The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism by David Tracy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism . By DAVID TRACY. New York: Crossroad, 1981. Pp. xiv + 467. $24.50. The Analogical Imagination (hereafter, AI) is the second volume of one of the most ambitious theological projects in the world. In a trilogy of texts, David Tracy is proposing a massively original agenda for theologythe most original, I think, ever proposed by an American Catholic theologian . He bega:q with a book on fundamental theology (Blessed Rage for Order [New York: The Seabury Press, 1975]); a third volume will be on practical theology. AI is an exercise on and in systematic theology, outlining what is rightly called a " complex theological strategy " (xi) . In fact, it is only Tracy's demand for genuine dialogue in theology that moves me from analyzing this complexity to evaluating what I take to be its key moves. On this score I will {to use one of Tracy's favorite expressions) risk the proposal that AI is more successful at displaying the Culture of Pluralism than it is as Christian Theology; the analogical imagination, despite its considerable usefulness as a formal device, does not adequately assemble the central issues of a systematically theological agenda. The overall movement of the book is clear. Part I is "an exercise in fundamental theology designed to show the truth status of the claims of systematic theologians" (85 [n. 31]). Tracy does this by sketching social (c. 1) and theological {c. 2) portraits of the theologian and proposing the artistic classic as the analogue for getting at issues of meaning and truth in systematic theology (cc. 3, 4, and 5). Part II is Tracy's actual exercise in systematic theology {98 [n. 117]) . Here he elaborates the hermeneutical principles which yield an interpretation of the Christian Classic, " the event and person of Jesus Christ" (cc. 6 and 7). This classic is critically correlated with the emergence of "the uncanny " in the Contemporary Situation (c. 8). Tracy then proposes a threefold grid (Manifestation, Proclamation, and Praxis) for understanding Christian responses (c. 9) and concludes with a summary proposal of his own Christian analogical imagination (cc. 10 and 11). The details of AI are much more difficu1t to summarize. One way to handle this problem is to move backward through the book's " four principal steps " {xi), summarizing and offering some constructive criticisms. First, the analogical imagination works like this. A theologian picks some primary analogue {focal meaning, paradigm) and other things which" constitute the whole of reality" (God, self, other selves, society, history:, 6~6 BOOK REVIEWS 627 nature). Tracy's own proposal is that "the concrete focal meaning for a Christian systematics is the always-already, not-yet event/gift/grace of Jesus Christ" (428; cp. 182, 817, 822, 408, 480). This focal meaning can be" mediated" through Manifestation, Proclamation, and/or Praxis. Next, the analogical imagination shows the similarity in difference within and between the analogues-their order and perhaps harmony, their variety and intensity (including dialectical negations). Tracy does exactly this, summarizing the ways different mediations of the Christ-event affect views of God, self, and cosmos. But, he insists, all three mediations are necessary if we are to take account of the full reality of the Christ-event, the alreadynot -yet power of God'.s love, the agapic transcendence of the self, and the full reality of the world (429-88}. Finally, the analogical imagination risks the self-exposure of putting these similiarities-in-differences in the public forum (c. 11). The analogical imagination proves enormously useful for classifying several hundred theologians. Where, some might ask, are the classic theological topics periodically mentioned (e.g., grace, creation, redemption, eschatology , sacraments, faith, revelation, etc. [872-378])? Because Tracy is more interested in the " second order " language of analogy than in first order religious language (408), the" basic grammar" of any" assemblage" of topics (373) remains at best implicit. Tracy's scheme could perhaps be applied in useful fashion to classic arguments over predestination, creation, preservation, justification, deification, etc., by making the issue of history a topic distinct from God and self and world. But, until this is done, it will prove difficult if not impossible...