Prometheus Rebound: The Irony of Atheism by Joseph C. McLelland (review)

HUMANITIES 197 altogether different from a conceptual system, apart from considering how that would differ from tradition. To preserve the strength of his charge of rational incoherence, he wants a framework where that charge sticks. Hence his favourite defence: if my opponents are right, atheists will be believers or secular humanism may be a religion; but they have redefined religion and now just articulate atheist beliefs in a Christian vocabulary. The promising dialogue between Nielsen and these Christians would take a leap forward if he would argue with them on their own ground. In all four earlier mentioned areas, Nielsen would advance discussion with, first, a sustaiped, coherent, wide-ranging analysis of his own position in the present situation and, second, an account of the relationship of this position to his own ultimate commitments. As it is, he powerfully opens new possibilities for a discussion between Christians and atheists in which antagonism may disappear to make room for learning and listening. The withering rational tradition which has so far set the tone is opening new horizons. (HENDRIK HART) Joseph C. McLelland. Prometheus Rebound: The Irony of Atheism Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, Editions SR vol. 10 Wilfrid Laurier University Press. xvi, 366. $15.95 paper In this work Joseph C. McLelland takes up both a historical and a philosophical project. His stated intention is to analyse the key historical figures and movements in Western thought influenced by the myth of Prometheus that illustrate what he calls postulatory atheism. That modem form ofatheism that pits Humanity against God, he argues, is but a recapitulation of the struggle of Prometheus against Zeus. Philosophically , as the title of the text indicates, McLelland sets out critically to assess that form of atheism and finds it to be internally incoherent, and he argues, further, that an undistorted understanding of the Christian notion of God can allow for an affirmation of Humanity without rejection of God. Unfortunately, the nature of the relationship of the two enterprises is somewhat obscure. The philosophical agenda is never clearly established in its own right but is, rather, carried along 'in, with and under,' so to speak, the historical survey. Whether the survey is to be seen merely as illustrative of the philosophical claims or is to be taken as evidence in their support is not clear. And the historical survey itself, though indicative of great erudition, is often confusing, for in trying to recount the influence of the Prometheus myth on such diverse thinkers as poets, novelists, and philosophers throughout the history of our civilization, McLelland has been forced to compress his analyses to the point of obscurity. Weaving his philosophical and theological concerns into that narrative adds to the confusion. After a briefintroduction in which he provides the reader a typology of atheisms, McLelland sets out, in part one of the essay, the classical dilemma of the Prometheus myth, which sets at odds human freedom and the divine will, and begins to trace the development of this notion of the Promethean spirit. The recapitulation of the classical dilemma in the Hellenization of Christian thought, he then suggests, prepared the way for the development of modem atheism. That 'unbinding ofPrometheus' is to be found in the rebirth of the will in Renaissance thought which McLelland discusses in part two of the book. He argues persuasively that this development is grounded in a subtle change in the Promethean myth that allowed for an accommodation between it and Christian thought. With the call to a higher humanity implicit in the Prometheus symbol, however, there lay a stress on human dignity that necessitated a human freedom that McLelland sees as but a step away from the full-blown atheism of the Enlightenment. The 'perfection' of that Prometheanism is to be found in the sublation of Christian theology into the idealist philosophy ofHegel and his successors which redirected all thought (and life) to history and worldly affairs. This step in the development of modem atheism is described in part three of McLelland's work. In this period of our history, he maintains, the Christian notion of God comes to be seen as a Zeus figure who stands opposed to human aspiration and who...