishes that make one both full and artfully satisfied. Let me explain what I mean by this by highlighting some of the features of The Irreducibility of the Human Person.

Spencer contributes a novel reflection on the human person, but unlike most treatments that are largely coming from this or that tradition he blends the worlds of philosophical discourse in a harmonious way. It is analytic in that it prizes clarity, logical rigor, conceptual clarification, and drawing from the tools of the analytic philosophical tradition. His treatment surpasses, in some ways, the analytic tendency to prepare and cook a high-quality steak that is not only well-seasoned but craftily cooked with precision. Instead, Spencer’s treatment of the person is far more synthetic, holistic, and historically sensitive with a bit of fat. Good fat, as many recent dietitians will attest, is a necessary part of a healthy well-rounded diet and it can be quite savory. So, in this way it is as the Thomist would define it aimed at the good, but also pleasurable. While this sensibility and set of skills is reflected in Spencer and often reflected in treatments outside the analytic literature, this is not to say that no analytic philosophers of religion and theologians are concerned with a more well-rounded diet that prizes synthesis, systematics, history and the like. One such fine example leaning in this direction that stands out amongst the analytic religious literature is the recent T&T Clark Handbook to Analytic Theology. But, as most honest philosophers and theologians will attest, it is actually quite difficult to demarcate between the analytic and continental traditions. There are varying characteristics that, one might argue, are artfully displayed in each of the respective traditions. Spencer, however, not only courageously defies these categorical demarcations, he positively brings them together in this fine volume. He reminds me of the rare exception to the analytic tradition emulated in the likes of the great Stephen Priest who, like the master chef, is able to carefully prepare not just one dish (that would be good all on its own) but multiple dishes that are arrayed in such a fashion as to enhance the individual dishes as a complete meal.

Spencer is likened to the master chef of the buffet in another way. By working in the Thomist tradition, he contributes to the recent set of philosophical foundations for theology literature. Notable examples of this recent and growing literature include J. T. Turner’s On the Resurrection of the Dead, Edward Feser’s Aquinas, along with the philosophy and theology adjacent treatments from Jeffrey’s Brower’s Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World, and J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae’s excellent broad treatment of Aquinas in Body and Soul with insights from science as exemplified in Matthew Owen’s fine treatment Measuring the Immeasurable Mind. Turner’s being the most notably theological of the bunch. There are other worthy Thomist works deserving a mention from the likes of Robert Koons on the analytic side and Adam Cooper on the more continental and theological side of the aisle. Of course, Spencer’s exploration differs from these not in his analytic sensibilities but in his desire to capture something often missing in the analytic Thomist treatments—namely that which is, arguably, uncapturable by analytic propositions and minimized in most Thomist accounts, the irreducible nature of each person. The fundamental uniqueness of persons is often an insight from modern philosophers of which earlier Thomist’s were simply not concerned. So, on the other side, Spencer reminds me of other Thomist treatments found in the existential Thomists and the phenomenologists. He is arguably the philosophical parallel to the Thomist theologian Matthew Levering for his insightful engagement across traditions and his breadth of Thomist knowledge.

But, there is another way in which The Irreducibility of the Human Person is likened to the master chef of a grand and beautiful buffet. Spencer displays a knowledge of the Thomist literature across the Roman Catholic theological tradition. In this way, his buffet is not only thematic and focused, but, as anyone familiar with the Roman Thomist literature, it is vast. Naturally, Spencer could have engaged with a wider set of literature in Thomism and in the Reformed traditions, but, in this way, his aims are clear. And, he capably brings a synthesis across the Catholic Thomist literature while seasoning these accounts with the insights from the phenomenologists.

While space is short, I am unable to explore and analyze all the themes and contributions found therein. Spencer covers a broad range of topics from metaphysics, to phenomenology, and finally theology.

With all that has been said of a positive nature, there are some criticisms that might hinder those dining at Spencer’s table. The palette required to taste all the variant flavors is quite extensive, generally speaking, which will make it difficult to taste all the variant flavors. However, more specifically, one of the aims of Spencer is to show why Thomist hylomorphic dualism is superior to both substance dualism and idealism. He attempts to do this by extrapolating the virtues of Thomism. While giving a nod to Descartes’ valuable contribution that we are not simply souls but unique souls not explainable by metaphysical complexity, Spencer seems to think Thomistic phenomenology can provide an accounting without being compromised by Thomas’s matter-form composite metaphysics. I’ll leave the reader to decide whether he is successful on this point—I am not so confident. The related problem of what has been called ‘Thomist survivalism’ in the disembodied discussions, too, remains complex and will, undoubtedly, be controversial (see specifically pp. 316-325).

Often simultaneously giving a nod to Cartesianism, Spencer also gives a nod to idealism as having numerous resources to account for the human person. But, according to Spencer idealism suffers from an insufficient account of the material body of which Thomism is superior. Carefully pointing out the tendency amongst some toward materialist emergentism, he states: That we can predict what someone is thinking about based on neural activity (or other bodily signs) merely shows that intellect and sense are connected, but it does not show the nature of that connection. Features of intellect already considered show that it first raises sense to share its mode of being, rather than (as emergentism has it) being caused by sense in a “bottom-up” way, so much for materialism or its cousin-emergentism (see p. 79, p. 102 fn. 86, p. 256). As far as it goes, most dualists and idealists agree. But Spencer argues that idealism reduces individual persons to concepts to be grasped, which undermines irreducibility. This is a fascinating line of objection to idealists and one that is not without some warrant—although I am sure there are viable responses. Something like a Berkeleyan idealism would not fall prey to this objection because all ideas are communicated by one mind—the Divine mind. Created minds are rather originary ideas in the mind of God but published as it were as substances with powers in their own right and by themselves (one way of articulating the independence criterion of substance). So, Berkeley’s idealism is not obviously susceptible to this objection. Neither is a kind of Cartesian substance dualism. But, Spencer does have an objection to Descartes as well.

He objects that Descartes and his progeny are susceptible to the ‘interaction’ problem. His solution is that a more robust account of matter where souls are not only intellect that transcend materiality but also serve as the informing principle for matter, thus making this matter and not that matter. He argues that an ‘experientially motivated hylomorphic distinction between two kinds of contact’: one that is spatial and the other that permits actuality and potentiality to connect (p. 170). Apart from two common responses: (1) simple dualists posit a singular relation, and (2) that the interaction problem is an overrated objection, there may be more to say in favor of either dualism or idealism that posits a sufficiently rich account of contact between the two substances or sets of properties. Both dualists and idealists, are, of course, able to draw from versions of Divine occasionalism that permit a robust exchange between matter and soul that is rooted in Divine intentionality. In a similar way, Descartes’s interpreters like Suarez have moved in a parallelism direction that permits a two-way exchange of information that is originally designed by God. There is also likely a hybrid view of these two views that is suggested by Descartes and one that leans hylomorphic without buying wholesale into Aristotelian metaphysics. Some interpreters are happy to call Descartes’ mind-body view hylomorphism, but this is probably a bit mis-leading. He certainly affirms that the mind is present at each part of the body intellectually, yet not spatially. He readily affirms that the mind has a unique relation to the body and gives intellectual sense to it. Additionally, he has a complicated view that the body sends-representation information to the mind that is translated into ideas by the mind yet he does so without the mysterious distinction found in Aristotle. Causally, the body can send signs to the mind as a trigger that God designs to receive information about the world. In other words, the movements of the body become ‘occasions’ for the mind that are triggered by the body and parallel the body in those instances. With that sketch in mind, it’s important to point out that it is not clear that a Thomist hylomorphic ontology is necessary to explain the world and our relation to it as irreducible creatures.

While The Irreducibility of the Human Person is a masterful treatment of numerous subjects, at times the reader will feel as if Spencer is drawing from a number of resources that arbitrarily thicken up his Thomism, but it is not always clear that the same couldn’t be done by the Christian idealist (of the Berkeleyan variety) or the Christian Cartesian. Nonetheless, Spencer’s The Irreducibility of the Human Person deserves re-visiting as it brings together several distinct plates that beautifully complement one another for the refined palette. It would not serve the introductory student to Aquinas, but it would be a useful text in an advanced undergraduate or graduate course on Thomism and the philosophy of theological anthropology.

Joshua R. Farris

Humboldt Experienced Scholar Fellow, Ruhr Universität Bochum

Review of What about Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory by Scott Christensen

Christensen, Scott. What about Evil? A Defense of God’s Sovereign Glory. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2020, pp. 544, $30, hardback.

Scott Christensen, is the author of the highly acclaimed What about Free Will?, foreword by D.A. Carson (P&R, 2016). Scott worked for nine years at the award-winning CCY Architects in Aspen, Colorado; several of his home designs were featured in Architectural Digest magazine. Called out of this work to the ministry, he graduated with his MDiv from The Masters Seminary with honors. He pastored Summit Lake Community Church in southwest Colorado for sixteen years and now serves as the associate pastor of Kerrville Bible Church in Kerrville, Texas.

What About Evil?, by Scott Christensen, is a theologically rich resource that provides a defense of God’s sovereign glory and a reason for why God allows evil in the world. In seeking to answer the problem of evil, Christensen provides a robust solution that he calls the Greater-Glory Theodicy. In combining aspects of the Greater-Good Theodicy and fragments of the Best-of-All Possible Worlds Defense, the Greater-Glory Theodicy seeks to resolve the problem of evil in the backdrop of studying what brings God the greatest glory (p. 7). Christensen argues that Jesus’ redemptive work on Calvary is the work that most magnifies God’s glory, therefore, for Christ’s work to be necessary, there must be a good world that has been ruined by evil and calls out for restoration (p. 7).

In his introduction, Christensen takes a reformed perspective in arguing that the fall of humanity was no mistake but was planned by God to bring about the greater good of redemption (pg. 8). Christensen begins to exposit his thesis in the first section (chapters 2 – 6) by examining how the historical record has sought to answer the problem of evil. He demonstrates why past defenses and theodicies have lacked certain qualities that downplay God’s sovereignty, aseity, and omnipotence, specifically critiquing the Free-Will Defense. He then shifts in the second section (chapters 7 – 9) to extoling God’s meticulous sovereignty and power as the transcendent God of the universe and addresses some issues of how one understands the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. The heart of the book can be found in the third section (ch. 10-13) where he frames the Greater-Glory Theodicy in a monomyth narrative and provides a biblical defense for his theodicy. Christensen concludes the last section (chapters 14 – 17) by describing Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross and the importance of his incarnation to be the perfect substitute to accomplish God’s cosmic plan of salvation.

Probing more into Christensen’s thesis, that the greatest good is what will bring God the greatest glory (p. 281), he provides numerous examples from scripture that strengthen his argument. Psalm 115:3 and Romans 11:36 proclaim that God is free to create the world in any way He desires, and He specifically chooses to create the world for his glory and pleasure (p. 286). Christensen says, “Everything-absolutely everything Christ made-is ‘for him,’ to magnify his glory (Col. 1:16; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb 2:10, p. 289).” Christensen’s God-Centered Theodicy exemplifies the specific need for people to know they are not the center of the universe and that God’s ultimate purpose is not to make man materialistically happy, but to glorify himself (p. 292). Ironically, this God-Centeredness is the vehicle that provides man with ultimate satisfaction and eternal happiness as Christensen concludes that God’s glory is our good for it is God’s desire to glorify himself that leads to him constructing and bringing about his plan of the redemption of his people through the blood of Jesus (pg. 294).

One inimitable aspect of Christensen’s argument is the use of describing God’s story of redemption as a monomyth. Building on J.R.R. Tolkien’s dialogue with C.S. Lewis decades before, Christensen says that the fundamental storyline of the Bible is how God’s glory is magnified in his response to evil through the sending of a redeemer, his beloved Son, Jesus Christ (p. 260). Christensen uses Freytag’s Pyramid that distinguishes the different plot points of a story to map out how the “One True Story” of the Bible falls nicely into Freytag’s five categories. In contrast to traditional stories of monomyth, the Biblical storyline does not follow a u-shaped storyline (where the blissful state at the beginning is ruined by a tragedy, only to be restored to its original paradisical state in the conclusion), but instead follows what Christensen calls a “J-shaped storyline” (pg. 285). This J-shaped storyline demonstrates that the conclusion of redemption in Christ and his work of overcoming the crisis of the fall is greater and more glorious than the original state of paradise at creation. The J-shaped storyline further buttresses Christensen’s Theodicy that the Fall and evil were “fortunate” to bring about an exceedingly greater good for mankind. In this acknowledgement, Christensen aligns himself Alvin Plantinga, who also argues for a theodicy utilizing the felix culpa motif. However, different from Christensen, Plantinga champions a free-will defense even though supralapsarianism (which is associated with a felix culpa theodicy) is traditionally more aligned and coherent with a reformed Calvinist perspective of theology (p. 299). Christensen claims that the reason for this incoherency with Plantinga may be due to him being raised as a Dutch Reformed Christian that held to a reformed view of the divine decrees (p. 300).

What About Evil?, is a book that adds tremendous value to the field of theology and apologetics for the theologian who is seeking to sharpen his or her knowledge of how to reconcile God’s divine sovereignty with human responsibility. Most readers will benefit specifically from Christensen’s critique of the commonly held Free-Will Defense. Christensen provides a charitable demonstration of the Free-Will Defense by listing its strengths and weaknesses but then demonstrates why it seems to fall short when examining the biblical data and storyline of Scripture in comparison to a compatibilist view of freedom; in both a compatibilism between divine decree and foreknowledge with human freedom.

Although not a key point in the book, readers will find the explanation of the necessity of Jesus’ incarnation to fully to accomplish the work of redemption for mankind’s good and God’s glory extremely helpful. Specifically, Christensen provides practical truth of how a Christian can cope with the problem of evil when he discusses the impassibility of God. Despite misconceptions about divine impassibility, Christensen communicates a high Christology making clear distinctions between God having affections but not having passions. By leaning on Scripture and the Reformers, Christensen demonstrates that Jesus in His divine nature did not suffer; but, in His humanity, he fully suffered and can sympathize with our weaknesses being our great High Priest (p. 378-389).

The audience most suited for this theological treatise would be a student, teacher, or pastor of higher education and/or training. The book is very steep in its doctrine and would be difficult to digest for the beginner in theology or average lay person of a church. As students interact with the book, they should specifically look for how Christensen methodically highlights the glory, grandeur, and transcendence of the Triune God in every chapter. Students should prepare for a rigorous dive into some difficult and heart wrenching questions about God, evil, and the Bible’s solution, being prepared to change one’s views if compelled.

Andrew Slay

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Review of Christ and Revelatory Community in Bonhoeffer’s Reception of Hegel by David S. Robinson

Robinson, David S. Christ and Revelatory Community in Bonhoeffer’s Reception of Hegel. Dogmatik in der Moderne 22. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018, pp. xv + 260, €69.00, paperback.

David Robinson was recently appointed as the R. Paul Stevens Assistant Professor of Marketplace Theology and Leadership at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. The text under review is based on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Edinburgh. In it, Robinson seeks to recast Bonhoeffer’s reception of Hegel in a highly nuanced manner that is ultimately more positive than most previous appraisals. Rather than “demolition,” “revolt,” or “confrontation,” Bonhoeffer’s reception is seen as aiming to “repair” aspects of Hegel in “eclectic and Christologically intent” ways (pp. 11-12). For Robinson, such “intent” is especially apparent in Bonhoeffer’s transposition of Hegel’s “revelatory” notion of “God existing as community” to that of “Christ existing as community”—a significant move since this latter phrase is often a shorthand for Bonhoeffer’s overall program (p. 16).

In comparison to earlier studies of the Bonhoeffer-Hegel question, Robinson’s approach differs in three ways (p. 17). First, whereas much of the previous scholarship placed inordinate attention upon Bonhoeffer’s second dissertation (Akt und Sein [1931]), Robinson’s approach is diachronic with regard to Bonhoeffer’s corpus (pp. 16-17). Second, Robinson seeks to more precisely account for Bonhoeffer’s and Hegel’s differing socio-political contexts rather than buying into to the “lingering insinuation that Hegel was a proto-apologist for the Third Reich” (pp. 17-18). Finally, each section begins with treatment of Hegel on Hegel’s own terms before moving to Bonhoeffer’s reception, avoiding conflation of Hegel “with the neo-Hegelianism of Bonhoeffer’s time” (p. 18). Robinson’s distinctive approach results in a weighty original study that deserves serious consideration by Bonhoeffer scholars. Others interested in an up-to-date, albeit advanced-level engagement with Bonhoeffer or Hegel will also find Robinson’s efforts pay great dividends.

The book unfolds in three parts. In part one, Robinson offers two instances in which Bonhoeffer’s unnuanced portrayal of “Idealism” as “self-confinement” has obscured how his thought is indebted to the “sociality of reason” in Hegel (p. 18). In this regard, chapter one traces how the “human sociality” correlated with Hegel’s “objective Geist” influences Bonhoeffer’s recovery of “Word before Geist” and “revelation in hiddenness,” and affects Bonhoeffer’s shift of subject from Hegel’s “God existing as community” to “Christ existing as community” as well as Bonhoeffer’s shifting of “ecclesial” action from Hegel’s reciprocal “confession” to “intercession” (pp. 26, 61). Chapter two then explores Bonhoeffer’s exposition of Genesis 1-3 in Creation and Fall (1932-33), revealing a dependence upon Hegel’s account of fallen humanity’s perpetually “cleaving” mind, i.e., “a drive for unity in the knowledge of good-evil that in turn divides the knowing subject” (p. 89). On this basis, Robinson observes that Bonhoeffer subverts Hegel’s supposed “knowledge” of “primal humanity as a volatile composite of nature and Geist” (p. 89). The ethical and political implications of this postlapsarian epistemological impossibility are hinted at, particularly through a contrasting of Hegel’s and Bonhoeffer’s respective usages of first-person pronouns and through comment upon Bonhoeffer’s employment of the Hegelian terms Aufhebung (noun) and aufheben (verb) in “critical response to Hegel” (pp. 89-90). Robinson’s treatment of the running debate over how Bonhoeffer’s usage of these terms should be rendered in English to consistently hold together the tension of their “negating,” “preserving,” and “elevating” senses, as opposed to the many instances in which translators have made unequivocal interpretive decisions for readers, is both thorough and convincing (pp. 59-61, 87-89, 121).

In part two, Robinson turns his attention to Bonhoeffer’s Christology lectures (1933). Chapter three argues that Bonhoeffer’s polemic against Hegel’s “docetic” distinguishing of “Idea” and “Appearance” serves as a foil in resourcing Bonhoeffer’s desire to begin with a united Christology rather than with abstract conceptualizations of the two natures (pp. 19, 124-25). While Robinson here covers whether Hegel should be suspected of “pantheism” (pp. 109-11), the anachronous but important question of Hegel’s relationship to what Karl Krause labeled as Hegel’s “panentheism” in 1828 could perhaps have been touched upon in a footnote, especially since many see “panentheism” as part of Hegel’s legacy for later theologies. That minor scruple aside, Robinson’s persuasive discussion surrounding Bonhoeffer’s Menschenlogos-Gegenlogos dialectic turns upon the divine-human Christ as the “counter-logos” (instead of earlier translations of Gegenlogos as “anti-Logos” or “against reason”), so as to establish “Christology as ‘the invisible, unrecognized, hidden centre of science [Wissenschaft]’” (pp. 117-19). Chapter four then discusses Christ’s “real presence,” not only with respect to the Eucharistic sacrament, but also Bonhoeffer’s view of the “disruptive” preached Word “as sacrament” (pp. 19-20, 152). As Robinson points out, Hegel emphasized the spirited community’s role in doctrinal transmission whereas Christ is “presence” rather than “doctrine” for Bonhoeffer (p. 20). Further, Hegel prioritized “the self-sufficient ‘Idea’” whereas Bonhoeffer stressed instead “the contingency of [the Word’s] ‘Address’” (p. 20).

Unlike most previous studies of Bonhoeffer’s reception of Hegel, part three moves the discussion into Bonhoeffer’s post-academic “confessing” period (p. 20). Through engagement with Discipleship (1937) and Ethics (early 1940s), Robinson pinpoints Bonhoeffer’s and Hegel’s differing political situations to show how Bonhoeffer’s “confessing” identity was formed in reaction to Hegel’s era of “deconfessionalisation” (p. 20). In view of differing interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter five traces Bonhoeffer’s diagnosis of Hegel’s “French revolutionary” Jesus as leading to a “docetic-Idealist ecclesiology” that eventually led to “state overreach” (p. 20). Bonhoeffer correctively posits “Jesus’ social teachings as the basis for a seminary community that could renew the distinction between church and state” (p. 192). Even so, Robinson argues that Bonhoeffer here was not truly anti-Hegel so much as he was against “a brutal, sub-rational Reich, the likes of which Hegel could not have foreseen” (p. 192). Chapter six then seeks to untangle Hegel’s “culturally prejudiced mind” with regard to Volk, race, and “world-history” towards a more nuanced reception that accounts for Hegel’s own criticisms of “nationalist expressions in his time,” including the notion that poor treatment of foreigners could cause the state to “forfeit its own principle” (p. 195). This is worth comparing to Bonhoeffer’s assessment of the Nationalist Socialist state’s “self-negation” due to its marginalizing of Jewish people (p. 195). A fascinating case study of W.E.B. Du Bois’s race-critical engagement with Hegel is offered as an alternative to the neo-Hegelianism that was contemporary to the Third Reich (pp. 199-202) before Robinson explores Bonhoeffer’s embracing of “an emerging global ecumenism” as well as “the difference between Bonhoeffer’s attempt to discern the ‘form of Christ’ in history and Hegel’s work to track the ‘shapes of Geist’” (p. 227). What ultimately emerges is Bonhoeffer’s “particular account of the whole [that] leads to a fuller reckoning with those on the ‘underside of history’, particularly diasporic peoples” (p. 227). Given all this, it is not difficult to see how the discussions featured in this third part can serve as a theological resource for contemporary dialogue surrounding matters of racial, multicultural, and religious diversity (pp. 236-37).

Overall, Robinson succeeds handsomely with regard to his sustained critical treatment of Bonhoeffer’s reception of Hegel. Renewed interest in both Bonhoeffer and Hegel in recent years makes the book timely, especially since publication of the critical edition of Bonhoeffer’s works in English was only finally completed in 2014.

Clement Yung Wen

China Evangelical Graduate School of Theology, Taiwan

Review of Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology

Gallaher, Brandon. Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp.318, £98, hardback.

Brandon Gallaher is senior lecturer at the University of Exeter, specializing in twentieth century Orthodox theology and modern theology more broadly. The breadth of Gallaher’s interests are on display in this fine monograph. Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology dialogues with three generative modern theologians each representing a distinct tradition: Sergei Bulgakov, Karl Barth, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The book is organized round a set of questions related to the form of modality applicable to God’s immanent and transitive acts, but these particular issues offer an entryway into some of the most pressing debates in contemporary theology related to divine aseity, divine freedom, the reliability of our knowledge of God, and the relation between God in Godself and God’s acts in the world.

Gallaher begins outlining three sorts of freedom and three corresponding forms of necessity. These versions of freedom and necessity provide an interpretive grid according to which his three dialogue partners are interpreted and then critically assessed and evaluated. In view of space constraints, I will move directly to summarize the dogmatic conclusions for which Gallaher advocates throughout the book. While some limitations arise in leaping straight to Gallaher’s conclusions and moving briskly past his learned interpretations, his account of each dialogue partner is shaped at every turn by his constructive aims.

Gallaher worries that a monistic collapse obtains if the form of necessity pertaining to Godself likewise applies to God’s decision to create and redeem. He affirms therefore that God could have refrained from creating without being essentially different than God is. However, Gallaher also worries that to straightforwardly affirm the contingency of creation might disconnect theology and economy, introducing an unreliability into God’s revelation and undermining the integrity of God’s loving action in the world. He therefore argues that once God has contingently decided to create, creation becomes necessary for God. This necessity is described robustly as an “internal reality for God as God” (p. 221). I suspect statements such as this aim to rule out that creation is merely hypothetically, rather than absolutely necessary (hypothetical necessity implies that creation is necessary insofar as God has willed to create, but because creation is necessary only on the hypothesis that God has freely willed it, rather than being necessary for God’s ontological completion or fulfilment, creation is not and never becomes absolutely necessary). His three dialogue partners are evaluated by their ability to secure these dogmatic affirmations. In radically truncated summary, Gallaher thinks Bulgakov and Barth fail to secure God’s genuine freedom to have refrained from creating, whereas Balthasar fails to consistently affirm that creation becomes necessary for God.

To concretely express these largely formal dogmatic affirmations, Gallaher engages in some audacious trinitarian speculation, positing that God’s ontological completion ‘awaits’ the human act of Jesus of Nazareth electing the Father as his Father which constitutes the divine being. In order to secure the genuineness of God’s dependence upon Jesus Christ—and therefore God’s dependence upon creation since Jesus is a creature and a representative of creation—Gallaher suggests that the Father draws a veil over divine knowledge of what Jesus will decide. There is genuine uncertainty both in God’s knowledge and in God’s ontological self-determination until Jesus has determined the divine being. These constructive proposals are well adapted to secure what Gallaher thinks an account of the relation between theology and economy and divine freedom and necessity needs to affirm but nonetheless, questions remain.

For example, Gallaher is invested in a dialectical approach in which seemingly contradictory claims are set alongside one another without clear harmonization. This strategy has an important pedigree in modern theology. However, as other reviewers like Tom McCall have noted, there is little control over what counts as a valid dialectical juxtaposition for Gallaher. At many points, Gallaher faults his dialogue partners for remaining merely at the level of “assertion” rather than offering a robust defense of the coherence of their views (pp. 88-9, 160, 229, 232). Yet one might think his own dialectical approach likewise resides at the level of mere assertion, in that he asserts two seemingly contradictory claims without demonstrating how they can be reconciled.

For example, one of Gallaher’s central claims is that while God needs the world this does not undermine divine aseity because this need is rooted not in external coercion but a free divine act of love: “This need . . . is not for God Himself (his self-development) but for love of the world” (p. 222; see also p. 240). Yet if God by a divine act of will decides to make the world and the free choices of a creature or creatures necessary to the actualization of the divine being—as Gallaher affirms—then it becomes the case that God depends upon something outside Godself for divine self-development. This means that something external to God comes to exercise a coercive determination upon God, since it is not wholly “up to God” who God will be essentially. Furthermore, Gallaher affirms that God wills “creation to enrich Him[self] as an additional gift” (p. 222) and that “God necessarily must ecstatically love beyond Himself to be Himself as love” (p. 184). If creation enriches God, enhancing divine love, then one might think either God becomes more perfect than God would be without the world, or God’s love for creation is disconnected or at a distance from God’s being. This latter claim is something which all three of Gallaher’s dialogue partners and Gallaher himself are keen to avoid. But in that case, for God to be the perfect God God is, God needs the world, not merely for the world’s sake but for the sake of God’s own perfection. This lacuna drives straight to the heart of Gallaher’s central claim that while God makes the world necessary for Godself, God need not have done so to be the God God is (pp. 22-3, 34-5, 88, 165). Either God’s love for the world adds nothing to who and what God is essentially, which Gallaher denies, or the world enhances God insofar as it enhances the actualization of God’s love. In that case, God needs the world for the sake of God’s own ontological perfection not merely for the sake of an altruistic love for the world. Unless this highly dialectical—i.e. seemingly contradictory—set of claims can be reconciled, there is a danger that Gallaher’s view implies against his intentions that God is free, only in that God could have been less perfect because less loving than God actually is in creating the world. This amounts, for those who affirm with Anselm, Barth, Balthasar, and many others, that God essentially is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” to a seemingly nonsensical claim that God could have willed to be worse than God is and therefore to have willed not to be God.

That I have pressed these matters is a testament to the erudition and creativity of Gallaher’s proposals. There are a host of merits to Gallaher’s work, including the way in which he situates each of his dialogue partners within post-Kantian idealism and the creativity and sensitivity of both his interpretations and his constructive theological arguments. It is invigorating to read a book whose theological proposals are this bold. The monograph eminently repays careful attention, offering a lasting contribution to central questions in contemporary systematic theology.

Jared Michelson

University of St Andrews

Review of A Companion to the Theology of John Webster edited by Allen and Nelson

Allen, Michael, and R. David Nelson, eds. A Companion to the Theology of John Webster. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021, 366 pages, $50.00, hardcover.

John Webster (d. 2016) is celebrated as one of the greatest English-speaking systematic theologians of his generation. This Companion, introduced by the publisher as “[a]n overview and analysis of John Webster’s  seminal contributions to Christian theology” (dust jacket) is both a handbook for readers of Webster himself, and a set of gently critical interactions with Webster’s theology which lay down paths for potential future theological work in Webster’s  wake. The editors (who, between them, also contribute a preface, four chapters, and an epilogue) have assembled a highly qualified group of contributors made up largely of Webster’s former academic colleagues and students.

The Companion consists of seventeen chapters, plus a foreword by Kevin J. Vanhoozer and an epilogue by R. David Nelson. There is also a useful bibliography of published works by Webster, which brings up to date the list that previously appeared in Webster’s 2015 Festschrift, Theological Theology. (This list is still incomplete, lacking the important chapter by Webster, “The Service of the Word: Theological Reflections” in the 1997 co-authored booklet, What Happened to Morning Prayer?, although this work is mentioned on p. 260, n. 46.)

Three of the chapters are revisions or reprints of previous publications: Ivor Davidson’s biographical and personal tribute (chapter 1), and two of the three essays by Michael Allen, on “Theological Theology: Webster’s  Theological Project” (chapter 2) and “Anthropology” (chapter 12): all the rest are original chapters for this volume. The Companion is in two parts. Part I is on “Webster’s  Theological Development”, and contains the aforementioned chapter by Allen on “Webster’s  Theological Project”, “Webster on Eberhard Jüngel” (R. David Nelson), “Webster on Karl Barth” (Kenneth Oakes), “Webster on the Theology of the University” (Martin Westerholm), and “Webster’s  Theological Exegesis of Christian Scripture” (Matthew Levering). Part II, “John Webster on the Theological Topics”, includes chapters on “Scripture” (Darren Sarisky), “Reason” (Michael Allen), “The Triune God” (Fred Sanders), “The Perfection of God” (Christopher R. J. Holmes), “Creation” (Justin Stratis), “Anthropology” (Michael Allen), “Jesus Christ” (Katherine Sonderegger), “Salvation” (Ivor Davidson), “The Church” (Joseph L. Mangina), “Metaphysics” (Tyler R. Wittman), and “Ethics” (Paul T. Nimmo). The book is helpfully structured so that many of the chapters in Part II reflect on diachronic developments, following the broad outlines of that development charted in Part I. For example, one of the finest short summaries of Webster’s well-documented turn from the influence of Barth towards Aquinas in his later work comes in Christopher Holmes” chapter in Part II (p. 168).

This book will serve a variety of audiences well. For the reader who comes to the Companion with little or no previous experience of reading Webster himself, it should be both a useful orientation and a spur to read Webster’s own work. A number of the chapters reflect such heavy influence of Websterian turn of phrase that they begin at times to read like Webster himself rather than as commentary or critique. Readers new to Webster are thus primed to expect certain emphases and not to be caught off guard by Webster’s particular style and approach. While, on the one hand, new readers should anticipate the bracing experience of encountering “earnest and conspicuous notes of joy” (p. xix) in Webster’s  theology, there may also be challenges since, for example, “[r]eading Webster is like going back in time” (p. 183), a nod to his Protestant-inflected ressourcement. Contributors are therefore at pains to help us read Webster rightly, so that we avoid “apprais[ing] his work in lopsided or eagerly schematic fashion” (p. 17). A further aim is that (as Webster himself desired) we might be led from reading Webster himself to reading his primary sources—Holy Scripture and the great texts of the Christian tradition. Above all, a repeated theme in the Companion is that reading Webster ought to lead us to the contemplation of God himself and to growth in our discipleship as creatures called into fellowship with God by his grace.

As indicated above, a particular practical help to new readers of Webster is Part I’s focus on theological development. This serves as an invaluable guide to “locating” Webster’s writings in the appropriate stage of his career. For example, the recently published The Culture of Theology (2019) is actually a re-publication of a lecture series that Webster gave in 1998. These lectures are significantly different, both formally and materially, from Webster’s later work, such as the essays in the two volumes of God Without Measure (2015). An appreciation of context and development is essential to correctly interpreting Webster in this case. At the same time, some contributors note that we should also focus on the “profound continuities” that might be eclipsed by an over-zealous periodization of Webster’s theology (p. 140). This is a helpful corrective.

Some of the chapters in the Companion are easier than others to approach without prior knowledge, whether of Webster himself or of particular doctrinal or philosophical areas of interest. For example, this reviewer found Wittman’s chapter on “Metaphysics” one of the most challenging in the book, doubtless partly due to a lack of specifically philosophical training. Along these lines, it might have been helpful to offer a suggested order for reading Webster suited to new readers. That is because Webster’s  own oeuvre ranges from the relatively easy to access (such as his sermons or the monographs Holy Scripture and Holiness) to his comparatively complex interpretive work on Jüngel and Barth (which demands some familiarity with these theologians) and other pieces that require a more robust philosophical apparatus.

The student who is already basically conversant with Webster’s  theology will also find much of great interest and enjoyment in these chapters, not least repeated encouragement to go beyond a “basic” Webster canon of his collected essays collections and the monographs mentioned above to include his published sermons and other, less celebrated, essays or even audio recordings. While most of the chapters in the Companion follow what have already become well-worn lines in Webster interpretation, some are distinctly fresh. In this latter category are Matthew Levering’s fascinating piece on “Webster’s Theological Exegesis of Christian Scripture”. This chapter is almost an apologetic directed towards the criticism often levelled at Webster that, despite his own exhortations to the contrary, he did not spend enough time on actual biblical exegesis. The chapter contains an analysis of Webster’s use of Scripture in Holiness, and concludes that there is a significant “cumulative impact” of Webster’s biblical citation which amounts to a more important exegetical contribution than that for which he is often given credit (p. 111). Doubtless debate in respect of this question will continue, but Levering has certainly offered us an intriguing case.

The other truly “fresh” chapter in this volume is the epilogue by R. David Nelson, entitled “Course Charted but Not Taken”. This 18-page finalé is as significant as any of the others chapters in the book, not least because it makes available in published form for the first time sections of Webster’s  own proposal for his Systematic Theology, a projected 5-volume work which was never realized due to his untimely death. Nelson’s own personal and professional investment in this project means he is clearly the best person to situate and explicate this proposal. It is regrettable that we will likely not see the multiple drafts of Webster’s first volume, but Nelson’s epilogue goes some way to helping us understand the contours of the entire project as it might have materialized.

Indeed, it is a common feature of many of the chapters in the Companion that they leave readers with a variety of “courses charted but not taken” by John Webster, and the encouragement to pursue some yet unresolved questions or to take up Websterian resources in our theological labors. For example, Michael Allen argues that we need to “move beyond Webster” even as we learn from him in our account of human creatureliness (p. 145). Not many of the chapters offer sustained criticism, but there are exceptions, even when the authors are broadly positive in their evaluation. For example, Darren Sarisky observes rightly that the “lingering challenge of dualism” remains in Webster’s doctrine of Scripture (p. 130). In Webster’s  bibliology, “the description of Jesus in relation to the creaturely realm makes it appear that the mundane features of the [biblical] text can be of no more than marginal pertinence to how it communicates”: as Sarisky concludes, “this is a real problem” (p. 129). Another significant example of criticism (albeit framed with the reticence of the subjunctive mood!) is found at the end of Paul T. Nimmo”s excellent chapter on “Ethics”. While most of the contributors to this book seem to stand with the later Webster in his commitments to beginning theological science with God a se, and rejecting a Christologically-defined doctrine of God, Nimmo is one Webster interpreter who has registered unease with the latter’s move from a Barthian to a more “scholastic mode of thinking” in the final phase of his career (p. 296). For Nimmo, the later Webster (at least possibly) “precludes allowing the person of Jesus Christ to be sufficiently determinative of the understanding of God and of human beings; […] risks eliding a more dynamic and more historic perspective of what it means to be human; and […] inclines towards an understanding of grace as reified and tenable in a way that fails to attend to the full depths of human sin” (p. 296). The irony for Nimmo is that these are precisely the sorts of concerns that Webster himself registered at an earlier stage of his career, but in respect of which his anxieties appear to have abated over time. These are central theological issues, and it is likely that the debates they inspire will continue to be a focus of Webster studies in the future.

It is to the future, then, that the Companion points us. How will study of John Webster’s theology develop, and what will be the potential fruits of such study? As Vanhoozer quips in his Foreword, “[t]his handbook, published so soon after [Webster’s] passing, is probably as close as Protestants come to canonization” (p. xiii)! There is a half-truth here. It is only five years since Webster’s death, and one senses that most secondary reflection on his legacy continues to be written in almost hushed tones by those who knew him personally. There is nothing wrong with that: Webster was a theological luminary and those who enjoyed his light are right to reflect well on a superlative teacher, mentor, and friend. But a future generation of Webster readers and students, perhaps one step removed from the man himself, may feel freer to interact with Webster’s theology from a more critical perspective, while still cultivating the humility and teachableness to learn from Webster’s example.

John Webster is perhaps not as well-known as he might have been. This may be a consequence of his personal humility (a feature of his character remarked upon by several contributors). But it is incumbent on students of theology to make Webster’s acquaintance, not least because of his widening influence through his many former students around the world. This Companion would be a great place to begin, in order to “situate” Webster and begin to interact with his theology. In addition, reading John Webster opens up a promising way to learn from and engage with the broader tradition of western, Reformed, evangelical theology. (Webster himself expressed his intention to write “evangelical” theology, and he is often known as an evangelical theologian. But as he pointed out in the proposal for his Systematic Theology, Webster intended “the German sense of evangelisch rather than the more restricted North American sense of a particular blend of modern Protestant developments” [p. 300].)  Finally, reading John Webster is a bracing experience because of his principal subject matter: the eternal and replete Triune God who, of his overflowing love, creates, restores, and perfects creatures for everlasting fellowship with himself.

Richard Brash

Christ Bible Seminary, Nagoya, Japan

Review of Minding Creation: Theological Panpsychism and the Doctrine of Creation by Joanna Leidenhag

Leidenhag, Joanna. Minding Creation: Theological Panpsychism and the Doctrine of Creation. London: T&T Clark, 2021. 224 pages. $120.00.

Minding Creation is the first full-length treatment of panpsychism for contemporary theological construction. Similar treatments from different perspectives have been published and come to mind that provide similar fruitful discussions. Just consider two recent representative examples: J. T. Turner On the Resurrection of the Dead and my The Soul of Theological Anthropology. All three provide interesting constructive theological treatments of a particular doctrine by drawing from a particular position within the philosophy of mind. Turner advances a theological construction using a version of hylomorphism and I advance a constructive, and in some ways exploratory, defense of Cartesianism. These represent some of the more recent analytic theological literature that moves beyond philosophy of religion to contemporary constructive theology.

Leidenhag approaches the doctrine of God’s relationship to creation through a consideration of panpsychism. Panpsychism is the view that mentality is fundamental to the natural world such that it permeates the whole world. She is clear that panpsychism, which serves as a broad category for a host of nuanced positions about the mind, is compatible with distinct comprehensive ontological theories instead of entailing just one (e.g., process theism, panentheism, pantheism, and other totalizing systems). It is even consistent with versions of Perfect Being Theology and classical theism (see especially pp. 105-37). Her case begins with a state of the art on what she sees as the popular bridge position between science and theology, namely emergentism, which is a kind of via media for physicalism and substance dualism. After a survey of the literature, Leidenhag raises concerns with emergentism. Some versions of emergentism are too weak either to do justice to the nature of minds (e.g., they often amount to a reduction) or results in some rather exotic, and unpalatable, theological ideas (pp. 13-45). This sets up her pivot to a consideration of panpsychism.

According to Leidenhag, we have good reasons for accepting panpsychism, and she sees little to no cost in accepting it (see chapter 2). Taking her cues from the patriarchs of panpsychism (e.g., Nagel, Chalmers, and Strawson), panpsychism’s greatest appeal is that it provides a simple explanation of a set of desiderata central to philosophy of mind and theology. First, it provides a monism of mind and matter without buying into the bifurcation of the world found in substance dualism. Second, it takes seriously the mind as a feature of the world (i.e., mental realism) that is unexplainable on materialism. Third, it avoids reductionistic explanations. Fourth, it avoids predicating magical emergent properties to matter, which amount to a version of creation ex-nihilo—an obvious problem for many theists. But, there is an interesting development. Where the patriarchs operate out of a secular framework as birthed from dissatisfaction with the merits of materialism, Leidenhag seeks to kindle the connection between panpsychism and theism (p. 81)—something she believes is quite natural, which she takes as an advantage over substance dualism. Accordingly, panpsychism has two advantages over dualism. First, panpsychism does not require the “radically different origin stories” (pp. 172-3) between the soul and the body. Second, panpsychism supplies a simpler, harmonious explanation of the soul’s origins without God’s constant and ongoing creation of souls at every moment that embryos come into existence.

Next, Leidenhag considers one historical proponent of panpsychism in Christian theology: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. She provides a fascinating discussion based on the principle of sufficient reason. The discussion certainly raises another question worth exploring—namely, what is the difference between panpsychism and idealism? For Leibniz’s ontological views have been taken to be a version of idealism, yet panpsychism is often considered a distinct ontology. The views are cousins if not siblings. Fascinating itself, there’s more to chew.

The last two chapters are the most constructive. Considering three proposals for divine action, Leidenhag shows how panpsychism can accommodate and deepen differing accounts from interventionist non-compatibilism, process theism, and the doctrine of double agency. Finally, Leidenhag draws out several implications for eco-theology in a way that permits a ground for a sacramental theology because God is able to be present to creation in a way that is impermissible on dualistic and interventionist pictures of the God-world relationship, or so it is commonly argued. In other words, to her lights, what panpsychism gets us is both Divine transcendence and immanence because mentality promotes ontological space for Divine action to permeate the whole world (p. 173).

As with all three works listed above, each places one doctrine under the microscope. The other works focus on the doctrine of personal eschatology and theological anthropology while Leidenhag’s focus is creation more broadly. But what is clear from each systematic analysis is how much all three doctrines so permeate the other that the implications tend to blend under microscopic detection. For this reason, Leidenhag is right to delineate theological anthropology as one natural place to continue panpsychism research. Her work secures several points for fertile reflection (p. 172).

With all that has been said of a positive nature, and there is much more to say beyond the confines of this short review, there are some philosophical and theological concerns. The first is philosophical, and to be fair, Leidenhag calls attention to it early on. It is called the combination problem to panpsychism, which is the problem of lower level consciousness’s, or dispositional proprieties, comprising and giving rise to a higher-order consciousness of a singular agent. Similar to the problem from physicalism, how it is that several singular bits could combine to comprise a one individual consciousness is utterly mysterious and likely incoherent. She is aware of this problem and grants that it is a substantive problem to which she offers a couple possible solutions from the literature. What is not clear is whether she places enough weight on this problem. As I see it, unless she were to affirm a form of absolute idealism of which panpsychism were a species, she cannot account for the consciousness of individual subjects. It appears that a version of Creationist Cartesian dualism or idealism, in which subjects of conscious experience are primitive particulars, is necessary to account for consciousness as we know it. That’s a more serious consideration, but a less serious one is theological in nature.

Second, it is not clear that panpsychism provides any advantage over idealism, e.g., Berkeley’s subject idealism, unless she considers the mind-independent reality of the material something worth preserving, but that is a value that would need some justifying. I have already noted a couple of similarities between the views above, but, it seems to me that all the desiderata mentioned through Minding Creation could be satisfied by Berkeley’s idealism. Berkeley’s idealism, as I understand it, affirms the following propositions: 1. All physical objects are phenomenal products of the Divine mind. 2. Humans are immaterial subjects of consciousness. 3. God communicates physical properties to created minds (i.e., human minds). Berkeley’s idealism permits a unified picture of the world where God is both transcendent and immanent. It avoids the bifurcated picture that is posited by radical dualisms. It avoids interventionism because there is no absolute independence between material substances and minds. It avoids incompatibilism. Divine action is compatible with the natural world precisely because the whole world is comprised of phenomenal perceptions, which are Divine communications. Finally, it permits a sacramental understanding of the natural world. God just is present to the world and all events in it.

Leidenhag’s Minding Creation would serve graduate students and scholars interested in the analytic theology of creation and theological anthropology. It might also serve as a supplementary text in a course on the doctrine of creation because she covers several up-to-date theories on Divine action. It would be true to say that this is the best treatment of panpsychism in a theological context, yet that is because it is the only book-length defense of the view in a theological context. It is unique in that way, which makes it groundbreaking.

Joshua R. Farris

Professor of Theology of Science, Missional University

Lecturer in Ethics, Auburn University at Montgomery