He Who Lets Us Be: A Theology of Love by Geddes MacGregor (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 159 disturbed him throughout his adult life. These problems were all related to the central question of how faith can be rational. By constructing the Grammar as he did, dealing with assent and apprehension and then assent and inference, Newman colored the problems. In the sketches and notes of this valuable collection, the problems are uncolored, or at least multicolored , and so they look different to us. And though the notes are sketchy and unorganized, they serve, as the carefully constructed Grammar does not, to illWJtrate that intricate, personal reasoning in concrete matter that Newman has tried so hard to describe to us. JAY NEWMAN University of Guelpk Guelpk, Ontario, Canada He Who Lets Us Be: A Theology of Love. By Geddes MacGregor. New York: The Seabury Press, 1975. Pp. x and 194. $8.95. This stimulating, informative, but overly repetitive book argues the thesis that " we must learn to revolutionize our thinking about God in such a way that the old models of power-worship are throughly undermined so that they may give place to a radically new vision of God " (p. 168). The key to the needed reformulation the author finds in the Christian tradition's insistence upon the self-emptying, the kenosis, of Christ; a kenosis which, MacGregor holds, cannot be limited to the sphere of Christology, but must be located at the very heart of the intratrinitarian relations themselves. The law of the cross reveals the very essence of trinitarian life. The theme here sounded is, of course, no novelty in recent theological reflection. Where MacGregor strikes an original note is in his contention that the crucifixion provides the very pattern of God's involvement with creation. The power which God exercises is paradoxically " kenotic power " ; and its primordial gift is to let the creatures be. In the striking words of Simone Weil (whose thought has decisively influenced MacGregor's own) : " On God's part creation is not an act of selfexpansion but of restraint and renunciation" (cf. pp. 95 and 167). This self-denial of God in creation foreshadows and anticipates the selfsacrifice of Christ upon the cross. Hence the core Christian experience is aptly articulated by the author of the first letter of John in his dramatic assertion that "God is love". However, the radical import of that claim has been mitigated in Christian thought through an undue and unfortunate dependence upon conceptual models of divinity derived from Greek philosophy with its intense 160 :SOOK REVIEWS admiration for immutability and impassibility as undeniable perfections. By contrast, MacGregor believes that the claim, " God is love ", necessitates a vision of God whose creative kenosis is not devoid of affectivity, of suffering, and even of anguish. Thus the need for a reconceptualization of God that is more faithful to Christian life and experience. What resources does MacGregor himself bring to this task? First, he appreciates the intention and importance of the trinitarian formulations of the Church, and seeks to penetrate their meaning, even as he questions their continued adequacy. Thus, though, in a sense, he attempts to move " beyond trinity ", it is not by way of denial, but of advance. A second merit of MacGregor's approach lies in his familiarity with varieties of kenotic theory in Christian history, and his ability to draw upon these both in overcoming perceived weakness and in suggesting lines of development. Here I found MacGregor particularly informative and helpful in his remarks and references. A third strong point of the work is the author's recognition that the theme he is exploring demands the posing of metaphysical issues of depth and complexity. Indeed, his book is much more an essay in philosophical than in systematic theology. His chapters on "Freedom and Necessity" and "The Problem of Evil" directly confront two of the most pressing philosophical problems relevant to a theistic affirmation. Yet, in spite of these indubitable merits, the work fails to convince. Let me try to indicate why. First, in his discussion of the trinitarian formulations of the Patristic period, MacGregor's own position remains curiously unclear. He expresses dissatisfaction with both modalism and tritheism and lauds the importance of the notion of " perichoresis " in safeguarding the dynamic...