Truthfulness and Tragedy by Stanley Hauerwas (review)

678 BOOK REVIEWS Jesus! " (p. 82) . But some of the variations of the Christian faith which confront us today are as much opposed to belief in Jesus's resurrection as they are to belief in the incarnation of God in Christ. The one notion is just as mythological as the other, or so it would be argued. The less developed Christology of the New Testament would be no more acceptable than the Johannine version. There is no doubt, however, that this book does raise some important questions. It is impressive in a number of ways. The author has a broad and comprehensive grasp of Christianity during the first few centuries, he is extensively acquainted with literature relevant to a whole host of problems in New Testament criticism and exegesis, and he presents his material and argues his case with great lucidity. His work deserves a wide readership. MARGARETE. THRALL University College of North Wales Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom Truthfulness and Tragedy. By STANLEY HAUERWAS. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977. Pp. 251. This collection of previously-published essays is well-integrated, presenting a coherent argument. Hauerwas argues that ethics has become overly rational, inappropriately focused on the decision-making process and the reasons one can muster for a decision. Indeed, any tendency to identify rationality as the distinctively human characteristic, and then to isolate rationality from the complexity of being human, is erroneous method; we are sensitive, emotional, intelligent animals, and serious ethical reflection should consider all these aspects. We need a story if we are to make sense of human living; the novel mirrors human activity more closely than does the syllogism. Hauerwas's approach is subtle and does not claim to be completely adequate , but it is notably more satisfactory than the attempts of a Joseph Fletcher, who likewise sought to move ethics away from strictly rational decision-making. Fletcher continued to focus on the decision. (Isn't the power of his style rooted in his ability to lure the reader to grapple with a decision in a situation weighted down with anxiety and human tragedy?) Hauerwas shifts our attention from the decision to the one who is deciding. More accurately, Hauerwas looks primarily to the community in which the person lives and acts; that community must have a story which gives it (and its members) direction and focus. The Christian (Hauerwas does not limit his approach to the Christian) lives in the community of the Church whose story is that of Jesus of Nazareth. The strength and appeal of Hauerwas's method is that it takes tragedy BOOK REVIEWS 679 seriously. Contrary to many contemporary dreams, human life cannot be freed from suffering and pain and evil. Contrary to some ethical approaches , we cannot hope always to be able to choose a clear good, to avoid choosing evil and suffering. Life inevitably involves tragedy. Whereas some have turned to a theory of the indirect voluntary and others to a thc'Ory of compromise, Hauerwas would explicitly look to the Cross, the tragic moment in the story of the Christian community. The Hauerwas approach will appeal to the Christian realist living life with open-ended consistency; it will not appeal to someone raised on the principle of double effect, precisely because Hauerwas emphasizes the open-ended story rather than the orderly (and, for him, not precisely human) syllogism. The principle of double effect considers the decision in a sharply rational way; Hauerwas looks to the story of the community in which we live. Medicine is a somewhat circumscribed arena of human activity which helps Hauerwas to be more specific. Most recent work in medical ethics is concerned with decisions and reasons. Hauerwas urges a renewal of the truly human covenant between doctor and patient. If the patient lives in a community whose story includes the tragedy of suffering and death, then the patient and doctor could move together through the phases of pained life toward death. There would be no unrealistic demands for total cures yielding painless existence; nor would there be empty rationalizations for the suffering which can never be avoided. Life is tragic; medicine is tragic. The problem for Hauerwas is that the needed...