The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God? ed. by Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 645 The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God? Edited by THOMAS JOSEPH WHITE, O.P. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010. Pp. 448. $40 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-80286533 -5. Karl Barth famously wrote: “I regard the analogia entis as the invention of Antichrist, and I believe that because of it it is impossible ever to become a Roman Catholic, all other reasons for not doing so being to my mind shortsighted and trivial” (Church Dogmatics I/1). Between 1929 and 1932, a series of exchanges passed between Barth and the Catholic theologian Erich Przywara on this matter of the “analogy of being.” It is not a term proper to St. Thomas Aquinas, but as a concept it arguably has a deep heritage in Greek metaphysics, passing through the late medieval period. This remarkable collection of papers considers complex interpretative questions: whether Barth and Przywara understand the same thing by “analogia entis”; whether von Balthasar rightly understands Barth; and the profound meaning ofthe conversation between Barth and Przywara for modern Catholic theology, and possibly for ecumenical dialogue at the most scholarly level. Twelve complete essays consider the “problem” of the analogy of being according to Barth, Przywara, and St. Thomas, and in contemporary theology. According to John Betz’s fine opening essay, Przywara defines the analogia entis as “the metaphysical insight that everything mutable or in fieri (and hence everything finite) can exist and act only by virtue of the fact that the ultimate ground of its existence and action is a being (ein Seiendes) that exists absolutely (and, as such, is infinite).” Przywara elaborates this “insight” in several ways, first with reference to the balance between divine immanence and transcendence that defines St. Augustine’s spiritual problematic. (This move on Przywara’s part invites some confusion: as a metaphysical principle, the idea that separateness enables presence can be traced back at least to Anaxagoras.) There is no difficulty on this point. Rather, Barth’s problem with the analogia is twofold. First, if divine presence is understood in terms of causality, there is an unacceptable implication of likeness, however vague, between cause (God) and effect (creature): “the being of man and the being of God are incomparable,” says Barth. Second, and more importantly, there is the problem of sin, which compromises our ability to discern structures of likeness—here, Barth’s intent is to be true to Calvin, and true to revelation. After the Fall, creation cannot be in a state of waiting for God, naturally open to God, like Mary. Thomas Joseph White argues, here and elsewhere, that Barth himself as well as “Barthians, frequently adopt Kantian epistemological premises . . . not because of a theological understanding derived from divine revelation but because they have inherited a set of philosophical commitments and presuppositions from the German Enlightenment and modern liberal Protestantism” (279). By contrast, Kenneth Oakes and John Webster (writing with elegance on the letter to the Ephesians) argue that the fundamental premise for Barth’s theology is the centrality of the Cross to any understanding of the relationship between God and BOOK REVIEWS 646 man. Barthians consequently have little invested in the pursuit of epistemological questions. In a project like this, a vast array of problems must be treated: philosophical and theological problems, as well as complex problems of textual interpretation. Some philosophical clarifications up front would be useful. For St. Thomas, analogy is a topic for logic and semantics long before it can be a theological topic and a point for ecumenical dialogue. Other writers fail to differentiate between such a logical treatment, and the idea that the relation between God and creation, ontologically speaking, is a loosely analogical one. For example, according to Betz, Przywara says that “the final analogy between God and creatures is not an analogia attributionis but an analogia proportionalitatis, precisely in the sense of mutual alterity”; there is no third category under which both God and creature fall (76). Bruce Marshall makes crucial clarifications in his essay. He depends heavily on the work of Ralph McInerny, alluding to the vast scholarship on analogy and the resistance of many Thomists to an attentive study...