The Architecture of Theology: Structure, System, and Ratio by A. N. Williams (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 141 who can determine such things, and is given to human beings only as it is necessary to restore order. Chapter 6 provides an interesting comparison between Aquinas’s teaching on capital punishment and the teaching of Pope John Paul II in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae. In this encyclical, John Paul seems to sap capital punishment of its retributivist element by claiming that it can be used only in defense of society. Koritansky considers the interpretation of Evangelium Vitae offered by Christian Brugger, who claims that capital punishment can be justified only as a form of self-defense. Brugger, however, provides only suggestive indicators of his interpretation, and the ecclesial tradition concerning retribution and capital punishment should not be jettisoned on the basis of hints and intimations, some of which are mere absences. Koritansky also considers Steven A. Long’s interpretation of both Aquinas and Evangelium Vitae. He finds Long’s interpretation of Aquinas adequate but his interpretation of Evangelium Vitae wanting. Both Long and Brugger, then, fail to provide a satisfactory interpretation of Evangelium Vitae. Koritansky offers a middle road, in which Evangelium Vitae is seen as not opposing retribution but as emphasizing medicinal motives for punishment, as Aquinas himself does when it comes to capital punishment. In all, Koritansky provides a good introduction to the thought of Aquinas on punishment. He places Aquinas’s thought within the context of modern views and shows how it can remedy many of the defects found in contemporary thought. STEVEN J. JENSEN University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas The Architecture of Theology: Structure, System, and Ratio. By A. N. Williams. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 239. $110.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-19-923636-7. Anna Williams has been teaching in Cambridge’s faculty of divinity for over a decade. She has previously published books on patristic and medieval theology, as well as several articles on Aquinas’s thought. In the present volume she is concerned, as the title indicates, with the general structure of theological rationality, particularly what she calls the “systematicity” of theology. Her intent is to “probe the ways in which Christian theology could be said to be systematic so as to arrive at greater insight concerning both its own character and its relation to other disciplines” (3-4). Williams argues that because theology is a rational enterprise in its very essence, one cannot logically hold an exaggerated sola Scriptura or “total depravity” position (10). Indeed, throughout the volume she consistently defends the power of reasoning in religious matters, noting that even those who stress the depravity caused by the Fall 142 BOOK REVIEWS continue to engage in sophisticated theological deliberations. But while she holds that theological rationality is not expunged by sin, she makes equally clear that theology is under no compulsion to adhere to a foundationalist standard. Theology does not guarantee certitude since its task is “in some sense provisional” (12) and it need not meet criteria approved by secular philosophy; however, both the theologian and the foundationalist philosopher share the same goal, intending to state what is true. Williams goes on to discuss various models of justification and truth. The knowledge that lies behind her summary of various debates in contemporary analytical epistemology is appreciable. She notes that critiques of foundationalism have been popular for decades and that justified true belief, when strictly understood, unacceptably narrows possible areas of inquiry. She adds that “the travails of epistemology in general and foundationalism in particular are significant for those seeking to defend Christianity at the secular bar” (50). Given the demise of strict positivism and empiricism, philosophers and theologians are, so to speak, “in the same epistemological boat” (55). Her point, of course, is that the collapse of universally acceptable warrants for certitude allows all thinkers to see more clearly the rationality of theological claims. A philosophy less wedded to positivism can more easily appreciate theology’s structural admixture of faith and reason. She concludes, therefore, that “the cautions coming from the side of both the philosophy of science and cultural anthropology regarding the conditioned nature of any rationality actually harmonize quite well with the insights of the Christian tradition” (64). This is a...