Modern Theology 26:1 January 2010

ISSN 0266-7177 (Print)

ISSN 1468-0025 (Online)

REVIEWS

moth_1583

149..176

Wrestling with Angels: Conversations in Modern Theology by Rowan Williams,

edited by Mike Higton (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 2007) xxv + 305 pp.
When Rowan Williams writes I am convinced that Hegel is basically a Christian
philosopher (p. 272), I am inclined to reply No! he is not, but stay the negative
because I have come to the view that disagreement is not really the point. And when in
the last of the fourteen essays Williams exposes the ambiguities of Maurice Wiless
position on doctrine and suggests that one of its constitutional problems is that it is not
historicist enough, this time I am prompted to say Yes, and whats more . . . , until I
realize that my agreement is also not quite to the point. This is not to say that in his
readings of modern religious thinkers from Hegel to Balthasar and Barth and beyond
that Williams encourages a cavalier attitude towards truth, or that he takes lightly
argument towards conclusion. But, as suggested by his editor, Williamss various
readings are theological performances (p. xxiii), which if seriously proposed, also
build into their very proposal alternative readings. Reading modern religious thinkers
and theologianssome such as Rose, Girard, and Weil belong more nearly to the rst
categorylike reading the Bible and patristic texts, requires a form of interpretation in
which it is difcult to separate application from explication. Interpretation is not
simply a good reading of the text, but also involves a sense of ones own historical
location, and necessarily is passional, if not reductively interested in an ideological
sense. Williams is always a good Gadamerian while being an even better Augustinian.
The title and subtitle of this collection of fourteen essays, written over a period of
almost twenty years (19791998), touch on crucial aspects of the identity of this kind
of theological thinking. The title wrestling with angels suggests that the practice of
theological reading is indissolubly agon and gift; agon in that all the religious thinkers
and theologians read by Williams are sufciently other to constitute a challenge to
received ecclesial views; gift, even epiphany, in that each of these thinkers, whether
within or without the Christian tradition, enables the theological tradition to be fertile
and pertinent. But as the allusion to the book of Tobit suggests, the blessing is the fruit
of agon, and no blessing occurs unless theological complacency has been wounded.
At rst blush the subtitle of Conversations in Modern Theology not only represents
a shift in gear from provocative image to bland statement, but something of an
attenuation in that all that one should expect is irenic treatment of a variety of forms
of modern religious thought which haveto avail of the jargonsome claim to our
attention. Importantly, however, in this instance the title interprets the subtitle: while
conversation and its respectful protocols are both enjoined and practiced, conversation is not separate from argument and the exercise in discernment with respect to
how the gifts of modern religious reection, and modern theological thought in
particular, bear upon the gift of the tradition or traditions of the church.
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One of the more interesting aspects of the collection of essays, which include such
generative pieces as Balthasar, Rahner and the Apprehension of Being (1982),
Barth on the Triune God (1979), and Between Politics and Metaphysics: Reections
in the Wake of Gillian Rose (1991), is how they are organized. Although mindful of
the light a chronological arrangement of the essays would throw on the development
of Williamss thought, the editor eschews arranging these essays in order of publication. Instead, he groups the essays around the set of problems that are being
addressed in Williamss readings. As I see it, there are essentially four groupings, with
essays 15 and 1214 providing the bookends. The rst group reect on the issues of
language and difference, and especially try the issue of whether Hegelthe bte noire
of modern philosophy and theologyis to be preferred to Derrida when it comes to
the assistance provided the Christian tradition in its ongoing task of being faithful,
conceptually adequate, and politically pertinent. Of course, this means that the issue
is not simply one of language or discourse, but its relative embeddness in communities, and the orientation it provides disposition and action. Essays 1214 provide the
other bookend. These three essays on Don Cupitt, Marilyn McCord Adams and
Maurice Wiles respectively engage the problems of the rationality of belief in God, the
justication of this God in the light of horrendous suffering, and the issue of the
relation of history to tradition. Even if Wiles is not especially philosophical, there is
certain sense in which these essays illustrate in a very general way Williamss engagement with the methods of analytic philosophy that have authority outside as well as
inside the academy, and whose inuence is particularly to be felt in the disciplines of
theology and biblical studies. There are two other groupings. The rst concerns the
theological reections of two of the towering gures of twentieth-century theology,
Balthasar (5, 6) and Barth (7, 8) respectively. The second consists of religious thinkers
such as Girard (9), Wittgenstein (10), Bonhoeffer (10) and Weil (11), all of whom are
marginal to the magisterial theological traditions, but who challenge and stretch it not
only in terms of its intellectual, but also its moral adequacy.
While in terms of the level of intellectual engagement, intrinsic importance, and
power of persuasion, there is little to choose between these four groups, this is not to
rule out some differences with respect to the relative level of hermeneutic performance. For instance, Williams does not seem to be quite as engaged in the group of
essays that attend to the contemporary rationalist dispensation in English religious
thought. It is not that Williams is either condescending or gives the impression that he
has undertaken these reading out of pure duty. Rather these essays convey an underlying sense that, despite appeals to commonsense, this particular intellectual style
functions at some remove from the actual conditions and interests of real individuals
and communities. More explicit, however, is the criticism that this form of thought
proceeds either without a sense of history or with a peculiar sense of one, which
privileges a view of reason that is quite recent and that has become institutionalized
and taken for granted. In short, Williams seems to have a sense that this intellectual
style is itself a form of politics, more or less dangerous to the degree to which it
ignores this fact.
Still, to distinguish between the fourth group and the three other groups in this way,
not only risks overlooking ner discriminations between the groups, but also putting
in the background the point of evaluative distinction. In my view, in breaking with
chronological order the editor invites the reader to go in an evaluative direction. For
the point of grouping is surely to display the patterns of thought that emerge in
Williamss various conversations as they suggest a particular point of view, a particular kind of theological thinking with a particular set of decision procedures as to what
is theologically adequate.
The claims of the second group of essays for priority are not trivial. All essays in
this group have been well received, and Williamss essays on Balthasar and Rahner
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(6), on the one hand, and Barth on the Trinity (7), on the other, are, arguably, his two
best-known essays. Indeed, one could say that the Balthasar-Rahner essay has
achieved almost classic status. Neither are the merits of the third grouping inconsiderable. Herein Williams deals with edgy gures to the side of theology who
challenge its comfortable protocols with respect to self-understanding and action,
who ask difcult questions about whether there is a legitimate sacricial dimension to Christianity, and generally speaking up the ante with respect to what constitutes a Christian form of life. Nevertheless, without prejudice to either, a good
case can be made that it is the rst grouping that best discloses what Williams
thinks are the true coordinates of theology, and thus reveals his core identity as a
theologian. As I have already indicated, the rst group of essays is essentially concerned with the nature of discourse and whether Derrida or Hegel is more helpful
as a template to negotiate our way through the difcult issues of the possibility and
nature of knowledge, the relation of knowledge and context, and above all the relation of knowledge and action. Perhaps surprisingly Williams resolutely chooses
Hegel over Derrida (pp. 2534), who if not dismissed as nihilistic, leaves us, in
Williamss view, without grounds for condence that we are capable even of partial
knowledge and devoid of resources for ethical action, religious practices, and our
religious forms of life. According to Williams, although a philosopher, Hegel is an
authentic Christian thinker (pp. 4750), who buttresses a number of primary doctrines, especially that of the Trinity (pp. 4146), does not abjure institution, points to
the context of thought, but also underscores its connection to practice and form of
life, and its ability to transform the regnant forms of social and political life
(pp. 3132).
Of course, this is hardly the only construction of Hegel available, and any number
of commentators on Hegel would argue that the German philosopher is a highly
ambiguous Christian resource. Still, the view maintained by Williams has found a
signicant number of proposers in theology. Williams is familiar with some of them,
for example, Peter Hodgson (pp. 31, 34) and Andrew Shanks (p. 52) and wholeheartedly approves. His mainstay, however, is Gillian Rose, who in Hegel Contra Sociology
(pp. 34, 51) excavated a non-speculative Hegel that could provide signicant help in
moving us beyond both an enervating rationalism and a debilitating skepticism. In her
view Hegel is historicist, but not reductively so; practical, but not in the procrustean
way of classical Marxism; and religious, but without the oftentimes religious immunization from the political. Hegel, then, provides a salutary lesson to Christian theology and constitutes himself as a necessary dialogical partner, even if this Hegel will
have to be rened in and through criticism that takes into account Critical Theory as
well as Kierkegaard.
This is what makes Between Politics and Metaphysics: Reections in the Wake of
Gillian Rose (pp. 5376) so important, even pivotal. It is in its own terms as good a
theological performance as one will nd in the entire collection. But this is not what
sets it apart. What does is that in this essay Williams is attempting to discern how
much of Roses modied Hegelianism provides a road-map for theology by essentially dening its tasks and responsibilities. These responsibilities can only be carried
out if there is some claim to truth (p. 65) and if some narrative is deployed (p. 74), even
if the claim to truth is essentially an act of faith, and all narratives are revisable
(although not innitely so) (pp. 65, 6768). This is precisely what an anti-metaphysical
and anti-narrative postmodernismrepresentatives include Levinas, Derrida, and
Adornorefuses. Williams learns from Rose that the task of theological discourseas
with all discourseis not discourse, but action. To be a Christian is to act, and to act
in situations that are historically specic and ambiguous. Again postmodernism
shows an intolerance of ambiguity and a fear of history (p. 66). The task of theological
discourse is also the inculcation and support of practices and forms of life that assist
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human ourishing and true community. This being the aim of theology, no cordon
sanitaire protects theology from the muddle of Christian life in the world, and from
forms of speech, variously prophetic and edifying, that would make theological
discourse less pure. Purity of speech is a luxury that theology cannot afford. As
academic theology has a source that is not itself, a tradition to which it is faithful, it
also has an ecstatic aspect: the incarnation of a vision in a world that requires it be
regarded as precious, but also groaning towards transformation.
Cyril ORegan
Department of Theology
University of Notre Dame
130 Malloy Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA
Cyril.J.ORegan.1@nd.edu

The Legend of Death: Two Poetic Sequences by John Milbank (Eugene, OR:
Cascade Books, 2008) ix + 182 pp.
The fact that John Milbank is also a poet will come as no great shock to those familiar
with his work as one of the most important theologians writing in English. Milbank
relentlessly chastises all iterations of the secular: its disingenuous rejection of transcendence; its easy-going abnegation of theology, teleology, and depths; its false and
hypocritical fascination with surfaces; and its condescending claims to political maturity in the name of distance from superstition. Milbank has more than a soft spot for
superstition. He envisions a world alive with much more than our modern allegiances allow us to notice and in these poems he aims to look again at such a world.
The mode is certainly apt. After all, poetry witnesses to what lies beyond a facile
insistence that all existence submit to analytic language and speak it in scientic tones;
realitys more yearns for a poetics that extends beyond the limitations of mere
words. Our words always threaten to berate our every attempt to reach beyond the
knowable world. Poetry knows more than we can say. But its way of doing this,
unlike musics pure ecstasy so praised by Nietzsche, is precisely by enlisting words as
new signs, refusing to accept the limitations of language while simultaneously refusing to look elsewhere to transcend them. It is, as every poet no doubt nds, a perilous
pursuit that risks sliding backward to the old signs, words still awaiting redemption.
This is what Milbank hopes poetry will do.
Yet it is not clear from much of this volume that Milbank fully trusts poetry. For
example, he cannot resist prefacing the poems themselves with prose, introducing the
reader to their agenda for cutting along several diagonals, including somehow slicing
through and to the excessive meaning of nature, the close association of the meaning
of words with their sounds. The earth reaches upward from its surface toward transcendence but in its reaching, never quite escapes the terrestrial sphere. Its yearning
after higher things re-enchants (rather than disenchants) organic creation. Emily
Dickinson famously counseled the poetic spirit to tell the truth but tell it slant, that
is, on the poetic diagonal, suggesting that the telling will always be most truthful
when it speaks obliquely, un-mastered by our rehearsing gawky schemata passed off
as directly knowledge-bearing language. Dickinson and Milbank agree on this but
only Dickinson risks telling the truth about the slantthe diagonalson the slant.
Milbank is strongest when contemplating the countryside and surveying simple
vistas, nding that they hold unadorned wisdom even if, in sharing it, such wisdom
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