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BOOK REVIEWS 491 Religion and Revelation. By KEITH WARD. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. 350. $65.00 (cloth), $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0-19-826466-6 (cloth), 0-19-826375-9 (paper). Keith Ward's Religion and Revelation is an uneven book. As a rule, it is good when it puts forward views that are in line with traditional Christianity, and bad when it sides with contemporary theological liberalism. No doubt this is connected with the dominant outlook among academic theologians at the present; since traditional Christian views are out of favor, intelligence and rigor are needed in order to gain a hearing for them, but objections to such views can be facile and superficial without running much risk of criticism. Ward begins by addressing the question of method in theology, and espouses what he calls comparative theology. He denies that the starting point for theology can be a particular religious tradition; the existence of competing claims to religious truth means that theologians must begin by assessing these claims. From this denial he moves to the position that all the religious traditions of the world should be considered to provide revelation of some sort, and should be treated as data for the theologian. This move is never properly justified. He argues for it on the grounds that "it is implausible that the Real inspires prophets in only one tradition, and that it does so in a wholly inerrant manner" (318). Ward's reason for asserting this implausibility is that "exactly the same sorts of reasons can be, and are, given, albeit by different persons, for preferring incompatible revelations" (ibid.). But the reasons given by Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc. for believing their respective traditions are not "exactly the same"; they differ notably. And even if this alleged implausibility were to be demonstrated, it would not establish Ward's conclusion. There could be a fallible tradition that is one of several inspired traditions, but that nevertheless contains all the truths that the other traditions contain, and some truths that they don't contain. This tradition would suffice as the subject for the study of revelation; and a Christian who maintains that Christ is the fullness of revelation would want to maintain that Christianity is sufficient in this way. Ward next discusses revelation. "Revelation in the full theistic sense occurs when God directly intends someone to know something beyond normal human cognitive capacity, and brings it about that they do know it, and they know that God has so intentionally caused it" (16). The content of revelation is "the nature of an object of supreme value, of a final goal for human life, and of the way to achieve this goal" (30). It is not clear how revelation takes place on Ward's view, since Ward denies that God communicates propositions to mankind. Some of his arguments for this denial are perhaps not meant entirely seriously, like his objection that the speeches that are ascribed to God in the Pentateuch would have been too long for Moses to remember, and that "when one turns to the New Testament, the Greek text is not in a 492 BOOK REVIEWS high literary style, such as one might expect God to use" (!) (210). More serious are his arguments that clear contradictions can be found in the biblical text (212), and that if revelation is thought of as providing wellevidenced information, then God has not done all he should have done to reveal truths (275). However, in order to have weight these arguments need to be backed up by a careful consideration of biblical hermeneutics and of God's duties with respect to humanity, which Ward does not provide. Ward then proceeds to the examination of world religious traditions that his method demands. His assumption that they all provide revelation leads to certain distortions. His definition of religion as "concerned with authoritative knowledge of a suprasensory realm in its relation to human good or harm" (54) is inaccurate; many people have worshipped the heavenly bodies, which are not suprasensory. Many "primal religions," like pagan Roman religion, are not concerned with the final goal for human life, but only with securing from the gods ordinary human goods like...

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