On Theology by Schubert M. Ogden (review)

BOOK REVIEWS On Theology. By SCHUBERT M. OGDEN. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986. Pp. 160 with bibliography and index. $19.95 (cloth). I Professor Ogden's new publication is an archtypically Protestant work. I am a Lutheran reviewer. And this is a Catholic journal. There is thus some irony in the circumstance that my objections to Prof. Ogden's positions may be summed up so: he obeys all too simply the rule that gratia non tollit naturam sed perficit. Indeed it might be said that Ogden's motto is gratia naturam ne ittdicat quidem sed celebrat. But first I must attend to the generalities. This is a very good book. It is a collect1on of essays written over an 11-year period. It does not, therefore, have the virtues of a continuous argument or exposition. In compensation, it has in full measure the virtues of essay form. And it has the virtues of Schubert Ogden's thinking, which is always marvellously straight. He knows precisely what he thinks, brooks little obfuscationor even discussion-and says what he thinks clearly and quickly. I recommend the reading. So to the matter. I found that after each of the first four essays-" What Is Theology~" "On Revelation," "The Authority of Scripture for Theology," and " The Task of Philosophical Theology "-I made notes of issues which the essay posed to me, and about which in each instance I think a position contrary to Ogden's true. Then in the remaining chapters -" Prolegomena to Practical Theology," " Theology and Religious Studies," "Theology in the University," and "The Concept of a Theology of Liberation "-I found chiefly even blunter statements of Ogden's side of these issues; those thematically concerned for the subject of any of these chapters will, of course, find much else and much, indeed, that is very valuable. II Ogden begins the first essay by defining Christian theology as " the fully reflective understanding of the Christian witness of faith.•.." (p. 1) At the end I noted: there are three actual conceptions of Christian theology 's given. We may suppose that theology is antecedently presented with God, or with the gospel, or with faith. The first two positions are reconcilable in case God is triune, since then he and his word are one; Catholicism and Reformation need not oppose one another here. But the third, which is Ogden's, is simply an alternative. 521 522 BOOK REVIEWS At least, it surely is a simple alternative as Ogden conceives it. For the " faith " of which Ogden speaks is not faith in the gospel; it is that "faith " without which human life does not proceed and which is therefore found in all. His definition is careful: theology's given is a particular witness "of faith,'' the species of such witness that Christians happen to make in their historical tradition of symbol and concepts. Thus Ogden is able to conduct his description of Christian theology entirely without mentioning any message to the believer, anything of the sort to which the church has ecumenically referred as " the gospel." It is instead the Christian religion which differentiates Christian witness from other witness to faith, which is ib