Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry by Hans Boersma (review)

474 BOOK REVIEWS Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry. By HANS BOERSMA. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2011. Pp. 206. $20.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-6542-7. The Dutch-Canadian Reformed theologian Hans Boersma has produced a highly accessible monograph, whose flowing prose and relative avoidance of technical terms make it an entryway to the nouvelle théologie narrative of the history of theology. For Boersma, that narrative’s main theme concerns the rise, decline, and potential renewal of a “sacramental ontology.” He defines this ontology to mean that creation, liturgy, and Scripture are signs that point to and participate in heavenly realities (5-9, 21-25). The book especially addresses Evangelicals and Catholics looking to recover the ontology of mystery from the “Great Tradition,” in a spirit of ecumenical dialogue. The author’s concerns include shaping an effective response to secularization and avoiding the postmodern trap of relativism. Chapter 1 somewhat develops the meaning of the book’s major theological categories. The Great Tradition of pre-Reformation (especially patristic) Christian thought centered on a sacramental ontology that in turn relied on a “Platonist-Christian synthesis.” “Mystery” means that (divine and created) realities can be known but not fully comprehended (21). Sacraments or mysteries are signs that “co-inhere” in the reality they signify. Participation in divine or heavenly things involves a “real connection” between these realities and their earthly signs, in opposition to nominalism and modern theology’s rationalistic tendencies (23-27). The rest of the book’s first part traces the history of sacramental ontology’s emergence and decline (40-99). Against the Harnackian reading of the Church Fathers, the author argues that the early Christian appropriation of the Platonic heritage proceeded in selective, critical fashion, especially on questions such as the goodness of material creation. The patristic emphasis on Scripture as mystery protects divine transcendence against more univocal hermeneutics prevalent today (3139 ). The author then gives three examples of how the “Platonist-Christian synthesis” developed: Ireneaus’s vision of salvation history, Athanasius’s Christology, and Gregory of Nyssa’s apophatic Trinitarian theology (40-51). Boersma then turns to three French theologians’ accounts of how the “sacramental tapestry” unraveled. Yves Congar saw a cause in the juridicizing of the medieval Church. Marie-Dominique Chenu identified a more Aristotelian account of nature as autonomous in twelfth- and thirteenthcentury thought, which moved away from the notion that creation symbolizes invisible realities. Finally, Boersma invokes Henri de Lubac’s famous critique of pure nature in modern Scholasticism (52-67). The decline continues with a Radical Orthodoxy rendition of John Duns Scotus’s univocity of being and its disastrous consequences, along with a review of William of Ockham’s arbitrary God (68-83). Martin Luther’s nominalist formation and John Cal- BOOK REVIEWS 475 vin’s pessimism concerning the fallen human being prevented their recovery of a sacramental ontology: nature and grace remained separated (89-94). Boersma deliberately and openly simplifies the history of theology for the nonspecialist. He displays immense enthusiasm for patristic thought. His views of medieval and early Reformation theology are at times appreciative yet also highly critical. This Evangelical theologian does not fear to critique the great Reformers and to lament the forgetting of the Great Tradition. The introductory chapter which lays out some basics of a sacramental ontology leaves something to be desired. First, it is not clear what “participation” means. What is a “real connection” between the Eucharistic elements and Christ’s heavenly body (25)? Second, the key themes of ontological participation, the world as mystery, biblical allegory, and the sign character of salvation history become virtually synonymous with the “Platonic-Christian synthesis.” The latter category is so broad that it seems to become inadequate. In fact, Plato had almost no influence on Irenaeus, who hardly cites the Greek philosopher. After the work of Lewis Ayres and other patrologists, claims about the Platonism of pro-Nicene Christologies (such as that of Athanasius) demand painstaking nuance. Third, Boersma’s subsequent historical narratives rely on one main source per theme, a method that leads to rather one-sided readings of history. Was nature so de-sacramentalized in the High Middle Ages that naturalism...