The God Who Acts ed. by Thomas F. Tracy (review)

164 BOOK REVIEWS Guardini could not have foreseen in the 1920s what he saw in the 1940s. He seems to have lived a private life after being dismissed, in 1939, from the University of Berlin for opposing the Nazis. In 1948 he was calling publicly for Germany to pay reparations to the Jews. In 1960 he appended to the fifth edition of his Letters from Lake Como his talk to the Munich College of Technology, "The Machine and Humanity." Here he dares to call for a technological culture in which artifacts, not machines, would extend what is truly human to global, even cosmic, limits. But we need an ethics of power, for we have turned ourselves into machines. Sobered, but still hopeful, he admits that, so far, humanly destructive forces have won out more often than not. What can one say? Guardini could not have foreseen in 1960 what we have seen since, when the very beginnings and endings of human life have been mechanized for utilitarian purposes. His diagnosis was right, and the remedy remains the same: the choice to humanize ourselves as well as physical nature. That hope is now personified in the philosopher-theologian seated on the throne of Peter. But the culture of death must die before the civilization of love can be born. This book, itself an instance of humanized technology, carries on its cover a painting by Jeroen Henneman, Lake Returns Greeting. The shoreline of a lake has the appearance of a man tipping his hat to an observer on the shore, who is tipping his hat to the lake. When man respects nature-both physical and human, nature-both human and physical-returns the compliment. Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin MARY F. ROUSSEAU The God Who Acts. Edited by THOMAS F. TRACY. University Park, Penn.: Penn State Press, 1994. Pp. 148. $28.50 (cloth); $14.95 (paper). This volume is intended to stimulate conversation between philosophers and theologians on topics of mutual interest. It contains four chapters: two by philosophers and two by theologians. Each chapter is followed by a response. The responses to philosophers are by theologians; the responses to theologians are by philosophers. By arranging the volume in this way, the editor has insured that it will provide examples of the sort of conversation that he hopes it will stimulate. Initial drafts of most of the chapters were presented at a conference that the editor organized at the University of California at Los Angeles. A brief introduction by the editor sets the stage for what is to follow. The editor has divided the volume into two parts. The first is entitled "Particular Divine Action: Providence and the Problem of Evil." In it the BOOK REVIEWS 165 topic of conversation is issues raised by claims about particular divine interventions in the world. Maurice Wiles, a theologian, begins the conversation with an essay called "Divine Action: Some Moral Considerations," and Robert Merrihew Adams responds to Wiles in an essay with the title "Theodicy and Divine Intervention." William P. Alston, a philosopher, continues the conversation in an essay called "Divine Action: Shadow or Substance?" and James M. Gustafson responds to Alston in an essay with the title "Alternative Conceptions of God." The second part is entitled "Universal Divine Action: Creation, Human Freedom, and Sin." In it the topic of conversation is issues raised by the doctrine of divine creation and conservation of all contingent reality. Thomas F. Tracy, the editor and a philosopher, starts the conversation with an essay called "Divine Action, Created Causes, and Human Freedom," and David B. Burrell, C.S.C., responds to Tracy in an essay with the title "Divine Action and Human Freedom in the Context of Creation." Kathryn E. Tanner, a theologian, continues the conversation in an essay called "Human Freedom, Human Sin, and God the Creator," and William Hasker responds to Tanner in an essay with the title "God the Creator of Good and Evil?" Each of these two conversations ranges widely over many issues of both philosophical and theological interest, and a brief review cannot do full justice to their scope. But each of them also has a central theme, and I shall focus my attention on...