The Jesus of Faith: A Study in Christology by Michael L. Cook, S.J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 189 bach himself may have misjudged both the most important aspect in Feuerbach's critique of theology and the connection between that critique and philosophical naturalism. Bradley's thesis is that the true importance of Feuerbach's critique lies not in his anthropological reductionism but in his exposure of the core of living religion of the ' dramatic ', genuinely historical interrelation of God, nature, and humanity. Theology and metaphysics are to be condemned for misrepresenting this dynamism through static and abstract categories. On this reading, F. H. Bradley and Whitehead, not Marx and Freud, are the continuers of the most important aspect of the Feuerbachian critique. I leave a final judgment on the adequacy of Bradley's interpretation to the Feuerbach specialists. Nevertheless, it seems to me prima facie implausible that the anthropological reduction of religion is not decisive to Feuerbach's argument and to his importance for contemporary discussion. One can say, however, that Bradley has pointed to an aspect of Feuerbach's arguments that is often not given prominence. Comments can be made and questions raised about the other contributions . For example, Williams does an excellent job of showing how Lossky's initially forbidding Orthodox Mysticism connects with an anthropology of self-transcendence that many modern Catholics and Protestants find appealing. And I wonder how Newlands would fill out his eminently reasonable statements about the need for something at least akin to a concept of incarnation. In trying to reflect on the fundamental principles of Barth's theology, does Roberts take with sufficient seriousness Barth's claim that his theologizing was not guided by fundamental principles? That these and other comments could be expanded at some length shows that the series is off to a worthwhile start in this volume. Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary Columbia, South Carolina MICHAEL ROOT The Jesus of Faith: A Study in Ohristology. By MICHAEL L. CooK, S.J. New York: The Paulist Press, 1981. Pp. 208. $6.95. The inclusion of both ' Jesus ' and ' faith ' in the title indicates Cook's desire to distance himself from those who would argue that the starting point for christology is one of the by-now familiar alternatives: either from below or from above. For Cook neither alternative is adequate. The construction of an adequate christology (the purpose of the book) begins from the concrete, personal existence of Jesus of Nazareth because " it is Jesus in the concrete particularity of his own personal existence who reveals to us and so ' defines ' the divine, the human, and the future" 140 BOOK REVIEWS (191). Cook's point is that one does not begin with some formal definition of humanity and then impose that definition on Jesus (the from below approach) and any other category suggested by contemporary christology. Indeed, only the concrete historical Jesus himself reveals and thus defines humanity and divinity. This not only explains the primacy of Jesus, historical and particular, in this study; it also explains the prominent place Cook gives to history: it is necessary, legitimate, even indispensable but always subordinate to faith in any study of christology. Thus, the lion's share of Chapter I is concerned with the correct understanding of the relationship between history and faith. To gain this understanding, Cook follows Norman Perrin's use of three distinct kinds of knowledge: historical knowledge, historic knowledge and faith knowledge. Faith knowledge is particular, concrete, and essentially interpersonal (I-Thou). It is also transhistorical " insofar as it introduces the idea of God's activity and it may or may not be related to historical/historic knowledge." (23) A faith knowledge of Jesus, as Cook nuances it, allows one's faith to be related to the historical and historic Jesus (to the Jesus of history and to the Jesus of the early Church's proclamation) and yet to be able to transcend the inevitable limitations of such knowledge, yielding to the grace, risk, and peculiar certainty of an I-Thou relationship. Thus, both faith and history are ways of knowing within historical consciousness, but faith knowledge is not reducible to a dimension of historical/historic knowledge. Towards the end of his work Cook restates this: " The Wordfaith correlation, while internally related to history...