Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the Natural Knowledge of God by Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. (review)

320 BOOK REVIEWS Spirit as charity in his mission to men was later rejected by Thomas Aquinas and other thirteenth-century Scholastics); their absence, however, is completely understandable given the length of the book even without this extension . Furthermore, however, many arguments are made from silencenotoriously the weakest form of argument. Thus, sexual equality in marriage is extrapolated from Lombard's silence (2:656), and Colish claims that Lombard holds that the penitent is the minister of the sacrament of penance (2:760), which Lombard never states in so many words. Peter Lombard in the Sentences does not hold that the minister of the sacrament of anointing is a bishop, as Colish contends (labeling this "idiosyncratic," 2:613), although he does mention that the oil must be consecrated by a bishop (which was certainly the practice in Lombard's time, as in the Latin Church until recently). Further, when Lombard lists the seven grades of holy orders, he does not present cantor or prophet (vatis) among them, but adds them afterwards as something of an appendix. Colish writes that Lombard was "unique" in listing the cantor as an office or dignity (2:625), despite the fact that Lombard's sources (Isidore's Etymologiae and Hugh of Saint Victor's De sacramentis) both do so, along with Gregory the Great. In spite of some confusion in its presentation, however, this work's strong points outweigh its weaknesses. The broad strokes and the breadth of the consideration make it particularly useful as a way of approaching the Sentences for the first time; the presentation of the historical context and the state of each theological question synthesizes quite a lot of material that is scattered over many books and articles; and were this the book's only contribution it would still be of great value. The work as a whole, while flawed in scattered details and occasionally giving in to the (relatively understandable) tendency to rewrite Lombard, or at least appeal from Lombard to "Lombard better informed" (so that his opinions may always agree with the author's own), is certainly magisterial in its own right and must earn for its author the title of sententiaria. W BECKET SOULE, 0.P. Blackfriars Cambridge, England Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the Natural Knowledge of God. By EUGENE F. ROGERS, JR. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Pp. xvii + 248. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-268-01889-8. This remarkable book makes a complex and detailed case for a bold yet modest thesis: there is convergence between Aquinas and Barth on natural knowledge of God. The thesis is bold because it will strike many students of BOOK REVIEWS 321 Aquinas and Barth as counter-intuitive. This is the very reason Rogers's case must be complex and detailed. And yet, despite this complexity, Rogers's thesis is ultimately quite modest and persuasive-even for those like myself who will quibble with details. Rogers has "three audiences and two agendas" (c. 1). He addresses an evangelical reading of Thomas to Catholics, an Anselmian (as I will call it, although Rogers does not) reading of Barth to Protestants, and a theological reading of Thomas (one that aims "to consider nothing God-forsaken") to neopragmatists in religious studies departments. Rogers only addresses the first two audiences directly, leaving open a variety of interesting questions about how the convergence for which Rogers argues would function in the modern university. Thus, Rogers's two agendas are "first to interpret Thomas, and also to compare him to Barth" (5)-the first agenda taking up two-thirds ofthe book. Thus, part 1 offers a reading of Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, aa. 1-10 under the hypothesis that "the more Aristotelian [sacred doctrine] is, the more scriptural it is, and the more Aristotelian it is, the more christoform it is" (9, 17). Part 2 tests this hypothesis by studying the full context of Aquinas's commentary on Romans 1:20. Part 3 takes up Thomist and Barthian objections, gives (Rogers's account of) Thomas's replies, and concludes with "The Common Thomas of Barth and Vatican I." Let me reconsider Rogers's argument in three phases...