The Ways of Judgment by Oliver O’Donovan (review)

300 BOOK REVIEWS than the world. When the subtlety of that demarcation is compromised, deep confusion obtains both within Christian thought and in the ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, Illinois ROBERT BARRON The Ways of Judgment. By OLIVER O'DONOVAN. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005. Pp. 356. $35.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8028-2929-1. Ten years ago in his magisterial Desire of the Nations, Oliver O'Donovan promised a sequel that would analyze our central political concepts through the lens of Christian faith. He fulfills this promise ably in his new book, and it is important to begin by recalling why he made the promise in the first place. For O'Donovan, Christian faith is not in crisis nowadays as much as faith in liberal democracy is. Just a few generations ago, apologists for liberal democracy could assume that history was like a single glacier flowing inexorably toward an ever-brighter future. At that time, Christians had cause to fear that their beliefs would be ground to dust under this glacial weight, for it was comprised of uncontested and apparently mutually reinforcing trends like modern natural science, technology, democratic politics, and Enlightenment accounts of the dignity of the individual. However, the floe broke apart on the chaotic waters of world wars, the dissolution of European colonialism, critiques of Enlightenment, ecological disaster, nuclear weapons, and the realization that democracy does not guarantee human dignity.Today, secular advocates ofliberal democracy find themselves navigating the relationships among these sometimes dangerous cultural icebergs. However, they do so without a compass, for they participate in a culture that increasingly undermines the spiritual resources needed to deal with such fragmentation. Indeed, by seeking popular support through the pursuit of a materialistic conception of flourishing, late-liberal societies foster alienation among the spirituallysensitive people that communities rely upon for periodic renewal (76-77). In sum, citizens of liberal democracies have practically no coherent notions of the practices, concepts, and institutions they cherish. In turn, this makes it difficult to gain an adequate understanding of, much less agreement about, the kinds of goods liberal democracies stand for, such as equality and respect for human dignity. In such a situation, right political action requires an accurate description of political concepts in light of the coherence of the Christian faith. O'Donovan's ambition is to describe our political discourse and practices in light of Christian claims. He believes that this will make better sense of what we actually do politically. In turn, it will help us BOOK REVIEWS 301 to pursue the kinds of goods to which our polities are devoted, as well as to criticize them when they fall short. For O'Donovan, the revelation of God in Christ decisively changed human affairs. Politics could no longer claim the kind of authority that belongs to Christ alone. Thus politics occupies an ephemeral parenthesis between the nonpolitical societies of Eden and Heaven. In light of this change politics must be limited, and O'Donovan equates politics with judgment in order to effect that limitation. Judgment is "an act of moral discrimination, that pronounces upon a preceding act or existing state of affairs to establish a new public context" (107). When politics sticks to judgment, it merely reacts to events that have already occurred. In such a case, it cannot conceive of statesmanship as an architectonic practice that cultivates a comprehensive way of life (61). Indeed, O'Donovan holds that this classical conception of politics is "totalitarian in principle" (ibid). After the resurrection of Christ, political authorities cannot be imagined as sovereign. Politics can be informed by a sense of the justice of the Kingdom of God, but it cannot represent it fully. Thus, O'Donovan describes a limited (though not libertarian) government. It has a duty to judge and punish wrongs. However, it is incapable of cultivating any comprehensive social ideal because communal harmony is the result of communications that exist and flourish without having been designed in a ruler's head. If we want more from common life, we should seek it in the church. The book has three main parts. The first outlines O'Donovan's conception of judgment as the political act, and...